People’s Global Action (PGA) European Conference.

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday July 03, 2002 22:51 by viva - pga/eurodusnie workinggroup infopgaconferentie at eurodusnie dot nl postbox 2228, 2301 CE Leiden The Netherlands 00 31 71 5173019

August 31 until September 4 2002

People’s Global action will come together in Leiden (The Netherlands) this summer, one and a half years after the first PGA European conference took place in Milan. From August 31 until September 4 2002, hundreds of anti-capitalist activists will gather in Leiden to exchange ideas and experiences, and to work on the better co-ordination of social movements on the left of the political spectrum.

People’s Global Action (PGA)

People’s Global Action is a world-wide network that strives for a durable, borderless, social, peaceful and direct-democratic alternative to capitalism and other forms of repression. In February 1998, around 300 representatives from different social movements gathered in Geneva to co-ordinate against capitalist globalisation. It was to be an alliance of movements from all over the world, and it was named ‘People’s Global Action against Free Trade and the World Trade Organisation’ (PGA for short). ‘Free Trade’ and the World Trade organisation were sacred then, a situation which has since drastically changed.
PGA doesn’t just strive to co-ordinate the resistance against capitalist globalisation, but also propagates the development of local direct-democratic alternatives. The Catalonian ‘Movimiento de Resistenca Global (MRG) and the Dutch Eurodusnie collective are the present European co-ordinators of the PGA network.

The European Conference

The main goal of the European conference is the exchange of ideas, experiences and the co-ordination of the different European movements and collectives. During the conference, the further development of the European Network will be discussed. The conference programme will be decided on by the participants who will be invited to contribute in different ways to the preparation of the contents and shape of the conference. The conference is being co-ordinated mainly by the PGA/Eurodusnie work-group, which gets a lot of help from PGA sympathisers in Europe. A special website has been set up http://www.pgaconference.org. On the website you can find written contributions and also useful information about the practicalities of the conference.

During the conference, different themes will be discussed such as: migration and racism, autonomy and self-organisation, economy, ecology and conservation, militarisation and repression, PGA structure, strategies and tactics. During the last conference, the decision was taken not to discuss ‘gender’ as a separate issue, but that it should be incorporated into all the themes. The conference participants are requested to keep this in mind when discussing these issues.

People who would like to organise something within the conference structure, or who would like to help devise and prepare the above-mentioned thematic areas are requested to contact the PGA/Eurodusnie work-group.

Conference participants must hand in their applications to the work-group before August 1 at the latest, but preferably earlier. Details of the application can be found on the conference website or can be sent by post.

PGA work-group/Eurodusnie
Postbus 2228
2301 CE Leiden
Telefoon/Fax: +31 (0)71 5173019,
PGA conference website: http://www.pgaconference.org
For more information on the world-wide PGA network: http://www.agp.org