September
1999
"Our resistance
will be as transnational as capital."
This month the Turtle is
pleased to salute not an individual or a group but an entire conference.
Between 23 and 26 August 1999, The Second Conference of Peoples' Global
Action against 'Free' Trade and the WTO (PGA) took place in Bangalore,
India. According to its manifesto, the PGA is a platform "to
serve as a global instrument for communication and co-ordination for
all those fighting against the destruction of humanity and the planet
by the global market, building up local alternatives and peoples'
power." A high platform indeed.
The good folk behind the
PGA have managed to get some of the nicest, and most committed, radicals
on planet to gather together, and to begin to discuss how their struggles
might be articulated. It is sufficient grounds for approbation that
representatives from trades unions, farmers' associations, domestic
worker solidarity fronts, landless peasant co-operatives, anti-dam
movements, indigenous people's organisations, an Abramsky (brother
of Sasha - prison reformer and Turtle contributor) and unRepresentatives
from autonomous movements in Germany, sat in the same place at the
same time, let alone agreed to anything.
Not that agreement was
easy to come by. There was conflict a-plenty: the Nepali delegation
threatened to leave when the Indian hosts kicked them out of their
room to accommodate some needy late arrivals (while the Europeans
next door were left undisturbed). When asked to explain why the Nepalis
were picked on, the Indian organisers said that the Nepalis were from
the same 'cultural bloc' as the Indians, and that's why they were
being farmed out to a different area. Accusations of racism weren't
well received, but, hey ho, the struggle of self-criticism is long.
Consensus was also hampered
by a small legion of anal retentives. Their neurotic obsession with
procedure seemed like an almost premeditated attempt to stall any
possibility of consensus. But, for once, those who suspect conspiracy
might be on to something. It is certainly true that somebody is scared
of the PGA. Last year, a PGA teach-in on globalisation in Geneva was
plagued by real black helicopters, and the participants were arrested
and detained without charge by the Swiss authorities. More recently,
a PGA convenors' meeting in Finland was followed by the almost simultaneous
theft of computers belonging to the support groups from offices around
the world.
The conference in Bangalore
too was subject to police harassment. The organisers had arranged
a tour for representatives of social movements from around the world
to show solidarity with struggles in Southern India. From the first
day, the participants were pestered by the police, who demanded to
see passports, demanded that photocopies be made of the passports
and handed over (an illegal demand, it turns out), and demanded that
the activists either behave like good little tourists or ship out.
The Indian Visa granting authorities don't, however, have a space,
when they ask 'Purpose of Visit', to put 'showing solidarity with
oppressed minorities'. When this was pointed out to the members of
the Keralan constabulary, they were not amused, and signalled their
displeasure not only by immobilising the tour party with threats of
arrest, but also by intimidating the tribal communities and fisherfolk
who had invited the PGA.
The Official History of
the PGA will, with any luck, show that against all odds, a variety
of social movement activists broadened their commitment to resisting
the WTO, away from a specific concentration on the WTO as institution,
to a more general resistance against capitalist domination. This was
motivated, in part, by the experiences of 18 June, when right-wing
groups attempted to appropriate world wide demonstrations against
the Cologne G8 summit by sending open letters of congratulation to
the left-wing organisers. (Yes, the sacking of the London International
Financial Futures Exchange was a PGA endorsed action. As were around
30 other, less spectacular demonstrations around the world, involving
around one million people protesting against capitalism which, mysteriously,didn't
make it to the papers.) As one of the conference discussion papers
suggested, "The denunciation of 'free' trade without an analysis
on patriarchy, racism and processes of homogenisation is a basic element
of the discourse of the (extreme) right. It is perfectly compatible
with simplistic explanations of complex realities and with the personification
of the effects of capitalism (such as conspiracy theories, antisemitism,
etc) that inevitably lead to fascism, witchhunting and oppressive
chauvinist traditionalism." As a result, the founding principles
of the PGA were broadened to include a rejection of all forms of domination.
This did and didn't go
down well with some visitors from Shiv Sena, the ultra-right Hindu
fundamentalist party, who stopped by for a brief visit. They agreed
that the Americans should go home and take their insipid culture with
them, but disagreed that they should refrain from similar sorts of
cultural oppression within India. Perhaps surprisingly, this sort
of partial agreement was also characteristic of some of the more left-wing
participants at the conference. Particularly in issues of gender,
many delegates fell over themselves to declare themselves feminists,
but then argued that attempts to include 'resistance to patriarchy'
in the PGA manifesto were either misguided, or represented the power-politicking
of a women's special interest group. Sadly, there is nothing which
demands that people who think of themselves as 'progressive' or even
'radical' actually be so, or be radical in the same way, and much
of the conference was spent confronting these divides.
And despite all this, a
great deal of substantive work was done, and the foundations laid
for much more. The next locus of struggle will be Seattle, where the
WTO will be holding its third Ministerial Meeting in November. There
were some spectacular imaginations at work, brainstorming possible
actions to coincide with the Ministerial. One of the most exciting
possibilities is a General Strike in the US. There hasn't been a general
strike in over 60 years, and the fact that the usually reactionary
AFL-CIO is even contemplating it is overwhelming, even if most labour
activists don't think it will actually happen.
Sadly, the most daring
actions planned for the Seattle Ministerial meeting are confidential
- email is an easy thing to intercept, and the Turtle has had visits
from admirers hailing from the "fbi.gov" cybersuburb. Other
actions, though, are open to all. One of the simplest, and most effective,
actions will be to ask people in the South to send $1 to their comrades
in the US. The symbolism of the action, of the repatriation of US
dollars to feed homeless and hungry US citizens, is magnificent. Other
actions involve troupes of street theatre revolutionaries on the West
Coast, caravans of activists from around the world crossing North
America, teach-ins and occupations. Look out for all this and more
on 30 November, when the WTO conference starts, and when there is
to be an international day of action.
Thus, for its celebration
of radical resistance, for one of the highest concentrations of Che
Guevara t-shirts outside Cuba, for its genuine attempt to build grassroots
solidarity between struggles, and for its unceasing (if imperfect)
self-criticism...
The Turtle Salutes
The People's Global Action!
