Genoa-"We are 6 million, they are 8."
by Dave Zirin

September 2001
Volume 38, No. 7

I went to Genoa in late July to interview George W. Bush on his feelings about global trade. Unfortunately the anti-air craft missiles outside his hotel, as well as 20,000 police officers armed to the teeth, made access somewhat difficult.

Here is the story then from the other side of the barricades

Prologue: As I enter Genoa, a city of mountains on the sea, underwear hangs from countless windows. This, believe it or not, is the first signof the resistance. Right Wing Billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi decreed that no underwear should hang outside so that other world leaders wouldn't view Italy as a "backwater." Defiant boxer shorts and bras now hang from almost every window. Many have a W or USA written right on the bottom.

DAY 1

As military helicopters fly overhead and barricades cut the city in pieces, a city that has held an eerie calm was punctured by a march of 50,000 people from Europe and beyond in the name of immigrant rights. More than a march, it is a festival of resistance.

Every contingent chants in a different language. Marching bands play "Hey big spender." A Swedish group is actually clapping and singing the Southern African American spiritual "This little light of mine." The feeling of solidarity and unity is overwhelming. Rosalie, an African-Italian trade unionist says, "I am here as an immigrant but we have the right to cross borders however we please, just like their money."

A small group from Eritrea and Ethiopia march arm in arm. "Why should these eight people make decisions for the rest of the world? Why did they have to close the city? They try to divide us like they divide the city!" They walk away chanting the days' slogan- "We are all illegals."

This anger, not just about the issues of the summit, but about what the summit has done to city of Genoa, is ever present-as seen by the number of Genovese in the streets and waving from their windows. Pietro, a lifelong citizen, was so angry at the Berlusconi government that he grabbed a framed picture of former Socialist President and anti-Mussolini hero Silvio Pertini. He says, "Pertini fought the fascists and wrote the constitution. Now we have to do both again." Antonella, a local teacher, says, "I was in Bosnia with my church during the war. In Bosnia it was surely more dangerous but here I feel like I am in a cage."

As the demonstration ends, people are already talking about possible violence over the weekend. The news says, "Today was a festival, will tomorrow be a war?"

DAY 2

I'm sitting in Carlini stadium at 9:30 am, one gathering place for the Friday direct actions to penetrate the heavily guarded red zone which surrounds the G8 Meetings. Carlini is filled with very young, very confident people. Tutte Bianchi and others are on the stadium floor making shields ten feet high and wide. Many are wearing helmets and shoulder pads. Any "weapons" I see are defensive. I ask one Tutti Bianchi what he thinks will happen today. He says, "[Police repression] in Gothenberg has clearly backfired. People are more together and the numbers are greater. My prediction is that nothing will be the same after Genoa."

Twenty to thirty thousand of us march arm in arm, toward the red zone with Tutte Bianchi in the lead. As we sing and chant we see huge plumes of smoke rise in the distance. We are told that street fighting with police has been widespread since the early morning. The smoke to our sides is from burning cars. The thick smoke directly in front of us is the gas. Masks and bandannas are immediately distributed. At one point a demonstrator tried to break a store window. This was the only store on the direct action march route that had stayed open that day. Its elderly owner had been standing outside the shop watching us with a smile. After the young demonstrator tried to break the window with his fist, he picked up a rock. Then about 12 demonstrators formed a chain to protect the store and physically pushed the young man away. One veteran Italian leftists remarked to me, "That's how our movement should settle its questions internally."

All kinds of rumors are spreading about the fighting in front of us-impossible to see because of the narrow streets and the gas. A member of our contingent runs forward 150 yards to bring back news. This is what he said, "The front attempted to penetrate the red zone and all hell broke loose. There was both hand to hand combat where the police were beating people down with batons. One guy in particular, they tried to break his leg against the bone. He wrestled free and seven cops descended upon him. The police seemed quite reckless. They laid into people and found a resistance that I don't think they expected. People fought back hard, so very hard."

At 5:30 as we march back, the chant "Assassini" all of a sudden rises up like a wave from the front to back. We hear a young man was killed, perhaps 150 yards in front of us, by police. We know no details at this point but people are shaking and unsure what this will mean for the permitted mass demonstration tomorrow.

DAY 3

The news is now clear, the Reuters picture is all over the world, 23 year-old Carlo Guiliani from Rome was shot twice and run over by a military van. Berlusconi's newspaper's headline is "in self-defense" but every other Italian paper shows frame by frame how an officer in a police car surrounded by street fighters executed this young man.

He becomes the first person to be killed at an Italian demonstration in 24 years. How this will effect today's march is unclear.

If the first day of protest was striking by its absence of police, today is like a war zone. On a hill overlooking us as we gathered for the legal demonstration are about 15 police officers in a military formation. Some are in a sniper's pose. We break into a chant of "assassini" and point at them. One of them fires a tear gas canister about ten feet over our heads. It is an early notice that anyone who thought the police would be restrained after yesterday were dead wrong.

It is immediately clear that we are far greater than the 120, 000 hoped for by the march organizers. Later estimates will show that the march's numbers were more than 300,000.

Yesterday's killing is on everyone's mind. "Berlusconi Assassino" is the loudest chant of the day. People are confident that the police wouldn't dare attack such a large contingent. One person says "What happened yesterday shows how frayed they are and the march today is our answer!"

We hear that the unions that were supposed to make up the bulk of this march didn't show. The tens-if not hundreds-of thousands of unexpected marchers are largely young people from Italy streaming up and down the sides of the organized contingents. In fact what is striking about later pictures we see are the absence of great signs and banners for a mobilization so vast.

As the March makes it's first turn away from the red zone, a section of the group moves forward toward the massive line up of police. The sonic booms and tear gas return.

The people of Genoa show their solidarity by sending water down to the street in buckets and hoses. A huge bedsheet hangs from the window that reads "welcome to Genoa citizens of the world. Always toward victory." For a long moment we feel the slogan of the weekend that adorns almost every T-shirt and sticker in Genoa, "We are 6 Billion, They are 8."

As the march ends the tension still hangs in the heat. As people start to leave, the police attack. They do not go after the street fighters, the masked and padded fighters in the red zone, but about 30,000 peaceful protesters leaving town. The police later raid the headquarters of the offices of the march organizers, the Genoa Social Forum, and put 50 people in the hospital and arrest 90. Later radio reports are that jailed demonstrators are put down on their knees and forced to chant "Long Live Mussolini." The right to protest itself has been criminalized.

There is no question the three days in Genoa raises the stakes for the Global Justice Movement. The leaders of the G-8 bloodied their hands on Friday and on Saturday clearly came back for more. A conscious political decision was made to unleash their dogs on our movement. We need to understand that this fall in Washington DC, they are counting on our fear. We need to expand our forces, deepen our trust, strengthen our unity, and be forever confident that a better future lies on our side of the barricades, not theirs.