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Reclaim the World Acitivities Reclaim the World 2004
Reclaim the World 2003
Anti McDonald's Day Anti McDonald's Day 2004
Why Campaign against McDonald's?
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Anti Capitalist and Globalistaion ActivitiesMoviment Graffitti is very critical of the present economic and political world order where the free market economy and liberal right-wing political ideologies prevail. It views the present capitalist system as the main inhibitor for progressive social change. Amongst such negative effects of corporate capitalism one finds those of environmental depletion, violations of human rights, including those civil and political and economic and cultural, and the ever widening economic gap between first and third world countries. In fact, the 1990's has seen a huge increase in poverty all around the globe, where the gap between the rich and poor countries has got increasingly wider. As a result, Moviment Graffitti has organized several activities to help raise awareness about the negative effects of economic globalization and the role played by multinational profit companies and other institutional bodies in creating such negative effects at the expense of people and the world environment. One such regular annual activity which has taken place over the past 7 years is the anti-Mc Donald's action Day. During this activity which takes place on the 16th October and which happens to be an international day of action, the Mc Donalds corporation is targeted in symbolic representation of all multi-national corporations. Our activities on the day have ranged from leaflet distribution and protest as well as street theatre in front of local Mc Donalds restaurants. In the year 2003 we have gone a step forward and instead of our normal Anti-McDonalds Day activity we organized the "Reclaim the world' activity which has targeted the ill effects caused by several other multi-nationals, in particular Nike, Coca-Cola and Microsoft. The 'Reclaim the World' activity which was furthermore accompanied by a musical concert in the evening was also organized with the aim of creating awareness on our continuous conditioning from advertisement. Such conditioning makes it often difficult to know just who is really controlling our lives, and why. Shops, consumer goods and advertising all around us are made to seem normal things we just can't do without. Advertising is seen as playing a vital role in compelling people to consume at all costs. The role of advertising is in fact aimed at people to enhance their needs and buy things which are not actually needed as well as alienate oneself from the ethical considerations of the consumed product. It is thus very difficult to imagine that when you are buying certain objects you are actually contributing to the death of people by hunger at the other side of the world or that your hard-earned money is going directly to exploit and harm the environment. The reality however is that the whole economic system of money, wages and prices is run by a conglomeration of national and transnational financial institutions and companies exploiting people, animals and the environment as merely resources to be used to make profits. The world run by free market and liberal economy is more and more influenced by multinational companies where the role of financial institutions like the World Bank, and the IMF resides in the protection of the interest of such companies at the expense of the citizens and world environment. The rise of transnational corporations and trading institutions means that all these problems are now global in scope. However, awareness and opposition against this state of affairs is continually on the arise, in our daily lives, within our communities and worldwide. People are demanding for a more just and responsible distribution of resources. More and more people are concerned about environment protection and the violations of human rights. Labour and citizen's movements are organizing themselves to stand up for their rights and the protection of their needs. In short, people are seeking more control over their own lives. Through participation in international anti-globalization demonstrations Moviment Graffitti has joined in this worldwide progressive movement and in the demand for a change of the present social order. In 2000, members of Moviment Graffitti have participated in the summit against IMF and World Bank and demonstrations taking place in Prague and in 2001, 5 other members of Moviment Graffitti have taken participation in the anti-G8 demonstrations taken place in Genoa, Italy. As one may recall, during this demonstration, great violations of human rights and police brutality have taken place which have resulted in the death of a demonstrator, Carlo Giuliani as well as the beatings and torture of many other protestors. These violations have all been witnessed by members of the movement. Subsequently, a peaceful protest took place in front of the Maltese Italian Embassy to show our disapproval of such violations of human rights during the G8 anti-global demonstrations as well as to show sympathy to the death of Carlo Giuliani. There's no reason why any kind of oppression, exploitation or injustice should be accepted. We need to develop our own solutions, our own alternatives based on people's real needs, on sharing and co-operation, on community-based decision-making and respect for the natural world. Together we have a world to win! However, we have to reclaim it first. |
