Raised Voices

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As a woman I have no country. And not so many people are interested in my political or economical opinion. Never mind that. I think the G8 influence on Polish situation and Polish policy is very trouble-making. Our troops are still in Iraq, nobody knows why. Our troops did not invade Chechnya until now, but nobody knows how far the solidarity of politicians will go. We have a very bad economical situation. 25% unemployment. Single parents are deprived of any means for living. About 60% of people are living under poverty conditions. So as far as my message for the G8 is that I would like this institution to shut down, immediately, as soon as possible. Therefore all my solidarity is with the protest and I hope to see you and meet you all there.

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One of the things that's gonna happen at the G8 conference is that the G8 countries are going to talk about agriculture. These countries are the ones that have been pushing on the world a vastly unequal system of agricultural trade. A system that demands that farmers in the Global South turn their fields from growing food for themselves and their communities into food for export. The argument being that this is the most efficient use of their land.

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Neoliberalism is giving us as South Africans problems because it promotes privatisation. Which basically leads to labour flexibilisation, which reduces employment and the working hours, which automatically results in poverty. And also the reduction of the State funds, especially in the social development field, is a problem. Because then we just can not afford to put more money in health and education which are the basics for mostly the previously disadvantaged communities.

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So I think the biggest problem in terms of the neoliberal agenda in South Africa today is the trend towards casualisation and the impacts that's had on unions and their membership. Because unions are finding it increasingly difficult to organise casual workers. And increasingly what we're finding is that new strategies have to be created for organising these workers and ensuring that their demands are met and that they are protected.

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There's a huge impact of G8 capital basically coming into a country like India in the natural resource sector in the name of bilateral funding, DFID, JBIC and all those. And what they are basically doing is that they are first going into policy reforms. Then they're promoting privatisation of resources like water. And then they are penetrating into taking control over the varied and natural resource base on which millions of Indian communities are actually surviving for their livelihoods. And in that process, what they're doing, they're restricting access to those varied and natural resources that the communities are living for centuries.