[Dissent-fr-info] The lost spirit of Seattle

Mon May 2 21:27:49 UTC 2011

The lost spirit of Seattle

In 1999, anti-WTO protests made world news. Now, a DC march goes
unnoticed. What happened to the critique of globalisation?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/25/protest-imf

The only clue I had to the International Monetary Fund/World Bank
protests taking place in Washington, DC last weekend was the inflatable
palm tree floating down the road. On my way to a film festival, I had
run smack into a modest, two block-long protest march, heading towards
the location for the spring meetings.

And I'm sure I wasn't alone in being uninformed. Outside of a few radio
updates (normally, advising drivers to expect delays), the media were
largely silent on the protests. Both the Washington Post and the
Washington Times ran wire reports from the Associated Press
<https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/17/2-arrested-imf-world-bank-protests-dc/>,
in lieu of actual on-the-ground reporting in their home city. A search
on the Washington City Paper website, a local indie weekly, only
provides information on protests that happened in 2002. Even searching
online after the fact revealed only scattered support on a few indie
<http://www.phillyimc.org/en/event/protest-imfworld-bank-april-15-17-washington-dc>
and punk-oriented
<http://squattheplanet.com/where/events/13705-16-rallies-dc-protest-wto-imf.html>
message boards, and event coverage was limited to the most dedicated of
outlets <http://imfresistance.org/>. How the mighty have fallen.

Twelve years ago, the nation was captivated by the Battle in Seattle, an
anti-globalisation protest so vast that it brought the city to a
standstill. The 1999 protests were marked by widespread media coverage,
which sparked conversations about the role of the three largest global
trade governing bodies -- and illuminated how violence can be leveraged
by activists seeking publicity. While the vast majority of the protests
were peaceful, one dedicated group
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organization_Ministerial_Conference_of_1999_protest_activity>
started a chain reaction by breaking windows and setting fire to
dumpsters, which provided much fuel for the media interest bonfire. In
the aftermath, activists had hoped this would be the beginning of wider
interest in preventing the environmental and humanitarian damage caused
by current global economic policies. Sadly, though, the need to
critically examine the operation of the IMF/World Trade
Organisation/World Bank triumvirate fell by the wayside after the early
2000s.

Even outside the activist universe, people are puzzled why protests
against the IMF/WTO/World Bank meetings aren't more brisk, considering
their positions as global powerbrokers hasn't changed a bit. Back in
2010, columnists for the Financial Times and Financial Policy wondered
why there weren't more protests at the WTO, particularly during the
increasingly bleak-looking Doha round
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha_Development_Round>, which was
intended to address many of the policies that were protested a decade
ago. Gideon Rachman, blogging for the Financial Times, ventured a theory
<http://blogs.ft.com/rachmanblog/2010/09/the-wto-out-of-the-line-of-fire/>:

    I think that one of the main reasons why the WTO is no longer in the
    line of fire is that the change in the pattern of world trade over
    the last decade -- combined with a slump in the west and a boom in
    China and India -- makes the idea that global free trade is a tool
    of western domination look increasingly absurd. The world has got a
    lot more complicated than that; and even the anti-globalisation
    movement has had to acknowledge that complexity, if only tacitly.
    These days, it is the developing nations that are pressing for
    completion of the Doha round and the rich countries that are
    dragging their feet.

Trouble is, the issues with the IMF/WTO/World Bank were complicated from
the beginning. Our shifting global reality only further compounded an
already tough situation. When I was an idealistic 16 year old, I was
dying to join the protests in Seattle -- way before I knew anything
about global economic policy. All I knew was that the WTO was bad and
the only way to change the system was to take it to the streets; it
wasn't until much, much later that I learned enough about economics and
trade to actually follow the conversations playing out in the media. But
that normally didn't matter to the organisations who wanted to see more
bodies on the ground protesting: many people only received a scant
overview of some of the major issues, and the quality and quantity of
information delivered depended heavily on which organisation one was
affiliated with.

Considering the divergent goals and plays to collective rage, as opposed
to policy conversation, it's little wonder that the streets of Seattle
erupted into a battleground, disrupting the meeting and creating
extensive property damage. But that tactic failed to promote lasting
engagement with the gorilla that is our current system of international
trade. The policies of the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank operate in
the context of a complex web of relationships, against a backdrop of
historical mandates to other nations, power blocks and alliances, which
all exist in an ever-changing political and economic environment. It
takes years of serious study to truly understand what is happening,
particularly the shifting terms of the divide between developed nations
and the global south.

After the protesters left Seattle, did they keep reading the newspapers
to see how things progressed? Did they take their fight to a different
front? Or did the idea of causing a ruckus drive a lot of the turnout,
leaving both peaceful and non-peaceful protesters feeling alienated?

One appeal to activists
<http://squattheplanet.com/where/events/13705-16-rallies-dc-protest-wto-imf.html>
in spring of 2011 continues to cover the same ground, putting the
emphasis on "get[ting] rowdy", instead of exploring the political nitty
gritty:

    HEY TO ALL Y'ALL ALTERNATIVELY MINDED PUNKS! the a-16 rallies in DC
    to protest the WTO and IMF need your support! and if you don't care
    about the global politics of the world trade organisation, their
    [sic] is another protest going on that same weekend in DC to rally
    for more environmentally friendly legislation. So please... come out
    and get rowdy.

Meanwhile, the Doha development round talks
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha_Development_Round> are expected to
end in another stalemate this week, after years of arguing towards
deadlock. The discussion of Doha has been largely confined to financial
media -- a far cry from the public conversation once hoped for by those
who took to the streets in Seattle, which they hoped would encourage the
barons of international trade to put people first in their policies. And
the effects of the debate being marginalised are all too evident: as the
small procession continued up the street, most people continued about
their daily lives, knowing that the protest, like so many in DC, would
fail to create any measurable change.

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