We are mobilising against a divided G7 summit where nothing will result. Despite its sweet talk about reducing inequalities, the G7 remains a symbol of neoliberal and authoritarian politics. These politics have deepened social injustice, fortified the divisions and dominations due to racism and patriarchy, set in place the industrialization of agriculture, fed the arms industry, and accelerated environmental crises, climate change and loss of biodiversity. With one hand, they colonise continents and pillage their resources. With the other, they build walls and prohibit the free movement of the poorest.

In the 1990’s international institutions and the G7 promised that neoliberal globalization would bring about the victory of “market democracy”, national development and the reduction of inequalities. All these promises have been broken by major system crises, the rise of authoritarianism in every part of the world and the explosion of inequality and poverty, impacting women especially. All that is left is one cruel reality: this system aims to transform all the realities of the world, both humans and nature, into commodities at the mercy of financial markets greedy for profit, offering multinationals a global market for their standardized products, and selling the dreams and aspirations of unlimited consumption for all. All of this is made possible to the detriment of workers, who are themselves reduced to disposable and precarious commodities.

With this anti-G7 gathering we would like to show that it’s possible to resist the capitalism system which is cutting the branch on which human life depends. Contrary to neoliberal globalization, it is possible to develop alternatives emerging from territories and human collectives, which privilege collaboration against competition, common good and human rights against private benefits, the guarantee of proper housing instead of speculation, and equality and diversity rather than individual success and cultural uniformity. Here in the Basque Country, as in many other places, we are building different relationships and systems based on cooperation, local economies, respectful human/nature relations, and real democracy.

It is not about idealizing contradicting realities, but rather understanding that reconnecting with our territories and developing different forms of cooperation will allow us to better respond to the challenges we face. The oppression of women, the tragedy of migrants who are driven away, climate change, industrialization of agriculture and food, extinction of biodiversity, destruction of labor laws, backlash against civil liberties and the dismantling of welfare states... all of these require a strengthening of struggles and solidarities at local, national, state, continental and global levels.

Our alternatives, that put into practice the values of democracy andsolidarity between women and men, are incompatible with the development of neoliberal capitalism which depends on dominant states and defends the interests of financial markets and multinationals through the multiplication of destructive free trade agreements, the privatization of public services and the commons. Today, all forms of opposition to this system are facing police force, increasingly severe restrictions on civil liberties and normalization of military intervention.

Through our alternatives, we are building territories that stand together, that are more resilient to major crises and future system collapse, that are better equipped to defend themselves against the commodification of our societies and our lives, against delocalization and competition between people and individuals, and against the destruction of nature and popular cultures.

Our alternatives also enable citizens, and especially the most precarious, to reclaim the exercise of democracy, to renew their political commitment and their realization of their own power to change the course of events, as we have seen with the Yellow Vests movement, the feminist mobilizations and the marches against climate change. This implies recognizing the right to experimentation and self-determination in political, economic, food, energy and cultural domains. We are in solidarity with the current mobilizations of citizens in Algeria, Hong Kong, in Catalonia, in Palestine, in Sudan and elsewhere.

The acceleration and aggravation of the social, ecological and democratic damage caused on a planetary scale by the neoliberal offensive, as we see today in the Amazon, calls for urgent construction of alliances and strategies that will reverse as quickly possible the course of events. This anti-G7 is an important step for the construction of those necessary alliances between social, environmental, feminist, labour and political movements: A step for building alliances on specific areas, but also for wider alliances and global alliances that can be decisive for future actions.

International Agenda

• 20-27 September 2019, international climate strike
https://globalclimatestrike.net/

• 2-19 October 2019, Genève, negotiations for binding UN treaty on multinationals and human rights
https://www.stopcorporateimpunity.org/traite-contraignant-de-lonu/?lang=fr

Europe

• Until January 2020, a mobilization by more than 200 organizations from 16 European Union countries calling for “rights for peoples, rules for multinationals” and a petition addressed to the European institutions, stop-impunite.fr [French version] / stopisds.org [other langages]

France

• 2, 11 and 13 September, massive rallies in Lyon, Paris and Orleans during the court hearings against the “Macron portrait Décrocheurs” for climate inaction.

• 20 September : strike for climate, beginning for a week of mobilizations and actions for the climate.

• Starting from September, mobilization against counter-reform for the retired.

• 21 September: grand march and civil disobedience actions for the climate

• 21-22 September: Anti-nuclear and Feminist Rally
https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php? article6560

• 28-29 September, Nancy, Vent de Bure (against nuclear waste)

• September : mobilization against privatization of the Aeroports de Paris.

Basque Country

• 8,9 and 10 November : Climate is Life, special edition of the Sustainable Agricultural Farming Fair, Lurrama - Biarritz

• Around 25 November: International Day Against Violence to Women.

23 Aug. 2019