Thousands of people will take to the streets all over the world today in a demand for global democracy. In Dublin, protesters will march from the Garden of Remembrance to the occupied Central Bank plaza on Dame Street, starting at 2pm. 

Ana Sofia Suarez and Shimri Zameret write in the Guardian:

The following manifesto was produced over four months through consultation among groups, activists and people's assemblies in countries such as Britain, Egypt, Tunisia, Germany, Spain, the US, Palestine, Israel, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, India and Australia. We got comments, suggestions, support, and wrote and rewrote it again and again. The text has been supported by Canadian-based Naomi Klein, Indian-based Vandana Shiva, the US-based Michael Hardt and Noam Chomsky, as well as Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano.

The manifesto:

On 15th October 2011, united in our diversity, united for global change, we demand global democracy: global governance by the people, for the people. Inspired by our sisters and brothers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, New York, Palestine-Israel, Spain and Greece, we too call for a regime change: a global regime change. In the words of Vandana Shiva, the Indian activist, today we demand replacing the G8 with the whole of humanity - the G 7,000,000,000. 

Undemocratic international institutions are our global Mubarak, our global Assad, our global Gaddafi. These include: the IMF, the WTO, global markets, multinational banks, the G8\G20, the European Central Bank and the UN Security Council. Like Mubarak and Assad, these institutions must not be allowed to run people’s lives without their consent. We are all born equal, rich or poor, woman or man. Every African and Asian is equal to every European and American. Our global institutions must reflect this, or be overturned. 

Today, more than ever before, global forces shape people's lives. Our jobs, health, housing, education and pensions are controlled by global banks, markets, tax-havens, corporations and financial crises. Our environment is being destroyed by pollution in other continents. Our safety is determined by international wars and international trade in arms, drugs and natural resources. We are losing control over our lives. This must stop. This will stop. The citizens of the world must get control over the decisions that influence them in all levels - from global to local. That is global democracy. That is what we demand today. 

Today, like the Mexican Zapatistas, we say "¡Ya basta! Aquí el pueblo manda y el gobierno obedece": Enough! Here the people command and global institutions obey! Like the Spanish Tomalaplaza we say "Democracia Real Ya": True global democracy now!" Today we call the citizens of the world: let us globalise Tahrir Square! Let us globalise Puerta del Sol!

Follow it on Facebook from October 15th:http://facebook.com/g7billion

Discuss it on Twitter with the hashtag #globaldemocracy

Supporting organisations, assemblies and writers

General People's Assembly Puerta del Sol - Madrid, People's Assembly London, People's Assembly Buenos Aires, People's Assembly Sao Paulo, People's Assembly Vigo, Spain People's Assemblies Network, People's assembly Boston, Occupy Melbourne, ATTAC Spain, ATTAC France, War on Want - London, Globalise Resistance - London, Italy Uncut, Democracia Real Ya International, Gaia Foundation, Egality London, Egality Berlin, Network Institute for Global Democratization, Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, Michael Hardt

If your organisation or assembly wishes to sign the statement, or you are an individual who wishes to show support, please add comments to the wall or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Occupy Dame Street on Facebook

Discuss it on Twitter: #occupydamestreet

There is some concern, much of it justified, around #OccupyDameStreet about suggestions it is ‘non-political’ or somehow above or ‘before’ politics.

But an antipathy towards politics, and the term politics – even if such antipathy is amorphous – will seriously hamper any attempts to grow this into a movement for changing how we organise and structure both our society and the economy.

The project to drive politics out of the public sphere could be given the codename ‘neoliberalism’. (This is “The beast to be slain” as Hugh Green put it)

Neoliberalism is distinct from the type of state-subsidised capitalism we saw in the 20th century - from America’s New Deal period through to the post-war welfare states of Britain and elsewhere across Europe.

Aidan Regan explains here that in the post-war period after the Great Depression:

A grumpy post, those of a nervous disposition or particularly sensitive to scenes of internal bickering, politicking or general moaniness should skip this one.

A slow and tough morning for Unkie Dave on Occupied Dame Street. Someone posted a comment yesterday that I make everything here sound so positive, and I think there may well be some spectacles of a rosy hue obscuring my sight at times. Everything has been such an adrenaline rush, and the feelings of positivity that action brings may well be the shot of caffeine my system craves but is no longer allowed to have.

Breakfast of Champions
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Wednesday 12th October

Morning on Day Five on Occupied Dame Street saw a strange and unfamiliar yellow orb pass slowly overhead, bringing a feeling that some would describe as the opposite of cold, and when coupled with the discovery that for many of the Overnighters the sounds of constant traffic and the heaving retches of late-night passers-by have become an urban lullaby resulting in an unprecedentedly good night's sleep, no longer is there a sense of bitter resentment that we have been cursed by fate to be involved in #OccupyDameStreet and not #OccupySeychelles or #OccupyMaldives.

Newstalk interview being Livestreamed by #OccupyDameStreet
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Tuesday 11th October

Day Four of #OccupyDameStreet saw a very tired Unkie Dave attend his first Media Workgroup meeting. While it cannot be denied that I have loved every backbreaking minute of work on the Construction group, given that I write a blog and post pretty pictures online I thought I should take a break from the world of tarp and cable ties and sit in to see how the group worked.

David Johnson has spent much of the past three days outside the Central Bank on Dublin's Dame Street taking part in the Occupy Dame Street 

protest that started there on Saturday (8 October). Read his diary and view his pictures of the protest below. Please note his caveat: "It's important to say that I'm just a guy spending a lot of time at that camp, I'm not overnighting here and while I am involved in day-to-day tasks I'm not facilitating any meetings or speaking/writing on behalf of anyone."

Day one

It is now well past four in the morning and I have staggered in from one of the best days of activism possibly in my life, certainly in Dublin. My eyes are old, my knees are weak and my nose is knackered, but before I collapse into bed I thought I would share one final thought for the day on #OccupyDameStreet.

It started at 2pm with barely thirty people, by five pm there were maybe a hundred and fifty, and still at midnight there were at least a hundred folks and ten tents. By 4am when we left there were half a dozen more tents and a marquee hosting a consensus decision making mini-assembly - did I mention this was at 4am ! This was certainly not the largest protest to grace the streets of Dublin, but without doubt I have never seen its like here before. There were veterans of many marches and folks for whom this was their first act of political defiance, and everything came together organically with no leaders, no parties, no egos and no power-tripping. There were no spokespeople and yet everyone was a spokesperson, there was no single message yet at times everyone managed to literally speak with one voice. There was anger but no violence, discontent but no apathy and despite the gravity of the injustices highlighted, the day itself was one of unrelenting positivity. It was quite simply a perfect example of how things could be.

Even the drumming circle failed to spoil my mood.

Evenings on Occupied Dame Street are a strange affair, the calm of the afternoon gives way to the frantic energy of the second General Assembly of the day, currently held at 6pm, and the influx of interested people on their way home from work, college, school and the like.

The General Assemblies are an open and collaborative affair, a way for everyone to have their voices heard, news and announcements to be shared and for the #OccupyDameStreet movement to take its collective decisions. Anyone can participate in these meetings, even if they have just arrived at the site, and a system of hand gestures is used to show agreement, disagreement or to raise points of order and information, the idea being that if you just agree with something, you can show your agreement by waving your hands in the air, there's no need for everyone to speak just to say, 'I agree with her.’ If this idea had been introduced to the last office I worked in, our department meetings would have been over in five minutes and we'd all have had more time for the important things like coffee and sleeping. As agreement is reached through consensus, an awful lot of hand-waving takes place and the effect has come to be lovingly referred to as "Jazz Hands".

What shape should concerted left political action in Ireland take? Conor McCabe’s excellent book Sins of The Father presents a very strong thesis about how the history of the Irish Republic should not be thought in terms of a narrative of neoliberalism that might apply in other western democratic states, due to the very specific character of the Irish State and the way its economy was developed in the interests of ruling elites since the State’s foundation.

But I think that whilst this understanding of the Irish State must provide the basis for urgent political action at a local level, it’s still important to bear in mind the consonance of processes of domination in Ireland with processes - and the experiences of resistance - elsewhere, and indeed how much processes in Ireland also form part of a global process.