The Amsterdam alternative summit: a crazy, incongruous weekend, riddled with contradictions and high excitement. But first, a couple of facts to put the record straight. It was bizarre, watching the British news broadcasts and hearing the event described as 'rioting' amongst the 20-30,000 people who turned up. Other countries - France, Germany and the Netherlands itself - openly acknowledge that over 50,000 people marched around Amsterdam. All were in opposition to the mass unemployment, job insecurity and social exclusion demanded by the Maastricht Treaty.
Dutch TV acknowledged that the rally had been good humoured and well organised. Even the main conflict - 2,000 Italians held on Amsterdam Central station - was fairly openly explained. But you couldn't miss the buzz of excitement in the air.
The British marchers were in high spirits. Whether they had come from Jarrow, Preston or anywhere along the way, the mood and the message was bubbling: "we want a People's Europe...of jobs, decent wages, housing, pensions and healthcare...and "no we don't want to steal it from the French, the Germans, the Spanish or the Greeks."
Marchers from 30 different countries, on 18 different "legs" converged on Amsterdam; the first pro-European, pan-European march for citizens' rights that I have seen. All rejected the recessionary, deflationary policies which Maastricht demands. All were asking for policies in the interests of people rather than corporations. All demanded that "listening" governments should listen to their people, not their financial institutions.
Two "alternative" conferences ran in parallel with the rally. They trawled on wonderful ideas and mobilisations in different countries. But they also brought questions. Why, when big unions across Europe supported the march, did the British TUC turn its back and urge non-support along the way? Why wouldn't Europe's leaders come out and meet them? Where was the breadth of Party support for the alternative sessions? If the official Summit understood that jobs were now the central issue in Europe, why would no leader spell out how these would be delivered and how they would be paid for?
Coporate Europe had already written the script for the official summit - more deregulation, the completion of the single market, greater labour market flexibility and competitiveness - but public Europe was moving rapidly in a different direction. Marchers, MPs and trade unionists from France pointed out that 800,000 jobs was not just a slogan from Lionel Jospin. It was a commitment that French people would hold him to. Chancellor Kohl may want non-interventionist policies but German marchers and workers wanted jobs. The common platform occupied by French and Belgian Renault workers also made it clear that there was no mood for allowing multinationals to play fast and loose with their location of production.
This was a more confident, assertive and internationalist mood than I have come across for some time. Green and environmental campaigners joined with trade unionists to spell out some of the practical ways in which jobs could come by setting a new ethical agenda which European counties would have to work to. Small and local businesses may welcome it but global corporations, locked in to a race to drive wages and conditions to the bottom of the barrel, will go spare.
Thank goodness for some clarity about conflicting interests in today's political economy. Thank goodness for the hope and irreverence of those who brought their ideas (and tired feet) to the streets of Amsterdam.
As the British marchers made their way through the various stages of their long march through Britain, towards the Amsterdam summit, they faced a contradictory response. Every town, city, trades council, collection of churches and local community, welcomed them with open arms.
But the press and the labour movement (whose rights they were championing) remained largely silent. In one important way, so too were Europe's leaders. None was willing to acknowledge that it is the Maastricht single currency which stands in the way of the jobs agenda demanded by a People's Europe. Only the marchers seemed willing to speak the truth about the Emperor's new currency. Only our leaders still retreat from admitting its nakedness.