Published on May 1, 2001 in the Independent / UK The May Day Protesters are Right to Challenge the March of Globalisation Editorial
Whatever the outcome of today's May Day demonstrations, the questions they raise are already challenging some of our assumptions about capitalism, globalisation and, indeed, participatory democracy itself. Mr Blair was quite wrong, in his speech to the London Press Club yesterday, to dismiss what he called "some spurious cause" and use words such as "idiotic". He would not have said such things had he been addressing an audience of environmentalists, but at least he has given us an insight into why his government has such a questionable record on green issues.
Most importantly, however, the wave of protests that we have seen in recent years notably in Seattle, Prague, Davos, Quebec City and of course in London a year ago are raising questions that cannot be ducked.
The first challenge, strange to say, is hardly global at all. It is the parochial one of how all this generation's energy and disaffection can be permitted legitimate expression. In the case of today's events, the police in London have pursued a media strategy of seeking to deter potential demonstrators with graphic warnings about the violent intent of some "anarchists" and the "zero tolerance" tactics with which such activities will be met. These warnings have been followed up by remarks by Lord (Toby) Harris, chair of the Metropolitan Police authority, that the police could use rubber bullets, in ill-defined "extreme circumstances".
There are some very significant problems with this sort of spinning, however. It is unlikely to deter those violent elements that caused so much damage and harm (both to property and to their own causes) last year. Those who are going to go along looking to have a good ruck and, should the opportunity arise, indulge in a little light looting on Oxford Street, are more likely to be encouraged than deterred by the thought that the police are up for a fight. The only people who will be frightened by the lurid predictions of senior policemen and officials are those citizens who merely want to make their point in a peaceful fashion, and who, in fact, should be entitled to the protection of the police in so doing. We will see, but the police's tactics so far may well prove counterproductive, while their record in supervising very large demonstrations has not always been distinguished. Which is not to say that the police are not going to have anything other than an extremely difficult task ahead of them today: but there is a balance in this which may not yet have been properly struck.
The second set of questions, however, is genuinely global. Globalisation, for all the economies of scale, efficiency and innovation that it has brought in its wake, is not an unalloyed good. The power of international companies to relocate their activities and the jobs and prosperity that go with them from state to state has often meant a search for jurisdictions that tolerate the exploitation of labour, including child labour and practices that fall not far short of slavery.
Profit-seeking companies will, unless constrained, carry on their activities with very little regard to the environmental despoilation that they so often bring. If one nation regulates them then they simply move elsewhere, but we all suffer from the effects as the unpredictable consequences of global warming become reality. There are genuine causes for concern about unfettered, lowest common denominator capitalism.
The protests today, in other words, have a point. We should be encouraging, at a time when apathy and cynicism is so prevalent, peaceful political action inspired by idealism. Those like Mr Blair who are swift to condemn the demonstrators were among the most prominent beneficiaries of the poll tax riots of 1990. They cannot have it both ways. But the protesters offer too few positive solutions. Trashing a McDonald's restaurant, it need hardly be said, changes nothing. Every progressive movement the trade unions, the chartists, the suffragettes, has had to demonstrate, but it has also, in the end, had to win the argument and peacefully.