FWD: The Revolt of the Globalized

Originally published in Spanish by La Jornada
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Translated by irlandesa

La Jornada
Thursday, December 2, 1999.


Luis Hernandez Navarro

The Revolt of the Globalized

The 21st century did not begin on November 9, 1989, with the fall of the
Berlin Wall.  Nor will it begin on the first of January of the year 2000.
The new century was born on November 30, 1999 with the revolt of the
globalized in Seattle, Washington.

The boycott of the opening of the World Trade Organization (WTO) summit -
staged by 50,000 demonstrators - is not the last protest by the forgotten
of the earth, but rather the great premiere in "society" of world
resistance to a globalization model being led by transnational coalitions.
Ecologists, farmers from the First World, unionists, homosexuals, NGOs
supporting development, feminists, punks, human rights activists,
representatives of indigenous peoples, the young and not young, people from
the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, Europe and Asia - all
unleashed a peaceful protest against the new Babylon.

Beyond their national diversity or their political differences, the
demonstrators share their rejection of the slogan "All power to the
transnational corporations!" present on the free trade agenda in the
abstract.  They believe that an ideological alibi is concealed behind the
worship of God-Market-creator-of-the-society-of-the-future.  An ideology
that is trying to limit social victories, levels of wellbeing,
environmental standards and the range of intervention of national policies,
for the benefit of the great financial capital.

Behind the Seattle protest, there is a convergence of planetary networks
and coalitions, built throughout the last two decades.  In the United
States, for example, the struggle against GATT, against NAFTA with Canada
and with Mexico, and against the Initiative of the Americas, has a long
organizing tradition that goes far beyond the traditional "protectionist"
logic.  Its origins go back to the effective boycott organized against
Nestle in the early seventies.  Its second moment came during their
opposition to GATT.  Many groups of agriculturists, environmentalists and
consumers in that country considered the Uruguay Round of 1985 - 1986 -
promoted by the Reagan administration - to be a government maneuver for
achieving reform in agricultural policies through international
negotiations - reduction of subsidies - that could not be achieved within
the United States.  Broad international coalitions were built during this
struggle, with organizations of rural producers in Europe and Japan, who
form the backbone of the new mobilizations.

In many industrialized countries, international commercial agreements,
without checks and without compensation policies, are seen by many citizens
as an instrument that allows international bureaucracies associated with
the large corporations to mock the social controls won over years of
struggle.  Modern computer networks, the proliferation of hundreds of NGOs
and the ease in moving about the world, have made possible the formation of
pockets of resistance which transcend national boundaries and which have
created a new internationalism.

The mobilizations against the WTO in Seattle have been preceded by hundreds
of new struggles of a new kind all over the world.  A few months ago, a
French farmer destroyed a McDonald's in his community, in order to protest
against the food degradation promoted by this franchise.  The conflict
attained national visibility and achieved international notoriety.  Its
main protagonist, a believer in self-management and an old activist from
the movement of '68, became a modern campesino hero.  In India, hundreds of
rural men have burned the camps where Monsanto is experimenting with
transgenetic cotton, while thousands more have taken over the facilities of
the Cargill seed marketer.  The trade in genetically modified organisms has
brought about an unstoppable avalanche of commercial disputes.  Indigenous
organizations in South America have presented - and won - legal suits
against attempts to patent life forms.  Hundreds of personalities and
organizations have participated in the encuentros against neoliberalism
convened by zapatismo.

The destruction of the old Nation-State, the creation on a large scale of
millions of new excluded and the ideology of neoliberal globalization have
produced a new transnational political actor:  the globalized.  The Revolt
of Seattle is an announcement that his - and her - hour has arrived.