There are lots of clever protests and attention-getting antics going on in Rome ahead of tomorrow’s G-8 meeting. Polar bears took to the streets yesterday, rightfully protesting the loss of their homeland to global warming.
Oxfam, a group of non-governmental organizations from three continents working worldwide to fight poverty and injustice, chose another tactic, staging a stunt photo in the Circus Maximus.
In this mise en scène, bobble-headed G8 leaders lye on a triclinium, eating grapes and reciting ancient poems accompanied by a cithera, whilst huge flames destroy Rome. The message? The eight leaders of the most powerful countries are, like Emperor Nero, ignoring the flaming crisis engulfing the world around them.
Sweet dreams are made of this.
Not surprisingly, Bono is getting into the action too. Yesterday he published a love letter to Italy in La Stampa, in which he pleaded for the Berlusconi-led G8 to fulfill its obligations to the world’s poorest people.
Photos by Oxfam its partner UCODEP are posted on Flickr.
Other cardboard box-conveyed messages included, “My home has melted” and “I’m a climate refugee.”
