G8 Summit: Government paranoia is building up the world's leftist movement
By Till-Ted World/photos by Gabriel Brioga [![[MAILTO]](?source=moinmoin&mode=attachment&uri=%2Fwiki%2Frightsidebar%2Fimg%2Fmoin-email.png){kind=small}
www.brioga@inventati.org]
The G-8 summit in Heiligendamn promised to be the event of the year for Berlin's huge alternative community, a perfect place to revel in four favorite pastimes, the three P's and an A--politics, protest, party and art.
For German anarchists, known locally as anarchos, the meeting in a Baltic sea resort just two hours from Berlin was far more important.
They were losing energy and members in Germany, and only remained potent when joined by others of their brethren from across the world at the anti-global protests held at the WTO and G8 summits. At home, the numbers of students and other sympathizers marching peacefully alongside them as they battled police at demonstrations had dwindled in recent years.
With the G8 on home soil, they were sure to play to a full house again. The fragmented left, many in the scene reported, were united and working together for the first time in recent memory.
An audience was guaranteed. With stars like Bush, Blair and Merkel headlining the meeting, tens of thousands from the alternative community were sure to join them in protest against "these kings that determine our destinies" as Tom Morelo of Rage Against the Machine put it.
Organizers of the anti-global protest clung to hopes the event could go off peacefully. That's when the German government developed a serious case of paranoia and those hopes never had a chance again.
Some of the ugly scenes in Rostock might have been preprogrammed, perhaps a conspiracy shared by both sides. The worst violence came last Saturday. According to media reports--and some witnesses from the anti-global movement told us these numbers were wildly exaggerated--pitched battles between 2,000 anarchos from across the planet and 16,000 German police left 1,000 people and 400 officers wounded.
The anarchists, hardly the innocent in the clashes, played their part in making sure the protests would turn violent. For weeks, cars were torched in Berlin and Hamburg on a nightly basis, a sign they were rallying the storm troops and had unpacked their ski masks and other war gear for the big event.
But many in Germany, even from conservative ranks, wondered why Angela Merkel's government seemed so determined to provoke the radical left. They practically dared the anarchos to respond to their crackdown.
"The state is reacting almost hysterically with fruitless raids, snooping attacks and rummaging through mail," said Heiner Geissler, the former secretary general of the conservative CDU party. "You can't just fire blindly in the dark in the hopes you will hit something."
First, German police raided 40 offices and apartments used by left-wing protesters in Berlin, Hamburg and elsewhere, saying they were investigating more than 18 people suspected of planning to carry out firebombings and other violent attacks aimed at hindering or stopping the summit.
From all reports, they walked away with little more than some fax machines and computers. It's hard to believe if they had found something, we wouldn't have heard about this latest "terrorist" threat.
Then they rummaged through people's mail, which even the man appointed to watch out that constitutional rights in the country are upheld said he wasn't sure was legal. Finally, they tried to ban journalists from left-of-center but well-established media from the summit, who had long ago passed all security checks.
All this pre-summit maneuvering led many to suspect the pictures of violence flashed all around the world was something both the radical left and what used to be called the establishment craved.
"I believe there was interest groups from both sides that wanted to see these pictures," said Adrienne Goehler, leader of Art goes Heilingendam, one of many groups that hoped the G8 summit would highlight the anti-global movement's creativity, not its potential for violence.
The anarchos got to show they remain irreplaceable as the hit men of what many see as a fight against the system. The system, so to speak, got to marginalize an anti-global movement that also has appeal to the elderly, the average worker scared of losing his job and even the middle class. After all, the violent pictures were likely to make Joe Normal and Christina Biedermann recoil and say, "well yes, I don't like some things but I'm not like THEM."
Not all was gloom and doom, black block and green, as some called the two camps, at the sea resort of Heiligendamn. Here are some of our favorites images:
--The anti-global protesters gathered in long lines at McDonalds and Burger King, two of their favorite symbols of globalism's evil, Most shops in Rostock boarded up their windows, fearing the coming violence.
--The protesters that split into five groups to confuse the police and managed to reach the 12.5 kilometer long 2.5 meter (8-foot) long wall that protected Bush and co. Don't they teach war tactics like this at West Point?
--Police complaints they felt stupid battling anarchos dressed up as clowns (we think they were anarchists anyway). They must have looked silly to the world, they said--you can't look good hitting a bunch of Ronald McDonald's, then hauling them away.
