Autonomia and the Origin of the Black Block [Part D’]

0
206
welcoming

Whether the Black Block continues as a tactic or is abandoned, it certainly has served its purpose. In certain places and times the Black Bloc effectively empowered people to take action in collective solidarity against the violence of state and capitalism. It is important that we neither cling to it nostalgically as an outdated ritual or tradition, nor reject it wholesale because it sometimes seems inappropriate. Rather we should continue working pragmatically to fulfill our individual needs and desires through various tactics and objectives, as they are appropriate at the specific moment. Masking up in Black Bloc has its time and place, as do other tactics which conflict with it.

“Those in authority fear the mask for their power partly resides in identifying, stamping and cataloguing: in knowing who you are…our masks are not to conceal our identity but to reveal it…Today we shall give this resistance a face for by putting on our masks we reveal our unity and by raising our voices in the street together, we speak our anger at the facelessness of power…”

From a message printed on the inside of 9000 masks distributed at the June 18th, 1999 Carnival Against Capital which destroyed the financial district of central London

At the WTO protests in Seattle last year, somewhere from 100 to 300 anarchists and others dressed up in black and systematically trashed the storefronts of odious multinational corporations. Since then the tactic of the “Black Block” has been getting quite a bit of attention from different people concerned with social change. All sorts of upper middle class, trust-fund progressives and liberals have prattled on moralistically to great length about how there is no room for such behavior in their movement.

At the same time, the Black Block in Seattle inspired a renewed interest in militant protest tactics which do not placate authority or bow to its power. The N30 Black Bloc, along with many other aspects of the events in Seattle, has also inspired radical anarchists to stop hiding out inside liberal activist groups with reformist agendas, and start being more vocal in their demands for revolution and total social change. Besides the rapid proliferation of anarchist publications and organizations, clear evidence of this resurgence of anarchism in the United States can be seen in the large Black Blocs which were present on April 16th in Washington D.C., at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions this summer, and at many other marches, protests and actions from sea to shining  sea. For good or ill, it seems that in the last year the Black Block has become an American tradition, and it all started with those brave kids back in Seattle.

Or did it? In fact, November 30th was far from the first time that a large group of radicals dressed up in black with black masks in order to engage in militant protest in  anonymity and solidarity. The Black Block as an agreed upon protest tactic may be as much as 20 years old. Its origins in fact lie with the European Autonomen or autonomists, a radical social movement that didn’t even necessarily proclaim itself anarchist, though many of its tactics and ideas have become widely appreciated and adopted by self-proclaimed anarchists.

via ainfos.ca

Part A Hardline Oppression, Militant Resistance, And the Origins of the BLACK BLOCK

Part B Autonomen BLACK BLOCK Accomplishments

Part C Pre-Seattle Black Blocks in the U.S.A.