You may have noticed a few items out of Germany in the news this week, most notably the many arrests made in a half-dozen northern German cities, including Hamburg.   The government is cracking down on anyone from the far left / anti-globalisation scene because they are considered a disruptive influence or possible terror threat ahead of the Group of Eight summit in Germany early next month.

The arrests have pissed off a lot of people here not only for the heavy-handedness in the way they were carried out but the fact that some of those taken in are going to be held in custody for up to 14 days as a precautionary measure in case they actually do commit some crime.

I don’t know, maybe I’ve been asleep all this time, but isn’t the presumption of innocence before being proven guilty one of the cornerstones of a free society?  How can someone be charged with intent to protest or disrupt a meeting?  By the way he cuts his hair?

This latest flap is just another in a series of wrongheaded moves the German government has made in hosting this year’s G8 gabfest.  For years now a comatose non-event with a rigid schedule, staged photo-ops and a closing declaration written months in advance full of lofty ideals and vague, unfulfillable goals everyone forgets as soon as the TV lights dim, the G8 summit has no real reason to exist anymore in its present form beyond serving as a global grandstanding platform for the host country and to provide some bland, pre-packaged pap for the world’s media.

The only thing left to chance is what the protestors might get up to, so this week’s arrests should come as no surprise since they are part of an attempt to increase security and prevent a repeat of the fiasco that was Genoa in 2001, when police killed one protestor during violent clashes.

Germany has already budgeted more than 100 million euros for this summit, 16 million of that for a 12-km long steel, concrete and barbed-wire fence to ring the area surrounding the small but oh-so-swanky Baltic Sea resort venue.   Smart move.   Not only does it conjure up images of another wall Germans fought so long and hard to be torn down 17-odd years ago, but it will serve as an obvious focal point for the 100,000 protestors expected to flock to the area.

But if the host government was indeed serious about security beyond deploying 16,000 police and 1,100 soldiers – and saving a whack of cash in the process – they could have taken advantage of what geography has already provided and simply held it on any one of the many North Sea islands dotting the coast from the mouth of the Elbe near Hamburg to the Danish border.

The island of Amrum would have been perfect.  Isolated on three sides by miles of mudflats where swift-rising tides swallow up anyone stupid enough to wander around at the wrong time, the only other access is by ferry through a narrow channel.  A frigate or two patrolling the open ocean to the west and a few jets circling overhead now and then to scare the sheep keep up appearances would have rounded things out quite well.  Leaders could have flown into Hamburg and been whisked away to the island in a gold-plated helicopter for less money.

But this option would have made just too much sense.  Besides, the islands are in the former West Germany, which already has enough money sloshing about.  Better to keep pouring it into the black hole which is the former East.

And the fact the G8 summit will be held in the same constituency as our Chancellor Angela Merkel is, I’m quite sure, pure coincidence and had nothing at all to do with the decision.

© 2007 lettershometoyou