Building up to the 2005 G8 summit.

To download this documentary, click here to visit the site www.radio4all.net. If you right click on the download option for the programme in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, you will be given an option to open or save the file on your computer. Saving it onto your hard drive first is probably the better option. You will need a piece of software on your computer that can play MP3 audio files. Something basic like Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, or Musicmatch Jukebox will all play MP3 files.

"Dissenting Voices" was recorded in September at the Dissent! Network gathering in Edinburgh. The Dissent! Network was formed in late 2003 to facilitate and organise resistance against the upcoming G8 summit being held in the UK in 2005. It is organised around the People's Global Action (PGA) hallmarks.

The G8 summit takes place next summer in Gleneagles, Perthshire, a remote part of Scotland. "Dissenting Voices" looks at who the G8 are and what they stand for; various activists explain what the Dissent! Network is about, and how they are trying to do outreach to local communities around the UK in the run up to the G8; Scottish activists discuss the issues surrounding the choice of Gleneagles as the location for the summit, such as accessability, the work they will have to do, and the current situation with the local communities around Gleneagles and Perth; and also one activist who was over in the USA for the Fix Shit Up! action talks of how it was an incredibly positive action, which many at the gathering wanted to replicate in some similar fashion next year.

This documentary was made using Goldwave software which is a basic .WAV digital audio editor. You can download it for free from the Goldwave Site . This allows you to run 150 commands in a session and 3000 commands total before the shareware license runs out. .WAV files are useful as they are used for burning audio onto CDs which most CD players can read. The MP3 file was created with a free MP3 converter called dbPowerAmp which you can download by clicking here . This allows you to compress your files into the MP3 format, which takes up less space and is easier for people to download from the internet.

Indymedia Global Audio/Radio site
Radio 4 All - Radical Audio Archives
The Dissent! Network
Indymedia Scotland

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From the Newswire by Seedot: A report and pics from a weekend in London - covers the Camden Centre, Beyond the ESF and the Official ESF.

The ideals of the social forum process speak of the creation of a space for dialog and debate between the many social movements that present an opposition to capitalism. The Porto Allegre principles are designed to ensure as inclusive and broad a forum as possible, to encourage the cross-fertilization of all these strands that make up what is referred to as the 'movement'. While the London organising process has been heavily criticised for its departures from the charter of principles many people traveled to London because of the sheer scale of the event, the opportunity to see the differences between the groups and test the pulse of the European movements. The diversity was supposed to be the strength of the social forum, the size was supposed to overcome the problems in the organising with space for everyone in the various events.

Before I left Dublin I had read of the range of groups and spaces and thought that the weekend would be an opportunity to witness this marvelous coming together that many had spoken of in the social forum process. The weekend before I had sat in a circle at the Irish Social Forum and heard academics, trade unionists, social democrats and anarchists discussing their opposing and complimentary views of neo-liberalism and their strategies for dealing with it. The meeting had been positive, not least for the links that were made and the comparisons drawn with the mass movement that developed in Ireland a century before as Nationalism, Socialism and what came to be Irish Republicanism coalesced to defeat the imperialism of that time. London was supposed to be this on a much larger stage.

Flying home my feelings were more of frustration and opportunities missed than any real satisfaction or excitement. I attended events at the Indymedia Centre in Camden, at the Beyond the ESF in Tottenham and the 'Official' ESF at Alexander Palace. Each event was well organised and attended yet it felt like I had been to three conferences in the one weekend. The frustration was that the linkages and cross fertilizations seem to have been ruled out even before the event began as each of the movements retreated into its own space, establishing multiple fora which talked amongst themselves. While what happened was thoughtful, sincere and at times exciting it was what didn't happen that left the lasting impression.

Click here to download the MP3 interview from radio.indymedia.org with Rita Fagan.

Transport and airport workers, along with Aer Rianta and SIPTU officials, may have been dancing a jig of schadenfreudic glee at the clipping of Seamus Brennan's wings from his post as Minister for Transport; but his replacement Martin Cullen, is no stranger to privatising public resources. During Cullen's time as Minister for the Environment, he presided over the M50/Carrickmines saga, and also pursued the construction of the M3 through the Tara Skreen Valley with renewed vigour. His commitment to public transport is minimal. He also undermined the local democratic process in Dublin by imposing a PPP (Public Private Partnership) on St. Michael's Estate in Inchicore, usurping years of consultation and negotiation with the tenants of the estate.

St. Michael's Estate was built in 1969, at the same time that Ballymun rose up on the other side of the city. The community within the estate has a long history pre-dating the construction of the flats. Originally Richmond Barracks during English rule, it was given over to the new Free State Army in 1923. In the 1940's the Army moved out and the land was given to Dublin Corporation (now Dublin City Council). Around this time the area was known as Keogh Square, which was primarily composed of tenements, and had the name of being a slum on the city fringe. When the flats were being built, there was a huge demand of people who wanted to be housed there. There was heating, green spaces, and of course high-rise communities were viewed as the way of the future.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's the social and living conditions on St. Michael's Estate started to decline. Working families were given housing grants of £5,000 by the Council, so many of them simply moved out. Single parents were given flats, and the Council rarely investigated the people it was housing. What was once a traditional stable family society became a single parent society, and this created gaps and imbalances in the social fabric. The long-term residents of the estate were increasingly exasperated with the Council officials making decisions in the city centre without any local consultation, and so in 1986 a group of women set up the St. Michael's Family Resource Centre, which is located in a ground floor flat on the estate.