Long live the Reclaim power action at COP15!
It is time celebrate the civil disobedience during the Climate summit in Copenhagen as the trials against the spokesperson of this action now soon stand trial in Copenahegn beginning March 16. Here I have collected some pictures from Creative Commons on Flickr about the Reclaim Power action and some comments. I hope you enjoy the spirit expressed in in the photos and texts.
More pictures you can find at many places:
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/dec/16/reclaim-power-march-copenhagen
Modkraft.dk
http://www.modkraft.dk/spip.php?article12258
Politken
http://politiken.dk/fotografier/nyhederfoto/article861177.ece
Indymedia including pictures, text and links t many more po´pcitures, videos an articles about Reclaim power:
https://publish.indymedia.dk/articles/1830
Videos:
http://www.aktivism.info/socialforumjourney/?p=1087
Reclaiming Power in Copenhagen
A decisive step towards a global climate justice movement
The French Revolution is generally said to have began when part of the clergy and minor nobilility deserted their respective assemblies, which had been convened by the king, to join the assembly of the commoners, the Third Estate. If the word gets out, perhaps the Reclaim Power and Peoples’ Assembly action of the 16th of December, will spark something as important.
That may sound pretentious. We were only a few thousand, only a handful made it briefly onto the grounds of the Bella Center and those inside were beaten back from joining us. But in Seattle too, it was just a few thousand kids who took the decisive action, and they only delayed the summit a few hours. In Copenhagen, the cops won tactically, but their violence only underscored our amazing political victory.
While the world’s powers lost all credibility, fighting among themselves to grab as much CO2 (that is to say as much production and profits) as possible, hundreds of accredited NGO delegates (our modern equivalent to the clergy of the Old Regime), and the governmental delegations of Bolivia, Venezuela and Tuvalu decided to leave the Conference in order to join the Peoples Assembly and discuss the real solutions.
That was our best case scenario.
We never dreamed that our enemies would be so stupid as to dramatise their fear of our action : excluding hundreds of NGOs that they suspected would join us, kidnapping the demo spokespersons and « leaders », seizing the sound truck and above all using clubs to drive back the demo of official delegates who tried to force their way out to join the Assembly. After the massive police infiltration, the dozens of arrests and the trumped up charges against Ya Basta people during the police attack on the assembly in Christiania two days before, the searches and seizures of all sorts of material (even bikes and banners !), this apparently irrational level of repression probably reflects how much power felt menaced by our project.
Very clearly, from the start the police plan was to disorganise our action, provoke us, then beat us up a bit and serve us to the media as a « riot ». But they hadn’t imagined that the demo- even without the sound truck or the « leaders » - would be capable of self-organising and continuing according to plan : trying to get in, assembly with speakers and small groups, compact march back, etc.
Some of the most experienced activists were disappointed that more material didn’t get to the fence, that more concerted efforts to get over didn’t happen, that the other blocks were neutralised so fast. But, although illegality and the practical efforts to break in were an absolutely essential part of our political statement, we mustn’t stay hung up on the purely concrete, tactical level. The objective was not to break in as such, it was to affirm practically our RIGHT to break in and hold an Assembly to talk of the peoples’ solutions. To make it impossible to ignore that there IS an alternative agenda. That was why holding the Assembly – be it finally just inside or just outside the fence – was the essential goal.
Most of the mainstream media had run off by the time the Assembly was held, but that didn’t affect the political importance of a march and an Assembly which brought together the northem activists of CJA with the most significant grassroots movements of the South . There were farmers movements of Via Campesina from all continents, Jubilee South and many other movements represented in the From Trade to Climate Caravan : the peoples of Oceania, the Philippine Fisherfolk, the landless of India, indigenous peoples of Mexico, Panama, Colombia and the Andes, etc. They are all menaced by climate change and totally reject a neo-neo-colonial aggression, which under the guise of « market solutions », seeks to make the South pay – more brutally than ever - for a new cycle of « green » capitalist expansion. But more importantly, they were there to offer real solutions, such as : food sovereignty, energy sovereignty, leaving the oil in the soil, re-localised production and another conception of « liviing well », which calls on the North to recognise its Climate Debt and radically question the capitalist project of infinite growth, over-production and over-consumption,
The critical point is that this Assembly was not a chance and fleeting moment. It marked a longer term convergence of different networks and political cultures : global networks of movements and progressive NGOs like Climate Justice Now and Our World Is Not For Sale, networks composed more of young northern activists like Climate Justice Action, the Climate Camps, old Peoples’ Global Action hands, etc. Political victories aren’t just about getting the better of the cops (and even less about the results of the official summit),. Victories are about coming out the battle more credible and more united than before. Credible : today, hopefully the people who imagined that it would be enough to pressure our rulers into a « good » deal, will better understand the necessity of building ourselves the solutions and imposing them through grass-roots popular power. United : since the Zapatistas called forth the anti-globalisation movement 13 years ago, there has never been such a broad alliance of organisations calling for « system change ».
Spontaneously, the same proposition came out ot the evaluations of CJA and CJN : organise People’s Assemblies everywhere, to tackle climate change issues at the local and regional level. These could organise against local sources of CO2 (in transport, for example) or false solutions (nuclear power, etc.), but also impose or construct directly real solutions (organising local food distribution systems). At the same time, by their links to the other assemblies, they would build a global movement, with a global day of assemblies next summer and a global day of action under the banner « System change not Climate change ! ».
So much for the ideas, but maybe its also important to talk of the spirit, the conviction and enthusiasm that made that demo and other moments in Copenhagen so magic for many. Objectively, we were practically kettled in by the cops, but it didn’t affect most people at all. There was no fear or powerlessness in the air. The march back, which had been rather dangerously announced as a « victory march », actually did rather feel like that. After eight hours in the cold and snow, the demo arrived in the center still compact and continuously belting out slogans. Even the last anti-repression demo was not only very large, it seemed to me to have an almost joyful feeling. For instance, the mother of an arrested spokesperson sang Janis Joplin and a song she had come to her during the Reclaim Power demo. People have to feel very sure of their ideas and very sure of each other for this kind of « moment of excess » to happen. As we marched through the night, a phrase came back to me again from Seattle : « We are winning .»
Now we all have to go home, get the word out and make it happen. Now its clear that we can only count on ourselves. The challenge is colossal, but everywhere there are people who know that we don’t have any other choice.
Olivier demarcellus
Comment:
Birth of a movement
30.12.2009 22:58
Thanks for your positive write-up of the 16th. Whilst it might not have gone the way we had wanted it to, the way we’d hoped it would after hearing the rallying cries from Michael Hardt, Naomi Klein and Tadzio Mueller on the Monday in Christiania, our action wasn’t that far off from succeeding either: and in the process the bike block have learned that they can easily get round a slow and heavy police blockade, and a lot of peaceful protestors are now more experienced for the next one. For me it really felt as if the Cop 15 Protest in Copenhagen was the birth of a new social movement.Looking forward to helping it mature.
Matt
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/12/444050.html
The political success of the COP15 mobilisations is still to come…
” the action on the 16th pulled together these various threads to form a new political subjectivity - if only we are capable of realizing it. The explicit aims of the action were to delegitimize the COP itself, and to work upon building a social movement capable of building another world to that pursued by established institutions. When we decry our inability to breach the fence of the UN area as a sign of failure, we should recall what one member of the Italian social centre network articulated at the October CJA gathering – ‘We should not think that the measure of our political success will be found in the lines drawn in the sand. Rather, our success will be based on our ability to reveal and breach immaterial lines, political lines drawn in the air’. Unlike Seattle, where the political lines correlated closely with physical fences or police lines, the political lines of Copenhagen were between those who wanted to further expand capitalist accumulation and state control and those fighting for a more egalitarian world based on respect and a shared life with each other and the planet we live on. What was unique about the 16th, and what allowed these political lines to be revealed, was the homogenous police response to both those confronting and those undergoing exodus from the Bella centre. It mattered not where the dissenting voices came from, the physical fence between us was far less important that the emerging unification of dissent that was suppressed in every instance.
To be clear, the action of the 16th had enormous potential that was not fulfilled. If the fence truly had been breached, if there had been broader political and numerical participation, and we had something that really could be called a peoples assembly inside the UN area, the political affects may have been immeasurable. We can only dream of what could have been. Yet as it stands the COP was publicly revealed as a process that suffocates all dissenting voices by default, that excludes those that believe in a world based on anything but accumulation and control. This exclusion and suffocation revealed a shared political subjectivity that has the strength to become the basis of a global movement - all those who reject a world of accumulation, control and environmental degradation in favour of a world of egality, openness and creative potential. In short, all those who not only demand but will create ‘system change not climate change’.”
Bertie Russell is involved in CJA and the Camp for Climate Action.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/02/445604.html
From CJA list
”CJA have proved being the only significant opponent to governments and
corporations, furthermore predicting the outcome (failure) of the
cop15. The alliance of pink samba/clowns, via campesina, noborder
groups was the only tactic that managed not to be overpowered by the
Danish police state. Its pinkblackgreen hybridity might be a harbinger
of radical things to come.
CJA won the media battle, but tied at best the street battle: the
reclaim power action was more than OK but not great, especially
considering all the effort that had gone into it (i omit the obvious
enormity staked against us: 2000 arrests, suspension of civil
liberties of free speech and protest etc.) Anarchoautonomists of mixed
ethnic backgrounds from the old heartlands of capitalism, Europe and
North America, provided the bulk of the push for climate justice in
copenhagen, the importance of the alliance with CJN! notwithstanding.
CJA is postcapitalist, not anticapitalist. It is probably the young,
dissident, ecohacktive, direct-action faction of a larger mobilization
of NGOs and civil society on climate change. it is a crucial social
actor for the transition out of post-mortem neoliberal domination
because it’s the only one with a coherent discourse on the systemic
causes of climate change and the political will and creative smarts to
put it into action.”
lx
MICHELLE MASCARENHAS-SWAN: A Window to a New World
Our Window
” Reimagining: Towards a World of Many Worlds
Our challenge today is to re-write the story of the kind of victory that we’re fighting for. Our new story needs to be believable, irresistible, and worth fighting for.
The finale of the story of our victory will be a post-globalized world based on local democracies, driven to meet residents needs in an equitable way and deeply rooted in a relationship to ecological place. It will be a world where many worlds fit, where there are a million different solutions to the question of how we should meet our needs and a million different forms of local participatory economies that emerge to meet these needs.
So, if that’s the finale of the story that we’re working towards, how does the plot unfold over the chapters in the story where we shift out of our current fossil fuel-driven, industrial growth-driven world that is rooted in exploitation and oppression and into this world that makes space for many different liberatory worlds? What are our central tasks towards winning that transition?
First, we need to cultivate an ecological sense rooted in our land-based traditions. We need to learn with and from Indigenous & land-based people’s ways of knowing. This includes asking and listening to our living ancestors and elders and to new immigrants in our communities. We need to draw upon the laws of nature: symbiosis, limits, cycles, balance, zero waste. And we need to cultivate a reflective, responsive relationship to place. We shouldn’t call for going “back to the land;” we should build a “take back the land” movement.
Second, we need to work towards a transition that quickly shifts us out of a green capitalism agenda towards a resilience agenda .
by winning local equitable control of resources and by investing in the work required to shift us from a “get mine” to a “share ours” world. This means shifting from “green hard hats” to “green roles.”
Our stance in carrying it this story needs to be solution-oriented and hope-based. In this moment of insecurity, a social movement left has a real chance to win over key social forces in winning a just transition to a new world, but we need a proactive vision to make that possible.”
http://www.organizingupgrade.com/2010/01/window-to-a-new-world/comment-page-1/
The Ottawa Citizen, “Why we took to the streets: Inaction from business interests and political leaders in Copenhagen has forced the rebirth of the movement founded in Seattle,” Op-ed by Andrea Harden-Donahue and Maude Barlow
”COPENHAGEN — When stuck between a rock and a hard place, there comes a time when a decision must be made. Will you lie down and suffer or choose to push with all of your will to move the rock out of your way?
Caught between increasing marginalization at, and exclusion from the Bella Center (the site of the climate negotiations) and the failure of the summit to address the climate crisis, the Dec. 16 Reclaim the Power march in Copenhagen chose to move the rock. The march, thousands strong, literally pushed for climate justice.
Joining this multi-faceted mass action of non-violent civil disobedience were people from all around the world organized in diverse networks.
The objective was not to close down the summit but rather, for one day, to open a space in the UN area for a people’s assembly. Hundreds of delegates, led by members of the Bolivian delegation and the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, walked out of the Bella Center to join with the thousands of people on the other side of the fence. People were attempting to overcome physical barriers that stood in the way of holding the people’s assembly and uniting the two groups.
It is of fundamental importance to emphasize that there was no violence on the part of demonstrators.
While the action was one of civil disobedience, it was non-violent; the demonstrators did not respond to police with violence. Video footage clearly attests that participants remained peaceful, which is no easy task when your eyes are burning from pepper spray and tear gas and your body is bruised from batons. We personally witnessed police officers clubbing protesters, large police trucks being used to herd protesters to the point of falling over and police dogs being used for intimidation.”
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/OPINION+took+streets/2359919/story.html
North American Indigenous Peoples Demand More in Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark – As the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) winds down, thousands of people marched in the streets today to “reclaim power” from the UN process they say is not good enough. Indigenous Peoples led a march from inside the official venue of the climate negotiations, to stand in solidarity with the rest of civil society in demanding climate justice.
Over the past two weeks, indigenous peoples have been working to ensure all potential climate policies and actions that come out of the negotiations, ensure recognition of and respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. Specifically, indigenous peoples have lobbied for the incorporation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into climate policy. Although some would see the mention of the UNDRIP in the text of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) a small success, many feel it is a slap in the face of indigenous peoples.
“Indigenous peoples rights are mentioned once in the form of a recommendation for nation states to consider, but not as a requirement,” explains Alberto Saldamando of the International Indigenous Treaty Council (IITC). “But ensuring basic human rights for the worlds populations who are most affected by climate change should not be voluntary. It is a matter of obligation.”
“It’s a sad situation that world leaders representing industrialized society have lost their understanding of the sacredness of Mother Earth,” adds Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN). “Before we can achieve global action, there needs to be international awareness of why we are really here. We marched out in support of our brother, President Evo Morales of Bolivia, and his demand that the rights of Mother Earth be recognized in the negotiating text here in Copenhagen.”
“Coming into these negotiations, I was optimistic about our world leaders coming together to solve this global problem,” says Nikke Alex, a Navajo youth who works for the Black Mesa Water Coalition (BMWC) in the southwest United States. “But now I see the health of our people and Mother Earth are not central to their agenda. Their goal is to use the climate crisis to make profit. The people who are really solving climate change are those at the grassroots level, working to create more sustainable societies.”
The IEN delegation brought a delegation of 21 Indigenous Peoples from North America affected by fossil fuel development. They came to call out false solutions like clean coal technology, nuclear power, and the carbon market. Over the past two weeks, the IEN delegation has used a variety of tactics to push for strong targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and demand effective, fair and equitable methods to address the climate issue.
Websites: http://indigenousenvironmentalnetwork.blogspot.com/
For Immediate Release: Climate Justice Action & Climate Justice Now!
December 15, 2009
Global Alliances Announce they will Protest 15 Years of Failed Climate Negotiations with Mass Non-Violent Civil Disobedience
Civil Society Groups Inside and Outside The COP Process Issue Call to Unite in “Peoples’ Assembly” to Demand Real Solutions to the Climate Crisis
Copenhagen, Denmark As broad frustration grows with rich country and corporate influence over the content and direction of the climate negotiations, two international networks of people’s movements, civil society groups, Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations and grassroots activists united to announce a mass non-violent civil disobedience to expose the failure of the COP process.
Representatives of the networks, Climate Justice Action and Climate Justice Now!, have declared that given the urgency of the climate crisis it is time for dramatic action to expose the COP process as undemocratic, unjust and inadequate to deal with the scale of the problem. The action called for Wednesday December 16th will involve groups of activists simultaneously descending on the Conference centre from different starting points. At noon, they will join up with the mass of people walking out of the climate talks, to hold the ‘Peoples’ Assembly’, a participatory platform of marginalized voices and real solutions to climate change.
“Over the last 15 years, the COP process has been corrupted by corporate money and the refusal of the rich countries of the world to take responsibility for the problems they have created. At a very fundamental level, we need to talk about how we leave fossil fuels in the ground, but no one is talking about that inside the talks in Copenhagen,” said Ivonne Yanez of Accion Ecologica, which is a part of Climate Justice Now!
“Africans from inside the Bella Centre are proud to be reaching out and standing with our brothers and sisters outside. We stand with them against a deal that will kill Africa. President Obama cannot come here and sign the death warrant of literally millions of Africans. Instead, he should come and march with us, listen to us, and commit to a just, long-term deal that stops climate change and keeps our people alive,” said Mithika Mwenda of Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA).
“We have no more time to waste. If governments won’t solve the problem then its time for our diverse people’s movements to unite and reclaim the power to shape our future. We are beginning this process with the people’s assembly. We will join together all the voices that have been excluded—both within the process and outside of it. We will be both non-violent and confrontational. We will not let fences and physical barriers stand in our way, and we call upon the police to respect our right to make our voices heard. This is a global emergency. What are you willing to do to insure our children’s future?” said Stine Gry, a representative of Climate Justice Action.
The Reclaim Power action will bring together climate activists, representatives of climate-impacted communities and Indigenous Peoples from around the world for the Peoples’ Assembly that will take place on Wednesday, 16 December. The range of actions will include not only participants in the COP process walking out of the talks but also thousands of people who have been excluded from the talks making their way into the grounds of the Bella Center.
From: GJEP (Global Justice Ecology Project) & Climate Justice Action & Climate Justice Now
We will RECLAIM POWER!
“I hope the ‘leaders’ got the message today: we are not going to stop
fighting!”
Nikki Leen, Indigenous Person, USA
During the CJA press conference yesterday evening (16/12/09)
”Shouting ‘Climate Justice!’, ‘Our climate is not your business!’ and ‘We
are peaceful, what are you!’, hundreds of activists gathered to carry out
the People’s Assembly. Real solutions such as food and energy sovereignty,
and leaving the fossil fuels in the ground were discussed. As a speaker
from Mexico said, “energy should not be in the hands of businesses and we
demand that the atmosphere should not be privatized”. Ivonne Yañez from
the organization Acción Ecológica stated that “over the last 15 years, the
COP process has been corrupted by corporate money and the refusal of the
rich countries of the world to take responsibility for the problems they
have created.”
However, the real potential behind this political intervention is an
emerging global climate justice movement acting for systemic
transformations as the only adequate response to the current crises. “In
my view, this was a great success from the side of the peoples from all
around the globe that came together to hold this action (…) Also, it is
very important the great deal of cooperation between people from the North
and people from the South, between people from all countries of the world
that hopefully will continue to solve the problem of climate change after
this” said Baramee Chaiyarat, a Thailand farmer member of La Via Campesina
network, yesterday at the press conference after the action.
This is a crucial moment for a global climate justice movement that
responds to the strong local struggles that are happening for centuries,
mostly in the global south, for self-determination and power over their
own future. This is just the beginning… and we are not going to stop here!”
http://ourmediaindymedia.blogspot.com/2009/12/and-we-are-not-going-to-stop-here.html
Farmers reclaim the power to build a real people’s project
Today, outside the Bella Center people from around the world will set up a people’s assembly to discuss the real solutions to the current crises and the real policies and practices that urgently need to be implemented. This assembly is taking place outside the official conference because there is no space inside for people’s voices to be heard. The talks are being controlled by the governments and big businesses who support the system which has led us here and the needs and real alternatives of the majority world are being sidelined. It is time for our alternatives to be made real.
Farmers reclaim the power to oppose violence
The real violence is happening inside the negotiation rooms. Decisions taken there (and NOT taken there) are leading to more natural disasters, more land grabs, more evictions in the name of environement protection and more hunger and poverty. The more the talks advance, the more farmers and activists are muzzled. Some countries are excluded from the discussions through the “green room” processes, accreditations to the conference are suddenly being restricted and protestors are arrested arbitrarily
La Via Campesina condemn the massive police repression of the protests, the preventive arrests to avoid free expression of dissent and the “show business arrests” of protestors. We support and take part in non-violent actions of civil disobedience in order to develop a society with more justice and dignity. We clearly reject violence as a means of action as we reject the violence of the policies discussed behind closed doors. We are protesting today against the current global model of society obsessed with trade and the privatisation of the commons and we continue our struggle for solidarity, climate justice and food sovereignty.
The full press release from Via Campesina at:
