Complexity and Social Movements: Multitudes at the Edge of Chaos ...

Identities, protest dynamics and technology 47
The presence of activists associated with PGA a network founded in
Geneva in February 1998, to act as ‘a world-wide co-ordination of resistance
against the global market, a new alliance of struggle and mutual
support’, 2 was also significant (see Chapter 6). Some of these activists had
already established a degree of trust from prior personal contact and
communicated the significant interest and mobilisation taking place across
Europe to local activists. The PGA commitment to values of autonomy,
decentralisation, democratic participation and direct action in opposition to
neo-liberal capitalism, formalised during the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas
Mexico, were manifest concretely in the efforts of ‘internationals’ to keep
the process ‘open’. This commitment to ‘unity in diversity’ through the fusion
of different political perspectives and protest repertoires was central.
Consensus regarding the action to be taken was reached after a
complex process of debate in general assembly, small groups, and in
INPEG meetings.
(Minutes of the International Organising
Meeting, 16–18 June 2000)
This consensus was the product of a meeting of over 70 people participating
as ‘simple individuals’ or ‘representatives of organisations’, collectives
and coalitions from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands,
Spain, Italy, Finland, Norway, Slovakia, United States and Czech Republic.
However, subsequent ‘international’ meetings were complicated further by
the participation of international Trotskyist organisations (International
Socialists/Socialist Worker’s Party) that opposed extensive deliberation
and consensus processes prioritising the recognition of difference. These
‘bourgeois’ traits were regarded as fragmenting the old unity associated
with class struggle defined through relations of ownership in classic
Marxist terms.
Despite these political and philosophical divisions, there was broad
agreement amongst our respondents of an emerging consensus during these
discussions which was subsequently assimilated within the action plan. This
position was, as might be expected, a negotiated compromise, involving a
mass gathering at a central convergence point, followed by ‘a unity march’
(favoured by the IS/SWP) during which the assembled protesters would be
divided into separate marches each of which would be assigned a colour.
The ‘coloured’ marches would be characterised by political affiliation,
ideological standpoint or affective links determined by regional identity,
language or affinity with particular protest repertoires.
The presence of internationals or ‘free radicals’ underlines the significance
of individual free acts in shaping social form, action and dynamics operating
as attractors ‘dissolving old dualisms’ (Eve et al. 1997: xii–xv). The
adoption of colours – yellow, blue and pink – drew upon experience
within London RTS (Reclaim The Streets) of providing ‘condensation