And What About Tomorrow

There’s a lot of media hype out at the moment about the new hollywood flick “the Battle in Seattle”, an overt attempt by a liberal filmmaker to re-write the history of the Seattle protests (which were organized along anarchists lines using horizontal / non-hierarchal decision-making structures and consensus) and re-write the protests into a victory for liberals who wanted to reform the WTO instead of a victory for the mass of people who came to SHUT IT DOWN because it shouldn’t exist in the first place. 

The film is plagued by weak writing and an absurd script.  Worse yet, the whole film revolves around an alpha-male organizer (the hero of the movie) who’s somehow magically in charge and always defered too by everyone around him, while simultaneously paying lip service to Consensus decision making.  Such a portrayel of the organizational structure of the protests may make things easier for hollywood writers who are used to the standard judeo-christian narrative of a single individual who sacrafices himself to save everyone else and win the day, but it has precious little to do with the reality on the ground.  The Anarchists and other anti-authoritarians who formed the core of the group that pulled the protests together from jump were very careful to never allow anyone to assume a position like that.  As a movement we don’t need leaders – we are all leaders.  All of us have our own unique skills and experiences and things we can take lead on, and all of us have weaknesses and places where we are better off following.  Instead of following the classic left/right authoritarian model of putting a few people in charge and deferring to them, we (all 50,000+ of us) created a movement that was dynamically self-organizing, non-hierarchal, and built around real consensus and grassroots mobilization.  Our success in doing so was every bit as important and at least as revolutionary as our success in the streets shutting down the WTO meetings and kicking off an on-goin g movement for real social change that continued most recently with the protests and t the DNC & RNC.

But try telling that to Hollywood.

On the plus side, there’s a good chance that the film will get at least a few people interested in finding out what really happenned in Seattle, and it’s nice to see protestors and people working for social change portrayed as the good guys every once in a while – even if they did go out of their way to marginalize  Anarchists in the film.   I’d be dead pretty quickly if I held my breath waiting for the corporate world to tell people the truth.

A few good responses to the film:

The REAL Battle in Seattle – a grassroots wikipedia – style site encouraging peopel to share their own stories about what really happened.

And What About Tomorrow? – An Anarchist response to the film in print-out-able pamphlet form.  Perfect for passing out to people at showings of the film.

Posted: October 14th, 2008 under culture war.
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