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A black bloc is a tactic for protests and marches, whereby individuals wear black clothing, ski masks and motorcycle helmets with padding, steel-toed boots and often carrying their own shields and truncheons.[1] The clothing is used to avoid being identified, and to theoretically, appear as one large mass, promoting solidarity, and creating a clear revolutionary presence.
The tactic was developed in the 1980s by anti-nuclear activist autonomists.[1] Black blocs gained broader media attention outside Europe during the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations, when a black bloc damaged property of GAP, Starbucks, Old Navy, and other retail locations in downtown Seattle.[1]
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Tactics
Tactics of a black bloc can include vandalism, rioting and street fighting, demonstrating without a permit, misleading the authorities, assisting in the escape of people arrested by the police, administering first aid to persons affected by tear gas in areas where protesters are barred from entering, building barricades, and attacking police.[2] Participants in such blocs often use peaceful methods of protest as well. Although black blocking is usually connected with some form of direct action, some black blocs also participate in wholly symbolic action, as well as actions that fall entirely within traditional definitions of nonviolent protest. Property destruction carried out by black blocs tends to have symbolic significance: common targets include banks, institutional buildings, outlets for multinational corporations, gasoline stations, video-surveillance cameras.
There may be several black blocs within a particular protest, with different aims and tactics.[3] As an ad hoc group, they share no universally common set of principles or beliefs[3] apart from an adherence to – usually – radical Left/autonomist values. A few radical right-wing groups, like some of the neo-Nazi Freie Kameradschaften of Germany, have adopted "black bloc" tactics too.[citation needed]
History
German origins
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This tactic was developed following increased use of police power following the 1977 Brokdorf demonstration[4][5][6] by the German police in 1980, particularly aimed at squatters and anti-nuclear activists. These were social spaces occupied by dissidents, who preferred to create their own social institutions based on communal living and alternative community centres, seeking to create non-coercive, non-hierarchical social relations, as in anarchism. Key areas for this development were Hafenstrasse, Hamburg and Kreuzberg, Berlin. In June 1980, the German Police forcefully evicted the Free Republic of Wendland, an anti-nuclear protest camp in Gorleben, Wendland. This involved the largest mobilisation of the German Police since the demise of the Third Reich in 1945. This attack on 5,000 peaceful protesters lead many former pacifists to become willing to use violent methods. By December 1980 the Berlin City Government organised an escalating cycle of mass arrests, followed by other local authorities across West Germany. The squatters resisted by opening new squats, as the old ones were evicted. Following the mass arrest of squatters in Freiburg, demonstrations were held in their support in many German cities. The day was dubbed Black friday following a demonstration in Berlin at which between 15,000 to 20,000 people took to the streets and destroyed an expensive shopping area. The tactic of wearing identical black clothes and masks meant that the autonomen were better able to resist the police and elude identification. The German media labeled them der schwarze Block ("the black block"). In the Netherlands, similar militant resistance developed, but the wearing of ski-masks was less prevalent and the phrase Black Helmet Brigade was used.
In 1986 Hamburg squatters mobilised following attacks on Hafenstrasse. A demonstration of 10,000 took to the streets surrounding at least 1,500 people in a black bloc. They carried a large banner saying "Build Revolutionary Dual Power!" At the end of the march, the black bloc then engaged in street fighting that forced the police to retreat. The next day 13 department stores in Hamburg were set alight causing nearly $10 million in damage. Later that year, following the Chernobyl disaster, militant anti-nuclear activists used the tactic, prompting the comment "In scenes resembling 'civil war' helmeted, leather-clad troops of the anarchist Autonomen armed with slingshots, Molotov cocktails and flare guns clashed brutally with the police, who employed water cannons, helicopters and CS gas (which has since been officially banned for use against civilians)."
When Ronald Reagan came to Berlin in June 1987, he was met by around 50,000 demonstrators protesting against his Cold War policies. This included a black bloc of 3,000 people. A couple of months later, police intensified their harassment of the Haffenstrasse squatters. In November 1987, the residents were joined by thousands of other Autonomen and fortified their squat, built barricades in the streets and defended themselves against the police for nearly 24 hours. After this the city authorities legalised the squatters residence.
When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met in Berlin in 1988, the autonomen hosted an international gathering of anti-capitalist activists. Numbering around 80,000, the protesters completely outnumbered the police. Officials tried to maintain control by banning all demonstrations and brutally attacking any public assembly. Nevertheless, there were riots and expensive shopping areas were destroyed.
International development
The first recorded use of the tactic in United States of America was in 1989 at a protest at the Pentagon. Other early use in the US were the Earth Day Wall Street Action in 1990 and the February 1991 protests against the invasion of Iraq during the Gulf War. These were initiated by Love and Rage, a North American revolutionary anarchist organization active in New York. Black blocs gained significant media attention when a black bloc caused damage to property of GAP, Starbucks, Old Navy, and other retail locations in downtown Seattle during the 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations[7]. They were a common feature of subsequent anti-globalization protests.[8]
Other groups that have engaged in similar forms of action include Radical Anti-Capitalist Blocs, Anti-Racist Action, and Anti-Fascist Action.
Because the black bloc tactic involves anonymity, black bloc practitioners are susceptible to being infiltrated by government provocateurs. In August 2007, Quebec police admitted that "their officers disguised themselves as demonstrators." However, they were easily recognized by the genuine protesters as cops, as they were still wearing their police-issue footwear.[9]
In the late 2000s, black blocs have also been formed by far right protesters, such as "Autonomous Nationalists" (German: "Autonome Nationalisten") at May Day riots in Hamburg in 2008[10][11] and National Anarchists protesting the 2007 APEC summit in Sydney.[12]
See also
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Black bloc |
- Anti-globalization movement
- Anti-nuclear movement in Germany
- Boston Tea Party
- Rebecca Riots
- Union flying squad
- Zengakuren
- Antifa
References
- ^ a b c Autonomia and the Origin of the Black Bloc accessed 7 November 2008
- ^ Battle of Genoaaccessed 16 November 2008
- ^ a b K, 2001, "being black block" in On Fire: the battle of Genoa and the anti-capitalist movement, p. 31, One Off Press.
- ^ http://www.topfoto.co.uk/gallery/Germany1963_1988/ppages/ppage37.html
- ^ http://www.topfoto.co.uk/gallery/Germany1963_1988/ppages/ppage39.html
- ^ http://www.topfoto.co.uk/gallery/Germany1963_1988/ppages/ppage40.html
- ^ http://www.seattleweekly.com/1999-12-22/news/delta-s-down-with-it.php
- ^ Fernandez, Luis A. (2008). Policing Dissent: Social Control and the Anti-globalization Movement. Rutgers University Press. p. 59.
- ^ Quebec police admit they went undercover at Montebello protest
- ^ http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,557204,00.html
- ^ Schwarzer Neonazi-Block alarmiert Polizei und Politik, Der Spiegel, 15 May 2008
- ^ http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v23n4/rebranding_fascism.html
Further reading
- A Communique On Tactics by the Green Mountain Anarchist Collective & Anti-Racist Action
- The Black Bloc Papers, by Xavier Massot & David Van Deusen
External links
- Zmag articles on Nonviolence, Trashing and Movement Strategy
- Infoshop: Black Blocs for Dummies
- "Blocs, Black and Otherwise" by CrimethInc.
- Bashing the Black Bloc?
News items
- "Bon Cop, Bad Cop" Torontoist.com August 22, 2007
- "Radical Youth in DC: Return of the Black Bloc" Matthew Provonsha (CounterPunch January 2007)
- BBC: Italy G8 'brutality' trial opens (October 2005)
- Gallery of Block Bloc in Germany
- You Tube video of Black Bloc at 2005 US Presidential Inauguration
- You Tube video articulating the theory that the massive scale of Black Bloc actions during the Seattle 1999 WTO protests was orchestrated by federal (or global) authorities in a premeditated attempt to justify disrupting and discrediting other protestors.
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