The Promise of Anti-Globalisation

The Turtle's monthly salutes are usually Twenty-One gun affairs. This month, however, the Turtle's battery isn't as fully explosive as it might be, as the People's Reptile salutes the participants of the "Neither Men nor Women, Just the Opposite" conference held in Chiapas, Mexico at the end of May. While the Turtle has in the past found it remarkably easy to heap praise upon the shoulders of activists campaigning against globalisation, this month's salute comes with one or two serious reservations. Anti-globalisation movements continue to inspire hope in the future of popular politics, and fear in the hearts of northern governments and bosses, and for this the activists behind conferences such as the one in Chiapas deserve our highest praise. But the cause is not furthered by wishing upon simplistic ideals of diversity to defuse contradictions within the movement. This reservation reduces the number of cannon which we are able to fire for our Salute this month.

The conference in Chiapas was designed, among other things, to contribute to a discussion of the manifesto of the People's Global Action network. In acrimonious debates at the PGA conference in Bangalore last August, there was a general sense that gender and sexuality were issues that the organisation had failed to confront. Reading the PGA's manifesto, there seems to be space to engage in precisely this sort of confrontation. The manifesto asserts that:

"The need has become urgent for concerted action to dismantle the illegitimate world governing system which combines transnational capital, nation-states, international financial institutions and trade agreements. Only a global alliance of peoples' movements, respecting autonomy and facilitating action-oriented resistance, can defeat this emerging globalised monster. If impoverishment of populations is the agenda of neo-liberalism, direct empowerment of the peoples though constructive direct action and civil disobedience will be the programme of the Peoples' Global Action against "Free" Trade and the WTO.

We assert our will to struggle as peoples against all forms of oppression. But we do not only fight the wrongs imposed on us. We are also committed to building a new world. We are together as human beings and communities, our unity deeply rooted in diversity. Together we shape a vision of a just world and begin to build that true prosperity which comes from human empowerment, natural bounty, diversity, dignity and freedom."

Despite the purple prose, there is a genuine commitment to combat oppression both within and without the movement. The challenge of finding "unity deeply rooted in diversity" is, however, a serious one, and at Chiapas, there was a gap between words and action. At the seminar, it seemed as if diversity was tacitly considered a zero-sum game where, if gender was being taken seriously, race and class were necessarily deprioritized as concerns. A serious commitment to diversity demands a nuanced approach that rejects exclusive binary contradictions as black/white, north/south, authentic/inauthentic, old/young, queer/straight and male/female, recognising instead the way in which these contradictions are mutually inflecting.

This is, however, a Salute, and there was much to praise at the conference: participants highlighted women's struggle as part of the revolutionary movements in Latin America, they exchanged information on tactics and resolutions in the battle to include gender at the centre of social activism, and engaged in fiery and thought provoking discussions on masculinity and queer identities. This final series of interventions created a space in which to reject binary thinking about gender, opening the way to a usefully different grammar of power, and the globalisation which is a symptom of it. And there were a lot of good people, celebrating the globalisation of resistance and trying, for the most part, to confront the problems that come along with it.

The seminar went ahead despite the best efforts of the Mexican state to stifle it. Nearly half the participants were denied visas at the last minute, which led to several days of delay in starting the conference. The organisers headaches were exacerbated by a couple of hospitalisations (less easy to pin on the Mexican government). But once the conference got underway, internal divisions began to reveal themselves. The conference title itself was a source of conflict. The title had been chosen in Amsterdam: Neither Men Nor Women, but Just the Opposite. Pushing the boudaries of queer identity theory, thought the Northerners -- but totally incomprehensible, according to the local organisers in Chiapas. Many of the gender and sexuality theories and practices discussed by the European and US participants seemed equally incomprehensible, and perhaps equally unhelpful, to those mobilizing against globalisation in the south.

Even in the local organisations, there were contradictions: despite the strong impression given in advance that the conference was sponsored by the Zapatistas, there was in fact no structural involvement on their part, and the indigenous people only appeared at the conference via the "representation" of local non-indigenous supporters, non-indigenous academics -- and as the conference cooks, who were not encouraged to "share their experiences" with the participants.

Perhaps as a result of embarrassment over the peripheral and subordinate involvement of indigenous people in the seminar, race was largely ignored by all but a handful of the participants. And if race was missing from the conference through neglect, there was a more overt concern to exclude and deny people who challenged notions of binary gender identity and the gendered boundaries of interest in particular issues. When several (European) women tried to attend a workshop on "masculinity" which was advertised as mixed, they were asked to wait for the men to "establish the dynamic", and it was made very clear that they were unwelcome. When they asked the conference organisers about this, they were told that they were being culturally insensitive, and the main organiser announced to the men involved that these women wanted to participate "because they say that they are men" -- not in fact a claim that any of them had made.

This impasse between the issues and ideas that are important to different sectors of the anti-globalisation movements is one that needs to be confronted. While we are all struggling against globalisation, we clearly experience that globalisation and that struggle in different ways, and there is nothing automatic about the process of building solidarity. Assuming that solidarity exists is a dangerous substitute for engaging with the differences that imperil it. If there is a way forward, it must come from more listening to each other, tackling the contradictions and disagreements that arise, and through more creative, less binary thinking, thinking unclouded by the chimeras of authenticity, and action guided by a recognition that anti-globalisation efforts face a common enemy. It is the hope of this possibility that the Turtle is proud to salute this month.