The G20 is a totally undemocratic organization. This should be obvious to anyone. Its policies are hammered out by groups of anonymous, unaccountable bureaucrats, and the supposed 'leaders' of our countries only get together to talk about how they're going to sell it to the people. And even these elected leaders have nothing to do with the majority of people in the countries they claim to represent. Empowered by the rich, they serve only the elites of their respective countries. The G8 was originally founded as a sort of mutual-aid society for imperialist, resource-importing, industrial nations, to help them secure their greed by together dominating poor communities that might get in the way. The transfer of power to the G20, supposedly in the name of inclusiveness, is a smoke-screen, as it's still only the elites who will have a say over issues that affect all of our lives.

SOAR is not trying to 'get our voices heard' by these usurping leaders on the inside of the fence. We aren't trying to engage with their corrupt, bankrupt process by getting a seat 'at the table'. Although reforms can temporarily improve peoples' conditions now, anything that the elites give to us can be as easily taken away, and working for those reforms does not bring us any closer to actual freedom.

The rulers will never give us a just society, and it's a waste of breath to beg them for it while their police mock us with their hands on their weapons. This “At the Table” group and others like them want to become part of the elite to impose their vision of society on the rest of us, same as what the G20 is doing now. They oppose only the specific policies of the current rulers, not the idea that a small unanswerable body be allowed to determine the health and future of individuals and communities around the world.

But today, dozens of community groups from around Toronto will join together and take to the streets. These community groups are the seeds of true participatory democracy. They are the building blocks of a grassroots movement, already creating self-governance and support structures that make the politicians and bureaucrats unnecessary.

Our goal is to build up capacity within our communities to care for ourselves, while simultaneously pushing back against the state violence that seeks to disrupt, control, and exploit. We do not seek to change policy – we seek to make it impossible for the powerful to enforce their will, to take power for ourselves until the once-elites are broken and irrelevant.

We can care for ourselves, we can grow our own food, we can settle our own conflicts, we can educate ourselves. It is the rich elites who seek to disempower us, to ensure a docile workforce and a placid consumer – they will never give us autonomy, they profit from our powerlessness! True democracy involves everyone, and not just to cast a token ballot or as a passive consumer, but as an active agent in their own lives and communities. When we demand justice for our communities, we are ordering the rich to get out of our way and let us create the world we want to live in.

Let us meet our neighbours, build bonds between urban and rural, organize across difference, support each other against repression, develop democratic decision-making structures, and envision conflict resolution that goes beyond retribution. We're in this together, and together we'll prevail.

In the streets, in the parks, in the workplace, and in the community centres,

Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance