Today is my 7th day in Germany and my 3rd day in Rostock, where the anti-G8 mobilzation is happening all this week.
Things are a lot calmer than the huge crazy protests on Saturday that I missed because I was still in Berlin. There has been constant tension with police, but nothing serious has actually happened, and one has to remember that the mainstream media reports are greatly exaggerated and focused on the violence and the extremes. I'm hoping to counter that in my own coverage, focusing instead on the issues, the real reason we're here.
Yesterday's focus was migration and borders. I spent all day shooting video of 3 dfiferent actions. This post to Indymedia Germany that I posted this morning has a brief description of each and some stills I shot. Then last night I went to a panel discussion on migration. What an exhausting time, and yet inspiring. It has been really good to see, after getting involved via my own proximity to the US-Mexico border, how other struggles over borders and immigration and migration compare and contrast. The commonalities really resonate. One really inspiring thing is the slogan which I used for the title of this blog post. I think this needs to start being used in the US, because it encapsulates the real problem so concisely.
All day so far today I have been editing the footage I shot, sitting here for the last 5 hours at the Indymedia Center in downtown Rostock, next to a window looking out over the harbor and the little yard where activists sit on couches and drink tea. Dozens of other indymedia people from all over the world (well, mostly Europe) come in and out, doing some work, posting some news to their own local IMCs, sending emails.
In a couple of hours is another panel dicussion that is part of the "Alternative Summit," a more moderate, NGO response to the G8 this week - I'm interested in a panel tommorrow though because John Holloway will be there - the author of "Change the World Without Seizing Power," a book whose main ideas I found extrememly inspiring but whose academic tone made it the biggest reading disappointment of 2006 for me. However I still hope he will be interesting to hear speak.
I'm sitting here waiting for my finished video to upload. I'll post again to say where it is. I'm tired of waiting...
Posted by steev at Junio 5, 2007 11:45 AM