Hans Bennett Interviews Bobo Can you please give a brief history of your involvement in politics? I’ve had a fairly radical political perspective since high school, but I didn’t even really consider myself an activist until Seattle happened. Hearing about that convinced me to quit my job working for corporate media and get involved with organizing for the A16 IMF-World Bank protests. I worked with the Direct Action Network there, helping to block streets and the like. But I remember being impressed and intrigued by the large and cohesive Black Bloc. I spent the next year working on mostly local actions, such as Critical Mass. What were the major factors in your decision to travel to Quebec City and protest the FTAA? By the end of 2000 I had become convinced that we needed to be doing more than just marching, waving placards or doing non-violent civil disobedience of a purely symbolic nature. I became pretty obsessed with the idea of shutting down the FTAA meetings in Quebec City. Despite what everyone was hearing about sealed borders, impenetrable chain-link fences and millions of cops, we stayed true to our dreams and were able to cause at least a partial disruption of the meetings. Not to oversimplify things, but the world is already showing clear signs of collapse and catastrophe, and billions of people are living in misery, slaving away at meaningless jobs. Trade agreements like the FTAA will only make these conditions worse. So even though the odds are not in our favor, we are willing to do whatever it takes to burn the fucking machine down (so to speak) and create something sustainable, equitable and maybe even beautiful. No single person, affinity group or political organization can figure out what that is, or our path to get there. It’s going to take millions of us working on different parts of the problem before we can build something strong enough to challenge global capitalism. As a white youth born into the middle class, I feel the way I can be resisting right now is by 1. Living outside the official economy as much as possible by refusing to work, dumpstering, stealing, etc... 2. Illustrating my disgust with capitalism by participating in black bloc/anti-capitalist endeavors, 3. Refusing to let nihilism consume me, and holding out hope that there is a possibility, however remote, that things will get better and that I can contribute to that process. What do you think were the greatest strengths of the protesters tactics in Quebec City? What do you think could have been improved to make the protests more effective? Overall, the Quebec protests were successful, but only in a limited sense. We could have done a lot more, but there wasn’t really any coordinated communication among affinity groups on the streets. For instance, after the spectacular demolition of the fence on the first day of the protests (about 2 blocks from the site of the Summit), only a handful of us ventured past the rubble to confront the police, who were vastly outnumbered, at least initially. In that moment, if the anti-capitalist offensive had acted as one, we could have created enough chaos to force the cancellation of the meetings altogether. But most people hesitated, and we were eventually forced out by tear gas and police reinforcements. In a recent interview with Free Radio Santa Cruz, Kevin Danaher (co-director of Global Exchange) argued against the use of black bloc tactics by citing the fact that police recently dressed up as black blockers and participated in breaking store windows, writing anti-capitalist graffiti, and other forms of property destruction in both Barcelona, Spain and Genoa, Italy. Danaher argues that since the police were doing this, it shows that the police state actually wants protesters to be black blocking. More specifically, He argued that police could then use the presence of the black bloc as to justify their repression and overall brutality. How would you respond to his argument? I think in a lot of ways what the police did in Genoa blew up in their faces. The fact that they beat the shit out of and tortured thousands of people, and shot several others, was widely reported in the mainstream media, particularly in Europe but even here in America. The day AFTER Giuliani was murdered, something like 300,000 people marched through Genoa, not to mention all the solidarity protests that occurred around the world. And it was widely known that the police had masqueraded as Black Bloc, and they received quite a bit of heat for this. So I don’t think police in other cities will necessarily duplicate the tactics of the Genoa cops. I also think it’s silly to say that that the powers that be WANT there to be a black bloc just so they’ll have an excuse to attack the movement as a whole. Cops have been brutalizing and killing dissidents long before Black Blocs were around. It’s always been made very clear that cops will gun down even the most pacifistic of protestors. All that said, we do have to figure out how we can respond to police infiltration or provocation. And there should be a greater awareness among the black bloc about how are actions impact others on the street, whether they be other protestors or local residents. Ultimately, I want people to recognize how urgent and desperate these times really are, and act accordingly. I don’t care whether people wear black or wear a ski mask, so long as they’re doing something effective! When I spoke to you in Washington, DC on September 29, 2001 during the anti-war march, you told me that earlier that day you had marched to World Bank/IMF Headquarters with the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, but did not wear a mask and participate in Black Bloc actions. Why is this? Do you think that there are more appropriate times to black bloc than others? Why or why not? I’ve bloc-ed up when it seemed like we had sufficient numbers to defend ourselves AND carry out a reasonable plan of attack. I haven’t worn black when there was only a small handful marching as a black bloc as a symbolic gesture, such as during the anti-war march in DC. Fhar Miess of the Alarm! Newspaper Collective recently wrote an article (referring to how many groups cancelled their Sept.29 anti-world bank/imf protests)about “anti-globalization groups cower[ing] in [the] shadow of tragedy.” What impact has the September 11 attacks had on the anti-globalization movement as a whole? It’s too soon to say. I know it took me several weeks to evaluate what had happened and come to terms with it. On one hand, political repression is sure to increase. On the other hand, the events of Sept. 11 illustrated that the future is wholly unpredictable. From this realization flows a lot of fear and terror, but also opens some windows for hope. For instance, the U.S.’s hegemonic control over the rest of the world seems less sure than it did a couple months ago. It’s important, I feel, not to legitimize in any way what happened on S11, but also not to feel paralyzed by it, as if the global resistance to capitalism is suddenly going to slink away and hide. What about the charge that breaking windows, using graffiti, even dressing punk allows the mainstream press to vilify all anti-globalization protesters, and/or that black blocking scares off people who might otherwise be sympathetic to anti-capitalist ideas? I’m not really that into the idea of breaking windows. I’m more into defending ourselves against the police, taking down the barriers that they put up, and throwing up our own barricades. Breaking corporate windows is fine as an isolated action, but I don’t think it adds that much to mass demos. I don’t mean that as a condemnation of the Acme Collective, which took responsibility for the property destruction in Seattle, because I think they were pretty effective. But breaking windows now is, like, so ’99. What are some of the most creative, inspiring things you’ve seen come out of black blocs? It’s always exciting to see an anarchist flag go up in an unlikely place, like when the black bloc took down the government flags at the Navy Memorial during the inauguration and ran up black flags. And of course the famous image of the kid jumping off the flag pole over the heads of the police and into the arms of his comrades can not be topped. While I recognize the obvious distinction between corporate property destruction and attacks on living beings, what are your thoughts on the use of actual violence. In his essay “Pacifism as Pathology,” scholar/activist Ward Churchill argues that the real question for today’s revolutionaries is not WHETHER to engage in armed struggle, but WHEN to. Do you agree with this? If not, why? If you do, when do you think is the appropriate time for armed struggle? I wouldn’t put an emphasis on guns, per se. But I think people who are serious about revolutionary change need to think beyond protesting as a method of resistance. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, we don’t have the weapons or the numbers to turn to armed struggle. So I think we need to keep organizing and educating by day, building up our own autonomous structures and so forth. By night, so to speak, we should consider clandestine operations that will make it harder for capitalism to run smoothly. These can take the form of actions that don’t hurt anyone. But I also don’t think political violence should be automatically dismissed. It betrays a lot of first world privilege to assert that change can be made without any form of violent struggle. Ultimately, the desirability and feasibility of overthrowing capitalism will need to become apparent to mass numbers of people. Only when this occurs will we have a real chance at victory. How do we reach that point? The black bloc is only a small part of that equation, but I do feel that its effects, particularly over the last two years, have played an important and generally positive role. APR Home Page | Subscriptions | Back Issues | Zine Reviews | Staff | Art Ads | Links | News | Events | Search Email Us! Updated: August 14, 2002