© "ither press >>> FEATURES

continued from page 21

“Rhodesia” to South Africa, and the creation of
false boundaries are only the tip of the iceberg as
to how Africa has ended up in the human crisis it is
in. The economic relations of the First World to
Africa in the post second World War decades later
have continued to watch the indicators of health
and wealth drop dramatically. These are many of
the long standing issues that speak to “who owes
what debt to whom”.

Further, as Africa plunges into a nightmare
catastrophe of an AIDS crisis, there have been
systematic attempts to prevent Africa from solving
t h e
crisis. When liberation leader Nelson Mandela,
then acting as president of South Africa, tried to
establish the use of “generic” drugs (medicines
where no company owns a copyright and the drug
prices can be kept low, accessible and affordable,
instead of reaping maximum profits for pharma-
ceutical companies like Glaxo-Welcome), his
country was threatened with international sanc-
tions that would have left the country in a starva-
tion situation. In order to protect the interests of
multi-national companies, Africans are unable to
slow down the crisis situation, much less stop it.
This is yet another example of the hypocrisy of the
summit posing itself as a friend to Africa,
as they continue to stall and bleed an already
massively suffering continent. And the people who
came to Calgary to protest against the G8 summit
made themselves aware of these issues, and were
working on alternative solutions to these crises.

That was one of the most heartening things to’

come of my time in Calgary, watching how these
supposedly “angry”, “ill informed” protesters used
the time they had to familiarize themselves with
exactly what the issues were, and debated real
solutions, far different and more direct than any of
the discussions held by the G8 leaders them-
selves. People who are “protesters” also are
thinkers, problem solvers and people who have far
more realistic ideas about the summit than the
common portrayal of us as a bunch of “unwashed
sixties throwbacks”. People wanted to talk about
how to deal with the tens of thousands of people
dying every day in Africa of the AIDS crisis. They
would not accept that money (or anything else)
takes precedence over the human catastrophe and
the saving of lives.

This crisis was given front billing at one of the
activist events, called a “Di-In” that started at noon
on June 26th. Participants in the “Di-In” were to lie
in the sun (a day of record heat) and “die” for a half
an hour, while chalk outlines were scrawled around
our bodies. It was in total silence and was to illus-
trate the impact of an unresolved crisis on the
African continent—and the number of “dead” folks
like myself was only a microcosm of the number of
people who died, while nothing is done by the

governments of the G8. This is one of the creative
actions carried out by the demonstrators speaking
to the real issues, while the media obsessed over
the threat of violence, a violence which never
came, and left the city with having spent one half
billion dollars. Imagine if that money had instead
been used to buy simple drugs for the sick in
Africa, instead of scaring and intimidating citizens
who were using their right to assemble, to seek
redress of grievances against what they see as a
corrupt government structure.

The march that was supposed to be marred by
“black-masked, rock-tossing malcontents who
should be spending their time looking for work” was
the snake march on the morning that the
summit opened up in the K-Country fortress. That
march was reworked at the last minute by
the organizers when it became apparent that far
smaller numbers were actually to be in attendance
than expected. When the organizers took great
pains to make the demonstration non-physically
confrontational, a large number of unions threw

 

their support behind the march itself. This included
municipal (Calgary District and Labour Council,
among others), provincial (Alberta Federation of
Labour, among others) and federal (Canadian Auto
Workers, among others). This gave the demonstra-
tion a safety in numbers that personally gave me a
lot more comfort about the whole thing. My mother,
a retired school teacher from the Kamloops area,
had driven out to Calgary to attend the “Family
Walk” on June 23rd (a peaceful and permitted
march that contained between three and four thou-
sand people), followed by the illegal and unsanc-
tioned “direct action” snake march. The whole thing
went smoothly and included people from all walks
of life, only united in their quest for a world where
people are more important than
profits. We saw 1500 people at this rally/march.
The final and most exciting action for me, was the
“Caravan to Kananaskis”, organized, again, at the
last moment. The idea was simple: We had been
banned from the meeting, but that banning was
unjust, illegal and politically motivated. We wanted

to speak directly to the leaders making decisions
that will affect billions. The highway to K-Country
had been loaded with some 5000 Canadian mili-
tary, almost three times the number of troops
involved in Afghanistan. They had the right to shoot
to kill, they had been roaming the mountainside. All
this for the security of a few rich men in a small
mountain resort. We had other ideas, and we knew
we had the right to be there, even if our govern-
ment took that away on paper.

They called the area around K-Country a “char-
ter (of rights) free zone”. The road had 22 check-
points along the way. We wanted to at least be
seen trying to cross the first one. We all drove up in
separate vehicles—some 30 were registered, but
the news of our event caught on like wildfire at the
last moment, with 100+ making the drive to the first
checkpoint. It was hot and we were tired, most of
us having been up at 5a.m. But it wasn’t until we
negotiated our way past the checkpoint before the
first checkpoint, that we finally made it to the first
“official” checkpoint. From there, people got out of
their cars, and my friends and | took a picture for
the scrapbook. In doing so, we had accidentally
blocked in other cars trying to get through, some of
which coincidentaly turned out to be delegates
from the US and Japan. The buzz was in the air!
Perhaps we might actually disrupt their meetings!
But very quickly the delegates backed out, almost
assuredly to go down one of the other entry point
roads to the resort. And that was when | learned
something.

The anti-globalization movement has hit a cross-
roads. You have all seen us repeatedly try to
disrupt summits as a means of getting our mes-
sage across. But in those two seconds, | suddenly
realized that we never really had the opportunity to
do much more than talk amongst ourselves. We
didn’t threaten to interrupt the meeting at all. | am
hoping that we, the movement, will think about how
to address this problem, because with leaders talk-
ing about a whole lot of nothing except corporate
power, we are needed more than ever before.

The time | spent in Calgary was a great person-
al pleasure, and our learning about the world
got stronger. Hopefully, soon will be the loudness
of our voice, unclouded by government interfer-
ence with our right to protest, and negotiate our
own confusion as to what we are trying to do. In
that sense, Calgary was a great time for activists to
learn many things. In other ways, it was a victory
for the corporations, who intimidated and threat-
ened enough people into not going out, allowing
them to get away with their planned meetings with-
out even a small hitch. With all that uninterrupted
time, however, they didn’t address stage one of
Africa’s desperate problems. | contend they never
really intended to. And that is just one more reason
we'll continue to speak truth to power at every