The neutrality of this article is disputed.
The anti-globalization movement is an effort to counter aspects of the current process of globalization (recent changes in the world economy involving an increase and intensification in the scale and density of global networks and circulations). Although adherents of the movement often work in concert, the movement itself is heterogeneous and includes diverse, sometimes opposing, understandings of this process, alternative visions, strategies and tactics. Thus, more nuanced terms include anti-capitalist/anti-corporate alternative globalization. Participants may use the positive terms global justice or fair trade movement; or Movement of Movements; or simply The Movement.
Some factions of the movement reject globalization as such, and there is some overlap with older right-wing movements such as nativism. Other factions align with older left-wing movements such as Luddism, (left-wing) anarchism and communism. Other activists in the movement object not to capitalism or international markets as such but rather to what they claim is the non-transparent and undemocratic mechanisms, and consequences, of globalization. They are especially opposed to neoliberalism, and international institutions that promote neoliberalism such as the World Bank
(WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO); neoliberal "free trade" treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA),
Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the
Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS); business alliances like the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) and the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC); as well as the governments which promote these agreements, institutions, and policies. Still others argue that, if borders are opened to capital, borders should be similarly opened to allow free and legal circulation and choice of residence for migrants and refugees. These activists tend to target organisms such as the International Organization for Migration and the Schengen Information System.
There are many different causes championed by movement members,
including labor rights, environmentalism, feminism, freedom of migration, preservation of the cultures of indigenous peoples,
biodiversity, cultural diversity, food safety, organic farming, opposition to the
green revolution and genetic engineering, and ending or
reforming capitalism. Many of the protesters are veterans of
single-issue campaigns, including forest/anti-logging activism,
living wage[?], labor union organizing, anti-sweatshop
campaigns, homeless solidarity campouts, urban squatting, urban
autonomy, and political secession. Some protesters identify
themselves as revolutionary anarchists, socialists, Gaians, or communists; others agree ideologically but don't
immediately identify themselves as such and still others want to
reform capitalism, e.g. democratic Greens, some pagans.
Movement members see most or all of these goals as complementary to
one another, together forming a comprehensive agenda touching on
nearly all aspects of life.
One common thread among the disparate causes is that the World Bank
and IMF are seen as undermining local decision-making methods. Local
or national sovereignty is seen as key to protecting cultures and
ecologies. Governments and free trade institutions, on the other
hand, are seen as acting solely for the good of trans-national (or
multi-national) corporations (e.g. Microsoft, Monsanto,
etc.). These corporations -- rhetorically likened to locusts or
rapists -- are seen as having rights that human persons do not have -
to move freely across borders, extract natural resources, exploit
human resources, and move on after having depleted human capital,
natural capital, and biodiversity itself - imposing a kind of
global monoculture. Therefore, some of the movements' common goals
are an end to corporate personhood and the dissolution or
dramatic reform of the World Bank, IMF, and WTO.
As protest slogans summarize: "People and planet before profits",
"The Earth is not for sale!", or "Teamsters and Turtles, Together At
Last!"
Some of the movement's agenda is shared by major economic
theorists who argue for much less centralized systems of money
supply, debt control, and trade law. These include George Soros,
Joseph E. Stiglitz (formerly of the World Bank), and David Korten. These three in particular have made strong arguments for
drastically improving transparency, for debt relief, land reform, and restructuring corporate accountability systems. Korten and Stiglitz
have actually been involved in direct actions and street protest.
Several influential critical works have inspired and summarized the
anti-globalization movement. These include, most influentially:
Naomi Klein's book No Logo, which criticized the production
practices of multinational corporations and the omnipresence
of brand-driven marketing usurping popular culture.
Vandana Shiva's book Biopiracy, which documented the way that the
natural capital of indigenous peoples and ecoregions is
converted by forms of intellectual capital (recognized as property
under colonialism) and exploited by marketing in order to create a
monoculture.
Amartya Sen's "Development as Freedom" (winner of
The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1999), arguing strongly against traditional macro-economics, and for a system of money supply where
currency would be based on free time.
Perhaps more influential than any printed book is the vast array of material on spiritual movements, anarchism, libertarian socialism and the Green Movement that is now available on the
Internet. The previously obscure works of Arundhati Roy, Starhawk, Carol Moore and John Zerzan in particular - these inspired a critique favoring feminism, consensus process
and political secession, opposing a "tyranny of Number" by which the critics seem to mean any global measurements of people or profit at all. Perhaps the only axiom shared widely by such critics is, in line with this critique, that biodiversity is good, extinction bad.
Other than this vague "biodiversity good, extinction bad, numbers harmful" summary, which would no doubt enrage many followers of specific ideologies, there seems to be no leader who is universally
accepted by "the movement". In this respect it resembles the peace movement, environmental movement, ecology movement, Green Movement, and various forms of anarchism and
fundamentalism, all of which generally abhor usurpation of power by "leaders", while paradoxically elevating previously obscure figures or doctrines. Some call this an anti-monoculture movement, and make strong links between ecological, social, and ideological diversity doctrines.
The movement's largest and most visible mode of organizing is mass
demonstrations, usually at the site of or in contrast to meetings of
organizations they object to. This mode of organizing, sometimes
derided (within and without the movement) as "summit-hopping" serves
to tie the many disparate causes together into one global struggle.
Exposure to the other causes helps create solidarity and slowly lays
the groundwork for a consensus process and basis of unity for
the movement itself, which may eventually include any, all, or none
of the doctrines listed above.
In the process, it also helps to focus global attention both on the
institutions of global capitalism (whose policies most movement
members feel people would object to if they knew about them) as well
as bring attention to the movement itself. In many ways the process
of organizing matters more than the avowed goals or achievements of
any given action in the movement.
As Ralph Nader has put it:
- "You may support some of the goals. You may even like some of the decisions. But you can't reasonably support the way these decisions are being made."
The stated goal of most demonstrations is to shut down the summit it
is protesting. Some demonstration slogans to this effect include:
"WEF? SHUT IT DOWN!", "CAPITALISM? NO THANKS! WE'LL SHUT DOWN YOUR
FUCKING BANKS!", and "WTO? NO! WTO? NO!". Although the
demonstrations rarely succeed in more than delaying or
inconveniencing the actual summits, this energizes the mobilizations
and gives them a purpose.
The movement's organizational model is notable - despite (or perhaps
because of) the lack of formal coordinating bodies, the movement
manages to successfully organise large protests on a global basis,
using information technology to spread information and organise.
Protesters organize themselves into "affinity groups," typically a
non-hierarchical group of people who live close together and share a
common goal or political message. Affinity groups will then send
representatives to planning meetings. However, because these groups
are easily and frequently penetrated by law enforcement intelligence,
important plans of the protests are often not made until the last
minute.
One common tactic of the protests is to split up based on willingness
to break the law. This is designed, with varying success, to protect
the risk-averse from the physical and legal dangers posed by
confrontations with law enforcement. For example, in Prague, the
protest split into three distinct groups, approaching the conference
center from three directions: one engaging in various forms of civil disobedience (the Yellow march), one (the Pink/Silver march) advancing through "tactical frivolity" (costume, dance, theatre, music, and artwork), and one (the Blue march) engaging in violent conflicts with the police, the police armed with water cannons and batons, the protesters with cobblestones lifted from the street [Guardian report (http://www.guardian.co.uk/imf/story/0,7369,373703,00)].
These demonstrations come to resemble small societies in themselves.
Many protesters take training in first aid and act as medics to other
injured protesters. Some organizations like the [[National Lawyer's
Guild]] and, to a lesser extent, the ACLU provide legal witnesses
in case of law enforcement confrontation. Protesters often claim
that major media outlets do not properly report on them; in response,
some of them created the Independent Media Center,
a collective of protesters reporting on the actions as they happen.
The first major mobilization of the movement, known as N30, occurred
on November 30, 1999, when protesters blocked delegates'
entrance to WTO meetings in Seattle, USA. The protests
forced the cancellation of the opening ceremonies and lasted the
length of the meeting until December 3. There was a large, permitted
march by members of the AFL-CIO, and another large, unpermitted
march by assorted affinity groups. The Seattle riot police, in
conjunction with the National Guard and, according to some
sources, the Delta Forces of the United States Army, assaulted
protesters with night sticks, pepper spray, tear gas, and
rubber bullets. Over 600 of protesters were arrested and dozens
were injured. One demonstrator miscarried her baby after being exposed to CS and OC gas. Three policemen were injured by friendly fire, and one
by a thrown rock. Some protesters destroyed the windows of local
storefronts which were owned by targeted corporations, such as a
large Nike shop and many Starbucks windows. The mayor put the city under the municipal equivalent of martial law and declared a
curfew. As of 2002, the city of Seattle had paid over $200,000 in
settlements of lawsuits filed against the Seattle Police
Department for assault and wrongful arrest, with a class action
lawsuit still pending.
Although local police were surprised by the size of N30, law
enforcement agencies have since reacted worldwide to prevent the
disruption of future events by a variety of tactics, including sheer
weight of numbers, infiltrating the groups to determine their plans,
and preparedness to use force to remove protestors.
At the 2000 protest of the Republican National Convention in
Philadelphia, John Sellers, a key organizer of the Ruckus
Society, one of the groups organizing the protests, was arrested on
charges of jaywalking and held in jail on $1,000,000 bail for the
duration of the protests. At the same protest, the police made a
point of arresting anybody with a cell phone to impede the
organization of the protest. Many protestors have been prevented from
crossing borders for the purpose of joining a protest, either because
their names matched a list of known protestors or because of their
appearance.
At the site of the protests, police use tear gas, rubber bullets,
pepper spray, night sticks, and water cannons to repel the
protestors, as is common when policing large demonstrations. In
Quebec City, municipal officials walled off the portion of
the city where the FTAA summit was being held with a 10-foot-high
wall, which only residents, delegates to the summit, and certain
accredited journalists were allowed inside. Although police claimed
that violent elements in the protesters required a firm response,
they fired tear gas and rubber bullets indiscriminately, dispersing
peaceful assemblies and even teams of medics assisting the wounded;
they gassed areas not involved in the protests, even firing off the
mountaintop where the confrontations were taking place into the city
below. The medical centre and independent media centre were evacuated
by police at gunpoint.
In Genoa, the Police conducted nighttime raids upon
convergence centers and campsites. Around midnight on July 21st, Police conducted a raid upon the two schools known as Diaz-Pascoli and Diaz-Pertini, in which activists had been sleeping and doing media, medical, and legal support work; the Diaz School raids resulted in 93 arrests, at least 61 activists severely injured, and a parliamentary inquiry
[Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,526484,00)]. In an unrelated incident, one of the protestors,
Carlo Giuliani of Genoa, was killed by a Carabiniere
while assaulting with a fire extinguisher a Carabinieri jeep that had remained isolated and attacked by protesters. The town of Genoa was severely damaged by these events, actually ruined in some areas, and suffered a real hard guerrilla in its streets. For the first time in its republican history, Italy temporarily suspended the constitutional freedom of movement on the national territory. It has to be recalled that, being the G8 summit held on board of a boat and the center of town was surrounded by a temporary wall, there was little chance for protesters to meet the participants. An activist who had been heading to Genoa, Susanne Bendotti, was hit by a vehicle and killed on July 21st at the French-Italian border in Ventimiglia; another Genoa activist, Maria Jose Olivastri was found naked and strangled in a ditch in Padua, two weeks after the summit.
The response from protestors to such police tactics has included accusing them
of brutality in interrupting their right to non-violently protest.
However, police and responsible politicians argue that attempting to
blockade a meeting is in itself a violent event and an attempt to
impede the processes of democratically elected governments. They also
argue that police use the minimum force necessary to achieve their
goals, and that the protestors claims are exaggerated. All in all, there were several hundred demonstrators injured and several hundred arrests during the days surrounding the G8 meeting; most of those arrested have been charged with some form of "criminal association" under Italy's anti-terrorist laws. As part of the continuing investigations, police raids of social centers, media centers, union buildings, and law offices have continued across Italy since the G8 summit in Genoa. Many police officers or responsible authorities present in Genoa during the G8 summit, are currently under investigation by the Italian judges, and some of them resigned. Some have since admitted to planting Molotov cocktails in order to justify the Diaz School raids, as well as faking the stabbing of a police officer to frame activists (fair.org (http://www.fair.org/activism/genoa-update)).
The following passage by journalist, author, and movement member
Jeffrey St. Clair, taken from 5 Days That Shook The World,
recounts his experience at N30, capturing well the euphoric sense of
connection that many movement members feel toward one another, the
culture of mutual antipathy between the movement and law enforcement,
and the loosely organized nature of the demonstrations.
- Around 10 am, I ran into my friend Michael Donnely, a veteran Earth First!er from Oregon. Donnely and I walked up to 6th and Union, where we heard that a group of forest activists had taken control of an intersection. Here was to come the first violent attack by police on protesters. A band of about 200 protesters had sat down in the street. Others were playing music. Even more were dancing. A squad of riot cops approached. The sergent mumbled something over a megaphone. "Fifteen minute warning", Donnely said. "We've got fifteen minutes and then these guys are going to try to clear us out."
- About ten minutes later, a Peacekeeper vehicle arrived, more cops clinging to its side. The back of the truck was popped open and dozens of tear gas canisters were unloaded. And, then very suddenly, a tear gas can was launched into sitting demonstrators. It oozed grey-green smoke. Then seconds later another one. And then five or six more of them were fired into the crowd. One of the protesters nearest the cops was a young, petite woman. She rose up, plainly disoriented from the gas, and a Seattle policeman, crouched less than 10 feet away, shot her in the knee with a rubber bullet. She fell to the pavement, grabbing her leg and screaming in pain. Then, moments later, one of hber comrades, maddened by the unprovoked attack, charged the police line, Kamikaze-style. Two cops beat him to the ground with their batons, hitting him at least 20 times. As the cops flailed away with their four-foot long clubs, the crowd chanted "The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching". Soon the man started to rise. Somehow he got on his hands and knees and then he was shot in the back by a cop who was standing over him. His hands were cuffed behind him and he was dragged away across the pavement.
- The so-called rubber bullets are meant to be fired at areas of the body with large muscle mass. Like the thighs or the ass. But over the next two days Seattle cops would fire off thousands of rounds without exhibiting any caution. Dozens of peopole, none of them treatening the cops with harm, were shot in the back, in the neck, in the groin, in the face; in places that the ammunition's manufacturers, ever conscious of liability questions, warn could cause severe trauma or death.
- By now another volley of tear gas had been throw [sic] into the crowd and the intersection was clotting with fumes. At first I was stunned, staring at the scene with the glazed look of the freshly lobotomized. Then my eyes began to boil in my head, my lips burned and it seemed impossible to draw a breath. When it's raining, the chemical agents hug close to the ground, taking longer to dissolve into the air. This coumpunds the tear gas' stinging power, its immobilizing effect. I staggered back up 6th Avenue toward University, where I stumbled into a cop decked out in his storm trooper gear. He turned and gave me a swift whack to my side with the tip of his riot club. I feel [sic] to my knees and covered my head, fearing a tumult of blows. But the blows never came and soon I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder and woman's voice say, "Come here".
- I retreated into a narrow alley and saw the blurry outline of a young woman wearing a Stetson cowboy hat and a gas mask. "Lean your head back, so that I can wash the chemicals out of your eyes", she said. The water was cool and within seconds I could see again. "Who are you?" I asked. "Osprey", she said, and disappeared into the chemical mist. Osprey, the familiar, totemic name of an Earth First!er.
The major mobilizations have taken place in the developed world,
where there are strong traditions of free speech, police restraint,
civil rights, and the rule of law. In these countries, one of the
objectives is to demonstrate that the protesters self-govern better
than they could ever be controlled by violent force: on March 15
2002 in Barcelona, 250,000 people "rioted" for days with no serious
injury on either side - far fewer casualties than would be expected
in a typical European soccer riot.
By demonstrating general restraint against attacking persons and
restricting demonstrative actions to property damage, the
mobilizations have acted as an important influence on the developing
world. In Argentina during the winter 2002 economic crisis, millions
of ordinary citizens took to the streets for days with similar
results, forcing several changes in the federal government. From December 19-20 2001, demonstrations (called "cacerolazos") in Buenos Aires forced the resignation of then-president De la Rua; over 32 demonstrators were killed. Since then, Argentine citizens have continued to develop alternative neighborhood-based economic systems, social structures and systems of autonomous self-government. A popular slogan within the uprising was, "Que se vayan todos! Que no se quede ninguno solo!" This means, "Everybody out (of the government)! Nobody stays!" indicating protesters' frustration not only with corruption in government but with the entire governmental structure.
In India, the views of Vandana Shiva and Amartya Sen and
Arundhati Roy are very popular, effectively they enjoy full
celebrity status. The acceptance and interest in their ideas and in
the methods of Mohandas Gandhi are forming a major and specific challenge
to both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalism.
The anti-globalization movement has been heavily criticized on many
fronts by many people, both in its goals and means.
One of the most fundamental criticisms of the movement is simply that
it lacks coherent goals, and that the views of different protestors
are in fact fundamentally contradictory. For instance, it is argued
(for instance, as a constant editorial line by The Economist),
that one of the major causes of poverty amongst third-world farmers
are the trade barriers put up by rich nations (and perhaps the largest single cause of developing nations' problems being the incompetence and corruption of the elites of many of those nations rather than current actions by wealthy countries). The WTO is an
organisation set up to work towards removing those trade barriers.
Therefore, it is argued that people really concerned about the plight
of the third world should actually be encouraging free trade, rather
than attempting to fight it. Further to this vein, it is argued that
the protest's anti free trade goals are really aimed at protecting
the interests of Western labour (whose wages and conditions are protected by trade barriers) rather than the interests of the developing world.
Another criticism is that, although the movement articulates problems, it rarely proposes detailed solutions, and those solutions that have been advocated are often what a fairly broad spectrum of political viewpoints regard as failed variants of socialism.
Some have criticized its claim to be non-violent. Aside from
the indisputably violent tactics by a minority of protestors
(possibly aggravated by the police), some see a blockade of an event as in and of itself a violent action (although many protesters would counter that blockades are a time-honored technique of civil disobedience).
Finally, the motivations of the organisers of the protests is often
questioned. Some believe that the key organisers are really
Trotskyite, who are simply using whatever grievances they can
find to enlarge their protests with the aim of provoking violent
revolution.
1999
2000
- April 16 -- Washington, DC, USA IMF
- July 29 -- Philadelphia, USA, Republican National Convention
- August 11 -- Los Angeles, USA, Democratic National Convention
- September 11 -- Melbourne, Australia, World Economic Forum
- September 26 -- Prague, Czech Republic, World Bank/IMF
- November 20 -- Montreal, Quebec, G20[?] meeting
2001
2002
- February 1 -- New York City, USA / Porto Alegre, Brazil World Economic Forum / World Social Forum
- March 15 -- Barcelona, Spain EU Summit
- April 20 -- Washington, DC (War on Terrorism)
- June 26 -- Calgary, Alberta and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, G8 summit at Kananaskis, Alberta
- September 27 -- Washington, DC, IMF/World Bank
External links
- http://www.indymedia.org Independent Media Center
- Pictures from Genoa 2001: [1] (http://www.arci.it/gsf/redz.htm), [2] (http://www.repubblica.it/speciale/gallerieG8/index), [3] (http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/genova/pics1.htm), [4] (http://www.repubblica.it/gallerie/online/politica/uccisione/3), [5] (http://www.repubblica.it/gallerie/online/politica/uccisione/5), [6] (http://www.repubblica.it/gallerie/online/politica/uccisione/6),
- the No Border Network (http://www.noborder.org/),
- http://www.anotherworldispossible.com Coalition formed for 2002 World Social Forum
See also:
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