More from the Convergence Center

Another stormy night. Only the media offices and the Kitchen stay busy. Everything else seems to slow down, people stopping their work to come inside and stand in front of the windows watching the lightning, or gathering around a radio, listening to the news in German about G8 activities.

Most of our time is spent in the press office. Busy writing and editing press releases, and managing large lists of media contacts, we are somewhat disconnected from the rest of the building, until we leave to find food, or a cup of coffee, or sit in the lounge to listen to the different languages and journal, as i am now.

Reports come to us and we write about them, or we wait until things heat up enough for a press release to arrive in German from another media collective, then we translate it to English and send it out, pushing a button that sends 2300 copies around the world. They are then translated again by a network that has been set up from 31 different countries, and distributed in other languages. It’s important work that wouldn’t get done without our help, but it’s hard to walk away from.

If you have ever spent a day editing press releases, then you will know that it is an intellectually draining process, providing one sided spin on story after story — simplifying what you need to to get a message across, and knowing that someone on the other side of the spectrum is doing the same, trying to make you look wrong. And you can guess that they are probably more prepared than a few young folks sitting around a few laptops, working against time zones and drinking coffee. But this is what we got. It is a form of low level information warfare really.

For the most part spirits are high. We spend enough time laughing and joking about the various things we see, sometimes gleefully when good press is created. And by the end of the day my journal is a relief, being able to tell a story as it comes to me, willing to let the reader integrate it on their own — Tired of spin, I think recent events and the place and people around me deserve better description.

The daily storms that are rolling in off the Baltic have meant unexpected trouble for the organizers who are preparing the nearby camps. At the nearby camp in Rostock organizers are desperately trying to prepare for the larger numbers that will flood them soon. Fortunately, they say, the storms will let up soon, but the camp has to be prepared to house 3,000 in the next few days providing infrastructure and food. I was at the camp yesterday for a meeting that went late into the night, as the camp organizers try to cover all their bases. Consensus meeting on a large scale are always fun to watch, and it will be interesting to see them make decisions with thousands of people.

Tonight twenty people left the convergence center after receiving a report that police had set up checkpoints at the camp entrance, stopping all vehicles and requesting ID. The twenty were then immediately detained and we haven’t heard from them yet.

These kids of reports come in spontaneously as the days go by. People in the convergence center generally respond quickly, despite running on a skeleton crew and provide support where needed, often putting themselves in legal danger. There isso much to do here, and so much back and forth betweeen the camps and such that I am continually impressed by the level of coordination, collective but decentralized.

But the police here are not the only ones working against us. Neonazis are also well organized.  Last night I had a close run-in myself. Riding back to the center at 1am I was stopped on my bicycle by three men who half surrounding me asked where the convergence center was. By that time their game was clear, and I thanked New Orleans for the nose it gave me. I told them I didn’t know anything about a “convergence center,” and they asked me again and again if I was here for the G8 and I said no. Glad to have all my teeth, I rode on, surprised to be feeling scared for my safety in Germany.

The young radicals in Germany in Europe have formed what they call the “antifa,” the anti-fascist bloc which mobilizes to nearly every fascist demonstration Germany and also other countries, using protest street tactics to blockade the fascist marches, as one organizer says,

“to prevent  nationalists, anti-semitists and Holocaust revisionists from spreading  their misplaced anticapitalism to a broad public…Our aim is to make  visible the anti-fascist character of the alterglobalization movement  and our ideas for an emancipatory society in which fear and terror will not be used in the street.”

Tomorrow we will get up early because there is an fascist demonstration planned in nearby Schwerin, and of the antifa has called a counter-demonstration. The Police originally banned the whole thing, saying they didn’t have enough troops to protect the nazis from the antifa, but the ban has been lifted, presumably because they know it will happen anyway, but wanted to discourage people from coming. I think it will be interesting.

But back to the anarchists huddling around the radio in front of me. The news here is all about the G8 these days, and the recent events that precurse it. The German public and the media have been closely watching the actions by the government and the police, following the repression that began several weeks ago when homes were raided and scent samples taken by police in Hamburg and Berlin. The media has been very critical, much more than I am used to in the US. For the most part they tend to side with the protesters, even when they put on black clothes and go toe to toe with the police like they did yesterday in Hamburg.

For me it all comes with a little disbelief, the way the public finger points to the police for the provoking the riots, or the federal government, for disregarding their right to assemble, placing bans on demonstrations, tracking and following activists, and in the words of one unconvinced member of parliament, “to criminalize anyone who wants to protest the G8.”

But there were riots in Hamburg yesterday…In the US the situation would be altogether different, youth willing to resist the police by throwing stones and burning things would be used as a way of separating some protesters from the others in the public eye. I get the sense that I am seeing something much different here, a coming together between the radicals and the not so radicals, and a public awareness that the times themselves are extreme, when public discourse matters the most. But maybe I am wrong about this, maybe it comes more from a historical perspective, Europe already having seen so many regime changes and political systems — they know when their rights are being meddled with, and what it can lead to.

And back again to the anarchists in front of me. They are the ones who keep this space open. They do the chores, they run the kitchens, the camps, and organize all the other basic needs. They provide the theoretical groundwork and the organizing skills that allow these spaces to function on consensus. Everyone has a voice here, but everyone is also expected to act responsibly and do their share of the work.

They also keep the space open in the streets. When the dispatches came in from hamburg, and we watched news videos on the internet, and then later when groups returned from the demonstration to share their personal stories, I was surprised by the sophistication of street tactics.  They see themselves as the last line of defense in civilization’s ongoing struggle to reach some kind of real democracy.  This is a philosophy which governs their daily life (in the way that anarchist governernment is one of good will rather than laws) and their organizing.

In Hamburg, which the press is now calling “the prelude to the g8,” there were four thousand protesters dressed in black, finding security in the ambiguous clothing.  When the police denied them a route towards the conference center they continued to move, linking arms and chanting, jumping in unison and charging forward at once, both pushing back the police lines and resisting the “snatch squads” which tried strategically to remove individual protesters. There were water cannons, and tear gas, and some of the protesters themselves had smoke bombs to disorient the police.

The actual G8 summit will be much different — there are so many groups involved and such a variety of tactics be used.  But I get the feeling none of it would be happening, if not for the anarchists here, huddling in front of the radio, sitting in meetings, sweeping the floors, organizing the camps, or organizing in the street.

In the mean time, being here is a bit like watching an army assemble, a calling of the tribes.  People arrive daily, almost always in groups, and from all over the world.  Two kids from french Canadians from Quebec, dodging neonazis and police at the train station, groups from Russia, Greece, and Italy, tall blond haired men from Norway, women from Finland, youth from Japan, Israel, or Belorus…  We have met some amazing people.

Stay posted,

Logan