Book Review: Shut Them Down! The G8, Gleneagles 2005, and the Movements of Movements

By Kevin Smith

Published in Greenpepper Magazine (Forthcoming, 2006) www.greenpeppermagazine.org

Now that we're some years down the road from the spectacular articulations of resistance that took place in the likes of Seattle and Prague, there's an urgent need for critical self-evaluation as a movement as to whether these mass mobilizations are bringing us any closer to our goals of economic, social and environmental justice, or if they have become ritualized dissent... predictable patterns of behavior that are easily ignored and/or assimilated without presenting any serious challenge to the status quo. The G8 summit in Scotland in the summer of 2005 was the first Europe-based mobilization to widely enthuse the international anti-capitalist community since 2001 when the combination of the ultra-violent repression in Genoa and the events of 9/11 dampened what many perceived to be a growing momentum of resistance. As a collection of insights, analyses, personal-testimonies and critiques from various 'horizontal' participants in the Gleneagles get-together, Shut Them Down! presents a great contribution to assessing our future plans and strategies in the light of lessons learnt.

Where the collection is at its weakest is when it occasionally succumbs to casually inflating our sense of self-importance, with the opening piece claiming that "the links formed [behind the blockades] are going to be a major pain for global capital for years to come," while a later chapter states that "the G8 knows that the real threat to their regime comes from the anarchist and anti-capitalist mobilization against the G8." However much of an inconvenience it is for the various delegates to have arrived late at the summit (and in no way do I want to belittle the efforts of everyone involved in all aspects of the first day's blockades which were a spectacular achievement against all manner of odds), the neoliberal agenda continues at break-neck speed while we continue to be a ghettoized political community with very little in the way of broad-based social support or participation. One of the undeniable impacts of spectacular mobilizations is their capacity to inspire more people through the spectacle of collective and confrontational resistance, but we shouldn't complacently allow ourselves to believe that the adrenal rush of one day's barricading automatically amounts to profound social change.

Fortunately, such sentiments are in the minority amidst a number of thought-provoking chapters that constructively critique where there is room for (a lot of) improvement. One of the most interesting of these is 'Gleneagles, Activism and Ordinary Rebelliousness'. The author argues that we failed to present a radical critique of the summit that was relevant in the day-to-day lives of the people who had the most opportunity to actually attend the mobilisations, namely, the inhabitants of the region and the rest of the British Isles. There was a great deal of time and energy spent highlighting the devastating impact of neoliberal policy on the majority world, while there was very little reference to the impact which twenty-odd years of neoliberal reform has had in the UK and throughout the rest of the economic North. The author argues that "there are very real limits to the potential of any movement which does not organise, to a large extent, around the immediate needs and desires of those directly involved within it."

What follows is an insightful and very readable analysis of post-war labour relations in Europe and why this is relevant to the issues of precarity that have emerged in recent years on the "what's hot" political agenda. Crucially, the discussion of precarity here is written without resorting to the sort of jargonistic, post-structural meta-wank discourse that has made so much writing on the subject largely unreadable. This habitual lack of textual accessibility is a strange contradiction considering that this is the subject that is supposed to evict us from our ivory towers of activist elites into the less glamorous realm of the daily workplace struggle, so it's very refreshing to see something contextualizing its importance and relevance in a straight forward and understandable fashion. The author also gives examples of creative ways in which precarity issues have been brought to wider public attention in Italy while building solid links within the ranks of the casual labour-force at the same time. This sort of visible exchange between the new-left and working folk hasn't been witnessed on British shores since the involvement of Reclaim The Streets with the docker's strike in Liverpool some years ago, and it would seem that the G8 was essentially a missed opportunity to build these sorts of bridges.

The one attempt at doing this in Scotland was the Carnival For Full Enjoyment, which was unfortunately somewhat overshadowed by heavy-handed policing and sensationalist headlines of anarchists rampaging on the streets of Edinburgh ("The worst street disorder in Edinburgh since the Porteous riots of 1736" according to the Scottish press). 'The Carnival Continues...' by Lydia Molyneaux looks at how the carnival was an attempt to "push the style of reclaim the streets style politics beyond spectacle towards clear class politics", but somehow the majority of the political content got lost along the way. The author implies that some of the blame for this goes to a lack of support from the Dissent! Network for the action, and that we haven't moved on so far from "the bad old days of the 90s [when] class-struggle anarchists and eco-direct-actionists in the UK seemed to live on completely separate planets," and that compared to the urgency of issues like climate change "struggling over our own living and working conditions is pure selfishness." It seems that we have a long way to go in terms of appreciating that class struggle vs. eco action (like big international mobilizations vs. local community action) is a false dichotomy rather than inherently interlinked and mutually reinforcing aspects of our common struggle. I saw a shocking example of this recently on the UK indymedia site, where there was news posted of the industrial action taken by the Gourmet Gate workers in the airline catering industry. A number of people had posted comments to the effect that we shouldn't be supporting their strikes as they were part of the airline industry and therefore carbon criminals responsible for climate change, and why don't these workers get less ecologically damaging jobs instead?

One of the most critical, and also the most interesting pieces in the compilation is 'It's the Politics, Stupid - How Neoliberal Politicians, NGOs and Rockstars Hijacked the Global Justice Movement at Gleneagles.... And how we let them.' The author argues that the Gleneagles summit was "the most politically legitimized, ideologically uncontested gathering in its grubby little history. One statistic tells it all: in 2001 300,000 people hit the streets of Genoa to protest against the G8: in 2005 the same number came out in Edinburgh to welcome Blair, Bush, Berlusconi and co to Scotland. As far as most of the people who get their news and views from the mass media were concerned, the G8 summit was a high-level inter-governmental summit in which world leaders in the North were taking historic decisions to help eradicate poverty and needless deaths in Africa."

Although there is a damning critique of the impact of Make Poverty History and its ability to turn the concept of summit-hopping on its head by legitimising instead of opposing the G8, the articles argues that we have to accept responsibility for failing to make any inroads into popular opinion, and also very rightly points out that there was largely a political vacuum in the Dissent! Network beyond the organizing principles of the PGA hallmarks, and especially with regards to analysis of the political and economic situation of Africa.

Although such constructive critiques play an interesting and important role in Shut Them Down!, space is rightfully given to document parts of the mobilizations that either worked very well or were progressively innovative. The TRAPESE (Take Radical Action through Popular Education and Sustainable Everything) Roadshow toured for several months in the run up to the G8, impressing nobody with their lack of circus skills, but wowing everyone with a creative blend of engaged education and big-wigged G8 pub quizzes in a variety of venues up and down the country, trying where possible to willfully stray from the well trodden path of well-known political spaces. 'Getting off the Activist Beaten Track' is an account of their success in doing this and highlights the importance of popular education as "essential tool in helping spontaneous resistance evolve into conscious social movements."

Much media attention was devoted to the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army during the mobilizations, partly because they were the most colourful and creative crew there, partly because they had a well-thought out and executed framework for engaging with the corporate media. There are some brief first-hand accounts of various clown experiences in Scotland (including a short, tragic-comic piece on the mal-treatment of one clown at a 'slumber party' in a police station in Glasgow) with a longer article outlining the ongoing clown process as well as delving in to the political, cultural and psychological rationale for the clown tactics. One very interesting point made in this article is that "more groups and movements are destroyed by poor group dynamics and internal fights than any number of police," so it was good to see some thought and care go into providing some form of emotional and psychological support during the protests. Born out of bitter experience from police brutality at previous summits, the Trauma Support group provided spaces which saw "a steady flow of people coming to find somebody to talk to about what they were going through, to get a massage (often fulfilling the same purpose), to find a quiet place to cry, to retreat, or just to calm down with a cup of tea and a blanket." The chapter on trauma support in this collection outlines the need for us to integrate this sort of care for ourselves in the same way that we organize legal and medical support groups.

Finally, it's important to remember that for every romanticized image of blockades and lock-ons, there's an army of unsung heroes who have overcome all manner of stress and toiled round the clock to ensure that there are enough lavatorial resources for one and all, and that everyone gets fed at the end of the day. Many people felt that the Hori-Zone eco-village in Stirling was the most revolutionary aspect of the mobilizations, so its good to see some aspects of its functioning being documented here, from Starhawk's transformation into the 'compost toilet queen,' to a beautifully illustrated cartoon account of the mighty culinary forces of Rampenplan and The Anarchist Teapot coming together to feed the five thousand. Starhawk's is one of the few comprehensive accounts of the Hori-Zone, and perhaps there could have been more of an extensive assessment included here. She perceived one of the main challenges of the space to have been from "a small but significant group of the festival/party crowd, who drank heavily, imbibed... other consciousness altering substances, and caused an immense amount of trouble to the rest of us." Time and time again, we have the challenge of wayward individualism coming up against collective responsibility, testing the boundaries of inclusivity. There were individuals in the camp who were clearly violent and abusive to other people in the camp, but we seemed to lack the sort of coherent social infrastructure to be able to deal decisively with it rather than tolerating it as a necessary nuisance.

Like the mobilizations themselves, Shut Them Down! reflects a mixed bag of heady optimism based on our ability to pull off spectacular mobilizations involving a cast of thousands, with a growing anxiety that we might be on a treadmill of ritualized resistance that has little impact on the forces we are opposing. There are chapters to inspire you with a "bring it on" attitude for the next big summit-hop on the horizon, and chapters to make you sit down and have a good hard think of why we are doing what we are doing and how we could go about making it more effective and worthwhile. Invaluable reading for anyone who would be involved in future mobilizations, and also a must-read for anyone involved in the critical discussions as to where the Dissent! process goes next.

For more info about the ongoing activities of the Dissent! Network, see www.dissent.org.uk

To contact the reviewer, email: kevin.smith@SPAMBUSTINGgmx.net

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