International anti-capitalist demonstration against G20 summit: G20 Welcome to hell
Thursday, 6 July 2017
4 p.m., St. Pauli Fischmarkt, Hamburg
When the heads of government of the world’s 20 most powerful countries are arriving on 6 July and the assembled world media are waiting for news from the crisis zone around Hamburg’s exhibition halls, we’ll be already in the streets.
We are mobilizing internationally to turn Hamburg into a location and an exclamation mark of resistance against old and new authorities of capitalism.
A demonstration at the G20 summit’s eve will express protest and resistance, radical critique and practice against the patriarchal and capitalist state of affairs. We are resisting the discursive priority of receptions and fireside chats during the days to follow.
G20 is creating a temporary state of emergency and its political bias stands for everything we are fighting against. The police and military are present on the roofs of Hamburg during the summit, and they are perpetuating capitalist regimes all over the world. Neo-liberal and protectionist capitalist models are both similarly part of global exploitation, walling-off and impoverishment.
Whether this cynical violence is going to be obvious or rather superimposed by grand receptions and beautiful pictures is also at stake during Hamburg’s hot days. We are opposing the summit as well as any effort to include political critique and resistance as a part of the summit’s orchestration as a democratic institution.
Summits like G20 and institutions like IMF, WTO or the World Bank being instruments of peace, human rights or climate policies is one of the great lies and illusions of the powers-that-be.
When the pieces of global politics are picked up after the summit on 9 July, capitalism and exploitation will still exist. At the end of the day, there will be final statements and success-oriented resumes of the assembled bodies politic and the public. Crises and wars are part of the capitalist system, likewise protest and scandals are part of the summit orchestration. It’s up to us to open a new page and new resistance perspectives.
The apparently unchallenged triumph of capitalism has left behind a trail of devastation. War is prevalent not only as military conflict, but as well in more and more people’s minds. A racist mob is mobilising in Germany, around Europe and all over the world. Racial and nationalist ideas are getting acceptable again. Among others, right-wing populists and fascists have managed to accomplish a shift of society’s discourse to the right.
Strong states and closed borders are being called for more and more forcefully. Proxy wars for spheres of interests – instruments of world order created in the century before last and the one before that – appear more than ever to be legitimate means to achieve political ends. We are living in a time of rising nationalism and hate towards minorities. Pogroms against refugees and other population groups beyond majority, attacks on homosexual, trans* or inter* people as well as the significance of fanaticism of whatever persuasion are increasing dramatically.
Migration and flight will be focal points of the summit and of the protests as well. It’s not freedom of movement for all, not even safe flight corridors to prevent mass death in the Mediterranean, to be established. Rather, borders and the flow of goods are being safeguarded. Cynicism and fishy deals prevail, while the summit is taking its course.
The logic of capitalist value is supposed to expand into the last nooks in the metropolises as well as in rural regions‘ periphery. Yet, world-wide capitalist penetration is also connecting the terrain of resistance. For instance, resistance against mining projects in Columbia is linked to urban-political struggles against the coal power station Moorburg in Hamburg harbor which is using Columbian coal as a resource.
Devastation and migration due to global warming are related directly to the struggle for the right to stay. Connections of capitalist exploitation interests can be demonstrated, criticized and confronted politically. G20 resistance is supposed to focus on these inter-dependencies on a local and global scale and to develop mutual relations and resistant practices.
Various and unpredictable mass resistance will disrupt the smooth proceedings of the summit’s performance.
Many people will stand up against this staging of power – politically and practically. Unlike civil opposition, we are not going to suggest alternatives in order to keep the capitalist system alive. We are going to oppose oppression, exploitation and exclusion with collectivity and solidarity.
Organise yourselves, be creative and contribute vociferously, angrily and powerfully to the international anti-capitalist demonstration on 6 July. Let this demonstration be a first expression of our resistance and our unconciliatory antagonism towards the prevailing conditions and the summit spectacle. Up with social revolution!
We will start on 6 July at 4 p.m. with a great opening meeting. Cultural, musical and political contributions will be held. From 7 p.m., the demonstration will be approaching the red zone and the final meeting will be held a stone’s throw from the summit’s location in the exhibition halls.
Don‘t let capitalism get you down – live resistance!
Autonomous and anti-capitalist alliance “G20 – welcome to hell!”
Thursday, 6 July 2017
4 p.m., St. Pauli Fischmarkt, Hamburg
International anti-capitalist demonstration against G20 summit: G20 Welcome to hell