How Much Of A Threat Do Anarchist Groups Pose?
Posted June 24, 2010 2:14 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
When a group calling themselves the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance (SOAR) vowed in an online post to ‘stop talking and start causing shit’, and to be ‘militant and confrontational’, during the G20 Summit, the threat, although veiled in online anonymity, was taken seriously.
It’s difficult to ascertain, despite the obvious contrast to the perceived tenets of anarchism, whether SOAR is organized, or made up of scattered societal renegades who share a similar philosophy and sentiment of disdain for political and corporate institutions. But as was frighteningly displayed by the firebombing of a Royal Bank in Ottawa’s Glebe neighbourhood in May 2010, the actions of a few determined individuals can be devastating, whether they act alone or as part of a larger, more cohesive organization.
An apparent anarchist group, FFFC-Ottawa, claimed responsibility for the firebombing. In an online video, they claimed RBC was targeted for its sponsorship of the 2010 Olympics, which took place on ‘stolen indigenous land’.
Three men have since been charged in the case.
In the online post (below), they also allude to similar intentions during the G20 Summit.
John Thompson, president of security think-tank Mackenzie Institute, is fairly certain that violent confrontations between anarchist groups and police will erupt during the G20, but doesn’t think something on the level of the RBC firebombing is likely.
“It’s always possible but going that far is rare for the anarchists,” he told CityNews.ca. “For most people who are self-described anarchists it’s a philosophy, for some it’s a lifestyle and for a real tiny handful it’s what allows militancy and we’ve seen anarchist violence before in Canada but it really is rare. Most of them, their level of violence is creative vandalism at protests.”
That creative vandalism, according to Thompson, is a large part of “the justification for the big security budget”, and it often takes the form of something called the ‘black bloc’, which is essentially a protest tactic in which like-minded anarchists don black clothing, bandanas and balaclavas, and move together in a group, to offer protection, and create confusion, sometimes allowing members who engage in sporadic acts of vandalism and violence to slip back into the crowd, making it nearly impossible for police to apprehend individual suspects.
“There will be an altercation and all sorts of exciting drama and a lot of vandalism, that’s what they are here for,” Thompson emphasizes. “They (security) can’t prevent it…the simple matter is there is going to be an altercation because that’s what they want.”
Alex Diceanu, of Common Cause, a formal anarchist organization with branches in Toronto, Hamilton, London and Ottawa, maintains that his group, made up of approximately three dozen members, will not engage in violence or property destruction at the G20 Summit, which they plan to march at.
“In our particular strand of anarchism, violence is seen as something that is not part of our strategy,” he said Thursday. “We think to build change we need to build mass democratic movements. We do the sort of slow growing grass roots community and labour organizing to build organizations that can have real power and a real impact.”
“We try to promote anarchist ideas through organizing book fairs, book tours, our website, and beyond that we have members who are involved in a whole range of campaigns from union organizing to community organizing, anti-racist organizing, women’s groups, you name it.”
Photo by Michael Talbot, CityNews.ca
“Anarchism is a diverse movement,” he stresses. “We are that strand that is usually called Libertarianism Socialism or Mass Anarchism. Basically we want to replace capitalism with directly democratic bottom-up economic planning where the economy and our economic resources are in the control of the community, and we are libertarians in the sense that we want to replace the state in its current form and we want to do away with these centralized bureaucracies that administer political life and replace it with something much directly democratic and decentralized.”
Diceanu believes black bloc tactics can be effective and do have their time and place, but Common Cause won’t be engaging in them at G20.
“Most black bloc tactics have involved things like blocking traffic, trying to occupy buildings in order to prevent summits from taking place…we’ve just made a strategic decision this time that our cause can best be served by simply marching and demonstrating opposition which I think is important.”
“Our group has decided that we will be marching and that’s the extent of our activity.”
He also believes the media has warped reality, pegging all anarchists as violent, when in his opinion, the world’s leaders and governments are guilty of much more abhorrent crimes.
“As far as violent protest the worst I’ve seen is a few broken windows and some shoving with the police, I see much worse from the police themselves.
“As anarchists we are opposed to the violence that G20 countries are currently implementing whether its imperialists wars in Iraq or the global financial crisis that has caused millions of people to lose their homes and jobs, we see that sort of structural violence (as) something to be opposed.”
And while many anarchists and like-minded individuals may engage in destructive behaviour, Diceanu believes the road to change will take a more sophisticated approach than breaking windows at protests.
“As far as the actual policies I don’t think protest is going change (them), it never does. The real front lines remain in our communities and our workplaces, if we can organize ourselves there and build power there and then exercise our power through general strikes, through occupations, then we can start to block some of these G20 polices.”
