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Prague - 26th September 2000 - IMF / World Bank meeting [see the pictures]
[the following is one new (at the time) band member's account of his time in Praha]
I left on friday morning, by coach with 8 other members of the samba band. the invitation had come out of the blue from my dear friend nicky, i wasn't really too sure what too expect and was a bit nervous about playing in a band. but as soon as i met the others i knew we were going to have a great time.
The 20 hour coach journey was a bit grueling and we arrived saturday morning and checked into our hostel. the hostel was all british crew, mostly earth first'ers from what I could gather. the whole trip had the feel of a school journey, of which i have many pleasant memories from my skool daze.
We went down to the convergence centre which was a large derelict tram shed with a few other buildings, just outside the centre of Praha.
There were diverse activists from all over the world, all working together and organising the big march which was going to occur on the tuesday. I have never seen so many people sharing the same space, getting so much organised, being so creative with so few conflicts and arguments, it was a truly inspiring space. there was an art shed filled with paints and materials, where people where making banners and costumes and puppets and globes and a myriad of other things. vast quantities of wholesome, cheap/free food was supplied by rampanplan, a dutch field kitchen for the protest movement.
We had 3 days to get our band organised and to teach everyone (including me) the tunes. we had bought over some proper drums and instruments with us and people had made shakers out of beans, rice, tin cans and plastic bottles and drums made out of plastic oil barrels and junk. at the appointed time anyone who was interested came along and the instruments where shared out. the different sections where arranged into lines, people with shakers surrounding us. I got to play an agogo, which is like 2 cow bells attached together.
Over the 3 practices we learned 2 different tunes and their breaks and practiced moving/dancing in formation, following a flag. The practices where great fun, with lots of smiling happy faces, we made so much progress in such a short time. while our music was somewhat lacking in technical crispness, we more than made up for it with our enthusiasm and joy.
After each practice we all sat down discussed and decided on our tactics for the day of the march. there where a lot of meetings we needed to send people too, to do with things like legal defence, medical, communications etc. I did found myself getting meetinged out a bit towards the end. but we remembered to stop and unwind and have fun and had a great alcohol fueled bonding session/party in one of our hotel rooms on the sunday night, though my hangover the next day was a terrible thing to behold. it seemed to me that a lot of the british activist seemed to forget or not understand the need to have a laugh and chill out.
Our band colours where pink and silver and we made costumes for ourselves. i ended up on the day in a long orange wraparound skirt with a very revealing slit up the side (phwoar) a tight pink top with a silver waist sash, and my hair in bunches with pink and silver ribbons, lots of the blokes where wearing dresses (2000, year of the geezer-bird) we were truly a strange and wondrous sight.
The overall plan was to have a main unity march which would march in a loop and then split into 3 separate coloured marches and go to blockade different exits from the conference centre. because we were a large uk affinity group we had decided to remain an autonomous group (splitters!) and decide where to go on the day. we had bicycle runners (a group of women from the uk cycled all the way to Praha, dubbed clitoral mass) and phones and radios and wanted to be flexible and fast moving.
We all met up formed the band and got to the square a bit after the main march had left off. the square was well empty when we got there, I think the organisers had hoped for 15000 people but the actual figure was more like 5000.
We double timed it down to the conference centre playing all the way, there was a line of police blocking the road and pretty soon a few rocks etc. were chucked by the black block, the scuffling continued for a bit and the police threw some fire cracker things and people scattered back a bit, but soon came back for more, next they tried a rather limp water cannon, which just got everyone wet. when this failed the line of police charged and we all ran away back down the road.
We marched around the centre at one stage we came to a grass verge which went up to the wall of the centre. the 4 or 5 normal police guarding it shat themselves and ran off. there was a shed next to the wall and lots of people climbed onto it and got into the bottom level of the centre. lots of delegates and hotel staff came out onto the top level to watch the action. we where playing furiously and waving to them, even the police seemed to be enjoying the to and fro battle on the verge, one stopped and waved his stick at us like some sort of jedi knight and got a cheer. It did get a bit scary when loads of riot coppers turned up. and they charged us half a mile back up the hill.
We where all knackered by then after playing for 8 hours with only a few rests and it was starting to get dark, so we called it a day. about 40 of us went to a nearby park to drink some beers. pretty soon though 2 undercover pigs showed up and started snapping away so after remonstrating a bit we headed back to the hotel, narrowly avoiding another march that was smashing up banks and mcdonalds.
I don't think anyone was seriously hurt or many people arrested, on our bit of the march, the police seemed a bit halfhearted with their baton charges. i put a lot of this down to tactical frivolity, our group of female dancers. looking very sexy in pink dresses and fantails, they spent the day making eye contact and flirting with the police lines, tickling them with their pink feather dusters. i think this confused the shit out of the policemen while at the same time reminding them that they where still human beings. which made it harder for them to get carried away with the violence. the power of fluffiness.
The next day we awoke to tales of people getting hurt and hundreds being arrested, we were also hearing bad stories about people in prison being beaten and sexually abused. a lot of these stories turned out to be true. So when we went into town to meet up, we were more than a bit scared and nervous.
The centre of Praha was filled with police stopping and searching people who didn't look like tourists. we got to the bar and decided as a group that we didn't want to do any more protests that day. so we started on the cocktails. it's great that the booze is so cheap in prague, even a cheapskate hippie like me can get in a round. we cheered up a bit when the police outside the bar disappeared. then we heard that the conference had been canceled and our spirits lifted even further although the victory was a hollow one because of what was happening in the prisons.
We left the bar at about dusk and went into the old town square which is very touristy so we felt. a load of spanish activists with "i am an activist, arrest me too." written on them, were having a heartfelt (if slightly limp) protest. we had one drum on us and a couple of us started banging on it, me and nicky where both eating those candy pop whistle things, so we started blowing 'em, an agogo came out of someone's bag, a couple of metal dustbin liners where picked up and banged, somebody else ran to a shop and bought a bag of wooden spoons to clack together. and pretty soon we had a bit of a samba thing going on. before we knew it we had a big crowd of people gathered around us. the leaders of the spanish people suggested we march to the prison. so off we went. it is amazing the power of a band to lead a crowd of people.
We paraded for maybe a mile down to the pedestrian bridge across the river, the bridge has statues on it and in each alcove there where 4 fully tooled up riot police. this is when it started to get scary.
We decided to stop playing at the end of the bridge about 100 feet from a line of robocops, there were more police under the bridge ready to rush up. somebody got everyone to sit down which steadied things a bit. we knew that our protest was non-violent but we were worried that the police didn't know that. there was a bit of heated debate in spanish about what to do. then nicky just stood up a gave a little speech saying that this was a peaceful march in solidarity with the prisoners, someone suggested a minutes silence (though it was more like 45 seconds due to us lunching out the timing, but no one noticed). I found the silence very powerful and moving.
Having had our moment we paraded back to the square. holding the flag at the front meant that i had a wall of photographers flashing away all the way back. i felt like a movie star at a film premier, it was all very strange but yet satisfying because i was proud about what we did. we played in the square for a little while and decided to melt away, other people had turned up with drums and suchlike so we left them to it and made our way home.
For the last few days in Praha me and nicky decided to bunk off playing, the band did a couple more peaceful demonstrations, but we wanted to enjoy Praha as a city. so we drank lots of coffee and wandered round enjoying the sights and bumping into people we had met. on one night we went to a proper czech food place and i had a plate of beef stroganoff with dumplings (first time i have eaten any meat for over 2 years, but when in rome.....) which was totally delicious. another night we had a truly monumental piss-up in a real czech anarchists bar with the other band members and dancers, everyone seemed to be in top form that night, we were dancing on the tables and drank the bar dry of becherovka the czech national spirit flavoured with cloves (hmmmmmmm becherovka).
My trip to Praha was a wonderful positive experience for me. I met so many lovely people all sharing and debating their own different views and ideas about how to improve our world. it did strike me that a lot of activism tends to be negative, attacking this or protesting about that, which is important, but we also need to show people that we have an alternative way of life where people come first and creativity and diversity and love of life itself are the cornerstones. love seems to be a four letter word among a lot of activists. I do believe that the world can change and I've come back with a lot of ideas about how to do it, but it is people more than just things that need to change and the desire for change can only come from inside each person.
For more info check out http://prague.indymedia.org/
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