The Multitude Against the Empire

national | miscellaneous | news report Friday April 25, 2003 06:42 by Peace Activist

by Luca Casarini

These acts of disobedience and boycott are referencing a new language: the movement has become substantive because it is implementing its own laws, from below, in order to end crimes against humanity. It is implementing blockades of the merchandise of war, sanctioning those who are speculating in the war, breaking off diplomatic ties with political representatives of the governments at war. That movement is dreaming up another possible world, and it knows that, in order to achieve that world, it must remove the dimension of unjust and cynical legality of the market of war, in order to make room for humanity.

Originally published in Spanish by Rebeldi'a
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Translated by irlandesa

Rebeldi'a
Issue #5
http://www.revistarebeldia.org

Throughout Italy: The Multitude Against the Empire

Luca Casarini

Throughout Italy, ever since the beginning of the bombing of Iraq, there have been continuous, nonstop demonstrations against the war. Marches
around military bases - our country is, unfortunately, full of them - thousands of persons laying siege to US and British consulates and embassies, strikes by students, occupations of universities. Rallies, sit-ins, the blocking of highways and railroad tracks, meetings in workplaces, marches with torches, prayers by Catholics in churches, motions for peace approved by town councils.

The reasons for such a constant commitment by so very many persons - despite the fact that the war has already begun - must be sought in what
happened prior to this phase.

What must be analyzed, above all else, is what happened, here and in the world, before Bush and Blair's bombs exploded. A multitudinous movement, millions and millions, who simultaneously invaded all the plazas of the
planet, in order to try - preventatively - to stop the war. All of us hoped that what the Washington Post had described as "the greatest moment of rupture between the governed and their leaders" - or, according to the New York Times: "The birth of a new superpower, Global Public Opinion" - would be enough to interrupt the tragic plans of the White House and Downing Street. We hoped that, by demonstrating in the plazas and by carrying out very radical actions prior to the war, the forceful position
taken by humanity could combine with those conflicts which had arisen within the empire's constituents, among leaders of nations that were not at all peaceful or pacifist, like Chirac, Putin and the Chinese government.

Nonetheless, the war began, without consensus among the people, nor among all the powerful. This tragedy causes one to think, it should make one reflect. We are faced, in reality, with a Coup within the Empire, and the consequences will be suffered by not only the old diplomatic and political institutions, like the United Nations - which has been completely shattered - but, above all, by humanity and its means of constructing a new democracy. We must trust that the people, so numerous, will continue
mobilizing for this as well: they are perfectly aware of the fact that the war has a global objective, although the Iraqi civilians are suffering it materially, and that objective is the construction of a new permanent model of domination in the world.

The leaders of the United States have transformed September 11 into the new Pearl Harbor. There were two possibilities: this one, that is making the world think that the World Trade Center killings were caused by an
enemy attack from the outside. The other one, which is taking hold every day, especially in the consciences of millions of US citizens, concerns the economic system of dictators, fundamentalists and CIA officials, oil
men, bankers, financiers, sometimes friends and sometimes enemies, sometimes competitors in the global market, other times allies. The idea
that this system has collapsed, exploding from within, in the exact same place where it was produced. If the Pentagon's propaganda had wanted to transform September 11 into Pearl Harbor, the war in Iraq could be Hiroshima: the affirmation through force of a model which they want to impose on a global and permanent basis. The most worrisome aspect of all of this is that, exactly as in Hiroshima, it is base!
d on war against civilians. Ever since Hiroshima, throughout all modern wars, civilians have made up between 70% and 80% of the victims. The same ones who had been previously granted dictators, sanctions, blockades, all
kinds of suffering, and who are then bombarded, always at the hands of the same, extraordinarily generous, soldiers of good.

The truth is that global public opinion has not managed to stop the war, but it has become established as a new public space, as an alternative to the single belief system. The very concept of war has been transformed,
as war against civilians. The concept of peace has also changed, since it is no longer the period of time between one war and the next. How, then, can we refer to a situation as peace which, even without bombings, causes millions of deaths every year from hunger, thirst, AIDS, pollution? These changes in the perception of war and peace were evident during the great demonstrations prior to the attack. Many people had signs and posters which associated the universal "stop the global war" with slogans
against neoliberal globalization. For the activist, global public, being against the war means fighting against the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the group of 8
(G-8).

The paths which lead from Seattle, from Genoa, are intersecting with those which are just beginning to be followed in an attempt to stop the barbarity of the bombs. The global war is broken down into different levels of intensity. There is a perpetual state of injustice, of lack of liberty and dignity, which is caused by the multinationals and neoliberal policies. These decisions are made around the sanctuaries of the Empire, and this condition is already being perceived as a real war, since it causes millions of deaths and devastating consequences throughout the world. The movement which is fighting against the war has defined the
conflict in Iraq as a war for oil, and the Bush administration is identified with the multinational Exxon, which sells fuel to the
Anglo-American troops. The multinationals of arms, which sold Saddam everything necessary for massacring Kurds and Iranians, are now speaking
through the voice of Donald Rumsfeld, the minister of the North American war. The people know all of this. And they know that the war for
water has begun alongside the war for oil. Almost two billion people throughout the world do not have access to sources of clean water. In
September, the next WTO summit will be promoting the privatization of water sources. Opposing it, blockading it, it will be the same for all
those who are opposed to the global war.

The movement against the war has established itself as a global and activist public, unifying, in fact, those experiences which have been accumulating throughout the world in the struggles against the neoliberal policies of the Empire's great economic summits, with the ethical
dimension of condemnation of the genocide of humanity. Catholics and laypersons have found themselves together in this terrain, and this fact is relevant and unprecedented, most especially in Italy.

The fact that the bombing started despite the uprising of millions of persons, did, however, bring about an energetic debate on the methods of
the struggle. If marching and refusing to accede to the governments would have been enough, then that would have represented a great and positive novelty for everyone. What is happening, unfortunately, emphasizes the
fact that the degree of authoritarianism, of dictatorship, in the makeup of the Empire, is extremely high , and it is reducing, as never before, the real spaces for democracy. According to those who rule, public
opinion is not heard, it is created. If it is favorable to the new emperors' plans, it is used in order to create staged public spaces, in
order to support the actions of the sovereigns. If it is opposed, it must be annihilated. In any manner. With television and clubs, with bombs and with Hollywood. How, then, are we going to oppose such a reality? Obviously, the question is still without any definitive answers, but it is essential for us to begin positing it throughout the
world. It is essential, in the universities in Arab countries throughout
the world, that they begin to shout "Stop the War!" before "Allah is
Great!" It is also essential that it is understood in the west that
conflict, direct action, the methods of rebellion, active civil
disobedience against the war, are not the romantic details of some
antiquated revolutionary dreamers, but the only way to think, in this
context, that another world is possible.

But how can we preserve and broaden a public space, a substantive public
opinion against the Empire (and one which is also quite fragile from the
blows which it receives from the sovereigns), and at the same time
traverse that space with methods of struggle appropriate to a substantive
movement capable of change? It is a dilemma, but there has already been
some experimenting, and there will be much more. The fact is that those
who say it was enough to march, or vote, or participate in the decisions
of power, have very little voice in the discussion.

The Italian Practice of Train Blocking

During the period which preceded the war, there were two moments in Italy,
among many others, of extraordinary importance for the beginning of a
response to that question. The first moment was undoubtedly, as it was
throughout the planet, February 15, the day of the global uprising against
the war. In Rome, millions of persons from throughout the country
occupied the city. It was something which had never been seen before, a
multitude of people, aware of being part of something quite large,
enormous, which was occupying all the capitals of the world at the same
moment. A river of people, united in condemnation of the war, who dreamed
of being able to stop it. The fact that this took place based on a call
which had been made from Porto Alegre presents us with the idea of the
intertwining of the movement of the movements and the new "Stop the War"
sentiment. Hours of demonstrations, with the city completely stopped and,
at the end, the reading of a new letter from the Su!
p, read by the mother of Carlo Giuliani, our brother who was assassinated
in Genoa by the carabinieri in the battle against the G-8. It should be
emphasized that, in addition to the incredible strength of this multitude,
was how everyone wanted to know how many people were marching in other
place s in the world. How many in the United States, how many in South
Africa or in the Philippines, how many in London or in Mexico.
Communication went from being something technical to something political,
becoming the means of organizing directly and simultaneously. Without
belonging to a single organization, being one single multitude.
Satellite television and radio channels were turned on, connected
throughout the world, in an attempt, among other things, to speak to the
Iraqi people. The red zone of information was violated, through direct
production, outside the official media. In Italy, GlobalTV and
Globalradio were the disobedient means for being inside that multitude.

Still impressed by something which we had never seen before, and something
which had taken place before, and not after, the outbreak of the war, a
few days later we experimented with the substantive potential of the
attempt to stop the war. All of us had listened to Marcos' words and
those of our brothers and sisters from the Selva, and we always had the
same question in our minds: How to avoid the easy trap of believing that
it was enough that we were many and to produce great events, while the
powerful still continued to move forward in their path of death? How to
do everything possible in order to stop and to attack that machine of
death, without separating ourselves from that huge multitude? How to
build conflict and consensus, how to transform a symbolic movement into a
substantive one?

The occasion presented itself to us with the beginning of the transfer of
US war machinery from a base in northern Italy to the center, using three
Italian trains. The Italian government had authorized it, thus marking
its direct participation in the organization of the war. It used trains,
ports and airports for the North American army without a debate in
Parliament. We learned from reports from railroad and information workers
among activists that trains were en route, carrying weapons. In a small
station in the province of Padua, on the line to the south, at seven in
the evening, two hundred disobedients occupied the station, blocking the
train traffic, including the train of death. Fires were set on the
railway, as a large number of anti-riot police began arriving. The news
was heard immediately, thanks to Globalradio, which began transmitting 24
hours a day, via satellite, the Internet and modular frequency. The train
was blocked, but what was extraordinary was t!
hat thousands of persons, throughout the 300 kilometers from one base to
the other, upon hearing the news, began organizing blockades, in case the
police had attacked the first group.

That is how the biggest act of disobedience against the war began,
organized by communication, and developed around an impressive number of
different methods, whose central objective was blocking the trains of
death. That action, which continued for 7 days, without interruption,
involved very many, and a wide variety, of persons. From those who
provided information about the arrival of the trains and about the police
movements, to those who organized stoppages of other trains, activating
the emergency brake in order to stop traffic and to allow activists to
organize. After workers refused to drive those trains, the government had
to militarize them. A debate began throughout the country, and also
within the movement, because the State obviously considers blocking trains
to be an illegal action. The discussion, however, became quite
interesting, since waging an illegal and illegitimate war was much worse.

One of the most interesting aspects was the use of communication as a
means of organizing the initiative. Everyone turned into an activist:
from the railroad workers who explained the trains' paths to us, to the
passengers on the other trains who called the radio if they saw anything
strange. From the young people who were willing to sit down on the
railroad tracks day and night, to the retired workers advising us as to
how we could block the traffic through small acts of sabotage.
Globalradio no longer had just an information role. It was directly
organizing the most extensive action. The radio itself was action, heart
and collective head for the multitude in action. The train blocking
initiative - called train-stopping - demonstrated that the war was inside
our country, and that it is completely just to disobey laws in order to
obstruct it. It secured the enforcement of humanitarian laws, the
prohibition of the transporting of military apparatus to be utilized in I!
raq, against the laws of the Empire imposed by the Italian government
against the views of its citizens.

At that moment, the movement not only turned rebel, but also substantive.
As in all wars, all of us turned into deserters, and resistance begins at
precisely that point, with desertion, with rejection. The powers had to
show their true face: the trains, after many days, had reached their
destination, in Tuscany, protected by an army, conducted by soldiers and
with blockades on all sides. Then blockades began of civilian airports,
as well as incursions into military airports, both of which were being
used for the transportation of North American troops. The soldiers often
had to carry out transport operations of war materiel cargo in the ports,
because the civilian personnel refused.

The Practice of Disobedience Becomes a New Language

War is a complex machine, this war especially. In addition to being
different from old wars because it is directing its terror and destruction
against civilians and not against armies - which are useless in the face
of the appalling technology of death - it is made up of commercial,
political and communications mechanisms which have already been revealed,
made public. For example, always within the framework of actions
attempting to block the war, we discovered that the General Markets of
Padua, in northern Italy, were earning millions of dollars for warehousing
fruits and vegetables for US soldiers in the war. The North American
military administration even had their own commercial contract agencies in
that public market, and they were sending the products to military bases
throughout Europe through private companies. The disobedients have
already, on two occasions, blocked that market. The slogan, "No food for
killers," has been joined with the more well-known one of !
"No blood for oil," which underlines the importance of the role of oil
multinationals in this war. In this context, the Esso gas station chain,
Italian affiliate of Exxon, has been boycotted and sabotaged in Rome
during a public action by the disobedients. Five of them, disobedients
from the Corto Circuito social center, were jailed.

At the same time, in Venice and Falconara (central-east), disobedients have blocked Esso's storage facilities for an entire day. Many bank agencies, such as the National Bank of Labor and the Bank of Italy, who are investing money in large weapons company actions, are being blocked during demonstrations, and they write on their windows: "Armed banks." British and North American consulates and embassies are, of course, being laid siege to, protected by the police and surrounded by thousands of people in the marches. These acts of disobedience and boycott are referencing a new language: the movement has become substantive because it is implementing its own laws, from below, in order to end crimes against humanity. It is implementing blockades of the merchandise of war, sanctioning those who are speculating in the war, breaking off diplomatic ties with political representatives of the governments at war. That movement is dreaming up another possible world, and it knows that, in
order to achieve that world, it must remove the dimension of unjust and cynical legality of the market of war, in order to make room for humanity.