You argue that as our governments and their policies are violent, that it is the only language they understand and therefore we are justified in using violence. What happened to your aspirations to rise above what we are offered by the mainstream?

Letter to an "anarchist" friend

The violence and tension increases with each summit and the condoned violence of your actions grabs the spotlight from those whom you are proporting to support. You justify your use of violence as necessary against the police. Yet similar to the government propaganda you depise, you too resort to depersonifying them, as "dogs", "tools of capitalists", "pigs", "thugs". You have become your enemy by stealing their tactics. You fall back into the thousands in Seatle, Quebec, Genoa, who have chosen to accept the "diversity of tactics" belief. Through excessive violence, you leave everyone else without a voice, forced into being attacked by a pumped-up military and police force ready for a fight, or else remaining well away from the action, unable to participate due to their physical conditions, such as asthma or pregnancy, or due to their moral beliefs of confrontation but without violence. Across the mainstream and even independent media, the violence sells. You have gagged your supposed allies.

You argue that as our governments and their policies are violent, that it is the only language they understand and therefore we are justified in using violence. What happened to your aspirations to rise above what we are offered by the mainstream? Why should I accept your violence as better than the state-sponsored violence? You are disgusted by the Machiavellian attitudes of capitalists, yet then accept that the ends justify the means when you support anarchist violence?

Anarchism is liberty. Liberty is freedom. And freedom engenders responsibility. The political leaders you despise so much have taken the liberties of global capitalism without the responsibility of rights, environmental stability, respect for diversity. You cheer your violence but are appalled when others are violent unto you. You support and martyr those who willingly chose, without external constraints, to be violent and to choose to injure a person, policeperson or otherwise. They die and you are appalled. You have become your enemy by refusing to carry your personal burden of responsibility. You then label those who suggest that you think of the wider implications of your actions as "police infiltrators", "sell-outs", "cowards".

Anarchism is diversity. Why are the stone-throwers and those setting fires, destroying property, and attacking police for the majority men? Why do men dominate the indymedia discussions and justification of anarchy and violent means? Where are the female voices you espouse to uphold? When we were tear-gassed in Quebec City when we took down the wall, the crowds were 50-50 men and women. Those who initially challenged the police were both men and women. Yet, in the hours and days that followed, the men took over confronting the police with Molotovs and rocks and bottles. I ask you why is this so if anarchism is to see the end of machismo.

When the streets of Quebec City were again quiet, a spokescouncil was held in the part of the town where the protests were held. The residents, despite the amount of tear-gas used remained in solidarity with those against the Summit of the Americas. However, most were sharply critical, angry at "les casseurs", those who descended on this part of the city.

You then argue that those who are the real violent protesters are not true anarchists. You suggest that they are there for the show, to be violent for their own ends. I ask you where is your responsibility for creating the tension, the police response. The police will be violent, they are trained for this. You seem blind to non-violent ideas of confrontation. When the wall was taken down in Quebec City, everyone from across the spectrum was pumped. We advanced through the fence. Then the rock throwing began then the expected police response, including tear-gassed lobbed into the crowd in the back, unprepared and unprotected. The police response was not a surprise. Imagine, my friend, if we sat down, inside the perimeter. If we occupied it and did not move. The police would have been forced to reconsider their tactics, as a tear-gas assault could not have been justified. They may have done it but it would have been politically stupid. The resulting take home message would have been greater. But no. With our violence, the police were able to justify the excessive use of tear gas, were then able to launch tear-gas into the non-violent confrontations in other parts of the city, and the stage was set for political and social messages to be lost. Naïve, perhaps, as non-violent, original means of confrontation is always more difficult than a violent one.

Our movement is extremely diverse. It is our strength, yet if abused is our weakness. We have tolerated the diversity of tactics, including yours. I ask you to tolerate everyone else. You take anarchism at half, and we have to deal with the consequences of the other.