This communique was given out by a portion of the Black Bloc during
the march to the Bella Centre on Saturday at the protests against the
U.N. COP-15. Shortly after releasing this communique, windows of the
Danish stock exchange and Foreign Ministry were broken. When the police
attempted arrests, the Black Bloc was physically prevented by some
members of Climate Justice Action from joining the "System Change Not
Climate Change" bloc. While the COP15 is over, the debate over the role
of internal policing and the "non-violence" code of Climate Justice
Action has just begun in the European autonomous movements.
Amongst thousands of people who want to save the world, we are
getting together to march to the Bella Centre, but something feels
wrong. The slogans just seem too familiar. "Traditional wisdom and new
technology must go hand in hand." Haven't we been reading them on the
ads all over town?
Everyone is playing their role in the summit, just like in a movie.
And there are even different versions of the same stage, distinguished
mostly by their budgets. The building of the Klimaforum resembles a
space station mixed together with a contemporary art museum. Amongst
the graffiti, drugs and reggae music in Christiania, the dream is
cheaper but more entertaining. Inside the perfectly sterile and opulent
Bella Centre, the NGOs are working hard with the delegates on a treaty
to rescue us all. Outside, the same faces tell us on loudspeakers to
apply "political pressure" to influence the negotiations.
There seems to be a common logic between the government delegates,
the NGOs who control the march, and even the radical ecological
activists: we are all saving humanity together. Who would not
want to fight for this? And even if you did not, do you even have a
choice? No one seems to have the time to take a pause and think about what we are supposed to save, what humanity
means. What does it imply to have faith in the existence of a single
political unit that binds us all together? In the united and pacified
world imagined in Copenhagen, politics become obsolete. What if the
mobilization of the entire city and even the protests were nothing but
an immense peacekeeping operation?
In times of war, there is a call for submission behind every call
for unity. Everyone agrees that capitalism is in crisis, that the
previous forms of management will not suffice. This summit may be the
most obvious sign yet of the shape of the management to come, where
everyone's contribution is obligatory. This step could be described as social engineering. An utopian attempt to produce
an entirely controlled life, a totally calculable existence by making
us forget that some struggles cannot be reduced to power games, that
sometimes friendships are more than just economics. This living excess
cannot be described but can only be experienced. What can be described
though is how this operation functions: our living is first fragmented
into several quantifiable bits and pieces and then resold to us as the real thing. "Hope in a bottle".
The enthusiasm with which all political stripes have been converted
to ecology teaches us about the true nature of this new green universal
religion. From the heart of the Bella Centre to the most passionate of
activists, beyond all differences in tone, one can hear the single and
only call to submit yourself. To sacrifice everything that makes life
worth living in the name of life itself. To adjourn the present to save
the future. To control our desires, and most of all, to not disturb the
delicate equilibrium. Ecology presupposes the same conception of
existence that characterizes the police: danger is everywhere, and
first of all, in ourselves.
When the success of this summit depends on the participation of the population in every city centre,
WHERE DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD GO?
And if police, in all its forms, is the new essence of global politics,
WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD DO?
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