The Independent:

Anarchists from around the world are planning to cause chaos at next month’s G8 summit in Gleneagles as a row broke out last night between Bob Geldof and DJ Andy Kershaw over the absence of black musicians at events staged to benefit Africans.

With police fears mounting over Geldof’s call for one million people to protest at the summit, Kershaw last night condemned the almost exclusively white line-up for the pop concerts to coincide with the summit. “If we are going to change the West’s perception of Africa, events like this are the perfect opportunity to do something for Africa’s self-esteem,” he said. “But the choice of artists for the Live8 concerts will simply reinforce the global perception of Africa’s inferiority.”….

The Independent on Sunday can reveal that anarchist groups that have rioted at previous G8 gatherings are planning similar disruptions in Scotland and plan to hijack Geldof’s “long march to freedom” on 6 July and the Make Poverty History rally on 2 July. Anarchist groups will encourage protesters to “Make Capitalism History” instead.

We feel bad only for the police who have to deal with the lunatics; everything else about this is hilarious. The G8 Summit is a meaningless teddy-bears’-picnic of an affair, with government nabobs vying for the best suites, chefs (if they don’t bring their own), and photo-ops. Nothing is accomplished that couldn’t be done better by phone, fax, email, or video conference. How about this, governments: do nothing at all. The country with by far the best economic performance in the world — China, with 9% annual GDP growth for twenty years — isn’t even a member of the G8. So much for the efficacy of Canada, France and Germany coordinating government policies.

Places like India and China are doing the heavy lifting of trying to bring a couple of billion people out of dollar-a-day poverty by letting capitalism flourish. Meanwhile, Geldof and the anarchists conduct a meaningless protest at a meaningless meeting. For the anarchists it’s their summer pre-Renaissance Fair, with millionaire Geldof apparently just as good a target as the summiteers. Poor Geldof: all he’s accomplished is making himself a candidate for diversity training, an ironic and suitable punishment for a good liberal.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 6th, 2005 at 5:57 am and is filed under business, China, EU, General, Left of Left. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.