mbs
(NY Times)
> Rebels in Search of Rules
> By NAOMI KLEIN
>
>
TORONTO -- It is all too easy to dismiss the protesters at the World Trade
Organization meeting in Seattle as radicals with 60's envy. A seemingly more
trenchant criticism is that they are simply behind the curve, fighting
against a tide of globalization that has already swamped them. Mike Moore,
the director of the W.T.O., describes his opponents as nothing more than
protectionists launching an assault on internationalism.
> The truth, however, is that the protesters in Seattle have been bitten by
> the globalization bug as surely as the trade lawyers inside the Seattle
> hotels -- though by globalization of a different sort -- and they know it.
> The confusion about the protesters' political goals is understandable:
> this is the first movement born of the anarchic pathways of the Internet.
> There is no top-down hierarchy, no universally recognized leaders, and
> nobody knows what is going to happen next.
> This protest movement is really anti-corporate rather than anti-globalist,
> and its roots are in the anti-sweatshop campaigns taking aim at Nike, the
> human rights campaign focusing on Royal Dutch/Shell in Nigeria and the
> backlash against Monsanto's genetically engineered foods in Europe.
> At any time, one huge multinational company may be involved in several
> disputes -- on labor, human rights and environmental issues, for example.
> Activists learn of one another as they aim at the same corporate target.
> Inadvertently, individual corporations have become symbols of the global
> economy in miniature, ultimately providing activists with name-brand entry
> points to the arcane world of the W.T.O.
> This is the most internationally minded, globally linked movement the
> world has ever seen. There are no more faceless Mexicans or Chinese
> workers stealing our jobs, in part because those workers' representatives
> are now on the same e-mail lists and at the same conferences as the
> Western activists. When protesters shout about the evils of globalization,
> most are not calling for a return to narrow nationalism, but for the
> borders of globalization to be expanded, for trade to be linked to
> democratic reform, higher wages, labor rights and environmental
> protections.
> This is what sets the young protesters in Seattle apart from their 60's
> predecessors.
> In the age of Woodstock, refusing to play by state and school rules was
> regarded as a political act in itself. Now, opponents of the W.T.O. --
> even those who call themselves anarchists -- are outraged about a lack of
> rules and authority. They are demanding that national governments be free
> to exercise their authority without interference from the W.T.O. and
> asking for stricter international rules governing labor standards,
> environmental protection and scientific research.
> Everyone, of course, claims to be all for rules, from President Clinton to
> Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates. In an odd turn of events, the need for
> "rules-based trade" has become the mantra of the era of deregulation. But
> deregulation is by definition about the removal of rules. The W.T.O.,
> charged with defining and enforcing deregulation, is only concerned with
> rules that regulate the removal of rules.
> The W.T.O. has consistently sought to sever trade, quite unnaturally, from
> everything and everyone affected by it: workers, the environment, culture.
> This is why President Clinton's suggestion yesterday that the rift between
> the protesters and the delegates can be smoothed over with small
> compromises and consultation is so misguided.
> The face-off is not between globalizers and protectionists, but between
> two radically different visions of globalization.
> One has had a monopoly for the last 10 years. Then other just had its
> coming-out party.
>
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