G8 Summit June 2007

Join the International Youth Camp

HUNDREDS OF thousands of people were on Edinburgh's streets in 2005 for the Make Poverty History demonstration organised around the G8 summit in Gleneagles. Millions more tuned in to the Live8 anti-poverty pop concert.

Greg Maughan

Two years on, what has changed? In Niger, for instance, only 5% of the rural population have access to clean drinking water. In Bangladesh 83% of the population are forced to live on less than two dollars a day.

The anti-poverty protests around Gleneagles showed the basic internationalist outlook that most workers and young people hold. It also, however, exposed the incapability of the leaders of the 'rich' world to do anything about the dire living conditions that a majority face around the globe every day.

This year the G8, a group of leaders of eight of the largest capitalist countries, will meet in Rostock, Germany. Thousands will descend on this city to protest against Bush, Blair, Merkel and the rest. But after the high-profile Make Poverty History campaign failed to do what it said on the tin, many more people will be looking for an alternative to the profit-mad system we live under.

Members of International Socialist Resistance (ISR) will be joining the Anti-G8 International Youth Camp on 2-7 June. Here we'll raise the red flag of socialism at the G8 and explain that to make poverty history we have to make capitalism history and make socialism our future!