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Strasbourg - No Border camp - July 2002
Meetings, decisions and communications
Oh dear....Possibly the worst aspect of the camp. A structure was decided upon whereby each barrio would have its own meeting and then send a representative to and inter-barrio meeting The action meetings suffered the same fate, particularly in the first half of the week. At one point some people were spending far too many hours of the day in meetings. It only served to put people off attending meetings, and therefore discouraged people from attending the interesting pre-arranged meetings involving refugee groups etc. Because of so many meetings, the camp communication system seemed to grind to halt because there were too many meetings being held and no-one could find things out because things hadn't been decided yet, particularly on the Thursday in the last hour leading up to our departure for the street action that day.
Once the actual camp had begun, it seemed that this infrastructure was continually under discussion, again often at the expense of discussion on themes of racism, migration, SIS etc. What this meant was that it was easy for a discussion about whether to build more compost toilets, or why there was a need for the 'Bertha' security structure, to take over an hour in the inter-barrio meeting, pushing other important points into obscurity. This felt quite inward looking and frustrating as the amount of time remaining for the camp grew shorter
Although it had been agreed from the beginning of the camp to have a camp infrastructure that developed as people arrived at the site and contributed to it, once the actual camp had begun, it seemed that this infrastructure was continually under discussion, again often at the expense of discussion on themes of racism, migration, SIS etc. What this meant was that it was easy for a discussion about whether to build more compost toilets, or why there was a need for the 'Bertha' security structure, to take over an hour in the inter-barrio meeting, pushing other important points into obscurity. This felt quite inward looking and frustrating as the amount of time remaining for the camp grew shorter.
Actions
On the Tuesday a themed street demonstration took place in which there was a march to the court of Human Rights, in which asylum seekers were able to directly confront one of the so called democratic institutions of Europe, by making speeches with a loud PA. Some of us were in the Cronenbourg banlieue on the Wednesday, but the Thursday demo left a lot to be desired. The point of the demo was supposed to be to go to a government building which made decisions on whether people should be deported or not, this demo was decided upon because the intended action at a detention centre had been cleared of asylum seekers. However the intention to mass, or otherwise in front of the building was never done clearly and the focus of the action seemed to be graffiti-ing whilst avoiding the cops and tear gas. Eventually we had enough of having to run with heavy, arkward drums, held an assembly, and decided to leave the action, much to the disgust of some people who weren't so severely troubled with large drums!.
Because of the ban on demos we decided with a good number of others to try something different on the Saturday. This was supposed to be the day in which we went to the Schengen Information System situated in a rural community to the south of the city. Whilst others went to Kiel and then back to Strasbourg, we decided to go directly into the centre of Strasbourg and try and salvage something. We went to the Braderie. This is an big annual even for Strasbourg, which the police were determined we were not to interfere with. However drums were left in a hotel room in Place Kleber which we filtered into in small numbers, and were able with the support of others to hand out hundreds of leaflets to shoppers, about the intention of the camp and the earlier repression etc. We could move fairly well in such a congested environment and once we had been around a section of the square several times the cops let us out and penned us into a street alongside a canal, not before they had pepper sprayed stall-holders as well as us, we even had a plain clothes cop who tried to join the band, but played so badly he was easily recognised! They then commandeered a city bus, which took us back to the camp in two runs. The fact that we had penetrated the city centre and engaged with local people meant that the action was thought to be a success
Ourselves
This week proved to be a big learning proccess in some ways, transporting ourselves and the drums was problematic enough, but taking a kitchen to feed ourselves was something most of us had never done before, and proved trying in the period leading up to leaving London. However the things that worked well were the support team, and we were able to successfully turn around and go back on ourselves which we have never done before. Playing with the Amsterdam band was generally good though as before on these international occasions we suffered from not being able to practice enough, so the tunes playable together was very limited. Some of us chose to go to the Cronenbourg banlieue on the Wednesday instead of attending the demo that day. There was a small festival taking place in a grassy square, which we became part of by doing a drum workshop with the kids, dancing as well, this was an great opportunity to do something different which was done well. The high point was the gig on the Friday In which we were spontaneously accompanied by the French hip-hoppers, which was excellent.
Conclusions and suggestions
- It needs to be realised and respected that partying has been part of the British direct action movement for the last decade. There were some problems with this at first. Several non-British people in our barrio told me that things were less boring and more lively when the majority of the band arrived with the sound system. And by the end of the camp most people were partying anyway.
- A welcoming group was required, the camp booklet although translated into three different languages was not adequate for the number of things that was going on. The annual UK Earth First! summer camp, although smaller, has such a meeting each morning of the camp for new people.
- The interbarrio structure became unworkable. The problem with many of the meetings on the camp was that too many people were prepared to talk for too long, which prolonged too many meetings. Some people really need to learn to exercise some self-control in what they say, repeating what other people say, sidetracking onto other issues were common problems. This only served to make meetings long and painful, which meant that those who could not stand them, boycotted them. This left the meetings to those who had the capacity to survive them, until the interbarrio structure collapsed. In Britain we think our meetings are too long, nothing compared to European ones! Also some people need be taught how to conduct themselves in meetings, seriously! We have people we know here who are expert in teaching groups how to have more concise and functional meetings.
- Very few of the pre-planned actions had any real creativity to them, other than massing on the streets. It was left to groups like ourselves to 'go it alone' and try and do something different. We should have been more closely involved prior to the camp, which would have helped this.
- That although the Strasbourg camp was much bigger than expected, it future it would be a good idea to keep border camps smaller and more distinct - 2000 + people was too many with so few people willing to participate in the organisation of the event. It also meant a shift in focus, having to spend more time addressing food and amenities and relaying information, than would otherwise have been necessary if there had been fewer in attendance.
- To emphasise that a border camp is not a counter-summit. That it is very different in nature to a Prague or Genoa and should be approached in a very different manner.
- It must be possible to make future border camps more accessible to those who are the most immediately disenfranchised in the community. Sans Papiers, asylum seekers and refugees. It often felt like the camp was a fragile alliance of people working on asylum and immigration issues and anti-capitalist protestors (though obviously many people fell into both categories). Apart from the German migrant group 'The Voice', there was very little participation from those most of the issues affected by those on a day-to-day camp for basis.
- Our feeling is that when sending information about the Strasbourg border camp around the UK, that the propaganda was sent to activist groups and social centres rather than refugee and migrant groups with information on the reasons for the camp, and with translations into their languages to make this information more readily accessible. Despite the diversity of the camp it was overwhelmingly white and European. Admittedly, there are problems for Sans Papiers Europe wide who are unable to move about freely or to attend political gatherings. What this means is that the No Borders network has to look at ways to make future border camps more region specific, keeping the focus local. Enabling those without papers to participate without jeopardising their own situation.
A disappointing thing was the political actions taken by some of the direct action groups. The level of window-breaking and graffiti-ing was not required. We went there with the intention of learning from other people and taking part in creative actions to raise the profile of 'No Borders' amongst the people of Strasbourg, not annoying them by graffiti-ing residential blocks whilst the people in them asked them not to do so. Whilst the majority of the band have no problem with graffiti and trashing. We believe there could be correct times and places to do this. There was no summit in town, thus we had to build actions that reached out to the people of Strasbourg Some, during and after had little understanding of, or willingness to work with groups that chose different forms of political action from theirs. There seems to be little opportunity at this stage of building a broad No Borders movement. Whilst groups within it are unwilling or unable to accommodate, and even be hostile to groups such as ours. It needs to be recognised that there are very real differences in approaches and tactics for actions that need to be reconciled. However we found the camp on the whole a really positive experience, and the state of the camp after the 10 days were over was stunning, that after so much intense activity, the Parc du Rhin was left in a really clean state with glass, paper etc being recycled and the remaining few items being picked up by homeless people from the Strasbourg area.
We thank all of you who participated positively and for everyone's hard work, ingenuity, perseverance and laughter.
For further info see the No Border website at: www.noborder.org
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