Riots at the G8 – No Surprises There

Writing this from Berlin, it’s hard not to be surrounded by news and coverage from the G8 conference taking place in the north of this semi-willing host of a country.

 Leaders of the wealthy world are meeting, discussing, in no uncertain terms, how to run the world. How to maintain their far from democratic grip on poorer nations, and whether this status-quo needs to be maintained. Undoubtedly, some are getting hotter under the collar than others. Despite the public facade, Blair will be annoyed that Bush is a non-budger on certain issues – even if he makes occasional grand claims on global warming.

The problem with this meeting, though, is that these self-proclaimed leaders of the free world are holding their meeting far, far from the thousands of diverse protestors who are opposed – not unfairly – to their way of doing things. Freedom of speech is, without a doubt, being supressed, as protestors are forced to gather behind a giant security fence located kilometres from the conference area. This is not acceptable. Each and every time the media condemns ’stone throwers’ or ‘anarchists’ they refuse to accept that it is plain wrong that it’s been made illegal to protest the actions of this unelected quasi world government.

 The protestors have a right to protest the gathering, and at the same location. 911 did not change the world that much. If they cannot get to the location, then what can the authorities expect? They can expect rocks to rain down on the police deployed, and they can not be suprised by it.