The upcoming G-8 summit has suddenly taken on a feisty feeling of immediacy.
The Activist Training Working Group is meeting in Calgary this weekend and again later this week to plan demonstrations during the June 26 and 27 event that may be carried out peacefully -- or with mayhem.
"Political struggle isn't stage-managed," said Montreal-based Jaggi Singh as people learned how to prepare for tear-gas assaults. "It is really messy . . . Is this really a time to be civil? We should talk about resistance, and social movements."
The RCMP is bracing for everything, armed with a portion of a reported $300-million summit budget.
"I'm not worried about it, I know they've got it," said Starhawk, an author, spiritualist and activist from San Francisco.
"The budget they're spending on the Kananaskis meeting is half the amount they're talking about giving to Africa. For that, they'll be talking about the problems of Africa for like 11/2 hours. It's incredible."
The G-8 leaders will focus a good part of their discussion on the African question.
While leaders of the leading industrialized countries convene for 11/2 days inside a high-tech security cocoon otherwise known as Kananaskis, the "global justice movement" is going to stretch G-8 into a week-long demonstration.
Protesters intend to make their presence felt in the city and Rocky Mountain foothills.
Starhawk expects "tens of thousands" to participate in a family march in Calgary on June 23.
The Solidarity Village, a mini-Woodstock of politics, is planned for an area along the Trans-Canada Highway toward Banff.
It is to come complete with camping, concerts, training and workshops.
Starhawk plans to attend, "if they'll let me back in the country."
Singh gained his notoriety from rough police handling during a protest in Quebec City.
"You might think a lot of it is about getting in front of a camera, but it's not about that at all," Singh said, following his talk at the Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Centre.
"It's been a very reluctant thing for me.
"It's almost been thrown in my face, because they (police) nabbed me. A lot of my work has been low-key -- this kind of stuff."
The global-justice movement has some parallels to the flower-power push in the 1960s, though North American society seems less amiable to such protest today.
Singh feels it has grown to the point where "people have seen demonstrations in the past and thought, 'What a bunch of losers.'
"Now they see a demonstration and wonder, 'Is my niece in there?' "
Protesters coming to Calgary embrace a wide range of issues, from the oppression of women to child labour to animal rights.
At past summits, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization meetings, the medium has buried the message with scenes of rioting and other violence.
"If you look at it on a sound-bite level or superficial level, that argument has a certain plausibility," said Singh.
"But so much has changed. Even on the level of global finance, they've had to change their discourse.
"They can't simply say, greed is good."
Politicians, he said, "are motivated by the fear of people taking to the streets," and pointed to the agenda of this year's summit as an example of pressure being exerted by the global justice movement.
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