Brecher, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith
In
the year-and-a-half from the Battle of Seattle to the Battle of Genoa, the WTO,
World Bank, IMF, and G-8 have provided spectacular "targets of opportunity" for
the transnational movement challenging top-down globalization. The movement has
reframed the debate on globalization, put its advocates on the defensive, and
forced change in the rhetoric if not the actions of world leaders and global
institutions.
But
these actions are only the shining tip of the iceberg that is the movement for
"globalization from below." That movement is made up of grassroots groups around
the world fighting to protect the environment, cancel third world debt, prevent
potential technological nightmares like genetically modified organisms, recover
democratic institutions from corporate domination, mount effective global action
against AIDS, halt capital punishment and other human rights abuses, and address
a host of other problems that require global cooperation to solve.
Neither the repression conducted on behalf of the authorities nor the
provocations of the violent fringe — nor the apparent de facto cooperation of
the two — has anything to offer to the great majority of the world’s people who
want solutions to problems like global warming and global poverty. The key to
addressing such problems lies precisely in grassroots, internationally linked
action that goes beyond periodic meeting stalking.
Some
have called the Genoa protests a failure because of the chaotic violence that
accompanied them. But that is not so clear. There was also massive violence by
police in Seattle, as well as by a fringe there also operating synergistically
with the police. But the overall effect was still to establish that a huge
international movement rejected actually-existing-globalization and proposed an
alternative based on global justice and common global interests. And that this
movement for “globalization from below,” far from being a one-protest wonder, is
continuing to grow.
The
fact that nearly all the world’s countries other than the US decided to go ahead
with a version of the Kyoto protocol is in part a tribute to the power of that
movement. So is the decision to end G-8 meetings as we have known them and to
hold only diminutive ones in remote hideaways far from the public eye. And so is
the firestorm of criticism in Italy, Europe, and world wide (though almost
unreported in the U.S.) that has met Italy’s brutalization of the G-8
protestors.
Undoubtedly, there is a danger in the rise of violent and sectarian action
within or along side of what is an overwhelmingly nonviolent movement. Movements
that start with good intentions can indeed become deformed. A leader of the
violent and sectarian SDS "Weatherman" faction recollected a quarter century
later that that, at a certain point, she lost touch with the very values that
had led her to become involved in social action in the first place. The key to
countering sectarianism and violence is not, however, to be “violently against
violence” or to form "anti-sectarian sects," but to keep our focus on the
movement’s basic goal: empowering ordinary people to address the problems of our
species and our environment.
There
is a reason to eschew violence that should be considered even by those who do
not reject it in principle. Violence and provocation have the effect of
excluding ordinary people from participation in movement actions. (One might
cite the example of the Palestinian Intifada, which initially was a mass
nonviolent movement involving whole communities including families and children,
but which, as it moved to stone throwing and other forms of violence, not only
provided a pretext for disproportionate Israeli retaliation, but made the
movement the exclusive province of young men.) Militant but nonviolent action
maximizes the primary power of social movements: the threat they imply that the
masses will withdraw their consent from the ruling authorities.
Notwithstanding some division over tactics, Genoa retained the two crucial
dimensions of unity that made Seattle a global turning point. Far from pursuing
a selfish or backward “national interest,” people from different countries and
regions around the world stood together for common objectives in a common
internationalism. And the alliance of environmentalists and workers, those
involved in First World issues and those pursuing Third World concerns, human
rights and consumer movements, and the many other elements that compose
globalization from below continued the cooperation that so astonished the world
at the Battle of Seattle.
We
have now entered a new and as-yet little analyzed phase in the development of
globalization. Its initial phase of manic expansion seems to be subsiding into
economic stagnation or worse. At the same time, the United States government
seems to be withdrawing from a role of “first among equals” in establishing a
global system on behalf of corporations and the rich; instead, it is utilizing
its muscle as the world’s only superpower to impose an old-fashioned version of
“national interest” (also known as imperialism).
Whether this is an aberration or a long-term trend remains to be seen. The U.S.
government’s rejection of international cooperation on such matters as global
warming, star wars, the small arms trade, control of biological warfare, and
economic coordination is making a problem – and opening an opportunity for the
movement for globalization from below.
The
interest of ordinary people in the U.S. and in the rest of the world is clearly
in alignment – and in opposition to the destructive policies of the Bush
administration. It provides one more opportunity (like, for example, the
international campaigns against AIDS and the death penalty) for a global
grassroots movement to outflank national policies.
Let’s
take the question of global warming. Immediately after the other 178 countries
accepted and the US rejected the modified version of the Kyoto climate accord,
the city of Seattle announced that it would unilaterally abide by the accord and
cut its carbon emissions by more than the required percentage. No doubt other
U.S. cities will follow suit. This is a powerful example of the local dimension
of globalization from below. At a national level, environmentalists in Congress
are proposing legislation to abide by the Kyoto accord.
In
this situation, grassroots transnational people-to-people cooperation could
transform global (as well as local and national) politics. Indeed, even very
moderate action could have a big impact. If every person in the 178 countries
that supported the Kyoto accords who is concerned about global warming would
contact any Americans they know, express their concern, and ask them to act, and
if every trade union, religious group, sister city organization, and similar
citizen groups would do the same, it could have a significant impact in
isolating Bush’s already unpopular position. (Appeals to U.S. trade unionists
could be particularly important here, since the AFL-CIO has opposed the Kyoto
agreement and supported greenhouse-gas-promoting Bush administration
initiatives.)
We’ve
recently seen the expression of concern about the death penalty expressed by
Europeans and others have a big impact on capital punishment in the United
States. The many people in the U.S. involved in Central American solidarity
movements in the 1980s put significant limits on the Reagan administration’s
escalation of its interventions there. Global warming provides a brilliant
opportunity for people inside and outside the U.S. to outflank national leaders
who defy common human norms and interests.
The
road from Seattle to Genoa has shown – and the road beyond Genoa will show even
more clearly — that international cooperation at a grassroots level holds the
key to effectively challenging “globalization from above.”
*
Brecher, Costello, and Smith are co-producers of the documentary video GLOBAL
VILLAGE OR GLOBAL PILLAGE? and co-authors of GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW (South
End Press, 2000). For more on their work visit
www.villageorpillage.org <http://www.villageorpillage.org>.
Brecher participated in the educational events in Genoa leading up to the G-8
confrontations.