[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Kerl: Report on the People's Summit against NATO/G8 - "A Summit to Represent Us"
Stuart Levy
stuartnlevy at gmail.com
Tue May 15 14:37:13 UTC 2012
News from the People's Summit in Chicago this past weekend...
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Subject: [ufpj-activist] Kerl: Report on the People's Summit against
NATO/G8
Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 07:51:28 -0500
From: Ashley Smith <ashley05401 at yahoo.com>
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http://socialistworker.org/2012/05/15/a-summit-to-represent-us
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A summit to represent us
Eric Kerl reports on the People's Summit--an event designed to provide
an alternative vision to the upcoming NATO summit in Chicago.
May 15, 2012
Hundreds attend a plenary discussion at the People's Summit in
ChicagoHundreds attend a plenary discussion at the People's Summit in
Chicago
MORE THAN 800 activists from the U.S., Europe and the Middle East
gathered in Chicago for the People's Summit over the May 12-13 weekend
to kick off a week of action
<http://occupychi.org/2012/05/14/may-14-21-nato-week-action> before the
summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) planned for May
20-21.
During the summit, government leaders will review their plans for
maintaining control of war-torn Afghanistan, Africa and Kosovo;
dramatically increasing weapon deployments in allied countries; and
implementing new surveillance technologies under the American-led "war
on terror."
Initially, the Group of Eight (G8) club of the world's dominant
countries planned to host its summit in Chicago at the same time as
NATO, but the venue was abruptly changed to Camp David in early March.
The stated reason was to provide a more "intimate" setting, in the words
of Obama's National Security Office. But the real motivation certainly
included avoiding a significant mobilization against the program of
austerity in the service of corporate greed.
The People's Summit was hosted by Occupy Chicago
<http://occupychi.org/> and the Coalition Against NATO and G8 War and
Poverty Agenda <http://cang8.org/> (CANG8) at Occupy Chicago's
headquarters--an early 19th-century warehouse a few miles from the
location of the NATO summit a week later.
Activists planned the People's Summit to educate larger numbers about
the G8 and NATO, and to mobilize for a mass march during the opening of
the NATO summit on May 20--as well as a week of activities in between,
with each day devoted to a different theme, ranging from education to
immigrant rights to housing and homelessness and more.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE CONTENT of the People's Summit wasn't limited to critical analysis
of the 1 percent's global agenda. The more than 40 workshops and four
plenary sessions offered an alternative vision of a world based on
peace, justice and equality.
The summit featured voices from occupied Afghanistan who debunked the
misconception, perpetuated by the Obama administration, that the war is
"coming to an end."
Malalai Joya--an antiwar activist, former member of Afghanistan's
parliament and a fierce critic of NATO's occupation as well as the
Taliban and the current warlord government headed by the U.S. puppet
President Hamid Karzai--was unable to travel for health reasons, but
sent a statement to the People's Summit:
[Obama and Karzai] claim the war will end in 2014, while on the
other hand, they say that U.S. troops will remain in some capacity
until 2024. My friends, when 2024 comes closer, they will say they
plan to remain in Afghanistan until 2034. The reality is that the
U.S. and their NATO allies plan to dominate Afghanistan and the
larger region militarily for the next generation...
Do not believe the words of Obama and others who say they are
working for peace even while they continue to make war and to kill
our people in bombings, night raids a,nd now more and more drone
attacks that kill civilians every week and sometimes every day in
Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries.
Suraia Sahar, a member of Afghans for Peace based in Toronto, read
Joya's statement to the summit and also spoke on the closing plenary
about the moving struggle of Afghan youth. She read a statement from
Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers that addressed their efforts to overcome
divisions foisted on them in order to retake control of their country.
The Summit also addressed the connection between war spending abroad and
the drive to impose austerity on the 99 percent at home.
Jerome Fuller, a Chicago transit worker and member of the Amalgamated
Transit Union Local 308, and Jan Rodolfo, Midwest organizing director
for National Nurses United, talked about the urgent need for the labor
movement to stop pleading and start fighting.
In stating their defense of public-sector unions, both stressed that
stronger wages and benefits for public workers are important in setting
a standard that other workers should likewise demand, and that their
efforts are also essential to a defense of decent social services for
working-class people generally.
Abdul Malik Mujahid, a leader of the Muslim Peace Coalition, described
how Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. have been targeted, harassed,
detained, deported and scapegoated in the wake of the U.S. wars and
occupations in the Middle East and Central Asia. He explained in
chilling detail the everyday harassment that millions of Arabs and
Muslims in the U.S. have faced, as well as his own personal experience
of hours upon hours spent answering questions of law enforcement agents,
simply because of his Muslim faith.
Political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal also addressed the conference live
via speakerphone from a prison in Pennsylvania. He electrified the crowd
with a stirring call to abolish NATO and his analysis of NATO's
aggressive and destructive military campaigns from Kosovo to Afghanistan
to Libya.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE PEOPLE'S Summit served to bring together activists from a number of
social movements--Occupy activists, antiwar and antiracist activists,
trade unionists and independent journalists, environmentalists,
defenders of civil liberties and Palestine solidarity activists, among
others. Members of the United National Antiwar Coalition, National
Nurses United, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, the Rainbow/PUSH
Coalition and Occupy activists from around the country participated
during the weekend.
International activists also made their way to the People's Summit,
including Reiner Braun and Elsa Rassback from Germany and a number of
activists from several countries, including the Philippines, Sweden,
Ireland, Canada, Palestine and Puerto Rico.
Among the 40 different workshops were sessions on "Public-sector unions
and the fight against austerity," "Consent and gender liberation," "The
post-911 targeting of Mulims" and "Obama's new imperialism."
One activist, Taylor Bradley, a 22-year-old from Louisville, Ky., said
the summit represented a new stage for the Occupy movement. "I was a
student at the University of Louisville, but I dropped out to be a
full-time activist with Occupy," said Bradley. "After a while, things
started to fall apart--fewer people at assemblies and actions...But now,
there's a greater awareness of the connections with different movements,
and more serious people putting together things like this."
While opposition to NATO was the theme of the People's Summit, there was
a clear anti-capitalist perspective among many summit-goers. The Occupy
movement has certainly cleared the way for a biting critique of an
economic system that only benefits the few. The People's Summit helped
to make the connection between this economic system and the drive by the
American military to dominate the world.
The closing plenary of the People's Summit ended with a stirring call by
Joe Lombardo of the United National Antiwar Coalition to mobilize for
the May 20 march against the NATO summit <http://cang8.org/>.
Joya perhaps best captured this message at the conclusion of her statement:
I and millions of other Afghans are with you in heart and in spirit.
On May 20, peace-loving people in every country of the world will be
watching you in Chicago and wishing you solidarity. In the long run,
our desire for true justice and democracy will defeat all of NATO's
guns and bombs. Long live peace and freedom!
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