I'm forwarding this in answer to your question; Candice & as a response to
the version of events posted by Erminia. I have been empowered to do so by
(John) Martin. N., his partner, also observed P violence on the peaceful
march she was on. Beware those who speak of sacrifice, indeed. The
escalation of violence (the feared & repressed sacred activated in mimetic
rivalry) culminating in the sacrifice of scapegoats (Freud's transference &
projection are active here) as "release" from the mimetic chain of
reciprocal violence has been exactly described by René Girard in _La
violence et le sacré_. The skutill flying back & forth,
"When will it be extinguished,
the fire that leaps & leaps
to consume what it assaults?" (Hofmannsthal, _Oedipus_) "Woe to that man by
whom the offence[skandalon] cometh".
----- Original Message -----
From: M P
To: [deleted]
Sent: Saturday, July 21, 2001 8:31 AM


How to deal with thoughts and images of murder?

I am 29 years old and study at Lancaster University, have a Danish passport
and would consider myself a citizen of the world. I do not really recognise
political borders any more than to the degree that is required to actually
cross them every now and then.

My University has given me a grant to pursue extra-curricular activities
over the summer. My project, which I applied specifically for, is the
movement of people expressing their discontent with the state of the world
in connection with summits of those who make the decision that has landed
the planet in the life threatening situation in which we find ourselves.

That means that I am now in Genova in Italia. I am here as a member of
Bowland College, Lancaster University, as a Danish passport holder, an EU
citizen and as a human being. My objectives here are to document the
unfolding of events. Together with two friends I am making a video
documentary.

To a certain degree I guess that you can say that as a EU citizen I am in
some obscure way the employer of the various law enforcement agencies in
this Union, and I am definitely in the category of those entities that law
enforcement agencies are created to serve and to protect.

In a democratically constituted nation-state and Union you have a right to
protest and demonstrate, or so one would think. But this might not be so.

In Genova close to a hundred thousand people have gathered to let the
participants of the G8 meeting and the rest of the world know that there is
'something rotten in the state of Denmark'. The G8 meet to shape the future
in a way that will mainly benefit those who already have more than enough
and will increase the deaths of all those who cannot find enough to eat,
cannot find shelter and who cannot do anything about the inequalities and
misery they are surrounded by. To this meeting there is a counter summit:
the Genoa Social Forum. Many NGO's, academics and individuals meet to
discuss how we can make the world a better place. As part of this counter
summit there are demonstration and manifestations through out the city for
3-4 days.

On the second day of demonstration the Italian law enforcements agencies
-there are more of them that is probably possible to coordinate smoothly-
went out of control. I followed a demonstration that was a non-violent
direct action attempt to contest the line that defined the Zona Rossa, which
created to 'protect' the G8 participants from being disturbed by the people
expressing their discontent. The march was amazingly colourful and
optimistic. People had shield and all kinds of recycled body armour: plastic
bottles, cardboard boxes and mattresses, for instance. The aim is to use
nothing but the body to break through the police line, and therefore all the
equipment is only for protection - it is defensive body armour. People wear
this because they know they will get beaten up by the police.

What no one knew, what no one could have imagined (maybe?) was that some of
the law enforcement agencies, in particular the infamous and feared
Carabinieri, would shoot at a peaceful crowd with teargas grenades, water
canons and eventually live rounds.

I took part in the non-violent direct action march as a media member. I am a
journalist from the Independent Media Center and walked in front of the
march with a large group of journalists -several hundred, as far as I
remember. Along the route, down a side road, there is suddenly a burning car
and some burning waste bins. Some people from the journalist group walked
down to have a look, get some footage (most mainstream media is only in town
to get such footage) and interviews.

Then, as from out of the blue, the Carabinieri lines up and starts shooting
tear gas straight at the journalist group and the march behind us. In my
utter amazement at this stupidity and very dangerous action by the
Carabinieri I shout 'why are you doing this, please don't - it's dangerous'
and I throw up my arms in despair in a classic Italian manner. Then out of
the corner of my eye I see one of the Carabinieri's moving and I look at him
- look him straight in the eyes from a distance of approximately 20-25
meters- and the he aims directly at my head and pulls the trigger of his
teargas-grenade gun. Performing literally the reflex of my life I take half
a step back and raise my right hand in front of me and bend slightly in the
knees to successfully parade and block off the grenade that ricochets in to
the peaceful march.

What a shock!! I turn around myself a couple of times and say to my filming
friend, Niko 'I was shot - did you film that?' and spot an ambulance to
which I run frantically.

I was very very lucky. Another guy was not so lucky: he was shot in the head
in exactly the same way and he is dead now. The first casualty of a peaceful
demonstration.

From then on it was sheer chaos and systematic violence and abuse by the
police. They continued to shoot to kill with the tear-gas grenades and they
fired possibly in to the thousands of them. One guy was shot in his lower
leg and the grenade penetrated to the bone. That means that I could have had
my hand blown off if the angle has been a few degrees different. And if I
had not seen it coming and been playing tennis for many years and used to
premeditating trajectories I would have been finito.

There was another peaceful march only armed with pacifism and white painted
hands. In that block there were children, dogs and babies, and also nuns,
monks and other entirely peaceful people. They walked up to the wall of
shame that defined the Red Zone and they put their white hands on it,
danced, sang, laughed and had fun. As they walked back they were shot at,
again vertically, with tear-gas grenades and women and children were beaten
up by the -by then- completely insane police forces.

There are pictures both still (REUTERS/Dylan Martinez ) and moving available
worldwide that documents how the violence and brutality of the Carabinieri
reached an unbelievable absurdity: they shot a Spanish boy in the head and
ran over him with a their vehicle.

When I was shot at I went into shock for about 30 minutes after which a
phase of extreme anger set in. A waterfall of thoughts went through my head.
'Put a gun in my hand and the Carabinieri asshole that attempted to
assassinate me and I will kill him' was one of the, that was naturally
followed by an intellectual attempt to deal with such fantasies. I am a
pacifist and I ill not fight, but the actions of the police on Genoa made me
think twice. I have not changed my mind but I can certainly understand that
many people are pushed toward radicalism and extremes. There is simply no
excuse for killing innocent people, and I think that the Italian state and
the Carabinieri should be tried in court as institutions that allow maniacs
to carry lethal weapon to the danger of women and children. Needless to say
the individuals that killed people and attempted to should be tried for
murder and attempt hereto. If they choose to blame the state and the
institutional ignorance they have been configured by, that is fine by me,
but if none of this happens I will once again have to deal with irrational
thoughts of building bombs and blowing up buildings. I am confident that I
can deal with those thoughts and remain pacifistic, but they will arise, I
am unfortunately sure. Every 5-10 minutes I see the whole situation of the
shot at my head and think ' you could have been dead'.

I am not linking to any of the documentation and I will not. Our societies
and culture is permeated by violence - both fiction and reality, both
physical and mental - and I do not wish to contribute anymore than I already
have done by writing these words.

There is a press conference in an hour or two that will sum up the
disastrous events that when I went to bed had claimed 4 deaths and hundreds
of seriously hurt people.

I am confused and disillusioned and I am very tired. I do not know what to
do?

Thoughts are flying through my head, my body aches and my throat is
extremely soar from the teargas. I am restless and uneasy.

I guess there is no need to mention that my arm, my wrist and my hand is in
utter pain and that typing these words is quite an effort.

Our video documentary project has also been sabotaged. We did not - and do
not- want to portray violence, for the reasons mentioned above, but how can
we convey the events of the Genova G8 counter-summit without mentioning the
unjust, cruel and totalitarian assassinations carried out by the police?

Sincerely - in confusion -

Martin Pedersen
The School of Independent Studies
Lancaster University
England


earlier reports from genoa:
www.lancs.ac.uk/ug/pedersen/holiday

in general:

www.indymedia.org

italy.indymedia.org





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