Saturday

Saturday April 15
Independent Media Center
9 am

I'm lying awake, but I still feel dreamy and blissed out - best sleep I had all week. And outside the door is the soothing bustle and chatter of the IMC, back in full swing for another day. It's not until I get up and emerge into the main room, though, that I am jerked to attention by the subject of the chatter: the Convergence Center has been shut down.

At the centre of the room is a pile of eight television sets, most of which are displaying coverage of the shutdown. The story: police showed up with a search warrant, and found a fire-hazard propane stove and the makings of molotov cocktails. In the face of this outrage, they evicted the protesters. And confiscated all their puppets, naturally. Although it later turns out that the propane stove was only used outside and was merely in storage, and that the 'molotov cocktail' was in fact a dish rag and a bottle of vinegar, somehow the sleuths at the local news desk swallow the police story whole.

Forgive me, but I'm going to poke some more holes in nonviolent civil disobedience, because this reminds me of another tactical problem. The idea that acts of 'passive resistance' (to borrow a phrase that Gandhi rejected) would inspire the outrage of populations rests in part on the premise that these acts will be heard about, accurately and fully, by said populations. The basic vehicle for this communication has got to be the mass media. But if the media are in fact massively devoted to rote parroting of the authoritarian line, the strategy breaks down. Not to imply absolute uniformity, but any newspaper worth its incorporation papers has a vested interest in portraying the enemies of capital as the enemies of logic and history - and capital is now the social justice movement's bottom line. And while Independent Media Centers are a partial response to this crisis of information, they haven't yet moved beyond preaching to the choir. Of course, communication is a problem for other forms of resistance as well; but since they are not as obsessively symbolic as CD tends to be, the damage is less fundamental.

I decide to call Kole's mom and give the gang the poop on convergence, plus let them know that I'm still alive. The former point they had already seen on TV; we decide to converge ourselves, and prepare for the next move. I give the IMC my regards and lug my backpack out the door.

Saturday April 15
10:30 am
The apartment

Walking into Kole's mom's place, I am warmly greeted and practically force-fed a nice big breakfast before mom runs off on an errand. At the door, she says that I am welcome to stay here for the duration of the protests. This is great - no more vagrancy!

Kole, Anthony, Maria and I spend some time shaking our heads at the cops' audacity - this morning is when people are really scheduled to start pouring into town. A makeshift meeting spot has been set up at another hall not far from convergence - we decide to get a cab and head down together. As we step out into the hall and the door closes, I realize that I'm still stupidly wearing my enormous backpack, with all my ID and many kilograms of other stuff. The next door down is the laundry room - Kole instructs me to slide my pack under the sink and grab it when we get back. I do so and we leave.

Saturday April 15
11:30 am
Convergence center # 2

When the chatty and indulgent cabbie drops us off at the hall, the streets are crawling with people, hundreds of protesters milling around in the increasingly heavy rain, spilling out into the street and blocking the intersection. A woman with a megaphone stands on the stairs and asks people to either come in or disperse, lest this convergence get shut down too; we are already on our way in the doors. Inside, a steadily growing crowd is sitting on the floor, waiting for an update. What follows is more of an orientation for newcomers, a list of workshops with directions, plus a general statement of resilience in the face of oppression; they also warn that this hall would not be at our disposal beyond this afternoon.

We take stock. Maria wants to attend the legal workshop down the street; later on, I want to check out the nonviolence workshop to nail that issue down once and for all. We wander back out into the rain.

Saturday April 15
12:30 pm
Yet another church - exterior

Earlier, at the OTHER church where legal training was going on, a wedding was in progress, and scores of us had to wait on the sidewalk for the procession to get out the door and into the cars. Everyone was civil, but I wonder what the wedding party thought when they wandered into the midst of all these soggy, hairy freaks.

Legal wasn't what Maria was hoping for - it was exactly the same as Thursday's - so we headed down to this church early, hanging out and waiting for the workshop to start. The rain is letting up now, and across the street three women with big red flags are performing excerpts from Karl Marx and prancing around. Is this some kind of satire? It's pretty entertaining, either way.

We are working on our pseudonyms - I'm Oc (that was my nickname in Grimsby), Maria is Braveheart, Anothony is Antone, Kole is still Kole because that's a nickname anyway - when Maria realizes she has all our names, addresses, and telephone numbers written on a piece of paper in her pocket. Not good. So we tear it up into a few pieces, place it in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the church, and burn it. The flame goes out before the job is done, and as we are trying to re-ignite it, I look up and see Starhawk once again - charging toward us and asking what we're doing. I explain that we're just destroying the evidence, and Starhawk says to please be on our best behaviour, because the progressives in this church had to fight hard to secure it as a meeting space.

I wonder what exactly she thinks we're doing - making a bomb? I guess you have to keep an eagle eye on such men as I - hormonally imbalanced advocates of swearing at police.

Saturday April 15
1 pm
Yet another church - interior

The nonviolence workshop is split into three large groups; we are routed to the basement. I go in hoping for wise and persuasive argument for the efficacy of nonviolence as a tactic. But the arguments tend toward the usual inclusivity and don't-replicate-the-enemy, which aren't enough for me, and a printed quote from MLK that again speaks of symbolism rather than likelihood of effective impact, and doesn't sway me from my skepticism.

After some more innocuous discussion, we get into some role-playing. Pairing off, we first simulate a blockader and a person wishing to pass; then a journalist and an activist. The goal, of course, is to project ourselves into confrontational situations and work out appropriate responses. This exercise might be useful in theory, but the leaders' directions are weak, and their timing signals are so impossible to hear over the din that the thing degenerates into laughably hopeless chaos. Another problem is that activists are not actors, and my partners have a hard time projecting themselves into the mind set of a journalist and/or scab.

The deficiencies really flare up in the next section, where some of us play a human chain, and some of us play cops. What good is it going to do any of us to act like cops? Furthermore, we are obliged to use extensive force to take apart the chain - not being trained in this stuff, I was seriously concerned about hurting them as I wrenched their arms and dragged them away. This is really stupid, especially compared to the compact and effective role-playing of the legal workshop, and by the end of this I am equating nonviolent theorists with organizational morons. This is not the convincer I wanted!

Saturday April 15
4 pm
Convergence center # 2

In a small fenced-in alcove outside the hall, I stand among hundreds of people - mostly Canadians, many familiar from Toronto - as the Section B meeting begins. The plan is put forward: we are to arrive at our position early tomorrow morning, before the beginning of the WB/IMF meetings; we are to stay in this position, and bodily prevent any vehicles from approaching the meetings. In order to assess this plan, we need to figure out how many 'arrestables' we have - people who are willing to take part in the blockades that will obstruct the vehicles. Within their affinity groups, everybody marks their members as 'yes' or 'no'.

Our group gathers, and it's time for me to decide - yes or no? For days I have been questioning this form of protest, and my concerns still haven't been answered. But now here I am, in the middle of a lively and friendly meeting, peppered with familiar faces, with a clear commitment to the action plan and a strong sense of momentum.

So there it is: this is what is happening, it is the way it is; I must choose either to join in or to stand aside. And no matter what reservations I have, I did not come all this way and go through all this shit to turn myself into a spectator. Yes; I am an arrestable.

Saturday April 15
6 pm
The streets

When the meeting let out, I walked out to the sidewallk, and under a tree I saw a blue marble bowling ball; as a memento of this occasion and this moment of commitment, I picked it up and took it with me.

Me, Kole, and Anthony started walking toward home, or so we thought; but pretty soon we realized that we were totally lost. Now, on an obscure, curving residential street, we run into a small group of folks idling on the corner. I don't know how, but somehow each group automatically intuits that the other group are protesters. Maybe it's the same instinct that I've heard lesbians talk about in spotting their own: we know that they are with us, and they know we are with them.

Still, none of us can fingure out what direction we are going, so we stand there and chat a while. As we do, I can hear the helicopters flitting overhead again, gathering whatever intelligence they are supposed to gather. Then, soon enough, a cop car buzzes by. It idles briefly up the street, clearly sizing us up, then moves on. If they mean to intimidate us, it works: we disperse.

As we hail a cab, I am forced to face a hidden issue in all this deliberating about breaking the law: I am ultra-terrified of cops. I don't know where this shit comes from, other than general childhood trauma, and/or my sheltered middle-class existence. The former leaves me trembling in impotence in the face of illegitimate authority; the latter facilitates a sense that the police are friendly and far out of sight: lost in the works of our protective machine, emerging occasionally to impress us with their theatrical feats of cunning. They are a distant dividing wall separating us good people from the bad.

Maybe, like Frowny said, my privilege should be a source of power; but if so it's not the kind of power she means. What I'm looking for is the power to scale that big blue wall, to cross over to the other side, to deny the supremacy of that division - and in the process, to disarm these rapists that would hold us down and have their way. Privilege is only converted to power when you give it up; and maybe I am beginning to understand how civil disobedience might - I said might - be a substantial stride along that upward path.

Saturday April 15
7 pm
The apartment

My backpack is gone.

Someone took my backpack.

Saturday April 15
8 pm
Indian restaurant

After finally finding a restaurant that is open and willing to serve us (lots of private parties tonight, for some reason), Kole, Anthony and I sit down for dinner. The disappearance of my backpack has fucked me right up and thrown me off, but I feel prepared to accept it - it's another step in my descent into chaos, my abandonment of comfort. Since the bag contained my wallet, my journal, my sleeping bag and all my clothes, the discomfort is certainly extensive. But maybe it will turn up - maybe the superintendant took it away. But he won't be back on duty until Monday.

As we eat our curries and discuss the action, I have to share my misgivings about the action tactics - and I find that Kole feels the same way. Kole, whose family is from Croatia, tells us how European activists are much less timid about violence: when the war in Bosnia broke out, he says, his grandmother called him with directions on how to make and throw a molotov cocktail (throw it underhand - it slides and spreads better). I emphasize my old hangups of class and solidarity. Anthony is new to these arguments, but he's attentive and receptive. All talked out, we lose ourselves in our food and the seductive Bollywood fantasies beaming from behind the counter.

Saturday April 15
10 pm
The apartment

Dave has shown up with a bunch of folks from Montreal. On the tube, along with the police chief's heartwarming return of the protesters' puppets, is some very scary news - a preliminary march this evening has been busted, and 50-odd people have been indiscriminately arrested. In Central America, they call this kind of thing 'destabilization' - clearly the idea is to reduce our effective numbers, with the law as their weapon. But there's still lots of us left, and the outrage we feel about this random repression only pumps us up for our mission tomorrow - which starts in six hours.