Seattle’s momentum moves to Mumbai

What went on in Mumbai (previously Bombay), India, last week should act as a good start…. What went on in Mumbai (previously Bombay), India, last week should act as a good start. But I’ll get to that later.

In Seattle in 1999, the ideas of activism, civil disobedience and resistance to the powers that be resurrected themselves from the pages of history and announced that in our world, there are injustices being perpetrated on a global scale and that the powers responsible should be stopped. A movement gained steam, and a few years later, anti-war movement would pull much of its strength and vitality from the momentum initiated in these days of protest against globalization. But Seattle was almost five years ago, and the movement remains stagnant. No other protest, at least none in the United States, has seen the numbers or success achieved in Seattle. Why?

The easy answer is that the Seattle protests were a success because they were a surprise. Since then, cities scheduled to host such large-scale events have been prepared, and the increased regulations have discouraged protesters. But the problem runs deeper than that.

Modern activists like to compare their struggles to those against the Vietnam War or the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. But the modern struggle is distinctly different from any before it.

The struggle against globalization, unlike previous such struggles, is forming concurrently with globalization itself. It is not a struggle against an entrenched foe.

I’m getting to Mumbai. Just bear with me a while longer.

When the struggle against apartheid began to pick up steam, apartheid had already been the norm. It was from the past, an anachronism in a modernizing country like South Africa. When Gandhi and the Indian people forced the British out of India, it was the end part of a grander era of colonial decline. As for Vietnam, it suffices to say that the war wasn’t waged in an effort to adapt to a changing world.

Globalization, on the other hand, is a phenomenon that will leave its impact on the world no matter what. The International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization are relatively new institutions. In battling against them and the globalization they represent, it is not enough to simply oppose them. India and South Africa could look to the other nations of the world for models from which they could build their alternatives. Ideas like “parliamentary system” were already well understood. The alternative to being in Vietnam was not being in Vietnam, and that was sufficient.

Now, for the first time, a completely original alternative is necessary. We have no workable world trade-regulating body in our history to appeal to. To simply say “No Globalization” is not sufficient. Protesters are united as to what they are against, but when asked what they are for, respond either in confusion, or at best, with general slogans like “Fair trade, not free trade,” which actually have little relevance in terms of suggesting feasible changes to policy. As a result, moderates are left with the impression that the movement is simply a bunch of idealistic youths with no clear grip on the issues at hand. They’re more likely to view those arrested in marches as out-of-line rioters, than as martyrs for a cause. They may be right.

Simple anti-globalization efforts may have been a good step in 1999, but it has become painfully clear that that is not enough. We need fuel for an alternate globalization plan.

Which brings me to Mumbai and the 75,000 people who met there last week.

It was the fourth meeting of the World Social Forum, a group of people who get together once a year to try and do what I just advocated — effect real change. A group of people who, in the past four years, have done very little. This year, they welcome two Nobel laureates: Joseph Stiglitz, 2001’s Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of “Globalization and its Discontents,” and Shirin Ebadi, this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. This election year, the WSF, if it does things right, stands in a position to really put pressure on the way that things are handled in the world. I hope they can be more conclusive than in years past.

There will be a report back from the World Social Forum here at Pitt on Feb. 17. All are welcome. Questions, comments, insights or suggestions? Wminton@pittnews.com.