Just a short reminder. What happened in Gothenburg in the early days of June 2001 was exactly the same thing that happened in Genua in July the same summer. One small, but significant difference: Hannes Westberg survived the shots from the Swedish police when Carlo Giuliani died from the shots of the Italian Carabineri.
The violence from the state, Sweden and Italy, marked a significant breach from the previous years. With Minervas owl at our side we now know that it was a glimpse of the future, not an echo from the past. The coming years for the global justice movement forced us into a peace movement. As you all know the reason was the atrocities of 9/11 and the war on terror that quickly followed. A quite successful peace movement, with the demonstrations in Firenze in connection to the European social forum 2002 as an important starting point. A couple of months later we met on the streets on the 15:th of February 2013. Together we where the largest simultaneous political manifestation the world has ever seen. Quite an achievement, movement wise. But also… Does anyone of you remember what we said in the global statement? That the war on terror can’t be won with just military strength. That a war in Iraq, without a plan for the coming peace could create monsters.
But that that’s not the main thing in this conversation. The important thing is that it forced us into a defensive fight for human rights. In the words of the famous, nowdays frequently used, sign in US demonstrations: “I can’t believe we still have to protest this crap”. We went from an offensive movement globalization movement to a defensive peace movement. From a yes to a no. And to be honest, it is more fun to say yes than no.
We lost the momentum. Our offensive fight for more democracy became a defensive battle to protect the human rights, private integrity and (at least in northern Europe) the remains of the welfare state.
We danced to Manu Chao and sang “Un otro mundo es possible”, Another world is possible. Paolo Freire and his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed was more important than Karl Marx “Das capital”. The ideology was not entirely red, more a red/green/pink hybrid. We had one common enemy: the ideology of Neoliberalism. In north and south, east and west it affected us all. Before coming to Conversano I read the texts and manifestos from Porto Alegre, Genua and Gothenburg. What strikes me today is the optimism and, to be honest, the naivety of the texts. Since then something is lost.
And, yes, it confused the old left. Many, many of the old left considered us to be naïve hippies. Maybe they where right, but in most of Europe the traditional left wiped itself out. Hierarchy failed, structurelessness failed. Or as debate named it then: Both the horizontals and verticals failed.
What is lost?
I would say a couple of things:
- Utopia, not Retropia
Another World is possible is a brilliant slogan. It aims at the future, at a distant utopia. Compared to, in the words of the late Zygmund Bauman, Retropia. That idea aims at a distant past. It contains the idea that the 50,’s, 60’s and 70’ was actually the peak of human existence. To make it short: it was not.
- The cosmopolitanism. In the recent years the idea that we, in some strange way, can capsule us into the old nation states. Globalisation is as true now as it was then. Both the good and the bad.
- “We” lost the net. The era of our movement was the era of the e- mails and passive webpages. The right has been far more successful in the era of social media.
- The interconnectivity. That we all, in one way or another belongs together. That our different everyday struggles have a common root. And a common enemy. Sometimes it feels that the remains of the movement are nowadays atomised individuals fighting a defensive fight for decency. Each one in front of their own screen.
- The European movement had a vision on Europe. A social Europe with very wide borders that doesn’t stops at he Mediterranean or the Ural.
The text is my script to my talk at the Lector in Fabula- festival in Conversano (Puglia, Italy) 15/9 2017.
MOVIMENTI E PARTECIPAZIONE Tra il ‘99 e il 2001 un movimento transversale e transnazionale avrebbe potuto portare una vera e propria rivoluzione pacifca. Ma il Global Social Forum finì per perdere la sua carica ed energia positiva: Seattle, Davos, Napoli, Göteborg sono stati i passaggi fondamentali per arrivare fino alla “scena del delitto” del G8 di Genova. Rivivere quei momenti è importante per comprendere dove si è persa quella rivo luzione nel momento in cui, a distanza di 16 anni, si avverte invece l’esigenza di tro vare risposte alla crisi della politica e delle democrazie.
Con Marica Di Pierri, Monica Lanfranco e Olav Unsgaard Fumarola
Presenta Michael Braun
Democrazia in crisi e rivoluzioni mancate è Lector in Fabula
Monica Lanfranco, Olav Unsgaard Fumarola e Marica Di Pierri su ”Movimenti e Partecipazione”
Länk:
MOVIMENTI E PARTECIPAZIONE Tra il ‘99 e il 2001 un movimento tra- sversale e transnazionale avrebbe potu- to portare una vera e propria rivoluzione paci ca. Ma il Global Social Forum nì per perdere la sua carica ed energia positiva: Seattle, Davos, Napoli, Göteborg sono stati i passaggi fondamentali per arrivare no alla “scena del delitto” del G8 di Genova. Rivivere quei momenti è importante per comprendere dove si è persa quella rivo- luzione nel momento in cui, a distanza di 16 anni, si avverte invece l’esigenza di tro- vare risposte alla crisi della politica e delle democrazie. con Marica Di Pierri, Monica Lanfranco e Olav Unsgaard Fumarola presenta Michael Braun