<<italics for quotes from past messages>>

Hi People and Marco

<<It was around this time last year that the first critical articles about ‘summit hopping’ started appearing on the email lists and in the publications of the anti capitalist and anti authoritarian movement.>>

The origin of the cry was from people who failed to have balance between local activity of groups and the new people who join the movement. Regina wrote about some of the contribution of the "sumit hoping" and the general activity. I can only add that the experiance of international days - at sumits and local was empowering people and recruiting.

<<This criticism was primarily aimed at the fact that these protests were geared mainly at creating a spectacle, Every demonstration is a kind of spectacle and so are the street theaters...>>

The spectacles do educate people even if not as good as involvement in direct actions.

<< and at the fact that the international mobilisations were gaining a disproportionately large influence/ role within the movement.>>

It depends where you are. In Israel, the investment in local activity in the international days of action was much more than that of the hoping efforts. And the Hopping empowered the "hoppers" and these non hoppers work between sumits.

<<People also criticised the fact that the movement is predominantly ‘white’, which results from the fact that summit hopping is only possible for relatively rich Westerners. >>

A monthly minimal wage is enough for a sumit hoping even for the not so rich people around.

<<The point was also raised that summit hopping is a method of action which could easily lead to an escalation of violence.>>

The escalation of violence is proportional to the threat we pose to the system. In vicious Israel they only nag us... because we are not yet a danger.

<< The rationale behind this, was the idea that national states would find a way of dealing, to their advantage, with the protests, which in time would become repetitive and therefor predictable.>>

I doubt that even one of the countries experianced a sumit hoping became happier.

<< Finally, critics pointed out that summit hopping does nothing to create an alternative to capitalism >>

By chalenging the absolut power of the international esteblishment of capitalism, the first dent already achieved.

<< and that, most importantly, it could be used as a platform by authoritarian ‘anti capitalists’ and by various big shots for their own ends. >>

As if they did not have and still have the higher hand in the general left. The fact they reluctantly joined the international activity around the international days is the result of us "steeling" from them the hegemony in the left.

<<Partly due to the pressures of the approaching “summer of resistance”, the discussion around summit hopping faded away after just a few months. >>

It faded away as the criticism was exposed very fast to be not sound. It started a bit earlier by the van der illegal who call to withdraw from the international struggle against WTO because few of the right joined it too. In most countries the contradicting of summit hoping with local activity was found very fast to be absurd.

<< However, the events in Genoa have made it clear that it is now time to resume this discussion.>>

How to use and integrate for the best the international days and sumit hoping with the local and daily work is a never ending discussion.

<< It has become clear over the last few months that summit hopping is literally a DEAD end strategy. >>

They say that even a broken clock show the correct time once a day... So, may be the above claim will be true one day.

<< The way this particular discussion went, was indicative of the superficial way in which people have to date been dealing with the international debate on summit hopping. A proposal made by the French Sans Titre network, to officially declare “the end of the summit hopping era” by way of press release after Genoa, didn’t even make the agenda at the Peoples Global Action network meeting. >>

And for good reason. It is absurd for any one to asume the authority to do that.

<<The sad thing is that what many seemed to have overlooked in the whole summit hopping debate, is the extent to which the movement is more and more becoming a highly predictable movement which is build around summit meetings- and protests. >>

May be I am wrong, but I was under the impression that PGA people are involved in local activities. And I was sure that like every one involved in continuous struggles, much of our activity is predictable.

<<Predictability has in the past lead to social movements becoming institutionalised and manipulated. This is especially true in Italy. >>

It was not the predictability that prought them to that state, though it is predictable that authoritarian organizations will pass simmilar processes.

<<As Cedric from the French Longo Mai movement has rightly pointed out a few months earlier, the element of surprise that amazed the world on the first Global Day of Action (18 June 1998) and in Seattle (30 November 1999), has disappeared completely. >>

When the surprise changed to panic, we had first the cancelation of Barcelona and then the vishious attaks in Genoa that already backfired on them all over the world.