07.02.2002
Protest, passion and programme
Post-September 11, which way forward for the anti-capitalist movement? Over the last week two events have highlighted this important question. First, over the weekend, there was the World Economic Forum at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. There has been a gathering of the WEF every year since 1971 - essentially a giant cocktail party at which the rich and influential can hob-nob with each other. Until this year, the WEF had always been held in the skiing resort of Davos in Switzerland. However, the dignitaries decided to move their drinks to New York in order to express "solidarity" with the city. In this humanitarian spirit, representatives of the 1,000 most powerful corporations on the planet made their way to the still scarred, twin tower-less, Manhattan district. Then there was the World Social Forum from January 31 to February 4, held in southern Brazil. More than 50,000 of the not quite so rich converged onto the town of Porto Alegre to hold their counter-WEF conference - intiated last year with the intention of it becoming an annual mirror to Davos. The diverse and heterogeneous forces assembled at the WSF were there to protest against globalisation, neo-liberalism and deregulation. Both venues provided an opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the anti-capitalist movement. Naturally, if the SWP is to be believed, everything is going inexorably from strength to strength. Weaknesses? What weaknesses? History is flowing our way. Hence the inflated headlines in Socialist Worker: 'New protests take on the global enemy' (January 26) and 'Carnival of resistance' (February 2). In the latter issue we also have the following exaggerated statement: "It is just 26 months since the great protests at the World Trade Organisation, meeting in Seattle. The series of demonstrations and counter-conferences since have forged a new global movement that challenges the rule of the market and big business" (February 2). Yet, for all the SWP's 'official optimism', the truth is not so straightforward. Under the ideological hammer blows of the 'war against terrorism', an attempt has been made to associate the anti-capitalist movement with the September 11 attackers and the reactionary anti-imperialism of islamic fundamentalism in general. The undisciplined and provocative violence of some anarchistic demonstrators at Genoa et al has been equated with the reactionary violence of islamist terrorists. Indeed, there is still the hanging suggestion that the anti-globalisers, with their hatred of all the symbols of American corporate and military power (McDonalds, Coca Cola, Starbucks, the Pentagon, etc), were some sort of weird but 'logical' offshoot from the al-Qa'eda network. As one protester at Porto Alegre put it, "It is easier for our opponents to lump us into the same camp as people who fly airplanes into buildings. Even though that is absurd, we are fighting a massive public relations machine now. The movement has to change its strategies in the post-September 11 world." Advice on how it should go about doing so came from some unexpected quarters. The Financial Times spoke of "the need to articulate a manifesto and methodology of protest that distinguishes them from terrorists, bloody revolutionaries and bomb-throwing malcontents" (February 2). Under these new circumstances, it is true that the anti-capitalist movement needs to rethink and retool - with a programme that can cohere and give positive direction to the motley mish-mash of groups and forces that currently comprise it. One that would certainly not be to the liking of the Financial Times. Contrary to the likes of Naomi Klein, author of the faddy No logo, 'diversity' and 'pluralism' is not a virtue in and of itself. We need to forge unity of purpose. This is quite a challenge. At the New York anti-WEF protests, which saw some 20,000 take to the streets, there were organisations like Love and Resistance, Political Action for Animals, Students for Global Justice, Rally for the Planet, Save the Redwoods Campaign, Act Up, etc. One can only imagine the politics that inspires these organisations. Nevertheless, coming together under the umbrella organisation, Another World is Possible, the common theme was opposition to "turbo-capitalism". Global capitalism, according to one New York activist, threatened to "purée the diverse communities of our world into a single, American-style consumer culture". The main objective of the majority of the activists was to "regulate" and "manage" global capitalism rather than smash it. In this reformist vein, the United States trade union federation, the AFL-CIO, issued a statement saying that in New York "working families will tell the world's business leaders how the global economy and the race to the bottom for cheap labour affects their lives and communities". Such sentiments can hardly provide the fresh injection of adrenaline that the anti-capitalist movement requires. Indeed, if we go down this path, the movement would be no more than a pleading ginger group acting on behalf of the world's 'victims'. But there are many positive aspects to the New York event - especially on the organisational side. There were regular 'spokes councils' - attended by hundreds of activists at single a sitting - which were democratic and non-sectarian. Views and ideas freely circulated - even if there was the slightly odd rule forbidding activists from clapping whenever they wanted to show their approval (you were supposed to 'twinkle' instead - which involved raising your hand and wriggling your fingers). More encouraging still was the fact that the demonstration was more or less peaceful - in the best sense of the term: ie, it was democratically policed by the organisers of the march. There was the danger that it could have descended into an anarchist ruck. A couple of days before the demonstration, David Graeber of the anarchist Anti-Capitalist Convergence grouping asserted: "We feel like we're under some obligation to do something, and to show that if you can do it now, in New York, you can do it anywhere. It's scary - they're going to kick our ass, but we've got to do it anyway." Thankfully, this mindless urge to imitate lemmings came to nothing. The police were fully equipped and ready for battle - they had 4,000 officers pershift. They even resurrected an old 1845 law that forbids people to wear masks in the street. If the demonstrators had gone into battle with New York's finest, no prizes for guessing who would have come off worst. In the end, only 38 people were arrested. No one was hurt. The general philosophy behind the anti-WEF protests was perhaps best summed up by Brooke Lehman, a leading figure in Another World is Possible: "If we back down now, we'll send the message that the globalisation movement has been scared quiet. I think it's more important to come together and put our message out, knowing full well the media may spin it in such a way that's unfavourable, but that's a chance I think we have to take." This comment does leave the impression that the protestors were just going through the motions - getting together purely for the sake of getting together. As for the WEF itself, there was a slight air of triumphalism at the Waldorf hotel. Paul O'Neil, the US treasury secretary, took pleasure in telling the rapt audience that the US economy had - apparently - grown in the last quarter. When he had predicted this not long after September 11, he had been widely ridiculed. The prophet returns. Indeed, it was a tough, no-nonsense message from O'Neil altogether. Debt relief and overseas aid is mostly a waste of time. O'Neil argued bluntly: "What we need to do is create the circumstances under which societies create their own wealth. Every society needs to become a wealth-generative organisation, not a consumer of other people's money. Putting these countries on welfare won't help anyone." So, in the eyes of O'Neil, all the undeveloped world needs to conjure up the billions of dollars and technical expertise required to "create their own wealth" is entrepreneurial "imagination" and sheer will power. So get on your bike, third worlders. Next to the clownish Desmond Tutu, just about the most appalling aspect of the WEF was the sight of the U2 singer, Bono, trying to act as the agonised social conscience of the world. He tried to convince O'Neil that "forgiving" debt in the third world would be the miracle cure which would pull the underdeveloped countries out of their spiral of decline. Bono righteously proclaimed that "this age will be remembered for three things: the internet, the war on terror and how the west stood around with watering cans as a whole continent, Africa, burnt in flames". No doubt to the unalloyed delight of O'Neil, Bono announced that a joint trip with the treasury secretary to Africa was planned for next month. Full of himself, he offered the idea that O'Neill was "going to come back with more than a souvenir spear, I assure you". Dream on, Bono, dream on. If New York hinted at the problems confronting the anti-globalisation movement, the World Social Forum perfectly encapsulated them. The dilemmas were candidly summed up by Candido Grzybowsky, the director of the Brazil Institute for Social and Economic Analysis: "We are a fragmented movement, maybe a disunited movement, and here we are trying to build a dialogue between ourselves and our networks. We are a big bunch of different groups with different tactics, different pressures, different passions. We are trying to understand our goals." The "fragmented" nature of the WSFers is manifestly obvious. Aside from leftists, we had petty bourgeois radicals, anti-globalisers, localists, utopian reformers, crackpots and quacks - not to mention downright reactionaries. In Porto Alegre, as in New York, we have to ask the vital question - yes, we know what you are against, but what actually are you for? Socialist Worker makes some correct criticisms, particularly in its February 9 issue. And there was a degree of truth in its description of the gatherings in New York and Porto Alegre: "Two forums, two visions of the world. That's what is taking place at opposite ends of the American continent this weekend" (February 2). Yes, it may be true that the WEF and the WSF do represent two polar opposites, the right and the 'left' alternative - but only of what currently exists, which is wretched. This should serve as a stark reminder of the setbacks we have suffered and of the work we have to do. Ultimately, the WEF and WSY is more yin-and-yang than class war. The SWP's approach towards the WSF is not unlike its tailing of the charity-mongers of the 'Jubilee 2000' campaign who shouted, 'Cancel the debt!' In its desperate and opportunistic rush to swim in the liberal sea - and pick up easy recruits - the SWP never stopped to consider whether such action would actually be progressive. If the debt was cancelled from above by those nice bankers, the kleptocracies and aidocracies in Africa, for example, would find themselves in the happy position of having even more money to spend on the means of repression. Communists do not tail charity-mongers or pop stars, nor makes passionate appeals to mere humanistic sentiment. We need a mass movement guided by a scientific communist programme that aims to build upon the most advanced feature of capitalism - which is the reality of a truly interlinked and interlocked world economy. Eddie Ford
Worker