I traveled to Prague in a caravan of 100 activists from London. We had our own hold-ups at the border, but that was the least of our worries. Headlines in the next day s English language newspaper, the Prague Post , made reference to The Art of Resistance and New Indy Media Rages Against the Machine, pointing to the role that media activists were playing in telling what the corporate media were either ignoring or too often, distorting. A picture of solidarity and commitment to the cause could be teased out, despite the smoke and spin. But what one noticed were the photos.
Mob mentality takes heavy toll on Prague.
Yes, windows had been smashed at McDonalds, KFC, Mercedes Benz, and banks throughout the city, all targets considered strategic, in that these are the institutions that illustrate, with prolific uniformity, the role that multinational corporations and international financial institutions play in the positioning of corporate values against human values. Tear gas and pepper spray drifted through neighborhoods and, in a few instances, dumpsters and an abandoned car were burned. The water cannons, mounted on military tanks meant to keep protesters from getting too close to the meetings where 11,000 street and riot police stood guard, were used to put out flames on the flaming uniform of a police officer who was struck by a molotov cocktail. Small groups of frustrated protesters, some of whom have been suspected of being agent provocateurs working for police, threw cobblestones, to which the police responded with concussion grenades and night sticks, which some demonstrators reappropriated along with plastic shields, for their own defense. Almost all of the hundreds of NGOs, trade unions and affinity groups were peaceful.