On the occasion of the two-day G8 summit in Deauville (France) some
comrades launched a general call for a decentralised global
mobilisation. The reasons behind this proposal are, on the one hand, to
not let the counter-summit itself become a further experiment (training)
of brutal police repression while, on the other, to let the manifold
local struggles, with their own paths and insights, take advantage of
their differences and make the concomitance with the summit – which is
the symbol of all the deprivations and violence to which we are being
subjected – a moment of ramifications, multiplication and contamination.
The fields that these official summits have for long time advocated to
rule are the same on which our daily struggles resonate widely. The
spaces of discontent and of lack of a quiet life – from the Greek mass
protests, the student (though not only students) rebellions in France,
Italy, the United Kingdom, to the ones in North Africa, to which we all
express our solidarity and complicity – are sharply increasing
realities. They are the ultimate evidence of the failure of a system
committed to profit and indifferent to our lives, which are cast into
misery and despair.
Those who will smile and take the ritual pictures during the summit are
the same who omit the cyclical nature of this crisis, telling us that
the worst is over, that difficulties are now behind us. They are the
same who foment fights amongst the poor, in the stubborn attempt to
divide natives from migrants, to chose the good and the bad, to point
out the abnormal in its several exceptions. Under the pretext of
security, controls are intensified, repressive practices are
experimented, techniques of internment are being refined in prisons,
migrant detention centres and in all the structures embracing
marginalisation as the organising principle of the social peace. Thus,
while existences get literally ruined, guilty of not having a piece of
paper assessing their citizenry, in the streets the army and the police
become specialised in enforcing unjust and dangerous laws that force us
into miserable lives where there is nothing but sacrifice.
Although the unrest grows stronger among large groups of people, and
the basis for a general rebellion starting for Europe are there, we
believe there is still a lot of work to do. We believe that the
mobilisation called for the 26th and 27th of May can be an opportunity
for the different movements to gain strength and courage, to get back to
talking to people, to create support and solidarity, to exchange
experiences, to try to grow and progress beyond national boundaries.
Eventually, this call is nothing more than an invitation to all those
who will read it. An invitation to take action to make something
possible to happen in Europe, something that can question the centrality
of a summit that is not ours. Something useful as an exercise, hoping
it will be the beginning of a progressive, continuous strengthening of
our struggles, that must become everyone’s struggles. Therefore, we
invite everybody to take action at any scale. From graffiti writing to
actions, leafleting, debates and meeting.
The distance from Deauville is a possibility.
Free the imagination, we need determination!
IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
IF NOT ME, WHO?
Whitechapel Anarchist Group 