St. Petersburg - and what`s next?


The meeting of the representatives of eight of the most powerful
industrial states this year in St. Petersburg was once again joined by
protests. Despite the fact that the preparations had been constricted
by
the Russian authorities, some succesful actions still took place.

A spontanous pink and silver demonstration playing samba paraded
through
a major shopping street in Moskau, and in a separate action, the St.
Petersburg hotel where some summit participants were staying was
symbolically blockaded.

It showed that even under such difficult conditions protests are
possible.


Despite the small participation of people from western europe the
networking beetween easten and western Europe was one of the most
positive aspects of the protests. To strengthen these contacts, a
NoBorder Camp has been planned for August 2007. The camp will take
place
in the Ukraine, where conditions are expected to be less restrictive.
First of all the entry for people from East- and West Europe is easier
and previous actions were confronted with little repression and
received
adequate media coverage. There will be an international preparation
meeting in winter to organize this camp on an international level and
support the local scene.


Campinski – the calm before the storm on the summit (die Ruhe vor dem
Gipfelsturm)


Immediately after the G8 summit in St. Petersburg, over 1000 G8
opposers
discussed and continued preparing the protests against the G8 summit in
Heiligendamm next year in Germany. „The idea of the camp was primarily
to coordinate the resistance and create next year's protest together,“
explained Rosa Camper in a concluding statement.

In addition to the 2007 preparations, there were over 150 workshops.
For
example, video activists guided participants on the use of cameras, an
international working group was founded, the infotour held Do
Infotour-Yourself workshops, and the connections between the G8 and
agriculture and migration issues were discussed.

Aside from making plans, selforganisation was put to the test. As
someone from indymedia remarked: „A lot of things did not work well,
but
that means we have a checklist for next year.“ But generally speaking
selforganization already worked quite well. This was also visible on
Sunday when almost everything had been cleaned up really fast with lots
of helping hands.

Although people had to be reminded from time to time to translate,
participants tried to put into practice the ideals of international
mobilization, which means not only to invite activists from many
countries, but togive them the possibility to get involved with the
organisation. The fact that this is not such an easy task can be seen
from the fact that there are still two email lists, one in German and
one international.


Another focus of the camp were direct actions. In Bad Doberan numerous
community members were informed about the upcoming summit and its local
reference by a Door-knocking-action. Later on, around 300 participants
of the Campinski and NoLager-activists demonstrated in Rostock against
exclusion of refugees and for „Same rights for everyone“.


Around 80 participants visited a field planted with GMOs near Rostock.
Another group demonstrated against the German Neo-Nazi party, and in
addition an exhibit of sculptures of Arno Breker, Hitlers favourite
sculpturer was symbolically closed down.

Another symbolic action which was a lot of fun was the swimming day in
front of the Kempinski Hotel, site - location of next years summit.
Approx. 400 people walked on the beach, accompanied by a samba band and
the Rebel Clowns Armee. During the manifestation some people dropped
banners out of an empty villa at the beach, calling attention to the
threat of the beach privatisation. All in all the Campinski was another
success and bodes well for the protests next year


PGA Conference - Networking struggles since 1998


Discussion about the G8 summit was not limited to Campinski, but also
took place at the European PGA (Peoples GlobalAction) conference, a
gathering at five separate locations across France.

The feeling that the global days of actions (GDA), first initiated by
PGA, are not working as they should was raised several times. On the
first Action Days initiated by PGA there had been big demonstrations
and
actions as well in the global south as in the north. But in the last
years they lacking substance.

For that reason some groups have turned their attention to
selforganization in squats and communes. This approach played an
important role on the conference that was mainly organized by groups
like the Sans Titre Network, which is focusing on such
approaches.Nevertheless, the anti-summit mobilisation was also
discussed
as an opportunity to connect local struggles to their global context.

How to get of the activist ghetto was an important issue of discussion
that became apparent in several approaches and projects.

Some of the conference participants searched for possibilities to
connect the resistence against the G8 with other social struggles.

Along thematic lines like migration, agriculture, anti-militarism or
within the context of topics like energy, nuclear power, oil and war,
different local struggles could be brought together.

The idea of 'Theme Days' to preceed the G8 summit, where global
connections in different contexts could be discussed, came up at
Campinski and was echoed in France.

By bringing people together on the basis of specific but global social
concerns, the hope is that far-reaching ideas will be developed, and
that these ideas will remain relevant long after the end of the summit.


One example is the working group G8 and aggriculture, which calls for
worldwide actions against the agrobusiness:

"Hopefully, a broad coalition of farmers, consumers, trade unionists
and
opponents to economic globalisation will take action against the global
agri-business, gaining publicity around the G8 Summit in spring 2007.
The objective is to carry out actions at various points within the
agricultural production chain. For example: to blockade the sowing of
genetically modified crops; to address the outrageous working
conditions
of employees and the ruinous prices paid by the head buyers at the
multinational supermarket, Lidl; to criticise the agricultural policies
of the European Union and the collaboration between different
departments at the University of Rostock and agri-business in front of
a
pig-fattening factory. With a diversity of actions, it should be
possible to show who are the winners and losers in globalised
agriculture."

Besides this campaign there are already groups like the „BUKO Kampagne
gegen Biopiraterie“ who think about the connection beetween the G8
summit and the COP9 (conference of the Parties, a gremium of the
convention on biological diversity) which will take place 2008 in
Germany.


Another approach to the focus on the time before and after the summit
is
the Karawahnsinn/Caravan Utopia through europe with the motto " Movin
Europe". The vision, which is presented on the webpage: vision07.org,
is
to have many different caravans connecting many different people or
groups. The caravans would come together at 'stations' which would be
autonomous spaces, social centres etc that have the ability to host
people. These stations would be a place to share experiences, find out
what the different caravans have been doing, what links have been made,
have workshops and discuss practical steps to move forward. The caravan
will also try to share culture and develop art & creativity as we use
culture to shape our politics and politics to shape our lives. But also
to start a dialogue with local groups and local struggles outside of
our
usual activist structures.


In the meantime there had been a lot more diskussions and meeting and
this was only an overview of some of the many events. In the next few
months the mobilization will continue. In addition to some meetings on
specific toppics or projects (see www.gipfelsoli.org) there are two
general meetings:


27. - 29. Oktober: dissent!-Treffen, Osnabrück

10. - 12. November: 2. Aktionskonferenz
, Rostock