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Mutiny evaluation of COP15
Sourdough; Mutiny - 21.01.2010 15:58
Mutiny is an anarchist collective based in Sydney. We started this zine to explore different avenues of disobedience & resistance, & to encourage people to write about their ideas, actions & experiences.  http://jura.org.au/mutiny
Anyone who followed what happened in Copenhagen in December, with the protests against the COP 15 summit on climate change, may have been greatly underwhelmed in terms of the action from the streets that they saw. If so, that feeling is one mirrored by many of us who were there. Despite this, overall events in Copenhagen were significant enough to necessitate proper reflection. For my contribution to that, I mainly want to focus on the politics articulated in Copenhagen along with what purpose there was for revolutionaries to gather there, what we can take away from that gathering with only a minor amount of reporting on the actions themselves.
Compared to the WTO, IMF, World Bank or other global financial gatherings, COP15 was a more open and transparent meeting. Obviously not nearly open or transparent enough that we should consider it in any way “democratic”, but with so much attention from all corners of the world the COP 15 process was meant to provide a veneer of legitimacy for a liberal capitalist way of dealing with climate change. And any agreement reached at it could only have set such a course because the majority of powerful and rich industrial nations made clear beforehand that they would not accept anything that might negatively impact on their economies.
In fact, with capitalism in crisis across the globe, any agreement at COP15 that could be seen as moving forward on the problem of climate change (and that would require very little at all!) would provide a moment of salvation for the current global system. Especially because it is the inclination of many green, middle-class, liberal-types to look to capitalism to provide a solution so as to ensure their status and privilege are not at stake. But with figures of 1.5º Celsius, then 2º and eventually 3º being discussed as the aimed for cap on global temperature rise, it has become clear that the necessary action cannot be provided for under capitalism. Capital requires constant growth of markets and economies, something that cannot be sustained if carbon output is to be reduced.
It was for these reasons that there did seem to be a purpose for radicals with a solid anti-capitalist approach to climate change to gather on the streets of Copenhagen in December. And across the majority of various groups/organisations/tendencies that were in Copenhagen, the slogan 'system change, not climate change' was in common usage. While for many of us the intent of such a line was definitively revolutionary, if a bit rhetorical, for many others it took on no more than a protest call for 'our leaders' to sufficiently reign in the market economy so as to solve climate change. Still, with an overall healthy skepticism about the capacity of capitalism to play a role in creating a sustainable solution to climate change, this was an opportunity for alternative options to be put forward. This was especially important in the face of the worrying trend within sections of this movement to call for an increase in government intervention in daily life. Amongst other things, such reactionary calls could lead dangerously towards stricter and more racist border policing.
In the enormous communal accommodation space that I was staying in there were nearly 1000 anarchists, libertarians, autonomists from all over Europe and beyond. There was an immediate spirit and energy from all these folk bringing their involvement in a myriad of different struggles to the climate change movement – an energy that suggested there would unavoidably be spaces created at these protests where revolutionary alternatives to climate change would propagate. Instead of the ongoing destructive failures of capital, a non-hierarchical, community and workplace-based control, organisation and distribution of goods and resources could be part of a more sustainable, climate-friendly rethinking of society*. Even as climate change increasingly becomes the dominant issue, it is crucial to not allow it to be a single-issue movement – moving towards a sustainable society is inherently tied to the emancipation and empowerment of workers, farmers and all oppressed classes.
However, despite an obvious revolutionary spirit amongst those who had gathered there, the focus was so overwhelmingly on action, action, action (six days straight of actions, often complete with mass arrests) that there was no real space created for critical reflection or discussion. While clearly the purpose of going to Copenhagen was to take to the streets, there surely was also some purpose in taking the opportunity of being there together to discuss how we might take action that is more strategic both in the short and long term. We might have asked ourselves what our own roles would be in a revolutionary climate movement.
Our inability to create in Copenhagen these spaces of radical engagement allowed the far too liberal, NGO-focused and mainstream Klimaforum to preside over all such matters. While there were some good workshops on its program (I went along to two good ones – one a critique of green capitalism and one about climate refugees) there was an overwhelmingly reformist edge to it all. So much of what was there in terms of workshops and stalls reduced the matter to individualistic, lifestyle choices and in doing so propagated green capitalism as a viable solution to climate change. I find myself increasingly wary of how much energy is spent building alliances with this part of the movement, often at the expense of forging stronger bonds with folk who are more likely to be the actual proponents of the 'system change' that is necessary. This is exactly the type of issue that I was hoping that there would be space to discuss with other comrades in Copenhagen.
Part of the problem that existed was the way in which everything from the logistics, to the meetings, to the actions were organised. Firstly, I need to say that the people who put a lot of time into preparing everything in Copenhagen for those of us arriving from out of town did amazingly well. However, there's a difficult balance to reach when you've done most of the organising of an event, and that is knowing how to let go of the influence that comes with being in that position and letting the event be shaped by those who are coming to it. I reckon an overly bureaucratic structure – at times scarily similar to my dealings with student politics – inhibited the potential for actions to be organised that would reflect the militant politics of those who were there, as well as making it difficult to be adaptable in a way that the heavy-handedness of the policing called for.
Having said that, I also think that most people, especially those already in affinity groups, who arrived from out of town had not prepared enough or weren't interested in bringing their own exciting ideas and plans of actions into a larger collective space. That is to say, we didn't take enough responsibility in making the functioning of everything – the communal space, the meeting, the actions – our own thing. Maybe this was for security reasons or due to some skepticism about the point of another summit protest, but it meant the failings of this space to effectively practice and propagate a revolutionary climate politic was mainly our own fault, as the opportunity was there.
In terms of the actions themselves, and how they reflected an attempt at practicing militant, revolutionary politics, a few old problems arose. Many of the attempts at direct action were ill-focused and poorly-judged – although I want to make clear I really respect us for having a go. It's just that at some point we have to learn form past mistakes. Actions that were meant to be affinity group-based with hopes of being the most militant had centralised starting points, making it too easy for the police to surround and arrest us. The brutal efficiency of the police clearly also had an effect, with pepper spray, tear gas, batons, attacks dogs and the 'kettling' tactic used over the week and resulting in about 1800 arrests**. But this is a problem we must be aware of if we keep choosing to gather outside summits and we must learn and strategise if these moments are to have any worth at all.
Part of the problem seemed to be a distinction that I had never encountered before between the direct 'actions' that we organise and the more passive 'demonstrations' that everyone else has. Such a distinction works against what I most hope to be part of when I attend a summit protest, that is, mass direct action. It also plays into the hands of those who draw a line between 'good' and 'bad' protesters. Unfortunately these people were in Copenhagen in some number too, failing to pay any attention to what was actually happening on the streets and worrying more about the presence of a black bloc then of the violence of the police. However, we shouldn't simply accept this – instead we should be agitating for greater disobedience on those larger, more passive demos. And so I was disappointed that the fairly interesting (if not completely politically solid) idea of creating a peoples' assembly just outside the COP 15 by breaching the fences was reserved for the last day of action. By then most people had left or were just too tired and over it. Surely it would have been worth attempting this on the occasion of the largest demo (100, 000 people), which apart from its size was a completely redundant 3 hour stroll into nothingness.
One other thing that was particularly striking about the organising in Copenhagen was the use of the term 'people of the global south' as a conceptual cover-all referring to all non-white folk who weren't from rich, industrialised nations. While often used with good intentions, I found it to be a lazy discursive practice that effectively 'othered' the majority of the world at the same time as compartmentalising it in a way that failed to recognise the very different experiences, histories of struggle and spaces inhabited by those it was supposedly referring to. The term is completely hollow because it tells us nothing of divisions of class, status and power to name just a cursory few. It is also confounding in terms of what it means say for indigenous people in Australia or North America, as well as obscuring the presence of large communities (both relatively new and more established) of non-white migrants across Europe – a presence that was perhaps not as reflected in Copenhagen as it should have been.
I mention all this now because use of 'people of the global south' did have practical effects in that it permeated discussions on action tactics as well as strategies for the future at the same time as cutting across all groups present – from the liberal left to revolutionaries. It became a pole from which to hoist
the flag of whatever your ideology was. If certain values or positions could be aligned with these 'people from the global south', then surely they could not be questioned. And so pacifists would argue against militant action because of the presence of 'people from the global south', an insidiously moralistic and paternalistic line which was not effectively countered because of the authority it drew from presenting itself in such a way.
This leads me to conclude this article with what people in Copenhagen were looking to as the next step in fighting climate change. Just before this and whatever the failures of advancing a revolutionary climate politic were, I have to say that personally, being in Copenhagen was positive for the reason that such gatherings will always be somewhat positive – the chance to meet and be inspired by many amazing people. However, I did find it slightly depressing that after the actions finished a lot of focus shifted towards the next COP (16) meeting in Mexico in 2010. We seem to have a penchant for the grandly symbolic over the difficulties of grassroots organising, even when it is now clear that such symbolism has little payoff. Surely, we all know by now that always looking to the next summit or gathering of world leaders to practice our radical politics always comes at the expense of being able to practice these politics in a more solid, day-to-day form within the communities we actually live in.
Ultimately, the most significant practical outcome in Copenhagen for the future of the climate change movement was the failure of world leaders to reach any agreement. Unlike at the protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1999, this failure was in no real way brought about by our presence there on the streets. However it does give us space to move and we must fill this space with more than just planning to be in Mexico for another summit protest. Our aim should be that next time we gather we are doing so in a way that reverses the current logic of the movement – that is, instead of gathering in the hope of building a larger movement, we will be gathering because the force of an already existing movement compels us too.
*the issue of Turbulence newspaper released just before Copenhagen is fantastic. Read it for revolutionary visions of a sustainable world and reflections and analysis about summit protests and tactics. http://turbulence.org.uk
** probably the most inspiring actions of the week were inside the cages built to hold those arrested as spontaneous riots by those held within tore them apart.
 E-Mail: mutineers[at]graffiti.net  Website: http://Issue 46: http://jura.org.au/files/jura/Mutiny_Issue_46_WEB.pdf
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