New momentum for anti-capitalism protests?

Deutsche Welle, 23 November 2013

Decentralized protests instead of large rallies - this is Blockupy's modus operandi. At a meeting in Frankfurt, the critics of capitalism are planning new demonstrations against the EU's strict austerity measures.

Measuring just under 200 meters (about 656 feet), the twin towers of the European Central Bank's (ECB) new headquarters in Frankfurt can be seen from the city limits. From these lofty heights, Europe's financial experts will watch over the EU's common currency when the building is completed a year from now.

Together with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), they will oversee the efforts of Southern Europe's crisis-battered states to stick with their austerity schemes.

And for that reason, the towers in the city's east end are also expected to become the new center of a storm of protest. The first demonstration is already scheduled for the day of the official opening, and on Sunday (24.11.2013), representatives of the Blockupy movement will plan for that event.

The alliance has influence among capitalism critics and globalization opponents who want to disrupt the work of the ECB. Earlier this year, protests in the spring saw about 10,000 demonstrators march through Frankfurt, many of them previous participants in the protest camps that sprung up around the ECB's headquarters in recent years.

Attac's Roland Süss is forging

action plans for a decentralized

protest movement

Fear of the future adds momentum

In recent months, though, the movement has grown quiet. With their meeting in Frankfurt on Sunday, the 300 participants from Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain want to give the movement new energy, to protest against Europe's fiscal policy in the wake of the debt crisis.

"We're planning decentralized days of protest across Europe," said Roland Süss of Germany's anti-globalization pressure group, Attac, in addition to the main demonstration at the ECB. As a preventative measure, the Frankfurt police have proposed to meet with the organizers and their associated groups and start a dialogue. They want to avoid scenes like those in the spring, when there were violent clashes between police and demonstrators.

In addition to Attac, various leftist groups and unemployment groups from several European countries are also part of the Blockupy movement. The more people fear for the future, the more they join the protests in Spain, Greece, Portugal or France - to Blockupy's benefit.

But the core of the protest alliance is still found in economically strong Germany, partly because the ECB is based in Frankfurt, according to Oliver Nachtwey, of the economic sociology department at the University of Trier. In addition, he said, economically strong Germany has backed strict austerity policies and made the struggling Southern European countries into victims, a move also criticized by many Germans. Southern Europe's own protest movements, such as the Indignados (the "Indignant") in Spain, have risen in response.

Upon completion in the fall of 2014, the new ECB headquarters will be the

protest movement's target of choice

Pan-European protests

Blockupy's weekend conference is an attempt to bring all these individual protest movements together and forge a common front. Nachtwey, however, does not expect an immediate success, partly due to the language barrier which has made common decisions difficult. A lack of funds is also a factor. Transporting thousands of protest participants from several European countries to a common demonstration in Frankfurt is unrealistic, he said.

"I think that the future lies in simultaneous, decentralized protests," said Nachtwey, adding that Blockupy has successfully used this strategy in the past year, organizing synchronized protests in about 70 European cities.

This increase in pan-European protests is new and remarkable, said Nachtwey. "They have reached an intimacy and synchronicity that hasn't been seen since World War II." Even more astonishing is the fact that Blockupy has achieved this without a central leadership. The principles of one or a few leaders cannot be enforced on a higher level, said Nachtwey, adding that these groups have reservations when someone tries to be the star.

Search for a common path 

Oliver Nachtwey Nachtwey:
 Movements like Blockupy are
slow but perhaps sustainable

A decentralized management makes it difficult, however, to form a sharp consensus on specific topics, and in a society heavily oriented around the media, a group like Blockupy needs someone to publically articulate its views. However, this procedure can also have its advantages, as Nachtwey brings up the leftist movements of the 1970s, where a departure from the doctrine was seen as a betrayal. Many of these groups had a falling out and ultimately disintegrated due to inner conflict.

Attac's Süss, on the other hand, sees no problem in working with radical groups such as the Interventionistischen Linken (the "interventionist left") - as long as people can agree on a lowest common denominator. And that commonality is the criticism of the capitalist system. "We will find ways to deal with each other and accept each other, in spite of our different ideas," he said.

Nachtwey sees many advantages with Blockupy's unusual method. Although Blockupy may disappear from time to time from the public consciousness, it's never gone for long. "These movements are slower, but they may also be more sustainable," he said.

Police halt Blockupy march in downtown Frankfurt

Deutsche Welle, 1 June 2013

Police have stopped many protestors from reaching the ECB, saying some participants were disturbing the peace. Thousands are occupying the Germany's financial capital, Frankfurt am Main, to protest EU austerity policies.

About 7,000 people marched toward the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) on Saturday in protest of EU austerity policies imposed on crisis-stricken member states.

Some carried signs reading "Make Love Not Money" and "Troika, IMF, get out of Greece."

Police brought part of the "Blockupy" demonstration to a crawl around midday when several hundred protesters refused to remove masks, while others began setting off fireworks.

According to a police spokesperson, authorities used pepper spray and batons to disperse the crowd and to restore order. There were reports of participants leaving the demonstration to seek medical treatment after sustaining injuries.

The police intervention was "a conscious and planned escalation," Blockupy spokesperson Frauke Distelrath told the news agency EPD.

The anti-capitalist "Blockupy" movement began on Friday morning when thousands of people attempted to prevent access to the ECB building. However, a large contingent of police forces, wearing helmets and riot gear, thwarted the effort.

Police said the protest action had been peaceful with the exception of minor clashes at security barricades.

Europe's Blockupy movement took shape after the Occupy Wall Street initiative in 2011. It has directed its protests against the perceived role of banks and governments in impoverishing many people in Europe, citing in particular cutbacks that have denied many the ability to earn a living.

Similar demonstrations were scheduled to take place across Europe later on Saturday.

kms/msh (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa, epd)

Related Article:

Europeans 'Blockupy' the ECB in Frankfurt

Europeans 'Blockupy' the ECB in Frankfurt

Deutsche Welle, 31 May 2013

Thousands have converged on Frankfurt to shut down the European Central Bank for a day. Their reasons may vary, including frustration with banks and the EU, but Europeans are uniting around the Blockupy movement.

Among the estimated 2,500 people taking part in Blockupy Frankfurt on May 31 was Elanora, who traveled there from her home in Naples, Italy. The young woman, who preferred to withhold her surname, is a member of an Italian social action group called Global Project. The group flew to Frankfurt to protest EU-wide austerity measures in front of the European Central Bank.

"You look at the statistics of unemployment and welfare in south Italy and you discover that we are poorer than the Greeks. So we're suffering under austerity very much," she told DW, explaining why she and her fellow Italians were joining the protests.

The Italians were flanked by representatives from other countries in southern Europe, all who came to voice frustration over EU economic policies, which they feel have resulted in deteriorating social conditions back home.

Where the money is

For the 42-year-old professor Nicole, currently residing in Lieges, Belgium, the trip to Germany's banking capital served as a demonstration of solidarity for friends and family back in his home country Spain. "Fifty percent of youths are unemployed there," he told DW. "People are eating trash. They're self-immolating. Last week there was a police officer who stabbed a banker."

Previously, Nicole took part in a demonstration that blocked the European Commission in Brussels. But Frankfurt, he said, was an important location. "In Brussels you have the politicians. Here is where the money is."

Participants at Blockupy Frankfurt are proud to attend the event and speak up for those who couldn't afford to travel the distance. For 25-year-old Antonia from Thessaloniki, Greece, it was important to participate on behalf of her countrymen.

"For me it's important to speak up. Being Greek, I can understand how the people of my country feel."

Blockupy, not Occupy

Founded in 2012, Germany's Blockupy is not a movement in itself but an alliance of national European movements. Its primary annual event, Blockupy Frankfurt, brings those groups together for six days. The climax includes the attempted shuttering of the ECB.

"What's unique about Blockupy is that it's not organized from anyone above - that every possible group, with different topics that are related to the crisis somehow - that they come to Frankfurt and bring those protests with them," said Ani Dießelmann, a volunteer spokesperson for Blockupy, in an interview with DW.

Anti-capitalism slogans are common. But it is not always clear what kind of
reforms the activists want

As a result of its open mandate, Blockupy suffers the same criticisms as Occupy - namely, that it lacks a unified message or clear set of policy proposals. Anti-capitalism slogans are common. But while few appear to want a return to national currencies and abolition of the euro, it is not always clear what kinds of reforms they would like to see.

Dießelmann views things differently. Though she's quick to point out that her own involvement in Germany's Interventionistische Linke ["Interventionist Left"] means that she can't always speak objectively on behalf of all groups participating in Blockupy, she does see a common theme.

"Beyond questions of 'crisis' and fiscal policy, we're asking how political power can be organized so that it can be called democratic," she said.

Mobilizing protests across Europe

Yet beyond that desire for greater democratic accountability in the European Union, Blockupy Frankfurt plays a more important role for the groups involved. With more than 30 lectures, roundtables, workshops and a handful of concerts to boot, it provides an annual exchange of pan-European grassroots political ideas and tactics, something many national groups feel has been missing.

"You can block [the ECB] for a day and you create a precedent for other groups to direct action like that," said Avout, a Dutch member of the International Socialists group who traveled to Frankfurt for the event. "On the other hand, it's also important to have communication with each other and build networks. Because the crisis is coming from Europe, we should also organize Europe-wide all and Blockupy is a very good reason to do that," he told DW.

In addition to networking, Professor Nicole views the gathering as an effective show of solidarity. "If you go to the gatherings in the camps, that's where you'll see people from Italy, Belgium, from France. Of course there are a lot of Germans. But people have come from everywhere."

He also views June 1 protests that will take place in 70 European cities, as a kind of "Thank you" from countries in Southern Europe. "People have said, 'First we're going to take on Frankfurt.' And then the Portuguese and Spanish said, 'OK, on the 1st of June, since we don't have the money to travel, let's take to the streets in our own city."