TOWARDS THE ANTI-G8 AAA-VILLAGE

The Alternative Anti-Capitalist Anti-War Village (VAAAG) 

To coincide with the G8 summit in Evian, we intend to create an alternative, anti-capitalist, anti-war and anti-militarist village. In this village we want to mix meetings and political debates, conviviality and cultural experiences (theatre, music, videos, etc.) - "Struggle yes, but party too!". We want this village to be the expression of those without a voice, to break with the institutional movements in order to invent other possible ways for a free, self-managed world. The VAAAG will reflect a multiplicity of initiatives which will actively demonstrate all the capabilities of those who believe that "To resist is to create!". 

The summit of the eight powers who run the world (the G8) will take place on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd June. With the growing power of demonstrations against capitalist globalization and since the murder of Carlo Giuliani in Genoa in July 2001, the eight great predators have decided to organize their festivities in remote corners of the world, protected by battalions of cops and soldiers. 

This year, France is welcoming them to the town of Evian, on the shores of Lake Geneva, wedged behind the mountains of Haute Savoie. It is through the G8 and the various international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank that the ruling classes assume the right to run the world in the name of Holy Capital. From the North to the South, from the East to the West, it is the same story - the extension of the market economy to every domain of our lives. The consequences for us are always the same - poverty, repression and war. 

For several years now mobilizations have been intensifying against their lordships of this World. For us, fighting against the G8 does not mean begging for a more "human" planning of capitalism or its regulation/taxation by the States. Instead it is in order to promote another type of society where human relationships are not based on the logic of profit and domination. 

All the world over human and ecological damage continues to grow. War becomes the only resort in the face of the economic and social ills to which the system can no longer provide answers - be it war abroad, now re-named the war against terrorism, or war at home against the poor. North and South, this poverty is the consequence of the "precarisation" of living and working conditions, of the privatization of social services (health, education, water, transportation), of the logic of profit and of easy money, of the exodus (in the countries of the South, the "job" having been completed in the North), of the logic of mercantisation (GMOs among others) and control by the agro-food trusts of farming populations, and so on. In order to maintain civil "peace" (otherwise known by the euphemism "national cohesion"), States and empires develop military and security arsenals the likes of which have never before been seen. 

In modern terminology, they no longer say that they are jeopardizing freedoms and human rights but rather they are increasing security. They no longer say they allow the poor to use public transport but rather they are improving travelling conditions for clients! They no longer say "poor foreigners out", they humanely manage the flow of arrivals in relation to manpower requirements, etc. The maintenance of fear has the effect of provoking individual irresponsibility, of breaking solidarity and of forcing everyone to seek answers to the questions posed by capitalist globalization in a strong power. 

But resistance is multiplying and becoming organized. It is through struggle, direct action and re-forged solidarity that the exploited and the dominated will be able to invert the existing power relationships. It is by globalizing the struggles that multinationals and States will become unable to make scapegoats of the Others, the Foreigners, for all the problems which their economic and social policies create. Displacement, flags of convenience, exploitation of tropical forests, the exporting of polluting factories to countries of the South, human exploitation etc. do not happen by chance. They are symptoms of the search for profit, capitalism and liberalism's only raison d'être, something which can also be seen in the commercialization of living, education and culture. 

No peace without justice! Many economic and political managers dream that the class war is only a memory, that those who live under the ruling classes' laws must go on putting up with everything and learn to accept charity in order to keep alive. The only way to stand up to the bellicose powers, the fanaticism, national-populism or security-obsessed liberalism which is developing throughout the world is for the exploited to win back control of their own futures and their capacity to set out other ways of doing things which are not based on an indefinitely-growing destruction of nature or on hierarchical labour structures or multiple domination (between peoples, between men and women, over nature, over children, etc.) through the re-establishment of self-management and the appropriation of the means of production for the satisfaction of the majority and not for that of a minority. 

For many years now, resistance has consisted not only in a reaction against the established order (or disorder), it has also been a question of searching for alternatives to the various models, even some provided by the anti-globalization movement. There is a will to create other possible spaces against all forms of domination (patriarchal, economic, social, cultural, national, military, authoritarian, etc.) and it is for this reason that we are interested in the proposal of creating a village which would be: 

• An autonomous space for reflection and action which will permit political expression and above all the affirmation of our alternative proposals. Action will be expressed by acts of disobedience and/or resistance and concrete alternatives, by anti-authoritarian practices, by direct democracy and by self-management. Apart from the necessary visibility, we want this village to be a place of social and political experimentation in breaking with capitalism and with the traditional representational politics and institutions. 
• An autonomous space which can become a real convergence centre for resistance to capitalist globalization where the proponents of various strategies for struggle can be represented and can express themsleves, providing an opportunity for strengthening relations between different individuals, groups, networks and associations. 

VAAAG
21ter, rue Voltaire, 75001 Paris
France
Phone : +33 (0)6 11 29 02 15
E-mail : vaag_paris@no-log.org
Web site: www.vaaag.org