Steve Wallis’ socialist website: Anti-Capitalism/G8

Tortured by police handcuffs		revolutionarysocialiststeve@yahoo.co.uk
Telephone: 07725 735255

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Anti-capitalism

Demonstrations against the G8

Many anti-capitalist demonstrations have taken place in recent years. These are often called “anti-globalisation” protests by the media, but it is big business and the governments and institutions that support global capitalism that we oppose, and globalisation of culture should be welcomed. I took these photos in Genoa in 2001.

The G8 is a group of the leaders of the seven most powerful countries in the world plus Russia. In the past, important capitalist meetings took place in major cities, but since there have been big demonstrations in such cities, they now hold them in small places that are difficult to get to nowadays (such as Gleneagles in Scotland in 2005). An exception to holding them in small places was the one in St Petersburg in Russia in 2006, but that most protestors found getting difficult there too.

Could a revolution have started at the 2005 G8 summit?

Various events led to huge numbers of people around the world in the summer of 2005 demanding serious action against poverty in Africa.

I think the first significant event to kick-start the Make Poverty History campaign was a huge rally in London addressed by Nelson Mandela. It was ignored by socialist organisations (for example a Socialist Worker report commented on how impressive it had been by somebody who had not bothered to attend) but many religious and charitable organisations mobilised for it.

In the winter of 2004, the second version of the Band Aid song “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was recorded. Like its predecessor 20 years earlier, it went to number one in the UK. Very little had changed over that period of time; in fact, in many countries, the situation had actually got worse.

Several “Live 8” concerts were organised shortly before the summit, like the two “Live Aid” concerts 20 years earlier, but this time demanding government action rather than charitable donations. Huge numbers of people around the world saw them on television, in addition to the many who attended them.

Numerous events were held in Scotland, in the run-up to and during the summit. By far the largest of these was the Make Poverty History demonstration in Edinburgh on the Saturday before the summit (the 2nd of July). The following day, there was a counter-summit, called G8 Alternatives, to discuss alternative ideas and strategies to those proposed by the G8 leaders.

I launched a big initiative in the run-up to that summit, calling for a worldwide general strike. I produced many copies of a leaflet calling for such a strike (the contents of which you can read by clicking here) and handed them out mainly in Glasgow and Manchester (where I then lived) but also in Edinburgh and London. I also publicised the call on the internet, via email, on discussion forums, and by establishing the g8 summit worldwide general strike website. I wrote two songs, which I recorded versions of shortly before the summit with an early line-up of my band Galaxia (based in Manchester and consisting purely of an acoustic guitarist and myself on vocals), called “Do They Know It’s G8 Time?” (which was based on “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”) and “The Revolution Starts Now!” However, I realised after doing the recordings that there were some serious flaws in the former song and posted improved lyrics (which I later improved even further) onto the internet, and only put the recordings on the internet after the summit had taken place.

I did not envisage every worker around the world going on strike at the time of the summit, but serious strike action was a real possibility in many places around the world at that time – if serious and sizeable organisations had been prepared to support my call for a general strike. That action could well have led to a socialist revolution in one of those countries, which would have provoked massive revolutionary movements elsewhere in the world possibly even leading to a world socialist revolution.

I received a fantastic response from people reading the leaflet. The main problem, however, was that most activists in the UK wanted to go to Gleneagles rather than organise serious action in their own localities. Some action did take place elsewhere in the world, but not serious strike action that could have threatened the rule of big business.

One possible reason for the lack of strike action was the violence that occurred on the Monday before the summit (on the 4th of July), before and during the Carnival for Full Enjoyment. Violent anarchism had disappeared as a serious force in the UK – which I believe was largely due to Class War’s claim of responsibility for the poll tax riot in Trafalgar Square on the 31st of March 1990 being shown to be false (with the police being shown to have started it in a TV documentary) and with mass non-payment rather than rioting proving itself as the successful strategy for the abolition of the poll tax. However, many anarchists, some of whom promoted violent tactics, travelled from overseas for the Gleneagles summit, reviving violent anarchism here. At the time of the Genoa summit, 50 fascists had infiltrated the Black Bloc which adopted violent tactics and indulged in the destruction of property at that summit (some of which I witnessed). Most of the protesters at that Carnival were peaceful, and some, particularly in the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army were lightening up proceedings by entertaining people. I helped ensure that the lighter side to the day’s events were reported to a certain extent, by stripping off naked to join the protesters!

Looking back now, probably the major problem in achieving a worldwide general strike was that conspiratorial organisations were operating behind the scenes, using infiltration and computer modelling to try to manipulate society according to their agendas. For obvious reasons, big business did not want a revolution. On the other hand, good conspiratorial organisations in favour of a democratic socialist world did not want one either, because the main revolutionary organisations at the time were Marxist and the sort of society that would have arisen would have involved hierarchies of committees based on workplaces. I seriously took up these arguments much more recently with a conspiratorial infiltrating organisation of my own, the Foundation for PR-based Socialism.

I was hampered in my activities in the run-up to the summit by being a political prisoner in a psychiatric ward for much of the time. I provoked getting myself picked up by the police in the run-up to the summit on three occasions, including at the Carnival ny going naked. I now think, as I argue in the overview of my book Revolution Destroyed?, that I did not subconsciously want a revolution to take place at that time either, although I did my best with my conscious mind.

You can download the recordings we made at the time of that G8 summit (in MP3 format) by clicking here for “Do They Know It’s G8 Time?” or here for “The Revolution Starts Now!”. I have since written new versions of the songs, called “Did They Know It Was G8 Time?” (calling for strike action even when a G8 summit is not taking place, unrecorded but with lyrics available here) and “The Revolution Could Have Started Then!” (with lyrics available here and with downloads in WMA and MP3 formats).