Hatred of the rich is back in fashion

Ross Clark says that the anti-globalisation rioters protesting at the G8 summit in Germany and Labour’s deputy leadership contenders are part of a new and dangerous trend towards wealth-bashing

One of the little-remarked side effects of 9/11 was the eclipse of the anti-globalisation movement. It is not easy to remember that in the summer of 2001, the year in which protestor Carlo Giuliani died during rioting at the G8 summit in Genoa, the growing venom of anti-capitalism protestors was seen as such a threat to society that, briefly, on the afternoon of 11 September commentators on the live radio and television coverage discussed the possibility that the attacks could have been carried out by enemies of globalisation.

After 9/11, however, the movement suffered a precipitous decline. The Mayday riots which had shaken London in 2000 and 2001 were not repeated. With the war on terror swinging into action, taunting the police in street battles seemed a rather less good idea. With security services twitching with the threat of suicide bombers, suddenly there was the possibility that water cannons might be replaced with semi-automatic weapons.

In Rostock this week, however, the anti-globalisers wanted us to know that they are back in business. A rally involving 25,000 protestors quickly erupted into violence, leaving a reported 400 police officers and 520 demonstrators injured. The violence followed protests in Hamburg the previous week. And that was even before a single G8 delegate had touched down in Germany.

It is no accident that the revival of anti-globalisation protest coincided with the visit of the G8 summit to Germany. It is in the German Autonome — anarchist groups of the 1960s and 1970s — that the anti-globalisation movement has its origins. It was Ulrike Meinhof, the journalist turned terrorist who lent her name to the Baader-Meinhof Gang, whose justification of vandalism as a political tool still rings in the ears of German anarchists: ‘If I set a car on fire that is a criminal offence.