Tom Leonard opened the Bookfair, organised by Word Power and situated in the expensive, but central and spacious Assembly Rooms, on Thursday evening with readings from his working-class stamped poems.
A stream of well established writers and campaigeners followed in the “evening of Dissent against the G8”:
Alan Bissett, Angus Calder, Magi Gibson, Anita Govan, Alasdair Gray, James Kelman, A. L. Kennedy, Ian Macpherson, Ken Macleod, Christine de Luca, Dilys Rose, Clare Sambrook and Nick Warren.

Every seat was taken for the opening event, the campaign stalls in the Cafe and bar area, consisting of Make Poverty History, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, G8Alternatives, the Edinburgh Chiapas Solidarity Campaign, and a collaborative network stall of Dissent, Corporate Watch, Reshape, and others were well attendedand used the chance to inform the public about their forthcoming projects especially in regards of the G8 meeting in Scotland and planned resistance to oppose the summit.

Other highlights over the four days included the session about “Arguments against the G8”, the room was crowded up nearly bursting with people keen to hear different aspects, views and results of research about the G8 and the opposing social movements.

MARK CURTIS, the author of “Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses” and “Web of Deceit: Britain's Real Role in the World”, also former director of the World Development Movement, spoke about his research on British foreign policy, especially the foreign policy in the last years after 9/11 and the war in Iraq. He argues, that four new phases are introduced in Britain's foreign policy with
1.Britain deepening its support for repressive regimes (e.g. Israel, Colombia, Nigeria, Russia), 2. Britains new phase in global military intervention, 3. Britian pushing to be no longer bound by international law in its foreign policy, 4. more propaghanda and information policy directed towards the public. (Audio to be made available later)
 http://www.wdm.org.uk/


MARJORIE MAYO is the author of “Global Citizens: Social Movements and the Challenge of Globalization” and presented her research about world-wide social movements, in particular some of the groups like Jubilee 2000 and others.

DAVID MILLER, one of the editors of: “Arguments Against G8”, “Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq” , and involved in G8 Alternatives commented on some issues of protest mobilisation against the G8, such as the state and media policy to "Divide and Rule" the movement.
 http://www.g8alternatives.org.uk/


The Speaker of Dissent pointed out, that a critique of the G8 is also a critique on the way of power, and that building up structures and developping means of empowering the individual are necessary to be able to confront structures of power such as the G8.
“In many ways for a lot of people involved in Dissent, it is not just the end product, but also the process, the means of getting to that end product, that are part of the important act. It is that process of empowerment and participation, that is a way for all of us as individuals to negate the undemocratic even in the most easy to understand nature of the G8.”
 http://www.dissent.org.uk/


Corporate Watch also presented their first print-run of their newly released “Special report” exploring the links between the G8, corporate power and the effects of neo-liberalism in Scotland. The report looks at the relationship between the G8 and corporations in general; the companies likely to benefit directly from the G8 coming to Scotland, in particular, the UK drinks multinational, Diageo who own the Gleneagles estate where the G8 Summit will actually occur; and researching more in depth “Scotland Plc.”, covering major industry sectors in Scotland.
The report is also available for free on the internet.
 http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/
 http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/g8/executivesummary.htm



The whole session was chaired by Dan Navron from People and Planet, who clarified this group's position and forthcoming protest plans.

 http://pandp.eusa.ed.ac.uk/
 http://www.peopleandplanet.org/


Other particularly subjectively impressive events were the presentation of Donny Gluckstein, author of “Nazis, Capitalism and the Working Class”, who researched the history of Zionism for the audience, Philip Jones Griffiths, a Magnum Photographer talking about “Vietnam at Peace” and Chris Atton, discussing “An Alternative Internet; Radical Media and Creativity”.

Finally, the specific attraction of the Edinburgh Radical Independent Bookfair is its characterisitc as a very broad and wide event, appealing to many different positions within “The Left”, from intellectuals, politicians, historians, to DIY focussed anarchists, from lobbyists to organised communists, from trade unionists to community activists to environmentalists, involving all kind of ages from school students to pensioners and across all cultures and religions.