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GCAP @ G20 meeting in Pittsburgh |
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Monday, 28 September 2009 |
Rosa Elarde of GCAP's Feminist Task Force reports on some of the activities at Pittsburgh.
 
The streets of downtown Pittsburgh, very near where the leaders of the
G20 begin the official meeting tomorrow, are eerily quiet with what
appears to be more uniformed police in full gear than
pedestrians. A few un-permitted protests have taken place with some
arrests of protesters and sprayed tear gas to disperse those
crowds. Downtown is a police state, waiting, it seems, and waiting
for not much to happen---at least for today. Let's see what tomorrow brings.
The locals seem mixed about what all the hype is about. Many think the
big pay-off of having the world leaders in Pittsburgh won't
"trickle-down" to the regular John or Jane Doe. Indeed, almost
all of the downtown area shops have decided to close for two-three days.
Business offices are closed (working from home?), public transportation is shut
down in this area, even the schools are closed!
Some churches remained opened---and this includes the Monumental Baptist
Church in The Hill District, a historically African-American neighborhood,
which opened its doors for civil society activities. We (the GCAP team)
spent much of yesterday and today at the church, the base camp for the Bail Out
the People (BOTP) movement, FTF and GCAP partners for a couple of planned events.
Contacts were made with the BOTP chapter in New York City and we partnered with
them on two events. "From Pittsburgh to Jo'burg: Local to Global
Activism on the G20" took place today and tomorrow morning we'll have a
pre-march rally at Freedom Corner prior to the G20 protest march.
Today's event, "From Pittsburgh to
Jo'burg: Local to Global Activism on the G20" took place at the site
of the Tent City, an open space adjacent to Monumental Baptist, set up for the
Unemployed and Jobless as part of their A Global
Week of Solidarity with the Unemployed. It featured Amitabh
Behar (Wada Na Todo-India), Rajiv Joshi (CIVICUS/GCAP), Fionuala Cregan (GCAP)
and myself, providing a global perspective on jobs and employment, food
security, climate change, and women's inclusion in the G20 dialogue, and Larry
Holmes and other participants of BOTP providing a local context. The
participants ranged from the young "anarchists" who had pitched their
tents in Tent City, to the older and experienced civil rights activists, to
people with a very diverse economic background, ethnicity and education.
The discussion took us from the illegitimacy of the G20 to the role of the
struggle for justice to investing in women to mobilizing the masses for the
G192 and against poverty and inequality. On women's issues, I've prepared
"G20 Info sheets" on women and climate change, women and the food
crisis, women and decision-making and the "Mother of all crisis - maternal
mortality" based on last April's daily alerts for the "20 Days
to the G20" campaign.
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