The Life--or Death--of the Anti-Globalization Movement
The anti-globalization movement that erupted onto the scene in Seattle 1999 frightened elites and inspired activists around the world to fight the system in a utopian, anti-authoritarian way. However, this movement has occupied a much less significant place on the public stage since the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001. Is it over?
We asked Marina Sitrin (IAS grant recipient) and Chuck Morse (IAS board member) for their thoughts on this question.
Marina Sitrin:
This question makes me immediately think of those who negate the autonomous social movements in Argentina, arguing that because they did not "take power" when the numbers in the streets might have allowed it, the movements must be over and dead. It is not an analysis based on movement history, nor is it one based on looking at things where they are, but rather is an analysis based on a future idea of what a movement should be, and then when that pre-conceived idea is not realized, the entire movement is negated. This is a misguided and unfortunate view of history.
I wonder, then, if the question of the life of the Global Justice Movement is meant to address what appears on first impression to be a decline in the numbers of people demonstrating in the street. Or maybe the question is directed at what we are currently doing, in that it appears that we are multi-focused. Regardless of the motivation behind the question, it opens a space for an important conversation. This is a very short dialogue, with the goal of bringing about more discussion and debate on the role and place of the movement, as well as a broader conversation on our overall goals as anti-capitalists. To place myself in this piece, I am an anti-capitalist, against all hierarchy, and believe in freedom and horizontalism.
The most important thing the movement has contributed to the politics and culture of the world is a new vision, a new way of imagining social relationships and a new way of placing ourselves as actors in the world. This is seen even in the name. There was a conscious decision by many in the movement to stop referring to the movement as anti-globalization, and use language that more clearly reflected the movement's desires: the creation of a new sense of justice worldwide. Social movements cannot be measured in the same way that many academic historians measure history, by counting numbers or gathering lists of demonstrations. The way in which we measure the life and health of a movement is in the effect and affect it creates, not just in relation to power structures, but also in our relationships to one another, in what we are creating day to day with one another. I believe that the Global Justice Movement is alive and healthy and continues to generate new ideas, passions, and movements all over the world. This is seen most in the ways in which people are organizing globally, using horizontal visions while maintaining a clear anti-capitalist and anti-empire focus, as well as in how we listen and relate to our various movements around the globe, truly creating a movement of movements.
To think about the Global Justice Movement in the US, is to immediately think of Seattle in 1999. For me, participating in the shut down of the WTO, as well as the social creation that took place in the planning, signified a huge shift in my imagination. This shift was not because of the resistance in the streets, though it was beautiful, but rather the shift came from the way in which we resisted and continue to resist. This could be seen particularly with our parallel institutions, such as indymedia, legal and medical collectives, and the ways in which we made decisions. Seattle reflected a massive shift in the way that we relate to one another in every aspect of our organizing. Decisions were made directly democratically, each person listening to the other and striving for synthesis. Each person had a voice through the affinity group and spokes council model, a horizontal relationship based on the desire for freedom and not power-over or hierarchy. These models and ways of imagining relations were the most important thing to come out of Seattle, and have changed the ways in which activists relate to one another all over the country. In most student groups today, as well as in other groups and collectives, people use various forms of direct democracy and strive for horizontal structures. This is not merely a reflection of different decision-making structures, but is a broader reflection of shifting views on power. From the concept of power-over and taking power, to concepts of power-to, and the creation of other power, or anti-power.
The Global Justice Movement has changed over the past four years, as all living movements do. The movement is theoretically stronger, and seeks a deeper understanding and analysis of the world around us. The movement exploded with a definitive no to capitalism. This in itself, inseparably linked to horizontalism, was a huge step. Influenced by the Zapatistas, first there is a "NO" and then many yeses. The movement is creating new yeses each day. We no longer focus solely on institutions of global capital, but also work against what many are calling "empire". The anti-capitalism has gone beyond individual bad corporations or institutions to attempting to understand the role of the state, the military, and where they diverge and intersect with government and institutions of global capital.
As we are actively developing theoretically, our structures are in transition. While some of the direct action groups initiated after Seattle, such as the Direct Action Network, no longer exist, many others have since been created and have even deeper roots in communities and a broader theoretical perspective. Groups such as the Direct Action to Stop the War in San Francisco or the Wooster Global Action Network, and the New York City based Anarchist People of Color network, all horizontal in structure, anti-capitalist, and grounded in seeing the means of struggle as the ends. The effect of the movement has also been felt in some of the more traditional reformist or radical coalitions. For example, United for Peace and Justice in various cities uses forms of decision-making and sometimes even a spokes council model precisely because of the effects of those in the movement and from gathering lessons from the movement. I do not believe that there needs to be one organization, though various networks are of great importance if history is to be our guide at all. Globally there is the People's Global Action, that outside the US is still a very strong network that links horizontal anti-capitalist groups from India to Argentina. Over the past few years in the US there have been hundreds of discussions, conferences, and documents attempting to spark more conversation around forming different types of anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian networks or groups, and the past few months have witnessed a huge increase in these discussions. The groups in the US pre-Seattle were not in this place. Not only was there not a discussion of linking, but not in a horizontal way, nor so clearly anti-capitalist. We are in place much more advanced than that of the pre-Seattle period, and it is because of the global vision of horizontalism, anti-capitalism, and direct democracy. The movement is creating a new politic, based in many movements of the past, and I believe the movement of movements continues to get stronger and grow deeper roots.
The question of the life of the movement is an important one, and from there we need to get on with the continued visioning of the world we are creating.
[Morse in following post - DH]