Into the West: a failed opportunity on the streets of Galway on Friday night.

galway | eu | news report

Monday January 19, 2004 15:34

by anonymista - no organisation

News Report and Opinion.

A crowd of no more than 300 gathered at the top end of Eyre Square. There was a bit of chanting, with the usual 'build up' (i.e. start a chant and then make it faster, faster). Nobody was really dicussing tactics or what was actually going to happen. Was this going to be a blockade or just a march?

So the march kicked off, walked around one and a half sides of the square, roughly 300 metres, and then came to a dead stop at the appointed police line (see the Indymedia video clip for this). I dont know who in Galway organised the route of the march but what exactly was the point of it? Marches do have a point - it would have been great to have it go down Shop Street so passers by might become interested, involved, or even just aware that something was going on.

At the police line the chanting got louder for a while, a bit of noise. Then it died off. Then people started to drift away. The crowd stayed there for around ten minutes, not doing anything. Around 20 of us decided that this was a waste of time, so we ran off around the side of the square down a laneway which led into a convent or a school of some sort. As we turned around we saw the main crowd drift slowly.. slowly.. to the right, with the cops following them across the barrier line all the way.

We then came back around to the corner of the square closest to the Great Southern hotel. It was here that some of the EU cars were coming in, we tried to block a couple of them but the cops and the mounties were actually greater in number down this road.

We then headed up towards the hill nearer the Radisson. There was a manned Garda roadblock here, but they were letting some cars and people through. A hotel manageress was there checking the names of people staying in the hotel if they wanted to get down towards the Radisson. At this stage there were only around 30 of us - some people from the Grassroots Gathering, some non-aligned anti capitalist heads, a few LASC and IPSC'ers, a couple of Green Party members, and some other people from a workers party which name I cant remember.

This was a crucial junction. If we had managed to blockade this junction successfully and then one other then the flow of ministerial traffic between the two hotels would have been disrupted. But our numbers were insufficient. In the distance we could hear the endless chanting from the main group - but despite repeated attempts by phone and by people going down personally, they didnt come up to where we were.

Eventually when the EU traffic started to come through, the Garda (including the Special Branch) pushed people back out of the way with barriers etc. There simply wasnt enough of us to hold the road (see the video footage again for this).

Two of us tried to get around towards the Radisson via the car park to our left where there were building hoardings, but the Garda grabbed them and arrested them for "traffic obstruction" (in a car park??). They were later released, without charge as far as I know.

Around half an hour later some people from "Another Europe is Possible" eventually showed up, including their leader Rory Hearne, but by this stage it was way too late, the chance was lost. Three Garda vans had driven up and emptied their contents into the area in front of us, and they now had two lines of fencing. We called it a night and went home.

This was the first time we'd ever seen the Special Branch get physically involved against demonstrators. Normally one of them will indicate to one of the Green jacketed-grunt scumbags to push us aside but this time they waded in themselves and did the dirty work. Not sure if this was because they wanted to set an example or what. Prime scumbags the lot of them, resorting to physical aggression and personal insults against women and the like. Fuck them all.

Questions and issues then. Are "Another Europe is Possible" actually going to confront the EU at all or are all their demos going to be the usual chanting etc within the allocated Garda protest pens?

Are tactics, aims, methods, and objectives going to be discussed at meetings or is it just going to be politicking?

Are we actually going to confront the EU with direct action or just a weak simulation of street opposition?

Can anyone from the Another Europe is Possible group please tell us what the EU Justice Ministers meeting protest this Friday will entail?

What is the point of having a march if it is not through public areas and only lasts 300 metres?

Personally, I think anarchists have more respect for NGO's etc that actually say they are not into street demonstrations and do work in other ways. This happened at the ISF when people from Trocaire, Comhlamh etc didnt want to get involved in street demos - which is fair enough.

But whats the point in calling a protest if its going to be ineffective in all ways?

Everyone: get your asses down to the Street Theatre on Thursday evening. Meet up at the Central Bank at 5pm.

save preference

Comments (13 of 13)

"some other people from a workers party which name I cant remember"

by .

Mon Jan 19, 2004 15:57

I think there called "workers power". Mainly a UK based group but have a couple of heads in galway. I think it was a splinter group from the UK SWP, they have an almost identical paper anyway.

Not SWPlike

by Civet Cat

Mon Jan 19, 2004 16:01

WP are Deformed Workers rather than State Capitalist. They used to be called the Irish Workers Group.

yeh

by participant

Mon Jan 19, 2004 16:43

There was what seemed a complete unwillingness to do anything by most of the protestors as far I could see.

They werren't even penned in, you could go around the pen on three different sides, but everyone seemed content to do their song and dance routine and then go home. fairly pointless to my mind. I certainly won't be coming out for any more of these protests, they're completely pointless and demoralizing.

Do it yourself

by IMC reader

Tue Jan 20, 2004 14:03

Anonimista, we must do it ourselves. You cn't expect the SWP new toy (another front is possible) to do anything meaningful (except recruiting and paper selling). We must do it ourselves. (I wasn't in Galway).

im no big fan of this

by pc

Tue Jan 20, 2004 17:02

"another europe is possible alliance"

but they never claimed that it would be a blockade... so i don't think you can criticise them for not having one of them in particular....

just need more heads like yous down. but hey we got day jobs ain't we ?

They're not deformed workers, they're degerated workers!

by Prole

Tue Jan 20, 2004 17:11

Yer Getting It Wrong

Tue Jan 20, 2004 17:26

De said: USSR was degenerate, the rest were deformed. Or maybe China was degenerate as well? Is there a Trot in the house?!

make europe impossible.......

by karen eliot - the blind authority manipulation corporation

Tue Jan 20, 2004 18:10

kareneliot at yahoo dot com

The biggest problem of the rally was communication and people not sticking to what was agreed to. yes it was easy to get to the radison and was the obvious thing that should have been done....problem is that i think most people didn't know what was going on and those that had the megaphones didn't inform people of their options but rather led them like sheep to a rather stupid position and back again. i don't think i need to mention who had the megaphones but some who weren't even from galway or had been involved in organising had them. the actual agreed plan was to have an open mic and to privilage those who don't usually get to speak at such events. strategies need to be put in place to circumvent this at future demos.

"another europe is possible" of course is just a slogan and there is no such organisation. those that organised had no name and were a mixed bag (only a handful of us as well). considering what was going down in galway (without any precise details) was only found out about just before christmas the collective did quite well, especially considering christmas is a disasterous time to organise anything. The public meeting held one week before hand went extremely well especially when a large portion of the audience took to spoke out and had really good informative stuff to say. The lantern making workshops were also excellent both for the atmosphere of the rally and for engaging people before hand.

regardless of the failures of the demo i think it was still better than no demo. it is good that eu ministers at least have some taste that they are unwelcome where ever they go and a demo can be the first step to politicising new people. also it is not good to use the term 'anarchist' as if it represents a homoginised point of view. hopefully for every two anarchists there are five or more world views.

Getting info on what is actually to be disscussed at these meetings i am led to understand can be quite difficult. orla did the most research here and if you email me i can pass on her email....

different day, same shit

by Gaillimhed

Tue Jan 20, 2004 18:28

Every time; the same tired whinging -
listen to yourselves, every time theres an "action' or more commonly the lack of it we get all these clever anarchist types complaining that the thing was disorganised, lacked strategy or direction, lack of leadership, no-one knew what was going on or where to go, lack of communication, blah blah blah, yet every time ye refuse to actually organise and coordinate on the basis of youe anarchistic fuckin grassroots idealogy.....BLaaaah
If you Organise it, It will be Organised, If you tell people where to go and what to do, they will know where to go and what to do, if you elect a leader then you will have leadership, 'getting the picture.
And Im sorry if this isnt any more helpful than the usual whingeing but I am so exasperated at reading the same Bollox after every one of these things.
People came out, thats a success in itself.

gaillimhed:

by hooded idiot

Tue Jan 20, 2004 21:23

1. Some of the people "whinging" were involved in organising for the demo, karen eliot did a lot of work for it

2. I'm presuming anonymista is one of the dublin crew who came down. Do you expect them to organise Galway demos for us?

3. I don't think us anarchists will be electing leaders anytime soon. We're not complaining about lack of leadership, in fact one of the problems with the demo was that the self-appointed leaders were not passing information on to the crowd

Live and learn

by bluehanded

Thu Jan 22, 2004 12:44

I would like to support what Karen Eliot has described about the situation, this event was a first off for Galway, and a first time for everyone organizing, it was terrific that any attempt was made to organize at all given the timing and the pressure.

One of the tactics of security for these meetings is to continuely misinform the public about the movements of ministers, so that eventually every detail becomes suspect. Do not buy this, it is important to be flexible, but don't quibble, what they've got written down on their 'tour guide' is the plan they will follow, as was proved by the audacity of the walking tour in Galway on Saturday morning.

Right now I think everyone who is interested in taking direct action needs to be clear and make the commitment to becoming part of the organization of any given event in an open and non sectarian way...so what if the cops find out, they're prepared for it any way,!!!! (the police presence in Galway was unprecendented, the riot cops showed up for the little break away gathering at the raddisson).

yep they might try and arrest you before the event...just let them try mate, so what...more press for us... lets see what they can make up...

stop being afraid, paranoid and reluctant to organise with other groups and individuals outside your own group, and pretending like you really can gauge public opinion.

Being afraid is exactly what they want.

Please, please no more covert phone calls, no more uninformed affinity groups who will not bother to discuss tactics with other groups, 'no more lets just wait til the day', take an active interest, help those with less experience, help empower everyone to the role of organizer/ decision maker by using your experience as a platform

As was discussed our intaiatives of resistance during the EU presidency should have been coordinated months ago, so we're really just starting now, lets not give up, or shut off...lets get better prepared and help as many people as we can to be better informed, and prepared. Without your commitment to this nothing will be effective.

Bored with this shite

by Bored - Does it matter what you say

Tue Jan 27, 2004 13:48

Well Mr. "anonymista - no organisation" . You soundd like you have 'no clue' as well as no organisation! What were you planning to do dickhead - if you managed to get by all those cops, hoorses vans dogs etc.- What could you ahve done whcih would have had any effect on the state of the world today. You don't seemed to know much about what went on in Galway that night and your best is to slag off the alliance that has fomed around the country and has brought together lots of community activists. i saw there poster in dublin last week and went to their public meeting- over 120 people at it- this is getting this moving to really challange things in this country- not a bunch of sado bastards with bakc hoodies and scarfs over their faces- they should get a life- pseudo revolutionary bullshit- they'd shite themselves if someone stuck a gun in their face. Wake up you arsehole and grow up- get out- speak to working class people and stop thinking that you are going to change the world dressing up in some clown like uniform in black-making gestures at coppers. Be constrcutive help local communities fight back in a real way.

Simple Really

by Maratist

Sun Feb 01, 2004 16:58

- if you managed to get by all those cops, hoorses vans dogs etc.-

- was very very very easy to do - you just walked up a wee alley from Eyre Square and hey presto you were in Forster Court and all of 30 seconds walk from the entrance to the Raddission

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Into the West: a failed opportunity on the streets of Galway on Friday night.

Comments (13 of 13)