Behind the spectacle of this week’s elections, the faceless men with the real power to rule our lives are meeting at this weeks G8 summit. Therefore, while voters continue to be disillusioned with the usual bankrupt policies and right wing lies on offer from the media promoted parties, a new form of politics will be seen on the streets of East Anglia. Anti-G8 Protests are springing up in Norwich, Cambridge, Ipswich and elsewhere. These are part of a worldwide week of protest to coincide with the G8 summit and its devastating policies that promote a rampant global capitalism.

Tuesday 8th sees an Anti-g8 event by Norwich Anarchists, and an anti-war/anti-g8 protest by Ipswich Anarchists. Wednesday will see Anti-g8 rebel football in Norwich, while in Cambridge there will be a public protest on Thursday afternoon, and a G8 Forum in the evening organised by the Cambridge Action Network. For more details, check out
 http://www.easf.org.uk

The G8 gathers together the rulers of the eight most powerful economies on earth, to plan further rounds of privatisation, greed and wars. This year the summit is taking place in the USA. Next year, it is Britain’s turn to host the meeting, with the most likely venue being Gleneagles in Scotland. Past summits like the one in Genoa have been shaken by gigantic protests, where environmentalists, trades unionists, community groups, and many others have united in huge numbers to challenge the corporate agenda.

Thus this wave of protests, while being relatively small, must mark the start of a year of mobilising to build a massive movement capable of surrounding the G8 rulers in Scotland in the summer of 2005! The European Social Forum, a mass gathering of many activist movements in London in October 2004 should be the perfect launch-pad to do this. Other moves, like the new ‘Dissent’ network are vital to this process as well.

The message of resistance must be taken at grassroots level into every community in the land. The greed and warmongering of the global corporate rulers and their pursuit of profit at the expense of people and the planet is a concern to all of us. Globalising capitalism is re-writing the rules of our everyday lives. As usual, the rich will grow richer, while the majority of ordinary people will have to work harder, and the poor and the vulnerable will be further victimised, - unless there is a serious, coherent and organised resistance!

In this year of mobilisation, we must all reach out - links of solidarity must be forged between the trades unionists, the environmentalists, the pensioners groups, community associations, peace campaigners and many more. We must also reach out with our message of hope, outrage and urgency to those who have never yet protested, but feel the growing discontent.

From the food we eat, to the poverty many pensioners suffer, to the destruction of green spaces to make way for the greed of property developers, to the increasingly narrow and competitive ethos forced onto our kids in education, capitalism is making life harder for the many, while only profiting the rich few.

Together, our resistance can make a difference, and provide a creative solution. We can force a shift in society’s priorities away from warfare and towards welfare, and away from the greed of the few and towards the needs of the many.

We hope that this EASF networking process and website is a contribution to this.

WWW.EASF.ORG.UK