Hello everyone! Rebecca Sang

Dec 20, 2009

I just wanted to drop you all a note to let you know that Jason and I are
home safely in our little Berkeley hut, ready for a wonderful solstice on
the beach and almost over our jet lag.

This is the first one out of two posts I'm sending out from last week's
adventures. I'll do one more, and then consider my reporting from
Copenhagen done.

Thanks so much for your continued support and love.

Happy Solstice!
Riyana
*****
From: http://wildandserene.blogspot.com/2009/12/out-of-kettle-into-fire.html

Yesterday was the most powerful day yet for me here at Copenhagen. Jason
and Tom left early to go on a scouting mission at the Bella Center and take
a peak at the fences surrounding her, while I stayed home and wrote to you,
dear readers. ;-) I¹ve started to feel like I have a responsibility to let
y¹all know what¹s happening here, as much as I can. There¹s so much I don¹t
know and don¹t see, because there¹s simply so much happening every moment of
the day. Aside from that (and let¹s be honest here) I really don¹t have the
kind of skills that Jason and Tom do regarding fences and the like. If you
want to take down a fence, they¹re really the ones for your team.

After a rather long, meandering walk all over downtown Copenhagen where I
seemed to run into every ³Politi² in city but couldn¹t find a group of a
couple thousand drumming, chanting, yelling, dancing people, I was finally
directed where I needed to go by an kindly old reporter. (I was getting so
desperate, I almost asked the police where I could find my comrades. I
figured, out of anyone, they must know. Luckily it didn¹t come to thatŠ I
mean, please. How embarrassing. ³Excuse me, officer. Can you tell me
where the protesters are?²).

I found Jason with the Samba band, dancing and helping to hold the line
around them, who had linked arms and had formed a barrier of people around
the entire march in front of the column of police officers that walked along
side. A couple of moments later, Tom arrived with Jason¹s drum and soon we
were drumming down the street. The hand signals and rhythms are finally
getting more familiar, and I¹m starting to really enjoy playing around with
how I hold the drumstick to get different sounds on the drum without
dropping the thing every ten minutes. We were behind a large sound system
on a truck, so we alternated playing and pausing to allow the speakers and
music to be heard. Eventually, we made our way to a plaza near the Defense
Ministry.

Copenhagen has been all dolled up in its anti-climate change finery, some of
which seems genuine by genuine environmental organizations, and some of
which is greenwashing for very destructive businesses (kind of like those
Chevron billboards back home that say things like, ³I will unplug stuff
more² while they work to convert their Richmond refinery to process the most
toxic stuff on the planet). I¹m not sure what was planned for the rally
point, but what was very soon happening was that an enormous orange balloon
­ maybe a story tall and as much around ­ that had been tied to the ground
as a measure of how large one ton of CO2 is, courtesy of some heinous
European corporation that I¹m not really that familiar with, was rolling
down the street. The police and the samba band, both equally laden down,
went running after the crowd of people that were playing with it. We
managed to catch up before they did, and started playing a jaunty tune as
the enormous orange ball rolled off onto a major byway of cars, followed by
the crowd, the band, and the cops.

After that moment, I felt the energy shift. As usual, Jason picked up on it
a moment or two before I did.

He was already looking around for an exit route. ³We should get out of
here,² he said.

³Do you want to leave?²

He didn¹t answer, and that, coupled with the fact that he said ³should²
instead of simply, ³Let¹s go,² told me he didn¹t. I didn¹t, either. I knew
that this was a potentially arrestable situation, but it was hard to ditch
out on the band in the midst of things. And clearly, at this point, the
band was directing the energy. Folks were crowding around us, following us
wherever we went.

After awhile, the police managed to get the enormous orange balloon away
from the folks and turned us back to the plaza, where we circled up and
tried jamming for a bit. But the police weren¹t having it. They kept
pressing us into a tighter and tighter area, and then out of the plaza and
down the street towards the bridge.

Bridges are classic places for ³kettling,² which is a sweet sounding word to
describe closing in on you on both ends of a march and then arresting
everybody within. Jason looked at me again, and said, ³We should leave.²

³Do you want to go?² I asked again.

He frowned. I knew that he was feeling the same way I was ­ we still really
didn¹t want to go, even though we were clearly surrounded on three sides and
being pushed towards more cops at the other end of the bridge. I knew that
most likely if we left at that moment we could find away for two of us to
escape ­ but not the whole band. It was either ditch them to stay safe, or
stay and take the risks.

that moment I realized that I felt remarkably okay about being arrested.
I¹ve heard a few horror stories, as you always do, but overall the police
have been remarkably chill here compared to the US cops. At one point
during one of the marches earlier in the week, a line of cop cars came
screeching directly into the Samba band in an attempt to split us in two. I
kept thinking they would stop before they got to us, but they kept coming,
straight into the drummers. I tried to skedaddle out of the way, but around
me, the other drummers were pushing back at the cop cars, yelling at the
drivers. A couple of police officers jumped out and pulled the drummers off
of their cars, tossing them into the street with slightly annoyed
expressions. Then they got back into the cars and left. They didn¹t beat
anyone, or tear gas anyone, or even arrest anyone. They just tossed us to
the side as if dislodging a vine that got stuck to your shoe and then found
someone else to pester.

Let me just tell you, if we¹d tried anything even close to that in
Pittsburgh, it would have become PepperSprayBurgh. You just can¹t do that
kind of thing with American cops without them going apeshit on you. And, in
fact, they might go apeshit on you even if you don¹t do anything like that
(although, in my experience, San Francisco police tend to be more mellow).

At another march, the samba band moved off of the approved route into
traffic on the other side of the street, and a line of cops filed in to the
middle to stop those of us who hadn¹t yet made it into the street from
following. As they filed in, drummers pushed past them ­literally pushing
them out of the way ­ to stay with the rest of the band. Jason got through,
and then Kiki, this really sweet sambatista from Italy who¹s been very
friendly with us for the last couple of days. As I tried to follow, more
cops came, blocking the way. I stopped, but on the other side of the
street, Jason waved to me to come with. Without thinking, I ducked under
the cop¹s arm and then through, wondering if at any second I¹d feel his arms
pulling me back. But I didn¹t. Suddenly, there were more sambatistas
following me through, and then we were all together again, weaving among the
cars drumming and chanting. Again, no one was attacked.

So, as we were getting kettled in and my arrest seemed inevitable, I found a
strange calm came over me and decided to just keep drumming and enjoying the
music making for as long as it happened. Alright, I was probably going to
be arrested, and it was probably going to be cold for the eight or twelve
hours or whatever they were detaining people. But, there are much worse
things. I don¹t mind getting arrested, as long as I don¹t get chemicaled
and beaten, too.

We kept marching, out of the downtown area. At one point, Jason came up
next to me and expressed some concern ­ we were headed right towards
Christania, and he was afraid that the peaceful behavior of both cops and
activists might end if they came onto that already contested little piece of
land. Still, that¹s where one of our major homebases is, and I¹m sure that
the warm lunch that would be waiting for us there if we did manage to make
it held some appeal. Aside from which, we were only half of the decision
making power, at most. The cops continued to block off many of the streets,
allowing us some measure of choice, but not much.

And then, suddenly, they were gone. They just turned around and left.

We were at the gates of Christania, at least two hundred of us, samba band
and dancers and people carrying signs and probably many of those who had
unleashed the giant orange balloon and sent it floating off into the
streets, and the cops opened up the kettle and disappeared. A huge cheer
went up among the crowd, and the band flowed into a circle and began jamming
right there in the intersection of the street, much to the chagrin of the
drivers of the cars around us, I¹m sure. People were dancing like mad and
cheering and laughing, celebrating their freedom. Relief, exultation, joy,
and victory permeated the crowd.

Later that night, Naomi Klein and two other speakers came to Christania to
talk about the next day¹s action, ³Reclaim the Power.² This is the big one,
the one where we try to disrupt the conference for a time. It seems like at
every major action we try to do this, ever since Seattle. It¹s a tradition
that no mass mobilization is complete without it, kind of like turkey at
Thanksgiving. And yet, I felt conflicted. The whole reason that I came
here is that I want the Copenhagen Climate Talks to be a success, to bring
about a world-changing powerful treaty. Disrupting the talks seemed
antithetical to that goal.

Listening to Naomi and Tadzio (an activist from London that I found very
inspiring) reframed the issues for me, though.
The gist of it is this: right now, the industrialized nations and
corporations are really pushing for market-based solutions at their worst
are unlikely to do anything at all to help our planet survive, and at best
would slightly help reduce CO2 pollution but at the expense of those nations
most likely to be harmed by climate change and that have already felt the
brunt of our economic policies. There are countries out there that are in
danger of literally being underwater soon, or having their food supplies
completely destroyed by climate change issues, and these nations have been
repeatedly ignored, lied to, and condescended to during the last several
weeks while those with money and power try to find ways to maximize their
profits with carbon markets and carbon sinks. The idea of the People¹s
Assembly tomorrow is to bring together the people in the streets with the
delegates, heads of states, and NGOs from the Bella Center that desire a
very powerful treaty to truly address the issue of climate change without
the influence of those with wealth who hold a deep desire to retain that
wealth at all cost.
The meeting with Naomi and Tadzio and Michael Hart, which Lisa facilitated,
was completely packed. There were hundreds of people in the large tent at
Christania, sitting on each other¹s laps, on the floor, standing, on the
rails of the bleachers, on the other side of the partitions. And everyone
seemed to hold their breath as suddenly, someone in the crowd, called out,
³What about the police? They¹ll attack us if we try this. Why should we
let them?²

After a moment, murmurs all around. Then, another voice called out, ³No!
We have to stay calm. We can¹t do that!²

Oh great, I thought. I can¹t wait until the undercovers bring this back to
their bosses.

Now, lots of murmuring, mixed with boos and cheers and a variety of
guttural, indecipherable to the non-European ear responses. Lisa grabbed
the mike. ³Alright, alright! Hold on just a second, everyone. Let¹s just
hold on a sec.²

The power and conviction in her voice seemed to work, at least for the
moment. People did quiet down. Naomi Klein spoke next, her voice
passionate. ³I know you¹re angry,² she said. ³We all have every right to be
angry. People are being hurt, and that¹s enough to make anyone angry. But
in this moment, we have to talk about what our intention really is here. We
have an opportunity here, a historic opportunity, to bring together
delegates from the climate conference with the people. And they won¹t come
if it¹s not safe. They won¹t be able to.²

There was a round of applause, but beneath that, still plenty of angry
murmuring. Most people, it seemed, agreed with her. But there were still
those that wanted to break windows, break cops, break all barriers.

Lisa told us later that its partly the denial of the role that violent forms
of protest have played in revolutionary movements that makes people who want
to engage in these forms of protest so obstinate when we have these sorts of
³tactical² conversations. The non-violent among us deny that the other
forms ever have merit, and that¹s frustrating to them. At the same time, in
this case more than ever, it was clear that we could not have a riot on our
hands if we stood any chance of success. We couldn¹t even have a
window-breaking kind of day, because there was no way that delegates and
heads of states would allow themselves to be affiliated with that kind of
thing. We needed everyone on the same page.
In this moment, what she said was, ³Tomorrow, we need to do what¹s smart.
We need to find creative ways to protest. This isn¹t about diversity of
tactics, though there is a time and a place for that kind of model. We¹re
not trying to say that one way is right and another way is wrong. We¹re
just trying to find a way that we can make this really happen.²

Tadzio stood up now. ³Listen, we have a codex,² he said. ³It¹s not a
concensus, I know, that everyone has agreed to. It¹s a codex that says how
we will and how we won¹t do things here in Copenhagen, and now is the time
to understand what that means.²

The murmurs slowly died away. It was clear to me that most people there
wanted to stick to strictly creative, non-violent forms of action, but that
some simply didn¹t agree. And I found it hard to believe that some sort of
³code of honor² would keep them in check.

Which made me wonder, at this potentially amazing moment in history, are we
going to screw it all up simply because we don¹t have our own shit together?
Because we are still using ego-driven, violent modes of thinking?

Lisa, however, didn¹t seem daunted by my worries. ³Historically, the black
bloc honors these kinds of agreements,² she told us later. ³If there¹s a
codex, that¹s what they¹ll do.²

I hadn¹t been always impressed by the black bloc in Pittsburgh, and found
myself skeptical. But she went on to say that in Europe, the radical Left
is different. There are those that break things and those that don¹t, and
they all have legitimacy here (unlike in the States, where people who engage
in property destruction and / or fight back against the cops tend to be seen
as total wackos that do nothing but put us back twenty years). Some of that
legitimacy, however, comes from the fact that they do honor their
agreements. ³Just look at the actions over the last couple of days. There
have been plenty of chances to get into rumbles with the cops and destroy
all kinds of things. There may have been a couple of broken windows on one
day, but no riots.²

As Jason, Tom and I headed off to dinner, just across the street from
Christania at a little gyro place, I mulled over her words. As we ate, I¹m
not sure who ­ either Jason or the Indian fellows sitting at the table next
to us ­ noticed a couple of blue Politi trucks pull up and turn down the
road towards Christania. Then a few more.

I was a little worried about Lisa, who was still there, but the others told
me not to be. After all, Christania is a huge compound of not only
activists but also many radical residents, who would not take kindly to the
police coming uninvited onto their property. Certainly they weren¹t going
to try to raid the place with three or four trucks of cops.

But then we saw another truck go by, a much larger one. It was the water
cannon.

We jumped up and went to the door. Soon truck after blue-sirened truck of
cops was turning down the road, lining the one we were on, everywhere. Cops
with dogs, cops on bikes, cops in riot gear. They closed off the street
that led towards Christania, but a side street still remained open, and
after a while of standing around watching the tear gas rise from several
blocks away, Jason, Bird and I decided to move closer in to see what was
happening. We ended up right up at the front gates with the press, which
actually, the cops didn¹t mind at all. They had ceased to lob cannisters of
tear gas inside and were now bringing in the dogs (dogs and gas don¹t mix,
its either one or the other). The rumor was that there had been some people
-- whether the residents or activists, no one seemed to know ­ who had begun
to lob glass bottles at the cops as soon as the raid began. The rest of the
activists, many of whom had soon been in the tent dancing to a DJ, stayed
where they were ­ many of them just kept dancing, refusing to let the police
ruin their night.

We waited around for a couple of hours until Lisa was released, then went
off to bed. It had been a long day, and tomorrow didn¹t seem like it would
be any more relaxed. We really were out of the kettle and into the fire.

The night before last malignant forces attempted to sabotage our big action
yesterday. Jason and I went over to the Rag space for the Rhythms of
Resistance meeting, having fully assimilated ourselves into their group for
this week and finally accepting that fate. We'd been invited to their
evening meeting various times during the week, but weren't necessarily as
excited to meet as we were to drum; but now, with the most critical
demonstration of our entire time out here, it seemed like we couldn't resist
any longer. And really, all joking aside, we wanted to be involved in the
planning of what our group was going to be doing -- not only because we
wanted to help co-create it, but in my case, because I needed to know what
level of confrontation the sambatistas were planning to go for.

Here's my little secret, one that by admitting I will forever degrade any
reputation I had of being a hardcore activist: when things get hot, I can't
handle it. I'm afraid of fighting with the cops: I don't want to have my
arm, or wrist, or ankle broken by a billy club. I'm afraid of being pepper
sprayed: every time I've seen it happen to someone, it looks like its really
terribly painful. And, I'm afraid of finding myself in some cloud of chaos
that invovles tear gas and crowds of stampeding people, and falling down and
being trampled. Over all, the whole energy of that kind of intensity is just
too much for me.

So, now you know. I'm actually not hardcore. I'm softcore. I like to go out
to these things, play a drum, chant, even yell a bit, and then go back to
where its safe and warm and police free.

In the past, this has made it occasionally difficult for Jason and I to be
buddies at actions, because Jason is actually hardcore. He doesn't get
afraid. He is always calm, strong, and present to what's happening, just
like he looks. He wants to stay in the fray when the fray happens (up to a
point), not to be violent, but also not willing to back down in the face of
tactics that involve pain and terror to get us to comply. The Samba band,
this week, has shown a similar attitude towards their interactions with the
police, which is tempered by the large surdu drums that some drummers carry
that make it fairly hard to run away at the last minute.

Anyway, I was very interested to see what level of confrontation the
sambatistas were planning for the Reclaim the Power Action. The action was
going to be divided into several "blocs" of people, roughly categorized by
the kinds of things they'd be doing during the action, which has a
connection to the kind of violence from the police you might be subject to
but does not directly translate as such.

The Blue Bloc was those people who were marching along the police approved
route, including a large contingent of folks from the Global South at the
front who were going to push through the police line, a wave of tightly
pressed together folks right behind them to continue pushing, a line of
various affinity groups chained together by interlocked arms around the edge
of the entire thing, a truck with a sound system to issue instructions to
the crowd, and, potentially, the samba band. The Green Bloc was a mobile
group leaving from a nearby train station that would move down a different
route towards the Bella Center, and enter it by some other means. There was
a bloc of autonomous groups that were planning to attempt to tear down the
fences, create distracting actions for the police, and swim across the
canals. There was a Bike Bloc that would be offering support to the other
blocs, going were needed. There was also a group from Chistania, which had
been brutally raided by the police the night before, who were planning on
going into downtown in the morning and breaking lots of crap as retribution..
The Chistania group wasn't really a part of the action; they were just a
bunch of angry kids trying to get back at the police, loosely affiliated
with us.

After much discussion, the Sambas decided to agree to the request by the
action organizers to join the Blue Bloc and help direct the energy of people
there. They also agreed to stay on the police-approved route unless the cops
stopped the march prematurely, at which point they were holding the option
of breaking off and heading to the BC by an alternate open route.

The whole time we were at the meeting, I kept looking out the window,
waiting for the police to show up. As I mentioned, the night before they had
raided Chistania and held everyone inside for hours, using tear gas and dogs
while residents threw glass bottles at them and barricaded the gates. Once
in a while, we'd see one or two blue Politi trucks pull up, but they¹d just
leave again.

Eventually, Jason and I headed back to the hostel. We took Lisa with us, as
some of the other more public organizers were having their homes raided or
had been arrested, and she was worried they¹d show up at her place and drag
her away if she stayed there that night.

That¹s when the malignant forces struck, taking us entirely by surprise. The
first was a fellow in the bed across the room from us, who snored loudly. I
keep trying to think of a way to tell you how loudly, but can¹t think of
anything. Loud enough that there was no way to sleep, at any rate. Possibly
loud enough to be heard several rooms over. We took turns going over to him
and nudging him gently, but all that did was provide a couple of minutes
respite before the barrage began again. Just as I¹d be falling into the
drugged-feeling doze that was substituting for real sleep that night, he¹d
begin again. SNORE. SNORE. SNOOOOOOR-RE-RE.

The second malignant force is the doddering old man in the bed nearest ours
that stayed up until after midnight packing and repacking his small duffle
bag, and then who woke up again sometime around four to do it yet again,
before going back to sleep. He claimed to need to be up early for a flight,
but we found him at breakfast the next morning when we went down, so it
obviously wasn¹t all that early.

The lack of sleep was killing us. We grumbled, we groaned, we heard our
frustration echoing in the tossing and turning of our other hostel-mates.
Tomorrow was the biggest action of the week, and we were being subtly undone
by two hapless roommates.

At some point, while Jason and I were quietly trying to convince one another
that it was the other person¹s turn to get up and deal with the snorer (what
also didn¹t help the potential for sleep was the fact that we were sharing
the lower part of a twin-sized bunk bed, so Lisa could have the top bunk),
he suddenly jumped out of bed, strode over to the snorer, and said loudly,
³You. Have. Got. To. Stop. Snoring. NOW.²

I wanted to groan outloud. Everyone knows that snorers can¹t help their
snoringŠ that¹s what makes the whole situation so terrible. All he¹d done, I
thought, was to further irritate our roommates.

But the snoring stopped.

Jason sank back into bed beside me. I couldn¹t believe it. I laid there with
my eyes open, waiting for the snoring to begin again. It did, but more
quietly. And soon after it began, the snorer woke himself up and turned
over. Just like that. I tell you what, that man is magic. I couldn¹t believe
it had worked.

We were nonetheless all very groggy the next morning when we woke up at
5:30AM to head down to Tanby station, where the Samba band was meeting the
rest of the Blue Block. Tom had volunteered to be one of the Samba ³Angels²
or ³Engines,² two equally illogical words to describe the people marching
alongside the samba band with linked arms to protect the band from cops and
other interloping elements.

I drank a mocha in the morning to help me with my sleepiness, and that,
couple with the fact that I was still feeling quite nervous about the
potential for police violence this day, made for a jumpy and antsy Riyana
that had to take frequent (and growingly more and more inconvenient) trips
to the little activists¹s room. Jason seemed simply excited, like most of
the band. We gathered together and formed our lines, and sooner than I would
have thought possible, we were marching down the street with a couple
hundred more folksŠ perhaps just under one thousand.

The police marched next to us, a line of cops and a line of trucks on the
side facing the Bella Center, like a wall. We just kept going. They were
clearly intent on stopping any break away marches going off in that
direction. We just kept going. The sound system truck, with Lisa on it, was
behind us. They were the ones who were going to direct the push when it was
time. Until then, it was just drumming and chanting and cops, like usual.

We got down to the Bella Center quickly, but I couldn¹t see much of it or
what was going on up ahead. I knew that the Green Bloc, the more mobile of
the two large blocs of activist, was supposed to be doing something
somewhere near us, but I hadn¹t seen one glimpse or heard anything about
them the entire morning. I also knew that Via Campesina and many of the more
militant European activsts were up at the front of the march preparing to
head the push through the police lines into the Bella Center, and that there
were hundreds of NGO and other delegates inside that were going to be
pushing out to meet us, but I couldn¹t see any of that. All I could see was
the band around me surrounded by the police, and all I could feel was the
pulsing of the samba music matching beats with the strong erratic stammering
of my heart. There seemed to be no Green Bloc, and no flood of Bella Center
attendees coming out to meet us.

A woman got on the mike and told us it was time for us to push for Climate
Justice, and that we were going to be moving slightly to the left and
forward, through the police lines. I tried to imagine this happening ­ both
to visualize our success, and to get a sense of what she meant. I imagined
people pushing through the lines of the cops and ducking under their arms as
I had in the march the other day, easily, like salmon flowing through the
rocks in the riverbeds as they move upstream.

Jason frowned, watching the cops, who had heard the woman and were now
moving to buffer the left side of the march in response. ³Why on earth are
they announcing it over the loud system?² he asked. ³That¹s no way to get
this done.²

I didn¹t understand, either, unless they simply thought that getting
everyone on the same page was worth a few extra cops in the way. Still, it
didn¹t really make sense. At these big events, our biggest assets are our
unpredictability and ability to move without waiting for commands, without
leaders, like swarming fish. But we weren¹t doing that ­ we were packing in
tightly, creating a wedge, and we were also announcing it to the police.

³Get ready ­ it¹s almost time!² the woman yelled. ³We¹re going to push!
Push! PUSH!²

I prepared myself to move forward, towards the gate ­ but suddenly, I wasn¹t
moving forward but to the left, very much to the left, propelled forward by
all of the people behind me. Jason was next to me. He grabbed my shoulder so
that we wouldn¹t be separated with an iron grip, and we both flowed forward
with the crowd, straight into the line of cops. My drum was crushed up
against me in the tide of people, and there were bodies up against me, too,
so much so that I knew it wouldn¹t be long before breathing became more
difficult. The pressure was like a birthing wave, the contraction that is
also the beginning of the opening. I knew that either the dam would burst or
that we¹d flow back again, flow open. It wasn¹t the kind of energy that
could be sustained.

And then there was a cry, and a surge, and a person was staggering backwards
while other people called all around, ³Make way! Make way!² Seconds later,
more people were staggering back against the crowd, closing their eyes or
covering them. A fine mist rose up from the front ranks where we intersected
with them. The cops were using pepper spray.

My heartrate went up again. I hate pepper spray, have hated it ever since I
first saw someone rolling around on the ground who¹d been hit in St. Paul.

The crowd surged forward again, threatening to pull Jason and I apart, but
he continued to grasp my jacket sleeve tightly. ³Don¹t fall!² he said.
³Watch your feet! I¹ve got you.²

Still the crowd pushed in on all sides, and the rim of my drum cut into my
leg. I raised it higher so that it would help create some space around me,
taking tiny little steps in order to keep my balance in the tumultuous surge
of people. The cops were still holding firm, and as we got closer, I could
see that they were pressed up against the trucks that had been behind them,
and that behind that, there was a fence. A line of cops, a line of police
trucks, and a fence. How on earth were we going to do this?

In fact, I realized, I couldn¹t do it. It simply was too much.

I leaned over to Jason and told him that this wasn¹t the place for me. He
nodded, ³This is where we are, though, so this is where I¹m staying,² he
said.

It used to be that I absolutely couldn¹t leave Jason during these heated
moments. After the RNC, the idea of leaving him and having something happen
to him was too terrible. But just before coming here to Copenhagen, I had a
dream where an ancient grandmother came to me and told me that Jason and I
had important, yet separate, work to do here. Since then, I¹ve been much
more able to do what I need and let him have whatever experience he needs.

So, he let me go. Another pepper spray victim was weaving through the crowd,
and I took him by the shoulder and started yelling, ³Make way!² to help him
through, following him out as I did so.

I met up with some more sambatistas at the edge of the crowd, and from this
perspective, could see what was happening much better: those people at the
front, who had wanted to be in confrontational positions with the cops, were
coming up from the right to try and get in to the wedge, while the bulk of
the march continued to press in from the left. It was like two rivers
streaming into one dammed reservoir, filling it up with people. Still no
Green Bloc people, and no one from the inside, though cheers from that
direction told me that there were definitely people there trying to get out..

In the end, the police line held. The cops had locked the Bella Center gates
and refused to let the delegates walk out, at first threatening them with
arrest and then beating them when they still tried to get to us. The Green
Bloc people hadn¹t even gotten past the train station doors before getting
arrested. It was left to only us Blue Block people, and it simply didn¹t
happen.

The energy was quite intense still, and I had to fall back again, this time
wetly crossing one of the canals as the police kettled in the bulk of the
crowd. I couldn¹t leave Jason, though. We had set up an emergency meeting
point nearby, but even that seemed too far away. Instead, I simply waited at
the bank of the canal, moving from here to there any time the cops insisted
that I do so, but keeping my eye on what was going on the entire time.

After awhile it seemed safe enough to go join up again with the samba group
and Jason and Tom, who had never left. The People¹s Assembly ­ a meeting of
people from every continent ­ began, to discuss the issues of global warming
and the solutions that we desire. Slowly, the people from inside the Bella
Center who had wanted to come out started to join us, having taken a long
journey to a train station blocks away and walked over.

Because my feet had gotten wet in the canal crossing, however, I couldn¹t
stay long. I felt disheartened and disappointed, anyway: disheartened
because yet again I found that I wasn¹t able to stick it out when the going
got tough and disappointed because I had really, really wanted us to be able
to get through the gates and meet the people from inside. It felt like it
could have been a Rosa Parks kinda moment, one with that kind of historical
power. I wasn¹t able to see, in that moment, that had we actually gotten
into the Bella Center, things might have been much worse. The police never
would have let us stay there, and their determination to get us out might
have made things much more violent. At the very least, there would have been
no People¹s Assembly. Only a very significant, yet purely symbolic, act.

I went back to the hostel and took a "nap" that turned into an all-nighter.
I was exhausted, and I didn¹t know what to think anymore. All over the news,
the reports were claiming that the entire Copenhagen Climate Summit was
falling apart: not only the massive protests in and out, but also that the
head of the summit was resigning and more and more countries were walking
out and such. As sleep claimed me, my last thoughts were, ³Why on earth did
I come here again?²