Germany - Friederike Habermann

Interview Details

• Region: Europe - Germany
• Language: English
• Interviewee: Friederike Habermann
• Interviewer: Michael Reinsborough
• Date: June 18 2019
• Bio: Friederike Habermann is an economist and historian with a PhD in political science. As an author, activist, and independent researcherr, she has been exploring for decades how a solidarity-based and caring society can become reality. Here she focuses in particular on the interdependency of the economy with sexist, racist, classist, and other privileges - as well as on ways out of this mess.
• Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/kwjfyk3yht1vr2fup8h1j/PGA-Germany-1-Habermann.docx?dl=0&rlkey=co4i7lql4wigdxa0u765mud75

Transcript

Michael Reinsborough: This is an oral history in review around the role of Peoples’ Global Action (PGA) Network. I’m going to ask a series of questions. A lot of the stuff we’re talking about is quite far away, I wouldn’t be that concerned with dates or the specifics more or less because I think if it’s twenty years away, you won’t remember exactly what happened. We’re quite clear in acknowledging that this interview is about how people now think back about the past, and some of the actual documentary…like finding the actual documents and stuff like that, we could put some of the dates. The PGA website seems to have a lot of those dates and events. We talked a little bit about how this recording will be used, hopefully an archive of activists that will be interviewed about PGA oral history, about what the PGA did in this particular time.

Maybe you can tell me a little bit about how you became an activist?

Friederike Habermann: Basically, I’ve been raised by a mother that had been very political herself, but never became active. But she told me about all the problems of the world when I was very young. I think I can remember the publication of the Club of Rome, because she commented so much. This would have been when I was five years old. At the end of the 70s’ the entire nuclear movement became strong. So, my first demonstration was against an atomic waste place. I found other people like me, and this is how it started. A real activist I became with the peace movement. I co-founded in 1982 a network of the local groups of the peace movement, and we blockaded nuclear weapons in 1983.

Michael Reinsborough: How did you first learn about Peoples’ Global Action?

Friederike Habermann: Through Sergio Oceransky. I don’t remember what kind of occasion it was, maybe it was a meeting of the German Federal Coordination of Internationalism (BUKO). He had a workshop there on the World Trade Organization, and anybody coming out there was flashed.

Actually, I had met him before, at the very first PGA meeting in the aftermath of the Zapatista Second Intercontinental Gathering against Neoliberalism and for Humanity in the Spanish state. The year before that, Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas had been calling for a global network of resistances. I had been present both in 1996 and in 1997. In 1997, together with Olivier de Marcellus I had spent the whole night before the final event with the local organizers to create such a network, but they were too focused on Andalusia to be interested, and did not make it possible. Therefore, I was so annoyed that I jumped on the very first bus back to Germany. Sergio and Olivier, together with Nayundaswami of the Indian farmers movement KRRS, coordinated a direct follow-up, and this was when the first plans were made. They had met before at the World Food Summit in Rome in 1996, and had a similar idea of a global network.

Michael Reinsborough: You had been there, too?

Friederike Habermann: No, I came from the Zapatista side. I had taken part in the former meeting in the jungle of Chiapas, stayed for a few more weeks, and back in Germany I became part of the Zapatista solidarity movement. I was part of the European preparation of the Second Intergaláctic Meeting in the Spanish state. During the meeting, I was in the economic section, this was in Barcelona. We had to go to Andalusia for the final event. In Barcelona I was asking “what is the plan for a political outcome of the final event?” and they said, “Oh we don’t care, this is not happening in Catalonia, this is Andalusia, we don’t have anything to do with it.” [LG] And I got quite frustrated. Then I met Olivier on the train as someone with the same concern, and he introduced me to more people. Reaching Andalusia, we contacted the local preparation group and then it was Olivier and I who spent the whole night with them to turn the closing event into something more political with a more global perspective on the final closing event. And finally, at three o’clock in the night, they agreed. But then, the next morning, it was like we had never spoken with each other, they just stuck to the original plan. This fed up me so much that I took the first bus to leave, and this made me miss the PGA meeting that had been taking place afterwards for another week in the same place.

I wasn’t involved then. There had even been another pre-PGA meeting in Aachen in Germany in autumn of 1997, but I did not go. I got attracted during this workshop with Sergio in winter.

Michael Reinsborough: So that second meeting, was the PGA already in some sense formed or was it the same people that formed it?

Friederike Habermann: You can say in reality it was formed in this one week after the intercontinental meeting in Spain, because lots of movements had been informed about it, and they stayed for another week in Andalusia, and this was the first, but still unofficial preparation meeting.

Michael Reinsborough: Aachen is in…?

Friederike Habermann: It’s the very, very West of Germany. This is where Sergio had been living at that time, and he had a group of people like Jürgen Kraus and Aram Ziai, who are still great active people. Together, they formed a kind of first organizational support group.

I heard of the first conference of Peoples Global Action at this workshop, and I also remember that I had read papers by the Genevan group before and got very excited about what they wrote, and I decided to go. It became a great, exciting meeting in Geneva in 98’. There were 400 people from over 70 countries, and most of them were delegates from global south movements. There is a list of all these peoples, do you have it? Raj Patel did it once. Not of all the people, but of all the movements.

Michael Reinsborough: I don’t have that, but I’m sure it must be findable.

Friederike Habermann: Well, I have it.

I really liked the way we organized, very grassroots. The people in Geneva were also very much supported by the local population, so families took us to sleep there. I stayed in a family’s place. Community meals for everyone, no money was necessary for everyone who wanted to participate. And I learned for the first time what I call these days a queer speakers list: To consider not only gender, but also ethnicity or whatever you want to call it. Also, who spoke a lot already, to consider these things. This is the first time I have experienced this, and also hand signals. Also, I was very impressed by the working groups: first along the regions (Middle East, South East Asia, …) then ‘students’, ‘women’, etc.. It was very rich. And of course, the people you’ve met – students from South Korea were the first ones I met.

Also, there was a preparation time for the conference itself – there was a preparation workshop at the beginning. And I visualize this one scene that we had our meeting next to the Genevan lake, next to a hotel, and there was another conference with nearly all men dressed in black suits with their mobiles – and our group, with all the women, some in Saris or in many different colourful ways.

Michael Reinsborough: So, what role did you take on in the network?

Friederike Habermann: At the very end of this meeting, we elected press people, and since I had been working as a chief of the economic part of a daily newspaper before, I opted for being the Western European press person. And then in May 98’, when we had the protests, I understood my role as…

Michael Reinsborough: Were the elections secret ballots or were they people raising their hands?

Friederike Habermann: Just raising their hand. For each region someone opted, and was accepted, that’s all.

When I came to Geneva in May 98’, the press office had been prepared already. Lots of facilities, lots of volunteers, and I understood my role of coordinating the press work, and having the other press people from the other regions of the world speak. So, this had been my attitude towards the end. So, I always tried to press work, but not to speak as the press person.

And I was just thinking about it, yesterday, that in the official newspaper where I had been working before, I had been accused of not taking my role of being in charge but doing everything on the same level. So maybe, after this experience instead of thinking we all coordinate everything on the same level, I indeed took over the role of being in charge somehow.[LG]

Michael Reinsborough: Yeah. But not to speak, but to make sure other people spoke.

Friederike Habermann: And we translated into many languages at the same time. Never again we had better press work. Later, I just stuck with this task. Sometimes people helped me, but there was a lot of skepticism, too, the attitude of not working together with the press. And it was indeed frustrating.

Michael Reinsborough: So, the press did not necessarily take seriously some people who came from the poor countries.

Friederike Habermann: It was the most tough time that I experienced: you could not reach the media with any protests, it was the climax of neoliberalism, nobody wanted to hear anything, because at the time you could not use the word capitalism [LG]. I remember after the J18 protests, I read in the German newspaper, in relation to a demonstration in New York, the word “anti-capitalist demonstration.” I got so excited, I phoned the person who wrote it in the newspaper, I don’t know what I asked him, I just got so excited [LG] that they write ‘anti-capitalism’ in a German mainstream newspaper. You didn’t read it those days.

I was really relieved when Indymedia was established in Seattle, because we no longer had to rely on the official media.

A year later, in 2000 during the IMF/World Bank protests in Prague, there was both, a press spokesperson for INPEG [Initiative Against Economic Globalization], the local networking, and a press person from the States, who did a great job: Chelsea Mozen. She really changed the way, how the media covered the whole event. Chelsea was 24 then, and she had only recently been involved in the movement by doing press work in the IMF/World Bank protests in Washington in spring.

Michael Reinsborough: How did the network facilitate international collaboration and solidarity? You spoke a little bit about that, but maybe be more specific?

Friederike Habermann: The Internet was very new still, and of course, had great opportunities, just to be able to communicate with email. But also, it had problems, because, to give an example, the Adivasi in Kerala were living in the jungle, and they did not have any internet then, and they did not speak any English. They spoke their indigenous language, and Hindi, and Malayalam for the official language of Kerala, and some even more, but not English. They did it with the support of a non-indigenous person outside the jungle. So somehow it was possible. I’m just wondering whether it would be possible with the speed we have in online communication today, to have such a situation[LG]. Probably everything was slower than today. And maybe this is also what enabled such groups to be a part of it.

I think this had been an exciting part of global action, that we had these subaltern movements. So, we had indigenous [peoples] from New Zealand, and Fishers from Sri Lanka, and farmers from Pakistan, and textile workers from Nepal.

Michael Reinsborough: How did these groups get linked up to this network, or how did this network get linked up to these groups?

Friederike Habermann: That’s a good question. I mean, basically it had happened before the first international conference. So, the Zapatista international, because they spread out already to all these continents, all these movements being inspired by the Zapatista way of doing politics. And so, it’s been possible to have this meeting at the second Intergaláctiko, and certainly the movements that had been there spread the news and invitations to other movements. And then the people in Geneva did a great job with finding funding to pay for the flights. Maybe I should mention at one point, there had never been an office of PGA, or steady financing, but every time people had to look again for new financial possibilities, to finance something. And I think this is also something that irritated many. It irritated the Zapatistas, too, because when I went back to Chiapas also to…

Michael Reinsborough: What was irritating? That it didn’t get steady finance or that it suddenly got financed?

Friederike Habermann: My impression was that the Zapatista thought: behind such a network, there must be somebody, but there was nobody behind.

Michael Reinsborough: So, the Zapatistas [inaudible – opposed?]

Friederike Habermann: The EZLN had not been part of it, but parts of the national support structure within the civil society, including the FZLN, so I spoke with Javier Elorriaga. He expressed something like this. I also tried to revitalize my direct contact with the CCRI, the head of the EZLN, but failed pretty much. I supposed for the same reason: Not fully understanding it, not having the possibility to involve strongly, and also, in Mexico, they would have made themselves more vulnerable being linked to an international network.

Michael Reinsborough: What would be the disadvantage of being linked to an international network?

Friederike Habermann: International influence on national movements was generally seen as suspicious in Mexico. Also, that you’re always made responsible for anything that happens in the network.

Michael Reinsborough: So basically, if they were linked to it as a key player, then they would be blamed for anything that would happen, both by social movements, who might think that’s not very radical, or by anti-social movements that might think that’s too radical.

Friederike Habermann: Yeah, for whatever basically. And also, Mexico is a very nationalist state. So, the Zapatista also had to struggle with the rumour, they would be marionettes of international forces from the outside, not Mexico. So, I think for them it’s been very important to have this national approach.

Michael Reinsborough: So, in terms of nothing behind that, where did the money come from?

Friederike Habermann: I think foundations of all kinds, people in Geneva would know better. I never played any role, so I really don’t know.

You know, we did not even have the notion that this is a PGA action, so the only way you could say it is this is inspired the PGA.

Michael Reinsborough: Yeah, so when did that phrase, ‘this is inspired by PGA’ - you couldn’t say that it was a PGA action.

Friederike Habermann: I don’t know. We decided it once, but I don’t remember.

Michael Reinsborough: Early? Middle? Late?

Friederike Habermann: Middle.

Michael Reinsborough: Yeah, local funding, and inspired by PGA. So, how did that work? In terms of say, something like Seattle, where the Direct-Action Network – the DAN network was there, it must have its own funding. It was, somehow linked to the Peoples’ Global Action call out for this particular action, or no?

Friederike Habermann: They took all the hallmarks, and just reformulated them slightly for the purpose. But basically, the hallmarks.

Michael Reinsborough: So, like, the action in Seattle that DAN was involved with, what would be the link between people in Seattle and DAN, and people who were in the 1998 conference that started the People’s Global Action Network.

Friederike Habermann: Not so much, actually.

Michael Reinsborough: So that first international conference [in] February 1998, what would be the connection between the people in Seattle, and the people in that meeting.

Friederike Habermann: There had been the second international conference in Bangalore in 99’, in August. So, this was two months after the ICC resp. J18. J18 was not so important from a non-British perspective, but the InterContinental Caravan. Both, in Geneva and in Bangalore, there had been people from the States…

Michael Reinsborough: Was it not much that happened on the J18 in Germany? Because even if the British J18 demonstration was much larger than others, certainly other people knew about it.

Friederike Habermann: We had a big demonstration on the J18, but we had 5 weeks of demonstrations and actions already, so…it was not so special anymore. People were exhausted after 5 weeks, travelling and demonstrating everyday somewhere.

Michael Reinsborough: Was the J18 around a specific target, and that target was meeting in Germany?

Friederike Habermann: In Cologne.

Michael Reinsborough: Okay [LG]. So, there was a lot of stuff happening in Germany, but it wasn’t focused on that specific day. Whereas, the global action day was on the J18.

Friederike Habermann: Yeah. Hmm…I really don’t know. Maybe this action with the Indian way of laughing at the people in power, maybe this was the J18? I’m not sure. But the people in power have been the G8. A few weeks before, there had been the EU summit in Cologne.

Michael Reinsborough: What was that, the Indian way of laughing? (0:42:25)-

Friederike Habermann: Maybe I can bring an end to your question first. So, two months after the ICC we had the second international conference in Bangalore, and also, we had one week of a small caravan to different protests in India. But, not [just] protests, also movements and special schools, or whatever, and we had been very international on these buses as well. So, it was very exciting as well.

And at the second international conference, we had some people from the States, like Michael Morril and Joy Marcotte – they had been the ones organizing the US caravans 5 weeks through all the United States basically. And, of course, Seattle had been a topic at the conference, so the people from the States said ‘in Seattle there will be nothing to move anymore but tides’[LG].

Michael Reinsborough: Nothing will move except for the tides. What does that mean?

Friederike Habermann: Everything is going to be blocked.

Michael Reinsborough: And they said that in advance?

Friederike Habermann: Yeah.

Michael Reinsborough: Did they believe that?

Friederike Habermann: People said in advance that 50,000 people will show up, so 50,000 people showed up to see that [LG].

Michael Reinsborough: Oh, so it’s quite performative [LG] – and why do you think that?

Friederike Habermann: Yeah everybody got excited, and in the States, it was very unlike in Europe, where you had this attitude on protests ‘That’s very 80’s’, and nobody wanted to go into protests, and the media didn’t want to cover it. In the States it had been completely different, there had been no real protests for much longer than Europe – this was my impression. So the press was keen to cover it. And I was quite shocked to see the way that the protests were held, very shy in comparison to Europe, before Seattle. So, Seattle opened it, I think. But before, we always had to walk on the sidewalk, and…

Michael Reinsborough: So, that gives me a good idea of some of those things. Tell me about the caravans. How were they set up?

Friederike Habermann: The idea for the ICC came from the farmers in India, or concretely Nayundaswami, who had been the president of the KRRS. He said, the aim was to come into the belly of the beast, because otherwise the protests were obviously not covered. And then in 1998 around Christmas, the first planning started. It was going through eleven countries. Have there been any in Britain, or did that not get the visa in the end? I don’t remember.

Michael Reinsborough: I don’t know.

Friederike Habermann: But, 11 countries on different routes, for five weeks, and then for 500 people. And we did it like we organize these days, so…basically without money. So, we were asking organic food companies to donate food and locally we were asking for places to stay. So, people often had to stay even in churches or other places, and it was not very comfortable. And, the buses were provided by …I don’t remember the name, but it’s been very famous alternative bus company those days in the Netherlands.

Michael Reinsborough: An alternative bus company provided buses?

Friederike Habermann: That’s what they wanted to do, and then about two weeks before the Indians wanted to come, the Dutch group decided that’s it’s too irresponsible towards those coming, because we were too chaotic. The Indians had to pay for the flights. Often it’s been the whole village collecting money for one person being able to go on the plane, so they chartered planes on the road. So, it was much cheaper than normal prices, but still of course it was lots of money for the Indian farmers. So, the flights had been collected from their side and, we provided the rest.

So the Dutch withdrew from the project and we didn’t have any buses anymore, and we didn’t have a starting point anymore.

Michael Reinsborough: Wait, wait [LG] it was too irresponsible to be involved in the project, so they withdrew?

Friederike Habermann: We others had the attitude, the people coming had to decide for themselves, as long they want to come, we do whatever we can. We found a monk’s place in the east of Germany where the tour started then, and somehow buses had been organized at the last minute. I don’t know how – I wasn’t involved. But this first place…yeah…it was [a] hard place because those arriving had no comfort at all, and it was an area where we didn’t get any media coverage at all. It was absolutely frustrating. And during the whole tour…

Michael Reinsborough: And were you involved in trying to get press coverage?

Friederike Habermann: Yeah.

I mean, it’s been not only a hard beginning. It was quite a hard time for many because, being such a tight program, having to move all the time, getting to places, actions being planned, you have hundreds of people where it had been several routes, but still, you had maybe …I don’t know, maybe two-hundred people arriving somewhere, and they want to make themselves fresh, need some time to get sorted and often then they had to go to the next action already, so it was really exhausting for the people. And there was no understanding from the European activist sides – at least not in practice, maybe theoretically, that maybe some of the Internationals would have liked to see some sightseeing, but there was no chance. Yeah, but we met with a lot of local initiatives as well, farmers in Germany for example as well. And we got lots of support from lots of local groups,

Michael Reinsborough: And that caravan went all across Europe?

Friederike Habermann: It was [split]– I don’t know how many routes, whether two or three, but through eleven countries.

Michael Reinsborough: Was there three buses or…?

Friederike Habermann: For 500 people [there] had been some more buses.

Michael Reinsborough: There were 500 people in the caravans?

Friederike Habermann: A little bit less, yeah.

Michael Reinsborough: Almost 500 people? Wow. And it split up to go two or three different routes?

Friederike Habermann: Yeah.

Michael Reinsborough: How was the caravan coordinated with 500 people?

Friederike Habermann: In the beginning we called it the Totally Crazy Project.

Michael Reinsborough: Sounds like it! [LG]

Friederike Habermann: Absolutely from below at the time. Ah – yeah! Another Dutch group, Rampenplan, wanted to provide the cooking – so suddenly we neither had any cooks anymore. And then the Indians cooked themselves, but it was not only Indians on the caravan; e.g. we had one woman from Mexico, she was pregnant, she lost in this time five kilos because she couldn’t eat the spicy food from India [LG]. Yeah, it’s been…maybe it’s been 400 from India, and then fifty or so from other countries from the Global South. At the beginning we had been together, and in the middle, when the EU summit was happening in Cologne, some routes came together. For the G8 protest at the end of the five weeks, everyone came together in Cologne.

Michael Reinsborough: And it’s eleven countries throughout Europe?

Friederike Habermann: Mhmm.

Michael Reinsborough: You said there was a caravan that went through the United States? Were you on that?

Friederike Habermann: Yeah, that was indeed just one bus. And I think Michael Charder and me, we had been the only Europeans, and then from all over. This had been the five weeks before Seattle was happening. And we started in Philadelphia, and went up to Boston and so, and then down to San Diego and so [LG], and then off to Seattle after five weeks. And also, we were always hosted by local groups and doing some actions with them [LG] – and had teach-ins as well. I think these teach-ins also had an impact for sure, because we were giving many teach-ins all over the US and making the upcoming protests in Seattle more well-known this way.

Michael Reinsborough: And so, when people talk about caravan 99’, they’re kind of talking about the European one?

Friederike Habermann: Yes

Michael Reinsborough: So that happened as the first caravan, and then there was also a caravan in India, which happened when?

Friederike Habermann: This was two months later.

Michael Reinsborough: Two months after Seattle?

Friederike Habermann: No after the ICC.

Michael Reinsborough: After caravan 99’?

Friederike Habermann: Mhmm.

Michael Reinsborough: And the one that ended in Seattle was right up to November.

Friederike Habermann: It started in October, yeah.

Michael Reinsborough: The network facilitated international collaboration and solidarity, so these caravans were one, and they used the emails. Were there other things that you would comment on, and how that…the organization of the PGA facilitated international cooperation?

Friederike Habermann: There was a problem of course, to have the imbalance - the bias between Global South and Global North, because in the Global South you often had delegates of movements, and in the Global North you just had single people from movements. And also, the way of representation was a problem, and this is why we decided in Bangalore that people from the Global North had to rotate so that they could not always vote, so they had to rotate. I don’t remember now – I’ve written it in my book, but I don’t remember now how we did it.

Michael Reinsborough: So, there’s some formal constructions around how decision-making would happen?

Friederike Habermann: It was consensus indeed.

Michael Reinsborough: So, it was just who could come to the consensus meeting?

Friederike Habermann: That’s a good question [LG]. You had a consensus…If not everybody was allowed to take part then not everybody is part of the consensus? I don’t remember actually - I should look it up.

Michael Reinsborough: Ok, what did this network do best?

Friederike Habermann: When we started with PGA, it had been… I mean, apart from groups like Trotskyist groups or whatever, which had some international organization as well, there was not really an anticapitalist network on a global scale at the time. And we really made a shift, or participated a lot in shifting, common sense of what can be said and cannot be said. And also, it’s been the other way around, it wasn’t Northern movements inviting some token people from the Global South like it’s often happening now again that represent the Global South, but that it’s been movements from the Global South who set the tone for Peoples’ Global Action.

Michael Reinsborough: Okay, so what challenges did it face? How did it handle the differences in resources between different movements? What were its weaknesses?

Friederike Habermann: Yeah, probably to all this, I would mainly answer what I just did: to have this bias, and how easy it is for people in the Global North to access the internet, to travel, certainly also of having not to suffer repression, or not so much repression.

I mean this had not been an official PGA caravan anymore, but it very much felt like it: the climate caravan in 2009 – from Geneva to Copenhagen.

Michael Reinsborough: It felt like it because some of the same people were involved?

Friederike Habermann: PGA people organized it, yeah [LG].

Michael Reinsborough: So, you mean it was inspired by PGA? [LG].

Friederike Habermann: Yeah, but not officially.

Michael Reinsborough: Unofficially inspired [LG]. Okay great, we can see those careful clarifications.

Friederike Habermann: What made me think of this caravan now?

Michael Reinsborough: Um that some of the same difficulties between bias of access and resources between Global South institutions and Global North institutions, or individuals who were involved.

Friederike Habermann: And the difference in repression. Two participants, two representatives of Indigenous movements in Latin America, Benito Guzman from the CAOI, and Leonor Maria Viloria Gonzalez from Fuerza De La Mujer Wayuu each lost a comrade within these three weeks; they had been killed.

Michael Reinsborough: Okay so, what were the weaknesses of the PGA network?

Friederike Habermann: Certainly, to become visible [LG]. Partly my fault.

Michael Reinsborough: And why was it?

Friederike Habermann: Also because we did not have a steady office, no fixed people…I did this not full time, I did this when an action was happening, and in between I did many other things…

Michael Reinsborough: So, what were the other things you were doing, you were employed working, or you had to do personal stuff in your life?

Friederike Habermann: I was working for money, but I was also, for example…

Michael Reinsborough: And you weren’t paid for any of these [referring to PGA organizing] …

Friederike Habermann: No, nobody was paid.

Michael Reinsborough: Nobody was paid, so you had to have money to, on some level, to participate, at least, minimally – the caravans were probably not – it doesn’t sound like much provided, but there was some food provided [LG].

Friederike Habermann: It was enough food [LG].

Michael Reinsborough: Unless you didn’t like the type of food.

Friederike Habermann: Yeah, but we didn’t spend money when we went on the caravan because the caravan participants did not have any money to spend either. So, we would not have gone and buy an ice cream or anything.

So, the weakness yeah… for example then in Genoa during the G8 protests in 2001, in the so called Chilean night, I was lying underneath the school, together with Olivier, because he jumped out of the window when the schools got attacked by the police, and I simply followed him.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the office of ATTAC in Germany had been open, and this is where the media went. This is how ATTAC became really famous because then they spoke for the protests, and everyone joined ATTAC , but ATTAC never organized these protests, nor did they really organize other protests, but they became visible because they always had been accessible, for the media and everybody. So ATTAC had become visible for things they had not done. But of course, this opened up new possibilities for people to become politically active. The good thing from Genoa is that this really spread the globalization movement on a different level, so ATTAC had no meaning before Genoa, and then suddenly, thousands and thousands entered ATTAC, became a part of ATTAC and could be reached by that papers, form local groups, make local actions etc.

But in general it had been less radical, and also the issues had been more from a European or German perspective, so for ATTAC Germany, one big issue became the pension, so elderly people can live securely, and of course, this would not have been so much of an issue in a global network.

Michael Reinsborough: I have this other question – how is it similar or different to other international solidarity networks? You’ve talked a little bit about some of the solidarity networks that followed it, like one was ATTAC. How is the PGA different or similar to others? You talked about that, a little bit about the Zapatistas, Intergalactic Zapatista network, how it was different or similar to that, and how it was different or similar to ATTAC. Do you want to comment on other, any other solidarity networks? Either in the past or today in the present?

Friederike Habermann: I have the impression that often somewhere the money comes from, then people just look out for local movements. I think PGA really started from below.

Michael Reinsborough: What effects, if any, do you think PGA had on later mobilizations?

Friederike Habermann: It certainly had on Seattle. And Seattle had a huge impact on the mobilizations afterwards. And also, when Occupy came up, for example, this is the way we had organized already: we just found food, and somebody cooked it [LG]. Everybody could eat it. The special thing about Occupy is that it’s not a single protest, but that people stay together for a long time and equate different daily reality this way. Having five weeks of caravans, especially the ICC, had been the same. It was not just one manifestation and then you go apart. It was for longer. I could also mention that this also has to do with the reality of the movements from the Global South, because their daily life is being in resistance and they don’t go just for manifestation. That’s their reality, and I think that this had an impact on how we organize our protests today, and this maybe had some influence on later coming movements as well.

Michael Reinsborough: So if you think there’s stuff that’s missing, that should be added to this, this is your chance to jump in and tell me.

Friederike Habermann: Maybe I left out what I stressed on Sunday so much, that you don’t have on tape [LG], the point of the subaltern. Who can speak? If you ask the Gramscian approach to understand a certain situation in historic time as a historic block, hegemony is not only with the capitalist, or whoever would be on the very top, but also privileges are struggled for within a civil society, and within the civil society you have possibilities to get better working conditions as a union, or to be able to make [a] career as a woman, or whatever, but not everyone is a part of this civil society, and those that are not, would be the subalterns then, and these others cannot speak because they are not needed – this is one point how I would interpret Gayatri Spivaks’ The Subaltern cannot Speak. To complete how I understand Spivak, this would also include that they [are] also a part of the common sense. So, the Indian farmer who commits suicide today because he cannot pay the bill, will not necessarily be anti-capitalist but think that he shouldn’t have bought anything from Monsanto and seek the guilt with himself. But even if movements are able to create a dissident, or to preserve or create a dissident common sense, that is different from the mainstream hegemonic common sense, then they are not heard because what they have to say is far out from what you can say in a society, that they’re radical, not taken serious or this is naïve or whatever. So [these] are the main three points I would say why the subaltern cannot speak.

And…within PGA it’s been really not like that, but yeah…probably we pretty much failed to make them heard, as the examples I gave on Sunday, the press conference in Cologne when only a trainee showed up, and in turn came all these leaders of movements from the Global South. Or the kettling of the Indians in their white robes and green scarfs and being called the black bloc. ‘The black bloc had been kettled’, wrote the newspaper the next day. Yeah, so. We were not that successful maybe, but maybe we had some impact.