Editor’s Note: Last weekend in Toronto, under the influence of that lunar eclipse in Capricorn, the leaders of the G20 group of nations met in Toronto. As usual there were huge protests, which have been a tradition at global economic summits since the World Trade Organization’s famous 1999 meeting in Seattle. Police arrested and brutalized many people — and a majority of Canadians said in a survey they feel the treatment was warranted.
By Rami Schandall | In Toronto
“Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.” — Tommy Douglas, 1942
Lack of corporate accountability is a bedrock issue for the anti-globalization movement, as I am beginning to understand in a whole new way.
There is nothing new about political and business elites making (or not making) deals behind fortified doors. It is the old way, and it has got to go.
I had the gift and the curse of the G20 Summit in my city this weekend. The gift, personally, is a charged sense of purpose, solidarity, motivation, and connection. I also found myself in the unplanned role of citizen journalist, witnessing, processing and sharing information in the immediate medium of twitter, which became an invaluable navigation tool for a rapidly changing, chaotic and violent weekend.
I am not a journalist, and I am not particularly radical. I am deeply aware of ambiguity and complexity. I am a student of human behaviour by nature and by training (anthropology, psychology, astrology, yoga, art). I loathe politics in its abused institutional form, but I am very interested in the body politic.
The G20 brought foreign leaders to my city, along with a the curse of a $1B+ price tag for ‘security’, a barricade around the city core, a 10K-strong phalanx of uniformed thugs, also for ‘security’, and an afternoon of ‘riot’ followed by a day of unprecedented harassment and arrest of innocent Canadians. Uncountable dollars were lost in missed opportunities for businesses that were shut down, tourists driven away, lives disrupted. But the serious story, the frightening story, is the sharp erosion of hard-won civil rights, overnight, with political, media and civil complicity.
Because the buildup in security before the G20 was ‘newsworthy’ for weeks beforehand, I had quite a good chance to chew over how to respond to the invasion. I opened up a space for some vision of creative, loving, and peaceful protest to emerge. An image from Eric’s writing, the symbol of “a woman, risen from the sea” (Jupiter/Uranus conjunct in the first degree of Aries) slinked in: I would become a woman risen from the sea…