[Gipfelsoli Newsletter] April 18th 2007, Heiligendamm

[International Newsletter]

April 18th 2007, Heiligendamm

- Call for Action!
- Gleneagle students compete to speak to G8
- Final declaration of the action conference Rostock III from April 13-15, 2007

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Call for Action!

In early June of 2007 (06-08.06 to be precise), the leaders of the G8 nations
will meet in Heiligendamm, Germany. Behind an 12 kilometer long fence and
protected by thousands upon thousands of soldiers and police officers, they
will intend to provide an image of transparency and accountability to the
current social, political, and economic world model.
The farce inside the summit will prompt an equally sad farce on the outside. A
veritable sea of NGOs, trade unions, parties, personalities, and reformist
organizations will gather outside and decry the lack of transparency. They will
talk about debt relief for the third world, about building a European social
alternative to the "bad" neo-liberal vision of capitalism. But above all, they
will demand a "seat at the table," in order to better manage misery and
exploitation. In short, to build "capitalism with a smiling face."
Yet we, anti-statists and revolutionaries of all stripes, will be converging in
Northern Germany for a different reason...

We are not interested in a place at the table of capitalism, or in providing a
human face for what we know to be an inherently flawed system. We know that
there can be no "better life" in a nightmarish reality. Our vision is
different. It is one of a society based on mutual aid and solidarity, where
people are not robbed of the fruits of their labor, and where decisions that
affect the whole of society are made by the whole of society, rather than by a
select few. We are interested in nothing less than the destruction of the
"table of capitalism".
Global events such as the G8 summit, while purely symbolic in their nature, are
our chance to show that we will not sit idly by as capitalism wages a constant
war on all of us. The insurrectional moments that marked the mobilizations in
Amsterdam, Prague, Seattle, Napoli, Quebec City, Genoa, or Thessaloniki are
only icons of the constant clashes that constitute the global social and class
war. When the suburbs of the French metropoles burn, when around the world
entire neighborhoods become ungovernable, is when the contradictions of this
system expose themselves in the form of social ruptures. It is the role of
leftists and anti-authoritarians to intervene in these scenarios, attempting to
give them a progressive and revolutionary character. Day in and day out, this
struggle is given concrete shape, be it in the form of demonstrations, militant
actions, or other forms of expression.
In North America with the burnt properties of those who seek to destroy the
earth for their own benefit; in workers and students uprisings in Santiago,
Buenos Aires, and La Paz; or in Northern Europe where youths revolt in the
streets of Copenhagen to preserve their right to envision a different
existence.
It is the same war waged inside and outside of the prisons, against the
extermination programs for political prisoners (the white cells of Turkey, the
FIES regime in the Spanish State) and for the liberation of RAF and Action
Directe prisoners; of hunger striking imprisoned anarchists comrades in Greece;
of Indigenous and Black liberation prisoners in the USA; of all imprisoned
anarchists and revolutionaries...It is the war that rages in the modern
metropoles from Paris to Athens, between those excluded and those incorporated,
between youth and police. It is not always fought as we envisioned it, but it is
nonetheless the sign of the coming social rupture. The job of the revolutionary
left is to always expose and widen the rupture!
The G8 summit is indeed only a symbol, a personified image for the abstract
social and economic model. In short, it is a theatrical message. Yet a message
is precisely what we plan to give them! We come from different political and
social backgrounds, with different experiences and perspectives as well as
tactical outlooks. Yet this summit is a chance to band together with comrades
from far away, build contacts and networks, and in the process, make good use
of another opportunity to show the G8 leaders and the world the force of class
anger. We are truly the ungovernable force, and no fence can stop us!

No Other World is Possible with Capitalism!
Make Capitalism History!
Block the G8 Summit, By Any Means Necessary!

[http://fight-g8.de.vu]


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Gleneagle students compete to speak to G8

Eight students at Coquitlam's Gleneagle secondary school are competing for a
chance to represent Canada and tell world leaders their ideas for dealing with
important global issues.
They are vying for a chance to attend the Junior 8 (J8) Summit, a youth version
of the G8 Summit, an annual event in which the leaders of eight industrialized
countries meet to discuss major international issues.
If they are chosen for J8, Gleneagle's team will have its ideas heard and will
be able to discuss them directly with all the G8 leaders in Germany.
"Youth have a lot more resources these days. People are willing to listen to
someone young," said Junior 8 team member Anjali Appadurai. "The path is clear
for us to do whatever we want with these issues."
To enter the competition, the team had to submit a proposal with their ideas for
solutions to four major global issues: climate change, HIV/AIDS, economic
development in Africa, and corporate social responsibility and intellectual
property rights.
They also had to answer five other questions about themselves, including their
interests and other events and fundraisers they have organized.
Arsalan Hassan, a Junior 8 team member, said he is aware of the importance of
the experience.
"We're youth, we have to take advantage of this," he said. "It's our
responsibility to raise awareness."
"We feel responsible to spread awareness so people know about it and can do
something about it if they choose to," Appadurai said.
"With the knowledge comes the passion."
The winners will be announced at the end of April and Jean Fraser, a Gleneagle
vice-principal, said she is optimistic.
"I'm very hopeful they'll be chosen to represent Canada and I think we have a
very good chance because the kids are so passionate," Fraser said. "The youth
voice is incredibly important and this would be an amazing opportunity for them
to share their perspectives."
Team member Chad Harris said it's rewarding to help the community and inform
people about the issues.
"It's important to raise awareness in youth in general, because youth are the
future of our world," Harris said.
Gleneagle's Junior 8 team is made up of Grade 12 students Chad Harris, Arsalan
Hassan, Melody Tabatabaian, Sarah St. John and Robin Nuber, and Grade 11
students Victoria Chen, Anjali Appadurai and Kyra Jones.
newsroom at tricitynews.com Another 50 days to the summit - we stand by it: The G8
are not welcome, not at Heiligendamm and nowhere else!

[http://www.tricitynews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=74&cat=43&id=963386&more=]


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Final declaration of the action conference Rostock III from April 13-15, 2007

In just 50 days, the political leaders of the 7 most powerful states of the
world and Russia will meet in the Baltic sea resort of Heiligendamm. As has
been the custom since Seattle, they will have to carry out their business
behind kilometre- long secluding fences and protected by thousands of so-called
security agents. The 400 participants of the 3rd action conference of the social
movements reassert that we deny any legitimacy to the G8. The trench marked by
barbed-wide between us and them can no longer be crossed.

The G8 know that fewer and fewer people believe them: Therefore, they aptly
seize on what they can no longer deny anyway: the threatening climate
catastrophe, the impoverishment of Africa, world-wide wars, the violent
devastation of the social sector.

We know by now the empty phrases by which the G8 will present themselves as
saviours of the world. The draft of the concluding document has transpired. The
draft summit declaration of Heiligendamm 2007 "Growth and responsibility in the
world economy" is full of meaningless summit rhetoric, general phrases and
ignorance face to the problems and their roots that have occupied us this
week-end.

We don't ask the G8 for anything. We come together in order to agree on the
other world for which we shall demonstrate at Heiligendamm. For which we stand
in with our civil disobedience.

This other world, that much we know already, will be a world without G8, will be
the world after the G8. While we by our presence, not to be overlooked and not
to be overheard, at the other side of the fence demonstrate that their time is
running out, we shall open our dialogue, our dialogues. Dialogues between the
various forces of global civil society and the social movements in this country
and countless other countries. We shall not reach unity on all questions, it is
not even necessary that we do so. Because while their time is running out, ours
is just beginning. Our dialogues serve to agree on the next steps, our next
steps, the upcoming steps of a future democracy. A democracy to which we offer
a first opportunity to emerge at Heiligendamm. And while the G8 seclude from
the world, even shut themselves off  from it, we open ourselves to it.
Therefore, this declaration is a good-bye and an invitation. Bye-bye to the G8:
"Go away! You are not welcome!" An invitation to all who say: "Ya basta! It's
enough! Another world is possible!" A world of social and ecological justice,
of equal rights for all, of peace. Heiligendamm will be a beginning. Our
beginning.