G8 Action training with Starhawk

Faslane G8 Blockade Team | 13.06.2005 17:26 | G8 2005

Planning to take part in actions during the G8 - you might be interested in this...

STARHAWK Direct Action Training Saturday 25th June Glasgow & Edinburgh

In preparation for actions at Faslane on Monday 4th July and during the G8 Summit at Gleneagles the FaslaneG8 blockade team are hosting two training sessions in Glasgow and Edinburgh on Saturday 25th June led by veteran US activist Starhawk.

Saturday 25th June

Edinburgh
Friends Meeting House, 7 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2JL
10am – 1pm

Glasgow
Lansdowne Church, 416 Great Western Road, Glasgow G4 9HZ
2.30pm-5.30pm

Space is limited at these venues please contact

scnd@banthebomb.org to book a place.

Other trainings are being organised at various locations around the UK to prepare for the actions. There will be trainings at the convergence centres in the days before the actions. For more details, or if you would like to organise a training in your area, please contact:

scnd@banthebomb.org or visit www.faslaneg8.com for more details.

Non-violent direct action training
- How will I react if I'm arrested?
- What do we do if the police become violent?
- If someone starts to freak out, how do I calm people down, and stop things from escalating?

To answer these questions and many more, we invite you to take part in a nonviolent direct action training.

During the training we will have safe surroundings to practice how we will respond in situations that might arise during the action.

The focus of the training will be practical exercises (simulation and role playing) but the training also provides the space to discuss ideas concerning "nonviolent direct action", and to talk about hopes and fears for the action. We will also look at the tasks that can be undertaken during the action.

Starhawk is one of the most respected voices in modern earth-based spirituality. She is also well-known as a global justice activist and organizer, whose work and writings have inspired many to action.

A veteran of progressive movements, from anti-war to anti-nukes, Starhawk is deeply committed to bringing the techniques and creative power of spirituality to political activism. Her work in progressive movements spans over 35 years, beginning as an organizer in her high school during the days of the Vietnam War.

In the years since, she has organized, trained protestors, and been on the front lines of antinuclear actions at Diablo Canyon, Livermore Weapons Lab, Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the Nevada Test Site, among others. She traveled to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace in 1984 and made two trips to El Salvador to give ongoing support for sustainability programs.

For a number of years she has traveled to the Occupied Territories of Palestine and to Israel, working for peace with local activists of both sides. A main focus for the last several years has been the global justice movement; Starhawk has taken part in many of the major actions, including those in Seattle, Washington DC, Quebec City, Genoa, New York City, Cancun, Mexico, and Miami.

www.starhawk.org

Faslane G8 Blockade Team
0845 458 8361
www.faslaneg8.com

Faslane G8 Blockade Team
e-mail: info@faslaneg8.com
Homepage: http://www.faslaneg8.com

Comments

Hide the following 5 comments

Why blockade?

13.06.2005 19:06

I'm not asking this to be irritating but its something I don't quite understand. Why blockade the G8? If there are no G8 meetings then surely the debt relief won't get discussed and no debts will be written off and there will be no increase in aid. I know that what will be agreed in there will be nowhere near enough but I don't see how blockading will be better for Africa.

Michael

re: Why blockade?

13.06.2005 20:27

The debt package so far talked about, according to aid charities, is just a repackaging of existing aid. Mostly, it is tied into economic and social policies pushed by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund which make the country further dependent and so more vulnerable. It is these structural adjustment policies that have added insult to injury - the injury being our colonial past and subsequent economic colonial policies taking the raw materials that we need from Southern countries, with the value being exported to the North as well as the goods. It is the economic system that our country pushes that keep the poor where they are, which is in fact where our system needs them, whatever the rhetoric. And where the rhetoric differs, like Blair talking a few years back about Africa again, and saying to address poverty we need to get more of them on the electricity grid, the self-interest is closely behind, in creating new markets for our companies that can only exist on other people's backs!

Anyway, all the important meetings happen before the G8 summit itself- it's a media show, and as part of that, opposition to it is equally symbolic and important. It is the policies of the G8 that keep the injustice of the world strong, and as such they have to be confronted, and blockaded, even when the whitewash is climate change/Africa.

why oh why

It's a more assertive kind of demonstration - it says we're serious

14.06.2005 15:25

If we managed to stop the G8 meeting, that would say there's REAL resistance. If we ask politely we just get lip-service and platitudes.

in order to protest like we mean it, we must BLOCKADE

why stop the g8?

15.06.2005 10:37

Because as long as the G8 exists, promoting its form of economics, politics and social organisation, it will NEVER be able to do anything BUT make conditions worse for the rest of the world.

We need to get rid of the G8 to be able to properly tackle climate change, attacks on our freedoms, debt in all countries, etc etc.

Asking the G8 to sort problems out is like asking the school bully to carry on bullying, except with everyones support. We should be demanding its abolition - and blockading makes this point both symbolically and possibly in practical terms as well.

See you at the blockades!

STOP THE G-HATE!

Krop

How a blockade will affect the working people of Scotland

28.06.2005 22:45

I know that in Scotland there is nothing like the deprivation of any of the African countries, but there are many working class people who will only want to go to their work, to get to hospital for apointments they have waited for months or years for, and now there's stories about blocades to bring the country to a standstill. And will it affect Bush or Blair or Putin? Not one bit. They will hop on a helicopter, meet their counterparts, eat well and still sip their fine wines. Meanwhile, the protest will alienate many decent working class people in Scotland, who will end up caring even less about the principles of the protest. This is a huge mistake, and will achieve absolutely nothing other than to anger the very people needed to put pressure on the likes of Blair. Blair will milk the fights which will ensue, and the Scots, whose votes keep him in power, will undoubtedly side with him as the protestors damage this country, and fight the Police. Stupid idea, ill thought of, and totally futile.

Kenny Scott