Whose Streets? Our Streets!
Activist Perspectives on the Australian Anti-Capitalist Movement
Tom Bramble*
School of Business
University of Queensland
Queensland 4072
AUSTRALIA
Email: t.bramble@business.uq.edu.au
Tel: 61-7 3365 6233
Fax: 61-7 3365 6988
and
John Minns
School of Social Sciences
Faculty of Arts
Australian National University
Australian Capital Territory
AUSTRALIA
Tel: 61-2 6125 5424
* primary contact author
Keywords: anti-capitalism; social movements; Australia;
Words: 8079 text & 717 references
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of the Australian anti-capitalist movement of 2000–
01 as seen through the eyes of its activists. On the basis of 35 interviews conducted in mid-2002 we
examine the background of the activist layer, the nature of the social networks and connective
structures which shaped the Australian anti-capitalist movement, the character of the mobilising
structures that were used to organise the protest movement, the degree to which the Australian
movement was connected to international activity or learned from international political theorising, the
tactics that were used at the protests, and the political frameworks that shaped the thinking of key
activists. We conclude with some considerations as to the strengths and weaknesses of the movement.
To be published by Social Movement Studies (UK) (2004)
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Whose Streets? Our Streets!
Activist Perspectives on the Australian Anti-Capitalist Movement
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INTRODUCTION
The dramatic mass protest at the Seattle summit of the World Trade Organization in November 1999
is frequently understood to have announced the arrival at the core of the world economy of the
burgeoning anti-capitalist movement which had been gathering force in the preceding decade
(Bensaid, 1996; Bircham and Charlton, 2001). Since Seattle the movement has emerged in still greater
strength in Europe, in particular in France, Italy and Spain, the site of the largest anti-capitalist
mobilisations yet seen, with hundreds of thousands demonstrating in the streets of Nice, Barcelona,
Genoa, and Florence.
As with any dramatic social movement, anti-capitalism, or the global justice movement as the
phenomenon is known in the United States, has spawned a growing literature. This has focused mostly
on the issues raised by the movement in the West – neo-liberalism, globalisation, privatisation and the
market, the role of the international financial institutions, the reasons for continuing Third World
poverty and international inequality, the domination of consumerism and brand image in Western
societies, and the alleged decline in the power of nation states in the face of rampant multinational
activity (Bove and Dufour, 1999; Klein, 1999; McMichael, 2000; Monbiot, 2000; Bircham and
Charlton, 2001). There is also a growing literature describing the major protest events, and a rather
more limited series of works on the major organisations involved and the individuals who have been
drawn into the movement (Brecher, Costello and Smith, 2000; Levi and Olson, 2000; Barlow and
Clarke, 2001; O’Brien, 2001; Cohen and McBride, 2002; McNally, 2002; Watson, 2002).
The purpose of this article is to augment our understanding of two aspects of the anti-capitalist
movement – the background and attitudes of the main activists who did the work to build the anti-
capitalist mobilisations and the workings of the organisations which they used to bring thousands onto
the streets. Other than a few relatively impressionistic and broad-brush accounts, relatively little is
known on either of these scores.
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In this article we present evidence from the Australian anti-capitalist
movement in the period 2000–2001. In regard to the individual cadres of the movement we sought
information on their social origins and their protest histories. Where do they come from? Where do
they get their ideas from? What inspired them to get involved? Were they motivated to protest just by
one or two elements of globalisation, or were they opposed to ‘the system’, broadly defined? How did
their ideas change as a result of their involvement? And why did the anti-capitalist movement enthuse
many of these activists more than ‘single issue campaigns’ had in previous years?
In relation to the organisations, we sought information on how exactly the committees operated. How
were they networked? What was the balance between old and new activists? Was there anything
distinctively ‘Australian’ about the activists, the methods used to build or the tactics used in protests?
Was it a movement of movements or a movement of individual activists? (or a coalition of political
organisations of various types?). Was the Australian movement an example of a transnational social
movement or of cross-border diffusion, in Tarrow’s (1998) typology? And what of the internet,
believed by many to be a defining feature of anti-capitalist organising (Ayres, 2001)? Finally, we
sought activist views of the future of the anti-capitalist movement in the shadow of the 11 September
attacks on the United States and the subsequent unfolding of the ‘War on Terrorism’.
Following our summary of the main features of the activists and the organising coalitions, we then
turn to a broader analysis based on relevant literatures. First, we consider the Australian anti-capitalist
movement in the light of the social movement literature of the 1980s and delineate the features that it
shared in common with the classic ‘new social movement’ and those features in which it differed
(Touraine, 1974; Habermas, 1981). Second, we consider whether the Australian movement can be
regarded as contributing to ‘global civil society’ (Cohen and Rai, 2000; Scholte, 2000). Finally we
conclude with some considerations as to the reasons for the its main strengths and weaknesses which
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help explain the fact that the Australian anti-capitalist movement is, to all practical intents, currently
dormant.
OUR STUDY
The Australian anti-capitalist movement
Although not as dramatic as the big mobilisations in Europe, the Australian anti-capitalist movement
drew together thousands of protestors at three major mobilisations over the course of 2000–01. The
first and most significant action was the blockade by 20,000 activists of the 11 September 2000
(‘S11’) meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the Crown Casino building in Melbourne
(Burgmann, 2003). The second were the ‘M1’ protests outside the Stock Exchange buildings in
Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne on 1 May 2001. The first two of these M1 actions, involved 4,000
and 1,000 demonstrators respectively who attempted to shut down the operations of the stock
exchanges on this day. In the case of the Melbourne M1 demonstration, actions were more diverse
and included 500 protestors at a blockade of the stock exchange, 1,000 taking part in other actions, and
9,000 in total at a Unity March involving a large contingent of trade unionists. The third and final
element of the wave of anti-capitalist protests that swept Australia in this period was the actions that
were planned against the Commonwealth Business Forum in Melbourne on 3 October 2001 and the
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Brisbane, scheduled for 6–10 October
2001. Both conferences were cancelled only days before they were due to meet because of the inability
of the British and Indian Prime Ministers to attend in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks on the
World Trade Center. However, activists were involved in preparing for each of these three
components of the Australian anti-capitalist movement in fortnightly or weekly meetings of organising
bodies which met for between three and five months before the targeted event and, even though the
Commonwealth forums were cancelled, a protest rally of 5,000 was held in Brisbane on 6 October,
meaning that the Commonwealth forums are still relevant foci for study.
Methodology
The main source of information for this study is provided by interviews with 35 activists in Brisbane,
Sydney and Melbourne, which were conducted in May to July 2002. In addition, the authors
themselves had some involvement in the movement, with the first-named involved personally with all
three. Both authors have had a long-term and active involvement with many progressive issues in
Australia and are well-acquainted both with many of the individual activists in the Australian anti-
capitalist movement and with the organisations of which they were a part.
Various criteria were used for selection of subjects. First, they had to be people who were involved in
‘movement organisations’, not ‘extra-movement organisations’. Although trade unions, church groups,
Amnesty International, and social welfare organisations all assisted indirectly in organising the
protests in Australia, it was the organising alliances (e.g. S11 Alliance; M1 Alliance; Stop CHOGM
Alliance) which played the major role in making things happen. Only those who attended the
organising meetings on a regular basis were interviewed. In this sense, the methodology resembles that
used by Bagguley (1995) in his study of activists involved in the British anti-poll tax movement of the
late 1980s and early 1990s. Second, as much as possible we attempted to reflect the diversity of
activists in our selection of subjects – younger and older, male and female, more experienced political
activists and activists new to political campaigning.
Our 35 subjects represented about 20 per cent of the 150–200 activists who regularly attended
organising meetings in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne over the course of 2000–01. This, we
suggest, makes our subjects somewhat representative of the organising core of the anti-capitalist
movement in Australia. Structured interviews involving approximately 70 questions, and lasting one to
two hours each, were conducted with each of the participants in a variety of venues – mostly the
subjects’ own homes, but also cafes and on university campuses. Although the numbers of respondents
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was not large enough to generate statistically significant results, we report the numbers in most cases
to indicate the relative strength of the response.
Finally, we sought to ensure that our subjects were reasonably representative of the variety of political
tendencies involved in organising the movement. Although the proportions varied from one campaign
to another and from the beginning to the end of each, about one-half of the total number of anti-
capitalist activists involved were members of political organisations involving a high level of
agreement and a generally common set of politics. Accordingly, we have included 15 members of such
groups in our sample. These groups are: three Marxist organisations – the Democratic Socialist Party
(DSP), the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), and Socialist Alternative (SA) – and three
libertarian groupings – the Autonomous Web of Liberation (AWOL), Love and Rage, and
Revolutionary Action (RA).
The personal acquaintance of many of the subjects with the authors (both members of Socialist
Alternative), and the reputations of both authors as supporters of the movement, contributed to our
success in gaining consent for interviews, as we were seen as ‘part of the movement’ rather than
outsiders. Generally speaking, those interviewed were keen to be involved, symptomatic of their belief
in the significance of the movement to left-wing politics in Australia and their own political interests.
Our findings
The activists
The median age of our activists was 26 years, and the group was made up of 18 females and 17 males.
Although there was no attempt to select participants on the basis of occupation, it was found that over
half (19) were university students at the time of their interviews and a further two were full-time
student union officials. Four others were unemployed, one was retired, two were full-time workers for
trade unions or political groups, and the rest were employed in white-collar or service industry jobs.
Only five had ever worked in any job which could be considered ‘blue collar’, and they were no longer
employed there. This absence of blue-collar workers is an extension of the family background of the
activists. Only four had parents whose last occupation might be considered blue-collar. Middle-class
backgrounds – where they could be clearly determined - were over-represented – over half (19) had a
parent who was either a manager, a self-employed professional, a school principal, military officer,
senior academic or small business owner. The largest single occupation among their parents was
teachers – nine had at least one parent who was a teacher. Almost half of all respondents (16) had at
least one parent who had been involved or still was involved in some form of protest activity. Over
one-third (12) had a parent who had been active in a trade union.
Anti-capitalist activism appears to be very much an activity of those living in the inner-city areas of
the metropolitan centres. Virtually all of the respondents lived within 10 kilometres of the city centre –
most lived even closer than that. All but two of the activists had some tertiary education, and 20 of the
35 had completed, were in the process of completing, or had discontinued a Bachelor of Arts. Other
degrees included Music, Public Policy and Management, Economics, Commerce, Law and Science.
It is interesting that these activists, despite the youth of many, were extremely experienced in protest
activity. All but one had been involved in earlier campaigns about education, the environment,
indigenous rights, women’s liberation, peace or anti-racism. Prominent among the recent campaigns
were those in support of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) (1998) and East Timorese
independence (1999) or in opposition to the right-wing politician, Pauline Hanson (1996–97), federal
government measures to undermine student unionism and university funding (1996–98), or plans to
open uranium mining at Jabiluka in the Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory (1997–98).
The protest history of many of these activists was so extensive that they had difficulty in remembering
the many issues in which they had been actively engaged. But while their experience in these social
movements was very considerable, the same cannot be said for their trade union experience. Where
they had had jobs, they mostly joined unions – 21 of the 35 had been union members at some time.
However, only nine claimed to have been active union members at any time, and only six had held a
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delegate or other union position. But while their experience as activists in their own unions was rather
limited, overwhelmingly they had played some role in support of unionists other than themselves –
only three had not done so – and 28 had the experience of standing on union picket lines. A range of
strikes were mentioned here, but by far the most common was the MUA dispute.
Student unionism has clearly been an important training ground for the anti-capitalist movement. At
least 27 had been active in student unions or their equivalent, and 17 had held elected positions in
them.
Embedded social networks and connective structures
The social networks linking these activists was extensive. Only three or four became involved in the
coalitions organising protests without already knowing many others involved. Friendship circles and
protest activity were closely intertwined. Overwhelmingly the activists said that a significant section
of their friendship circle was also involved in organising the protests. In several cases, activists had
few friends involved alongside them at the first protest – S11 – but found that their circle of friends
changed so that by the time of M1 or CHOGM, a major part of their friendship network were also anti-
capitalist activists.
Mobilising structures
The S11, M1 and CHOGM organising alliances generally met weekly over periods between three and
five months. Attendance at meetings ranged from 20 to 100, depending on the city (Melbourne, a city
with the largest left in Australia, usually attracting the highest attendance), the proximity to the event
(the closer the event, the higher the attendance), and the event itself (with the S11 alliance attracting
the highest attendance). The alliances were strictly focused on the task at hand and so, once the event
in question was over, the alliances disappeared, leaving no formal structures in their place.
The alliances included both individual activists and members of far-left groups. At the time of S11, it
appears that there were approximately equal numbers of each category around the country as a whole.
However, it seems clear that in the later mobilisations, the individual activists began to drift away,
leaving the M1 and CHOGM alliances more dominated by the left groups. Whether to operate alliance
meetings by vote or through consensus was controversial. Those who described themselves as socialist
or Marxist tended to remember the alliances as operated primarily by majority vote; libertarians,
anarchists and autonomists stressed the attempt to find consensus and to vote only as a last resort.
All the activists argued that the alliances had considerable strengths in that their breadth and diversity
brought together and activated people who had extensive outside networks of friends and other
activists. This meant that the alliances reached people which neither the organised far-left groups nor
the single issue campaigns had been able to approach before. However, almost all also thought that the
alliances had weaknesses. Libertarians complained particularly of sectarianism between the competing
organised groups, and bickering – especially about the process by which decisions were made – of the
‘sterility of centralised organising’ (i.10). Socialists complained about the annoyance of ‘having to
continually reinvent the wheel’ in each open discussion (i.7). AWOL (Autonomous Web of
Liberation), the broad libertarian group based in Melbourne, escaped these sorts of criticisms but
seems to have been heavily based on social as well as political closeness. It was criticised by one
participant for being ‘too cool for school’ (i.6) – informally requiring a certain ‘look’ and friendship
circle – thus making it difficult for the uninitiated to become involved.
Affinity groups were seen by many of the activists as important innovations of the anti-capitalist
movement. Amongst the 35 activists, 16 affinity groups were mentioned. These did not include several
which, in reality, were either simply the existing left groups of which they were already members –
e.g. the ISO and DSP – or an extension of them such as SA’s Red Bloc. However, here too there was
considerable disagreement about the importance of the affinity groups. Those from a libertarian or
autonomist background saw them as very useful in the mobilisation which occurred. Those from the
Marxist left rarely mentioned them at all. Those activists who saw them as important stressed the role
they played in bringing together groups of people who knew and trusted each other to participate in the