[Gipfelsoli Newsletter] Hokkaido -- Malmö

[International Newsletter]

- Call for Participation towards the emergence of a new “Alternative Village”
space in Hokkaido
- To all of our friends who are attending EuroMayDay 2008
- Repression in Nordic countries

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Call for Participation towards the emergence of a new “Alternative Village”
space in Hokkaido

“G8 Action Network” Convergence-center / Camp Work Group

• Our Plan

The G8 will be held in July of this year (200 8) at lake Toya (Toya-ko) in
Hokkaido. We expect thousands of people from all over the world will gather in
Hokkaido, as individuals and various NGO groups, to take part in a medley of
actions. We (Convergence-center/Camp Work Group) look forward to the completion
of an Alternative Village, both a hive for the swarm and a place for dialogue.

• Convergence-center

The convergence-center will act as your window to a host of knowledge &
information concerning the G8; as a studio for printing data & documents; as a
studio for creative work & operations; as a meeting place, and as a resting
place; as a point of internet access; and as a forum for international
exchange. The center will function as an important node, gathering those of us
unaccustomed with the land together in order to stimulate collaborative
operations, and, at the same time, we will work to ensure that local voices are
active in education and discussion.

• Camp

The Camp is provided as an area for those of us coming with (I)NGOs and
citizens’ groups to pitch our tents.

We are working with you to plan an international kitchen, concerts, film
screenings, a world football tournament, workshops on environmental issues and
nature conservation, as well as other events to be held in and around the camp
grounds. This is ‘another possibility’, “Alternative Village”. “Alternative
Village” will be an experimental environment in which every participant builds
the space for participation with their own hands. This is the type of space
that has been actualized through the participation of many people against the
G8 at Évian-les-Bains in France, again at Gleneagles in Scotland, and again at
Heiligendamm in Germany. Moreover, the camp and its surrounding activities
provide a chance for those from around the world to interchange and build
networks with the local residents.

• Our Goals
The aims of the Convergence-center and Camp are not simply to provide an
infrastructure for information-exchange and lodging; more broadly, we hope to
help architect a shared space in which we can mutually help out and cooperate.
This is a space for the creation of ideas & expressions by all its
participants; a solid foundation onto which we may build something anew. The
establishment of this free, open space takes a large place among our goals.

• We Need Your Participation & Collaboration!
Currently, we are looking for volunteers to help in creating and running the
Convergence Center and to participate in the Camp Work Group. Everyone with
interest is sincerely invited to contact us at the e-mail address below.

Contact japang8camp(at)riseup.net
Blog http://g8camp08.wordpress.com

[http://g8camp08.wordpress.com]


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To all of our friends who are attending EuroMayDay 2008

This is a solidarity letter from far across the Eurasian continent, in the far
east, Japan.

The globalisation of neo-liberalism has been on a rampage here in Japan as well.
It promotes and applauds severe competition between people and is ripping the
society into pieces. Through the deflation of the Japanese economy in the
1990’s, management gain and corporate dividends have drastically increased. On
the other hand, the Japanese government, with its call for the efficiency of
administrative services and maintenance of corporate global competitiveness,
has been accelerating the reduction of social security benefits and the form of
irregular employment.

As a result, half of the young generation and women in Japan face irregular
employment. With people getting hired everyday and dismissed everyday, living
under unstable conditions without unemployment benefit, worker’s compensation,
or medical insurance, ten million people are now not even able to gain the
minimum income which is deemed necessary for survival. Furthermore, the
Japanese government, which looks upon immigrants as criminals, has
delegitimized the act of working by those who do not hold a Japanese
nationality. While the Japanese government tolerates the incitement of racial
exclusion by the right wing, they are forcing slave labor towards immigrant
workers from mainland Asia slyly through internship programs.

Neo-liberalism promotes the internalization of the management minds, and is
attempting to conceal the crisis by stripping the very lives of people.
However, their conspiracy will certainly fail. The breeding of the precariat is
forwarding the liaison with the breeding of people who will never synchronize
with a flow that forces to give up one’s freedom and life.

In 2008, a number of 13 May Day actions that bravely resist neo-liberalism will
take place throughout Japan. Preparations for the anti-G8 protests are also
taking place. No longer can the light of resistance that has been lit be turned
off.

This movement of the precariat, which accounts for the vast majority of the
world, resisting isolation and seeking autonomy within solidarity, has already
risen here in Tokyo as well.

Aachen is with Tokyo, and Tokyo is with Aachen. Celebrating the success of
EuroMayDay, in solidarity.

Freeter’s Union, Tokyo MayDay 08 For Freedom and Lives, organisation committee


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Repression in Nordic countries

To understand what can be done about repression issues at ESF it could be useful
to know something about the situation in the host countries. I am not an expert
and my knowledge is superficial but I may have a general picture which may be
of use to you. I guess that it is of importance that Nordic organisations get
involved to make repression and important issue at ESF-5. The information and
opinion below are from the perspective of Friends of the Earth Sweden and are
not to be seen as the opinion of any organisation. They can be published for
non-profit purposes.

On general level repression is growing as well as its counterpart, growing
tension among people in common. Its most severe small-scale expression is on
the one hand class and racist exclusion of segregated suburbs were Rosengård in
Malmö were ESF will have some of its venues is the most extreme in this city and
maybe all of Sweden. Here the youth since beginning of this decade throw stones
at ambulances and fire brigades when they come to try to help people, which
causes problems. This kind of tensions have now spread all over Sweden, even to
my little home town Kristianstad with some 35 000 inhabitants and its most
segregated suburb. Sweden have three of Europes 10 most segregated cities with
high unemployment rates and the accompanying social problems.

Yet still Sweden has some positive political aspects which also higlights
repression and racism. Malmö is the lovenest for Danish couples if one have
wrong colour on the skin. New very strict laws prohibits Danes from falling in
love and then marrying the one they love if this person have the wrong genes
from a foreign country, so many thousands have emigrated to Malmö.

Society in general is also more organised on the micro level to focus on
protection and security with so called grannskapssamverkan, neighbours
cooperating against crime. There is some excellent litterature on this subject
by Magnus Hörnqvist.

But there are a lot of people more knowledgeable on this subject than I am
concerning how police and security expansion develops in the Nordic countries
at the moment.

Concerning more immediate repression against movements there is three sides to
it at least – against free zones, against summit and other movement protests
and meetings and finally terrorist laws.

Squatter conflicts

Concerning attacks against free zones the most severe is to destroy commons that
have been conquered like Christiania by forcing them to split up into market
shares instead of communal living. But more media interest have been given to
the highly conflictual situation around Ungdomshuset – the youth house in
Copenhagen. More than 2 500 people have been arrested in this conflict during a
year, more than during any other civil conflict the last 50 years in the Nordic
countries as far as I know. This conflict took a successful Gandhian turn on
6th October which means that the municipality now after thousands of people
non-violently overwhelmed the police and conquered a building is at least in
words stating that they now are willing to give the youth house initiave a new
house. And in fact, a month ago a new youth house was established.

This struggle is full of experiences learned and of interest concerning how to
beat or at least handle repression both in media, by the police and
politicians. House occupations also have spread significantly in Finland
inspired by the Copenhagen events. A week ago a severe attack by neo-nazis took
place in Helsinki against a squatted house, the first time since the riots
against the world youth festival 1962 that such right wing extremism beocomes
violent in Finland. In Norway the youth houses Blitz, Hausmania and Hjelmsgate
in Oslo and UFFA in Trondheim every time now and then are threatened which so
far have ended in new agreements with the politicians and no acute situation is
in sight, on the contrary has the Danish politicians been criticised on quite
high level in Norway for their way of dealing with the youth house conflict.
This as well in Sweden were different forms of free zones have a small tendency
to grow at the moment.

Summit protests

Concerning attacks on summit protesters and demonstrations this is an issue that
yet have not been resolved. The police actions against the Counter conference at
the EU-Summit encircling it with 150 containers and then causing chaos by
attacking demonstrators at many occasions still is a heavy blow to the popular
movements in Sweden and their relation to all parliamentarian parties whether
left or right. Contrary to all other countries I know of the left and green
party leaders sided with the police and media against the demonstrators in
spite of that both parties were members of the coalitions that organised the
counter conference destroyed by the police and the big demonstrations.
Afterwards the Left party have learned something although never in public
stated something about their mistake during the Summit when their leader lied
in massmedia against the demonstrators and the coalitions organising
demonstrations thus legitimizing further escalation of state violence against
reclaim the streets and next days ínternational demonstration. The Green party
leader used similar wordings as the Left party but never directly lied to
legitimate further escalation. Furthermore for some reason four of the top
Green leaders were personally beaten to the ground by the police, arrested or
in other ways harassed by the police during the summit protests while no single
Left party leader had this kind of experience to my knowledge. But afterwards
the Greens were so confused that they could not make any systematic political
intervention. But still it is the Greens who have an MP who was in the midst of
the organisation of the international coalition organizing the protests, the
left party and its youth never were present in any significant way in
coordination of the coalition, they wanted their leaders to speak at the
demonstrations while the Greens did lot of solidarity work in the coordination
of the protests. The local social democratic leader in the city center gave
flowers to the police. The liberals and conservatives did not have to do
anything as the social democrats and left helped them together wiht mass media
to say what they wanted. One local liberal politician made an appela that all
school pupils should travel to St Petersburg to learn more about the crimes of
communism to vaccinate them against any left extremist undemocratic ideas. In
this way they should stop throwing stones at shopping windows or the police.
Today the local liberal politician who brougth forward the St Petersburg idea
is head of the liberal party and minister of education. A Swedish conservative
MP became spokesperson for the biggest European party, EPP, when it succesfully
introduced the idea that the crimes of communism had to be condemned in the
Council of Europé.

The main organisers of the EU-critical international coalition during the
Swedish EU-presidency with 87 organisations as members were SAC, the radical
small syndicalist trade union and Friends of the Earth Sweden. The main stream
trade union LO in Sweden refused as the only trade union in EU to partcipate in
demonstrations calaiming it was not thei tradtion to demonstrate. Many LO sister
trade unions in Denmark and Norway participated in the EU protest demonstrations
in Gothenburg. In the ESF process including a planned demonstration Friends of
the Earth Sweden is still one of the organisations that have participated from
the beginning, this time with Swedish LO trade unions while SAC is passive.

SAC was severely criticised internally and from others because of the riots.
Their allied among anarchists were totally condemned by all parties and the
media. Trials put people in prison in total for 50 years, ten times more in
total than after any other riot the last 100 years in Sweden. People really
suffered as many were unorganised among the imprisoned and almost no political
solidarity work was done. For some reason that I still do not understand the
left refused to organise any collective support, apart from Norway were one
International Socialist activist accused of throwing bottles at the police was
supported by everybody, including his political enemies among the left and
trade unions as in Norway they saw it as a question of principles and unity
against repression and as such important.

During three years Friends of the Earth tried to get other organisations to make
common statements and act but never succeded with one late exception. Attac
never could decide themselves but liked to sit in the TV sofas and generally
discuss the issue while SAC had become so scared that they almost forgot
anything else than traditional trade unionism. The anarchists saw their picture
of society as confirmed and saw no reason to fight repression jointly apart from
the direct solidarity work with those in prison. And in general both SAC and the
anarchists withdrew and many times were actively forced out of networks by the
joint forces of the media, left party and the marxist leninist party.

The result of the shift among SAC syndicalists from general politics to trade
unionism has caused a good focus on organizing paper less workers, new trade
unionisms among precariat and the like and is certainly not only bad. Back to
basics is sometimes a necessary tactic. But this means that SAC, especially in
Malmö is against ESF and sees it as a reformistic tool in the hands of social
democracy and Attac. Before the EU-summit in Gothenburg Friends of the Earth
had similar problems with parts of the anti EU left who refused to cooperate
with SAC and Friends of the Earth on an EU-critical plattform. But not all
anarchists and syndicalists have the isolation position and maybe something can
be done about it, especially of content as repression, righ wing extremism and
similar issus which alterglobalisation actvists in CIS and CEE countries sees
as very important comes to Malmö.

In Norway the developemnt was different. Also Oslo had its heyday
antiglobalisation demonstration during av World Bank meeting in 2002 with
almost as many participants as in Gothenburg. Afterwards there was also here as
in Gothenburg a Reclaim the streets party with as many or more participants as
in Gothenburg, 2 000. When the police started to shoot at demonstrators in
Gothenburg at the street party at 10 o.clock at night the head of the World
Bank event police force, also head of the Greenland district in Oslo, the most
criminal district in Norway was seen going around in a light blue summer
uniform skirt blowing soap bubbles together with the demonstrators. Not one
incident apart for some small graffiti incident happened during the summit in
Oslo in spite of that activists took the chance to occupy a house and other
small things which the police considered as acceptable for the time being.

In Denmark it was a bit more tense but a lot more similar to Oslo than to
Gothenburg. In Finland the social democratic foregin minister the day after the
Gothenburg summit spoke to a large North-South development meeting in Helsinki
heavily critizing the Gothenburg head of police. Finland is still somewhat
old-fashioned society were trust among people is considered sometimes more
important than media. The Foreign minister happened to be member of Attac and
had recieved the sharp criticism from his fellow finnish Attac members who were
present in Gothenburg so he was well informed through different ways and was as
sharp as ever we who represented the EU-critical coalition in his criticism of
the police.

In general Finland is a very consensusorinted society and any kind of violence
is very badly seen against the police. When Finland had the EU-presidency
another social democrat and long time alternative movement activist, Thomas
Wallgren in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam organised citizen watch groups that observed
what the police were doing and immediately reported in media their views. This
made the media picture completely different from that in Sweden after the
EU-protests in Gothenburg. When we in Sweden approached the Left and Greens
2001 asking them to do what the left parties in Denmark and the socialdemocrats
did in Finland later they had refused stating that they as political parties
could not do such a thing as going to the spot and observing and then maybe
criticising what the police were doing. The whole escalation against the
EU-critical demonstrators during the Swedish EU-presidency started in Malmö
against a demonstration close to were ESF will take place.

Other conflicts

Against antiracist antifascist demonstrations there is also problems. There are
clashes regularly between antiracists and right-wing extremists. Recently also
clashes between radical trade union activists and police occur with a trial
against many strike picket line activists from the SAC syndicalists in coming.
Also the environmental movment has recently made actions against airport to
protest against air traffic. This has been labelled attempt to sabotage air
traffic and can give up to four years in jail. Actions took place this spring
at Malmö airport and among the arrested dressed as a polar bear was Kajsa
Lindqvist, chair of Friends of the Earth Sweden. The longest succesful
occuaption of an airport a month ago toook place in Stokcholm in a protest
against the deportation of a refugee. In general civil disobedience among
different movement is rising although there has not been any larger actions
recently. The police and courts have been fairly selective so far in their
response, thus occupation of streets to protest against climate change has been
fairly tolerant opposed by the authorities while actions against airports more
strict. Climate actions regularly takes place in Malmö. Here when actions took
place in 34 European countries at the international climate action day 8 the of
December last year the most radical action was in Malmö when a street was
occupied. These kind of actions started in 1969, expanded during the
Interntional traffic revolution in 12 countries in 1970, had a peak in the late
1970s, restartaed again 1986 and reached a climax in the early 1990s and have
now reemerged again. Recently for the first time since 1969 a car ran over one
of the demonstrators and escaped but he was later caught.

Terrorist laws

Finally concerning terrorist laws there are some odd differences among the
otherwise fairly similar Nordic countries. The first organisation in the Nordic
countries to be convicted as a terrorist organisation according to the new laws
were Greenpeace in Denmark. Greenpeace activsts had entered a corporate
building and made a bannerdrop protesting against GMO. This verdict caused also
mainstream environmental NGOs to react. The more known case is that against
Oprör/Rebellion who publically collects money to the liberation movements PFLP
and FARC labelled terrorists by EU. Due to that their spokesperson became ill
the trial against the organisation was postponed.

What happened during this repression is of interest to understand Nordic
political culture. The Danish case was brought to the public by a number of
well-known Swedish figures supporting Oprör. This support was publicised by the
Class struggle, a highly respected daily in Norway started by the marxist
leninist maoist party who owned it only to some years ago and it is still at
radical left daily. This was read by the minister in the red green government
of Norway which made the government to state something in principle, which was
that they refused to put up PFLP or FARC on their terrorist list, as they do
not accept EU as their boss in these matters. Thus was what completly legal in
Norway seemed completly a terrorist crime in Denmark.

Now another trial took place in Denmark against the firm printing PFLP and FARC
t-shirts selling them and gving a part of the price to humanitarian actvities
of these liberation organisations. This trial have just ended with an
interesting result in the lowest court. The court thought about the defintions
of murder and terrorism. It came to the conclusion that murdering people does
not automatically mean that you are a terrorist (Also in Denmark groups killed
German occupants and Danish “unpatriotic” people during WWII). Thus the
printers were free (for the time being).

In Sweden the state is not as provocative as in Denmark, it does not make as
extreme laws as in Denmark or does not use them afraid of causing problem to
itself. So against internal opposition the escalation that according to similar
lines already started in the late 1990s with Gothenburg 2001 as a climax before
the WTC attack has not detoriated much further, it was fairly bad already. But
against some people there has been severe actions in the new situation after
September 2001. Two Egyptians were kidnapped at Bromma airport by CIA with the
help of the swedish government to be transported to torture in Egypt against
Swedish law. This has caused some debate for many years. Four Somali people
were also put on economic blacklist by US-UN-EU implemented by the Swedish
state, one of them a local social democratic politician. This caused not only
debate but massive civil disobedience among many wellknown cultural persons
that publically paid the somali persons money which was illegal. But the state
did not react. Two curds have also been sentenced in a trial accused of
supporting economically a curdish organisations accused of being terrorists in
Iraq. So the Nordic countries do have its share of War on terror and the former
social democratic minister of justice was one of the trongest supporters of
stronger EU measures against personal integrity.

Ideological media situation and ideological authority

Another kind of repression is ideological. Mass media is more and more in the
hands of commercial interest and were there is Public service media they adjust
to the commercial media whoi tend to promote the interest of business. In
Denmark there is no daily belonging to any of the three left parliamentarian
parties, social democrats, socialist peoples party and Red-Green Alliance. All
dailies are center or right wing with one exception, Arbejderen which is owned
by a small marxist leninist party and run on very low-budget level with ca 4
000 copies. In the other Nordic countries the situation is a little bit better
but not much, in Sweden also the environmental movement and in Finland the
Green party have weeklies. In the field of magazines Denmark is also lacking
any left-wing magazine of some size, there are very few and circulation is max
2 000, In Norway and esepcially Sweden the situation is a lot better and in
Finland outstanding, the radical magazine Voima (Power) owned by a publishing
house close to the Peace Committee that has a wide range of movements using the
magazine has a circulation of 50 000 in a country with 5 million inhabitants.

Racism and xenofobia is spread among the population in about the same proportion
in most Nordic countries according to European opinion polls. Yet the political
expression is very different. During the Muhammed caricature crisis the Danish
prime minister refused to meet with ambassors from Arab countries and the media
made the issue a question of liberty of expression only. At the same time in all
Nordic countries educational books are full with caricatures of semitic crooked
nosed and full beared violent persons attacing the viewer. These antisemitic
caricatures from the 1930s are presented as the racists political attack on a
minority among the population, which they were. When exactly the same crooked
noosed violent semitic caricature was used against the muslims it was seen as
only a case od liberty of expression. This provoked muslims to react in Denmark
and the rest of the muslim world. Millions participated in boycots against
Danish companies, burned a Danish legation and demontstrated violently. Today
Denmark is one of the most racist coutnries on Earth with the left Socialist
Peoples party spearheading violent attacks on muslims freedom of expression adn
the Danish islamic party. The party leader have bluntly stated that he wants
them to be kicked out of the country, a statement that made his party so
popular recently that they became bigger than the social democratic party in
the opinion polls while the Red green Alliance with a muslim parliamentary
candidate almost lots the election this autumn.

In Sweden a similar crisis were Muhammed was portrayed like a dog gave a
somewhat different result. The Conservative prime minister immediatly went to
the mosque in Stockholm stating that he understood that muslims were offended
but that the law of freedom of expression allowed this. He also invited Swedisg
muslim organisations and diplomats from many muslim countries to discuss the
situation. The result was that soon Swedish muslim organisations protested
against the offense against Muhammed but at the same time stated that protests
had to be non-violent and no considerable protest wavwe against Sweden occured.
The artist also made his reaction clera, he made a jewish pig caricature showing
that he equally offended both muslims and jews and also Christians of necessary.
Thus both Swedish politicians and artists reacted completly different from the
Danish. The Danish prime minister could not go to any mosque as there is noone
in Copenhagen, the closest regular mosque is in Malmö were it has been since
1970.

The racist or xenofobian parties have different positions in the Nordic
countries. In Denmark the Danish Peoples party has a strong position and the
Rigth wing government have to rely on their votes in parliament. In Norway the
very populistic Progress party have a more vague ideology and have had great
success among the voters. In Sweden right-wing populist parties who have
existed on the parliamentary level in all the other Nprdic countries never have
succeded with the short exception for the short-lived New democracy party that
gained seats in 1991 and lost them again in 1994. But there is a party, Swedish
Democrats with more than 3 percent of the votes in the last election. Their
roots are in right-wing extremism, roots they carefully tries to wipe away.
They are strongest in the country in Skåne were Malmö is the capital. Here they
have amny seatsiuj in the regional parliament and in quite a few municipal
parliaments as well.

A special swedish model for state ideological propaganda is an authority, Forum
for living history, that at first was attempted to inform about the holocaust
and promote tolerance. Some of the state propaganda against intolerance towards
jews also has been directed against islamofobia. But also all kind of
“extremism” is seen as guilty of crimes towards humanity, especially communism.
This part of purpose of the authority has stadily been growing and is now a full
scale country-wide offensive filled with notions stating that Lenin started
concentraions camps killing 10 000 people already in the autumns 1918 while the
concentrations camps set up by Americans in the Phillipines and by the british
in South Africa had a very different purpose, to move the civlian population
during times of war. The authority was a social democratic intiative and is
still supported by many social democrats and the present center-right
government. 400 historians have recently protested against the institution.

Those interested in repression issues can become active on the fse-esf
represssion email list., Subscirbe at www.fse.esf.org Nordic organisations
interested in cooperation

Yours

Tord Björk. Coordinator EU Committeee, Friends of the Earth Sweden