I have a confession to make. I don’t like protesting. Partly, it’s personality — I’m not much of a joiner; I don’t get a rush from being in a crowd; I’m not looking for an outlet for my anger, and chants make me cringe. Partly, I’m sceptical that protest, protest, protest really adds up to a strategy for achieving a political objective. Walking around with a sign doesn’t necessarily accomplish anything.

So what was I doing in Calgary last week protesting the G8 Summit? Somehow, I felt it was the right thing to do. I was inspired by the victory in Seattle and planned to go to Quebec City but was scared off when — after having a sensitive conversation about it in the kitchen of one of the more militant organizers — I stepped out her front door to a man in the walkway snapping my photograph. He then climbed into a late model, steel-grey pickup and drove off at high speed. Guilt gnawed at me after that. So I found myself in Calgary with that same organizer friend, attending various protest actions, teach-ins and spokescouncil meetings.

There are a lot of good things to say about the week. Calgary, a city with little history of progressive activism, where young activists have found it difficult to organize, now has a network of energetic, good people with some experience in political organizing. After the Canadian government pulled the rug out from under Solidarity Village, these committed young people pulled together reasonably successful actions with little time or prior experience.

The actions themselves were peaceful and made mockery of the government’s grotesque expenditure on security. Indymedia, for the first time ever, set up a press conference theatre for activists to speak to the mainstream media. Labour and anti-globalization activists had some positive experiences working together. And activists paid more attention to outreach to the community than usual, distributing leaflets explaining the actions to strangers.

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