Fwd: From NG list:
> a bit late,
> but here's report from Cancun,
> from Starhawk's pagan ecofeminist perspective
> greetings, s.
>
> From: Starhawk
> To: nowto@??? ;
> Cancun Update 9/12/03 We did it!
>
> It¹s 1:30 pm and I¹m so, so happy! We did it. We
> got through all their
> security, got right up next to the convention
> center, and blockaded the
> roads for three hours, completely snarling all the
> traffic in the hotel
> zone just as the delegates were out for their
> dinners. All those
> scattered, disparate kaleidoscope pieces shifted and
> shook down into the
> perfect, perfect pattern. And up until the moment
> we did it, I didn¹t
> believe we could pull it off.
>
> Here¹s how we did it:
>
> The day begins well, with the news that a small team
> has hung a huge banner
> that says "Que les vayan todos/WTO Go Home!" on a
> giant crane outside the
> conference center. They have been dancing naked
> three hundred feet up in
> the air, and the authorities just don¹t know what to
> do. I wake up feeling
> exhausted and sick, but the news cheers me up.
>
> All day we are meeting, planning and preparing.
> Over breakfast, Rodrigo
> and I make up a new Spanish verse to one of our
> chants.
> "Somos el viento que sopla
> Al imperio que colapsa.."
> "We are the wind that blows the Empire down." I¹m
> still not sure if we
> have logistics or communications or a tactical plan,
> but at least we have a
> song.
> The Pagan Cluster meets in the morning, practicing
> the song in the
> convergence space. We quickly firm up our
> logistics, and goes out to the
> park to do a ritual of protection and success,
> asking for the way to be
> opened and for a bit of fog around the eyes of the
> security personnel. The
> fog is necessary as we are all in our tourist garb
> around the convergence
> center all day. At home we¹ve spent a good half
> hour advising Karla on
> just the right shorts to wear with her blouse, and
> Josh on what to do with
> his hair. I have this pale green pants suit that is
> truly the perfect
> outfit, it looks just like something a tourist would
> wear in the tropics to
> pretend she was having some revolutionary adventure
> in the jungle, but it
> actually has just the right pockets and roll-up
> sleeves and fit to be
> practical action garb. Come to think of it I am
> having some revolutionary
> adventure in the jungle.
>
> The logistics are complicated, and the communication
> system is cumbersome,
> and I won¹t tell you exactly what they are until
> after the action is over.
> But the basic plan is make our way there in ones or
> twos or small groups,
> on public busses or taxis or with rented cars, and
> then converge at the
> action point at the agreed-upon time. Lisa and
> Juniper and I look
> respectable but we also have Brush in our car and
> his best efforts at
> looking like a clean-cut tourist boy fall short of
> the mark. He¹s wearing
> some kind of dark brown pants that look as if he¹s
> slept too many nights in
> them, and a dirty brown shirt too heavy for the
> weather, and a string knit
> cap over his unwashed long hair, and altogether he
> looks like someone who
> lives in the woods. But we want him with us,
> because he¹s brilliant and
> kind and we like him, and because of his excellent
> tactical and scouting
> abilities.
>
> Juniper and put our drums in the trunk, hidden under
> beach towels. We
> provide ourselves with cover: Doritos, potato chips
> and Coke. We breeze
> through the checkpoints, and park outside the Plaza
> Caracol, the big
> shopping mall right outside the Conference Center.
> Lisa pulls up and parks
> the car right in front of a cop. People are looking
> up and we see the
> giant banner, still hanging, with the authorities
> unsure of how to get it
> down, or what to do about the climbers attached to
> it. We look up for a
> while, admiring it, the start to walk toward the
> mall. A young man from
> Indymedia who is walking around with his press pass
> hanging comes dashing
> up to Brush. "Hey, don¹t you remember me?" he says
> loudly. "We met in jail!"
>
> The Security forces are looking at us and I¹m hoping
> they don¹t speak
> English as I hustle him away. We wander around the
> mall for a bit, drink
> some coffee, wait out a sudden rainstorm. As we
> emerge, another
> dreadlocked, crusty young Indymedia friend comes
> dashing up to us to point
> out the state of the banner removal project above.
> We shake loose from
> him, now truly sure our cover is blown, then try to
> talk our way through
> police lines to go to our meeting point in the
> building that houses both
> the Hard Rock Café and the Rainforest Café. I¹m
> trying to explain to the
> security guard that I need to get a T-shirt for my
> stepson at the Hard Rock
> Café, but since I¹m pretending not to speak Spanish
> he doesn¹t really
> understand. Finally we give up and decide to just
> go around the long way,
> back through the parking lot, across the street and
> through a plaza, back
> across the street and through a pedestrian shopping
> alley, and then up a
> metal stairway that is part of their new security
> installations, allowing
> them to barricade the street.
>
> Now we¹re having a rather hilarious interlude as
> various groups gather,
> mill around, and pretend not to know each other.
> Everyone seems to be in
> costume as surfers or some sort of tourist, looking
> cleaner and more
> spruced up than normal. Even Brush now has a new
> T-shirt he just bought in
> the mall. We carefully avoid catching each others¹
> eye as we stroll
> casually from the café to the balcony, over to the
> gift shop, down to the
> ice cream store. Lisa, Brush, Juniper and I spend a
> long time standing on
> the curb in front of the cops discussing where to
> Reat¹, until we begin to
> feel suspicious.
>
> Finally we decide to move the group on, to the area
> by the sacred Ceiba
> tree at the Northeast side of the convention center.
> This means looking
> for people and trying to decide how to speak to them
> without seeming to
> know them. I ask a whole lot of people for the
> time. Some of them even
> have watches. For a short while, there are all
> these little knots of
> people circulating, asking each other for the time
> and then asking someone
> else again and it must be clear, we¹re sure, that
> something is going to
> happen, but it doesn¹t, yet.
>
> Juniper and Lisa head down the road to look for
> stragglers, and Brush and I
> head back across the staircase over the road,
> through the alley and the
> plaza, across the parking lot and behind the
> barricades to our sacred tree,
> where we¹ve decided to form the group up. But no
> one else is there. Brush
> walks up to talk to a group of people, one of whom
> turns out to be some
> kind of security guard, but very sweet and helpful,
> trying to give us
> directions and ask us where we are going. "Where do
> you recommend?" I ask,
> but he doesn¹t know the English word and we are
> still pretending for some
> reason not to speak Spanish, and we meanwhile out of
> the corner of my eye
> I¹m looking for others and nobody turns up, We are
> closer and closer to
> the time the action is supposed to start, and I
> realize we have made a big
> mistake trying to move the group, that they are all
> probably trying to find
> their way around the barriers and are now scattered.
> We are right by our
> sacred tree and I go over and touch it for strength
> and comfort, feeling
> sick at heart. I go sit down, close my eyes, and
> visualize a circle
> spinning itself around all the action and the
> activists, bringing us
> together, weaving us into a whole. But more and
> more time is passing, and
> Brush and I are still alone. We call Lisa, who says
> she¹s on her way.
>
> I see Luis stroll up and a few others9then Rio and a
> group are getting into
> a taxi. Elizabeth comes up to tell us that Rio says
> the location has been
> changed back to the Hard Rock Café. I feel sick.
> It¹s two minutes to
> action time, I don¹t know where everyone is, I don¹t
> know where everyone is
> supposed to be or where I¹m supposed to be, or what
> to do.
>
> And then, a little way up the street, five people
> come out into the road
> and form a line. The cars stop. We begin
> strolling, then striding, then
> running up to them. We skirt the barricades and
> take the road. A security
> guard tries to stop us and we weave past, stand
> behind the students, and
> begin to form a circle. Out of nowhere, others
> start to join us. Some sit
> down with the students, others join in the circle. I
> whip my drum out of
> the black bag that¹s covered it, and we begin to
> sing and spiral. Two big
> busses and a mass of cars are stopped behind the
> students and the
> internationals on the front line with them. The
> circle grows bigger and
> the line grows longer and we spiral and sing, while
> the news media begins
> to gather.
> "We are the rising of the moon,
> We are the shifting of the ground,
> We are the seed that takes root,
> When we bring the fortress down`"
> Now the news media are out in force, their big
> cameras in our faces, and
> crowds have gathered on the bridge and the sidewalk
> behind the fences. We
> keep dancing. The traffic is in the most glorious
> chaos, The convention
> center is in between two roads that split into a
> circle here on the point
> of the island, and a group peels off and goes over
> to blockade the second
> road. We start to see cops massed in front of us
> and hear rumors that
> others are behind us, but we just keep dancing.
> And then suddenly our Green Bloc friends appear.
> Erik and John Henry
> come up through the police lines carrying two trees,
> a banana and an
> almond. They place them next to our spiral, and we
> move the spiral over to
> circle them. They become the heart of the dance, as
> the rest of the
> affinity group begins to make an ofrenda around them
> of corn and beans and
> grain, arranged in a spiral. The convention center
> looms up directly
> behind us: the fortress of power, and we have
> entered in behind the lines
> and brought the trees of life and the sacred seeds.
> The dance grows, and
> goes on and on until we are dripping wet in the
> sticky heat, and the sun
> goes down, and in the falling dark we raise a clear,
> beautiful tone like a
> sweet trumpet blast that can blow the walls of power
> down.
> "Somos el viento que sopla,
> Al imperio que colapsa.."
> The students are chanting political chants in
> Spanish and the rhythms
> mesh. The police have still not moved in, and now
> the circle grows even
> bigger, so we begin to sing again and start a new,
> slower spiral.
> "No army can hold back a thought,
> No fence can chain the sea,
> The earth can not be sold or bought,
> All life shall be free`"
> One of the Mexican delegates comes up to Rodrigo.
> "You know what," he
> says, "I¹ve been in those meetings for three days,
> and you¹re right, they
> are bullshit. My boss will probably fire me
> tomorrow, but I don¹t care."
> He joins in the spiral dance,.
> Our friends who have credentials from NGOs or
> media are now feeding us
> information. Behind the wall, riot cops are massed.
> Down the street, they
> are putting up barricades. Brush, Juniper and Lisa
> go out to scout, and
> call back to give us updates. Our group gathers for
> a quick conference.
> "If you want to be sure to get out, get out now," is
> the advice. Some
> leave, but most of us stay. The students are asking
> for our solidarity,
> and while none of us want to get arrested we just
> can¹t leave. This is a
> powerful moment of nonviolent direct action,
> completely peaceful,
> completely disruptive, and I am not going to walk
> away in the middle of it,
> whatever the consequences.
> We begin to group up and meet. The students link up
> in the road, and begin
> to discuss what to do. Now we¹re having an assembly
> in the road, a
> demonstration of democratic decision making right
> under the walls of the
> closed, autocratic meetings of the WTO. Valerie and
> Emily are both
> translating and facilitating, and doing an awesome
> job. We send
> negotiators to talk to the government and the
> police. They come back
> saying that if we leave voluntarily, we can go free.
> We decide to stay
> longer. They offer us busses to take us away. We
> demand to be allowed to
> march. Juniper, Lisa and Brush have been trapped on
> the other side of the
> barricades, and keep calling in, Lori Wallach, one
> of the policy experts
> on the WTO from the NGOs, comes over and passes on
> advice from the press.
> Maude Barlowe from the Council of Canadians is
> trapped on the other side of
> the fence, wishing she could get through to join us.
> The discussions take
> a long time. Luke, who has been one of the major
> movers of this action,
> makes a stirring speech from the front line about
> the wisdom of saying
> enough is enough, and getting on with the next day¹s
> organizing. We
> continue to discuss, but finally agree to get on the
> busses, with media
> accompanying us to make sure they go where they are
> supposed to go.
> We ride back to Cancun in a triumphal procession.
> The students pop
> through the skylights of the bus, and ride on the
> top, terrifying me more
> than the threat of riot cops. But they hang on, and
> we sing and chant and
> cheer through the long ride back around the lagoon
> and back up from the
> airport.
> We arrive at Ground Zero to cheers of joy. The
> students are dancing on
> top of the busses, the Koreans and all the
> supporters are drumming and
> cheering and laughing. I get out and give Gloria a
> big, big hug. Many of
> the students who did this action were in the
> encampments with her and Lisa
> and me, and we are very, very proud of them.
> Everyone is hugging each
> other and laughing and crying tears of pure joy. I
> can hardly remember
> when else I¹ve felt such pure, unadulterated
> happiness9except maybe in
> Seattle, when we shut the meeting down. It has all
> been worth it9the
> stress and the exhaustion and the sleeplessness, the
> fifty hours of
> meetings, the grueling work, the moments of
> frustration and near despair.
> We have shown that all their police power and
> weapons and barricades and
> fear mongering cannot, after all, keep us out, that
> the voice of a
> determined people is a force to be reckoned with,
> that we cannot be left
> out of their equations or excluded from their
> deliberations, that there is
> a power stronger than force or fear.
> One of the Koreans begins beating a rhythm on his
> metal drum, comes over
> to me and motions that I should join him with my
> drum. We begin drumming
> together, and the Koreans begin dancing. They are
> wearing circular straw
> hats against the rain, and their matching beige
> vests emblazoned "No WTO",
> and they hold out their arms, waving them gracefully
> like the wings of
> leaping cranes as they rock from foot to foot. The
> students join in, and
> the rain comes down like a benediction. I pass my
> drum to one of the
> students, ,and we are a perfect multicultural mesh
> of Korean gongs and
> latin rhythms and sweating human bodies, dancing in
> the rain with complete,
> abandoned joy.
> At the end of the dance, the Koreans form up in
> the circle and sing a
> Korean song and dance together. Then they motion to
> me that I should drum
> and we should sing. The Pagans form a circle and
> begin our song, and
> others join and we do another spiral under the
> moonlight, that gathers in
> all the energy and joy of our victory and raises it
> up in a pure release of
> power. In the silence after, I drop to the ground
> and put my hands on the
> earth. In many places, I¹ve felt that this gesture
> of grounding
> embarrasses people, feels too conventionally
> religious. But here it is
> perfectly understood. We all touch the earth,
> blessing the Mother Earth,
> the Madre Tierra. The Koreans crouch in a deep bow.
> I offer gratitude to
> earth and wind and sky, to fire and rain and the
> moon and the courage in
> the hearts of all of our companeras and companeros
> who have brought us this
> moment of victory.
> Then the Koreans lead us over to the altar for Lee,
> which is covered with
> flowers and wreaths and banners and candles. We
> offer prayers and songs,
> and light candles. As each person places their
> candles, we sing a Celtic
> lament. When we end, the stillness is profound, and
> potent, like a
> hovering indrawn breath in the midst of the labor
> that will bring a new
> world to birth.
>
>
> Starhawk
> www.starhawk.org
> (I've been posting daily updates there and at
> www.utne.com)
>
>
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