Did the 1999 protests against the World Trade organization in
Seattle make a difference? After all, the WTO still exists and
continues its push for the corporate-driven free trade agenda that was
on the table 10 years ago. Now, especially in light of Wall Street's
evident political and financial clout, it's easy to forget just what
the world looked like in 1999. As I attended talks and workshops commemorating the Battle of Seattle, I was reminded of how much has changed.
The other day I received a pre-publication copy of The
Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle, by David Solnit
and Rebecca Solnit. It's set to come out ten years after a historic
coalition of activists shut down the World Trade Organization summit in
Seattle, the spark that ignited a global anticorporate movement.
Labor Day weekend, I flew to Toronto for the annual meeting of the
American Political Science Association. Not surprisingly, complexity,
globalization and unpredictability were themes of the conference.
Globalization has become a catchword to celebrate every aspect of
modern capitalism. Yet globalization has more than one source and can
take many forms. Our future may depend on reshaping the reigning
understanding of globalization.
The recently concluded World Social Forum is a
good gauge for assessing the state of the world's alternative social,
economic and political movements.
BELEM, Brazil - The world's biggest gathering of leftist activists ended on Sunday, after six days of discussions and protests that participants said showed there was an alternative to a crumbling global capitalist system.
The World Social Forum brought about 100,000 activists to the Brazilian Amazon city of Belem ranging from communists railing against U.S. "imperialism" to environmentalists and more moderate socialists.
These should be good times for the "alter-globalisation" movement. The unprecedented combination of crises in the global economy, environment, and governance makes its argument for a just and equal world - "another world" - seem more relevant than ever.
BELÉM, Brazil - A human banner made up of more than 1,000 people, seen and photographed from the air, sent the message "SOS Amazon" to the world, in the first action taken by indigenous people hours before the opening in northern Brazil on Tuesday of the 2009 World Social Forum (WSF).
RIO DE JANEIRO - A World Social Forum (WSF) revitalised by a global crisis that has awakened new interest in the proposition that "another world is possible" - now perceived as either less utopian or more urgently needed - will take place from Jan. 27 to Feb. 1 in Belém, in northern Brazil.
