The Prague Riot
In the summer of 2001 Carrie went into a local alternative clothes store and read through the small ad’s on a notice board. She found one offering transport to Prague for an anti-capitalist rally in September. When normally Carrie would have backed off from the idea of traveling abroad to join a demonstration, this time she went for it. She called the number and booked a place on the coach and sent off a cheque for the transport fee.
The departure was 3:30 am, and Carrie waited on the pavement n the dark outside the local supermarket to be picked up by the coach. Other flying-demonstrators on the journey were mainly Marxists and Socialist Workers; she was there as an independent.
On the coach she felt intimidated by the other demonstrators. They all seemed pretty hard-core from their appearances, but inside each was an ordinary person. In conversations they all seemed to know far more about the issues than Carrie. Carrie was shy, and found striking up conversations difficult.
One man, in his mid-forties, ordinary looking, maybe a bit nurdy, was well versed with the plan for Prague. As the coach approached Prague, he briefed the other passengers on the art of rioting. His presentation was not planned by any group; he took it upon himself to help the others. This was anarchy in action. His purpose, convoluted though it was, was to end poverty in third world countries. His method of benefiting those people was to train the others, so they could cause chaos, so they would get noticed more by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the media, so there would be greater pressure on the powers that be, so they would change their policies, stop oppressing poor people and the poor people could have greater quality of life. By telling the others how to be in a riot, he was channeling love to many poor strangers. He described the process of being beaten. To lie on the ground in such a way as to protect one’s kidneys from being kicked. In order to take out as many riot police as possible it was suggested to go floppy on arrest so that at least two would be needed to carry a demonstrator off to the cells. When in tear gas it was useful to have a wet cloth to breathe through, and maybe a bottle of water to rinse the gas or mace spray from the skin. There was some description of stun grenades and how the riot police might steadily scale up their arms to plastic bullets, and eventually, but very unlikely, real bullets. Carrie listened closely. She wasn’t sure how involved she was going to be. There were many hundreds of thousands of people from many back-grounds descending on Prague from all over the world, and there were the options of going hardcore with the anarchists, or fluffier with the Unions or religious groups. But she paid attention in case, and the details of this completely alien expereince were scary to listen to. Adrenaline steadily built up in her system. One girl on the coach became steadily more unnerved and eventually decided to back off completely and remained on the coach throughout. Carrie liked