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G8 2007 Mobilisation Meeting- UK National Gathering

NeverWork | 16.01.2007 23:49

A one-day national UK gathering to organise resistance to this year's G8 Summit in Germany.

G8 Mobilisation Meeting- UK National Gathering

Sunday 28th January 2007, 10:30am- 5pm
The Sumac Centre, Nottingham

LOCATION:
 http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/map.html

From 6-8 June 2007, the G8 Summit – the meeting of the heads of state and
government of the USA, Canada, Japan, Great Britain, France, Italy,
Germany and Russia – are planning on meeting in Germany.

Inspired by the original aims and actions of the Dissent Network in the
UK, some of the libertarian left in Germany have adopted the same name and
similar aims:

•Stop the G8 summit
•and in order to do so create a network of ongoing solidarity on an
international level.

There is to be a Meeting to discuss G8 Mobilisation for 2007, to be hosted
by Sumac Centre in Nottingham on the 28th January. Limited accommodation
is provided for those who wish to travel from afar. In particular, those
wishing to travel to the venue on Saturday 27th to have informal
pre-meetings. Please email if you require accommodation:
 sumac@veggies.org.uk
Food will be provided for by Veggies, for a small cost.

The mobilisation is committed to bottom up, decentralised organising.
Activists from the mobilisation have toured internationally to involve as
many people as possible. The tours arose from an international gathering
for the mobilisation, called Campinski, near the German G8 summit venue
last summer. The UK leg of the tour in October saw activists from the UK
2005 mobilisation, Russian 2006 mobilisation and Germany 2007 mobilisation
working together. The tour visited the Anarchist Bookfair in London,
Brighton, Reading, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool Leeds, Birmingham and
Cardiff. People at all these venues felt that it would be good to have a
one day gathering for feedback and discussions on the G8 2007
mobilisation.
This callout is in consequence to those peoples' wishes.

Please contact  dissentprocess@yahoo.co.uk with agenda items.

Suggestions include
• lessons from G8 2005
• feedback on German processes and mobilisation
• future meetings in the UK

Further information on the mobilisation can be found at:

 http://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/49
(English language German website)

 http://www.wombles.org.uk/actions/g8/g82007

www.dissent.org.uk

LETS SHUT THEM DOWN.

NeverWork
- e-mail: dissentprocess@yahoo.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.wombles.org.uk/actions/g8/g82007

Comments

Hide the following 11 comments

lessons of 2005

17.01.2007 15:32

If anything, the lesson of the 2005 G8 protests should be that spectacular summit-hopping has been thoroughly recuperated (he's a cunt, but fuck Geldoff's good at it), and that no matter how militant, summit protests remain fundamentally spectacular and detached from everyday life. Whatever the merits of J18, Seattle, Prague and Genoa, it's all now thoroughly ritualistic.

In other words, if we succeed beyond our wildest dreams, storm the summit with a militant 5,000-strong international black bloc, and execute the 'world leaders,' so what? We still have to get up and go to work the next day. Capitalism isn't something that exists in summits or corporate boardrooms, it's a social relationship reproduced everyday by our labour. If we're serious about anti-capitalism, we as activists should be able to reflect critically on our actions and not get stuck into spectacular rituals out of force of habit.

"Though all roles alienate equally, some are more vulnerable than others. It is easier to escape the role of a libertine than the role of a cop, executive or rabbi. A fact to which everyone should give a little thought." - Raoul Vaneigem

(A)-chris

Suspicious

17.01.2007 16:38

Bottom up decentralising?You are having a laugh!!!! Divison of labour with debutanates methinks. Same fucking stuckup liberal bastards, hippy office workers, and pseudo-intellectuals pulling the strings and playing at being anarchists. Time to watch the money and time pit again?

Stirling was good IN SPITE of those on the central commitee. ( as woz the baby bloc ). A big thanks to those who are grounded.

If me and me mates go over it won't be with any Dissnentry bollox. The people are not your CANNON FODDER.

Let's start the debate ( and less of the publishing industry ) and stop the self congratulations.

Now you have woken up?

Erik

Big up the Germans

18.01.2007 10:00

Just to say Erik's comment " Bottom up decentralising?You are having a laugh!!!!" is misplaced. That blurb in the main article is talking about the german mobilisation and not the uk, while erik is criticising Dissent in the uk from 2005.

And while i'm adding a comment it's worth saying that erik does big up some of the stirling camp and the baby block, both things that would not of happened without a committed core of people organising under dissent to set up the camp in the first place.

Like it or not, a lot of the activist scene sucks because far too few people are always left to do too much of the work, and then are criticised for being too controlling. in 2005 a core of people got the camp together and it became a platform and space for things like baby block to emerge from and that's the truth of it.

And by the way, if you've taken a look at the developing german campaign against the G8 then it's quite impressive. while they have got a similar but smaller issue of the co-option of radical agendas like what happened with Make Poverty History in the UK in 2005, the whole breadth of the mobilisation is far more radical.

What's impressed me is that you have both the dissent x german networks calling for blockades, as well as the interventionist left calling for blockades. AND when you check out the main NGO platform websites they're referencing the calls for blockades, listing direct actions, and linking to the more radical sites... makes me think that this is going to be massive. amen.

hotel oscar

hotel oscar

18.01.2007 13:52

even if this is massive, even "if we succeed beyond our wildest dreams ..." as per my post above - in what way does shutting down a summit build our power to overthrow capitalism? (honest question)

In terms of our everyday lives - what would it change?

(A)-chris

it would bring smile to yr face

18.01.2007 15:17

yes of course we wont smash capitalism by going to summits but the collective effort to resist what they put up against us might bring a smile to your face....there's something to be said for these collective moments

loserx

link - 12 km fence around the g 8

18.01.2007 19:35

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/360256.html

x

smiles and summits

19.01.2007 09:35

"the collective effort to resist what they put up against us might bring a smile to your face....there's something to be said for these collective moments" - loserx

I know, been there, felt the power of the crowd as we break police lines, the sense of open possibilities ... but i think that sense is misleading, the possibilities of counter-summit actions become trapped in an annual loop, with no potentiality to break out and become a threat to capital (a closed dialectic, if you like). whereas if we work to create moments of collective power in everyday life, the *potential* exists to rupture capital completely (an open dialectic, if jargon's your thing). look at the power of the anti-poll tax movement vs. the anti-summit movement, for example.

chris

(A)-chris

for fu@@ks sake

19.01.2007 20:06

Bickering between ourselves like this makes us look so appealing to, lets just organise please. I was one of many people who worked hard at horizon, weeks before & after dissent rocks!

chris I think we need to do live lives outside of capitalism & stop it destroying the world with action.Go live in an isolated commune if you want, cheers

trog makhnovista

@ trog makhnovista

21.01.2007 22:32

i don't doubt the horizone and dissent organising took a lot of hard work, but i think it's a mistake to label reflective self-criticism as mere 'bickering'. i've no wish to live in an isolated commune, and i don't think capitalism has an 'outside' to flee to - we have to abolish it, and that's what i'm getting at here. what are our most effective strategies, how are our collective efforts best directed? essentially, i can't see how summit protests - even massively disruptive ones - make the leap from spectacular dissent to a real threat to capital, a social relation reproduced by the labour of millions daily, and so i fear the considerable effort that goes into these things (not to mention the legal bullshit for those arrested) is running around a cul-de-sac

all the best

chris

(A)-chris

building towards german mobilisation

25.01.2007 01:32

It look like this summit will be being treated with a serious level of organisation by most continential european anti-capitalist groups. Hopefuly the UK mobilisation will be able to contribute somthing significant, I look forward to being able to be part of that.

bucky boy

Time and money

25.01.2007 18:02

yes in support of Chris, what gets me is the massive amount of Time and money from fundraising and organising that activists pour in to summits like this which only last a few days to a week at most. I I think that time and money could be better invested. and all that to "put a smile on my face"? I went to G8 in edingbourgh, and came back feeling defeated! I think Chris is right because it's the little victories in our everyday lives we should be focusing on more like: preventing a deportation, or winning a incinerator campaign, or maybe going on strike, or not paying council tax, to me G8 seems far too a symbolic action.

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