1) In order to win. Imagine that this time round it will really work! The big names will, of course, be flown in with a helicopter, but that’s only a few of them. The lower ranks, especially the personnel, will have to be brought in by car. Furthermore, you can block a helicopter, too (with hang gliders, sky rockets…), and on the day of the summit, people have already announced they will try and block the only big airport in the region. But again, imagine that it will be a successful blockade; that we are enough people with enough fantasy, initiative and courage to block the entry points. Then the G8 summit, where those who are instrumental in perpetuating global poverty, environmental destruction and neo-liberal business want to get together and play, will simply fail. Just for once (again), remember Seattle?

2) To create networks. Summit protests are spaces where countless groups and individuals join forces who rarely see each other in their daily lives, let alone organise protests together. We have been divided into countless one-issue movements which in turn are divided over strategic and political questions. But during protests against a summit such as this one, everything comes together and crosses each other. This cross-fertilisation yields unexpected results.

3) As a school for protest. The protests, the preparations and the action camps, are spaces in which everyone learns new things. It is a living school for self-organisation, theory, discussion, action forms, etc. Helping organising an action camp, witnessing how people who barely know each other can build up something of that scale in such a short period of time and under difficult circumstances, is in itself something that everyone should have experienced at least once in their lifetime. These camps are also places where people who have just recently decided to become active against the current power structure, can come into contact with people who have been active already for a longer time. The blockades and actions can be astonishing experiences, they can change lives and let people see that we can change things and that resistance is possible. These experiences are then used in different places and on different subjects and thereby disseminated beyond only the summit.

4) For the spin-off effect: the effects of these sort of mass actions are much bigger than the place and time of the summit. It influences a large part of the surrounding society, the media, the discussions at the baker’s and in the bus. Suddenly everyone is talking about the issue, and that would never happen if the protests would not take place. Of course, not everyone agrees with the activists, but at least they are discussing the issues. Compare that with summits that meet with no resistance, which was common place only a few years ago. Then the media picture presented is largely that which those in power created, and you would see men in grey suites shaking hands. But now, WE are in the picture. But the spin-off goes much further than that: the networks created during the protests, activists return to their local settings and are inspired to carry on with their work. Because no one considers these summit protests as the end point of their political activities; it is but one moment in our daily campaigns and struggles to change the world. But it is an important one that can be used well.

5) Ritual and spectacle? The common reasoning that summits are just a ritualised display of power and serve as a trap which activists step into by protesting against them is simply not true. The powerful would much rather meet and discuss in peace. Now they are forced to protect themselves with an army surrounding them in order to keep off the angry masses. They have a very hard time, under these circumstances, to legitimise themselves and their actions and are thereby forced to make all sorts of pseudo-promises. So this is what we have achieved already. Of course they also learn from these experiences and activists have to be inventive to keep up the pressure. It is also important to realise that summit protests cost activists a lot of time, money and labour, which could also be invested elsewhere. Hyping militant behaviour can also be irritating and counter-productive. Much more dangerous, however, is the ritualisation of powerless political manifestations which mainstream NGOs agree with governments, such as symbolic mass demonstrations (round the church and back). They also cost much time, money and energy, and are, moreover, painfully boring.

To be active only at the local level and ‘positively’ is also not an option, the ruling elite will laugh at you and couldn’t care less. Every now and then, you have to try and come together and score ‘globally’, and then part again to carry on working at the local level. Also: not all actions that have taken place many times are also out of date. For centuries now, workers have gone on strike against their bosses and strikes are still necessary tools that book results.

6) In order to break out of the often illusionary ‘civil society input’ culture. In order to experience a different reality for a moment (other than the endless ‘consultation’ model with its ‘civil feedback groups’, ‘stakeholder meetings’, reports, studies and policy recommendations), it helps to, once in a while, attempt an actual act of resistance without compromise. It will be Yabasta! It’s enough, in June in Heiligendamm, we had enough and will try and stop the limousines and dance on their roofs. All this in the hope that the practice of direct action will become a normal tactic again, which not so long ago this was the case in Holland and had actual effect (e.g. in the squatting, women’s and initially the workers movements…). Fewer things on earth are more fulfilling than to smash the party of fat cats and stop them, even if only for a moment, from destroying this planet.

7) For strategic reasons. Although the G8 is an informal meeting at which, officially, no decisions are taken, the G8 is becoming an increasingly important forum and, for this reason, is being increasingly institutionalised. Thousands of politicians and civil servants take part in it and it is prepared during the whole year by large teams. It is evident that these sort of meetings form the structure for negotiations between the most powerful capitalist nations in the world in order for them to coordinate their policies. Important decisions of other institutions, such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank, are prepared during this summit. The ‘system’ will not collapse if they cannot hold one of their summits, but it makes it all a little more difficult to keep the machine running smoothlessly. Imagine that each of their gatherings is met with such resistance. Also ideologically, they are forced into the defence by this form of mass protest.

8) For international solidarity. Of course we fight against the G8 leaders because we are suffering from their policies ourselves. But we also know that often people that are hit the worst by them live in the global South, far away from the cities where the power lies, where the conferences are held and the offices of the multinationals are located. In southern countries it is often common to resist economic oppression with hand and feet, for which people pay a high price. Those people also appreciate that also in the capitalist centres, people actively resist and demand an end to the desperation and status quo. This is why ‘global’ actions often go hand in hand with very specific demands around specific issues that all have to do with the G8 – supporting the Ogoni fighting against Shell in Nigeria, freeing political prisoners, solidarity with Oaxaca/Chiapas, oppose GMOs, etc, etc.

But first and foremost 1) in order to win! Those who join can later tell their grandchildren (or those of the neighbours) that they were there; the historic beginning of the end of the capitalist nightmare. Heiligendamm, June 2007, that’s where you have to be, en masse and active!

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For more information on the coming protests see, amongst others,  http://www.dissent.nl

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