BY DANNY FAIRFAX
GHENT — As participants in the first major "anti-globalisation" protest since the beginning of the war against Afghanistan, those who gathered in this north Belgian city on October 19 knew they had a great responsibility on their shoulders: to properly link opposition to the war to opposition to the capitalist system behind it.
With Ghent playing host to a "Eurotop" meeting of the heads of government of the 15 members of the European Union, Belgian anti-corporate activists sought to make sure that the summit would not pass without resistance. And after 18 solid hours of protests and actions under the banner of "A different Europe for a different world", which culminated in a 20,000-strong march, they succeeded.
Months of preparation for the demonstration in Ghent, which has a large student population, reached a climax in the days leading up to October 19 — with the city covered in posters advertising the protest and actions occurring almost daily.
On the day itself, actions began early. At 7am an action organised by ATTAC Flanders began outside Ghent's main train station. Opposing the government's intended privatisation of the railways and postal system, the action attracted 100 people and made a big impact on commuters coming into work.
While that was still in progress, 150 other demonstrators gathered outside the town hall in nearby Kortrijk, site of a meeting of the conservative European People's Party, to oppose Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, the centre of controversy after claiming that Western "civilisation" was superior to Islam.
By midday two more protests had started. The "Anti-capitalist Youth March" organised by Internationaal Verzet (International Resistance) attracted 2,000 university and high school students from around Belgium.
At the same time the "Pink & Green" march, comprising mainly anarchists, gathered. Because the march was not officially sanctioned, the 500 protesters were subjected to an enormous police presence.
Along with the presence of armoured trucks with gun turrets, cops in full riot gear stood behind quickly-assembled razor wire barricades to make sure the march did not attempt to enter the "orange zone", a softer version of Genoa's and Gothenburg's forbidden "red zones".
The only friction came, however, when protesters offered flowers and lollipops to police officers — and some refused.
Both marches concluded at Woodrow Wilson Square in south Ghent, which was the focus point of the protest, where dozens of groups, from Marxist organisations to non-government organisations such as Oxfam, held stalls and information booths. In addition to that was a giant mural under the words "Stop militair Europa!", where people could add their own handpainted messages.
At 5.45pm the square was also the site of a six minute-long mass die-in to symbolise the deaths of Afghans during the war, as well as the 35,000 children who die worldwide each day from starvation.
As a 10,000-strong rally of unionists, emboldened to action by the recent lay-off of 11,000 workers at troubled Belgian airline Sabena, arrived in the square shortly afterwards, the main march, scheduled to begin at 7pm, began to take shape.
By that time 20,000 people were amassed in the square. The size so exceeded organisers' expectations that, when the head of the march was already half-way through the route, there were still people back in the square waiting to begin marching.
Winding its way through Ghent's medieval streets for two hours, the march passed without violent incident, underlining both the protesters' preference for politics to come to the fore rather than violence, and the folly of the mayor of Ghent, who had ordered a city holiday for the day.
After coming back to Woodrow Wilson Square the protest turned into a festival, featuring a concert by Ghent superband "Global Players", which lasted well into the night.
The protest in Ghent was the third in Belgium in the last two months, and the biggest yet. Activists in Belgium are "blessed" with a plethora of summits against which to protest, as the country is the current seat of the rotating EU presidency and the headquarters of the European Commission.
The protests against the "Eurotop" summit were also a lead-in to a yet larger protest: the EU meeting in Brussels on December 14, where the introduction of a single European currency is top of the agenda. D14 is set to be by far Europe's largest anti-capitalist protest since Genoa.