The following statement was issued on November 25 by the socialist youth organisation Resistance.
On November 18, around 3000 people marched through the streets of Melbourne to protest the meeting of the G20. The rally was organised by the Stop G20 Collective and the Stop the War Coalition.
Resistance participated both in organising and publicising the protest, which was directed at some of the world's biggest war criminals, in particular World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz; British treasurer Gordon Brown and Australian treasurer Peter Costello — all key figures in the "coalition of the killing", and directly responsible for the deaths of more than 650,000 people in Iraq alone.
Their discussions, carried out behind closed doors, were aimed at enforcing pro-corporate policies that have been responsible for the starvation and impoverishment of millions around the world and the increasing endangerment of humanity as a whole through policies that perpetuate environmental destruction.
The size and mood of the protest rally was testament to the growing opposition to the policies of the rich nations in the G20. This was despite the corporate media beat-up in the week leading up to the protest about the likelihood of violence.
Rather than covering the 3000-strong G20 protest, the corporate media preferred to focus on a small group — called the Arterial Bloc — and the so-called riots it initiated that, at most, amounted to a few broken windows.
The corporate media hypocrisy is clear — focus on the small amount of damage to private property and ignore the policies of death beginning discussed behind closed doors.
The reason why is also clear — since the Seattle protests in 1999, which prevented the World Trade Organisation from reaching agreement on a new set of trade rules to impoverish the Third World, the global justice movement has grown. The S11 blockade of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Melbourne in 2000 and the M1 blockades of stock exchanges in 2001 spurred on this movement in Australia, helping to discredit these capitalist institutions and their "solutions" to global poverty.
Resistance rejects the corporate media's and government's arguments against the "riots". The brutal attacks by the police against peaceful protesters on the night of November 18, and on the following day outside the Museum, demonstrate on which side the real violence lies.
The civil liberties of all those arrested must be supported. Particularly worrying is the case of Akim Sari, who has been denied bail until a court hearing next February. This sets a very dangerous precedent.
But this shouldn't stop the movement from having an honest discussion about tactics. Having played a part in initiating and organising the G20 protest, we do not think the Arterial Bloc played a constructive role.
Covering their faces, acting in an undemocratic manner and isolating themselves from the majority of the protesters, the Arterial Bloc's decision to skirmish with the police played into the hands of the right-wing media and G20 spokespersons, such as Costello.
Resistance is not opposed to civil disobedience. We,
along with many others, helped make the S11 blockade of the WEF the success that it was. We also played a role in initiating and organising the 2001 M1 protests. But civil disobedience is only a tactic, and its usefulness, or otherwise, has to be judged on whether or not it helps or hinders building the movement. That is the reason why we criticise the actions of the Arterial Bloc.
Because if we're serious about building a movement to overthrow the system that G20 wants to prop up — capitalism — we have to win the working-class majority to our side, and we're still a long way from that.
We have no control over the corporate media, but we are not so naive as to not take into account that the coverage will have an impact on working people, and whether they will be prepared to join us at the next protest or not. We know that the corporate media will always seek to marginalise us, and that scuffles with the police will take priority in their reporting over a peaceful protest by working people against the corporate rich.
Similarly, the government will use such actions to push through more draconian state terror laws.
The global justice movement is naturally going to be diverse; but the movement also has to take some responsibility for its actions and work out what helps its growth and what doesn't. The debate over tactics is useful as long as it stays concrete, and lessons can be learnt from G20 that can be carried into the discussion that has already started about the Stop Bush protest at the APEC summit in Sydney next year.