BY SEAN HEALY
MELBOURNE — At the end, those blockading the World Economic Forum were exhausted and euphoric, in equal measure, but with only a taste for the magnitude of what they'd achieved. At S11, the veil which separates the people from the sense of their own power was torn down; it may get nailed back up again, but it won't ever be the impenetrable wall it appeared to be before.
It wasn't easy. It was a struggle. The movement could quite easily have failed. But it didn't — it triumphed.
Everything was thrown at the protesters. Politicians, both Labor and Liberal, accused them of being "fascists" who opposed free speech. Business analysts said they were working against the world's poor, by denying them the bounties of free trade. Newspaper editors condemned them as a "violent mob", even when their own pictures proved the opposite.
Constant attempts were made to split one section from another.
When words failed to stop the protesters, hundreds of riot police baton-charged them with a viciousness with few parallels in modern Australian history. More than 50 protesters were hospitalised.
But the protesters would not intimidated. Each time the protesters were baton-charged, they came back, not with violence of their own but with a new affirmation that the slogan is true: the people united will never be defeated.
Day One
It looked like it would turn out very differently at 6.45am on Monday morning, September 11. It was still very dark and very cold when the torrential downpour began, soaking everyone to the bone and forcing them to find cover anywhere they could, under banners, under the stage, under the nearby bridge across the Yarra.
The next hour was pure chaos. Attempts by the S11 Alliance's marshals to get the blockades organised and coordinated were being undone by the weather, a waterlogged PA system which prevented the stage from getting up and running until 11am, protesters' lack of familiarity with the venue and ultraleft groups on megaphones trying to direct everyone every which way.
By 8am, however, the blockades were established and solid. The Green Bloc of Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups had sealed off the car park entrances on Whiteman Street, and S11 Alliance marshals were getting people to link arms and settle in at more than a dozen blockade points.
The early birds were reinforced by a constant stream of reinforcements and, at noon, by a march of 500 high school students who'd walked out of class.
The numbers, which had swelled to 15-20,000 by lunchtime, put police on the back foot. Stunned by the turnout, they stayed within their concrete and wire barricades, with worried looks on their faces.
The only major police operations on the first day were a brief push through a blockade of hundreds on Clarendon Street, from which they were soon forced to withdraw, and a mission to rescue WA Premier Richard Court, who had driven his car straight into a blockade line on Clarendon Street and was stuck inside for an hour.
By midday, Community Radio 3CR was able to report that no member of staff had been able to get into the complex since 7.45am and that at least a third of WEF delegates had also been prevented from entering. Victorian Liberal leader Denis Napthine admitted to delegates that the "protesters have unfortunately won the first round".
The atmosphere for the rest of the day was determined and militant, but it also hummed with enthusiasm. The blockade lines became a "festival of the oppressed", with speeches and songs, drummers and dancing, rap artists, impromptu raves, giant puppets, people decked out as the "World Economic Fairies" or as "Clowns Against Capitalism".
At the end of the day, S11 Alliance spokespeople were able to claim victory.
"These people have made history here today", said one spokesperson, Jorge Jorquera. "They've cut through the tissue of lies that this protest was going to become a riot. They've been totally committed to non-violent blockading but also just as committed to doing it properly, in an organised and effective fashion. They've been diverse and united and strong."
"As for the World Economic Forum", he added, "well, its credibility has been shot to pieces by today's massive mobilisation. Now, it has no credibility; the people have spoken."
Day Two
Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Leigh Hubbard revealed at a media conference on September 14 that, during the evening of September 11, WEF conference organisers threatened to "pack up and go home" if police could not get more delegates in the next day.
Humiliated by the protesters, bolstered by orders from Labor Premier Steve Bracks and incited by media hysteria about protester "violence" which never occurred, hundreds of riot police attacked the blockade lines the following morning, in an attempt to regain the initiative.
With batons drawn, police set upon a seated blockade line on Queensbridge and Power streets, trampling, beating and kicking them before police on horses were unleashed on the crowd. The blockade lines were cleared, allowing delegates' buses into the complex. Twelve protesters were hospitalised.
Police kept the initiative for only a few hours before protesters wrested it back. Weeks of tortuous negotiations between the S11 Alliance and Trades Hall had led to a final agreement that, while Trades Hall would not back the blockade itself, the mass union rally for labour rights, scheduled for Tuesday, would at least march to the blockade site at Crown Towers.
Up to 20,000 unionists filled the city streets with sound, colour and people, chanting "Stop global sweatshops" and "The workers united will never be defeated", before filling not only Queensbridge Road but also most of the nearby bridge across the Yarra River.
Hubbard held to the position that the Labour Council would support only the protests and not the blockade. But many more militant unionists ignored Trades Hall's injunction, and several thousand marched around the casino before joining the blockaders at different entrances. Many were members of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, whose militant Victorian leaders had backed the blockade all along.
The most brutal incident of police violence occurred that night, when delegates' buses sought to leave. Five hundred riot police set upon a blockade line of 200, viciously clubbing not only protesters but even establishment journalists. This time, 30 protesters were hospitalised and treated for head and neck injuries.
This is the incident which will most come back to haunt police. A spokesperson for the legal observers' team at the protests, Damien Lawson, said police created a "potentially lethal situation", while prominent lawyers and civil libertarians have not only called for a full ombudsman's inquiry but are also planning civil action.
Day Three
The third day of blockading followed a similar pattern. Hundreds of riot police attacked an understaffed blockade line in the early morning to get delegates' buses in, hospitalising at least one demonstrator, then were forced to retreat back inside their barricades by the force of protesters' numbers.
The blockaders' piece de resistance came at noon: a joyful "victory march" through the city streets. An estimated 10,000 marchers made their way through the city, stopping at Nike's superstore and then at the Australian Stock Exchange before looping back to the blockade site.
The streets rang with cries of "Whose streets? Our streets!" and "This is what democracy looks like". The air was full of red and black flags and thousands of mainly hand-drawn placards.
On returning to Crown Towers, protesters linked hands in a spectacular human chain which reached all the way around the casino.
The three-day blockade then finished as it began: with people standing together against police violence. At 5.45pm, as people were dispersing to post-blockade celebrations, an unmarked police car drove straight through a blockade line, running over one woman, before speeding off.
New movement
In the words of S11 Alliance spokesperson Anne O'Casey, at the alliance's final media conference on September 13, "We can say, without any doubts, that this action, these three days of protest, have been an unqualified success".
The success belongs first and foremost to the estimated 50,000 people who took part in the three wild, joyous and chaotic days of protest. Under extreme provocation from police, they maintained their commitment to a mass, non-violent blockade, they kept their unity and never backed off.
But S11 also took months of organising and conferencing, of honing the message and getting it out, of painstaking alliance-building and sometimes sharp argument.
Its success belongs most of all to the alliance of forces which kept S11 together — environmentalists like those in Friends of the Earth, socialists like those in the Democratic Socialist Party, militant unionists like those in the AMWU and many other committed activists of different political complexions, whether anarchist or feminist or independent. Without them, it would have failed.
The S11 Alliance was not able to achieve its stated goal: to shut down the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit of the World Economic Forum.
The alliance did, however, deliver on its promise: that the blockade of the Crown Towers conference site would be massive, peaceful, disciplined, militant and joyful.
More importantly, the protesters won the political battle, for legitimacy.
The World Economic Forum, aided by a compliant and servile mainstream media, had pumped out the message that its mission was to improve the state of the world, by "bringing the fruits of globalisation to the people".
By the end of the three days, such claims looked like exactly what they were: the pathetic PR attempts of a tiny, well-fed corporate elite, who needed the full brute force of the Victoria Police just so it could meet.
Holed up inside the casino complex or stuck in buses for hours trying to get in, not able to get out except by boat, helicopter or baton charge, the assembled CEOs seemed glum, confused and somewhat fearful whenever caught on camera. Accustomed to toadies who wait on every word, they didn't appreciate a confrontation with people who just didn't believe them.
The corporate executives had been dragged out into the sunlight and didn't like it. The new movement, however, revelled in it.
Melbourne has now added its name to the growing list of insurgent cities: Seattle, Washington, Quito, Jakarta. Another city, Prague, will join within weeks, when it rises up against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
This rising global movement has blown its trumpets once again. It has declared war not on a particular injustice, but on a world of them. It has named its enemy: capitalism. And out of its first major battle in this country, it has emerged victorious.