Carnival Against Capital

The Global Carnival Against Capital took place on Friday, 18 June 1999. It was an international day of protest timed to coincide with the 25th G8 summit in Cologne, Germany. The carnival was inspired by the 1980s Stop the City protests and the Global Street Party, which happened at the same time as the 24th G8 Summit in Birmingham, England in 1998. The rallying slogan was Our Resistance is as Transnational as Capital

Before the day

Organisation

Preparations took many months. The day became known as simply J18. In London, the open organising group met every month. The day was also discussed in the open weekly meetings of London Reclaim the Streets. There were between 10 and 100 people at these discussions. An international email discussion list was set up. Fund-raising was carried out by collecting anonymous donations and running a series of benefit gigs.

There is only so much that can be learned from how J18 was organised. J18 and the many other successful anti-capitalist events in recent history were produced by a free flowing convergence of events and political currents combined with sheer luck. [1]

Publicity

RTS flyer for J18

In London, a concerted publicity campaign was carried out, using colourful stickers and 10,000 posters. Workers were encouraged to phone in sick. An eighteen-minute promotional video was made and distributed globally. Squaring up to the Square Mile was a 32-page pamphlet produced by Reclaim the Streets and Corporate Watch which gave details of financial institutions. An A3 map of the City of London (the "Square Mile") showed where they were located. 4,000 copies were produced.

Evading Standards

A spoof version of the Evening Standard, daily London-based newspaper was produced. 30,000 copies were printed and distributed on June 17 and 18 to City workers. The cover resembled the layout of the actual newspaper and the inner pages contained agitprop and humour. The newspaper was handed out for free. The headline read 'Global Market Meltdown', followed by a spoof report of the collapse of the world's financial markets.[2][3]

The mainstream media

On January 29, 1999, the Daily Mirror ran a full page article entitled "Police spy bid to smash the anti-car protesters." Closer to the day, stories abounded in the media about possible violent scenarios.

Reaction of the City

It was clear that the City was taking things very seriously. All leave was cancelled for City of London Police officers on the day. The Corporation of London sent letters out to the Managing Director of every firm in the square mile (and many outside it) with instructions to circulate the warning of "major disruption" and the need for extra security measures to be taken on June 18 to all staff.[4]

June 18

London

In London, there was a large march planned for midday and autonomous actions in the morning. Among other actions, a Critical Mass bicycle ride brought the City of London traffic to a standstill in rush hour. The Campaign Against Arms Trade closed down a Lloyds bank with a 'die-in'.

The march

At twelve, the protesters met at Liverpool Street train station. Food Not Bombs and Veggies Catering Campaign [5] gave out free food and a samba band played. Carnival masks were distributed in four different colours and five processions set off in different directions (there were four marches planned and another occurred spontaneously).[3] The spontaneous procession erupted in anger at London Wall when a woman was hit by a reversing police van and had her leg broken.

Between two and three o'clock, the marches came together and an estimated 5,000 people converged on the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE). A fire hydrant was set off, symbolising the freeing of the Walbrook river, and the lower entrance to the LIFFE was bricked up. Banners were hung, reading Global Ecology Not Global Economy, and The Earth Is A Common Treasury For All, the latter a quote from Gerrard Winstanley of the seventeenth century Diggers movement. Graffiti messages were sprayed and CCTV cameras were disabled. Then sound systems set up and drum & bass music and punk bands played.

In the early afternoon a small group of protesters broke into the Cannon Bridge building, smashed up the reception area and tried to access the LIFFE trading floor, but were prevented by a security screen.[6]

"We'd failed in our under-ambition. Unprepared, we never imagined we could get so close to occupying a trading floor in one of the City’s major exchanges. We'd planned the wall, and built it. We'd planned to free the Walbrook, and done it. But we’d stopped short of planning a full-scale occupation" according to Wat Tyler in 2003.

The rest of the afternoon became a battle as police using horses and personal incapacitant spray containing CS gas pushed the protesters down Lower Thames Street and out of the City of London. In the aftermath, protesters gathered peacefully in Trafalgar Square.

Internet coverage and documentary

The event was covered by live streaming and internet citizen journalism, which at the time were new. In London, the day's events were transmitted live[7] by VJ Matt Black over the internet until the servers were blocked up by the sheer volume of traffic. In Australia, CAT TV and Active Sydney got a team together for all day coverage. They collected stories, photos and videos from activists and published them in a news feed. The global networking of activists, and technology created, formed the basis of the Indymedia network.[8][9]

The electronic civil disobedience group called for a virtual sit-in of the Mexican embassy in London and brought the embassy website to a standstill.

On June 23, 1999, Undercurrents, the alternative news organisation, premiered a 30-minute documentary in Oxford about the day produced from the pooled footage of a dozen video operators in London. The documentary was shown at festivals and social centres all over the UK during the following months.

Global

In Nigeria, 10,000 people took to the streets of Port Harcourt. A street was renamed in honour of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his younger brother Owens addressed the crowd.

Katherine Ainger described the global atmosphere of protest:

The June 18 events were as diverse as the groups taking part. In Barcelona "street reclaimers" invoked the slogan of the rebellious Paris students of 1968, "Sous les paves, la plage" ("Under the sidewalk, the beach") and, dressed in swimming costumes, put out towels and sun-bathed on the road, handed out French fries to commuters in their cars, and later took part in a 700-strong street party. Music and dancing also hit the streets of San Francisco with "art attackers" who, armed with giant puppets and candy, lobbied those working for multinationals that exploit sweatshop workers to take the day off work and "join the revolution." In Melbourne, Australia, Kim Beazley, leader of the opposition, received a custard pie in the face for speaking at a global trade conference sponsored by Shell, while thousands of party goers in Sydney held up traffic as a massive street festival got underway.[10]

In total there were protests in 40 countries, these included Tel Aviv, Minsk, Madrid, Valencia, Prague, Hamburg, Cologne, Milan, Rome, Siena, Florence, Ancona, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Zurich, Geneva, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Washington, New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, Boston, and Eugene, Oregon.[10]

After the day

Arrests

In the United Kingdom, James B***K (last name masked by individual) pleaded guilty in January 2004 to Section 20 Unlawful Wounding (GBH) and two violent disorder charges, plus an additional charge of skipping bail in 2000. He received a four and a half year sentence. A total of sixteen people were arrested on the day. The Metropolitan Police made a website listing 138 photographs of those wanted for further questioning. Using CCTV footage extensively, they had arrested a further 50 people one year on.

In Eugene, Oregon Rob Thaxton was sentenced to 88 months in jail after throwing a rock at a police officer while trying to avoid being arrested.

Others who had been identified at the Carnival were arrested at later events, particularly the 30 November WTO protests.

Later events

J18 was the first in the line of huge anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation protests. Since then there have been many protests, the largest being the following:

See also

References

Further reading

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