This 24 May 2017 AFP video says about itself:
Thousands protest against Trump in Brussels ahead of talks
Thousands of protesters carrying effigies of Donald Trump march through Brussels after the US president arrived for talks with the EU and NATO.
This 24 May 2017 video says about itself:
Thousands of protesters carrying effigies of Donald Trump have marched through Brussels after the US president arrived for talks with the EU and NATO. The demonstrators condemned Trump’s policies including his recent ratcheted-up anti-Iran rhetoric.
After my latest blog post on the big demonstration against Donald Trump and NATO militarism, now this blog post on the last part of the march.
The many flags proceeded. On this photo flags of the Belgian ‘Hart boven hard’ (Heart above hardness) anti-austerity movement. And, on the left, the rainbow flag of the LGBTQ branch of the leftist Belgian PVDA party. Between the PVDA flags, also on the left of the photo, the Greenpeace ‘Make peace great again’ banner. Not on the photo, but present, an anarchist flag.
There was a lively group of Redfox, the PVDA young people’s organisation, with their spoof ‘Donald Trump’ on his vehicle.
And, of course, more pussyhats.
The demonstration arrived at the Brussels stock exchange building. It had been adorned with a banner with the slogan ‘Make peace great again’.
And with a well-known photo of an Afghan girl who had been mutilated. That photo had been abused for war propaganda, contrary to what had really happened to that girl. Here, it was in its proper context, a warning against the horrors of war.
When people came closer, they could read the small print on the ‘Make peace great again’ banner. On top, five CND peace signs. At the bottom: Invest in peace. StopNATO2017.org. #Resist. Greenpeace.
As the demonstration continued, it turned out that there were not just banners on the stock exchange building. People, eg, had hung banners like this one from their homes. It said: ‘Fight Trump and his billionaire friends. They have the money. We have the people.’
Also, many people, at their windows and on their balconies, applauded and cheered for the demonstration.
The march continued. With, of course, yet more pussyhats.
A sign said: ‘Have a break. Have a pussy riot‘. A parody of the commercial chocolate bar slogan: ‘Have a break. Have a KitKat’.
Another sign said: ‘Global warming Trump is a hoax‘.
The trees showed us we were almost back at where the march had begun. One more slogan: ‘Change the system to save our planet‘.
We arrived back, at the square and pond near Brussels North railway station.
After the march was finished, Belgian band Jaune Toujours made music. I did not hear or see much of them, as our bus had to go back. So, just this video.
This short music video from Brussels is called Jaune Toujours live @ Trump not welcome… 24 May 2017.
There will be more about this demonstration on this blog, especially videos.
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Tuesday 30th May 2017
posted by Morning Star in Editorial
GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel’s election campaign speech over the weekend confirmed that fractures have widened in the Western alliance of leading imperialist powers.
Over the past few days, the G7 and Nato summits have exposed significant differences of emphasis and perhaps even of perspective between, in particular, the US, Germany, France and Britain.
First of all, we had US President Donald Trump in Brussels ticking off those Nato member states — including Germany, France, Italy and Turkey — that are failing to meet their 2014 commitment to spend at least 2 per cent of their national GDP on the military.
Last year, Nato countries spent approximately £728 billion compared with China’s £215bn and Russia’s relatively puny £55bn.
Even more alarmingly, in his Brussels speech, Trump failed to explicitly confirm his commitment to Article 5 of the Nato constitution, which obliges member states to come to the assistance of a fellow member under military attack.
This worried those right-wing governments in eastern Europe and the Baltic states who want US backing for their ongoing scaremongering among the electorate about non-existent Russian plans to invade their territory.
During his presidential election campaign, Trump suggested that Nato members that didn’t pay their dues could not expect automatic assistance against aggression, while also referring to Nato as “obsolete.”
Since then, he has been pulled back into line by the US military-industrial complex, so Trump aides now insist that “of course, the US president backs Nato and its doctrine of collective defence.”
Other divisions within Nato include those over member state Turkey’s authoritarian government, its role in Syria and its growing rapprochement with Russia; the extent to which Nato should involve itself as a body in combating terrorism and cyber-crime; and whether Nato missions such as that in Afghanistan should be replicated elsewhere outside Europe.
Then, at the G7 summit in Sicily at the weekend, Trump refused to sign a communique supporting the Paris Accord on climate change, having claimed in the past that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”
He now tweets that he will decide sometime this week whether or not to participate in the agreement at all.
Meanwhile, the drive by US ruling circles to prevent any Trump departure from their anti-Putin, anti-Assad line continues in the Congress, the Pentagon and the intelligence services.
Here in Europe, Chancellor Merkel declares after her experiences with Trump at the two recent summits that “the times in which we could completely depend on others are on the way out.”
She almost certainly had in mind Britain’s vote to leave the EU and the election of pro-EU Emmanuel Macron as French president when adding that “we Europeans have to take our destiny into our own hands.”
She shares the same vision with Macron and overbearing EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker of a thoroughly neoliberal EU with its own integrated military structures, pursuing its own single common foreign policy.
While the trio would want to maintain alignment with Nato, as set out in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and its protocols, notably to “contribute to the vitality of a renewed Atlantic Alliance,” Merkel understands that a Trump presidency might make this very difficult.
With Nato and the EU now in a period of unprecedented turbulence, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal that Britain should follow an independent foreign policy based on co-operation, solidarity and the peaceful resolution of conflict wherever possible appears more attractive by the day.
http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-94dc-Nato-feels-new-turbulence#.WS1dQ9ykIdU
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