Carnival Against Capital

Part of a series on
Anarchism
show Schools of thought Black Collectivist Communist Egoist Epistemological Existentialist Feminist Green Individualist Insurrectionary Jewish Mutualist Naturist Pacifist Philosophical Platformist Post-anarchism Post-colonial Post-left Primitivist Queer Social Syndicalist Synthesist Without adjectives
show Theory Practice Anarchy Anarchist Black Cross Anarchist criminology Anationalism Anti-authoritarianism Anti-capitalism Anti-militarism Affinity group Autonomous social center Black bloc Classless society Class struggle Communes Consensus democracy Conscientious objector Decentralization Deep ecology Direct action Direct democracy Especifismo Expropriative anarchism Free association Free love Freed market Freethought Horizontalidad Illegalism Individualism Individual reclamation Isocracy Law Magonism Mutual aid Participatory politics Permanent autonomous zone Prefigurative politics Proletarian internationalism Propaganda of the deed Refusal of work Revolution Rewilding Security culture Self-ownership Social ecology Somatherapy Spontaneous order Squatting Temporary autonomous zone Union of egoists
show People Armand Bakunin Berkman Bonanno Bookchin Chomsky Cleyre Day Durruti Ellul Faure Godwin Goldman Ferrer Kropotkin Landauer Magón Makhno Malatesta Michel Most Proudhon Rocker Santillán Spooner Stirner Thoreau Tolstoy Tucker Volin Ward Warren Zerzan
show Issues Animal rights Veganism Capitalism Anarcho-capitalism Right-libertarianism Criticism Education Left-wing Lifestylism Love and sex Marxism Nationalism National-anarchism Religion Christianity Islam Orthodox Judaism Violence
hide History Paris Commune Spanish Regional Federation of the IWA Cantonal rebellion Hague Congress International Conference of Rome Trial of the Thirty Haymarket affair May Day Anarchist Exclusion Act Congress of Amsterdam Tragic Week High Treason Incident Manifesto of the Sixteen Individualist anarchism in the United States 1919 United States bombings Biennio Rosso German Revolution of 1918–1919 Bavarian Soviet Republic Kronstadt rebellion Third Russian Revolution Free Territory Amakasu Incident Escuela Moderna Individualist anarchism in Europe Spanish Revolution of 1936 Barcelona May Days Red inverted triangle Labadie Collection May 1968 Provo LIP Kate Sharpley Library Australian Anarchist Centenary Carnival Against Capital 1999 Seattle WTO protests Occupy movement
show Culture A las Barricadas Anarchist bookfair Anarcho-punk Arts Culture jamming DIY ethic Films Freeganism Glossary Independent Media Center The Internationale Jewish anarchism "Land and liberty" Lifestylism "No gods, no masters" Popular education "Property is theft!" Radical cheerleading Radical environmentalism Squatting Symbolism
show Economics Communization Cooperative Cost the limit of price Economic democracy Economic secession General strike Gift economy Give-away shop Market abolitionism Mutual aid Participatory economics Really Really Free Market Social ownership Wage slavery Workers' self-management
show By region Africa Algeria Andorra Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bangladesh Belarus Belgium Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Czech Republic Denmark Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia Finland France French Guiana Georgia Germany Greece Guatemala Hong Kong Hungary India Indonesia Iceland Ireland Israel Italy Japan Korea Latvia Malaysia Mexico Monaco Mongolia Morocco Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Nigeria Norway Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Romania Russia Serbia Singapore South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Syria Tunisia Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom United States Uruguay Venezuela Vietnam
show Lists Anarcho-punk bands Books Communities Fictional characters Films Jewish anarchists Musicians Periodicals
show Related topics Anti-corporatism Anti-consumerism Anti-fascism Anti-globalization Anti-statism Anti-war movement Autarchism Autonomism Communism Counter-economics Definition of anarchism and libertarianism Labour movement Left communism Left-libertarianism Libertarianism Libertarian Marxism Libertarian socialism Marxism Situationist International Socialism Spontaneous order Voluntaryism
Anarchism portal Politics portal
v t

The Carnival Against Capital took place on Friday 18 June 1999. It was an international day of protest (also known as J18) timed to coincide with the 25th G8 summit in Cologne, Germany. The carnival was inspired by the 1980s Stop the City protests, Peoples' Global Action and the Global Street Party, which happened at the same time as the 1998 24th G8 Summit in Birmingham. The rallying slogan was Our Resistance is as Transnational as Capital.

In London, a spoof newspaper was produced, alongside other publicity. The day itself featured a Critical Mass and an action by the Campaign Against Arms Trade, before a large march converged in different streams upon the London International Financial Futures Exchange for a street party. Globally there were protests in over 40 cities, including Barcelona, Montevideo, Port Harcourt and San Francisco. Using then new technology, the protests were reported on the internet by independent media activists from London and Sydney, in a step towards the Indymedia network.

Context[]

In 1983 and 1984, Stop the City demonstrations in London had attempted to blockade the City of London.^[1] In planning to contest the 25th G8 summit in Germany, activists connected through Peoples' Global Action decided to make a network of global protests. Preparations took many months and the day became known as simply J18. Groups involved included labour, environmentalist, feminist, anti-capitalist, animal rights and anarchist.^[2]

In London, the open organising group met every month. The day was also discussed in the open weekly meetings of London Reclaim the Streets. There were between 30 and 100 people at these discussions. The slogan for the event became Our Resistance is as Transnational as Capital.^[3] An international email discussion list was set up.^[4] Fund-raising was carried out by collecting anonymous donations and running a series of benefit gigs. A contributor to the Days of Dissent magazine later wrote: "There is only so much that can be learned from how J18 was organised. J18 and the many other successful anti-capitalist events in recent history were produced by a free flowing convergence of events and political currents combined with sheer luck."^[3]

In London, a concerted publicity campaign was carried out, using colourful stickers and 10,000 posters. Workers were encouraged to phone in sick. An eighteen-minute promotional video was made and distributed globally. Squaring up to the Square Mile was a 32-page pamphlet produced by Reclaim the Streets and Corporate Watch which gave details of financial institutions. An A3 map of the City of London (the "Square Mile") showed where they were located. 4,000 copies were produced.^[5]

On 29 January 1999 the Daily Mirror ran a full page article entitled "Police spy bid to smash the anti-car protesters." Closer to the day, stories abounded in the media about possible violent scenarios. All leave was cancelled for City of London Police officers on 18 June. The Corporation of London wrote to companies warning of disruption and suggesting extra security measures.^[5]

London[]

In London, there was a large march planned for midday and autonomous actions in the morning. A Critical Mass bicycle ride brought the City of London traffic to a standstill in rush hour.^[6] The Campaign Against Arms Trade closed down a Lloyds bank with a 'die-in'.^[4] The Association of Autonomous Astronauts began their 10-day festival Space 1999: Ten Days Which Shook The Universe with a blockade of the Lockheed Martin offices at Berkeley Square.^[7][8] The electronic civil disobedience group called for a virtual sit-in of the Mexican embassy in solidarity with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and brought the embassy website to a standstill.^[9]

A spoof version of the Evening Standard daily newspaper called Evading Standards was produced. 30,000 copies of were printed and distributed to City workers on 17 and 18 June. The cover resembled the layout of the actual newspaper and the inner pages contained agitprop and humorous articles. The newspaper was handed out for free. The headline read 'Global Market Meltdown', followed by a spoof report of the collapse of the world's financial markets.^[10][11]

The march[]

At twelve, the protesters met at Liverpool Street train station. Food Not Bombs and Veggies Catering Campaign^[12] gave out free food and a samba band played.

Carnival masks were distributed in four different colours, namely green, gold, black and red. On the inside of the masks, the following text was written:

Those in authority fear the mask for their power partly resides in identifying, stamping and cataloguing: in knowing who you are. But a Carnival needs masks, thousands of masks...Masking up releases our commonality, enables us to act together...During the last years the power of money has presented a new mask over its criminal face. Disregarding borders, with no importance given to race or colours, the power of money humiliates dignities, insults honesties and assassinates hopes. On the signal follow your colour. Let the Carnival begin...^[13]

Five processions set off in different directions (there were four marches planned and another occurred spontaneously).^[11] The spontaneous procession erupted in anger at London Wall when a woman was hit by a reversing police van and had her leg broken.^[14]

Between two and three o'clock, the marches came together and an estimated 5,000 people converged on the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE). A fire hydrant was set off, symbolising the freeing of the Walbrook river, and the lower entrance to the LIFFE was bricked up. Banners were hung, reading Global Ecology Not Global Economy, and The Earth Is A Common Treasury For All, the latter a quote from Gerrard Winstanley of the seventeenth century Diggers movement. Graffiti messages were sprayed and CCTV cameras were disabled. Then sound systems set up and drum & bass music and punk bands played.^[4] In the early afternoon a small group of protesters broke into the Cannon Bridge building, smashed up the reception area and tried to access the LIFFE trading floor, but were prevented by a security screen.^[14]

We'd failed in our under-ambition. Unprepared, we never imagined we could get so close to occupying a trading floor in one of the City’s major exchanges. We'd planned the wall, and built it. We'd planned to free the Walbrook, and done it. But we’d stopped short of planning a full-scale occupation.

— "Wat Tyler"^[4]

The rest of the afternoon became a battle as police using horses and personal incapacitant spray containing CS gas pushed the protesters down Lower Thames Street and out of the City of London. In the aftermath, protesters gathered peacefully in Trafalgar Square.^{[citation needed]}

Global[]

Writing in Z magazine, Katherine Ainger described the global protests, which were "as diverse as the groups taking part". There were street parties Barcelona and San Francisco. Politician Kim Beazley was custard pied in Melbourne for participating in a conference set up by Shell, whilst in Sydney there was another street party.^[9]

In Nigeria, 10,000 people took to the streets of Port Harcourt and blockaded the Royal Dutch Shell offices. A street was renamed in honour of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his younger brother Owens addressed the crowd. A march shut down the stock exchange in Montevideo, Uruguay and ended with the burning of a model television set.^[9]

In total there were protests worldwide in 40 countries, in cities including Tel Aviv, Minsk, Madrid, Valencia, Prague, Hamburg, Cologne, Milan, Rome, Siena, Florence, Ancona, Amsterdam, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Zurich, Geneva, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, Austin (Texas), Boston, and Eugene (Oregon).^[9]

Internet coverage[]

The event was covered by live streaming and internet citizen journalism, which at the time were new. In London, the day's events were transmitted live over the internet. In Australia, a team worked together to create all day coverage. It collected stories, photos and videos from activists and published them in a news feed. The global networking of activists, and technology created, formed the basis of what would become the Indymedia network.^[15][16]

Aftermath[]

Arrests[]

In the United Kingdom, a total of sixteen people were arrested on the day. The Metropolitan Police made a website listing 138 photographs of those wanted for further questioning. Using CCTV footage extensively, they had arrested a further 50 people one year on. A protester plead guilty in January 2004 to Section 20 unlawful wounding (grievous bodily harm) and two violent disorder charges, plus an additional charge of skipping bail in 2000. He received a 4+1⁄2-year sentence.^[17][18]

In Eugene, Oregon Rob Thaxton was sentenced to 88 months in jail after throwing a rock at a police officer while trying to avoid being arrested.^[3]

Later events[]

J18 was the first in a line of huge anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation protests. Others included the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, the protests in Prague during the 2000 International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank summit and the 2001 protests against the 27th G8 summit in Genoa.

Reflections[]

• On 23 June 1999 Undercurrents, the alternative news organisation, premiered a 30-minute documentary in Oxford about the day produced from the pooled footage of a dozen video operators in London. The documentary was shown at festivals and social centres all over the UK during the following months.^{[citation needed]}
• A pamphlet entitled Reflections on June 18 with 18 contributions was published in October 1999.^[19][20]
• A comic history of the day was produced by SchNEWS.^[6]

See also[]

• Anti-globalization movement
• Earth First!
• Peoples' Global Action
• Tactical frivolity
• List of demonstrations against corporate globalization

References[]

Further reading[]

• Anonymous, Friday June 18th 1999, Confronting Capital And Smashing The State! Archived 2016-12-21 at the Wayback Machine, article in Do or Die 8.
• Complete list of actions worldwide Archived 2008-02-14 at the Wayback Machine
• J18 Timeline London

External links[]

• Archived global J18 site accessed June 11, 2006.
• Archived UK J18 site accessed June 11, 2006.
• Reclaim the Streets accessed June 11, 2006.
• Chronological video single camera record without commentary
• "Radical Imagination (Carnivals of Resistance)", video by Marcelo Expósito (2004)
• Dancing at the Edge of Chaos:a spanner in the works of global capitalism by Wat Tyler
• "Reflections on June 18 – global day of action in financial centres 1999", Anarchist Federation pamphlet, October 1999.
• J18, 1999, film by Stefan Szczelkun