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FREE RADICAL: chronicle of the new unrest

by L.A. KAUFFMAN

http://www.free-radical.org

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THE DC MASQUERADE . . . #18 (Sept. 2001)

 

I've been going to protests for twenty years,

since I was radicalized as a teenager during the

first year of Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Big ones, little ones, effective and futile ones,

ranging in character from silent vigils to full-scale

riots, on every issue you can imagine: abortion

rights, U.S. military intervention abroad, apartheid,

nuclear weapons, racial justice, AIDS, home-

lessness, gay and lesbian liberation, environ-

mental devastation, and many more.

 

But until the Seattle WTO protests in November

1999, I had never - not once - encountered

tear gas, pepper spray, or rubber bullets at a

demonstration. Not when black-clad anarchists

smashed windows and set a police car on fire

during a San Francisco march against the 1991

Gulf War. Not when infuriated New Yorkers

threw rocks at storefronts and flipped

automobiles upside down after the cops who

beat Rodney King were acquitted in 1993.

Not at dozens of actions where people blocked

traffic, or besieged government offices, or took

to the streets without legal permits. And never,

certainly, when people simply gathered in public

to express dissenting views.

 

Now I wouldn't dream of going to a major

demonstration without a gas mask. Looking

toward this fall's protests against first the

International Monetary Fund and World Bank

(Washington, D.C, September 29-30) and

later the World Trade Organization (New York

and San Francisco, November 9-13), I've

been pricing out shatterproof prescription

goggles. I don't want to give in to a

police-induced climate of fear, but I've also

been pondering - in light of the head injuries

folks have suffered from tear-gas canisters

and rubber bullets at globalization protests

of late - whether getting some kind of helmet

might be a good idea.

 

At the extreme, there are even people who

are acquiring flak jackets now, after a summer

in which live ammunition was repeatedly used

at anti-capitalist protests outside the United

States. The shootings in Europe - first in

Sweden and then in Genoa, Italy - received

all the publicity. But Carlo Giuliani was far

from the only young person killed while

demonstrating for global justice in the last few

months; people in the Global South, who bear

the brunt of exploitative trade and lending

policies, also take the greatest risks in

speaking out against them. Add to the global

movement's grim roster at least six deaths

this summer at anti-IMF protests alone:

Steven Kil, Peter Noki, Thomas Moruwo,

and Mathew Paven in Papua New Guinea;

Carlos Santillán and Oscar Barrios in Argentina.

 

Here in the privileged core of global empire,

the dilemma of this moment in time is this:

Attend a large-scale protest without any

protective gear (as people in this country

have done, unthinkingly, for decades), and

you run a large risk of being poisoned with

toxic gas, and a small but real risk of being

injured by a police projectile. Outfit yourself

with a gas mask or helmet, however, and

you suddenly acquire an appearance of

paramilitary menace, altogether too much

like the thuggish police.

 

Violent repression succeeds when it frightens

people out of attending protests. But it

succeeds, too, when it hardens a movement

and makes it off-putting.

 

After the Quebec City protests against the

Free Trade Area of the Americas, where

Canadian police barraged the crowd with

5000 canisters of tear gas, a few of us in

New York got to talking. We were alarmed

by how inadequately people were prepared

for heavy gas exposure, which can have very

serious long-term health effects. Vinegar-

soaked bandannas (the standard activist

protection) make it possible to endure a

tear-gas attack, at least for a while, but they

don't filter out the poisons, known to cause

ongoing eye and respiratory problems,

menstrual irregularities, lingering fatigue and

more. So while it was admirable that so

many people refused to back down in the

face of police bombardment, it meant that

thousands may have suffered enduring

physical consequences for publicly voicing

their outrage at the human and environmental

devastation that drives the global economy.

 

My friends and I were bothered by something

else, too: the way that the police repression

was successfully undermining the visual

diversity and exuberance of globalization

protests. We weren't talking tactics. It's one

thing to take militant actions, and quite another

to be dreary and menacing in the process.

With a hard-edged, street-tough atmosphere

beginning to dominate the front lines, we felt

that some attention to aesthetics was in order.

In the fight against the most powerful forces

on the planet, our movements can't afford

to surrender some of their most powerful

weapons: wit, theater, ridicule, flamboyance,

imagination.

 

We had a brainstorm: We decided to

distribute hundreds of free gas masks to

folks who lack protection at the World

Bank/IMF protests in D.C. But first we'd

paint them in bold colors, like magenta, blue,

and bright green; cover them with rhinestones,

sequins, and glitter; transform them into

marvelous emblems of the creative defiance

at the core of the global justice fight.

 

We named ourselves the Masquerade Project

(http://www.masqueradeproject.org), and we

drafted a manifesto. " We want to make sure

that our sisters and brothers have the

protection they need - and we also think

it's time for an aesthetic intervention on the

front lines of the movement for global justice, "

we wrote. " Black may be timelessly chic.

But we long for more color, more élan.

We believe our movements should reflect

the world we want to create. And for us,

that's a world with loads of color, sparkle,

variety, and individual creativity. "

 

So in a departure from FREE RADICAL's

usual essayistic style, I'm putting out a direct

appeal:

 

If you are going to D.C. - even if you're

planning to be far from the front lines -

please come prepared with a gas mask or

paint respirator. Check out our website

(http://www.masqueradeproject.org) for

advice on what to buy and where to buy it,

including links to online sources of $5 gas

masks. You'll also find the lowdown on what

paints and other supplies work best for

decorating, and many images of artfully

transformed masks.

 

If you're not going to D.C., please help

protect the folks there by donating to

The Masquerade Project, so we can

purchase, decorate, and distribute as many

gas masks as possible. Every $5 you give

will shield one person's eyes, lungs, and skin

from the damaging effects of chemical

weapons. You can donate by credit card

at http://www.masqueradeproject.org, or

mail checks and money orders to

The Masquerade Project, P.O. Box 648,

New York, NY 10009.

 

Of course, it's possible that the D.C.

police won't use tear gas against the

IMF/World Bank demonstrations - but

given that they've been encouraging journalists

from the corporate press to acquire gas masks

and flak jackets, we need to be prepared.

 

* * *

If you're in the New York City area, come

to The Masquerade Project's big gas-mask-

decorating party! Saturday, September 22,

from 3-7PM, at CHARAS/El Bohio

Community Center, 605 East 9th Street

(between Avenues B & C). Suggested

donation: $5-20 sliding scale, but no one will

be turned away. Bring anything groovy and

non-porous that can be glued to a gas mask;

we'll provide the masks and other decorating

supplies. The party will coincide with a

day-long teach-in, also at CHARAS,

organized by the New York City Direct

Action Network.

 

* * *

For more information on the late September

IMF/World Bank protests in D.C., check

out http://www.abolishthebank.org and

http://www.globalizethis.org.

 

For information on the November protests

in New York against the World Trade

Organization, keep an eye on http://www.noWTO.org,

the just-launched web site of No More Walls:

Global Solidarity Against the WTO.

 

* * *

FREE RADICAL: chronicle of the new unrest

is a column on the current upsurge in activism,

written by L.A. Kauffman (lak).

It appears about once a month.

 

Back issues can be found at www.free-radical.org

 

To , send a blank email to:

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This article is archived at

www.free-radical.org/issue18.shtml

 

****

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

L.A. Kauffman (lak) is perhaps

the first person in U.S. history to be arrested

for allegedly committing a crime by fax machine.

(The Manhattan D.A. declined to prosecute.)

She is currently writing DIRECT ACTION:

THE ROOTS OF THE NEW UNREST,

a history of U.S. activism since 1970.

 

A longtime radical journalist and activist,

she was a principal organizer of the direct-action

campaign that saved 115 New York City

community gardens from development in 1999.

 

Kauffman is a frequent speaker on protest

movements past and present, and her writing

has appeared in the Village Voice, The Nation,

The Progressive, Spin, Mother Jones,

Salon.com, and numerous other publications.

 

****

All contents Copyright 2001 by L.A. Kauffman

 

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