The G8 comes to Scotland - and so does Bob. (Op-Ed) By werebear Tue Jun 14th, 2005 at 10:57:38 AM EST
	The G8 summit is to be held at the exclusive Gleneagles golf resort near St. Andrews this year - a chance for the great and good of the eight leading world industrialised nations to get together in luxurious surroundings to discuss the important issues of the day. The UK is hosting the event this year and one of the main themes is expected to center around relieving third world debt. (Or not, as the case may be). For those of you who follow the regular pro-celebrity rioting competition that tends to attend G8 and WTO summits in recent years (Genoa, Seattle,Davos) this years Scottish event promises to make life highly entertaining for anyone living in the vicinity.

Heavy defenses, including two fully encircling 10-foot high steel fences are being erected around the Gleneagles Hotel. Over 5000 police officers have been drafted in from all over Scotland and England. Rumour has it that army units (including the Hereford hiking club) are being discreetly positioned nearby ‘just-in-case’ things get out of hand. It would after all be so terribly embarrasing for the G8 party to be overrun by smelly crusties and anarchists while Her Majesty’s Government is responsible for it. That just wouldn’t do. Residents of nearby Auchterarder are apprehensive of the potential prospect of their tiny sleepy village becoming a battlefield between anti-globalisation protestors and the forces of law and order/totalitarian repression (this is a multiple choice, take your pick) To be honest I don’t think Auchterarder needs to worry too much. If there is going to be trouble it is not going to be where the government have focused all their attention and security assets. It’s going to be in Edinburgh, which just happens to be the nearest city to the summit and also where I just happen to live. Specifically I happen to live quite close to the centre of the city just off what has been designated as the main demo assembly points and marching routes. Fun fact – the city of Edinburgh has been assigned about a third of the police strength that Gleneagles (ONE hotel) is getting. Edinburgh is what passes for the financial and corporate captial of Scotland. At present theres the definite feeling that we now have a big ‘RIOT ME’ sign stuck to our backs. Hypothetically, if I were planning to cause trouble and smash McDonalds windows I wouldn’t be doing it right under the noses of the riot police. I’d be planning to do it in the middle of a city where there are a smaller number of police who are already overstretched dealing with the peaceful protestors (which in turn you can hide amoungst.) The worry about this has been increased tenfold over the last week. This is since Sir Bob Geldof’s spur-of-the-moment decision to launch his crusade to encourage 1,000,000 (‘One meeelion’) protestors to cross the English channel Dunkirk style in small boats, march up the country and descend on Edinburgh for the Live8 http://www.live8live.com/ soft-rock concert and demo on June 6th. Don’t get me wrong – the guy has done great things in the past. I just don’t think that this was one of his better ideas. The problem is we can’t handle a million people here at the same time: no way, no how. ‘You cannae break the laws of physics’ – they won’t all fit. It’s like trying to pour a bottle of wine in to a pint glass (which I watched a very drunken friend try to do recently) – you’re going to end up looking like a prat with lots of red liquid splashed liberally around the surrounding area. We actually get almost a million people here for the famous Edinburgh festival. Unfortunately, that is a flawed comparison for the visitors are staggered over a period of several weeks and they are not all trying to get to the same place at the same time. Also they tend to be in a fairly good mood most of the time. Likewise at Hogmanay – we know you can fit about 200,000 to 300,000 bodies into the centre of town at the same time before people start to be crushed to death in our terribly picturesque but impractical streets.  We came very close to this situation about six years ago and thus the Hogmanay event has been ticketed ever since and numbers held well below the danger line. Bear in mind that these were also happy drunken people at a party – not pissed off people at a demonstration. At the moment many of the financial companies are advising staff to ‘dress casually’ in order to avoid harrasment (Suuure, that will help) – and according to the Scotsman Newspaper several organisations are making plans to pull out and continue operations offsite should events get out of hand. The Scottish parliament is shutting down for the day completely, out of concern for the safety of their staff. Shops around my neck of the woods have started displaying prominent anti G8/poverty posters – whether out of support or as a talisman of protection against bricks one is not completely certain. (Rumour has it McDonalds is instead going for steel shutters. Wise of them) It is true that watching local politicians running around in headless chicken mode trying to cope with the unexpected is slightly entertaining. I just have the horrible presentiment that it’s not going to seem quite so amusing on June 6th.  To be fair to them they did try their best: a large, well-organised ‘Make Poverty History’ protest march is scheduled in Edinburgh for July 2nd, four days beforehand – with the full support of the Scottish Parliament and the British government. Unfortunately the plan was made for only up to 300,000 protestors. Whoops. The latest fun rumour going around is that we face a critical shortage of Portaloo's– and apparently there are no spare units to be had anywhere in Europe. So theres also the prospect of hundreds of thousands of people camping out in our parks and completely inadaquate sanitation. (Yes, I’m aware much of the developing world lacks sanitation. I just don’t quite see how turning my neighbourhood into a cesspool is going to help them more than staying at home and donating money to Oxfam instead.) A friend of mine who is a Doctor at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary has severe doubts about their ability to cope if anything goes seriously wrong, despite extra staff and ambulances being drafted in from across the country. Actually, the precise way he put it was ‘We’re going to be completely fsucked’. At the moment I’m trying to work out what I think about all this. I’m not alone – opinion is fairly divided about the whole thing amoung the city’s residents. On the one hand while I don’t think the G8 is the ‘Evil Globalisation Empire’ I certainly think theres a lot of justification for protest against it. Globalisation might eventually become the ‘tide that lifts all boats’ but it appears to be doing so in an exceedingly uneven manner, and there are still a hell of a lot of people starving to death needlesly all over the world every single day. Coupled with the fact that the overwhelming majority of the protestors are peaceful people with a genuine greivance and aims that I wholeheartedly support.   On the other hand I’m fairly reluctant to host a potential riot outside my house, no matter how good the cause. Even more amusingly it is the local residents in this part of Scotland who will ultimately be paying for the dubious privilage not only of hosting the G8 summit but also for the policing and other preparations around it – any any clearup afterwards. I’ll confess theres an element of whiny NIMBY’ism at play here – but anyone who can tell me they would seriously look forward to this happening anywhere near themselves or their loved ones is going to require a pretty convincing argument. Given that Edinburgh also relies upon tourism for a great deal of its income, the result of a disastrous G8 protest with casualties telivised worldwide has the potential to damage to local economy even more over the years to some. However what is at issue here is not really the cost – or the disruption to our nice safe daily routines and nice safe picturesque city. What I fear is that that the message of the make-poverty history demonstration is going to be completely lost if events do go as badly wrong as I think they might, and people are going to get hurt. It’s very possible that I’m wrong. Maybe Bob won’t get his million protestors and hopefully the demo will be a model of mature and peaceful free democratic protest in action, maybe the G8 leaders will be embarrased into doing something useful for the developing world and maybe nobody will get hurt at all in the process. I certainly hope so – however I’m just ever so slightly dubious about the probability of things working out that way. In response to criticism Bob Geldof has urged the residents of Edinburgh to throw their doors open to the protestors and put them up. Tell you what Bob – if I can go and kip at your place while this shambles in the making takes place, you can crash in my flat. After all it’s so terribly handy for everything you’re planning.

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