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NEWS & LETTERS, March 2002
World economic cabal protested
New York—Thousands of
activists protested Feb. 2 against the World Economic Forum (WEF) then taking
place in this city. Organizers of the protest estimated that 25,000 people
attended the demonstration; the police estimate was 7,000. Numerous other
protests, forums, and vigils about and against the WEF took place before and
after the Feb. 2 demonstration. A sizable percentage of the
demonstrators had traveled from outside New York to attend it. The simple fact that these
protests took place is a most significant one. In the aftermath of the September
11 terrorist attacks and the plunge of the U.S. into war, an important
anti-globalization demonstration that was to have taken place in Washington,
D.C., was abruptly cancelled. Thousands of activists turned
their attention to opposing the war; but then the antiwar movement all but
collapsed. It was unclear whether the anti-globalization movement had a future.
The New York protests have answered that question, even though the turnout was
much smaller than pre-September 11 protests in Quebec City and Genoa. Protesters did not succeed in
shutting down the WEF; the police presence was too massive and threatening for
that. Yet they were indeed able to turn the area around the Waldorf-Astoria
hotel, where the economic forum took place, into a "frozen zone."
Miles of steel barricades and thousands of riot police, standing
shoulder-to-shoulder, surrounded the hotel. That the City of New York was
able to prevent a shutdown of the WEF only by resorting to an overwhelming show
of force and extraordinary measures is itself a victory for the
anti-globalization movement. It testifies to the movement's growing militancy
and determination. At the Feb. 2 demonstration, several people were arrested,
and some maced, for seemingly no reason other than that the police were trying
to display their might. The next day, 87 demonstrators were arrested when they
attempted to march through the East Village without a permit. The Feb. 2 demonstration had a
festive, even pageant-like, atmosphere. Many participants wore masks or
costumes, or carried papier-mâché figures, or held up colorful signs.
Political and theoretical analysis and discussion were de-emphasized. The dominant political line was
conveyed through signs and banners: greed is responsible for most of the world's
ills; the global economic institutions are undemocratic and unrepresentative;
they exist in order to make the rich richer by making the poor poorer. However, the anti-globalization
movement is by no means homogeneous. One young woman demonstrator with whom we
spoke critiqued the movement's dominant ideology by likening it to the ideology
propagated by Pierre Proudhon a century and a half ago—namely that the evils
of capitalism can be abolished simply by changing its financial institutions and
property forms. She recommended that people read the critique of these notions
contained in Raya Dunayevskaya's MARXISM AND FREEDOM. Some signs at the Feb. 2
demonstration protested war, calling for love and peace. One young activist
complained that the concept of peace being advocated was totally abstract. It
did not refer, he said, to the current U.S. war, terrorism, or national
liberation struggles —New York Marxist-Humanists Also see the report on the Porto Alegre, Brazil counter conference, "Anti-globalization at World Social Forum." |
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