Many fast, pray as G-8 summit meets
Blood in the streets during the G-8 summit seems assured, leaving
advocates of non-violent protest -- by all accounts the majority of those who
will descend on Genoa -- with the challenge of figuring out how to bear witness
without becoming part of the urban warfare.
The ingredients for trouble are clearly present. The so-called
all whites, Italian radicals who dress in white padding and helmets
for confrontations with riot police, have vowed to carry their protests inside
an off-limits zone around the meeting site. It is the same group that led
rioting near the Vatican on Dec. 16 triggered by the visit of Austrian
far-right politician Jörg Haider.
The Italian government, meanwhile, has deployed 1,000 soldiers to
join the 18,000-20,000 regular police already assigned to beat back the
attempt.
In order to keep well distant from the battle lines, the largest
protest by Catholic religious communities will take place at Genoas
Church of St. Anthony at Boccadasse, well outside the downtown red
zone.
There, from 9 a.m. July 20, to 6 p.m. July 21, some 2,000
religious and lay Catholics will fast and pray to express opposition to the
injustices generated by globalization.
Prayer services will be offered in two-hour blocks, organized by
groups such as the Taizé community, the London-based Catholic social
service agency CAFOD, and the peace and justice promoters of mens and
womens religious orders. CAFOD alone is planning to bring a delegation of
some 500 people.
School Sister of Notre Dame Cathy Arata, one of the organizers,
told NCR that the purpose of the fast is three-fold. We want to
confront the injustices in our own lives, to express solidarity with people who
are hungry, and to engage in non-violent protest against the unjust economic
policies of the G-8, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund,
she said July 9 in Rome.
In addition, Arata said, a coalition formed by 75 religious
congregations to advocate debt cancellation is calling on people around the
world to join the prayer and fasting from their homes. People from as far away
as the Philippines have indicated they plan to do so, she said.
Participants in the July 20 and 21 prayer and fasting at Genoa are
planning to arrive by train and bus, Arata said. That may prove difficult,
since police plan to shut down the airport as well as virtually all of the
train routes and highways into and out of Genoa during the days of the G-8
meeting. If some participants cant make it, Arata said, they will
organize satellite events wherever they are stalled.
-- John L. Allen Jr.
National Catholic Reporter, July 27,
2001
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