2006-11-13
The same procedure as every year?
It will happen once again in June next year leaders of economy and politicians of the eight most powerful states of the world will meet for their annual meeting at a luxurious health resort to enjoy decent food, to sip champagne, to have their photos put in the papers coordinate their political proceedings.
The G8 are the seven most powerful industrial nations plus Russia. That means that they represent just a relatively small part of the world's population - provided we recognized them as our representatives - but by far the biggest part of world economy.
Next year, the G8 will meet at the Kempinski Grand Hotel in the city of Heiligendamm near Rostock. So the annual political circus is coming back to Germany...
G-What?
The G8 summit is an annual meeting of the political leaders of the eight most powerful states in the world. These meetings are more than just a media happening laden with symbolisms, but decisions will be taken They are informal but still relevant. We get to feel the force of the results of these fireside talks in the time to come.
It is a decisive difference to other summits of a similar kind that G8 meetings do not have any official results, protocols etc. Therefore these summits seem to be noncommittal and perhaps even somewhat harmless. Of course, this makes it harder to realize their concrete results, and to criticize and attack them…
But these decisions are real. We see and feel them when we read about new war schemes and welfare cuts in these countries in the papers’. We feel them when a truncheon smashes our face because we had the cheek to take part in a protest march critical of the system, and we happen to know the police officer for living in the same neighbourhood. You feel it when you see your boss’ third car whileyou cannot afford to pay your health insurance any longer. You recognize it when you read that tens of thousands of people are starving to death every day although or right because our dustbin are filled with the best food. You realize this reading about people who try and escape from these miserable conditions and fail facing the Gates of Europe, or drown in the Mediterranean because there is no safe legal way for them to enter our regions of prosperity.
They are eight, we are six billions…
The situation is getting worse and worse: the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer – and, above all, they are getting more and more. Characteristics obvious enough in our economy have become even more drastic globally. What we're dealing with is not just the worst symptoms of a mysterious “neoliberalism” which may be soothed by a few appropriate laws.In a society built upon inequality and exploitation, these tendencies will grow and get stronger on a global level. The G8 is thus an attempt to clean up the mess that the chaotic system of capitalism creates.
Therefore, they are just a partial cause. Therefore, the G8 is only in part the cause, but rather a result of these circumstances themselves It's pretty absurd to expect the rich to start representing our interests all of a sudden. It is asking too much if we expect the very same people whose administration got us in heavy waters to drag us out - no, we've got to do that ourselves!So we don't take to the streets just for the abolition of the G8 or for different results.
We can just demand a different society. A society beyond the logic of exploitation and control. We demand a self-determined society without power and hierarchy, without leaders, bosses, ushers and without the G8! Let's take back our lives and our future into our own hands!
Every year when the powerful meet at their resorts to make decisions without consulting us, we, too, come together to stop it. We do not just meet to stop the summit, nor just to make our protest and our opinions heard in public… We simply live the life we want. We organize our meetings according to our own ideals and principles without hierarchy, without bosses. Lets try out our ideals and principles practically! A camp where everybody is allowed to speak and nobody who has more and nobody has more of a say than others. We do not just demand this different society, we simply take it. We live it with or without the G8…
Crash their party – For a better life for everyone!
For a society without hierarchies!
Workgroup G8 of Forum of German speaking Anarchists. Oct. 2006
Contact: g8-fda@no-log.org
ViSdP : Anna Ski, Straße der verlorenen Herrschaft 21, Freiburg
[http://www.iaf-ifa.org/News/G8_germany/g8_germany.htm]
