Barack Obama, the charming, charismatic and celebrity president of the United States, is going to experience something very different from what he is used to when he arrives in London for the G-20 summit. The man used to large crowds of adoring and passionate supporters is going to drive past (one doubts if the Secret Service will allow him to risk facing them) crowds of very angry people. Ironically enough, most of these very people would have been his ardent supporters, or sympathisers at the very least, when he campaigned (in a somewhat populist tradition) for “change” on an anti-establishment platform. Two months is all that it’s taken for Obama to be distrusted too — such is the magnitude of the global economic crisis which faces almost everyone.

For the protesters as well, this time will be qualitatively different from previous demonstrations. This may sound odd — after all these groups have been pretty regular sideshows at various G-8, G-20, WTO, World Bank and IMF summits ever since the massive protest at the WTO’s Seattle meeting in 1999. They are still an incredibly motley group — anarchists, environmentalists, trade unionists, Oxfam — even those who object to a third runway at London’s Heathrow airport! So, what’s really different about them?

This time the populist protesters no longer seem to be the sideshow, primarily because they reflect (and are expressing vociferously) the deep anger of a much broader section of global society than hitherto. The anger, at its base, is about the consequences of the economic crisis. But it is, in particular, directed at those in the world of finance and banking who people at large view as responsible for bringing on this crisis. What makes the anger worse is the perception that the culprits in finance are getting a landing soft when compared with many others who are suffering much more. It’s no surprise then that the protesters have amusingly anointed April 1, 2009 as financial fools’ day.

... contd.