Gee Eight!

Willie Drennan

 The G8: whose idea was it  for Northern Ireland to host it? How long will it take to reap return on investment costs for infrastructure and security? What costs will there be in relation to property damage and hospital bills? These are the questions many are asking in Northern Ireland, as well as: how many participants or protestors will come back To Fermanagh for holidays or conferences? One answer to that one might be: fenced-in security zones look and feel the same the world over; in the same way as malls and shopping centres are universally identical.

While it may be delusionary to think that somehow Northern Ireland, or the UK as a whole, might someday reap financial benefits from the hosting of the G8: it at least gives us the opportunity to tell our local politicians that enough is enough.  It offers us the opportunity to tell governments that we are wising-up, we are catching them on and that we no longer want to vote for global, big corporation controlled politics. 

 One thing for sure nothing will emerge from this G8 conference that will help establish sustainable regeneration of our local economy:  those who currently control the world’s wealth will not suddenly throw it all away to local independent inter-connected enterprises. They won’t allow small-time independent thinkers, who chose not to be subservient to the system, to disrupt their global grip on power and wealth. Post G8, our local Stormont politicians will still go off gallivanting across the world over advancing the global economy to the detriment of our local independent growth. We will still be buying cheap foreign clothes, food and furniture instead of creating an innovative low-carbon, low dependence, locally-centred economic strategy.

The best we can hope for out of this is a greater exposure, through social media and independent bloggers, as to how we are led like sheep to fulfil wealth expansion for the almighty global landlords.  It really is time for people to send out the message to the powerful that we have caught them on and we all want change. There is no excuse any longer to believe everything the government and their media tell us. 

G8 Protests: Is there any point?

          

People have every right to street-protests, marches, rock concerts and parties. There are very legitimate reasons for protest against global control of our economies by the few, the great, the wealthy and the powerful. There is justification in exposing international exploitation: of poor workers in poorer countries, the manipulation of mindsets and bribing of the masses in wealthier nations. These are the people responsible for creating the artificial global economic boom that sucked in so many. When the boom’s bubble burst, as orchestrated, these are the people who walked away with power and wealth intact leaving millions to flounder in subservience to the system. 

Protesting can be good, partying and bonding in celebration with kindred spirits is good. But once it turns to violence that damages local property and further disrupts our local economy then the plot gets lost: the genuine message of the protest is diluted enabling the G8 folk to write-off protesters, and complainers as irrational delinquents. This has led many to ask if there is any point protesting against the G8 at all: is it actually counter-productive?  

If I thought it would help in any way I to sort out our economic woes - or even if I was just confident that I wasn’t  in any way enabling either the Gee Eighters or opportunistic rabble rousers - I  would strap on my Lambeg drum and join the angry mob.