Chapter 2: Creating the Message

Part 1
By The Mischief Makers

I put on my shoes and reach for my bag. As I open the front door, the cold England air blows in my face. Doing up the buttons on my coat, I walk down the steps and find my way to the bus stop. Looking up at the clear, star-filled sky, I am consider that in a few months the world most powerful economic leaders will be holding their annual summit in Scotland. They will meet behind closed doors and the details of their conversations will be kept secret from the public, despite the daunting reality that their decisions directly affect our lives. With Africa's debt to Western nations growing and an escalating climate crisis, many are calling on the G8 to take responsibility for the outcomes of their policies. In the silence of the night, I wonder if that day will ever come.My thoughts are interrupted by the squeaky brakes of a double-decker bus. I step inside and nod at the driver.

"Single please. Cheers mate."

As the bus makes its way towards the city I envision the rich politicians sitting down for exclusive dinners in extravagant hotels, wearing top hats and cleaning their whiskers. I find myself excited about the prospect of going to Scotland and dream of running through the highlands, making life difficult for the delegates attending the summit. I want to send a message; we are going to raise hell unless something changes. The G8 represents the destructiveness caused by the free market economy and the raping of the world’s resources. Even as I child I knew it was wrong to, destroys this planets natural beauty and treats its animals with respect. I'm ashamed to live in this 'civilised' nation, where peoples only cares revolve around sports, soaps and never-ending celebrity gossip. Isn’t anyone paying attention to the reality of our planet? I get off the bus and follow a stream of people heading out for a night on the town.

Crossing the road, my eye catches a display outside one of an art galleriy. I feel drawn to it, and amounst a small group of people I can see two women dressed in white distributing what appear to be copied banknotes. .

"We're asking people to write on this money what they would do if the world economy was in their hands."

With pen and paper in hand, I consider the question. Other notes are pinned to their white dresses;

'I would make sure everyone has a home to live in’

'Take from the poor give to the rich'

'Double taxes for the corporations and free tea for everyone else'

Some of the suggestions make me laugh Others make obvious the painful reality of our current global economic climate; the unequitable way in which our resources are divided, or how the current economy has turned the world upside down. I scribble something about justice and abolishing money on my fake banknote and pin it to the dress. I consider what a fun and clever way this is to engage people with an issue. Instead of handing out leaflets with facts and figures, this approach requires people to question themselves, arrive at an answer and exchange their ideas with others. I let the women know how impressed I am by this ‘conversation’,exchange contact details and I head off.

I later meet up with the two girls I had met dressed up this time in the Geisha like outfits. It was inspiring to see people getting active on issues that lay close to their hearts, even if in a small way. We discuss the upcoming G8 summit and about their performance piece outside the gallery. One girl remarked,

"It's really empowering to give people a pen in the street and ask them to write about their feeling on an issue. It makes them think for themselves. When they pin their note onto our dresses, they were reading other peoples' and in the dialogue that followed they would be enriching their knowledge about the subject. But it is the moment when they could either walk away or decide to talk to us which is most important."

Over the next few weeks, more of us meet up, hanged out, went for drinks and talked about plans for the mobilisation in Scotland. I had been involved in activism for a while and I guess a little set in my ways on how to go about making stuff happen. It was good to meet new people with different views who were eager to put their thoughts and beliefs into action.

With a few phone calls and a chat in the pub, a small group was formed. We decide to organise a workshop and replicate the white dress costumes worn by the girls that chilly winter evening several months ago. Our hope was that Geisha outfits, decorated with G8 policies, would deliver a powerful message while remaining peaceful enough to wort off inevitable altercations with the police. This wasn't a passive protest; there were no meetings or an information sessions. There were no forms to fill in or donations to make. This was something low key, attention grabbing and easy for people to participate in. Very soon we began to see our protest was something much larger than costumes and dresses walking around the G8 protest. You could see that people who had little interest in traditional methods of activism were suddenly becoming involved; talking about the issues and learning what's at stake. We began to hold costume-making workshops;soon more than 20 of us were dressed as beautiful Geishas and on our way to Edinburgh.


To be continued....see part 2