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 Protester at Genoa Summit Scott Tucker, author, The Queer Question, Reflects on Tragedy Youth First to Die in the Anti-Corporate-Globalization Protests |
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Compiled By GayToday
Guiliani's coffin was covered by a banner representing his favorite soccer team. As it was carried aloft, many of those in attendance broke into hearty applause. Some raised their fists, defying an establishment that had, according to observers, fostered conditions that had made the young man's death possible. Scott Tucker, author of The Queer Question, provided GayToday with the following reflections on those events that had encouraged Carlo Guiliani to confront the establishment's rule. Tucker writes:
"After a police rampage through the G8 media and conference center, at least a dozen G8 workers were carried out on stretchers and scores of others had been assaulted. Berlusconi said he was unaware that the police planned such an action, and was greeted with a chorus of jeers and bitter laughter in the Italian parliament. "When violence in such protests is discussed in the media, the favorite Public Enemy of pundits is the Black Bloc. There is, however, good reason to believe that the Italian police dressed teams of their own agents to mix, mingle and provoke violence. "I have read a report by an eye-witness in Genoa who said the police are deliberately playing up the hysteria against young anarchists, and that their agents were seen freely moving across police lines after assaulting a labor leader and other protesters who were deliberately steering clear of the Black Bloc. "Reports and editorials in Time magazine, Philly Inquirer and other such sources are pretty much what one would expect. Much moral heartburn and many high-minded phrases about law and order, and no attention paid to those who bear the greatest share of blame for military and paramilitary violence- namely, the very gentlemen who gather at such GloboCorp conferences. "Guiliani's father is a prominent labor official in Italy. At the funeral he said: 'In the end, we all want the same thing: a better world, or at least a less disgusting one. But it takes time, patience and caution.' "He has lost a son and his feelings deserve respect. But we can also assume that his son had views of his own on the creeping reformism of labor officials, which has been no match for global corporatist rule. "In Britain, the Labor Party now calls itself the New Labor Party--keeping pace with the New Democrats here at home. It's fair to conclude that street battles with cops are not the best way to hold ruling classes accountable for their own recklessness and their contempt for democracy. "The real question is not whether we favor or oppose class struggle. That question is already academic. A global class struggle is being waged by an amoral and technically sophisticated ruling class, and the question is only whether we will play dead or resist. If those gentlemen take refuge in offshore luxury liners (as has been suggested) at future GloboCorp conferences, or behind more secure police lines, then by all means the methods of non-violent civil disobedience should also advance. "Whether they meet Switzerland or Qatar, in this country we have the option to shut down Wall Street or to kick the bums out through independent political action at the polls. Breaking away from bipartisan corporatism means fighting for elementary electoral reform and real democracy in the United States--which will indeed take time, patience and caution. They can go to hell with their New World Order and we can go on with a better world, or at least a less disgusting one." |
