Untangling Genoa

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Untangling Genoa
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<XFONT color=”black” face=”Verdana” size=”2″>hat really happened at last week’s G8 summit in Genoa, Italy? What does it all mean? And what’s next for the global justice movement? Still trying to figure it out ourselves, we scoured the reports that poured in from across the Web for the best first-hand accounts and analyses of what went down. Here’s just some of what we found. 
 
• <a title=”Free Market Martyrdom? ” href=”http://www.killingthebuddha.com/damn_nation/free_market_martyrdom.htm” target=”_blank”>Free Market Martyrdom? 
</a>by Jeff Sharlet, Killing the Buddha
 
Probably the most interesting analysis we’ve yet seen is Killing the Buddha’s surprising take on the death of anti-globalization protester Carlo Giuliani in Genoa. “Between the alleged logic of free market true believers and the passion of heretics in the street,” argues KtB co-editor Jeff Sharlet, “there exists not only a political disagreement but a fundamental theological divide.” Sharlet identifies the rhetoric of faith as it’s used by both sides in this struggle, and predicts that the language of martyrdom will now raise the stakes. The holy war protesters may now be plotting won’t be fought simply over economics, but the nature of belief in the new millennium. 
 
 
• Starhawk’s Reports 
by Starhawk, Independent Media Center, Vancouver 
Starhawk is a noted author and organizer who was in the Genoa 
IMC
 offices near the time of a brutal police raid in which dozens of peaceful activists and journalists were beaten and arrested. Check out her gripping two-part account from the streets of Genoa. 
• <a title=”first report” href=”http://vancouver.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2576″ target=”_blank”>first report</a>
 
• <a title=”second report” href=”http://vancouver.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2587″ target=”_blank”>second report</a>
 
 
• <a href=”http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=bello20010721″ target=”_blank”>The Battle of Genoa</a>
 
by Walden Bello, The Nation
 
A blow-by-blow of the events in Genoa. 
 
• <a href=”http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0723-02.htm” target=”_blank”>Stay Home for a While 
</a>by Katharine Ainger, Guardian of London
 
Carlo Giuliani, the young Italian shot dead at the G8 Summit, is not the first casuality of the movement challenging the globalization of neoliberal capitalism. 
 
• <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/20/opinion/20HARDT.html” target=”_blank”>What the Protesters in Genoa Want</a>
 
by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, New York Times
(requires registration)
 
In this 
New York Times
 op-ed piece, Hardt and Negri argue, “Genoa is proof once again that there is no national power in control of the present global order. Consequently, protests are directed at international organizations like the G8, WTO and IMF.” They make the crucial point that the protesters are not anti-globalization. Rather, they’re for an alternative form of global cooperation that values democracy, ecology, and social justice over power and profit. 
 
• <a href=”http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0129/ferguson.shtml” target=”_blank”>First Tear Gas, Now Bullets</a>
 
by Sarah Ferguson, Village Voice 
Activists weigh in on the cost of confrontation. 
 
• <a href=”http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/coveringviolence.shtml” target=”_blank”>News Dissector: Covering Violence</a>
 
by Danny Schechter, Media Channel
 
As “riots” erupted in the north of England, journalists in London, including the 
Media Channel’s
 Danny Schechter, took part in a seminar aimed at improving coverage of conflict. Though not specifically about Genoa, Schechter has some keen insights into how media coverage of such events actively contributes to the misery and violence, and what to do about it.</XFONT>