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

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Seattle police were criticised for failing to discern the true intent of protestors and were urged to follow the example set in Washington DC where police had made use of ‘informants and undercover officers’ (Solomon 2000: 17). Solomon emphasises the way in which key market precepts like ‘free trade’ and ‘liberalization’ were not elaborated or questioned within media commentary being accepted as facts of life ‘like gravity’ and certainly ‘not a continuation of colonialism and imperialism’, with the LAT declaring that ‘Economists regard free trade as just about as controversial as motherhood’ (Solomon 2000: 17). Solomon argues that the US press depicted the failure of the Seattle trade round as the consequence of internal dissent with Clinton’s proposals having ‘collapsed . . . after a rebellion by developing countries and deadlock among America’s biggest trading partners’ (NYT 5.12.99, p. A1). This is consistent with US foreign policy stances which typically integrate national economic policy and specific economic sectors within their declaratory posture, making opposition to US economic and business freedom an act of opposition to the United States (Welsh 2005). Seattle was a rude awakening for both political and police leaders as the influential but misguided 1990s slogan ‘Think Global Act Local’ was decisively abandoned in favour of global contestation drawing on multiple locales. Seattle was a point of emergence for the AGM and operated as a strange attractor/symbolic multiplier drawing together a range of actors within a complex collaborative venture (see Gillham and Marx 2003). Whilst comparisons were drawn with the radicalism of the 1960s and 1970s the ‘global reach’ of this action, particularly the conscious alignment with issues of ‘the South’ far exceeded the limited critical mass achieved in Paris in 1968 (Singer 2000, Purkiss and Bowen eds 2004). Significantly, Solomon (2000) notes that the global nature of Seattle went uncommented in US newspapers whilst receiving coverage in The Guardian and Observer. This is attributed to the independence of these UK papers by virtue of their ownership. As we detail later these titles are far from representative of the remainder of the UK press in terms of the treatment of AGM actions. However, representations of such actions are widely reported as part of global protests suggesting that corporate ownership is not a sufficient explanation of US myopia. Tendencies amongst the US media toward insularity and weak coverage of world events with no direct US angle suggest themselves as relevant cultural and political factors. May Day 2000 Guerrilla gardening States fight back 73 The euphoria following Seattle suffused activist networks bolstering confidence and ambitions. In the United Kingdom, where like most industrial economies, May Day holds particular significance in terms of popular struggles dating back centuries; network actors went ‘guerrilla gardening’ in Parliament Square. The event, conceived as a celebration, set out to
74 States fight back ‘green Parliament Square’ by planting verges and ornamental areas with vegetables, a horticultural use of public space not seen since the rationing associated with the Second World War. We have examined the portrayal of this event by police and politicians as the creation of a ‘new folk devil’ elsewhere (Wahl-Jorgensen 2003, Donson et al. 2004). For present purposes the important features of this work are, a media portrayal of AGM activists consistent with Cohen’s original (1972) folk devil thesis; their depiction as the ‘the personification of evil’ (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994); and the use of such images to enable ‘ideological exploitation’ by a range of commentators (Thompson 1995: 39). Significantly, we found an absence of the usual ‘moral panic’ associated with a new ‘folk devil’, which is often central to the mobilisation of public fear and acquiescence in the face of new policing methods and public acceptance of stereotypic representations (McRobbie 1994: 199). Despite this, prominent politicians and police commentators acted as if such a panic was underway in terms of public order issues without explicating the anatomy of the underlying crisis, largely because this would involve them in accepting central tenets of the activists’ arguments as legitimate concerns. 9 Here, we suggest that subsequent revisions to legislation on the detention of terrorist suspects has begun to make the normative symmetry between democracy and freedom problematic. The ‘Devil’ is in the detail Cohen emphasised three key stages in the media portrayal of a social actor as demonic. A particular word or phrase – anti-capitalist protestor – becomes associated with a delinquent or deviant status; key objects – hairstyle, clothing – come to symbolise the word/phrase – resulting in these objects becoming symbols of the attached status and the associated emotions (Cohen 1972: 134). The life style attributes of targeted social actors in the UK have been subject to a process of legal incorporation since direct action made the legal definition of ‘breach of the peace’ problematic in the 1980s (Welsh 2000). The 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (CJA) represented an initial consolidation of this judicial drift re-defining trespassory assembly and naming specific life style attributes as public order issues. ‘Rave’ culture and other urban musical innovations were also incorporated within the CJA by reference to music characterised by a ‘repetitive beat’. Within movement circles, this was inverted to include the repetitive beating of police batons’ on riot shields, a rhythmic repetitive sound frequently preceding raids and evictions. The adoption of such tactics varied across police authorities reflecting chief constables prioritisation and interpretation of national legislation. 10 As direct action sites spread across the United Kingdom, the number of police authorities confronting movement activists multiplied with the use of ‘civil contractors’ and feudal legal institutions such as County Sheriffs increasing. 11 The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000 represented a further
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Complexity and Social Movements Che
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Complexity and Social Movements Mul
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Contents List of figures vi Acknowl
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Acknowledgements With thanks to all
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Preface ix activists and engaged ci
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2 Introducing global movements poli
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4 Introducing global movements arou
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6 Introducing global movements esta
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8 Introducing global movements Thes
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10 Introducing global movements exp
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12 Introducing global movements che
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14 Introducing global movements Fra
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16 Introducing global movements ‘
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18 Introducing global movements for
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20 Introducing global movements and
Page 33 and 34: 2 Prefiguration and emergence Intro
Page 35 and 36: 24 Prefiguration and emergence on T
Page 37 and 38: 26 Prefiguration and emergence 9 If
Page 39 and 40: 28 Prefiguration and emergence Prop
Page 41 and 42: 30 Prefiguration and emergence agai
Page 43 and 44: 32 Prefiguration and emergence C. E
Page 45 and 46: 34 Prefiguration and emergence The
Page 47 and 48: 36 Prefiguration and emergence Glob
Page 49 and 50: 38 Prefiguration and emergence In t
Page 51 and 52: 40 Prefiguration and emergence Neo-
Page 53 and 54: 42 Prefiguration and emergence from
Page 55 and 56: 44 Identities, protest dynamics and
Page 79 and 80: 68 States fight back when trust in
Page 81 and 82: 70 States fight back academically,
Page 83: 72 States fight back streets from d
Page 87 and 88: 76 States fight back to trivialise
Page 89 and 90: 78 States fight back beneath Big Be
Page 91 and 92: 80 States fight back ran out. The p
Page 93 and 94: 82 States fight back The attempt to
Page 95 and 96: 84 States fight back Accounts of th
Page 97 and 98: 86 States fight back hair, infringe
Page 99 and 100: 88 States fight back crisis is in e
Page 101 and 102: 5 Ecologies of action within global
Page 103 and 104: 92 Ecologies of action attractor wi
Page 105 and 106: 94 Ecologies of action embedded in
Page 107 and 108: 96 Ecologies of action The assimila
Page 109 and 110: 98 Ecologies of action compatibilit
Page 111 and 112: 100 Ecologies of action linking up
Page 113 and 114: 102 Ecologies of action occurred wi
Page 115 and 116: 104 Ecologies of action leading to
Page 117 and 118: 106 Ecologies of action siege of in
Page 119 and 120: 108 Beyond resistance to global nex
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124 Beyond resistance to global nex
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126 Beyond resistance to global nex
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7 The death of collective identity?
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130 Global movement as a parallelog
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148 The map is not the territory th
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150 The map is not the territory of
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152 The map is not the territory Ne
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154 The map is not the territory mi
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156 The map is not the territory or
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158 The map is not the territory mo
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160 The map is not the territory of
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162 The map is not the territory ne
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Notes 1 Introducing global movement
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166 Notes 12 Ya Basta’s! subseque
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168 Notes 19 This practice has been
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170 Notes Afro Bloc parading drum b
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172 Bibliography Barker, C., Johnso
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174 Bibliography De Sousa Santos, B
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176 Bibliography Grubacic, A. (2003
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178 Bibliography Lash, S. (2002) Cr
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180 Bibliography O’Neill, J. (200
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182 Bibliography Thompson, E.P. (19
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Index Note: Page numbers in italics
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186 Index class: affinities 93; and
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188 Index G7 23 G8 23, 100; meeting
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190 Index London 52, 63, 69, 116; E
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192 Index Poland 44, 45; ‘Orange
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194 Index Taylor, P. 168 n.2; call
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