Protesters Take to Streets; Clashes in Rome

Protesters Take to Streets; Clashes in Rome

ROME — In dozens of cities around the world on Saturday, people took to the streets, clutching placards and chanting slogans as part of a planned day of protests against the financial system.

In Rome, a protest thick with tension spread over several miles. Protesters set fire to at least one building and clashed violently with the police, who responded with water cannons and tear gas.

In other European cities, including Berlin and London, the demonstrations were largely peaceful, with thousands of people marching past ancient monuments and many gathering in front of capitalist symbols like the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. Elsewhere, the turnout was more modest, but rallies of a few hundred people were held in several cities, including Sydney, Australia, Tokyo and Hong Kong. Protests were also held in New York and several other cities in the United States and Canada.

But just as the rallies in New York have represented a variety of messages — signs have been held in opposition to President Obama yards away from signs in support — so Saturday’s protests contained a grab bag of messages, opposing nuclear power, political corruption and the privatization of water.

Despite the difference in language, landscape and scale, the protests were united in frustration with the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

“I have no problem with capitalism. I have no problem with a market economy. But I find the way the financial system is functioning deeply unethical,” Herbert Haberl, 51, said in Berlin. “We shouldn’t bail out the banks. We should bail out the people.”

Another protester in Berlin, Katja Simke, 31, said that it was clear “that something has to be done.”

“This isn’t a single movement but a network of different groups,” said Ms. Simke, who was opposed to income inequality but also cared about climate change and atomic energy. “I’m really positively surprised by how well this came together.”

Saturday’s protests sprang from demonstrations in Spain in May and the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began last month in New York. This weekend, the global show of force came as finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations meet in Paris to discuss global economic issues, including ways to tackle Europe’s sovereign debt crisis

In London, where crowds assembled in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the ubiquitous emblems of the movement were in evidence. “Bankers Are the Real Looters” and “We Are the 99 Percent,” read several placards and flags. One demonstrator, dressed as Jesus Christ, held a sign that said “I Threw the Money Lenders Out for a Reason,” a reference to an episode from the Bible.

Brief clashes were reported in London, where police were out in force with dozens of riot vans, canine units and hundreds of officers. But the gathering was largely peaceful, with a picnic atmosphere and people streaming in and out of a nearby Starbucks.

The WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange made an appearance at the cathedral and was met by hundreds of cheering fans, and was virtually borne aloft to the church steps, where he called the movement “the culmination of a dream.”

In Rome, Saturday’s protests were as much about the growing dissatisfaction with the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi — who narrowly survived a vote of confidence on Friday — as they were was about global financial inequities.

“We’re upset because we don’t have prospects for the future,” Alessia Tridici, 18, said in Rome. “We’ll never see a pension. We’ll have to work until we die.”

In contrast, protests in Berlin remained peaceful and upbeat, with music and even a little dancing on a warm, sunny day.

“I like the carnival atmosphere,” said Juhani Seppovaara, 64, a photographer and writer originally from Finland now living in Berlin. “But for me there’s a little too much populism, very complicated matters reduced to one or two sentences.”

In Sydney, several hundred protesters carried signs with slogans including “We Are the 99%” and “Capitalism Is Killing our Economy.” The atmosphere was lively, with a brass band providing music in packed Art Deco-style public thoroughfares outside the headquarters of the Reserve Bank of Australia in the city’s financial district.

In central Tokyo, where periodic rallies against nuclear power have been held since the March accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, about 300 protesters marched with signs through busy streets and heavy traffic, chanting “We’re With Occupy Wall Street!” “Down With the Rich!” and “No More Nukes!”

Two young men held a banner that expressed a somewhat apologetic solidarity: “Radioactivity Has No Borders. To the World From Japan: Sorry!” Another held a sign that read simply, “Let’s Complain More.”

“Even timid Japanese are finally starting to push for change,” said Miku Ohkura, 24, a college student in Tokyo, who said she had already been to about a half dozen protests for various causes in the last few months. She said that apart from being opposed to nuclear power, younger people were angry at being made to bear the brunt of Japan’s economic woes, with many unemployed or too poor to start families. “We all have different messages, but we’re all alike in that we want society to become more equal,” she said.

In Hong Kong, about 200 people rallied at Exchange Square, an open area near the International Finance Center, in the heart of the city’s banking and commerce district. Various groups staged sit-ins, protesting issues including growing income disparity and a political system that some demonstrators said was undemocratic.

Thousands of people protested in Hong Kong in March, criticizing the government then for not doing enough to help the poor. A far larger crowd marched through downtown Hong Kong on July 1, the anniversary of the territory’s return to China, over the widening income gap.

A 2009 report by the United Nations Development Report found Hong Kong had the greatest income disparity of the 38 developed economies it studied.

“It’s just embarrassing,” said Nury Vittachi, a Hong Kong resident who attended Saturday’s rally. The Hong Kong government likes to stress stability and prosperity, Mr. Vittachi said, but a widening wealth gap threatens those ideals.

“We’ve had decades of increasing inequality, culminating in the financial crisis,” said Jack Copley, 20, a student at the University of Birmingham who was protesting in London. “The best we can hope for,” he said, gesturing to the gathered crowd, “is that we can change the political climate to make it harder for politicians to rule in the interests of the few.”

source: nytimes.com