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The Neo-Comintern 203
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The Neo-Comintern Electronic Magazine -- Installment Number 203
.... .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ....
`""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'
Subversive Literature for Subverted People
Date: June 2, 2002
Editor: BMC
Writers: Ahmed Balfouni
Margarina Cataclysma
d""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""b.
;P Featured in this installment: .b
$ $
$ Notes from "Manif Bush" - Margarina Cataclysma $
$ virtuous reality - Ahmed Balfouni $
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EDITOR'S NOTE
(please do not read the following)
Hello to all super people in readership land. This day is extra special,
for it follows the eve of the release of our very sixth printed-on-paper
issue of The Neo-Comintern! I hope you will all enjoy this special issue.
If you would like to, let me know! I will help you acquire one! Issue
sixth is a very weekly capitalism issue. I hope you do not like
capitalism very much, or you will also not also like the issue. So, in
celebration of not capitalism, we have two articles that do not promote
capitalism! In fact, some would say, they do something of the opposite of
that!
,o$o
o$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Y$$$$b
d$$$' ` `$$b
d$$' Notes from "Manif Bush" ,$$
$$: by Margarina Cataclysma ,$P
`$n,.. . . . . . . . . . . . . ..P'
`"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'
Paris 26 May 2002.
Co-correspondent Metal K. Dick
After having been isolated in hermetic Switzerland for nigh on two months,
it was with some joy that your correspondents regained gay Paree
yesterday. The first afternoon of reacquaintance was spent trying to
locate some bookstore which had been mentioned to us several months
previous. It took no less than five hours of foot-dogging before one of
our number revived his flagged memory and remembered where it was. For
the good readership of the Neo-Comintern: this bookstore is called
Librairie la Breche, has a communistic mandate and communistic wares, and
is located god knows where, somewhere in the 12th. We were happy to
receive our instructions.
Our arrival at the meeting spot (Place de la Republique) was a bit late
because it was raining terribly and we sat for a while on the sheltered
doorstep of a church. On the way there we passed some police officers
directing traffic away from a certain corridor. Upon our arrival, we saw
and heard what looked to be a mid-sized group of people, milling about
under several banners. Yellow, Red, Black, Palestinian flags, French
leftist political party flags, White flags with green circles and
lettering, Attac flags, placards bearing different messages, a papier-
mâché globe with naked business-boy Bush, who had a gas nozzle coming out
of his navel (or it might have been his penis), sitting upon it, Free
Mumia and Peltier banners, etc. (Incidentally Mumia is an honorary citizen
of Paris. We did not know this.). Many people seemed to be wearing those
black and white scarves that have dingle balls down their sides. Since
your correspondents had forgotten theirs in Canada, we bought two for
fifteen Euros. We wished that we had provided ourselves with signage
beforehand.
We started off amidst whistling and shouting and drumming and shuffling.
Not having any direct affiliations, we didn't know exactly where in the
procession to march. We walked quickly for a while until one of your
correspondents (the one who likes to dawdle) requested that we move more
slowly. The marching crowd was enormous, actually. Several times we
stopped and watched for long spans of time. 20 minutes, more. People
gave us flyers. In addition to the very many Muslim family groups who
were marching (especially lots of young women), there were expatriate
Americans proclaiming their shame, a man dressed as the American grim
reaper, not a few other people in costume, many and varied French
communists, Attac propagandists, and lots of people, like us, with no
obvious affinities except for the colours black and khaki. My
co-correspondent and I were both surprised and not surprised at the
scarcity of teenagers.
There was chanting. Mostly along the lines of "Bush, Sharon, Assassins,
un etat pour les Palestiniens." That was the most common. (In French,
incidentally, one doesn't say Bush as if it rhymes with push, but like it
rhymes with whoosh or swoosh or douche.) The 'Internationale' was sung,
by small female voices. Repeatedly. Your correspondent knows the English
words but felt silly adding her own small female voice and so refrained.
The most exciting group had a head cheerleader teamed up with a drummer,
playing a seditious duet over a roof-mounted PA system. Some people
danced. There were megaphones and yelling.
Our manif marched from Place de la Republique to Place de la Bastille,
then the enormous mob was to hang a left towards the Place des Nations.
The first leg of the journey was very nice, perhaps because the streets
and air and people were all fresh after the rain. It is a few pleasant
kilometers along the broad, treed Avenue du Temple to la Bastille, and
there were many people standing under the trees, watching, and many
pamphleteers handing out tracts: "Poutine Bush Sharon Haider - Un Autre
Monde est Possible (Sans Eux)", by L'Alternative Libertaire. "Bush n'est
pas le bienvenu ni en France, ni en Europe, ni ailleurs". "Stop aux
Guerres de Bush!". "Contre L'Imperialisme Capitaliste". "Guerre
Imperialiste: Etat Policier." Also: "Le Troisieme Tour se fera dans la
rue", referring to popular protest against the crook, Chirac. "Il faut
stopper le guerre sans limite de Bush", from the Association of Iraqis in
France. "Non a fascisme et au racisme", from the Marxist Leninist
Communist party of Turkey, French chapter. "Contre la peine de mort aux
Etats-Unis". "Choisissez des candidats 100% a gauche", from the Communist
Revolutionary League, referring to the upcoming legislative elections, and
demanding the abandonment of the so-called pluralist left, ie/ Jospin.
"Regularisation!!", from the Coordination Nationale des Sans-papiers.
"L'Imperialisme Americain, Le Sionisme, Leurs Allies Imperialistes et
toute la Reaction Declarent la Guerre au Peuple Palestinien et a tous les
Peuples", by the Parti Communiste de France (Maoiste) en formation.
There were lots of people who carried brilliantly witty signs, most of
which unfortunately I have forgotten, (paraphrasing): "George Bush IQ =
90 Lowest IQ of any American President". "George Bush: Wanted for Crimes
Against the Planet". "Stop meddling with Venezuela". We, having been
subject to both Attac propaganda and Adbusters propaganda, were surprised
to see that many people in the crowd who were there to protest American
imperialism were wearing Levi's and Gap and Reebok and Nike and etc.
products. We did however receive a slip of paper that listed companies
that we should boycott. And there was a guy with an anti-corporate flag
(Adbusters campaign from a while ago) who was filming everything.
Sometimes you can buy or otherwise obtain footage from these events. FYI.
There were some posters (I saw two) that equated the Star of David with a
swastika. My co-correspondent reports seeing pictures of Bush upon which
Hitler moustaches had been drawn with green felt pen. I saw one picture
of Bush which really looked like it had been used for target practice.
We were witness to an incident (scuffle) when a man wearing a brown
rucksack with a brown umbrella sticking out of it (this is how I
differentiated him from the rest of the crowd), approximate age 50,
attempted to get himself beat up, or start a riot, or something, in the
midst of what seemed to be tight group of people who were shouting "Bush,
Sharon, Assassins...". There was some anger, and your correspondents
rationally tried to distance themselves from the scene for reasons of
spreading pacifism (and also one of your correspondents learned her lesson
about altercations with strangers on New Years Eve). The man with the
brown rucksack and umbrella was next observed (several minutes later)
chasing after another man, grabbing his sleeve and trying to pull him
around to face him, trying desperately to have some sort of exchange. His
target (around 20 years old) was trying to shake him off, and looked
desperately sick of the guy and a little bit panicky.
A little while later, a man (approximate age 40) clambered onto the top of
a cluster of phone booths. His friend joined him and they were cheered by
some of the crowd. (Bush, Sharon, Assassins... Rahhhhhhhhhh!) and the
first man put a lighter to a homemade Israeli flag. It didn't take too
easily, but his friend had an American flag, and they did manage to set
fire to both. Probably not on purpose, the phone booths also started on
fire. They seemed to be more flammable than the flags. My
co-correspondent says that flags are notoriously difficult to burn, unless
you soak them in gasoline first, that in fact they are not made of
polyester or whatever.
When we got to Place de la Bastille, we were almost starving, so we
ventured into the crap market that resides there on the boulevard and I
bought a crepe for my co-correspondent, who then told me that he loved me.
We were filled with feelings of camaraderie.
The second half of the march was less of a party. The surprise of being
in such a large boisterous group had mostly worn off, and indeed we (the
manif) lost quite a few bodies at or around Place de la Bastille. We
passed a shop where the sidewalk displays of fruits and vegetables had
been covered. The shopkeeper and two of his friends stood outside the
door watching over them. We all know what happens to fruits and
vegetables when large groups of people are riled. Along the street, we
noticed that all the billboards on our route had suffered from 'art
attacks:' the smiling young consumers and the gleaming products these
spaces used to advertise had been obliterated with non-commercial messages
about love and freedom. Whoever did this was probably still in bed after
the night shift they worked to get it all done in time.
Another almost-dramatic moment, and one that was interrupted only when the
crowd was warned of police: just before arriving at our destination, we
looked up (following the gaze of all the others and the angry shouts of
some) to see that some tactless cretin on the upper floor of an apartment
building had hung a sign: "Israel vaincra." His neighbours will hate
him, as the front of that building was soon defaced with the usual
slogans.
Your correspondents had read in the usual books about the !exciting!,
!new! practice of having spontaneous street parties to protest all the
usual things. This manif appeared ready to turn into one of these at
Place de la Nation (an immense traffic circle in the east of Paris), since
the big red truck with the model of Bush was also loaded with turntables
and amps. There was a monkey man dancing on a light standard and a drunk
woman dancing on the truck, and lots of people sitting and standing around
watching them. But, and perhaps this is unavoidable in a city with such a
long history of manifs, there was nothing spontaneous about the occasion.
Rolling quietly behind the stragglers, the big green trucks of the
sanitation dept. followed upon the heels of the march, true to their
motto -- vigilance and tidiness. And behind them, and sitting in many,
many full buses parked on side streets, were the cops -- not the friendly
traffic cops who had cleared a path for the manif in the first place, but
the rowdy, nervous cops with lots of gear, the stern cops blocking the
sidewalk (who will not break your gaze if you accidentally look at one but
are, you are led to assume from the very same gaze, very willing to break
the rest of you), and the ones whose vests bulged with tear gas canisters
in neat little pockets, a little like those ancient fertility goddesses
with all the mammaries. No need for all this of course -- all the good
people, their militant statement made for the day, were already on their
way home -- including, dismayedly, your correspondents. Traffic began to
circle again. The fellow with the bright red cartoons of Bush as a
gunslinger, glued to apple crates and mounted on his bicycle, pedaled into
the distance.
It was not, then, all it could have been. If your correspondents, like
the rest of the demonstrators, have no love for Bush and sometimes use the
term imperialism when discussing the U.S. of A., s/he is less comfortable
joining in with the furtive young men half-shouting "Al-Queda." It should
have been a day to make a clear statement against the corporate domination
of the planet, American arrogance, militarism and obsessive meddling,
neo-liberalism, greed, the environmental crimes of the Bush, the
psychological crimes of the mass media, and the commercialization of
everyday life; not to mention fascism, racism, sexism and oppression. It
should have been a day in the life of a rolling global manif that tracks
Bush everywhere he goes, shouting that he is not welcome. But most of the
shouting here today was about Ariel Sharon, who wasn't even in Paris, at
all. We are afraid that when images from this manif flash by on CNN, it
will seem like nothing more than a motley collection of perpetual
malcontents: in this case elderly Trotskyists and young arabs, going for a
stroll on a sunny Sunday in Paris (because the sun did come out after
all). Was there a single window smashed? Did any of the three McDonald's
restaurants your correspondents passed suffer a momentary dip in sales
volume? Oh well, there is always next time.
,o$o
o$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$Y$$$$b
d$$$' ` `$$b
d$$' virtuous reality ,$$
$$: by Ahmed Balfouni ,$P
`$n,.. . . . . . . . . . . . . ..P'
`"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""'
the bookstores of Hollywood Blvd. are gone
even the vast market where I saw among the flats
Military Justice Is To Justice
As Military Music Is To Music
not music even
a computer representation of music
between the Chinese and the Egyptian
Babylon Court
a shopping mall
.d&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&b.
The Neo-Comintern Magazine / Online Magazine is seeking submissions.
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Submissions of 25-4000 words are wanted; the average article length is
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copyright 2002 by #203-06/02/02
the neo-comintern
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