The leaders of the G20 countries, as well as their central bank
governors, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and the
European Union (EU) will be in Toronto on June 26-27, 2010. Nearly
20,000 delegates, 15,000 armed police and 5,000 media personnel will
descend on Toronto to make it a very hot June weekend indeed. Gay Pride
festivities have been moved but visitors to the city will be here, as
will thousands of protestors, activists and delegates. The real
question is: will Toronto's residents and long-term social movements
join them?
For Sabrina Gopaul, an organizer with LIFEmovement and Jane and
Finch Action Against Poverty, the answer is clear: “Our people are
hungry, they are jobless, we have few schools and lesser social
services – all these attacks are a direct result of the G20 policies
and we will protest against them. We have real community solutions on
how to take care of each other, have good food, create economic
opportunities and we will make sure that those are seen, heard and
shared.”
The first G6 Summit
took place in 1975, following a smaller meeting organized by the United
States in 1974. In attendance were France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the
United Kingdom, and the United States. This was a time of the oil
crisis where oil-rich states increased the price of oil in an unsettled
global economy, causing tremors in the hallways of power across Europe
and North America. Canada joined in 1976 and Russia joined in 1997.
At the top of the G8 leaders' agenda has always been international
trade and managing relations between the once-colonizers and the
colonized (the developed and the underdeveloped worlds). In asserting
their security, the G8 places access to energy and other strategic
resources at the forefront of discussions. The G8 Summit is also the
place where ad-hoc consensus is reached on a myriad of issues that
never make the public statement. The decisions that emerge at the G8
meetings, some formally in the Summit Declaration, and the many others
as a result of side-conversations, impact how the world lives and works.
The G20 Summit established in 1999 was initially a meeting of the
central bank governors and financial ministers of emerging powers and
the G8, firmly entrenched within the International Monetary Fund-World
Bank alliance (the so-called Bretton Woods’ sisters). The G20 is
comprised of the G8 as well as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China,
India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Korea, Turkey and
the EU. In November 2008, under the weight of another financial crisis,
George Bush hosted the first the first full G20 Summit where the
leaders of the countries joined their finance ministers and central
bank governors as well as representatives from IMF and World Bank. The
G20's central policy focus is maintaining global financial stability
and the ongoing economic, military and financial dominance of the
richest states and their corporations.
“The G8 is saving the banks, while ignoring lives,” said David
McNally, Professor of Political Science at York University, noting the
group's failure to meet the 2005 Gleneagles aid commitments. “Two years
after promising $20-billion to deal with the world food crisis – a
pittance compared to what they have put into banks – the G8 has
delivered only one-tenth of what it pledged," McNally added.
Resisting G8/G20 Rule
Resistance to the G8/G20 has been manifold and diverse.
Organizations such as Make Poverty History and the Ottawa-based ‘At the
Table Campaign’ have tried to influence the G8, hoping that they could
be lobbied to take into account grassroot concerns.
Stephen Lewis in a recently released statement called on Summit
leaders to live up to their UN Millennium Goals and the promise to
halve poverty by 2015. Lewis said, “This is an historic moment for
Canada. We are in a position to lead the world in resolving one of the
great moral issues of our time.”
“We're calling for a breakthrough plan to tackle climate change,”
said Zoë Caron, of WWF-Canada. The choice is clear for the G8 this
June: lead us forward in this transformation to a clean green economy.”
Others disagree, insisting that the G20 has no business meeting.
“The G20 and G8 are meetings of the very people promoting war and
environmental destruction around the world. They push people out of
their homes and off their land, force many to migrate and to work in
dangerous, temp jobs,” says Mohan Mishra of grassroots organization No One Is Illegal – Toronto
that is involved in planning demonstrations in June 2010. “These people
should not be meeting to make undemocratic decisions about our lives.
People in our communities know what we need and are working to make
sure that we create the world we wish to live in, the G20 leaders are
simply in the way.”
Though much of the debate in the corporate media has focused on
security threats, fences, the relocation of weddings, consistently
typecasting the mobilizations as the protestors pitted against the cops
– conversations on the ground are markedly different.
Lesley Wood is an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty
and a sociologist who has studied large mobilizations for over a
decade. Wood noted that: “Since Seattle in 2001 when the
anti-globalization movement had its coming out party, many have
questioned the lack of participation of community groups and ongoing
campaigns in large mobilizations. People doing anti-police brutality
work, organizing in housing, growing food, fighting for childcare have
sometimes struggled to connect their local struggles with one-time
circuses that come through their city.” Wood believes that Toronto is
seeing a coalescing of social movements and as June 2010 comes closer,
participation from community groups in Toronto has greatly increased.
“Having seen the bruised faces of our mothers; the broken legs of
our youth; the public humiliation of our neighbours; summer curfews and
the militarization of our schools, our communities are constantly
reminded that law enforcement does not solve crime it sustains it; just
like military efforts around the world do not create peace, they
destroy it,” says Greg Walsh, an activist in the Jane and Finch
community who sees resistance to the G20 as part of his everyday work.
Considering that the G8/G20 Summits are taking place on traditional
Anishinaabe territory, and the G20 on lands unceded Mississauga lands.
The G8/G20 leaders assert neo-colonial relations on much of the world's
population, and therefore much of the organizing for the convergence is
under an Anti-Colonial umbrella.
Clayton Thomas-Mueller of the Indigenous Environmental Network
and part of Defenders of the Land that is organizing a Day of Action
for Indigenous Sovereignty explains: “Here in Canada, Indigenous people
have been dealing with the effects of globalization and neoliberal
economic policies for some time, all of which have had a tremendously
negative effect on our sovereignty and ecology. This can best be
described through the crown jewel of U.S. energy and security policy,
the Alberta Tar Sands. Access to the tar sands is being enabled by
massive free trade driven development such as the Pacific gateway
initiative and the Atlantic gateway initiative both of which mean the
development of super ports, highways, pipelines, railways providing the
transportation of resources such as the synthetic crude much easier to
be accessed by G8 members, most specifically the United States. The
effects of these kinds of development have devastating impacts on
Indigenous people across the continent of North America.”
Join the Mobilization Against the G8/G20
Unlike many of the convergences of the past – this June might just
see a real community based mobilization against the G8/G20 that puts
forward its own campaigns for local lives while pushing for global
transformation. Nay sayers will remain of course, but it seems that a
real grounded local/global movement is emerging in Canada. For details
on the Justice for Our Communities demonstration, visit 25june.wordpress.com. Further details at the bottom of the article.
What people are saying about the G8/G20:
Kole Kilibirada from the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
that is fighting to build a local and global boycott and divestment
campaign against the government of Israel:
“Whether it was the G8's complacency during Israel's
brutal 33-day war on the people of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, or
its enthusiastic support for the more recent slaughter in Gaza in
January 2009 - the G8 has repeatedly shown its willingness to continue
criminalizing any expression of Palestinian self-determination while
financing, arming and applauding the apartheid state of Israel.”
Pragash Pio, a Tamil community organizer and Canadian HART activist in Toronto:
“Our local issues are connected to global ones. Many
people in our community are sending money home to assist their
families, rebuild homes and lives and as a result impoverishing
themselves. Things like the War on Terror paradigm which is really a
war on racialized and Diaspora people is interfering with everyday
lives here and elsewhere. People understand that it's not just local
levels of apartheid, the G8/G20 is the coordinating committee of global
apartheid, they make us refugees, they attack us, they are the systemic
side of injustice and must be resisted.”
Kimia Ghomeshi, National Youth Climate and G20 Organizer at the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition:
“The G8/G20 are indebted to the global south,
displaced migrants and indigenous peoples everywhere for creating and
furthering the climate crisis. This is a global catastrophe that will
not go away through mere lifestyle changes like riding bikes or
changing light bulbs. It requires a complete transformation away from
the global capitalist system that justifies the ravaging of our lands
and exploitation of our communities.”
Sultana Jahangir of the South Asian Women's Rights Organization based in Scarborough who is organizing contingents to join the rallies:
“International capitalism displaces people from all
over the world by economical, military and environmental aggression. In
Bangladesh three million people [have been] displace[d] and our
homeland has become the biggest human exporter in 2009. Canadian
Government traffic and displace people to exploit them. They bring
migrant women and totally marginalize them. They are forced to live in
margin of society in either low paid job or as baby machines. We
immigrant women demand the rich to stop marginalize us and demand to
provide childcare, health, education, housing and all services.”
Andrew Mindszenthy, a member of DAMN 2025, a radical cross-disability coalition that is mobilizing against the G8/G20:
“Canada segregates disabled people with more than
pervasive physical barriers: we are impoverished by Canada's ‘social
assistance’; denied at its international borders; confined in its
institutions and prisons; ostracized by social isolation; and largely
excluded even from social movements. DAMN2025 is allying with other
oppressed groups to resist the G8/G20's agenda of making the rich
richer on the backs of poor people around the world.”
The Plans
A People's Summit is being planned from June 18-20, 2010 that will
be a social forum style conference bringing together community groups,
NGOs, labour unions, faith groups and others to educate and be
agitated.
Following the People's Summit, actions and demonstrations are taking
place across Toronto, which are being organized by different networks.
These include a demonstration for Indigenous Sovereignty and
Self-Determination on June 24, a massive mobilization by Community
Groups on June 25th calling for ‘Justice For Our Communities’ that will focus on many of the issues outlined above.
A labour march and major anti-colonial, anti-capitalist actions are
also planned on June 26th and June 27th. Details of all events can be
found on Toronto Community Mobilization Network’s website which is the body coordinating and supporting many of the actions taking place between June 21-27, 2010. •
Syed Hussan is a writer and organizer for migrant
justice and in defence of indigenous sovereignty. He is involved with
many movements for justice in Toronto, and is building a network of
people of colour, indigenous people, disAbled folks, queer folks,
women, poor and working class people on the streets of Toronto in June
2010. He is involved with the Toronto Community Mobilization Network and the Justice For Our Communities demonstration.
To learn more about the G8 and G20:
Socialist Project
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