Black Block

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The G8 summit is held in Genoa

July 20-22nd, 2001

In a city guarded by police 300,000

people protest against the summit

2 days of clashes, 200 arrests,

1000 wounded and 1 protester killed

The operational base of the Genoa

Social forum, coordinating

the associations promoting the protest

is the Diaz School.

July 22nd:
the police identifies this

school as the base for the Black Bloc,

held responsible for the devastation

during the G8

The intelligence report

allowed us to divide into groups

the potential protesters, based

on ideological characteristics

and to focus our attention on the most

dangerous group, the Black Bloc,

made up of around 500 Italians

and 2000 foreigners.

On the basis of what happened

in the early hours of the riots

and in the clashes that followed

caused by the so-called Black Bloc,

some things need to be considered.

The Black Bloc travel

in an anonymous form,

they don't always have a base,

they don't hold regular meetings

but they come from all over the world

to attend important events

with a perfect understanding

of the territory

and assault techniques.

BERLIN:

The real squatting of houses

went on until 1990.

All the houses that have contracts now

were squatted before

German reun ifi cat i on .

M ULl-31

When l was young, in '94 - '95,

no one squatted anything anymore.

During my crazy punk-rock period

we'd squat in an apartment

or we'd stay in houses that were

already occupied.

I moved into the house

when I live now in 2002, after Genoa.

At first it was a war about who wanted

to negotiate and who didn't.

Some people said:

We'll squat, we don't want contracts,

it's our right, everyone has the night

to own the house they live in

and no landlord

has the right to exist,

to take money as rent".

Othen said:

"That would be right politically,

but in the world we live in

it's utopian".

I'm glad I live in a house

which, thanks to negotiations,

is now in the hands

of a cooperative

and has therefor been removed

from the speculative market.

I could never be one

that follows the crowd.

May be that's why I be came a punk

when I was 13.

I'm an atypical case,

I had a good childhood

and fantastic parents.

The key moment was when I was

in school,aged 14.

And then was a very competitive

mentality in school :

everyone against everyone.

Everyone had to create their own space

in order to succeed.

But I was unable to do this.

It wasn't the world as I imagined it

and I never found my own space.

l thought:
I don't give a damn"

and so.

I went to one of the camps occupied

by caravans, called "East Side".

Almost a thousand people lived there,

from the most extreme scenes,

mostly the punk rock one.

And I don't know, I immediately

felt at home.

Being together...

was different

to how I'd experienced it.

Different to how it was at school

or how football fans wen.

I don't want to be influenced

by society, but I want to influence it.

How can I say... even

on an emotional level I feel

that my life cannot only be about

this consumerist society.

I don't want to live like that.

Why did I come to Genoa ?

Because when important things

are criticized,

when you experience...

It's true that protests

can always be ignored,

I can run through the streets

shouting that capitalism is sh*t.

The question is:
"Who cares ?

Who will listen to me ?"

It's a problem young people face:

who will listen to them ?

That's why in Prague I was happy

to be able to participate directly,

of the fact that we wen able

to interrupt the summit.

It was the International

Monetary fund summit.

And this got me hooked somehow.

So afterwards I wanted to go

to Genoa at all costs.

I have many memories.

I was struck by how different people

came together.

I think it's one of life's

rare experiences.

I never experienced it again:

being with thousands of people

who an totally dierent,

with dierent political motivations,

from dierent groups,

with different objectives.

The way they got in touch,

the interaction that took place,

the reciprocal intensity

and curiosity...

farmers came to protest about

the politics of agriculture

and found themselves alongside

anarchists and punks

and it was a peaceful meeting.

They showed no aggression

towards one another.

The change

happened so quickly, from what I saw.

Then was already a lot of tension

that morning when it all started.

The police attack on

the Tute Bianche group

happened suddenly,

with no warning.

The quantity of gas they used

against people

meant you had no chance of escaping.

Pure terror broke out.

I'd never seen such a thing happen

and I never want to again.

Also because it was nothing like

a normal police intervention.

for me it was like

a military intervention

and like many others,

I immediately feared for my life.

- film that.

- Sh*t, there's a guy... Oh, God I

Murderers! Murderers!

It was only when I got to the Carlini

stadium that I found out

that not far from us

Carlo Giuliani had been killed.

The next day, when they started

spraying that gas again,

I couldn't go any further.

There was a demonstration

along the seafront.

I started finding it hard to breathe.

Then panic spread though the crowds

which started retreating.

I was trapped among the crowds,

I couldn't move,

I couldn't even walk.

I was so squashed. If Id lifted

my feet, I wouldn't have fallen over.

The people wen so squashed that

the tear gas bounced o them

Without even touching the ground.

In Genoa, after that second day,

the atmosphere was...

A policeman on the roadside was enough

to create negative energy.

No one had the courage to

go within 50 meters of him.

And they were night, in my opinion.

They wen like a hostile army,

an enemy army.

I was mentally distraught

and rather exhausted.

I didn't even want to go back

to the stadium.

It was too big, chaotic and dangerous

for my liking.

In hindsight it turned out to be

the wrong decision.

I'd have been safer

among 10,000 people.

Yes, and so I went to the school,

also because, like many others

I wanted to get out of the city.

wen quite upset about

what had happened.

So we decided not to leave

on that day

and to spend the night some where

on the beach.

But then we decided to go to

the Diaz School

because we'd found out we were

allowed to sleep there.

We parked almost in front

of the school gates.

Lena and I went in

and we looked for somewhere

where we could be on our own.

didn't want too many people around,

we wanted to rest

afterward had happened.

We parked the car.

Stefania and Valena went to sleep

right away.

I was getting ready too,

I was talking with some friends,

waiting to be able to use a computer.

After everything we'd experienced

we had the impression that

this was a finale...

a tranquil and comforting finale.

Then all of a sudden

we heard someone shouting:

"Police, police!"

I immediately ran up to

the frontdoor, where my stuff was.

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