Self-fulfilling prophecy on violent confrontation? (LTTE/G8)

[struggle4progress]

MUCH of the reporting of the build-up to the G8 Summit, fuelled by carefully placed police leaks, is bordering on the hysterical. With all the preparation for violent confrontation, the police are in danger of turning this into a self-fulfilling prophecy. There have been several such protests all over Europe in recent years. They have tended to have huge numbers involved, a broad range of popular support and a remarkable lack of violence. I took part in a 100,000-strong demonstration during the European Social Forum in Paris in 2003; it passed without incident.

The exception was the violence in Genoa which, according to virtually all witnesses, derived from highly aggressive tactics by the Carabinieri egged on by Berlusconi who gave the police carte blanche to "sort the demonstrators out". <snip>

More people are living in poverty than at any time in human history, more children dying of preventable diseases; there are more wars; there are even more slaves in the world than at the time of William Wilberforce. In terms of the environment we may have already passed the point of no return. Yet these leaders will be celebrating an economic system which, at best, has no solution to any of these problems and, at worst, is their prime cause. <snip>

The point is to bring this reality home to Bush, Blair, Berlusconi, et al, and to show that a different world is possible. <snip>

http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/33873.html