Pavlos Roufos
@proufos
Dr.rer.pol | Political Economy | Ordo-Neoliberalism | Central Banks | Constitutional Law | European Integration | Author of: “A Happy Future is a Thing of the Past” | Berlin.
Notwithstanding differences in tactics, those who took the streets largely shared a common opposition to globalisation as a motor of accelerating capitalist accumulation & exploitation. Similarly, those inside the summits were united by a common vision of expanding that horror.
The G8 meeting in Genoa, July 2001, was to be the place where this new strategy would fully unfold. 23 year-old Carlo Giuliani would be shot during the clashes, while an unprecedented degree of police brutality would be unleashed against all who took to the streets.
Having suffered humiliation during the Prague 2000 IMF/World Bank summit protests, the shooting of two protesters during the 2001 EU summit in Gothenburg indicated a new repressive strategy against the anti-globalisation movement.
Mounting pressure with protests, demonstrations and riots against international summits, symbols of neoliberal globalisation, was met with accelerated police brutality and, eventually, murder.
Preparing for a long train journey across Europe and the most difficult thing is to decide which books to bring with me - while knowing that I’ll buy more in every place I visit. Right now and for reasons too long to explain, I’m tending towards these:
In Athens for a few days, emptying my father’s library. Quite a few French Marxist (Poulantzas, Gramsci etc) books to give away. If anyone sees this in time and wants any send me a sign.
A belated goodbye to a truly great one… open.spotify.com/track/18wh42...
Thoroughly debating if I should really start reading the history of the thirty years’ war (also known as the ‘European civil war’). This is only page 4 and I’m already lost.
Thomas Meany's fascinating review of Fritz Bartel's fascinating book "The Triumph of Broken Promises". newleftreview.org/issues/ii158...