Part one - Tears
Back in April 2009, Ctrl.Alt.Shift revolutionary journalists Jody McIntyre and Kevin E G Perry whipped down to Embankment, London to catch a coach to Strasbourg, France, where they would protest against NATO in the company of anti-capitalists, anti-war activists, feminists and black bloc anarchists, amongst others. Here's what happened...
I woke up in my tent on Saturday morning (April 4th) absolutely freezing; forgetting to bring a sleeping bag wasn't a great idea. We were staying in what had been dubbed as the "International Village of Resistance" - a place for protestors to stay during NATO's 60th Anniversary Summit, and a base from which to launch protests against the war-mongering organisation.
The Stop the War contingent, which we were now a part of, had a meeting late the night before in which our plans for Saturday were announced. There were two bridges we needed to cross to get into the city, and the police had made it clear that the second of these we would not be permitted to pass. In addition, all public transport had been cancelled. Talk about repression...
We began the march early, and fears that the police would attempt to block our exit from the campsite proved to be unfounded. Members of the Stop the War Coalition joined together with the Socialist Workers' Party and the British Communist Party to form a huge UK delegation - we were certainly a force to be reckoned with. Although the area on the outskirts of Strasbourg were quite sparsely populated, the residents who were living there came out onto the streets to offer waves and fists of support, to our loud, passionate chants of "AH, ANTI, ANTI-CAPITALISTA".
It was a long, long way to march, but the authorities' dispicable attempts to suppress our movement by cancelling public transport were not going to get very far, and we made it to the second bridge on time. And that is where, in a completely unprovoked attack, the tear gas started:
I've never experienced tear gas before, so when the first cannisters dropped and organisers shouted for protestors to slowly walk back but not run or panic, I thought it wouldn't be too bad. But as soon as that first wave of white gas hit me, my eyeballs were searing and my kefiyah only provided little protection to my suffering lungs. Luckily, a Black Bloc guerilla was on hand to pour liberal amounts of lemon juice into my eyes to sooth the pain.
A revolutionary sister called Sara helped me tie my kefiyah tighter, and from that moment I was ready to fight. We advanced and retreated for hours, with the anarchists at our helm, launching stones at the brutal police who had so violently assaulted us.
It seemed as if the struggle was futile, as if our mission was over before it had even begun. We were pushed further and further back, and after the horrors of London the repression of the police had only got worse.
And then all of a sudden a cheer went up, and we started moving forward rapidly. Apparently another contingent had approached from the other side, forcing the police to part. We had crossed the bridge.