On 16 May 1998, the Jubilee 2000 Coalition drew a crowd of more than 70,000 people in Birmingham, meeting place of this year’s g8 summit, to form Britain’s first-ever mass protest in the form of a Human Chain. The crowd came together to demand that the leaders of the rich countries ‘break the chains of debt’ imposed on more than fifty of the world’s poorest countries. These countries are held in bondage by a g8-dominated institution that acts as the agent for all international creditors (public and private): the imf. The Human Chain was to be the central event of a range of meetings held over several days under the banner of ‘The People’s Summit’, organized and led by the New Economics Foundation and the Jubilee 2000 Coalition. The Chain itself was routed to surround Birmingham’s International Conference Centre, the focal point for the Summit meetings.
The decision to form a human chain had been taken for two reasons. First, the symbolism of chains is central to the Coalition’s definition of debt as a form of human bondage, or slavery; yet chains can also symbolize constructive links between people, and the power of such bonds to break bondage. Second, the organizers believed that a human chain would be an innovative way of altering the dynamics between a large protest group and the authorities.
The campaign had an effect upon the g8 Summit even before the day’s protests had begun. When the Summit agenda was first drawn up, the subject of debt was absent. But pressure from the Coalition caused the British hosts to include the subject in pre-Summit meetings with ‘sherpas’. In fact, debt was not only on the agenda but was to dominate the day’s proceedings.
As tens of thousands of demonstrators began making their way to Birmingham (from all parts of Britain, and many parts of the globe), news broke that the g8 were decamping to a stately home, Weston Park, well outside the city and beyond the reach of any protest. Undeterred, the Coalition’s supporters continued on their way to Birmingham and its Conference Centre where much of the world’s press were assembled.
Hundreds of protesters arrived on foot, embarking on pilgrimages from different points around Britain in the weeks before, and stopping