notes from NY and WEF

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday February 12, 2002 23:33 by Rico/Jim

The WEF demonstrations represented a Watershed for the US anti capitalist movement. That so many showed up given the level of intimidation and the context in NY city represents a major achievement and indicates a growing spohistication and radicalism abroad.

The turn out for the February 1 anti-World Economic Forum march (15,000 –20,000) surprised everyone: the cops, the media, and perhaps most of all those who had organized the demonstration. Much of the energy on the street was a direct response to the campaign of intimidation carried out by the media on behalf of the WEF and the police. The demonstration tapped into a growing disaffection with capitalism and a general discontent with globalization and corporate governance in the US. For many of those who came out, the press campaign against the demonstrators was a direct assault on civil liberties and real proof that groups like the WEF are incapable of defending their policies when confronted with the meat and bones of democratic discourse.

Follow-up coverage in the press only reinforces this view. The Wall Street Journal announced that dissent had actually moved into the summit in the form of panel discussions like "Responding to Anti-Globalization, the New Role of Business." One executive openly regretted that "There’s a sense the system doesn’t work for everybody." This represents the defensive posture of the capitalist press since Seattle and speaks volumes for the success of those who opposed the forum on the streets. There is little doubt that the WSJ would have relished the opportunity to pronounce the anti-globalization movement dead in its tracks had the demonstrations been poorly attended. Instead, the media and the WEF have been scrambling to recuperate the theme of "social justice" (the World Bank’s trick). More left-leaning delegates were brought on board to help legitimize the Forum; one was a former radical veteran of the East Timorese struggle. Despite the makeover, poverty reduction and the WEF have nothing in common—they are mutually exclusive. Yet elites turn to the media evermore desperately to repeat these canards of capitalism, and in doing so tell us how seriously they take the stamina and potency of this movement.

Before the mass protests in Davos, media coverage of the WEF was practically nonexistent. Now the media’s task becomes explaining how benign the Forum is, how misguided the protestors are. The New York Times was forced to explain that the chairman of Coca-Cola "had no tail, no horns," and was "indeed human, and not the devil" (2/3). The paper departed from its usual tactic of ignoring the protests (but still deflated the numbers) and embarked on a disorientation campaign. In a tired beatnik style, the coverage deteriorated into play-by-play rundowns about the "thwock-thwock of police helicopters." Readers were left with no sense of what really went on; the scope of the movement was reduced to a series of random events. The reporting hit dizzying new heights of verbosity: "It happened that mayor Bloomberg was a couple of blocks away from the confrontation, eating chicken parmigiana and ziti with the firefighters of Ladder Company 4 on East 13th Street . Dressed in blue blazer, gray slacks, and black shoes with tassels, he calmly walked south on Third Avenue to the scene, now and then talking quietly with commissioner Kelly, who was beside him" (2/4).

In context, F1 stands as a victory. Post-September 11, many activists predicted a disastrous showing against the WEF, to the point where many refused to participate in organizing the demonstrations. The WEF cynically invoked the dead of September as their motivation for coming to New York. In reality the inability of the Swiss state to defend the conference prompted the move. The meetings were announced in November, leaving only weeks to organize anything. The New York press was filled with incessant images of cops training to beat activists—there could have been no greater disincentive to protest. The shameless retreat of NGO’s also contributed to the lack of organizational resources. The weekend was organized with a budget of approximately $ 2500 dollars. Prominent NGO’s who abandoned street protest and instead attended the World Social Forum in Brazil refused to even endorse the WEF actions.

The cynical logic of the NGO’s—invoking September 11 as a reason to not demonstrate--paralleled that of the WEF.

But ultimately, the success of the weekend had less to do with how it was organized, or by whom. While thousands of familiar anti-globalization activists turned out, their numbers were matched by thousands of New Yorkers from diverse backgrounds. This recalls the real strength of Genoa and Seattle where this movement has proved that it is above all a popular one.

Many of the complaints have centered around the manner in which the police corralled and bullied marchers all afternoon, and this after attacking a group of unfortunately naïve youngsters playing dress-up. Such tactics are the norm in New York and are always as depressing as they were on February 1 and 2. New York is a police state; it has been for years. Yet there was a real sense of solidarity on the march and the media could find no one prepared to distance the reasonable protestors from those assaulted for their dress code. The near absence of civil disobedience and the lack of militant action seems to be the main regret—stated, or implied—of many. These issues need serious consideration, but it is important to remember that we have many tactics, one of which is peaceful assembly. As the saying goes, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. We need to realize that militant tactics only work when they can be pulled-off successfully.

Nobody needs a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows; few people needed march organizers to tell them how to protest. The ACC and AWIP understood this, there were no ‘peace police,’ no incessant speeches. The "ANSWER" (Act Now To Stop War And End Racism) march—dwarfed by the other actions—was left to carry out such duties. ANSWER is a front for the IAC which in turn is a front for the Stalinistic cult known as the Workers World Party, they famously dismissed all reports of Serb atrocities during the Balkan wars as "imperialist propaganda. Many of those who participated in the actions didn’t know anything about who had organized it—they simply understood that it was an antiauthoritarian action, and heeded the call. Critiques of the organizers shouldn’t obscure the larger issues, and should be mindful of the fact that they left enough flexibility for mass participation. This is the momentum that we need to seize upon. The movement has proved that it is here to stay. The next step is for the anticapitalist movement to work with people engaged in other struggles, to complement their work, and vice versa. During the weekend of the WEF demos, the militant Haitian Coalition held actions against the killing of Georgy Louisainne, the first person murdered by the NYPD under the Bloomberg administration. There was no overlap between the two sets of actions. The anti police brutality struggle could have benefited tremendously from the added energy of thousands of people from out-of-town who, because of their skin color, are not subject to the police terror the NYPD inflicts upon the black population daily. Groups like the Anti Capitalist Convergence, will need to decide whether or not they can support concrete struggles outside of mass protest. Otherwise, people of color will not see the movement as something worth connecting with. The same debate gets rehashed after every big demonstration, but these links need to be forged if we want to effectively challenge capital, white supremacy, patriarchy, and state power.

Despite the passing of the USA Patriot Act; despite the NYPD’s inclusion of its former official John Timoney, who headed the biggest post-Seatttle crackdown on dissent during the Republican Convention in August 2000; despite the addition of countless private security thugs; despite the conversion of NY into an occupied territory, the movement asserted itself largely on its own terms. It could be a long time before we see another Seattle: that victory took everyone by surprise, and is unlikely to be easily replicated in the near future. We mustn’t forfeit again because we don’t like the context in which it occurred. Anarchist fundamentalism, all dogma, purism, and reified ideologies should be avoided. Let’s not adopt all of the worst trappings of the sectarian left, which takes its own failures for the health of the movement. After all, it takes an artist to politicize aesthetics but a fool to aestheticize politics.

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