Northern anarchists from the NAN and members of the Manchester Social Forum were present at the G8 conference in Manchester on Saturday April 23rd. Also present were Kick Start, CND, lots of students and Workers Power. Notable by their absence was the SWP and RESPECT; no doubt they were out on election business.
In the morning Paul Cammack, a classical Marxist from Manchester Metropolitan University, argued against Blair's Commission for Africa. 'A cloak of moral virtue to legitimise a neo-liberal Trojan Horse' was his view.
John Nicholson gave a paper entitle 'No Borders' arguing that national borders are not a natural feature of life.
Dr Ed Amman Addressed the issue of Globalisation, 'development', and Latin America. He examined the evolution of the neo-liberal agenda in Latin America since the 1980s. He tackled the recent dramatic events in Bolivia and Ecuador, as well as earlier events in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezula. He was also critical of the 'one party state' in Cuba. A questioner from the Revolutionary Communist Group made a terrible gaff, which he later admitted, when he said 'these people (Latin Americans) are
mostly illiterate and therefore don't have politics'. To suggest that illiterate people are too dumb to understand what to do is typical of some Marxists. How come the less school educated Spaniards in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s put a better fight against Fascism than the highly educated German socialists and communists did against the Nazis?
The Plenary: Introducing Direct Action was addressed by Alison Crane of CND and Mark Hoskisson (Workers Power). We said we would try to get something on the G8 put on the agenda of the National Annual Conference of the TUCs to be held in Liverpool in June.
In the afternoon, Alison Crane (CND) did sessions on 'Exploring Active non-violence' and 'Dealing with confrontation'. Alex (Northern Arts Tactical Offensive) gave a session on Subvertising on how to do radical graffiti on posters and advertisements: how to hijack the message by adbusting.
In the Plenary: Where Next:
It was observed that G8 tended to call meetings which clashed with the Thursday meetings of the MANCHESTER SOCIAL FORUM. It was suggested that this be avoided in future. A northern anarchist pointed out that while the Workers Power group has considerable influence among the students: the MANCHESTER SOCIAL FORUM has strong links with the Manchester workers and trade unions. In this respect it would be absurd to organise meetings that clash. The G8 group said they would consider this at their next meeting on this coming Thursday.
It was reported at the Manchester Social Forum last Thursday night that the G8 Group in Manchester has decided to continue to organised their meetings to clash with the Social Forum. They are doing thid despite our request that we collaborate. In this situation The Manchester Social Forum has decided to suspend their meeting next Thursday and to attend the Manchester G8 meeting instead.