Sept 22-25: Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Strategy Update
Adapted from the PG20RP web site
The Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project (PG20RP) exists as a space to aid coordination and actualize resistance to the G-20 summit happening this September 24-25 in Pittsburgh. We share a desire to deepen ongoing social resistance locally, to demonstrate and build new and existing alternatives to the worldview represented by the G-20 and the direct policies it promotes, and to disrupt the summit and undermine its attempts to gain legitimacy.
The news that the summit would be held in Pittsburgh was announced in late May. Shortly after, we - as local anarchists and anti-authoritarians - came together to form the PG20RP. Throughout the summer, we have been working to:
- Provide a mobilization infrastructure and an information clearinghouse.
- Create and distribute publicity and educational materials.
- Create space for folks interested in resisting the G-20 through articulation of a broad action framework.
- Ensure that some of this space is utilized through actions organized and carried out by the PG20RP and supportive individuals and groups.
- Build hype and momentum through a series of lead-up actions directed at local supporters of the G-20 and its agenda (such as the Allegheny Conference), and state-organized propaganda events designed to present the illusion of community support that lay the groundwork for repression of dissent.
Towards these collective goals, we've created a strategy that recognizes the unique opportunity created by an influx of outside supporters during the four-day period around the summit and the challenges presented by the incredible amount of state resources that will be directed against us. We are steadily addressing how to effectively focus on and integrate these four days into the bigger picture of ongoing local social resistance.
On Tuesday, September 22, we will host an Anti-G-20 Community Gathering in the East End of Pittsburgh and are encouraging other groups to hold similar gatherings in neighborhoods throughout the city. These events will work to bring together community members already active against the G-20 with their neighbors, and locals with out-of-towners who care enough to come to Pittsburgh to resist the G-20. This is a chance to create webs of solidarity between the people of Pittsburgh and the world. This is not a protest; this is a chance to directly tell our story of the world for which we're fighting. The gathering will involve the sharing of food, music and stories. Rustbelt Radio, a project of Pittsburgh Indymedia, will be on hand collecting stories for its G-Infinity Media Project - a non-corporate, participatory media forum for the voices of the people who will not be in the room during the summit, who are affected by the G-20 economic policies but whose stories go largely untold.
On Wednesday evening, September 23, we will host a spokescouncil.
On Thursday, September 24, the G-20 summit officially begins and we will hold a mass march to their walled off meeting site downtown. This march will not be state-sanctioned; it is unpermitted and intended to allow people the space and freedom to oppose the G-20 how they see fit. The rest is up to you! There will be different contingents focusing on workers, students and climate issues, alongside other feeder marches, bands, and hundreds engaged in a collective effort to disrupt the summit. The summit is much more than a meeting; it is the creation of a spectacle, legitimizing the ability of the few to wield power in the minds of the population and that is far more important to contest than an event that could conceivably occur as a giant conference call. Read the rest of this call to action on our web site.
By Friday, September 25, the G-20 summit circus will be in its final hours in Pittsburgh. On this day we will turn towards the institutions where the G-20's worldview manifests: the places that symbolize the kind of world the G-20 works to protect and sustain, institutions that pepper the landscape of our city, just like most other cities. We've created a menu of places in Pittsburgh at which we're asking affinity groups and organizations to adopt as sites for protests and other actions throughout the morning. The tactics and the tone should be determined by you. We see this as the creation of space in which others can bring their visions to fruition while drawing on the strengths of coordination, decentralization, diversity of tactics and differing risk levels. Check out the map and the rest of this call to action on our web site.
In general, we are calling on individuals and groups to participate in, and self-initiate, efforts consistent with the following goals:
- Defend our communities and contest state control of space in our neighborhoods.
- Occupy to reclaim space from the clutches of neo-liberalism, before, during and after the summit.
- Confront and disrupt the G-20 and its political, corporate, and institutional enablers throughout the city.
- Connect the G-20 to local and global struggles.
Love, from the Steel City,
The Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project