Genoa, Italy, July 18th-22nd 2001

    Genoa airport eventually shut down all flights not carrying world leaders to the 2001 G8 conference. The ten most powerful men in the world gathered to discuss poverty over four days of banquets in lavish state rooms. Warm blue waves stretched into the sky, mirroring the Cheshire-cat smiles of diplomats. The Zona Rossa split Genoa in two, a gun-shaped hole welded like the fifteen-foot metal fence into the heart of the city. Around twenty thousand police armed with live ammunition, teargas, armoured cars and three helicopters separated the elected protectors of our planet from the citizens they had gathered to discuss.

    In the airport they were herded like cattle into passport control or interrogation rooms, quizzed on the ‘purpose of your stay’, inspected for the suspicious brands of piercings or tattoos. They had come because they believe in a better world. They had come to remind those in the conference rooms of the faces behind the statistics- the human cost of Globalisation. They spoke not in figures and costs but in freedom and love. Their tongues burned with pride and not guilt. In their hearts they had already beaten down the barrier of the Zona Rossa.

    The first two days of the conference were a celebration of peace. On Wednesday night there was a concert by the sea, crash helmets held aloft in place of lighters, cheap food and drink shared through the Carlini Stadium. The true spirit of Genoa was felt then as plainly as the cool ocean breeze: the spirit of family among us all, as people from every nation celebrated a love for their planet and each other. Thursday saw fifty thousand take to the streets on a peaceful demo for migrant’s rights. The pacifist Pink Group and Women’s Section did their best to promote a party atmosphere through the hollow core of downtown Genoa, yet it seemed that no amount of samba music or singing could fill the deadly silence of an area cleared for war.

    The violence began on Friday 20th.
Protestors left the Indymedia Centre, the Diaz School and the Carlini Stadium looking for ways to reach the impersonal faces inside the Zona Rossa. Behind their anger there was hope: hope that for once the faces inside the state buildings would turn to the windows, that maybe those gathered in Genoa to really make a difference could finally get through the fifteen-foot fencing to the people who only claim to change the world. They took cameras, binoculars, masks, water, ID- the more experienced penned lawyers’ phone numbers across their arms in clear view, or packed lemons, to ease the sting of teargas. They had witnessed before the fury of democracy- in Seattle, in their fractured trade unions and in their history books.

    It started off pleasantly enough, with a sit-down protest at the Zone gates. A small squad of cops let the Women’s Section tie ribbons to the fence. Some mindless violence took place- misled or just plain stupid protestors destroying small local shop windows or bus-stops. Nobody can pretend that everyone in Genoa was there for the right reasons: many younger protesters were suffering from that well-know 21st Century disease, apathy. Blinded by the contradiction of their hatred for and dependence on Capitalism, maddened by their stagnating sense of helplessness in the face of the corporate machine, they lashed out with a conviction formed solely around destruction. Even now for many, everything they see and taste and hear, every piece of this corpulent world no matter how small or irrelevant, stands for a system which causes them nothing but hatred, hopelessness and pain. By twelve noon the cops had tempted fate for too long.

    Black Block are, I guess you could say, a protest group. Invented by European anarchists to counter police surveillance, they consist of anyone who turns up masked or wearing black, ready to make a physical statement of protest. They formed the beating heart of confrontation at Genoa, dressed uniformly in solidarity against the police but, more importantly, as part of the global message of Black Block against dictatorship and injustice.
    At noon ten Black Blockers attacked a bank, their anger limited to a symbolic act of protest. The alarm screamed down echoing streets as they hacked at fragmented fibreglass with an iron bar. One man’s scarf flew from his face as he punched the shutters with his bare hands to the guttural snarl of a police helicopter.

    I take this opportunity to ask you- who may be shocked or disapproving of the violence expressed at Genoa- when you watch news channels condemning so-called ‘riots’ and denouncing acts of symbolic destruction as ‘thuggish’, does it ever occur to you that something must have gone terribly wrong in our society for educated, politically astute human beings to turn to this method of protest? We are the ones who are called ‘irresponsible’ for disrupting the endless hamster-wheel of earning and spending money, yet is it not the governments who are truly irresponsible for creating a society in which entire generations feel so miserable and are yet so socially uneducated that their only means of self-expression is to smash up a shop window?

    Turn on your television any day to watch stories of girls forced to choose between sex slavery and minimum wage. Spend ten minutes on the Internet and you will discover women forced to have abortions to keep their jobs sewing merchandise for Western children. Experience today your own financial insecurity, because the people in charge of keeping your money safe have lost it all, and yet reward themselves with fat pensions. Maybe then you will see past the media that wishes to demonise your true representatives, and really listen to the voice which this corporate government has given you. The Black Blockers tore open the bank, throwing files and computers out onto the street. Glass spread like glittering foam across the tarmac. It stuck in the palms of their hands as they heaped all their rage onto this one symbol of Capitalism, still not even approaching the pain in their hearts.

    Now the protests really began to get nasty. Now came the Carabinieri, the cops you really don’t want to be getting on the wrong side of.  The flash of a camera-lens in the sun was enough to strip every scrap of mercy or human kindness from their hearts. One woman was taking photographs when seven male cops dragged her behind the privacy of a white van and beat her viciously, destroying her film and batteries. The acrid stink of teargas polluted every breath. One street closely resembled a war zone: cars, petrol stations and shops were burned out, their carcasses lining the road, insulating the air with thick black smoke. Empty gas shells littered the road.

  In this scene of utter destruction, I ask another question. Do you really think the attacks on banks, and even the more ill advised abuse of shops and cars, would ever have led to this level of violence if there had been simply a single unarmed cop patrol around the Zona Rossa fence? Or if, God forbid, the G8 leaders could have directly communicated with the protesters in order to establish respect for the Zona Rossa boundary in exchange for respect of the right to have one’s grievances addressed? Do you think the majority of protesters at Genoa really wanted to spend their time in confrontations with the police rather than in the pursuit of spreading their message to the G8 leaders? Yes, they were angry. Yes, they became violent. But why is that? What is the surest way to provoke fury from a person taking full advantage of their civil liberties?
Treat them like a criminal.
    Purely by being there in such numbers, the cops were starting a fight. Simply by equipping themselves with teargas and tanks, they were creating the very situations in which such extreme measures could and would be used. If you make it clear that you expect violence from somebody- like it or not, fair or not, reasonable or not- chances are you’re going to provoke violence. We are not like the army or the police. When there is nobody there to fight, we will not fight. But if the government expects that a symbol of oppression is not going to be attacked at a protest against oppression, then it is fucking stupid and deserves to be attacked.
    The British government is struggling with knife crime. We are told that carrying a knife in self-defence or as a preventative is still illegal, because it simply makes the situation worse by creating a higher risk and spreading the problem. Yet the G8 leaders allowed the use of violence in Genoa, in order to prevent violence. Is it beyond our government to openly contradict its own policies? Well, if it worked for Hitler…

    At one point fifteen thousand people charged the cops in the intense heat. They were in a poor area and so the small shops were left respectfully untouched. The crowd breathed victory back at the glinting riot cops, the beating, shouting, pulsing heart of protest growing with every step forwards, picking up gas canisters as they hit the ground and throwing them back into the ranks of Carabinieri. One canister hit a protester full-force in the head, sending blood spraying across the packed crowd.
    Suddenly a mass panic caused the protesters to writhe and scramble backwards, trying to run. Those further back strained to view the front lines whilst avoiding being crushed in the stampede. What was going on? Tear gas was thick in the air- as it cleared, the sight that met their stinging eyes sent horror cutting into every soul.
A huge grey armoured truck careered at eighty miles per hour straight into the crowd, bulldozing the dumpster barricades and chasing onwards. Terrified people ran for their lives, hunted down by the merciless steel juggernaut, showing no signs of slowing down despite the horrified sea of people around it. Some managed to climb to safety over a wall before the water cannons blasted into a sea of human flesh, CS gas canisters falling like rain, a brutal assault on the senses designed to cause dehabilitating pain.
    In the confusion some began to beat back the armoured truck, a few becoming thousands, protesters migrating to the site from every side street and alley. ‘Tranquillo, calma, stay calm!’ the veteran protesters coloured the air with every language they knew, picking up the gas canisters again to throw at the disintegrating police lines. The protesters, their eyes streaming and their limbs bruised, proved that their courage and their consciences were still in full working order. But it was a hollow victory. Amongst the seventy-two people wounded, one was killed. In the face of the armoured truck’s deliberate carnage, it was both a welcome and a terrible miracle.

    It was not until that night that most people found out about the tragedy which has since characterised Genoa. Disproportionate police violence created another murderer that day. The protesters who weren’t there found out through snippets of texts and crackly mobile conversations, the insect buzz of desperate voices. You could watch the landscape of faces change before your eyes, defiant hope withering to a sudden grey, drawn desert of horror and loss.
Carlo Giuliani, a twenty-three year old local kid, had been shot dead.

    The Carabinieri were once again charging protestors with armoured landrovers. Two advanced too far without infantry support and became trapped by the crowds they had almost decimated. The driver of one for some reason refused to ram a wheelie-bin out of his way, remaining stuck as protesters began to advance. The cop at the back was twenty-one years old, waving his gun erratically, pointing it at various people in the crowd. In the crush some people couldn’t even see the gun- until it was too late. Carlo approached, wearing a balaclava, unprotected as many were by makeshift armour. He picked up a fire extinguisher and lifted it above his head to throw at the landrover. It was a common act of violence, perhaps ill advised, but nevertheless to be expected at a violent protest.

The cop turned, took aim, and shot him in the head.

    People began screaming.
The driver reversed over Carlo and stopped, before driving over him a second time in an attempt to ram through the crowd. One CS gas canister hit the body. Blood flowed calmly from his head onto the silent ground- a protester rushed to give medical assistance only to be chased off by police. Carlo lay motionless, his arms twisted,  suddenly so horrifyingly alone. The voice of a man standing in the sanctuary of a nearby church cut through the confusion, chanting ‘ASSASSINI! ASSASSINI!’ over the alien domes of riot helmets. The cops drew their batons on him.
    
    The sheer calculated horror of it didn’t sink in until later. The sudden crippling terror gave way to incredible, incalculable sadness. A boy had been killed. A child had been shot by another child. The protesters who had gathered in defence of all that they believed in their hearts to be right, now found themselves consumed by one total and inconceivable wrong.  Every inch of freedom and victory and love seemed hopeless that night. Every heart which had glowed with pride in Genoa airport now seemed to break a little inside. And the next morning every tongue burned with the name of Carlo Giuliani.

    Saturday blazed hot and sunny, under banners spelling ASSASSINI across every street. Behind masks and goggles marched pure anger, and the police were terrified. Peaceful protesters were gassed. Tanks bled through the city streets. Forty police boats clustered the ocean and helicopters filled the air with their hostile barking hum. Any protester caught was beaten. Three hundred thousand people marched on Genoa. The wealthy east side of the bay was utterly destroyed.

    The sunset was scented with teargas. In the haunting emptiness some of the braver locals picked through piles of spent shells and shreds of flag. A few kids explored the insides of a melted cash-point. Many spent their last evening partying in the convergence space, drinking around huge bonfires in parking spaces. They tried to preserve some of the spirit that Carlo had died for, to fill the day after his death with the protest of life. A sudden calm born of spent energy put everyone on edge, paranoia growing with the darkness. If only they had known what they still had to be scared of.

    Protesters returned in the dying night to the Diaz School or the Indymedia Centre, looking forward to flights home or a final day spent watching the Zona Rossa fence come down. Maybe the sun would re-awaken their anger from this subdued silence. For now, everybody was sleeping in the crowded darkness.
    The media and politicians were kept away from the two buildings. Late at night, the Carabinieri returned to offer their protester friends a final farewell.

They quietly entered the two buildings, planted some evidence,
and began to beat people.

They beat the men and the women.
They beat the sleepers.
They beat those lying on the ground, raising empty hands with cries of ‘pacifisti!’
They broke bones and they smashed out teeth.
They splashed blood on the walls and smeared it across windows.
    The horrifying screams could be heard from far outside. The Carabinieri chased women in their nightclothes through corridors and cut them down with truncheons. Men reached up with bloody hands to the small windows, trying somehow to smash them open, to escape, to stop the agony.

You could tell where people had been sleeping by the pools of blood.

    When they were finished, they let the medics in. The stretcher-bearers took their patients to jail-wards, or straight to the cells. The ordeal was not over for these poor people, who would be beaten further, tortured, and even threatened with rape before dawn ended their suffering. It was a night of terror in exchange for four days of liberty.
    The night of July 21st was a massacre of the most hideous kind- a massacre of freedom. The protesters of Genoa were victims of vengeance for daring to make their voices heard. And what is worse, one policeman was heard to remark: ‘we don’t have anything to worry about, we’re covered’. The inescapable and devastating conclusion is that the fascist psychopaths who forced an imprisoned protester with two broken legs to stand for nineteen hours had support from the Italian government! The brutality of cops who pumped teargas into a cell until one detainee vomited blood was effectively ignored by both Italian and international powers! No justice was called for by any of the G8 leaders, until reluctantly forced to do so by the outcry of the people they had supposedly been representing at Genoa!
Our screams of agony are continually met with a wall of silence.  

    Genoa was about overthrowing the selfishness of Capitalism. We are stalked as consumers whilst being dumped as workers. We are encouraged to see only the next paycheck, the newest shiny car, the bigger house. We are told to put ourselves first in this cutthroat world. Capitalism only encourages us to ignore others’ suffering, because we believe they would do the same to us.
    That is why our revolution must have a core of love. We are motivated by our love of common humanity to feel outrage at the exploited sweatshop-worker or the teacher who has to take a second job. It is love which tears the blindfold of materialism from our eyes and shows us the true value of life- the value of each other.

    Do you see democracy in the reflection on a riot helmet visor? No, you see oppression and fear. You see yourself, your own face reflected there. The cop is a person just like you. The cop is a victim, as you are. Pity the cop, who destroys all that is worthy and good by raising a truncheon to free speech. The cop is more imprisoned than you are, because the cop helps mend the bars of our prison when we break them. The cop is your family. The cop is you. You must love all of humankind, so that one day the cop may realise that you are not attacking them, you are defending them. Your violence is not towards the cop; it is towards their slavery. Though they may break your bones and kill your friends and piss on your rights, love them. For their sake and for yours, love them. Love in the hope that one day love must be repaid with love. For the sake of a future where the reaching hand receives help and not a set of handcuffs, love the cop with all your heart.

    Carlo’s death felt to everyone who has ever cared about freedom like the death of a brother. Our love for this boy who most of us never even met binds us together not as nations or as cultures or as friends, but as a family. Carlo dies in every hungry child, every exploited resource and every beaten prisoner. His death is a symbol of injustice, just as the protest in which he gave his life was a symbol of every human being’s struggle for freedom: a struggle which we will never give up.
    I know with every piece of my heart, trapped in this world where we clutch the spare change in our pockets as we pass a homeless person on the street, that we can be different. That we can love.

I was there at Genoa,
and so were you.
Because Genoa is everywhere.
We are all Carlo Giuliani.

And Carlo lives.