Please join us for two evenings dedicated to the G8 mobilizations in Germany (2007) and Japan (2008) by artists and organizers involved in the events. Presenters include Not An Alternative, Hate The G8 Action Faction, Go Hirasawa and Sabu Kohso of Japan's No! G8 Action.
Monday, March 10th, 7:30pm and Tuesday, March 11th, 7:30pm
The G8: A Different Repetition?
In many ways, last year’s G8 summit on Germany’s Baltic coast was as we had expected it would be: a repetition of previous counter-summit mobilizations from Seattle onwards (Prague, Gothenburg, Genoa, Evian, Cancun, Gleneagles…).
However, what appears like mere repetition is not necessarily a repetition at all; at least not in the sense that it is simply the same thing taking place over and over again. Rather than a return to a particular point in a cycle (bringing Seattle to Germany, for example), Heiligendamm may have represented a break in what has become a familiar trajectory. Is it possible that what came back with 2007 G8 was the reemergence of something unknown?
How are we to understand the mass mobilizations that occur every year around the G8? Are they part of an unforeseeable process of becoming – one that has the potential to go beyond the achievements and limits of the past? If so, how can they function less as a repetition that seeks to mimic and more as a new experiment in the production of politics - overcoming rather than reaffirming existing identities?
Monday, March 10th, 7:30pm
Act 1: Multimedia report-back and analysis from the June 2007 G8 mobilization in Heiligendamm by members of Not An Alternative and Hate The G8 Action Faction.
Act 2: Info-tour and screenings with representatives from No! G8 Action, a Japan-based network of anti-authoritarians and anarchists mobilizing towards the 2008 G8.
Tuesday, March 11th, 7:30pm
Act 3: Discussion and planning session with No! G8 Action, focused on the upcoming mobilization to be held in July at Lake Toya in Hokkaido, Japan.
The Presenters
From Japan: No! G8 Action: http://a.sanpal.co.jp/no-g8
Go Hirasawa is an activist and film critic, teaching at Meiji-gakuin University in Tokyo. A member of No! G8 Action and a coordinator of the Independent Media Collective, he has published a number of books on radical politics and the avant-garde cinema in Japan, and has been active in the anti-fascist movement in Japan.
Sabu Kohso is an activist, writer, and translator. Living in New York since 1980, he is a member of No! G8 Action, has published two books in Japanese about New York’s radical culture and movements, and translated books by theorists such as David Graeber (from English to Japanese) and Kojin Karatani (from Japanese to English). Also, a member of IWW’s New York chapter.
From the US:
Not An Alternative: http://www.notanalternative.net
Hate The G8 Action Faction: http://hatetheg8.blogspot.com
Related web-links:
NO! G8 Action: http://a.sanpal.co.jp/no-g8
G8 Action Network: http://www.jca.apc.org/alt-g8
Japan G8 Media Network: http://g8medianetwork.org/en
Hokkaido G8 Summit Citizen Forum: http://kitay-hokkaido.net
Japan G8 Summit NGO Forum: http://www.g8ngoforum.org/english
Indymedia Japan: http://japan.indymedia.org
To join the Asian Anarchist Network: https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/a_a_n
To join the anti-G8 International email list: https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/g8-int
Basic info about Anti-G8 2008 Action: http://gipfelsoli.org/Home/Hokkaido_2008
Basic info about G8: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca