THE DISORGANISATION

Reclaim the Streets (RtS) cannot be understood as a campaign, although
some of its methods are very similar. There are now RtS groups in thirty
cities organising illegal street parties. Most of these groups only exist
for the event, and many of the activists are involved in local campaigns
during the rest of the year. There is no membership or official line
although many would like to see a wider global strategy. As a movement,
RtS is only four years old, and it could grow in unpredictable ways.

ACTION

Beyond its immediate goals (creation, joy, immediate intervention against
the enforced absurdity of our cities, pleasure, defiance, freedom, clean
air, an open invitation to community…), the street party has worked as a
focus to unleash diversity and spontaneity, a platform for further, more
effective struggle. A tactical conference where the subject becomes the
message, as perceived by each individual. RtS groups do not stage events
for the media; they are very aware of its power for recuperation and the
danger in having a relation of dependence. Too many important campaigns
have become commodities.

BELIEF

The notion of ‘empowerment’ is more important than a social or artistic
definition. Its brief texts reject ideology, celebrate RtS’ contradictions
and shout for collective, insurrectionary direct action, denouncing all
human relations based on domination. They are firmly rooted in the culture
of civil disobedience, but the emphasis is revolutionary, mistrusting
short-lived concessions.

DIFFUSSION

The most effective means for the propagation has been oral: people live an
important experience and then tell others about it. It’s never recreated
or enacted; the inspiration for true, unregulated Carnival is older than
the system that represses it.

The message originates from a broad consensus achieved at meetings and
through correspondance. A small, variable group of people who are
supposed to be widely trusted deal with communications. As a result, the
whole attempt at decentralisation is doomed, yet it appears indispensable
when creating situations that are attached to a name. The origin
authenticates the message.

The RtS web-sites haven't yet fulfilled much of their activist potential,
such as their use as printing presses for the dissemination of texts and
as comprehensive media archives (indispensable in the information war).
However, they are useful for providing a global identity. Debate,
libraries, screenings and free information centres are more necessary than
any audio-visual presentation.

The sheer growth of dissident global activity, increasingly linked via
the People's Global Action network, is creating unprecedented
international collaboration. Globalisation produces common enemies.
Until corporations like Shell or Monsanto are forced to hide under the
names of numerous companies, they will continue to direct a focus of
resistance.

The dominant system increasingly relies on ephemeral, much publicised
crises to reaffirm social control and to keep their operatives ready for
the unforeseen. The activist strategy of marking dates for co-ordinated
international actions could be reproducing these crises. Independent media
networks are far from being in the position where they can match the speed
of corporate media. These crises are short periods of time where the
levels of propaganda and indoctrination seem indestructible. The
increasing reliance on the Web for communications and fly posting could be
very dangerous now that states and transnationals are massively increasing
the resources for surveillance, disinformation and propaganda activities.
They own the line that you use to spread your free information and it can
easily be disrupted or shut down in times of crises. Decentralisation is
not just a political position, but a tactical necessity.

THE FILM

The idea started taking shape as London RtS was preparing a large action
in collaboration with a group of sacked Liverpool dock workers. It was a
new alliance that went beyond the tactical, and one that made the state
nervous. It ended with riot police putting siege to around 15000 people
illegally partying in central London, two weeks before the general
election.

As the film partially shows, the event was a media disaster. RtS' own
media was quickly defeated. 20000 newspapers were confiscated the day
before, and a plan for a pirate radio did not take off. For weeks,
the authorities had developed a fairly simple disinformation campaign,
started within the group and then by placing articles in newspapers
announcing a riot.

It worked perfectly. With very few exceptions, all the reporting on the
day -'riot', 'murder', and 'police now in control'- came from one,
unmentioned source. It was said that whatever had happened, from now on 10
million people would associate, if only in a distant memory, Reclaim the
Streets with hooliganism or terrorism. RtS was in a difficult,
unacknowledged paradox: to be able to effectively challenge a false
testimony, one needs the truth, It can be more effective than propaganda,
and it feels much better but it may also need to be as ubiquitous as the
message that you are trying to counteract.

Not least, the illegality of the activities means that you cannot give the
whole story. Months later, when interviewed for the film, most of the
activists still refused to speak about the organisational failures or
anything regarding planning, which are essential part in the diffusion of
tactics.

In that week, hundreds of reporters contacted the office, from Newsweek to
local gazettes. They were mostly ignored, thus losing a chance to spread
some information on a global scale. London RtS activists generally
refused to give names or interviews, sign articles or have one person
appear as a figure head. News media, just like the police or a historian,
needs to attach a name to a statement.
It authenticates it and qualifies its relevance to the subject. By
then, most RtS activists had already been through their fifteen
minutes, and no longer accepted to embody the message.

The film, which took 15 months to complete, set itself to be a vehicle for
the emotions that could not be portrayed in any other media. By its very
nature, film is probably the most subjective means of representation. The
camera is never objective, yet documentary film has a formidable claim to
reality. More importantly, it is the predominant tool for social control,
and if succesfully subverted, it can provide support to a movement facing
an almost uniformly hostile media.

Agustin G. de Quijano <rtsfilm@hotmail.com>

Sydney RTS:
http://members.xoom.com/sydneyrts/

Berekeley RTS(US)
http://www.xinet.com/bike/reclaimthestreets/

London RtS
http://www.gn.apc.org/rts/

Lancaster RTS (UK)
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/6096/index.html