dissent! Network Of Resistance

Note: This site will be updated as and when new information reflecting the growing mobilisation becomes available, right up to the summit in June, so check back often!

The G8 (group of eight most industrialised nations) Summits are hosted, on rotation, by the group’s member states. In 2007 the Summit is to be held in Germany at Heiligendamm. The Dissent! Network was formed to provide a networking tool to co-ordinate radical resistance to the Summit.

The Network was formed in the autumn of 2003 by a group of people who have previously been involved in radical ecological direct action, Peoples’ Global Action, the anti-war movement and the global anti-capitalist movement that has emerged around meetings of those that rule over us.

The Network has no central office, no spokespeople, no membership list and no paid staff. It’s a mechanism for communication and co-ordination between local groups and working groups involved in building resistance to the G8, and capitalism in general. It hopes to exist long after the world leaders have returned home in the early summer of 2007.

Dissent! is open to anybody willing to work within the Hallmarks of Peoples’ Global Action (PGA).

PGA was founded in February 1998 by hundreds of people from social movements as diverse as the Brazilian landless peasants movement (MST), Reclaim the Streets in the UK, the Zapatistas in Mexico, radical ecologists from the Ukraine, Maori from New Zealand and squatters from across Europe, all of whom had gathered in Geneva for the founding conference. The PGA Network was created as a tool for co-ordination and communication between groups, movements and individuals wanting to organise global anti-capitalist resistance, particularly to international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and to draw attention to the possibility of alternative forms of social organisation. The Hallmarks are as follows:

• 1. A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation.
• 2. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings.
• 3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker.
• 4. A call to direct action and civil disobedience, support for social movements’ struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maximise respect for life and oppressed peoples’ rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism.
• 5. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy.

If you would like to get involved in the Dissent! Network contact your nearest local group, one of the working groups or come along to the next gathering. If there isn’t a Dissent! Network group near you, set one up!