Bratlislava, Slovakia - 9 June 2001
Bratislava's second Street Party took place on Freedom Square on
Saturday 9 June. The aim of organisers (composed of anarchists, members of
NGO’s, punks, straight-edgers and others without any organisation as such)
was to medialise [publicise? mediatise?] the processes of global capitalism
and the necessity of resistance - and to point out at the plan to build the
Kosicka Bridge which, according to organisers, will only worsen the environment
in Slovakia's capital city.
We see the solution in preferring public transport before automoblism.
Around 1200-1500 people came mostly young people from various subcultures.
The whole event was meant to be a non-violent direct action and the posters
proclaimed that no violence, drugs, alcohol and bolsheviks are welcomed.
However, the situation turned to be much more complicated.
The first people started to gather on the square at 12-13 p.m. Soon it satrted
raining, and kept on with some breaks during the whole day.
The first conflict started when marxists from the Czech "Budoucnost" group,
with some of their Slovak friends, tried to give out leaflets for an
antifascist demo they were organising to support the case of Mario B. - a
Bolshevik who killed a nazi a few months ago - and to point out the current
growth of racism and neonazism. They were asked to spread no such
propaganda - or at least to remove the contact address from the leaflet - which
they finally did.
Immediately after resolving this, anarchists and militant antifascists had
to confront the Bolsheviks of Socialist Workers Organisation (SOP) who,
together with the members of AGM, started to prepare a stall with their
literature and a big banner in support of Mario B. (Budoucnost and SOP were
separated and it seems they have some inter-organisation disputes). They
were asked to pack their propaganda which they refused to and tried to
dicsuss the matter with us (saying we are authoritarians and ban their
freedom of speech as if they had a right to something like that...).
The response was an attack from our side on their banner and almost a fight
with them but unfortunately the cops came and said that if we attack them,
the whole meeting would be dispersed. So, we had to leave them with - great
anger.
There were stalls of Priama Akcia-IWA, Czechoslovak Anarchist Federation
(CSAF), Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists Solidarita (ORAS), The
8th March Group (8MG), Initiative for Free Study (IBV) and some NGO’s were
in the square. The speeches dealt with:
- Organisers welcomed people
- Anti-automoblists dealt with the Kosicka Bridge plan and automoblism
- The 8th March Group spoke on global capitalism and wimmins' issues
- The Initiative for Free Study paid attention to mobilisation of students
against planned new university law, and the speaker also said few words
about the bolsheviks at the meeting Antifascist Action - Revolutionary
Organisation of Antifascists spread their leaflets, also IBV, CSAF and the
organisers of the event (and the bolshevik scumbags, too).
At about 16:30-17:00 we started a non-permitted march of around 1000 people
with the aim of blockading the transport in the city - we walked for almost two
kilometers, on both sides of the road most of the time.
There were two big transparents [banners?] in the front of the march
"Capitalism is an organised crime" and "Clean life without
cars - Free life in a free society" (or something like that). There
were several placards from PA-AKOP-IWA and CSAF. The 8 March Group had a banner
in the middle of the march - "Against capitalism and sexism".
Police were again pretty unprepared for the march. Around 100 cops
(according to the official sources - we saw only a few of them) were able
only to redirect the traffic.
After around 300-400 metres during a crossroad blockade, the first problems
started when cops attacked few people (and injured some of them). Also, alcopunks
started to make trouble here, which they later repeated.
The crowd moved on in attempt not to be surrounded but the police. But
just some 100-150m further on the cops attacked again, and the front of the
march was divided. However, people didn’t run away - they immediately almost
completely surrounded some 10 attacking cops, who had to move back, The re-joined
crowed then moved further. But soon the march finally got under the control of
the police, who incresed their harrassment - but no injuries or arrests were
seen, at least at the front. The march ended up at a place where a concert
was to occur.
Police said the following day that they had detained 5 people from the march.
The event had many good and bad sides. On the one hand, for many of us, it
was nice - we met with friends from the whole country and had a chance to
spread anarchist publications among people. Also, the response of some
people, even in the cars, was very nice (for example, after reading our
placard "Anarchosyndicalism YES to unions, NO to the bureaucrats" a
woman in a blockaded car smiled at us and waved us in a sign of agreement).
On the other side, many people didn’t pay much attention to the stalls and
the speeches and were there just for the entertainment. Also, the
bolsheviks and alcopunks were unwanted elements causing lots of anger and
sadness. The event was not able to attract attention of older working class
people and the media coverage was pretty horrible (shortly, saying the
people made troubles, were drunk and caused disorder).
Although the organisers are thinking of doing another Street Party next
year and say it seems it will be necessary not only to ban the bolshevik
amaakciapropaganda [?love to know what that is] but also the alcopunks, it
is questionable if it’s worthwhile for anarchists to put energy in organising
street parties if they are able to attract mostly only an attention of young
students who do not feel the social injustice and wage slavery so intensively
as the older working class people. Sad but true, all that Slovak anarchist "movement" is able to do today is just this and it seems that there
isn’t much work going on to change the situation...
Michal Tulik
PA-AKOP-IWA