The G-20 meeting is over, the military got to showcase its new toys, and the city of Pittsburgh can once again enjoy its civil liberties after having surrendered them to “the guest with an iron fist.” (for more on how local folks saw the G-20, check out these cartoons in the local paper)
To say that the things that happened in Pittsburgh were, as President Obama said in the lead up to the G-20, “protests about abstractions [such] as global capitalism” and that those protests were “not really going to make much of a difference” would be missing the real story about what took place in Pittsburgh and where “the movement” is going.
The G-20 Brought People Together – Connecting Pittsburgh to the World
Jobs with Justice worked with local and national groups to plan three events as part of activities inserting “People’s Voices” into the discussion during the G-20. Our coalition’s work focused on ensuring that there were spaces for movement convergence that allowed local, national, and international organizations to come together learn about one another’s analysis on the economic crisis and how working people are responding in different communities.
Unlike the G-20, our activities were free and open to the public. We held events across the city in 3 different neighborhoods. We held a panel with Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz and social movement in the Hill District, put on a piece with social movements in Latin America near the U. Pitt, and held local/global exchanges and a people’s tribunal on the Northside of the city. Of course there were other events that week which brought diverse groups of people together, including the March on the G-20 that the local Merton Center put a lot of work into.
We all knew that the G-20 would come and go. The question then became “how do we take advantage of this meeting in Pittsburgh as part of an ongoing movement-building process?” While it’s too early to judge just how deep the connections went and where they will go, the G-20 certainly contributed to the deepening of relationships and collaboration between organizations and alliances both locally, nationally, and even internationally.
The G-20 – What Happened?
Was the G-20 a success, or a failure? The answer is that it could be both, depending on who you ask.
Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the UK, said, ”the old system of international economic cooperation is over…The new system, as of today, has begun.” He was referring to some of the “historic” decisions the body made such as banning guaranteed bonuses or making the G-20 space a permanent fixture to discuss economic issues.
Is it really so “bold” for our governments to do their jobs and challenge corporate profiteers and financial institutions by banning guaranteed bonuses after the mess the bankers created? The U.S. and U.K. opposed caps on pay packages for bankers, and bankers will still get bonuses; just not “guaranteed” bonuses.
Is leaving 170 countries instead of 184 out of these discussions an “historic” achievement? Mark Weisbrot’s excellent piece in the Guardian addressed the expansion to G-20:
“the expansion from the Group of Eight (G8) to the G20 is mostly symbolic. Since the rich countries control the institutions with actual power – in addition to their own enormous international economic, military, and diplomatic influence – the G20 is still mainly the G7 with the other 13 countries sitting in.”
In a piece in Foreign Policy in Focus, Mark Engler adds that:
The G20 is only one component of the global economy’s management. As it turns out, the activities of other bodies compromise the G20’s declarations of reform. While agreements at the G20 are notoriously lacking in enforcement, financial institutions that can discipline and punish — such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization (WTO) — appear notably unreformed and unrepentant.
At the end of the day, whether the G-20 will do some actual good is still a question. It’s not that it can’t make positive change, it’s a question of whether it has the political will to make that change happen. Will governments challenge global corporations and financial institutions? My guess is they won’t, not unless we make them.
Post G-20 – To Detroit We Go
Leaving Pittsburgh it was clear that different “sectors within the movement” were feeling the impacts of the financial, economic, housing, environmental, water, food multi-dimensional crisis at hand. It seemed as though the elephant in the room, neoliberal capitalism, was harder to avoid as its impacts where clearly being felt in so many aspects of people’s daily lives – whether it was housing, debt, jobs, education, or health care.
One of the clear goals Jobs with Justice had as we began engaging with local Pittsburgh groups a few months ago was to ensure that coming out of the G-20 local organizations were staying connected to one another, and we began pushing the 2010 U.S. Social Forum as the place for movement convergence for those who believe “Another World is Possible, A Better U.S. is necessary”. Time and time again, whether it was at the panels, discussion circles, or the closing march, it seemed to me that our brothers and sisters in Pittsburgh were serious about mobilizing in large numbers to Detroit.
We will go to the USSF in Detroit not expecting to get “the answer,” but to lock arms with those that wish to create that world. Will you be there to meet us?
