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

Identities, protest dynamics and technology 49
refuge from police percussion grenades, they were then made to enact
subservience and subordination by kneeling or lying down, before being
handcuffed and arrested. Having contextualised events we can now
consider the analytical themes focussing on primary data gathered prior to,
during and after S26. 7
The locals: INPEG
On the ground co-ordination fell to the Czech group INPEG – an acronym
derived from the Czech for Initiative Against Economic Globalisation. The
group originated in Prague in September 1999 being derived from pre-existing
environmentalist, feminist, anarchist and socialist groups. Pre-dating
Seattle, the groups’ agenda envisaged a domestic event but this expectation
was overturned following the ‘successes of Seattle’. Active contacts with
groups in England and throughout Europe had been in train since spring
2000 with key ‘internationals’ taking up residence in Prague several months
prior to the event.
Our respondent within INPEG had been involved from the start of the
coordination process in late 1999 witnessing the increasing involvement of
‘internationals’. The initial stages, involving Czech participants, had
consolidated their networks as ‘Czech activists know each other much more
than before’ (Interview Czech activist [4]). Like Kenney (2002) we found
that this process extended across national borders with network linkages to
Slovakia, Germany, the United Kingdom, as well as hubs within the global
networks mentioned earlier.
The small number of INPEG activists, their youthfulness and limited
experience combined to limit the effectiveness of the group confronted by a
very steep learning curve. Experienced activists arriving in Prague found it
difficult to see what had been achieved in three months of preparatory
work, with one respondent recalling
What I really noticed was the cynicism and the hopelessness of a lot of
the local activists .... The real sense of you know, we are not going to
get many people the police are gonna kill us. Nothing is possible.
(Interview British Activist [2])
An atmosphere of pending violence permeated the city and quickly
diffused through the movement networks fuelled by Government calls for
residents to leave the city and the closure of all schools (Welsh 2004).
Conformity to official warnings was a norm even amongst the friendship
networks of active participants ‘people obeyed police and newspapers and
media, they really left, lots of my friends left, took holiday, left Prague
(Interview Czech activist [6]). Combined with speculation about policing
practices in this ex-communist dominated police state there was a widespread
fear of repressive ‘state’ violence.