European summit
Seville protests show the way
Stuart Piper reports from Seville
100,000 protestors mostly from Andalusia but with sizeable contingents from across the rest of Europe marched in party mood through the streets of Seville on the hot summer evening of the last day of the European summit.
The Aznar government and the mainstream media tried to claim there were only 20,000 – but no one believed them.
Though the protests were not as big as those in Barcelona which marked the beginning of the Spanish Presidency, they were bigger than expected.
They brought an upbeat close to three days of protest against the Europe of Capital and War represented by Aznar and his fellow leaders barricaded inside their air-conditioned conference suites.
No windows were smashed and the only things that rained down on the protestors was not tear gas but showers of water from the hosepipes of residents coming to the rescue of demonstrators desperate to cool down in the blazing heat.
We wove through the streets chanting the slogans of the Seville social forum: "Another world is possible against the Europe of capital and war" and "no person is illegal",
This second slogan of course was particularly important given the focus of the Seville summit in erecting still higher the walls of Fortress Europe, though fortunately the most restrictive proposals put forward by Aznar and Blair were not agreed.
The tone of the resistance was set on Thursday when millions of workers brought most of the Spanish State to a standstill. The day saw massive huge demonstrations in Barcelona, Madrid (where estimates suggest 500,000 marched) and Seville, with smaller echoes in many other cities.
In many parts of the country, the pickets were accompanied with cazerolas – the banging of pots that has been made popular from the mass movement in Argentina.
The considerable trade union presence in final demonstration was just one sign that alliance between organised labour and youth is asserting itself as the backbone of the anti globalisation movement. This was clear in Genoa, in Barcelona and now again in Seville.
This is a remarkable achievement given that one of the targets of Bush, Blair and their friends after September 11 was to silence and dissipate the anti-globalisation movement all together.
Instead we have become stronger, as a movement against both war and capital, and strengthened our links with organised labour.