The Neapolitan stage of the Global Forum
The stick of the G-8
On one hand, a full load of blows against the "anti-globalization" demonstrators. On the other hand, attempts of "dialogue" on behalf of some sectors of the bourgeois institutions with the No Global-movement. It would be mistaken to understand these two aspects of politics of the imperialist governments as an internal conflict, or even worse, to imagine that we deal dialectically with the good part of the bourgeoisie and its institutions in order to defeat the more reactionary ones. On the contrary, we must take note that the answer to the "anti-globalization" rising on behalf of the imperialist democracy is moving on various levels: with the traditional combination of carrots and stick, that however- pay attention - transforms even more into... stick and carrots.
All that imposes an ulterior effort upon the movement in the location of the real causes of the capitalistic globalization and in the definition of the objectives to pursue. In order to prevent the growing repression in an efficient way this has been decisive, too: if we know how to mobilize all the victims of the globalization, and if we know how to demonstrate that the No Global-movement fights in order to attack the roots of the evils that affects the oppressed, then it will be possible to transform every repressive action of the bourgeois institutions in a boomerang of hatred and increasing organization against the capitalist dominion. In this way it will be easier to stand up against the repressive system of the state.
No "casualness"
The brutal and repressive actions of the state that took place in Naples during the final mobilization against the Global Forum have not been an "casualness". All that happened in the public square and before that, indicates that the attack had been scientifically prepared. The slaughter of strokes was preordained with military technique. The public square, already garrisoned at all sides that lead towards the center of the summit, had been sealed when the demonstration started moving. If the objective had been, as alleged by the chief constable, to prevent that the procession spread in the public square in which the official summit took place, it would have been more reasonable to make alternative exits to disperse the crowd. Neither it seems credible that they wanted to hit the presumed "lawless" ones who intended to smash the police chains that prevented the delegation, moreover prearranged, to reach the center of the summit meeting. In fact, the blows of policemen and frontier guards was aimed in a truly democratic way at anything that moved in the public square (boys, senior citizens, women, journalists... and even civil policemen) with the intention to terrorize anyone who were found in that place where they never should have been.
In addition, the Neapolitan police, with the endemic excitement of mobilization that characterizes this public square, has shown to possess a particular skill in managing combative demonstrators in a soft way, when things are not meant to blow up. Evidently the orders, and these political orders was not taken locally, were those of giving a lesson not only to be noticed by demonstrators in Naples, but for all the potential future rebels of the Global Forum to know.
To discourage, divide and isolate
As usual during a summit of the thieves of the Earth, absolutely nothing was decided. At the most they ratified agreements of preparatory sessions. For the prime ministers of the imperialist states however it is not tolerable to endure the vulgar risings that took place in Seattle, Prague and Nice. Just the enlargement and the presentation of the international summits as the center of globalization for the good of all reproduces a more emblematic and incisive picture of the rising. Even persons who do not materially participate in the demonstrations in the cities that accommodate the summits "discover" that there are other subjects that go to denounce and to fight against the same effects of the globalization that they suffer themselves, "discover" that it is possible not to endure such consequences passively and that the enemies to go against are those masters of the world who draw benefits and profits of the globalization.
Definitely too much for an imperialist bourgeoisie that on the contrary will do everything in order to describe the current world, not only as the "only" possible world, but also as the best one. Therefore the bourgeoisie will prevent any kind of mass manifestation. And if it does not succeed in this, they are transformed into an exemplary repression that definitively tries to remove the indecisive persons from the movement and if possible to push determined towards a sort of militarization, that makes it easier to isolate and criminate them.
The declarations and the preparations before the summit in Genoa are good examples of how the way of conduct of Davos (where the armed wagons were set up) and of Naples has emerged as no accidental event but the way the states are going to handle the rising against globalization.
The work of destructuration of the newborn "anti-globalization" movement doesn’t mean only use of repression. It also goes through the "dialogue" with the interlocutors who are the same states and international financial institutions to choose from. Subjects that embody the picture of a movement divided between "collaboratives" and "nihilists", between violators and pacifists. People who are disposed to transform themselves into a semi-institutional apparatus of "critical support" of the globalization. They are recognized as legitimate representatives of a movement nourished by the imperialist powers, to be used in the fight against their own rivals. These groups are not only protected, but also encouraged and supported financially in a more or less explicit way.
We have seen this kind of experiment being used by the imperialist governments in Naples, too. Taking advantage of the obviously slowly vanishing aspects of the same topic of the Neapolitan summit ("The government of Public Administration"), some "intelligent" exponents of the government adressing the rebellions ascribed the Neapolitan meeting "to the harmonic frame of dialogue of Porto Alegre and not the heavy fighting of Prague, Nice and Davos". It doesn´t matter that in the first days of the rising at the summit, the institutions have flattered and tolerated the protests as long as they were limited to symbolic or youthful episodes; in the same way mass-media footbridges was offered to the organizers of the alternative summit, and flatteries floated towards some areas like the non-profit organizations, the voluntary service and the third sector.
But when, like during the demonstration of March the 17th, a united crowd begins to walk the streets, a crowd consisting of workers, temporary working people, young people, unemployed and immigrants; when the denunciation of the crimes of Capitalism becomes, even with various accentuations and some simplifications too many, common ground of activism, then repression prevails in order to inhibit and demolish every resumption of the class struggle.
It is well to remember the inattentives that it has all been managed by the same forces of the "center-left" government indicated by some parts of the movement as privileged interlocutors in order to give the globalization a more human and democratic face. Sirenes that can spellbind even the representatives of Officina 99 (the Neapolitan social center that has been the driving force of the mobilization and that it is characterized by having preserved a more militant and class-conscious attitude in comparison with other Italian social centers).
They thought in fact to be able to limit themselves to the usual harmless skirmishes with the forces of order in order to legitimate the presumed antagonism and to participate in the Forum with a crowded delegation, of whom they previously had had assurances. It was not accidental that they were among the groups that was most surprised of what happened, and they are the same ones that stubbornly continue to credit the thesis of casualness. With the nice peace of the speeches that at this point denounce an everlasting militarization of the territory on behalf of the state power, they end up being victims of dangerous illusions, on one hand those institutional powers and forces that they claim to want to fight against, and on the other the force of the movement.
What to do against the bourgeois repression
The "anti-globalization" movement must get in a position to effectively oppose the political unity of the western governments tense by its emptying. The main means in order to react to these dangers can potentially supply capitalism. In fact, proceeding towards a more armored and bloodsucking centralization, it is destined to provoke ulterior reactions against the effects of its totalitarian dominion. All this will make it hard for the imperialist democracy to continue to present itself as a unity and synthesis of the interests of all the citizens. In this context it becomes objectively more evident that there is a tie between the different repressive actions and the unitary political defense of the dominion of the capitalistic class, and they have offered, at least potentially, the concrete conditions for a ground of denunciation and therefore the true lack of legitimacy of "the neutral" role of democracy.
Naturally a situation of this type in which you can fight the repression fundamentally is not compatible neither with how many that would want "to rise the flags of democracy left to fall in the mud", nor with how many that limit the denunciation and the fight against the bourgeois stick to a circle of the repressed or the already "awares".
On the contrary, and this is another limit of the so-called "anti-globalization" movement that is exceeded in advance, we must orientate and project the counter-information initiative and the call to struggle on the whole proletariate and other social layers affected by the bourgeois politics destroying, indeed, every vocation or suggestion of self-sufficiency concerning problems and difficulties of the class struggle. The struggle of the masses against the repression is possible and necessary. It is the only perspective that can oppose materially the proceeding actions of the adversary of class and make it pay a political price every time it hits not only among the victims of the repression but in all those layers and sectors of the society, that is being oppressed by the state and the governments. To understand better we’ll make a relative example of the vicissitude of the fights against the rubbish dumps (a fight which took place some months ago near Naples and that probably has something to do with the globalization...), that happened in Campania during the preparations and the development of the Global Forum: these parts of the proletariate have perhaps not felt on their own skin the batons of the state no less than the demonstrators against the globalization? It is symptomatic that the topics of this proletarian mobilization and the repression that it has suffered, have been totally absent from the thematic collection of the mobilization and the various alternative Forums held in those days.
If we will know how to look around and see which are the subjects affected by the globalization, in what way they react and try to defend themselves from the effects that hit them directly, also when they do not participate and they still do not perceive to endure the fruits of the capitalistic dominion; if we will know how to attract them to the most common movement fighting against the globalization, then we will have made a good deal of struggle against the repression, and we will have established the material foundation in order to confront it on a ground that goes beyond the challenge of the small groups, that only refer to themselves.
The next "anti-globalization" events, the organizasion of a proletarian defense against the politics ("internal" and "foreign") of the Berlusconi government, the effort to reorganize the workers, temporary working people and immigrants constitute the occasions for a profitable militant engagement and a struggle to which we will be called.