Seville last night

national | miscellaneous | news report Sunday June 23, 2002 17:23 by dj. Salinger - indymedia

Battle of the Rigs

A family night out.

Hi,
I was in Seville last night, the march was well organised and had no confrontational objective.

Numbers were low- maybe forty to sixty thou.
the black bloc(despite reports of some New kids on the black bloc)were quiet.

The blue block were the best organised I´ve seen.
low numbers and a non-confrontational attitude.
They were mainly seen outside a couple of banks and petrol stations along the route of the anti capitalism march.( makes sense if you think about it) This didn´t give anybody a chance to do thh anarco boggie- which is a boring dance that only tv. stations and websites like. And thus saved the march looking bad.

They stayed out of the way and seemed to communicate well with the seville social forum.
The crowed were not intimadated and thus the mood was relaxed with no trouble.
A lesson to our blue-bloc.

Groups were small and good spirited: a few hundred each of greens, anarchos,
swimmers and others. no indy media to speak of.

The mood was festive, with locals every few feet along the route, dousing the marchers with hoses and buckets- to cheers and laughter.
I walked from the end of the march to the its head at the mapfre Bridge. Once there went back a bit a watched the march pass- everybody drinking and laughing.

I joined with a group following a small sounmd system( I was in spain for music) which was playing really nice latin party stuff with good bass and buzzers on the roof.
The swimmers had a better rig but lost out ´cause their tunes consisted of some guy´s spiel in spanish(about knowing the lord or something).

The march ended outside a theme park and this seemed to suit the mood.

I was in both Barcelona and Seveille.
Barcelona was a nice, very civilised union march,
not big numbers(50,000)
the press reported 100,000 thou in Seveille and maybe that was over the top.

Some of the reason for the low numbers may be that people, although concerned about the way Europe works(immigration, food, alt. med. millitary), are not as such, anti-Europe in the same way or with the same passion that they are anti-IMF,WTO,USA,FF,bad house.
I only got here for the last day because I found it hard to build up or decern much interest on the net or anywhere else about this meeting and it seems I wasn´t the only one.
Although the shit stirrer in me misses(slightly) the smell of cs in the mourning,
this was a good day out for all the family.