Photo: Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy/Facebook.
Leaders from around the world will descend on Brisbane this week for the G20 economic forum.
In response, people are gathering in Brisbane to hold alternative discussions about transforming society to a more just and sustainable one.
Protests will also be held against the impact the decisions made at the G20 will have on the lives of ordinary people.
Protest organiser Adrian Skerritt said: “The G20 forum is committed to shifting wealth from the majority of citizens to the incredibly rich. They will do globally what Queensland premier Campbell Newman and prime minister Tony Abbott are doing locally – sell public assets, outsource and cuts to social services.”
Green Left Weekly will be reporting on the protests and events that will take place during the week.
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PEOPLE’S SUMMIT – DAY 1
Organised by the Brisbane Community Action Network, “Visioning Another World: The G20 Peoples Summit” is a three-day festival of workshops, creative activities, education and action. It is a stark contrast to the undemocratic discussions taking place behind closed doors in the official summit.
Speakers at the people’s summit include the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation Sharan Burrow, Friends of the Earth campaigner Sam Castro, OXFAM campaigner Winnie Byanyima, National Congress of Australia’s First People representative Lez Malezer, AFTINET convener Pat Renald, Greens Senator Larissa Waters and Lex Wotton from Palm Island.
The people’s summit will be followed by a rally and march on November 15.
Video from Day 1 of the people’s summit:
Jennifer Natoli gave a workshop on the accelerating problem of governments and corporations buying large tracts of land in developing countries to cultivate agrofuels and monocrops. Farmers are being forced off their land and in response, resistance movements have arisen to demand control over their food and land.
Eulalia Reyes-Whitey and Margaret Gleeson looked at the model of trade being used in Latin America and Caribbean known as ALBA. ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of America, was initially proposed by Venezuela president Hugo Chavez in 2004, and backed by the Cuban government, to counter the neoliberal model of development favoured by the US.
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ABORIGINAL RALLY KICKS OFF G20 PROTESTS
Aboriginal people and their supporters began a week of protests, meetings and ceremonies on November 9 in response to the G20 “leaders’ summit”.
They aimed to highlight the issues still facing Aboriginal people under the slogan of “Decolonization before profit!” as well as presenting Aboriginal solutions to these problems.
Kooma man and Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy organiser Wayne Wharton said: “Today our kids are being removed at rates that dwarf the stolen generation, our people are imprisoned at five times that of blacks in apartheid South Africa, our people are still being murdered by police who get away unpunished, our young people have the world’s highest suicide rate and our sacred lands and places are being destroyed and poisoned by mining.
“All this while the Australian government and much of settler society refuse to face the fact that this continent has been stolen from First Nations. How can mature dialogue on the way forward begin when most Australians don’t even know what has happened and what is happening to Aboriginal people?”
A rally to stop the continuing stolen generation was held on November 10.
More than 100 people marched through Brisbane city and ended at Musgrave Park at South Brisbane. Protest organisers said they wanted international media at the G20 to report on issues facing Aboriginal people. One of the biggest issues is that Aboriginal children are being removed from their families at a higher rate than ever before.
Photo: Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy/Facebook.
Photo: Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy/Facebook.
Photo: Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy/Facebook.
Photo: Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy/Facebook.