Call for Workshop Submissions:

People’s Summit in Chicago: A Better World is Possible
May 12 - 13, 2012

Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANG8) and Occupy Chicago are organizing a democratic counter-summit in opposition to NATO and the G8. We are looking for a wide range of workshop presenters to help facilitate a re-imagination of our future. Keynote speakers will include Malalai Joya, who is a former Afghan member of parliament and internationally renowned opponent of NATO’s occupation of Afghanistan, and Rainer Braun, a member of the International Coordinating Committee of the European No to NATO network.

Deadline for submissions: April 15

What is the People's Summit?

On May 20th and 21st, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be hijacking Chicago to house an undemocratic meeting for its “band of hostile brothers.” The military and political leaders of countries that account for 70 percent of world military spending will be meeting to discuss how to use their vast military might in pursuit of the interests of the global 1 percent. As they meet in their walled fortress, CANG8 and Occupy Chicago will be hosting an event of an utterly different sort. The People’s Summit is a radically democratic meeting to discuss the type of world we would like to see, a world that transcends our present condition of corporate plutocracy and military empire.

We are requesting your participation in this event.

We want you to attend the plenary sessions with keynote speeches by Malalai Joya and Rainer Braun, among others.

And we want you to participate in the many workshops that will be held.

What’s more, if you and/or your organization would like to contribute your expertise and experience in order to provide insight to other People’s Summit attendees, we invite you to submit a workshop proposal designed to advance any knowledge crucial to realizing the vision of a better world, politically, economically, culturally, and every way in between. The People’s Summit will take place over the weekend of May 12th and 13th, one week before the NATO summit.

What is our purpose? The purpose of this summit is threefold:

1. To educate our communities about war, austerity, global capitalism, and corporatization in the 21st century, and what it means for the ways we live in this world. Topics can range from the increasing cost of a loaf of bread in Chicago to the 1.4 billion people worldwide living in immiseration; from the ‘war on terror’ and global homeland security industries to increased militarization of domestic policing; from global wage depression and the creation of disposable labor reserves to devastating climate change, destruction of environments, and the privatization of common resources. Within each of these threads (and many more), the power of global economics determines the material state of contemporary world affairs. Major events around the globe in 2011, from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park, have instilled a great urgency in us all; we need to understand how the complex conditioning by global processes has given the 99% of the world more in common than we dared to imagine before.
2. To mobilize our communities for radical democracy, including dissent in the form of non-violent protest during the NATO/G8 summit and beyond, and the nurturing of long-term collaborative mobilizations between local, national and international communities. We accept Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent challenge to our civil liberties, and will work ceaselessly for all people to realize their right to participate in a truly democratic forum.
3. To present alternative visions of the world we all know to be possible through critical reflection, humor, art, direct democracy, collaboration, and informed dialogue. Our educational axiom is grounded in providing a radically democratic space, where the People in all our multiplicities contribute intellectually, artistically and collaboratively to this process. Our educational axiom is not based on the delivery of information and theories by experts to a consuming audience, a process by which thought becomes a pacifying and alienating product. That is neoliberal education. In the face of our repressive states and corporate militarized regimes, we have a responsibility to adopt new modes of thought; therefore, most powerfully, our axiom is the call for a concrete manifestation of an ethically guided, politically truthful demand: that a response to the current crisis of global capitalism must arise collectively through creative and imaginative thinking about a society based on equality and emancipation for all across the globe.

The People’s Summit is a space for the 99% to dare to think of the needs of all the people not in ways dictated by ruling-class and racialized ideologies, but in ways derived from our own ethics, intelligences, experiences, and studies. We care not where someone was born or what citizenship papers they may hold, nor do we hold prejudices against any predicate or identity that a human being may have. We welcome all to our summit, and we welcome their voices. We believe that by coming together in solidarity and connecting critically the complex dots of how our lives have been determined, that our visions will equip us with the necessary ideas, tools, and agendas to manifest change on the local and global scales. A better world is possible, and we have a responsibility to become the change that we want to see in this world.

What are we asking from you? We are requesting that you share in the People’s Summit by presenting educational, interactive, and creative workshops or teach-ins about your particular area of expertise. It is our hope that these sessions will facilitate an ongoing discussion among attendees as to what can be done, both immediately and in the long term. As such, we are requesting workshop proposals that are geared toward dialogue and discussion.

Each workshop or teach-in session will be 90 minutes. Speakers may be asked to work with others if their topics are similar. The deadline for workshop and teach-in submissions will be April 15, and selected submissions will receive a response by April 22.

Please include a one- to two-paragraph abstract (roughly 50 to 200 words) detailing the topic and intent of your workshop, as well as a bio/description of the speaker(s) and/or group(s) that will be presenting. We will do our best to accommodate requests for projectors, but such equipment will be limited and is only an option if requested in advance.

We leave it up to you to creatively assemble how you might want to present this information. We only ask that it is designed to interactively engage attendees and embodies the threefold purpose outlined above. We realize the scope of this request is expansive but so is the task ahead of us. Therefore, we do not want to limit the amount of possibilities that could be discussed, debated, and seized upon. Unfortunately, we will not be able to feature all proposals that we receive, but we would like to thank you in advance for your submissions.

Please email submissions to peoplesummitworkshops@gmail.com

If you are interested in helping organize the People's Summit, please join us:

Mondays, 5:30pm - 500 W. Cermak, Rm. 501

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Schedule for the People’s Summit (subject to change)

Saturday, May 12

9am-10:30am Plenary Panel 1

10:45am-12:15pm Workshop Block 1

Lunch Break

1:15pm-2:45pm Workshop Block 2

3pm-4pm Plenary Panel 2

Sunday, May 13

9am-10:30am Plenary Panel 3

10:45am-12:15pm Workshop Block 3

Lunch Break

1:15pm-2:45pm Workshop Block 4

3pm-4pm: Plenary Panel 4