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Globalise Resistance Conference
London, 12 May 2001
Over 400 people attended the conference. The atmosphere was up from the start when Leyla from ATTAC% in France gave a report on the fantastic protest in Quebec against the Free Trade of Americas project. She said the protests were much bigger than expected and there was a fantastic spirit of unity throughout. Two sets of workshops followed including a free for all 'imagined futures' and a discussion about the fallout from Mayday with Craig from the Wombles, Matti from ATTAC in London and Chris from Globalise. The main discussion there was about police violence and how to counter it.
Later there were workshops on the Zapatistas, a packed one on Star Wars and others on GATS, Refugees and Global Warming.
The Plenary meeting was electric with Dave Hillman from Drop the Debt, Candy Udwin from London UNISON and Jonathan Neale from GR talking up Genoa. It worked, 40 people booked up on the train afterwards!
Discussion was followed by an election for the steering committee. Some people who hadn't been involved in GR up to now wanted to come on to the national steering committee, others argued against this on the grounds that people coming on to the committee need to have some track record in GR. The list put forward by the conference arrangements team with was voted for overwhelmingly with two additions. The list includes a good balance of people from different political backgrounds - from ATTAC%, the Green Party, various NGO's, some socialists and others from various direct action backgrounds.
The conference ended with some round up speeches from a refugee campaigner, Jane Deighton the civil rights lawyer about sueing the police over Mayday, Lindsey German from Socialist Review and Anna Braga from the Green Party. It seemed like everyone went away fired up for turning Genoa into our very own Seattle. Loads of people joined GR and went off to set up groups in colleges and towns across the country.