A-Infos (en) Germany, Media. Clowns Rub Shoulders with Anarchists in Anti-G-8 Headquarters

[Concerning the Black Bloc, I think one should bear in mind the events in Genoa 
a while back. There, a phony Black Bloc consisting of neo-Nazi skinheads and 
other fascists (I like to call it a Blackshirt Bloc), in league with the 
police, engaged in vandalism and violence in order to harm the real protestors 
reputation with the public and give the police an excuse to violently crackdown 
on the real protestors. The authorities identified hundreds of these on their 
way into the country as known criminals and troublemakers, but allowed them to 
enter the country anyway, unlike the real protestors that they identified. Many 
of them came from Germany. The same thing may be taking place again.
In addition, one should recall the idiocy of the term "anti-globalization". The 
so-called "anti-globalization" protestors reject top-down, state-corporate 
globalization, in favor of bottom-up, grassroots, non-hierarchical 
globalization, or alter-globalism.--- DC]

PLANNING PROTESTS IN A DISUSED SCHOOL

While the world's leaders will be staying at a swanky Heiligendamm hotel
during the G-8 summit, anti-globalization protesters are using a rundown
former school in Rostock as their headquarters. But while they agree
that "Another World Is Possible," their opinions differ on just about
everything else.

If the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm is famous in Germany for being
the "white city by the sea," then the Rostock district of Evershagen,
located just 20 kilometers away, is its gray counterpart. Despite some
recent colorful renovation work, the neighborhood consists mainly of
drab concrete Communist-era apartment blocks.

A decrepit school building from the old East German days stands right in
the heart of this concrete sprawl, directly on the four-lane
Bertolt-Brecht-Strasse. Numerous banners hang from the facade, the walls
are spray-painted with slogans like "Resistance Rocks" and "Nazis Suck,"
and the red-and-black flag of anarchy flies on the roof. In the
fenced-in schoolyard, a group of longhaired young people are trying to
piece together some kind of means of transportation from a huge pile of
scrap bicycle parts.

Locals still refer to the building, which is situated next to a shopping
mall, as the Ehm Welk School. In actual fact, the structure should have
been demolished a long time ago -- a company had already been hired to
tear it down.

But the G-8 summit in nearby Heiligendamm gave the crumbling old school
a brief reprieve from the wrecking ball. Now the building has become the
command center for the resistance. Since March, a mixed bag of G-8
opponents have been preparing their headquarters for the protest against
global capitalism -- collecting discarded furniture and other reusable
refuse in Saturday "subbotniks," as volunteer labor brigades were called
back in East Germany.

The old school building serves a number of functions. It's an
organizational office, a communal kitchen, a party zone and massive
crash pad all rolled into one. But first and foremost it's an
alternative media center. During the summit, there are plans to
transform it into a studio, with live Internet TV broadcasts every night
at 9:00 pm.

The school in Evershagen can be seen as a microcosm of the
anti-globalization movement. If the building had a doorbell with a
nameplate, there would have to be room for hundreds of first names and
dozens of cryptic abbreviations.

Groups range from the "Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army," with its
colorful rubber noses, to relatively established anti-globalization
movements like Attac, to radical far-left anarchists. In the building's
55 rooms, a myriad of different strategies for forms of action are
debated. With so many divergent approaches under one roof, organizers
have decided to call the school the "Convergence Center" -- a place to
meet and find common ground.

A LOOK AT G-8 PROTEST GROUPS

Anti-Globalization

Most G-8 protest groups can be included in the anti-globalization camp.
Unfair G-8 trade policies and market liberalization contribute to social
and economic inequality, which perpetuates a host of other problems,
they say. Attac and Move Against G-8 are two of the larger groups
protesting anti-globalisation.

Environmental

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, Attac, WWF, and Germanwatch are
a few of the groups who will be demonstrating for the G-8 to commit to a
policy to fight climate change and develop renewable energy. Because
they emit the majority of greenhouse gases that contribute to global
warming, protesters say G-8 countries are responsible for solving the
problem.

Poverty Aid

The Jubilee Debt Campaign and Oxfam are among G-8 critics who say the
world trade policies of rich industrialized nations are perpetuating
poverty in developing nations. Groups are focusing mainly on debt-relief
for impoverished countries, health and education aid, and fair trade
policies to ease the desperation in countries they feel the G-8
continues to take advantage of.

Anti-War

FREIeHEIDe, Oxfam, religious groups and others are critical of G-8
country involvement in world conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan, in
addition to their contribution to arms sales. Exporting weapons directly
contributes to conflicts which lead to poverty, environmental
destruction, human rights violations, refugee crises, and general
instability, protest groups say.

Anarchists -- 'Autonomen'

The label "autonomen" refers to radical libertarian and anarchist groups
in Germany, though it doesn't refer to a specific, organized group. Like
many on Germany's well-established, left-wing fringe, the autonomen grew
out of the leftist movement in the 1960s and 1970s. They often take part
in demonstrations against atomic energy and also frequently join peace
marches. They are not always welcome participants in such demonstrations
due to their willingness to participate in violence. Indeed, they have
also been called the "black block" because of their tendency to wear all
black and to cover their faces with black masks during demonstrations to
avoid being identified by the authorities. While autonomen generally
recognize that complete independence of social networks is not possible,
they reject outside influence as much as possible. The autonomen are
considered potentially the most violent of the anti-G-8 activists and
were likely behind the rioting on Saturday afternoon in Rostock.

Etc.

Smaller groups and NGO's who plan to protest and lobby at the summit
include anti-racists, anti-capitalists, feminists, trade unions,
agrigulture groups, ant-fascists, human rights groups, immigrant and
refugee advocates, and religious groups, among others.

Many groups have banded together to create blanket organizations in
order to facilitate mass protests of the summit. The largest among these
are Move Against G8, Dissent! G8, Block G8, and the Avanti Projekt.
While the agendas of the individual groups may differ, every blanket
group aims to reject the legitimacy of the G-8 and its policies, often
citing the G-8 as the cause of their group issues.

Not surprisingly, the common slogan they have managed to agree on, and
which is plastered across the building's walls, sounds decidedly vague:
"Another World Is Possible." But how different do they want the world to
be? These critics of globalization come from extremely diverse
backgrounds and have very different agendas. Some want to spark a
revolution and change the system, while others advocate reforming
development policies or improving climate protection. Virtually every
point of view is represented here.

The only problem is that -- with the exception of the revolution -- all
of this has already made its way onto the agenda of the leaders of the
eight industrialized nations meeting in Heiligendamm.

Clever summit planning has managed to rob many critics of their issues
-- leaving them only with a sense of outrage. Many protestors are driven
by a feeling of powerlessness and the conviction that they are on the
right side, following in the tradition of Genoa, Seattle and Gleneagles.
They are against the G-8 and everything that it stands for politically.

And they want to make this protest visible. In the battle for media
coverage, the protestors intend to steal the summit show -- or at least
part of it -- from Merkel, Bush and their cronies.

Chris Methmann is one of the organizers using the school as a base to
direct the counter attack to the G-8 summit media blitz. The blond
26-year-old member of Attac's coordinating committee is sitting with his
laptop outside the Convergence Center, relaxing in the sun. He has just
returned from a TV panel discussion with Heiner Geissler, the former
general secretary of Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat Union, who is
now an Attac member.

Methmann, a political science student, says that he wants to
"delegitimize the summit." In contrast to many of the other "boarders"
at the school, Attac is working on political alternatives and has come
out clearly in favor of nonviolent protest in the run-up to the summit.
In fact, their rejection of violence is so categorical that it has
caused a good deal of grumbling on the leftist political scene.

Attac signed the lease for the school on behalf of all the protest
groups -- the anti-G-8 activists only have to pay for utilities. Last
Thursday, Methmann gave the landlord -- the mayor of Rostock -- a guided
tour of the building.

The mayor saw political slogans and posters on the walls, a cafe with
threadbare sofas, mattresses on the floor and improvised desks made of
plywood. The experiment of making the school a home base for all
anti-summit activists has been a success, according to Methmann. Despite
all the obviously irreconcilable views, he speaks of a "unique
solidarity among the left" and hopes that this will continue after the
G-8 summit. "Now we have to ensure that this dynamic broad-based protest
movement continues," he says -- although he admits with a sigh that
"dealing with the left-wing radicals is not always easy."

Debates between these diverse roommates repeatedly focus on what is
undoubtedly the most divisive issue surrounding the G-8 summit: Can
violence also constitute a legitimate means of protest?

In the "info sheet" that new arrivals receive at reception, the basic
prerequisite for protestors wanting to use the school is stipulated as a
"confrontational attitude," while on the back of the pamphlet it reads:
"Aren't we all a little bit Section 129a?" -- a reference to the section
of the German criminal code that makes it a crime to support a terrorist
organization.

'We Don't Say We Are Non-Violent'

Lea Voigt has a pageboy hairstyle, horn-rimmed glasses and plucked
eyebrows. The student from Bremen hasn't forgotten the nerve-wracking
discussions on the topic of violence. She is the spokeswoman for "Block
G-8" and has set up shop on the second floor, in the tidiest of all the
former classrooms, between rolls of toilet paper and empty cookie tins.
Voigt says that it took them half a year to agree on a text for the
pamphlet. "We are going to actively avoid confrontation with the
police," she says -- a phrase that certainly not everyone here agrees with.

Block G-8 alone encompasses over 120 different groups from across
Germany. The wording in the pamphlet is not peace-loving enough for the
anti-nuclear group "X-tausendmal quer," while the "Anti-Fascist Left
Berlin" sees it as far too innocuous. "In any case, we consciously don't
say that we are non-violent," the spokeswoman for Block G-8 is quick to
clarify. As a law student, she is well aware of the legal consequences
of crossing certain lines.

One floor up is home to a group that calls itself the "Campinski Press
Group," a word play on all the protesters camping out in the area and
the luxury Kempinski hotel where the G-8 summit is being held. Something
in the air indicates that these people want to see the world changed
more thoroughly, using more hard-hitting methods. Every non-activist is
scrutinized with skepticism. The group's members all have the same
names: Carl or Lotta Kemper. The only creatures that don't appear to be
on edge here are the seahorses and goldfish -- drawings left on the
walls by the last Evershagen schoolchildren.

One of the "Lottas," a 33-year-old woman with black disheveled hair, is
in fact called Claudia and works as a nurse in Berlin. She won't say
anything else about herself. When a helicopter circles the building, the
Lottas talk about the "cops" outside who follow almost every car,
sometimes in unmarked vehicles, sometimes in a squad car. And they are
convinced that their phones have been tapped. They are angry and feel
that they are being treated like criminals.

Actually, the G-8 countries are the real gangsters, says the
black-haired Lotta, who talks about the 30,000 children who die every
day in Africa. "As far as I'm concerned, that's the real violence here."
They don't like talking about the violence by anti-G-8 protestors.
"Sure, I can light 30,000 candles," says the nurse. "But we can also
throw 30,000 bags of paint at the Kempinski Hotel."

This already makes her one of the more militant activists in the school
-- but Peter, a slim barefoot boy with curly brown hair and a bit of
fuzz on his upper lip, says he wants to go even further. He has been
staying in a separate wing of the school that has been closed off to the
public, an area that even the mayor didn't get to see on his tour.

"I'm sure that I'll spend a few days behind bars," says the 17-year-old,
who is a member of the "Anarchist Federation Berlin." He had a falling
out with his parents back in East Berlin. "Old Communist sympathizers,"
he says with contempt. On May 28, Peter marched in the Black Bloc during
the Hamburg demonstration against the ASEM meeting of Asian and European
leaders. This was a dress rehearsal for Heiligendamm, and another
opportunity to demonstrate against the state that he loathes. In the
end, he ducked into a cafe to escape the water cannon.

That evening at the "Red Aid" party -- a fundraiser for demonstrators
who land in jail -- Peter sits peacefully next to people like Christoph
Heine from Demo Inc., who is old enough to be his father -- and is in
fact the father of two children. Heine, 40, was already demonstrating at
the tender age of 13, shouting slogans like "Stop Strauss!" in a bid to
prevent the conservative Bavarian politician Franz-Josef Strauss from
becoming chancellor in the 1980 general election.

Heine sometimes wonders himself why he didn't leave the activist scene a
long time ago. He estimates that his political commitments cost him €500
a month, and he has sacrificed four of his six weeks of annual vacation
-- he sells toys for a living -- to prepare for the summit. But he says
that it would be harder to bear the feeling of helplessness that comes
from doing nothing.

A G-8 SUMMIT PRIMER

Who?

The Group of Eight (G-8) includes many of the world's most powerful
industrial democracies: the Unites States, the United Kingdom, Canada,
Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Russia. The European Union also
participates, represented by the president of the European Commission
and the President of the EU, but is not an official member.

Each head of state has a personal representative, with the metaphoric
title, 'Sherpa,' who meet with other delegates throughout the year to
prepare policy decisions for the G-8 Summit. The actual summit is
atttended by heads of state.

What?

The G-8 is an "informal forum of heads of state" without an
administrative structure or offices. The summit agenda is administered
by the year's president and host.

As this year's host country, Germany has announced an agenda which
focuses on climate change prevention and the need for a replacement to
the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire in 2012. Stabilizing the world economy
with sustainable energy policy, development and HIV prevention aid in
Africa, anti- product piracy strategy, and security policy are also
among topics Germany plans to address.

In the last several years, the high-profile G-8 has become the focus of
demonstrations and lobbyists, especially by critics of globalization,
who say the G- 8 are the cause of the very problems they've set out to
solve. Other critics object to the exclusive membership of the group.
The concentration of Western powers and the exclusion of countries like
Spain and China mean the group no longer represents the world's true
economic superpowers, critics contend.

When?

Each year, a different member country assumes the G-8 presidency in
January, and hosts a series of high- level meetings for member
representatives leading up to the annual summit, which is attended by
heads of state. The 2007 summit will be held June 6-8.

Where?

This year Germany is hosting the 33rd summit at Heiligendamm, the
country's oldest beach resort, which is in the state of Mecklenberg
Vorpommern on the Baltic Sea. The entire resort has been blocked off by
a 12-kilometer long, razor wire fence to prevent demonstrators from
getting to close to the venue.

Why?

The G-8 originated in 1973, when the oil crisis and subsequent economic
recession prompted the US to host informal meetings for world leaders to
discuss relevant issues. In 1975, France invited the US, the UK, West
Germany, Italy and Japan to a summit, called the Group of Six, where the
countries agreed on an annual meeting and rotating presidency. Canada
joined the next year, forming the G- 7. In 1997, Russia joined the group
-- a decision which is still contested by some -- forming what is
currently known as the G- 8.

Together, the eight countries produce more than half of the world's
economic production, and represent a powerhouse of political influence.
Summit topics have evolved from purely economic concerns to include
political agendas such as poverty, terrorism, and climate change.
A close look at the protestors against the G-8 summit clearly shows that
disenchantment with the political system does not necessarily lead to
lethargy and rejection. Besides the champions of right-on rhetoric,
there are quite a few people who sincerely want to get involved in
political issues.

Political Parties Not Offering any Solutions

A conspicuous number of carpenters, plumbers and electricians have made
their way to the Baltic coast. A trained locksmith from the Campinski
group says that she knows why: "If you work on a construction site, you
directly experience the brutality of globalization for yourself. You see
the Romanians who are hired by subcontractors for €3 an hour to work
like slaves, and sleep like cattle in cramped containers. And you ask
yourself how long it will be before they start treating you the same
way. You look for ways to take things into your own hands without
allowing yourself to be pushed around by the system."

Many anti-globalization activists say that Germany's political parties
are not offering any solutions to these issues -- and they feel
out-of-place in large protest associations. Stefanie from southern
Germany is one of these activists. She told her arch-conservative
parents that she was visiting a girlfriend on the Baltic Sea coast. Once
she arrived, she pitched her tent at Camp Reddelich, about 30 kilometers
as the crow flies from the Convergence Center, near an observation tower
where "you can see the pigs coming from a good distance."

"Pigs" is her word for the police. Stefanie sees herself as part of the
radical Black Bloc. She has nothing but contempt for those who have
established themselves as international do-gooders. She says that at
Attac you "only need to become a member and then you can consume
demonstrations and protests just like any other product." She adds that
in the radical groups it all comes down to the individual and there are
no hierarchies: "Attac has already become just like Greenpeace -- and
the careerists are already moving in."

Activists like Stefanie are as far removed ideologically from the
fun-loving faction of globalization critics as they are from
neo-liberals. Yet even in this school commune, very few activists see
things so strictly. After the work is over, people let their hair down
and celebrate with beer and organic sodas. There are concerts and even a
shop of sorts on the ground floor, with t-shirts from the activist
groups, soap bubble bottles and other merchandise. Even G-8 protests are
not immune to a bit of consumer culture, it seems.

But the end is looming for this particular center of revolutionary
fervor. Once the last summit protestor has left the headquarters in
Evershagen, it will be all over for the old school. The wrecking ball
arrives on June 15.
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