April 13, 2001
FTAA: Why it is Important to Protest and Why Protests are Not Enough
By Bill Fletcher, Jr. <bfletcher4 at compuserve.com>
On the weekend of April 21-22, thousands of activists are expected to gather in Quebec City (Quebec, Canada) as a further expression of the anti-globalization movement sweeping the world. In this case they will be gathering to protest governmental discussions aimed at expanding the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) into a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).
The irony of having such a discussion in a province, which has been a hotbed of struggles for greater sovereignty, cannot be lost on anyone. The issue of sovereignty, however, goes far and beyond the Quebec national question. It speaks to the potential rearrangement of politics and economics in the Western Hemisphere.
When the original -- pre-NAFTA -- free trade agreement was signed between the USA and Canada, the Canadian province of Ontario lost thousands of jobs -- to the USA. This was devastating for the Ontario working class and economy generally. When NAFTA was signed, the USA lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. Ironically, and contrary to H. Ross Perot's famous metaphor of a `giant sucking sound' of jobs going to Mexico, Mexico itself lost jobs and Mexican farmers were additionally hit very badly (a major factor in the Zapatista revolt).
Despite the rampage of free trade, and the undermining of communities, ruling elites in the Western Hemisphere have pressed forward, advancing the assumption that only through free trade can there be widespread economic development. It is this notion, and the corresponding undermining of the sovereignty of governments, which the anti-globalization movement has risen to challenge.
It is important, therefore, that there is a visible opposition to the deliberations in Quebec and their intended outcome. The ruling elites, often members of otherwise contentious political parties, have developed a consensus in most of this hemisphere in support of free trade. They are prepared to ignore the negative impact of free trade on working people, seeing it as a temporary malady. Unless thousands of people are in the streets making their voices heard, this charade will continue.
Yet, as Michael Albert from Z magazine has raised, are these demonstrations enough? Tormenting trade ministers is fine popular drama and has a definite and demonstrable impact on mass consciousness -- witness the polling results, which accompanied the `Battle for Seattle' -- but it is not enough. Contrary to the fatalist view which holds that with neo-liberal globalization, action at the national and local level is irrelevant, it should be argued that such action is all the more important. And that action must be political and programmatic.
The process of globalization has been one supported by technological changes, but has not been the result of natural economic forces. Governments and multi-national corporations have advanced this process through deliberations such as the one about to occur in Quebec. Treaties and other agreements, knowingly signed by representatives of governments, have locked not only those governments, but more importantly future regimes into an approach toward the economy which is fundamentally anti-people, and fundamentally hazardous to the health of this planet.
Demonstrations in Quebec must also be matched by political and legislative strategies at the national level, which place governments into power that have a very different agenda, indeed an agenda that reflects the needs of the working class. Is this a call for autarchy? Hardly. Counterposing free trade to autarchy is sophistry at best. Rather, domestic economies must be driven by the needs of their peoples and not the needs of the multi-national corporations or ruling elites. In some cases this may mean bi-lateral or multi-lateral agreements, which affect regional economic development. That must be the choice of the peoples of those nations, rather than the choices imposed upon them by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, multi-national corporations, or any of the political parties, which do their bidding.
The mobilizations for Quebec are not only about visible outrage at the impact of neo-liberal globalization, but can signal a redefining of the proverbial line, which divides friends and foes. Rather than a retreat into protectionism and national narrowness, the anti-globalization mobilizations around Quebec can help to encourage an internationalist politics defined by the needs of working people.
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Bill Fletcher, Jr. is a National Co-Chair of the Black Radical Congress. The views and opinions expressed in this article are his own.
Copyright (c) 2001 Bill Fletcher, Jr. All Rights Reserved.