On the second day of the summit I really began my investigation into those, on both sides of the twelve-kilometre fence, who said they came here to make the world a better place. 

The Alternative Summit, organized by a cooperation of protest groups to inform interested protestors and provide a forum for discussion, ended on Thursday. One of the members of the G8 Research Group from U of T, who I was to become so well acquainted with later on, told me about how fruitful the alternative summit actually was.

Joanna Dafoe, co-chair of the G8RG’s Civil Society and Expanded Dialogue Unit and U of T student explained her impressions of the alternative summit, “Although not all workshops involved a sophisticated, nuanced, discussion on the G8,” she said, “it was more common than not for the delegates at the Alternative Summit to discuss specific policies and concerns with the G8.”

She remarked about the sophistication of the alternative summit as well, “We attended workshops from lawyers, economists, policy analysts, researchers.. and the participants at the Alternative Summit came from diverse backgrounds including NGOs (mainly) but also academic institutions, think-tanks, and more. On the whole, I would say the level of discussion has been quite impressive and sophisticated at the Alternative Summit.”

In effect, the G8 itself being nebulous has spawned nebulous protest that spans protests scenes from rock-throwing in the streets to sober thought informal classroom-like discussions.

Two protestors I met sitting outside the train station, Felicitas Braun and Sophia Cramer had participated in the week’s events and were going home with difficult questions lingering.

The camps situated in fields surrounding the summit area and the city of Rostock were quite nice and well organised-with considerations like separate shower times for men and women. 

Felicitas said the camps allowed people to practice what they preach: "People are too comfortable to give up certain standards of life. These people in the camp show that it is possible to give up these standards. But I'm really aware that it's just for a week."

Sophia described the experience more enthusiastically, "It's possible to create an alternative and it's really, really possible. Some people say no one would move if there was no capitalism."

These two did not think the protesters were beyond criticism. "The thing that I didn't like is that you ask people what they criticise and they don't know," Felicitas explained. "Many people say that the G8 is guilty but they don't know why. Nobody is asking about what they are doing at the G8. The politicians are talking about these issues too. They are meeting to solve these problems."

They had obviously thought about these issues a lot this week and Sophia explained her fundamental criticism  of the G8 itself, "Why do they only meet in a small group and not in the [U.N.]? Where all the countries are affected they can make agreements and not division. [The] summit costs 200 million euros. It's kind of too much money. The fence cost 12.5 million euros, then there's 16,000 police."

In fact, she said that we need to make sacrifices in the rich parts of the world if we are to make a difference.

“Actually really doing something and really solving the problem means we have to give up our lifestyle. We are 10 per cent of the population [of the world]. It’s a nice thing to make it all equal but it’s not the mentality of people.”