RECLAIM OUR LIVES - NO WTO!
SAT 17TH DECEMBER, 8PM, ORACLE RIVERSIDE
Free food, Free Drink, Free Public Space - Freedom for a night....
...An event to coincide with the WTO summit in hong kong, 14th
- 18th December.
10 years of WTO - 10 years of plunder and destruction:
For ten years the World Trade Organisation has been destroying lives and
communities around the world. Effectively a 'world government', the
WTO's trade regulations push a destructive 'single global market'
agenda. Through enforced market liberalisation any 'barriers to trade' -
like environmental regulations and human rights laws - are outlawed.
How this affects us in Reading:
Around Reading we witness local green areas and public spaces destroyed by mass-developments, empty office blocks and expensive new houses. We see our healthcare, our children’s education and our public transport privatised, opened up to the hunger of the markets, and consequently destroyed for profits. We find ourselves living precarious lives - we become casual labour, a hireable and fireable commodity with an insecure - often temporary - income, squeezed out of affordable housing and with no hope of any pension. Meanwhile we get sicker and sicker as pollution, long working hours and sub-standard food take their toll.
Around the rest of the world the attacks of the WTO on local people and
their communities are even worse. War, poverty, climate chaos, border
controls, exploitation... The list goes on.
Yet, over the last decades, millions of people around the globe have
made links and resisted summits of the WTO (as well as G8, IMF, World
Bank etc). Millions more organise campaigns, resisting the local effects
of policies created far away. This year poor people, peasants and
farmers organisations based in Asia have issued a callout for resistance
to the WTO Summit to take place around the world (see www.agp.org).
Though we also recognise we have many differences, we feel this is our
strength and we hope to reflect this diversity in the event. Our hope is
that we can come together in the same place, at the same time, yet each
take whatever form of action we feel appropriate. As an example, some
local anti-capitalists will hold a free cafe, giving away delicious hot
food made from local, organic produce while a group acting in solidarity
with indigenous people in Mexico will give away hot fairtrade coffee,
imported at a fairprice directly from those who grow it. It would be
wonderful to see different demonstrations, acts of street theatre,
stalls and other things all happening at once! Or if you dont have time
to organise a demo or other action, why not just bring your banners and
leaflets and publicise your cause or group?! And of course, you are more
than welcome to just turn up and enjoy free hot food and drink, in a
reclaimed public space!
For more info info please see the website at _www.no-wto.co.nr_ (a work in progress!.
If you would like to get in contact with us, or have your planned action
added to the website, please email [email protected] or phone
07833758317 and leave a message.
See you on the streets!
