London will see a ‘Carnival Against Capitalism’ take place in 9 days time to coincide with the 39th G8 Summit taking place in Northern Ireland from 17th to 18th.
As part of the build-up one of the main organizing groups – Stop G8 – issued what they called an ‘action map’ with ‘100 addresses of power, tyranny, and exploitation’ across the West End of the city. Included amongst these ‘hiding places of power’ are banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, arms companies, security firms and what they call ‘dens of the rich’.
The main aim of the map is to facilitate protests in and around the West End, and the wider media have been more than happy to cover its existence. The Financial Times led with ‘London hedge funds ‘mapped’ by G8 protesters’, Reuters with ‘Anti-G8 protesters issue map of London capitalist targets’ and the Evening Standard with ‘G8 anti-capitalist protesters target ‘100 addresses of power’ in West End’. The FT even had an anonymous quote from a concerned chief operating officer of a hedge fund saying that ‘[the map] is being taken seriously’ by London Metropolitan Police, and even smaller hedge funds who hadn’t been mapped were still circulating it in case of trouble. So although the map has ostensibly made visible a host of ‘unethical’ global corporations, even those that haven’t been mapped are still fearing the worst.
The Stop G8 website will issue some further details on the carnival in due course, including a main demonstration route for the day, and a more detailed map of the area in anticipation of independent action.
Sam Hind 