What the Protesters in Genoa Want

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Fri Jul 20 08:14:26 PDT 2001



>From Today's New York Times

JUL 20, 2001

What the Protesters in Genoa Want

By MICHAEL HARDT and ANTONIO NEGRI

G enoa, that Renaissance city known for both openness and shrewd

political sophistication, is in crisis this weekend. It should have

thrown its gates wide for the celebration of this summit of the

world's most powerful leaders. But instead Genoa has been transformed

into a medieval fortress of barricades with high-tech controls. The

ruling ideology about the present form of globalization is that there

is no alternative. And strangely, this restricts both the rulers and

the ruled.

Leaders of the Group of Eight have no choice but to attempt a show of

political sophistication. They try to appear charitable and

transparent in their goals. They promise to aid the world's poor and

they genuflect to Pope John Paul II and his interests. But the real

agenda is to renegotiate relations among the powerful, on issues such

as the construction of missile defense systems.

The leaders, however, seem detached somehow from the transformations

around them, as though they are following the stage directions from a

dated play. We can see the photo already, though it has not yet been

taken: President George W. Bush as an unlikely king, bolstered by

lesser monarchs. This is not quite an image of the future. It

resembles more an archival photo, pre-1914, of superannuated royal

potentates.

Those demonstrating against the summit in Genoa, however, are not

distracted by these old-fashioned symbols of power. They know that a

fundamentally new global system is being formed. It can no longer be

understood in terms of British, French, Russian or even American

imperialism.

The many protests that have led up to Genoa were based on the

recognition that no national power is in control of the present global

order. Consequently protests must be directed at international and

supranational organizations, such as the G-8, the World Trade

Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The

movements are not anti-American, as they often appear, but aimed at a

different, larger power structure.

If it is not national but supranational powers that rule today's

globalization, however, we must recognize that this new order has no

democratic institutional mechanisms for representation, as

nation-states do: no elections, no public forum for debate.

The rulers are effectively blind and deaf to the ruled. The protesters

take to the streets because this is the form of expression available

to them. The lack of other venues and social mechanisms is not their

creation.

Antiglobalization is not an adequate characterization of the

protesters in Genoa (or Gteborg, Quebec, Prague, or Seattle). The

globalization debate will remain hopelessly confused, in fact, unless

we insist on qualifying the term globalization. The protesters are

indeed united against the present form of capitalist globalization,

but the vast majority of them are not against globalizing currents and

forces as such; they are not isolationist, separatist or even

nationalist.

The protests themselves have become global movements and one of their

clearest objectives is for the democratization of globalizing

processes. It should not be called an antiglobalization movement. It

is pro-globalization, or rather an alternative globalization movement

one that seeks to eliminate inequalities between rich and poor and

between the powerful and the powerless, and to expand the

possibilities of self-determination.

If we understand one thing from the multitude of voices in Genoa this

weekend, it should be that a different and better future is possible.

When one recognizes the tremendous power of the international and

supranational forces that support our present form of globalization,

one could conclude that resistance is futile.

But those in the streets today are foolish enough to believe that

alternatives are possible that "inevitability" should not be the last

word in politics. A new species of political activist has been born

with a spirit that is reminiscent of the paradoxical idealism of the

1960's the realistic course of action today is to demand what is

seemingly impossible, that is, something new.

Protest movements are an integral part of a democratic society and,

for this reason alone, we should all thank those in the streets in

Genoa, whether we agree with them or not. Protest movements, however,

do not provide a practical blueprint for how to solve problems, and we

should not expect that of them. They seek rather to transform the

public agenda by creating political desires for a better future.

We see seeds of that future already in the sea of faces that

stretches from the streets of Seattle to those of Genoa. One of the

most remarkable characteristics of these movements is their diversity:

trade unionists together with ecologists together with priests and

communists. We are beginning to see emerge a multitude that is not

defined by any single identity, but can discover commonality in its

multiplicity.

These movements are what link Genoa this weekend most clearly to the

openness toward new kinds of exchange and new ideas of its Renaissance

past.

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri are the authors of "Empire.''

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