ShakeG8 – Bicycle Caravan against the G8 in Heiligendamm 2007

Today, while travelling towards the Bombodrom, the ShakeG8 – Caravan came across a very nice Banner, hanging in the middle of a motorway.

We took some photos, now its up to you to come to the Bombodrom and take part in squatting the whole area. Reclaim the nature!

for more information visit (german only, sorry): www.freieheide.de/

After a pretended breakup of the caravan, which worked just fine to get rid of the annoying undercover-police, the caravanist@s gathered again and had some quiet, undisturbed days of preparing theirselves for the upcoming events. a lot of banners were made, new tactics invented, the bikes fixed and decorated and our brandnew, extra-fancy outfits scream out to be weared.

So the caravan will travel tomorrow to a camp near the bombodrom to take part in the actions against the bombodrom. and also meet the other caravans, which will gather from all over europe.

read more on www.g8-bikerides.net 

The “shake G8” bikeride passed the german – polish border.

On the 16th of may around 2 o´clock the bikeride reached after one and a half month of cicling paranoia – germoney. on the border the caravan was welcomed from a whole lot of german border police and a dozen of very friendly supporters. The activists tried to dance down the border and tried to avoid being controlled. Chachacha, limbo and great chearleaders compared with a lot of gender trouble caused a lot of confusion and baffled police. The traffic jam was used to distribute explaining flyers as possible.

After quite a while a “prisoner” carried all the passports to the unpolite pigs. Meanwhile picky officers searched for every reason to stop the tractor and its waggon. In the end they found a long list of wherefores to deny accreditation. All people and dogs were allowed to immigrate.

With the generous help of the schwedt supporters crew a nice place including a shower was found.

By entering Germany another episode of the caravan began. While cicling through eastern europe the officials nearly didn´t concentrate its attention on the caravan. Now in germoney several civil – police cars follow all the movements any supporter or cyclist.

Be annoing to your personal civil – cop.

On Wednesday, 16th May 2007 at 2 pm the ShakeG8! Bicycle Caravan will dance down the polish-german border Krajnik Dolny / Schwedt. With an uncontrolled border crossing the activists are declaring their belief in total freedom of movements for all people.

The bike caravan is against borders and nations in general as well as their implications.

“While the average German can just hop over to Czech Republic quickly to fill up on fuel, there are people dying daily, attempting to cross the fences of Fortress Europe” says Paolo, one of the Cyclists. In capitalism, borders serve as arbitrary constructs in order to maintain the divides between rich and poor, Winners and Losers, exploitables and the superfluous. Moreover, borders would deprive the majority of humanity of the essential right of free movement, their self-determination.

The bikers see the summit of the G8 states in Heiligendamm as a symbol for the direction of global developments according to capitalist interests. For example, the lowering of trade duties only to the benefit of the global players, whilst the outside borders of for example the European Union would be hermetically sealed against the unwanted. For Paolo, these developments are closely linked, “The actions of the G8 such as overflowing the african markets with cheap agricultural products or the privatisation of natural resources such as water are the reasons for people being forced to flee their homes.”

In Krajnik Dolny/ Schwedt the caravan is going to cross the fourth border since it started in Budapest on the 1st of April. The activists want to use the two months of their journey to create a space which is poor in hierarchies and in which everybody can contribute and express himself/herself freely. The ShakeG8! – Bikeride is one of six bike caravans which are on their way to Heiligendamm from all over Europe. They expect problems when entering Germany as the Schengen treaty is going to be suspended before and during the G8 summit. Paolo, who himself is not from Europe, points out: “The border police will notice the different colours of our passports pretty quickly. We don’t really care about that – after two monts of cycling all feet are stinking equally.”

contact for press:

infophone: (+48) 782 346 786
email: press.shakeg8@no-log.org
internet: shakeg8bikeride.wordpress.com

Yesterday the 7/5/07, at approximately 5 o’clock pm the ShakeG8-Bikecaravan shook the “Stary Browar” Shopping-Mall of Poznan – Poland.

The mall, belonging to Mr. Kulczyk, one of the richest men in Poland, was built in 2003, despite protests against its location on a public park. So it was an ideal place to protest against privatisation of public space, and the perfect way to connect our G8-Protests with the struggles of the local population.

On bicyles, in fancy dress and with a mobile Sound System blasting out loud circus music, 15 people cycled araound the center of the shopping mall. The shops were layed out in a ring, allowing them to cycle in a large circle, causing much chaos.

During the cycling a seperate “banner-team” dropped a huge banner from a balcony on the first floor, on which was written: “Kapitalizm kradnie przestrzen publiczna” – “Capitalism steals public space”. They also dropped a lot of handmade confetti, and 200 flyers about the caravan, which gave information both about the G8 and the about the privatisation of public space. The flyer and confetti fluttered down to the hands of the shoppers below. The squatters of Rozbrat, who came to watch the demonstration, also must be given a big thankyou for helping hand out some of the flyers that landed on the floor.

The securitys seemed overwhelmed, even partly amused, and did nothing to stop the activists. After 5 minutes the music stopped and all cyclist@s quickly left the building, without any problems. Thanks to a highly intelligent security guard, even the banner was collected and so can be used again.

The next big action of the ShakeG8-caravan takes place on the 16/5/07 in Krajnik Dolny / Schwedt, where they cross the polish-german border. They need as much support as they can get, so come to Krajnik Dolny / Schwedt on 16/5/07 all glamed up and in high spirits – let’s dance down the border!

Watch a nice little video of the action here

Follow this link to get more information about the no-border-action in Schwedt

The cycledelic caravan came to Pardubice in the evening of Friday 20th of April. Our local friends/activists had organised beautiful accommodation in a great location just outside of the city in a big garden with a little house in it and a river beside. We were pleased about the good food and drinks they supplied. That evening we had a short plenary to discuss Saturday’s action and to introduce some new cycle activists.

On Saturday morning we got up early to be at the train station in Pardubice for 10 o’clock. While cycling to the train station we had some trouble with the police as two people were riding the same bike together. They were also not pleased that Suki the dog had joined the protest as to ride on a bike with a dog is apparently forbidden in Czech.

The cycle activists were dressed as clowns so the spreading of flyers was a little bit more funny than usual.

After spreading the flyers in front of the main station and in the city together with the Czech activists, we ate some vegan Ghoulash, made by the local “Food not Bombs” group, who cook every week for the homeless people of Pardubice. During this action we had some visitors from the secret police. They tried to record our dialogues with a microphone and also to take some videos.

In the evening of the same day, there was an info-evening and concert in a club in the city. There were about 30 guests who discussed the caravan and listened to the concert by local bands. The rest of the weekend we spent hanging around and preparing for the onward journey, or taking part in workshops.

On Sunday we prepared a banner for animal rights as the 24th of April will be the international action day against the use in animals in scientific research.

The days in Pardubice were beautiful, as was the weather. However, due to a river on the way to Pardubice, half the group ended up vomiting onto the nice garden, so provided everyone is well and able, tomorrow we will tackle the next step towards Wroclaw.

We arrived in Brno late on Friday evening. After two days of cycling with fantastic blue skies, beautiful countryside and a fancy-dress border action that left the border police looking very confused, we were happy to reach our destination.After some mild stress parking the tractor on a narrow street, while being watched by an amused crowd of local people, we were greeted by our hosts, the friendly ProtestFest group and shown to our accommodation.

Friday evening was split between attending a No Respect concert, trying out the famous local beer at a nearby bar, or those exhausted by the day’s cycling a much needed early sleep indoors.

Our busy Saturday began with a meeting and preparations for the days demonstrations, dressing up, making banners etc.

A very successful demonstration was then carried out in the afternoon: Dressed as clowns we had an info-table and handed out flyers, all while playing trashy disco pop from the wagon.

The demonstration at the square was followed by a big group cycle around the town, with lots of waving of flags, ringing of bells, shouting and chanting.

Our protest was generally received with friendly smiles and waves of encouragement from the local people. The police, on the other hand, seemed to be more frightened of us than we were of them, fleeing from the square!

In the evening we were given an info-event by our hosts, where we were shown some video clips and photos from some of their actions and some info-films.

Sunday was spent relaxing with several workshops, including an ice cream and castle visit working group!

So after a successful day’s action on Saturday and a relaxing Sunday, the group set off on Monday refreshed and revitalised ready for the 120km cycle to our next destination: Pardubice.

Highly motivated by a visit to an original “Lenin-Stalin” bar on the way to Bratislava, we entered the city with a nice “dress-up and ring your bell” bike-party-caravan. A lot of people were waving and, due to our funny costumes, no car dared kick us from the street on our way to the anarchist info-shop.

The next day we re-organised and improved the trailer and enjoyed the comfort of a hot shower. In the evening we presented the bicycle caravan and discussed the ideas behind it with the local people. Afterwards, a lot of people came to have a cool party with a local sound system and fireshows.

On Wednesday afternoon some of the group went to a marginalised area of Bratislava and played with the children there whilst others joined an anti-G8 presentation with following discussion.

After the G8 info-event we offered workshops on different topics, for example, how to make paint bombs and how to make gold out of garbage. This was followed by a ska party.

On the two evenings about 50 people visited the anarchist info shop, a place many of them had never been before.

Hopefully our actions have helped support local struggles and make the info shop, which is situated in the outskirts of the city, more popular.

The meeting point with some local activist was planned for 1PM. Due to the fact that there were no technical problems on the road, the group reached budapest too early. This gave some extra time to taste ´Langosh`, a Hungarian kind of special bread made out of fried yeast-dough with garlic.Soon it was time for the theater. Some people dressed up as rich people, as poor people and as security guards. The play allowed only the rich people to enter a certain area which was inclosed. The poor people tried also to enter the area, but they were rejected by the guards. After some minutes of playing, just as they play was ending, the real police arrived at the scene. They took the personal detailes of one of the local participants and asked the group to leave the area. For this they needed at least 10minutes. In this time the group would have already departed. After the play, it was getting late and people were a bit exhausted. So we camped on an island in the river Danube, next to the centre of Budapest.

A group of around 20 cyclists from different countries grew up in the east from Budapest. To be more precise at an organic farm next to a village called Gödöllö, where Sissi the famous Habsburgian Princesse once lived.Most of the people did not know each other before they met at the farm, but nevertheless there were some preparations to be done.The group started to talk about their aims for the caravan and planned some short theatre to be played in the pedestrian zone of budapest. There was also little time to jump into the cold lake next to the Farm.

Soon it was time to leave Gödöllö. During the early hours of April 5 we cleaned up and put everything inside the trailer of the tractor. At around 10 AM the group started towards the meeting point in Budapest.