Kigali — Images of clashes between G8 protesters and riot police in the German port city of Rostock in which 1000 people were injured sent different signals to different people of the world.

For Africans living under pseudo democratic regimes, it reminded them that there is no difference between the so-called developed world and their own, in real terms. Police will always crackdown, uncompromisingly and hard, on protestors.

To police in Africa, it was an inspiration. Beating up protesters was not, after all, very uncivilised. To the African protesters who often stir up trouble to provoke the security forces to their advantage, it was apparent that theirs was a global tactic, not unique to them alone. "Even the Europeans do it".

Police blamed the violence on some 2,000 militants known as the "black block." The protesters say that security forces infiltrated their otherwise peaceful demonstration to make the demonstrators look bad, and to present them to the world as irresponsible hecklers, thus diverting the world from the real issues at the core of the dissent, that is injustice and exploitation of the South by the so-called industrialised nations.

The mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper declared the violence Germany's "G8 Shame!" "Yesterday images were formed in our country that will damage our reputation across the world," wrote commentator Claus Strunz in one of the newspaper's columns.

All, then, are guilty and all are innocent. But why are people demonstrating against the G8 anyway? What is this anti-globalisation coalition that has sought to be heard since 1999?

Anti-globalisation is a term most commonly ascribed to the political stance of people and groups who oppose certain aspects of globalisation in its current form. It is considered by many to be a social movement, while others consider it to be an umbrella term that encompasses a number of separate social movements.

In either case, participants are united in opposition to the political power of large corporations, as exercised in trade agreements and elsewhere, which they say undermines democracy, the environment, labour rights, national sovereignty, the third world, and other concerns.

The groups and individuals that would come to be known as the "anti-globalisation movement" developed in the late twentieth century to combat the globalisation of corporate economic activity and the free trade with developing nations that might result from such activity.

Members of the anti-globalisation movement generally advocate alternatives to liberal economics, and seek to protect the world's population and ecosystem from what they believe to be the damaging effects of globalisation.

Support for human rights NGOs is another cornerstone of the anti-globalisation movement's platform. They advocate for labour rights, environmentalism, feminism, freedom of migration, preservation of the cultures of indigenous peoples, biodiversity, cultural diversity, food safety, and ending or reforming capitalism.

By contrast, certain paleo-conservative American opponents of globalisation, such as Patrick Buchanan, argue against globalisation from a point of view of economic nationalism. Against outsourcing, such paleo-conservative opponents of globalisation phrase their opposition xenophobic terms.

"The industrialised world must protect itself against the Global South", Buchanan argues, because what he calls the "Third World" is racked with disease and the peoples there lack a Western culture. Economic globalisation, therefore, will result in the "Death of the West". It is therefore not difficult to know why Buchanan cannot be president.

Although adherents of the movement often work together, the movement itself is heterogeneous. It includes diverse and sometimes opposing understandings of the globalisation process, and incorporates alternative visions, strategies and tactics.

Many of the groups and organisations that are considered part of the movement were not founded as anti-globalist, but have their roots in various pre-existing social and political movements. The anti-globalisation movement has its precursors in such movements as the 1968 movement in Europe and the protest against the Vietnam War in the United States. It continues to oppose the invasion of Afghanistan and occupation of Iraq.

Generally speaking, protesters believe that the global financial institutions and agreements undermine local decision-making methods. Many governments and free trade institutions are seen as acting for the good of multinational corporations.

These corporations are seen as having privileges that most human persons do not have: moving freely across borders, extracting desired natural resources, and utilising a diversity of human resources. They are perceived to be able to move on after doing permanent damage to the natural capital and biodiversity of a nation, in a manner impossible for that nation's citizens.

Some of the movements' common goals are; an end to the legal status of so-called "corporate personhood" and the dissolution or dramatic reform of the World Bank, IMF, and WTO.

So, if you were in Rostock, would you or would you not have joined in the demonstrations?