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STREET FIGHTING DAYS http://epaper.dawn.com/artMailDisp.aspx?article=08_04_2009_117_004 KARACHI, April 7: As such critical global issues as the financial crisis, climate change, the growing gap between the world’s haves and have-nots and other such grave matters spiral out of control, it has been noticed that the frequency and intensity of protests targeting multilateral talk-fests are growing. Perhaps the latest example of this was the violence that accompanied the recent G20 summit in London. However, though the protesters are mostly portrayed as violent, clueless louts in the mass media, Dutch film-maker Suzanne Hogendoorn’s highly watchable documentary We Will Block You presents the other side of the picture. The nearly hour-long film – screened on Tuesday at the Goethe-Institute – portrays the anti-Capitalism/anti-globalisation demonstrators as largely committed, peaceful young activists often provoked by law-enforcement personnel into violence. The setting of the film is 2007’s G8 summit, held in the German seaside resort of Heiligendamm, as well as the nearby town of Rostock. The director follows two groups of Dutch university students who make the journey from the Netherlands to Germany in order to take part in the protests. The young demonstrators first gather in Rostock, pitching tents and organising themselves, as they meet up with likeminded comrades from the rest of Europe, all aligned against the G8 and what it stands for. The first protest is a cacophonous gathering of the tribes, with socialists, anarchists, environmental activists and anti-war campaigners coming together to denounce what they consider to be an unjust world order.
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