The Real Genoa?

[FrodeauxB at aol.com]

Subj:    The Magical Mystery Tour of the Fake Black Bloc in Genoa
Date:   7/22/01 10:41:28 PM Central Daylight Time
From:   roberto.bui at libero.it (Wu-ming Yi)

I was in Genoa, I came back worn out, angry, disappointed and feverish, 
with the ligaments of my knees destroyed and completely out of voice, and I 
say: do not go hunting anarchists, do not criminalize the international 
Black Bloc. It is our duty to draw distinctions between the Black Bloc and 
what happened in Genoa. It is our duty not to charge with being a 
carabiniere in disguise anyone who took direct action in Genoa. Pogroms and 
paranoid conspiracy theories do not belong to our culture.
Last friday in Genoa were some German anarchists of the Schwartze Block. 
They hit such precise targets as banks and big corporate offices. They had 
no intention to attack other demonstrators. On Saturday a Dutch journalist 
of Vrij Neederland magazine met them while they were packing and maybe 
going back to Germany. They told him they were pissed-off because of what 
other "men in black" had done. In fact what went on saturday had very 
little to do with the BB's modus operandi: the BB has a method. One may 
disagree with them, and yet they have a method and go their own way without 
interfering with other forms of action. On the contrary, in Genoa the 
carabinieri escorted the trashers all day long, and never charged them, not 
because they were too fast and informal, as someone commented. No, they had 
all the time to go inside banks, trash them accurately and set them on 
fire, an operation which requires more than a quarter of an hour. In the 
meanwhile, the carabinieri hanged on in the street, _waiting for them_. 
When the trashers went out, the magical mystery tour went on. The 
carabinieri quietly accompanied the trashers to the places where many other 
people (belonging to the GSF) were demonstrating in other ways, as if they 
were walking their dogs. There are hundreds of testimonies. All along the 
path the men in black attacked small shops, set fire to cars that certainly 
didn't belong to millionaires, destroyed very little gas stations and so 
on. Then they were  unchained in the square where hundreds of members of 
the Lilliput network were doing a sit-in. The carabinieri followed them and 
beat up women and children, boy scouts, peaceful demonstrators.
Then carabinieri and trashers left again and went to the convergence center 
in Piazza Kennedy. The carabinieri assaulted the place, then the merry 
party directed to Brignole station and bumped into the demonstration by the 
civil disobedience bloc, which was still far from the Red Zone. The 
carabinieri charged the demonstrators. In the meanwhile, some of those fake 
Black Blocsters broke into the ranks of the white overalls and assaulted 
some comrades. A very big comrade from Venice-based squat "Rivolta" was 
knocked down by a guy that surely was a very well trained martial artist. 
After that, the carabinieri kept attacking the demo for seven hours, while 
people were trying to go back to Carlini Stadium. The last attack took 
place less than 600 yards from the camping. The men in black had completely 
disappeared.
This has nothing to do with the praxis of the Black Bloc. In fact many 
people saw these fake black blocsters coming out of carabinieri vans, 
putting on the balaklava and starting to raise hell, trashers discussing 
plans with marshalls, carabinieri giving crowbars to fake black blocsters etc.
The press is reporting these stories, and the national TV is showing 
shocking footage.
On June 19th, after Gothenburg, the White Overalls of Bologna and the Wu 
Ming collective put into circulation a document titled "Stop the 
Encirclement of the Black Bloc". Here it is:
-------------
"The Black Bloc is no bullshit. It should not be trivially associated with 
vandalism and irrational devastation. It is an informal network of affinity 
groups, mostly - but not exclusively - anarchist ones, and it extends all 
over North America and continental Europe. They've been active for years, 
elaborate strategies and tactics and are willing to transform them in 
relation to contexts, alliances and aims. It should be clear that so far 
the Black Bloc hasn't manifested itself in Italy.
As the recent history of the movement proves, the Black Bloc are 
not  static and can adopt different tactis and seek "cross-fertilization" 
like they did in Quebec City during the anti-FTAA mobilisation. In those 
days they acted in full respect of the town and its inhabitants, and 
concentrated all efforts in tearing down the "Wall of Shame". They even 
chose to use symbols and practices devised by the white overalls (pads, 
shields, position holding etc.) and co-operated with other affinity groups 
in the street.
In Gothenburg the Black Bloc talked with the white overalls and decided to 
take action in a common frame including more peaceful protesters. Troubles 
started when the vast majority of spokespersons and coordinators were 
"preventively" arrested during the thursday night raid. The morning after, 
the cops cut in half the demo and isolated a section of it, which was 
labelled as "Black Bloc". These demonstrators could only defend themselves 
by throwing stones, and a few shop windows were broken [...] The peak of 
police violence was reached at an apparently peaceful moment: on friday 
night, when the cops surrounded a park where hundreds of youth had 
organized a rave party. They attacked the ravers, which tried to resist 
unbecomingly [well, you can't always be stylish], then the police fired. 
Certainly the rave was not organized by the Black Bloc.
Black Blocsters are political activists, we may disagree with their praxis 
and theory, but we don't deem them as brainless Pavlov dogs foaming at the 
sight of truncheons.
Moreover, they are more fanciful than people think: a few months ago Black 
Blocsters split off a demo in Buffalo, entered a destitute neighborhood and 
picked up garbage. When journalists asked what the fuck they were doing, 
they answered: "You wrote that we would trash the town, we decided to pick 
up the trash!".
We're witnessing a very serious attempt at criminalizing this section of 
the movement. We refuse to save our ass to the detriment of the Black Bloc, 
we regard them as a fully legitimate part of the movement and refuse any 
distinction between "good protesters" and "bad protesters".
White Overalls of Bologna / Wu Ming"
-----------------------------------
My opinion is not even an opinion, for it is fully supported by testimonies 
and video documentation: last friday six or seven infiltrated carabinieri 
channeled and directed the (just, albeit blind) anger of hundreds of 
anarchist kids who should have known better. The same thing may have taken 
place saturday. Reluctantly, we decided to keep people with clubs or stones 
out of our demo. We certainly rejected several real provocators who called 
us "cops" and probably were cops themselves. Most likely we happened to 
beat up the occasional wrong guy, who knows? If that happened we're very 
sorry, but we had to defend our affinity group and prevent infiltrations 
and aggressions. A Black Blocster told my fellow comrade Wu Ming 5: "You 
like to give orders, uh? You communist!". Well, that hurts. I can assure 
you that we DO NOT like to give orders.
Instead of starting a witch hunt, we should keep in mind that not all 
anarchists are black blocsters and not all black blocsters are cops in 
disguise. On the other hand, it is necessary to re-think a tactic that can 
be infiltrated and deviated so easily. This is up to the people who adopt 
that tactic, but it also concerns those who suffer the consequences of such 
permeability. 

TTFN

frodeauxb