AAARGH
So, this is an e-mail to all
my friends, people I met once or twice and people I know might
be interested in this...
I was participating in the demonstrations/riots in Gothenburg
this weekend between the 15th and 17th of June 2001. This thing
has been all over the news in Sweden/Scandinavia, but I don't
know how much it has been hitting the news around the world. And
if it has, it's probably a very, very "produced" version
of it. We all know who owns the media and what their purposes
are. This is my story and my version of what happened and other
people might have different opinions of what and why things happened
like they did, but I will try to give as much of a "live
and direct" uncut version of what I experienced. I'm writing
this only one day after coming back to Stockholm from all this
and it's still very emotional to me and I'm still very tired so
this e-mail might be full of misspellings and messed up grammars.
My English always betrays me when I'm not in shape. But I will
try my best...
I will start by giving you a background to what was going on in
Gothenburg...
Sweden has had the chairmanship of the European Union this year
and this weekend they called in all the big shots, the Eurocrats,
to have a big meeting in Gothenburg to discuss the future of European
politics and the future of the European Union. I have been active
against the European Union for 10 years now. For 10 years ago
the debate if Sweden was going to join it or not was the topic
on everybody's lips and I quickly understood that it would not
be benefiting for me or any minorities of Sweden at all. I saw,
and still see the European Union as a undemocratic, neo-liberal
hell machine, like a bulldozer of law-enforced capitalism running
over all the rights that labor movements and civil rights movements
has won by fighting for 100 years now. A fortress around "rich
Europe" against the rest of the world and a new super state
to compete with USA and Asia when it comes to production, consumption
and exploitation of the 3rd world. And it's all in the name of
free trade. I was active in the "no to EU" line during
the election of if Sweden was going to join the European Union
or not, even though I was too young to vote by then. The "YES"
line won the election by buying all media a couple of weeks before
the election and putting a lot of pressure on the Swedish labor
movements. The "YES" side won with 2 percent... Anyway,
back to this weekend. Unlike government meetings, this meeting
was behind closed doors and the public was not invited at all.
There is still a big critical movement against the European Union
and it's neo-liberal agenda in Sweden and around Europe and none
of those organizations were invited to debate with the politicians
who represents the European Union. And all past meetings of the
European Union, the G8, WTO etc has been followed by mass protests
and criticism. So I don't think that it was a coincident that
the politicians choose to have the meeting the same weekend as
Sweden's biggest summer festival, The Hultsfred festival, to keep
kids out of town. This was a closed meeting for the men with power
about our future. And no radical or critical perspectives were
allowed to be represented there. This was the first mistake made
by the politicians that weekend, and there is more to come.
One funny thing about this meeting was that George Bush II was
invited to participate on Wednesday. He was there for 20 hours
and the city of Gothenburg brought in flowers and planted them
all around town so it would look like the town was in full bloom.
According to rumors, George Bushes visit to Sweden did cost something
like 2 million dollars for the Swedish taxpayers. For 20 hours...
I really hope he said a lot of things that might be good for Swedish
taxpayers and the Swedish working class in the long run, but something
tells me he didn't...
A lot of EU-critical organizations, grassroots organizations,
labor organizations, environmentalists, socialists, anarchist,
gay rights people, anti racist organizations, immigrant organizations
had asked the authorities to participate in the meetings, but
the meeting was to be closed from the public eye no matter what.
That made a lot of people mad and the organization and the politicians
of the city of Gothenburg organized meetings and tried to find
a solution that would be fitting for everybody, even tough the
critical organizations already had compromised with the authorities.
There was a lot of meetings and preparing to make the demonstrations
and the activities around the meeting to run as smooth as possible
and the people representing the police had PROMISED the people
representing the critical organizations that they would go very
easy on the activists and use no violence, no horses and no dogs.
The police said that they wanted to cooperate if the activists
were ready to cooperate, and the activists were. They expected
around 25.000 activists from around the world and they didn't
want the situation to go completely out of hand.
Anyway, the city authorities rented a couple of schools to the
critical organizations for people to sleep in during the night
and for workshops and discussion groups during the days. The theme
for all those meetings was "For a different Europe"
and we had the authorities blessings to have our own "EU
critical conference" with our topics, our guests to talk
about our future. The authorities also promised us to have 3 legal
demonstrations against the meeting of the European union a couple
of blocks from the buildings of the meeting. Not outside, of course.
We are allowed to say what we think about the people ruling our
lives and future on placards and banners, but not where they can
see us...
I live in Stockholm at the moment and I was going to Gothenburg
with my friends so that I could be there on Thursday night. We
were driving to Gothenburg listening to the radio and on the news
they said that the police had been surrounding one of the schools
where the forums and the sleep ins took place. They had formed
a line of cops and quickly thereafter built a wall of containers
around the schools so no one could get in and no one could get
out. The first reason for all this that they gave people was that
someone had used a slingshot (you know one of those kids toys)
to attack the police with. But they changed the reason quickly
to suspections about preparing violent activities against police
officers. That night about 200 activists were arrested in the
school building and outside when people were gathering to protest
against the lock-up. Friends of mine were held in a police car
for 12 hours without getting any real reasons why they were taken.
And the police used the "bad cop" style to scare them,
make them beg to go to have a pee outside and stuff like that.
The activists that protested outside the school decided to go
back to avoid police violence, but then the police struck with
full power and there were clashes between the police forces and
activists inside and outside the school. By this time, the police
came in with horses, which they had promised a couple of days
ago that they wouldn't use. So much for trying to talk things
over with authorities. Everybody involved in the protest saw this
as something very provocative and it was clear that the police
had set the tone for how they wanted the rest of the weekend to
be.
On Friday morning, there was a big legal meeting in the center
of Gothenburg where the critical groups met up to rally and to
listen to speeches about what was going on. A lot of people were
still kept by the police and people were angry because of the
police brutality and behavior the night before and because of
having their friends held by the police, for what seemed to be,
no reason at all. And people were angry because the police had
blocked the school where people, who had traveled to Gothenburg,
were supposed to sleep and the workshops were supposed to take
place. People gathered and there were thousands of us. I don't
know exactly how many, but thousands. After having the big, outdoor
meeting the people started to march down towards the building
where the politicians were having their meeting. A couple of blocks
away from the building, the police were lined up, in full riot
gear with dogs and horses and the activists had to stop a couple
of meters from the police. It was a very narrow street and thousands
of people were coming from the back and the tension was high.
The police screamed to the protestors to back off, but the activists
refused and all of a sudden, the police advanced against the activists,
letting the dogs on the people in the front and then hell broke
loose. People were running for their lives, people picked up stones
and bottles and started to throw them at the police and the police
hunted the crowd, who fled in panic back to the spot were the
outdoor meeting was. There the clash between police and activists
continued and it was very, very violent. People were attacked
by the police who had horses and dogs and swinging their clubs
at kids in my own age and people picked up stones from the street
and threw them back at the police. Many kids were brutally beaten
up by the police, even people who just lied down and said "I
give up, don't hit me". An innocent man that just passed
by was beaten up by the police even though he wasn't participating
in the riot at all. Maybe his crime was that he was not white.
Anyway, the police hunted the crowd down to the Gothenburg strip
called "Avenyn". A strip with a lot of chain stores
like McDonalds and H&M. This was maybe the stupidest thing
by for the police to do at the moment. We were thousands of angry
people and they drove us back and denied us to go down to outside
of the meeting to protest. And they used horses and dogs, even
though they had promised not to. The situation got out of hand.
I felt so powerless, so degraded by the people ruling my life
and angry for being denied to protest outside the meeting and
angry for knowing that the police broke all their promises and
that I still had friends held by the police. And a lot of people
was angry and started to smash the windows of McDonalds, H&M,
Bang Olufsen and a Swedish Bank. This was widely reported in the
Swedish media and all the activists were portrayed as "hooligans
and terrorists destroying the inner city". There were even
writings about "raping" the city and the people there,
and that was completely ridiculous. What media didn't report was
that a lot of small businesses and cafes did not get smashed at
all. Only the big chain stores like McDonalds, who have made a
fortune by exploiting poor people and using child labor around
the world.
The fights continued for about two hours. The police were attacking
the people and the people were throwing stones at the police.
The police picked up stones and threw them back at the activists.
After a couple of hours things calmed down. Some people were trapped
by the police on a bridge and about 100 people were arrested.
I went home to a friend to lie down and just think and rest for
a while. Because I knew that this was only the beginning...
Later that night, me and my friends went out again to participate
in the announced "Reclaim the City" party that was supposed
to be held in a park in the city. We came there and there were
a lot of kids gathered and two big trucks were rented and some
DJs were playing music and kids were dancing and I thought it
was pretty neat. But there was a weird tension in the air and
you could tell that this would not last very long. All of a sudden,
I heard screams like "You scum! You fucking commies"
and right beside me a fistfight broke out between activists and
some fascist kids that had shown up. It was started by the fascists.
They quickly fled when the activists started to hunt them away
from the spot and it sort of made me laugh, even though I hate
fights. Because I know that right wing people are seriously brain
damaged, but I didn't know they were so stupid so that they would
go to a outdoor party, arranged by left wing people that are angry
because they have been hunted by the police all day, and call
them "commie scum" and look for a fight.
The fascist kids ran away, but not shortly thereafter the real
fascists entered the scene, the Swedish police. They surrounded
the park, in full riot gear and with horses. It was about to blow...
Somewhere the fight between activists and police broke out and
people started to run from the cops who were riding and swinging
their clubs. The more militant activists responded by throwing
stones at the police. The police were driven back and then they
attacked again and people fled down the streets, but the police
had surrounded the whole area and you were lucky if you got out
of there. The police were hunting the people down the street and
some activists started to smash windows of businesses. I think
that was very unnecessary. To smash the window of McDonalds or
Hin a situation like this, I can clearly see the logic of that,
but to smash the local bookstore? What's the point? I don't know...
The clash continued and many people that were not participating
in the demonstration were gathering around to see what was going
on. And some of them started to throw rocks at the police too!
That was interesting. People who looked quite ordinary, without
black masks throwing stones at the violent police force. Interesting.
The activists advanced and started to run up against the cops
again. The clash continued. All of a sudden I heard a sharp bang,
and another one... I don't know how many bangs I heard. But I
looked at the police and I saw one of the police officers holding
his gun aiming it at the activists. And I was hearing screams
about somebody being shot. As far as I know, the Swedish police
haven't fired at demonstrators since the black days in Ådalen
1931 when five (or six, don't really know for sure) labor activists
were shot dead. But anyway, seeing a Swedish police aiming his
gun against kids in my own age will stay in my memory forever.
When the shots were fired, panic broke out and I was able to escape
a couple of blocks away from the scene. On my way, trying to avoid
being hit (or even worse, shot) by the police I saw random clashes
with the police everywhere. I saw the police ride over a naked
guy with their horses. A friend of mine was run over by a horse
and she had to go to the hospital. Another friend came up to me
with blood on her hands. She had been taking care of one guy that
the police had shot in the leg. It felt so unreal... Like being
on TV or in the news (which we probably were all the time, because
the sky was full of police helicopters). The activists gathered
in a park and squeezed together and started to chant "no
more violence, no more violence" while the police were surrounding
the park ready to strike at any minute. The people in the park
continued to sing and dance and after a couple of hours, the police
left the place to the sound of cheering activists dancing in the
park. Later that night there was a meeting at one of the schools
that wasn't yet surrounded by the police. A guy who had been representing
the activists in the meetings with the authorities and the police
told us that two or three kids had been shot by the police that
night. One had been shot in the back or in the chest (no one was
quite sure at that point) and he said that there should be "no
more collaboration with the police". People cheered. The
meeting was very short, because people from outside were calling
in telling us that the police was closing in to the school. We
left the place really fast and tookoff to the place we where sleeping
at. During the night the police formed tighter lines around the
schools where the meeting had been held.
Saturday morning. About 25.000 people gathered to do a peaceful
demonstration against the European Union and the police brutality.
25.000 people must be the biggest demonstration in Swedish history
ever. But the demonstration was not allowed to go into the center
of the city, which was blocked with walls built by freight containers,
but had to stay outside the city, even though nothing dangerous
or violent were happening. The demonstration was very inspiring
and really what I needed after a day of violence and shooting.
Being together with comrades from all around the world showing
our discontent for the present capitalist society and our hopes
for another world order was so positive and inspiring. I loved
every second of it, even tough it was a bit rainy. The "funny"
thing is that this big, peaceful demonstration was not at all
as widely reported in media as the shootings and the riots. 25.000
people walking down the street to show people what they believe
is not interesting in mainstream, tabloid press.
After the demonstration I went down to the inner city to find
something to eat. I went to a restaurant and ate and after that
I went back home to rest for a while. I got back into the city
and I was walking down the street to get to the place where we
were supposed to play that night. I walked in a city that was
a war zone. Containers everywhere, scared people and a weird tension
in the air. I was thinking about the shooting that I had witnessed
the day before. It still felt so unreal. All of a sudden I started
to hear police sirens and cops in riot gear filled the street
in a minute and police truck after police truck after police truck
was passing by. I heard the sound of the cars, I saw the blank
looks of the police officers faces, and I saw truck after truck.
The sound of power was hitting the walls of the houses. The sound
of fascism and violence was in my ears. I was scared so I decided
to take another way down to the tent venue where the gig was rather
than go where I planned to go in the first place. And that was
good, because I got there without being harassed by the cops.
The cops had stormed into a square in the city, surrounded people
who hadn't done anything and pushed them into police buses and
drove them away. My friends mother was riding her bike when a
police officer pulled her off the bike, dragged her to the ground
and arrested her. For no reason at all. Another friend was held
by the police and got a gun to his face. About 100 innocent people
were harassed and arrested.
That night we did a wonderful gig. It was the right place for
us to be. In the center of the class struggle, where the action
was and where power and people met. People were going nuts while
we played and we ended the show with screaming "International
solidarity working class unity" over and over again. One
of our best gigs ever. I was almost crying when we were done.
It felt so god damn right at the moment to be in a political rock
band. For once it made a little bit sense.
That night the tension was high in the city. I was walking down
the street and I met activists in the street. No one knew what
was going on really... They said that the police officially had
given up, but no one believed that at all. I saw police cars passing
by me while I was walking in the dark streets and I looked away
all the time, hoping that they wouldn't stop and pull me into
the car because they had been performing that kind of kidnaps
all day long. But I didn't get arrested or anything like a guy
that had been pulled down and handcuffed the same day by the police.
He was innocent and asked what he was handcuffed for. The police
answered that "that's because you are causing trouble"
and he replied "but it's you guys who are shooting people"
and they said "yes, and next time we will shoot even more!"
That night I didn't sleep that very much. It felt like war was
in town and I knew that even if the protests and the meeting was
officially over, the war on the street wasn't. That night the
police stormed one of the schools that activists had rented from
the authorities to use for sleeping. The police came in with drawn
guns and arrested almost everyone who didn't escape.
The next day, all of this was over and we went back to Stockholm
again. The events of the weekend was all over the radio, the newspapers,
the TV... All about the violent activists and the riots. Nothing
about the peaceful demonstrations. Nothing about the fact that
the police started the violence. Nothing about the violence that
the police practiced on innocent people of all ages, nothing about
the structural violence that the European Union is for poor people
and poor countries, nothing about our side of it. The policeman
who had shot a guy was portrayed as a hero and claimed that he
did it in self-defense (even though he shot the guy in the back).
The papers were full of the readers comments, everybody saying
that "the police were right... we need more cops, we need
harder cops, we need to control those terrorists".. Tony
Blair called the 25.000 activists a "travelling anarchist
circus". People that he should listen to...It was very sad,
but I was there I know what happened. I'm an eyewitness to the
whole thing and that's why I'm writing this. To get my side out
to the people I care about and to people that might understand
and not just buy everything that bourgeois media is telling them.
So... What did we learn from all this? Well, right now it's very
hard to tell. Maybe in a historical perspective we'll know everything
about the protests in Gothenburg, Prague, Niece, Seattle etc etc
and what the consequences of those events were. What I see right
now is that Globalized capitalism, neo imperialism is the cause
of all this. The structural violence against poor and working
people everywhere is getting so apparent that people all over
the world is gathering against the same enemy. it's the same ideology
and same corporations everywhere in power. And as times and repression
gets harder, the clashes between people and the power get more
violent and harder.
A lot of people are condemning the violence used by activists
during the demonstrations in Gothenburg. The stones thrown at
the police and so on... But, the police knew that they had no
control over the situation at all and they tried to show everybody
in town who was boss so they became very violent against everybody
and everything. And no one in mainstream media seems to be criticizing
the police throwing stones and beating up people who just passed
by. And everywhere the policeman who shot a guy in my own age
in the back is portrayed as a hero. It's scary. And the reactions
of many people in the left make me very confused. Everyone is
cheering the zapatistas and the people arming themselves against
corporation hell in the third world, but when the violent side
of the battle against capitalism comes too close to home, people
are to quick to condemn everything. McDonalds, H and Burger King
got their windows smashed during the riots. Corporations that
got big by exploiting natural resources in poor countries and
using child labor. Everybody hates that, but as soon as someone
get enough of that that person is a "terrorist" and
the cops are free to shoot him. The right wing moralism is spreading
down to ordinary, decent people who get exploited by the big corporations
every day. And the police violence is just a sign of everything
that people like us has been talking about for so long, that globalization
and neo liberalism will lead to violent and hard times for everybody,
except for the people hiding behind container walls, laughing
at us. The European Union was not for the working class and the
police are not on the people's side. We are up against the European
Violence Machine and if you have any thing that you want to say
to the people who are in charge, off you go... or even worse,
you will get shot for doing it.
I think that this weekend will go to history. Maybe in a negative
way, because the police will get free hands in the future and
maybe they will bring in water cannons and tear gas in Sweden
(that stuff is still illegal over here). And maybe it will be
harder to organize protests in the future. And people will maybe
only remember the violence they saw on TV and not the 25.000 activists
gathered together peacefully to demonstrate and to say what they
believed in. But people forget history so quick. Sweden used to
have Europe's most militant labor movement until the 30ies. And
all the rights that we have, such as the right to vote, freedom
of speech, women's right to abortion, holidays and stuff like
that was won by the working class after fights with the police
and people in power. But they don't teach us that in school.
I think this is a challenge. We have to organize globally to confront
this new, violent phase of capitalism. We have to do this together
and win by the strength in numbers. I'm not a pacifist at all,
but I think the most important thing right now is to organize
your friends, your neighbors, and your parents, friends at work
and school. Let people know what is going on! It's our future
that they wanna sell to the one who pays us the least... And now
it's up to us to change it and to do what people have done throughout
history, over and over again, to win their rights. To educate,
to organize and to activate! And it might be violent, and it might
not be. But I'm quite sure that the people in power won't give
up their money, power, modes of production, corporations to the
masses without trying to kill us all first.
Anyway, I feel very alive after all this. My life will never be
the same. Everything I ever read and heard about class struggle,
human rights struggle, politics and history became true and alive
this weekend. It made me relate to everything from Karl Marx "Das
Kapital" to N.W.A:s song about the police...
So, I guess my story ends here. Or, it's just begun. I guess as
time goes by, I will get more perspectives on this and we will
all see the consequences and I'm ready to debate this with anyone.
But for now, I'm finishing this by saying
Smash Capitalism! Tear down fortress Europe! Another world is
possible!
/Inge
++++++++++++++++
the (digital) Noise Conspiracy JUILLET 2001
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