International Socialists

I was one of three International Socialists comrades from Dunedin who were lucky enough to be able to travel over to Melbourne in May of this year to take part in anti-capitalist actions there. It was probably the most amazing political experience of my life so far.

 

In many ways, I felt all the obvious feelings that I guess most young activists get when they attend their first truly big action: the sense of elation being part of an 8,000 strong crowd marching through central Melbourne; that great feeling of solidarity you have linking arms and talking with people you've never met before on a blockade; the powerful sense of anger that gets fired up in you when you hear speakers tell of the racism, environmental destruction, attacks on workers' rights and structural sexism that characterise our societies. But more importantly for me, perhaps, were the broader lessons I drew from the experience in Melbourne for the future of the anti-capitalist movement both overseas and here in Aotearoa.

 

Because Aotearoa is so small we are almost totally reliant on media reports for our understanding of what is happening in the rest of the world. M1 in Melbourne made me confident enough of my own opinions and experiences to disbelieve mainstream media attempts to write off the growing revolt against global capital as "riots." But I also think we as socialists need to be careful we don't think that, by wishing it will become one, this movement is necessarily yet a "world historic" event.

 

M1 started early in the morning. By 6am around 500 people  mainly from activist groups, had assembled outside the Melbourne Stock Exchange. The atmosphere in the early morning was bizarre: while all around me all people seemed to be doing was smiling, talking, forming blockades and selling various political newspapers, the Stock Exchange itself and surrounding buildings had been protected the night before with two metre high barrier walls flanked by rows of mounted police. This contradiction, between the peaceful, friendly protesters the media always blame for "violence" and the heavily armed, aggressive police, continued throughout the day.

 

As the dawn arrived and lit up a but-for-the-demonstrators surprisingly deserted Melbourne CBD, more and more people drifted in to the blockade. We now numbered around 2,000.  We extended our lines further up the street, shutting off an intersection and closing a local McDonalds. People were chanting "No child labour! Close McDonalds down!" The atmosphere was calm but determined, angry but in control. May Day was, once again, to become our day. Paint was handed around and we "redecorated" this symbol of corporate greed with slogans and statements. Then on to the headquarters of Yallourn Energy - currently at the centre of an industrial dispute - where we closed them down through a blockade. Again a wall of unsmiling cops protected the bosses' property.

 

Perhaps the most inspiring moment of the whole day came at 11:30am when we were joined for a unity rally by around 6,000 workers who had struck on May Day. This was the first time workers have struck on May Day in Victoria in 65 years! The streets were alive with placards, banners, flags, chants - all the symbols and signs of a working movement in revival. The rest of the day was spent closing down a whole host of anti-democratic and corporate targets throughout Melbourne. From Shell Oil to the Liberal Party Headquarters, from the Nike Superstore to the Ministry of Immigration, for one day none of the bastions of tyranny in Melbourne were safe from this mass force of workers, activists, worker-activists, students and Aboriginal campaigners united to shut them down. It felt amazing.

 

M1 proved quite visibly why it is that we as socialists point to the working class as the only group in society who have the potential power to end the rule of capital. When workers strike in force, and strike over social and political as well as economic issues, they shake the very foundations of this rotten society. M1 showed that - in Victoria at least - the effects of the anti-capitalist movement around the world are also causing changes in workers' consciousness, making them more willing to fight over political and general issues.

 

I was also struck by the crying need we have in Aotearoa to build a viable revolutionary socialist alternative. It was the intervention of socialist organisations in M1 that made the difference - radicalising the workers' unity rally and encouraging the participants in it to join in the blockades and encouraging the blockaders to join the unity rally with the workers. While various sundry "anarchist" organisations organised "carnivals against capitalism" and descended to the heights of sublime irrelevancy, in the centre of Melbourne we actually managed to close the corporate tyrants down. In a large part this was due to the discipline, leadership, open-mindedness and simple hard work of the socialist organisations. Their effort was an inspiring thing to see.

 

The anti-capitalist movement has already begun to make itself felt in Aotearoa. We need to build on this, to keep the momentum of events like M1 alive and happening in Australasia. Because, as always, we still have a world to win.