Reflections on 30A

indonesia / philippines / australia | community struggles | opinion/analysis Friday September 09, 2005 07:34 by andenator

The recent Sydney mobilisations against Forbes

A personal account on A30 published in Sydney Indymedia Sunday, 4 September 2005

Having just got back from a long week of conferences, protests and actions in Sydney I wanted to try and collate my impressions and reflections on 30A and the gatherings around it. 30A was a mixed bag, some success and lots to learn from for the future. I left Sydney feeling reasonably positive about the experience and that the areas the actions fell down in might take some work to resolve but aren’t rocket science, they are easily within our grasp if we so choose.

I went to Sydney with limited expectations. Given that there is currently hardly a coordinated radical movement against neo-liberalism I wasn’t expecting more than a few random actions and at best 2000 people on the Tuesday night. I think some people may have come with near delusions, almost S11 style in grandeur. I wasn’t even expecting anything as coordinated at the mobilisations around the WTO mini-ministerial in November of 2003, and these actions were indeed smaller. However there were still almost similar numbers and a lot of new, young, energetic radical faces. What was lacking was more good organising and experience. Since September 11 2001 the movement against neo-liberalism in Australia has been in steady decline, unable to develop a coherent analysis and praxis under this new regime of power that could facilitate the development of large mobilisations against it. The question of how neo-liberalism is to be challenged under the war on terror are yet to be answered. The Forbes mobilisations, despite their limitations, proved to me that there is still a convergence of people to at least pose the question to. And I think this is the heartening fact about 30A, briefly breaking that isolation that we feel in our everyday struggles.

SpokesCouncils

There were significant numbers at the so-called spokescouncils, anywhere from 100-120 people. Given that the authoritarian socialist groups stayed away this time around it is almost as many as for the WTO. A big hole however was that no one from the 30A network came (or was invited) so that people could get a better idea of what had been planned and what the current situation in terms of organising was. There seemed to be very little information to distribute. The spokescouncils however were hardly that. They were essentially mass meetings. Perhaps only half the people were organised in affinity groups which in some ways made the spokescouncil already impossible. This again is related back to the current state of the movement, there are just not the daily campaigns going on in which people are already organised, and not a strong political culture where new people have space to learn about self-organisation. Many of those who participated in S11 got a rapid and radical political education from participating in things like the Jabiluka, East Timor, Goolengook and MUA campaigns. These kind of daily struggles are just not currently present. There was a noticeable lack of people at Forbes who had previously participated in large counter-mobilisations, this meant that skills were not being passed on. Any possibility of building a radical opposition to neo-liberalism means sharing those knowledges and this didn’t happen to the degree it should have at 30A.

Pre-convergence coordination and communication

Finding out information about plans for the convergence before heading to Sydney was quite difficult. Arriving in Sydney however it seems like part of this was related to the fact that very little had been organised beyond the Tuesday night march. It’s a credit to people that in a few days so many actions we able to be thrown together. In future much better communications systems need to be set up for those coming from out of town. A positive was the three or four different convergence booklets that were put together.

Subplot and SSF

The Sydney Social Forum fell down quite a bit on my expectations, and I think those of the organisers. Less people came than the previous year despite the mobilisations. The space felt empty and lacked vibrancy. At a fundamental level it lacked popular support and at an even more fundamental level there is a lack of campaigns and activities that are even required to call such a convergence. Again the problem comes back the current stagnation of radical social movements in Australia.

Subplot, despite the lesser amount of money and energy that went into organising it had a fairly decent turnout, perhaps up to 150 people. It served as a good convergence point for people organising direct action at 30A and in this sense fulfilled it’s purpose. Similarly the convergence space at the Nunnery was also highly advantageous, without which the mobilisations would have been significantly splintered. A convergence space thought out far more in advance however would also have been good, especially for people coming from interstate.

Tuesday night was very mixed. There were some great moments; the march was very lively, loud and energetic with sounds systems, a samba band and lots of noise, and the spontaneous deconstruction of the heavily fortified concrete and steel fence was quite inspiring. Breaching what appeared to be an impenetrable barrier was a great confidence boost to the crowd as was the commitment to engage in active disobedience and the refusal to submit to state authority. It sent a message that the elite should indeed be fearful and take us into account as much as they did in planning for the conference. We were a significant thorn in their side, making Forbes move the opening dinner, forcing them to justify their handouts from the NSW government and massive police spending, making corporate power an issue, demonstrating that there was opposition to it and raining on their PR parade. They were also forced to put up barriers around the opera house turn away thousands of visitors.

Other positives were the George Bush Snr hoax whereby a fake press release was sent out and website constructed informing media that the former President would be in attendance. The media swallowed it whole, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) in particular, and they were forced to acknowledge their mistake in print delegitimising themselves by demonstrating they were willing to believe any information that came to them with a Forbes logo on it. Hopefully this raised questions amongst people as to how trustworthy any information they would print about the protest would be. SMH got their own back printing a highly derogatory piece the next day and quoting only the police saying just 500 people had showed up and neglecting to mention the breach in the fence.

Tuesday night also had significant problems mostly stemming from the fact that the venue had been changed. By 5.30 this was well known, what was not well known or confirmed was where they had moved to. This information only arrived and hour or two later. Before five o’clock dozens of delegates were leaving unhindered from the Stamford hotel and boarding busses for the venue. Even 100 people of the 1500 people just 2 minutes away could have seriously slowed this, 3-400 would potentially have stopped it. But there was no capacity to communicate and make decisions autonomously and no way to accurately gather information. We were set in the tracks that 30A had set for the evening.

This is where the failures of the spokes council were most pronounced and also the lack of communication groups like ixpress in Melbourne. We had no ability to converge and swarm out. There were no delegates from affinity groups who could talk to each other, no signals to draw them together to meet, no communication and thus no organisation or action. Once we knew where the dinner was actually being held there was no way to decide what to do. At least the trots weren’t shouting at people through megaphones but in this vacuum of power the autonomous groups could have coordinated directly democratic decision making structures in the street, but instead nothing happened. This failure however isn’t necessarily a major obstacle to overcome, skill share trainings and practice could easily facilitate it. A bigger contingent of experienced activists (now all to cynical it seems) would have helped enormously in this regard.

A brief however well done to the puppet makers, they were great, and the mobile Indymedia van which served as a wireless net access point and was uploading stories from the street. Wednesday

Wednesday was always going to be small. Some groups accurately assessed the situation and had successful actions, and others didn’t. The reclaim the streets was a disappointment and there was never going to be enough people to make it a success. It seems to often that when people don’t know what kind of action to do they fall back on doing a reclaim the streets. RTS is unfortunately far past it’s used by date. London RTS hasn’t existed in anything like it’s real form for at least 4 years. The tactic has had it’s time. If people aren’t assured they are going to get at least 500 people it’s not worth it anyway. The RTS in Sydney became an RTP, a reclaim the pavement and was profoundly disempowering. Instead of wasting energy fighting with cops as to whether or not we can walk on the road much more targeted and specific actions with a concrete political basis need to be developed and RTS has to stop being some kind of default action people do when they can’t imagine anything else.

Similarly on Wednesday morning people thought they were going to be able to blockade the conference which was never a possibility. A more accurate estimate of our power is required if we are to be effective at anything. Again I would put part of this down to a lack of experience and the missing presence of more seasoned activists who might have been able to bring people back to earth before so much energy was wasted. However on Wednesday there was one action that was overwhelmingly successful, the shut down of ANZ branches in the CBD. Activists targeted three ANZ branches due to it’s participation in the Iraqi Reconstruction Bank and thus funding of theneo-colonisation. In response to the actions and occupations ANZ shut down all it’s branches in the central business district. Activists did similar actions on Thursday and Friday, again closing all branches. If people are able to keep this up and maintain focus there could be a real chance of affecting ANZ’s operations in Iraq. Here quite successfully people were able to assess their capacities and create genuinely achievable goals.

The media of course could see no connection between Forbes and ANZ. ANZ were not at the Forbes conference so what were they doing? Unable to comprehend that protestors weren’t specifically against Forbes but against their corporate neo-liberal agenda the media were baffled as to why protestors weren’t down at the conference gates. Moving away from the terrain the police had set up on their terms was a great move, instead activists set the agenda and took the initiative and were duly rewarded. inConclusion There is much to learn from the A30 actions, all in all it’s a mixed bag, though I came away feeling fairly good about it all. I had fairly limited expectations and they were exceeded to some extent. The question needs to be continually asked however, how useful are these protests? What are we setting out to achieve? The A30 actions brought activists together from around the country and hopefully built relationships that will be ongoing and can serve as a basis for ongoing campaigns. It also kept the issue of unfettered corporate power on the political agenda, something that can be built on. Hopefully much was learned in terms of generating self-activity and self-organisation that can be extended further, despite the limitations in these areas.

People have already begun talking about the possibilities of counter actions to the G20 in Melbourne next year. These however will be as limited as the actions against Forbes if daily struggles and campaigns are not built. Post S11 the movement shifted into an ideological abstraction and created something known as the “anti-capitalist activist”, completely removed from the daily struggles that created the movement in the first place. If future actions are to be successful at all activity must move into the everyday and create ongoing laboratories of resistance that build roots, skills and construct possibilities in the here and now.