10.05.2006

Attempt to hijack Euro demo

The events that took place during Saturday's ESF demonstration deserve to be described in some detail, because the Socialist Workers Party is involved in a blatant attempt to falsify history. For some reason, the Greek Social Forum has decided not to take on the comrades publicly. That leaves the Weekly Worker to fill this important gap

At every ESF, the Saturday is marked by a big demonstration through the host city. As in previous years, the demo attracted a lot more protestors than the forum itself - about 100,000 marched through the streets of the Greek capital.

But a few hundred anarchists 'joined' the front of our demonstration halfway through the march - in order to attack the police. They threw stones and bottles, firebombed a bank and ran back amongst the European contingents to hide from the police. In effect, they used our demonstration as a shield.

Brave attempts to protect the march and 'convince' the anarchists to leave the demonstration - particularly by the contingent from the Italian union Cobas - succeeded, but only after two hours or so. Needless to say, the police had no interest in distinguishing between the idiots from the 'black bloc' and the French and Italian trade unionists at the front of the march. Teargas was fired into the crowd and a few dozen comrades had to be taken to hospital.

But this was to be expected. A very angry Greek comrade told me that the same anarchist groups try to pull similar tricks at every single demonstration that the left puts on. But the Greek comrades know how to defend their marches - from whatever quarter - and normally do so. Their stewards know which people to look out for and are able to contain them more or less effectively.

Why did this not happen this year? There seem to be two reasons. Firstly, there were just not enough comrades delegated as stewards - maybe because so many were busy with organisational tasks for the ESF itself. But this was compounded by the outrageously sectarian behaviour of the SWP's International Socialist Tendency. In effect, most of the stewards (that were available) were needed to keep the IST under control - and so were not able to defend our march against the anarchists and police.

The plan agreed by the Greek ESF organising committee, of which Genoa 2001 is a member, was that the front of the march should be made up of delegations from all over Europe - as has been the practice at every ESF. Comrade Anastasia Theodorakopoulou from Synapsismos announced this on the Friday night at the daily meeting of the unofficial ESF leadership. Neither SWP member Jonathan Neale nor the half a dozen or so members of the IST present complained about the arrangement - in fact, they did not say a single word on the matter.

However, they obviously had a different plan. On the Saturday morning, about 100 IST comrades were amongst the first contingents at the assembly point. They had decided to 'overrule' the organisers. Obviously the French contingent (representing many of the forces responsible for Chirac's latest defeat over youth employment rights) did not deserve to be at the front. Neither did representatives of Italy's militant trade unions. Who better to lead a 100,000-strong demonstration of some of the most organised and combative working class organisations in Europe than the Greek SWP's small anti-capitalist front, Genoa 2001?

No, the majority of the Greek ESF organising committee was not impressed either. Members of the Greek Social Forum (of which the SWP's Greek section, SEK, is not a member) warned the IST that the front was reserved for the international delegations - as they knew very well.

But under the watchful eyes of SWP tops Alex Callinicos, Chris Harman and Chris Nineham, the Greek SEK organiser Maria Styllou organised her troops to carry on pushing to the front. So the comrades from the Greek Social Forum formed a blockade in front of the IST section and tried to push them back.

What then happened is truly disgusting and deserves condemnation from all democrats and socialists in Europe. SEK hack Styllou actually organised a row of young, female comrades to form the IST 'front line' - obviously believing that women would not get pushed back. But this trick did not work and there were some nasty scenes: people from both sides were hitting each other with fists, wooden sticks and anything they could find. I saw people being beaten by those who they had been sitting next to in ESF meetings for years - perhaps some were releasing pent up frustrations. And, yes, female SEK comrades got spat on and hit.

Comrades from the IST have since complained bitterly. On the ESF email discussion list, SWP full-timer Guy Taylor called the stewards a "macho, sexist, violent, self-appointed police". In reality though it was the IST, led by its secretary Callinicos, that evidently did not give a shit about the welfare of their young female comrades - otherwise they would not have sent them to front the attempt to take over the head of the demo.

The SWP has of course employed similar tactics in Britain and - I am told - other countries where it has an IST section. IST women have been used to physically attack critical voices and oppositionists - but there are always a row of men not far away ready to step in if those attacked start to defend themselves.

In 2003, CPGB comrades were physically attacked at the SWP's annual Marxism event. We had dared to hand out a leaflet criticising comments made by one of the SWP's leading comrades, Lindsey German, which betrayed a certain softness towards homophobia ("I am in favour of defending gay rights, but I am not prepared to have it as a shibboleth"). SWP members tried to rip copies of the leaflet and the Weekly Worker out of our hands and overturn our stall.

This is how we described it at the time: "The initial attack was led by women members, with a tight ring of their male comrades around them. Both of us heard warnings from the men - as we were being attacked! - along the lines of 'Don't you touch her!' So, the plan was - women attack the two men and in the course of the struggle to defend themselves the men do something against a woman that then 'justifies' the blokes wading in" (Weekly Worker July 17 2003).

Last weekend it was the IST who tried to hijack the demonstration - and good on the Greek comrades for trying to stop them. Unfortunately, they subsequently decided not to make public the IST's role in these events. To make matters worse, they allowed an IST comrade to open the Assembly of Social Movements the following morning.

It honestly beats me why the majority of the Greek organising committee thought it would be a good idea to let SEK member Petros Constantinou address the assembly. Apparently, he promised not to bring up the events of the previous day. Fat chance - and rather naive to believe that he would not use the occasion to the IST's advantage.

To wild clapping from his own comrades - and loud boos from the rest - Petros moaned that "we should respect the anti-war movement and not use violence against it" (the SEK is a member of the organising committee of the 'Stop the War' coalition). At this point, Haris Golemis from the Greek Social Forum took the microphone out of Constantinou's hands, complaining that "Petros has broken an agreement we reached with him". And yet, five minutes later he handed the microphone to yet another SEK comrade, who pretty much said the same thing - and again was cut short.

When Chris Nineham addressed the assembly as a representative of "the British anti-war movement", he was flanked by two Greek comrades, who were obviously prepared to tear the microphone out of his hand. But Chris behaved and was allowed to finish his unimpressive speech ("I come to bring you the news that Tony Blair's Labour Party has suffered a massive defeat in the local elections" - he failed to mention the small fact that the defeat was inflicted not by the left, but by the rightwing Conservative Party).

By not explaining to the 2,000 or so people present at the assembly what had actually happened at the demo, the Greek organising committee allowed the SEK and SWP to present themselves as martyrs. A comrade from the Greek Social Forum told me they had no desire to "wash our dirty linen in front of the media". But the IST rather effectively did the dirt on the rest of the Greek comrades at this particular event.

Democrats and socialists should not be afraid to publicly criticise each other - the media got wind any-way, but got a mangled and distorted view of what took place. Much better to publicly debate - and weed out - sectarian behaviour.