Press Statement: Talking over, time for Action!

KWPS Press Statement
talking over, time for action!@
18 June 2010

From 3 May to 16 June 2010, the Kitchener-Waterloo People’s Summit (KWPS) hosted twenty-six events that educated, engaged, entertained and worked to mobilize the citizens of K-W in the lead up to the G8/20 summits and convergences in Huntsville and Toronto.

The KW Peoples Summit existed out of the Kitchener-Waterloo Community Centre for Social Justice (KWCCSJ) as well as at the University of Waterloo (UW). The KWPS featured panel discussions, workshops, authors, music, movies, and poetry themed around the upcoming G8 and G20 summits and convergences which are taking place in Huntsville and Toronto from the 18th to the 27th of June. Working with veteran community organizers, faith, youth, and cultural leaders, academics and students, the KWPS aimed to present a well rounded understanding of the impacts caused through the policies formed, and the ideologies advanced, at the undemocratic G8 and G20 leader’s summits.

The goal of the KWPS was to bridge the community organizing and mobilization traditions. We offered the most comprehensive and critical analysis of the G8/20 that was available in the public sphere in order to build a community of resistance in K-W both during and after the G8/20 summit and convergence. The KWPS localized the international consequences of the G8/20, neo-liberalism, ongoing colonialism, militarism, the nation security state, and corporate capitalism in an attempt to identify sites of oppression in our community.

KWPS participant Dr. Peter Eglin, professor of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University, invoked the words of the late Howard Zinn, noting that “The KWCCSJ’s Alternative University is already a ‘Marvellous Victory.’” The KWPS was a site of discussion about alternatives to the framework in our current socio-economic system, of alternatives to dogmatic and unresponsive “non-violent” resistance, and of alternative avenues of education and knowledge sharing. Presentations and some discussion at the KWPS were recorded and have been released for free on AW@L radio on the Toronto Media Coop, the rabble podcast network and 100.3 SoundFM in Waterloo.

To further achieve our mandate of mobilizing for the G8/20 we will be offering free buses from Waterloo, Kitchener, and Guelph to Toronto, and back on June 21, 24, 25, and 26. This effort ensures that access is available to all who wish to express their displeasure with the injustices represented at the G8/20 leader’s summits as a form of direct and participatory democracy. The KWPS attracted widespread interest with enthusiastic turn-outs.

The new networks that have been formed locally have laid the foundation for further coordination and action in K-W after the convergence and the economic summits. In July, the KWPS will be holding public debriefs and discussions about the convergence and how we want to continue building the communities we want to create.

We received wonderful support from a broad range of community groups and individuals. Thank you to the KWCCSJ, AW@L, WPIRG, LSPIRG, the Peak Magazine in Guelph and to everyone else who participated and attended the events.

See you in the streets!
Dan Kellar and Luke Stewart