The Black Blocs Ten Years after Seattle: Anarchism, Direct Action, and Deliberative Practices

Abstract

The Black Blocs made a spectacular entrance into the Movement for Global Justice on 30 November 1999 at the "Battle of Seattle," when they smashed the windows of McDonald's, Nike, Gap, and a few banks. In April 2009, almost ten years later, a Black Bloc is involved in skirmishes with police at Strasbourg during the NATO Summit. The aim of this article, which is largely based on interviews with militants, analyses of their discourses, and first-hand observations of demonstrations, is to identify how the Black Bloc tactic originated and spread, and to understand the political factors that led activists to adopt it. Three intrinsically political questions are addressed: (1) Who should determine the plan of action within a group of militants? (2) Who should determine the plan of action during a demonstration? (3) Who should determine the criteria to assess the effectiveness of the actions taken by a social movement and speak on its behalf? To answer these questions, the notion of "respect for a diversity of tactics" and the links between the Black Blocs and other militant organizations (both radical and reformist) as well as other blocs (the "Tute Bianche" or White Overalls and the Pink Blocs) are discussed.

From housing crisis to housing justice: Towards a radical right to a home

“…The engagement of housing movements with direct-action tactics gives visibility to the contradiction of buildings being kept vacant while homelessness and evictions seem to be on the rise (Roy, 2017). While sometimes seen in a pejorative or negative light (Dupuis-De´ri, 2010;Franks, 2003;Gamson, 2007), direct-action tactics have emerged progressively as part of an articulated struggle that has brought widespread social legitimacy to this practice and the groups that carry it out, such as the building occupations implemented by the PAH in Spain (Garcı´a-Lamarca, 2017). Direct action has more than just tactical relevance to movements in which occupying vacant buildings and preventing evictions are strategies used to attract public attention and pressure governments.…”

Contemporary anarchist and anarchistic movements

“…In order to oppose corporate‐led globalization, activists disrupted international meetings—like the World Trade Organization in Seattle 1999, the International Monetary Fund/World Bank in Prague 2000, and the G8 in Genoa 2001—using strategies reliant upon decentralized networks, such as clusters of affinity groups and color‐coded protest systems to allow a diversity of tactics. In order to guarantee that militant tactics (e.g., the black bloc) did not put other activists at risk, a system was devised to separate nonconfrontational, pro‐civil disobedience, and aggressive marchers from each other, while still voicing solidarity for each other's actions (Juris, ; also see Dupuis‐Déri, ). The “anarchist sensibility” of the global justice movement used decentralized organizing structures like affinity groups, along with a morally indignant and expressive politics focused on antiauthoritarianism and egalitarianism (Epstein, ).…”

Changing Repertoires and Partisan Ambivalence in the New Brazilian Protests

“…The autonomist repertoire, which gained global attention during Seattle protests in 1999, can be seen as a reframing of the nineteenth and early twentieth‐century anarchist forms of organising that reject centralised leadership and authority, particularly those of the state. Recent elements that have been appearing in youth‐based movements worldwide include conventional non‐violent marches and confrontational direct action (such as sit‐ins and occupations), along with some violent displays of resistance such as black bloc tactics, the burning of objects and damaging of symbols of state and economic power (Dupuis‐Deri, ). This repertoire has dominated the global justice movement, with strong expression in the World Social Forums that began in Porto Alegre in 2001, as well as in popular and indigenous protests in Latin America.…”