>> *spark-online8.0

http://www.spark-online.com

informed superstition: protest and politics at the end of the world

by robert delamar

Blessed are the Protesters

I'm trying to make sense of the recent Washington D.C. protest against the World Bank and the IMF. The answers aren't coming easily.

The Washington D.C. protests coupled with the protests against the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference held in Vancouver in October of 1997, and the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization meetings held there in November, 1999, have radicalized a generation of North American students, labour leaders and environmentalists amongst others. While the protests were aimed at the particular international organizations holding the conferences, the anger, frustration and ultimately violence and anarchy were taken out against the institutions of the host states. A rather strange development considering the object of the protest.

The goal of the protest seemed to be "Save the State". The labour leaders, student groups and environmentalists seem to be saying that it is the individual states, not the multinational organizations, which have the means and authority to implement the social, economic and environmental change advocated by the protesters (protests led ironically, by multinational groups such as Greenpeace).

Why now? The World Bank and IMF have been meeting biannually for 50 years. Suddenly they become the object of major protests? Are we witnessing another development in what George Bush Sr. laconically termed "the New World Order"?

A few connections can be made. Over the past decade we've seen the development of a new political and economic order that is increasingly coming under scrutiny. We have a global economic system (all the protest has been against multilateral economic institutions), bound together increasingly by technology (especially the Internet and other communications technology), and reluctantly policed by the world's only remaining superpower (the major Western war of the 1990's, the Persian Gulf War, was waged to protect American economic interests), under attack by a generation which was raised after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The protest then, is economic in nature, railing against the political superstructure that maintains it. However the protest itself is unsophisticated, and left with few political options other than anarchy, or a conservative desire to maintain the current system.

Post-Communist Confusion

There is an interesting history at work here. Weren't the recently assembled masses in Washington D.C. the children of Baby Boomers? In their day, the Boomers (addled by the superficial Marxism of their professors) took to the streets to protest against the attempts by the United States to maintain democratic hegemony in the face of the dreaded "domino theory" and the ascendancy of Russian style Socialism in Southeast Asia.

The Russian system, which became known as "communism" in the West, was aggressive and global in its outlook from the moment the dust settled on the Russian Revolution. Though politically dynamic, the most interesting aspect of Russian Communism was the fact it was an economic theory that featured state-centred bureaucratic control of a national economy. This state-centred economic approach ultimately was the undoing of the system. Unable to sustain its economic and political centre, the collapse can be summed up by the old joke from the Soviet era that Vaclav Havel tells: "We pretended to work, and the government pretended to pay us."

Thus, with Russian Communism discredited and abandoned around the world, today's student radicals don't have an ideological centre. There is no other option other than that which they are protesting against (unlike their parents who always had the Russians as a foil). There is no other political way presently foreseeable for the assembled masses that have taken to North American streets over the past three years, except for the one they're protesting against.

Super-Capitalism?

Capitalism is ascendant. The market rules. Adam Smith's ideas form the basis of not only our economic life, but increasingly our political life as well (with the rise of neo-conservatism). We're told that the market should decide not only the kind of cereal we select in the supermarket, but also the number of hospital beds and daycare places. But should it? The people in the streets in Washington D.C. and Seattle don't seem to think so.

The protests against the IMF, APEC, WTO and the World Bank have an economic theme. All are strictly multinational economic associations. The coalition that protested against them included labour, feminist, environmental and student concerns, voicing common themes: Ascendant capitalism has produced environmental degradation, sweat shops, low wages and social inequality at both home and abroad. Though the results have been different (environmental degradation seems separate from the treatment of female sweatshop labourers in Indonesia) the cause of the degradation (environmental, social or otherwise) is the same--global capitalism.

Troubling Questions

Thus, the protest. And what seems to be an overwrought response by the state. Innocent protesters thrown into jail for doing nothing more than walking streets with placards. This is the result of a perception that some elements of the protests were simply vandals assembled to create anarchy and mayhem, using the protests as an excuse to riot. The whole event organized by the technology that is the heart of the longest bull market in history--the Internet. Who wouldn't be confused by the recriminations and theories, information and superstition flying around the Web and in the mainstream press? Who's right? Whose goals are noble? Who's protesting for legitimate ends? Who's there just to get a cheap shot of adrenaline? Why is the state reacting with such intimidating force? Why do states still participate in these meetings when their populations demand that they do not?

Possible Outcomes

The aims of the protesters may be conservative in my view. Perhaps the protests are in favour of capitalism at home and abroad, but a more "compassionate" capitalism than we've seen (you can have that one George W.). Or, the protesters may have more cynical, though not necessarily stated, ends. If they are politically proficient enough to undermine the global economy and maintain the global economic status quo, unionized workers don't lose their jobs to low paid labour in Asia. If there is no economic development in South America, then there is no longer any environmental destruction, there being no capital, nor incentive to destroy vulnerable rainforest. Thus, the protests in Vancouver, Seattle and Washington D.C. became exercises in preserving the interests of domestic political groups in North America.

I suppose the caricature of the protesters depends on your viewpoint and your bias. If you like bull markets driven by technological development on a global scale, you'd think the protesters were conceived by pot-smoking hippies. If you think that short-term economic gain is the harbinger of global devastation and threatens the survival of life as we know it, you're among those protesting (don't forget your gas mask next time). If you're like me, watching the events unwind through the media lens (owned almost exclusively by AOL, Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black), you probably don't know what to think.

My Conclusion?

Thus, we've witnessed massive protest against the international order of states, in order to preserve the state, against the institutions of the states participating in the course of global economic development. Confused? You're not the only one.

Robert Delamar is an avid pacifist and stay at home radical who believes strongly that democratic change should come democratically. He's a co-founder and the Managing Editor of *spark-online.