Raj Patel, anti-WTO activist 0

Wednesday, 1 Dec 1999

SEATTLE, Wash.

I don't know where to begin. You must know by now that the international day of protest was a great success -- we shut down the WTO opening session, most of us made it out in one piece (tear gas notwithstanding). We seem to have won the battle for the public's hearts and minds, for now. The WTO opening ceremonies have been cancelled, and there's a very bitter air in the governmental delegations here. I even saw one besuited diplomat assaulting an activist (who was wearing a "this is a nonviolent protest" t-shirt) screaming at him to let the delegates into the conference center.

Protesters form a human chain in an intersection.

Photo: Sherry Bosse.

If you weren't here, however, you might have an odd picture of what happened. The media presentation of what took place in Seattle is, as you would expect, deeply skewed toward the dramatic moments of protest. To be fair, the local TV station in Seattle did a good job of not portraying the protesters as barbarians. Some were allowed to speak for themselves, and the message that the actions were nonviolent came across fairly well. Everyone seems to believe that the protestors, in large part, did not cast the first stone in the Battle of Seattle. Nor, come to think of it, did they cast any of the tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, or concussion grenades.

But, having scanned a few news sources, there are significant, and systematic, gaps. Looking at the front pages today, one would be forgiven for thinking that newspapers exist for those concerned, above all, with the physical integrity of downtown Seattle's shopping district. A voice-over line used repeatedly during the live TV coverage was, "The scenes of rioting here are a real contrast to the usual holiday shopping season." It is, historically, odd that this remark should be considered normal -- once, the streets used to be the place for politics. It's a sorry reflection that urban public space is now only understood as the area between stores.

Concentrating on the disruption to the holiday season consumption fest doesn't really do justice to what happened here. I don't want to contribute to the imbalance any more than I have to. I, too, could tell you about being caught in tear-gas clouds, and how the police wouldn't give water to a friend who had an allergic reaction to the gas and very nearly died. I could chip in my two bits about comrades beaten by the police, or the McDonald's rapidly (and pleasingly) defaced early in the afternoon by the minority of non-nonviolent protesters. Or about the "dark side" of the protests -- the anger of breadline workers whom we prevented from getting to their jobs, the sometimes unreasonable property damage, or the physical violence meted out to one or two individual delegates.

Sure, all these things happened. We already know where to go for more of this sort of news (see the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, and for pictures, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer [sic]). Even the good folk at the Independent Media Center sometimes veer toward the spectacular, although their coverage is largely fantastic.

It is, however, harder to find coverage about the more, um, pedestrian moments yesterday. Like the marches. Or the labor rally which preceded the downtown spat. This is an egregious omission since between 30,000 and 50,000 labor activists were at the AFL-CIO rally. Moreover, the U.S. unions went out of their way to try to make it a genuinely international affair. Trade unionists from South Africa, Barbados, and even China (a soon-to-be member of the WTO) spoke out against globalization, shoulder-to-shoulder with their U.S. counterparts. Even Vandana Shiva got to do a little rabble-rousing. And despite a little jingoism and flag-waving at the end of the rally, the rally wasn't about the raised voices of national protectionism (though there are clearly protectionist impulses here). This looked, and I can find no better words to describe it, like International Workers' Solidarity. People from different countries, from different sectors and political perspectives, acting as if a blow against one were really a blow against all.

This didn't really come out in the press -- the best popular press effort I've seen has been in the New York Times, but even their coverage individualizes the different struggles. Certainly, people have different concerns, but it is surely more significant that despite these concerns, they are able, however provisionally, to stand together.

The other omission in the coverage of Seattle is that Seattle is just one of a number of places in the world where actions against the WTO are taking place. Hundreds of places had N30 actions. Mike Morrill, of the Pennsylvania Consumer Action Network, put it eloquently in an email earlier today: "While the events unfolding in Seattle are historic, let us not forget that this is a global movement. The tens of thousands of people in the Seattle streets were joined by people in communities around the world. ... Two dozen people who care enough to pass out flyers to holiday shoppers have involved themselves enough to begin creating a community network which, when linked to other local networks, can evolve into a movement. I've heard too many people complain that their local actions were insignificant, when nothing can be further from the truth. Don't play the media's numbers game."

Would you like fries with that?

Photo: Sherry Bosse.

For my part, I'm really proud to be associated with a group of citizens and students in Ithaca, N.Y., who organized a day of protest yesterday, and who, by all accounts, got one of the largest turnouts of any protest in recent memory. This is a deeply encouraging start. It is in our communities, after all, that the war against globalization will be fought, not in Seattle. As I look out now, I can see the glaziers coming to repair the McDonald's. Within a week, there'll be no sign that any of this ever happened.

Some of my friends go misty-eyed when they recall the day, a couple of years ago, that the Labour party returned to power in Britain, after nearly two decades of conservative rule. Back then I was a little less enthusiastic than they, but this morning, I think I know what they must have been feeling. It has been so long since the resistance won a battle as substantial as this. Clearly, the next step is not to let the fervor die. But, for the moment, perhaps a couple of hours to enjoy the victory.

Tomorrow, more detailed, and less editorial, stuff on "Gender and the Global Economy," which is today's theme at the WTO.

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