>But, the Economist continued, there's hope. "Take the case of the
>World Bank. The 'Fifty Years is Enough' campaign of l994 was a
>prototype of Seattle (complete with activists invading the meeting
>halls). Now the NGOs are surprisingly quiet about the World Bank.
This would appear to try to press 50YIE into alliance with the AC/JSC position. Here's what Soren had to say. Appended is the 50 Years letter to The Economist on the article C/StC quoted. - Doug]
Soren Ambrose writes: -------------------- As for this Cockburn/St. Clair piece (I just got Counterpunch at home but haven't read it, tho it looks like more of the same), I'd just have to say that it looks like St. Alex is a bit more concerned with ferreting out and castigating the sell-outs, even before they sell out than he is with recognizing and contributing to one of the seminal moments for movement-building in this generation.
Not that I wish to silence anyone, and indeed I get a huge kick out of 90% of Cockburn/St. Clair (and too much of our work here in DC is holding the line against sellout NGOs), but my god why take such a moment as Seattle which produced such good feelings and try to figure just who the slimeball in the ointment is. Anytime you put 70k people in one place you're going to have different agendas and strategies, particularly when half of them call themselves organizers. Of course organized labor's leadership isn't going to be the progressive community's forever partner. Is that really news? The news is that when you have an inclusive event like Seattle you have the opportunity -- an opportunity that worked out in hundreds of cases -- to reach out productively to people like workers, etc. that never got to hear the progressive message without the filter of the mainstream media (which is to say hardly at all). You might not get Sweeney to stick with you in the end, but the fact that he's there means you might get ten or a hundred union activists listening to your perspective for a long time to come who wouldn't have otherwise.
This is where my instincts as an organizer conflict with whatever academic (or journalistic) bearings I might still have. It really hurts us when someone like Cockburn (St. Clair) starts trying to pick at the movement's scabs at a moment when I think objectively (sorry to sound like a vanguardist) there's more unity and good feeling among a broad range of the left and not-so-left than at any time in recent memory. It gives people who weren't in Seattle, people who are naturally cynical, people, that is, like I very well might be if I weren't there and/or involved with some of the organizers, the perfect excuse to dismiss what happened there and tune out of the future possibilities. Actually I'm not even sure it's much of a conflict, because I don't think this piece is really such great journalism. I mean, why declare that only those who did one kind of activism deserve credit for all that was Seattle? I think the total effect is larger than just shutting down the opening meeting (though that was the pinnacle) -- it's all the contacts that were made, information exchanged, training received, etc. too. And a lot of that happened at that church the author(s) so scorns and a lot of the solidarity that will continue to percolate was brewed in that peaceful labor march they so easily dismiss (but which I've heard the Public Citizen and Direct Action people be very thankful for).
In all my contacts with the organizers of the events -- Global Exchange, Rainforest Action Network, Direct Action Network organizers -- I haven't heard a single complaint about liberal armchair types "swiping credit" for Seattle. Certainly there was no such talk at the DC report-from-Seattle we organized on Wed. night. Has that really happened to any significant degree? Public Citizen is the most-cited organization, and they really did do a lot of the organizing. Direct Action Network, a coalition set up mostly for Seattle, doesn't really care to project itself, but its main players -- Global Exchange (and yes, I know I know about Medea, but trying to boil GX down to her one retrograde view would be pretty lame), Rainforest Action Network, Ruckus Society, etc. have gotten pretty good play in the media.
The talk at our meeting in DC and of a similar one in SF, and of many across the country, is of the emerging plan for follow-up actions at the spring meetings of the WB and IMF. It is, after all, the next logical step -- going after the WTO's conceptual parents. So we're starting to put out the call to the folks who were in Seattle, and to those who couldn't be: DC on Sunday, April 16, outside the meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (or whatever it is they've renamed the "Interim Committee") of the IMF - 19th & H Streets, Northwest. We're predicting thousands; you'll be hearing more shortly.
Sorry about rambling about Cockburn/St. Clair -- you've already summed it up well ("holier-than-thou sectarianism"). Just had to vent after reading it.
Here's the letter we've sent to the Economist:
17 December 1999
The Economist e-mail: letters at economist.com fax: 44-020-7839-2968
To The Editor:
We were pleased that the Economist cited the "50 Years Is Enough" interventions at the 1994 annual meetings of the World Bank, which were credited with provoking a "rethink of the Bank's goals and methods" ("Will NGOs Democratise, or Merely Disrupt, Global Governance?" - Dec. 11-17). Unfortunately that rethink has not kept the Bank from embarking on projects like an oil pipeline through Chad and Cameroon destined to fuel mainly corruption, repression, and environmental devastation - projects which continue to spark forceful opposition from NGOs in both the affected countries and the North (where many of the protesting organizations - such as Rainforest Action Network and Global Exchange - also played key roles both in '94 and in Seattle).
Such projects, and the continued commitment of the Bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to the draconian "structural adjustment programs" they impose on the poorest countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, have led opponents to launch campaigns attacking their funding and to stage non-violent protests such as the one that led to several arrests outside the IMF last April.
The 1994 meetings were actually sessions held jointly by the World Bank and the IMF, on the 50th anniversary of their creation. If the Bank has been feeling less heat since then, it may be because much of the opposition's work has focused on exposing the brutality of the IMF, the lead partner in designing structural adjustment programs. The IMF's current unpopularity in Congress and public opinion - assisted by its own arrogance and incompetence - testifies to the success we have had. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers's December 14 proposal to shift the IMF away from its structural adjustment programs may be the culmination of that work, but we note that he wants the World Bank to take over its role. Mr. Wolfensohn will be hearing from us more frequently and more loudly than he may expect. If, as you say, the '94 meetings were a "prototype" for Seattle, he and his associates may find the circle completing itself, with many organizations who protested the WTO demonstrating at the joint World Bank/IMF meetings in Washington in April 2000.
Sincerely,
Njoki Njoroge Njehu, Director 50 Years Is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice