Something is Rotten and it Ain't Just in Denmark

There are still folks who were swept up by cops in Copenhagen while protesting the climate summit controlled by Big Capital locked up in Denmark today. They've got something to say.

The following is from Mobilization for Climate Justice.

Statement from those still imprisoned in Denmark
January 1st, 2010


Something is rotten (but not just) in Denmark. As a matter of fact,
thousands of people have been considered, without any evidence, a
threat to the society. Hundreds have been arrested and some are
still under detention, waiting for judgement or under investigation.
Among them, us, the undersigned.
We want to tell the story from the peculiar viewpoint of those that
still see the sky from behind the bars.



>A UN meeting of crucial importance has failed because of several
>contradictions and tensions that have shown up during the COP15. The
>primary concern of the powerfuls was the governance of the energy
>supply for neverending growth. This was the case whether they were
>from the overdeveloped world, like the EU countries or the US, or
>from the so-called developing countries, like China or Brazil.
>
>At odds, hundreds of delegates and thousands of people in the
>streets have raised the issue that the rationale of life must be
>(and actually is) opposed to that of profit. we have strongly
>affirmed our will to stop anthropic pressure on the biosphere.
>
>A crisis of the energy paradigm is coming soon. The mechanism of the
>global governance have proven to be overhelmingly precarious. The
>powerfuls failed not only in reaching an agreement on their internal
>equilibrivre but also in keeping the formal control of the
>discussion.
>
>Climate change is an extreme and ultimate expression of the violence
>of the capitalistic growth paradigm. People globally are
>increasingly showing the willingness of taking the power to rebel
>against that violence. we have seen that in Copenhagen, as well as
>we have seen that same violence. Hundreds of people have been
>arrested without any reason or clear evidence, or for participating
>in peacefull and legitimate demonstrations. Even mild examples of
>civil disobedience have been considered as a serious threath to the
>social order.
>
>In response we ask - What order do we threaten and who ordered it?
>Is it that order in which we do not anymore own our bodies? The
>order well beyond the terms of any reasonable "social contract" that
>we would ever sign, where our bodies can be taken, managed,
>constrained and imprisoned without any serious evidence of crime. Is
>it that order in which the decision are more and more shielded from
>any social conflicts? Where the governance less and less belongs to
>people, not even through the parliament? As a matter of fact,
>non-democratic organisms like the WTO, the NB, the G-whatever rule
>beyond any control.
>
>We are forced to notice that the theater of democracy is a brokenone
>as soon as, one approaches the core of the power. That is why we
>reclaim the power to the people. We reclaim the power over our own
>lives. Above all, we reclaim the power to counterpose the rationale
>of life and of the commons to the rationale of profit. It may have
>been declared illegal, but still we consider it fully legitimate.
>
>Since no real space is left in the broken theater, we reclaimed our
>collective power - Actually we expected it - to speak about the
>climate and energy issues. Issues that, for us, involve critical
>nodes of global justice, survival of man and energy independence. We
>did marching with our bodies.
>
>We prefer to enter the space where the power is locked dancing and
>singing. We would have liked to do this at the Bella center, to
>disrupt the session in accord with hundreds of delegates. But we
>were, as always, violently hampered by the police. They arrested our
>boddies in an attempt to arrest our ideas. we risked our bodies,
>trying to protect them just by staing close to each other. We value
>our bodies: We need them to make love, to stay together and to enjoy
>lif. They hold our brains, with beautifull bright ideas and views.
>They hold our hearts filled with passion and joy. Nevertheless, we
>risked them. we risked our bodies getting locked in prisons.
>In fact, what would be the worth of thinking and feeling if the
>bodies did not move? Doing nothing, letting-it-happen, would be the
>worst form of complicity with the business that wanted to hack the
>UN meeting. At the COP15 we moved, and we will keep moving.
>
>Exactly like love, civil dosibedience can not just be told. We must
>make it, with our bodies. Otherwise, we would not really think about
>what we love, and we would not really love what we think about. It's
>as simple as that. It's a matter of love, justice and dignity.
>
>How the COP15 has ended proves that we were right. Many of us are
>paying what is mandatory for an obsessive, pervasive and total
>repression: To find a guilty at the cost of inventing it (along with
>the crime perhaps).
>
>We are detained with evidently absurd accusations about either
>violences that actually did not take place or conspiracies and
>organizing of law-breaking actions.
>
>We do not feel guilty for having shown, together with thousands, the
>reclamation of the independence of our lives from profit's rule. If
>the laws oppose this, it was legitimate to peacefully - but still
>conflictually - break them.
>
>We are just temporarily docked, ready to sail again with a wind
>stronger than ever. It's a matter of love, justice and dignity.
>
>Luca Tornatore - from the Italien social centres network "see you in
>Copenhagen".
>Natasha Verco - Climate Justice Action
>Stine Gry Jonassen - Climate Justice Action
>Tannie Nyboe - Climate Justice Action
>Johannes Paul Schul Meyer
>Arvip Peschel
>Christian Becker
>Kharlanchuck Dzmitry
>Cristoph Lang
>Anthony Arrabal