The first May Day of the new century should be remembered for a long time — possibly even as a new turning point in the centuries-long struggle for global justice.
For one day, it seemed like the working people of the world rose as one: workers launched a general strike in Bolivia, unionists defied police repression in South Korea, workers and peasants stood up to the military in Pakistan, thousands of anti-capitalist activists took to the streets of London, demonstrators marched in dozens of cities across Europe and North America and, proud of their appointed role of kicking off the international day of protest, thousands blockaded stock exchanges across Australia.
It was a day like few others before it.
Since workers, students and farmers took direct action against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle in November 1999, a new movement for global justice, and against global corporate power, has arisen.
The flame of protest has since been passed on, from one city to the next, from Seattle to Washington, DC, to Melbourne, to Prague, to Quebec City, with many others in between.
That global flame of protest has now circled the world several times and it's not about to stop; if anything, the flame has been picking up speed.
But never since that initial lighting of the torch in Seattle has the flame of protest come to so many cities simultaneously.
May Day 2001 was not about one city, or one country, up in arms against global capitalism. It was about many cities and many countries. The movement has now become truly global.
In this country, also, M1 is of enormous significance.
A blockade not just of one but of all six offices of the Australian stock exchange — such an action would not have even been dreamed of two years ago.
But we not only dreamed of it, we did it.
We built coalitions which were broader than we would have thought possible, we involved many from outside existing activist circles, we achieved levels of organisation we've rarely gotten near before — and we gave the police and the corporate executives nightmares. Who would have thought it?
M1 was a huge step forward and major achievement for the radical left.
The audacity and spirit and solidarity and impact of the action has inspired and invigorated and encouraged many left activists to greater levels of involvement and commitment.
M1 was of enormous impact even for those who didn't take part. It was a very loud message to all those people becoming increasingly angry at the depredations of corporations and the pro-business servility of governments that they don't need to just sit at home grumbling about it, they can take action, join the movement and do something.
That anti-corporate sentiment is growing stronger by the day, fuelled by each new outrage: by each announcement that a bank has made record profits by putting a fee on everything that moves, by each scandal that airline companies are skimping on maintenance and safety for a few bucks, by each occasion on which that petrol companies raise their prices on a public holiday, by each revelation that a corporation is doing whatever it can to stop something which is worthwhile and just.
M1 was a positive, effective outlet for this anger — and each such occasion of protest increases the chances that that anger will be directed leftwards, towards a genuine, democratic and socialist alternative, rather than rightwards, towards Pauline Hanson's One Nation party.
M1, like S11 before it, has left a considerable legacy, a bright spot in the collective memory of the working class.
So, what's next?
In the coming weeks, there will be much to absorb activists: the June 3 national day of action for refugee rights, the July 1 national indigenous mobilisation on Canberra, preparations for the Socialist Alliance campaign in the federal elections, innumerable local issues, campaigns, rallies and demonstrations, and the overarching task of involving in action all those inspired by M1. These are all important, vital even.
The growing, new movement, however, now needs a new goal, a new major project to work towards, something that all of us, regardless of which groups or campaigns or unions we're involved in, can work on together.
That common project is CHOGM, to organise as massive protests as are possible at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Brisbane on October 6-8 and at the CHOGM business conference in Melbourne on October 3.
These protests can serve as another opportunity to present, in the one place and at the one time, the two alternative, and competing globalisations: the globalisation of elite conferences and corporate agenda-setting, and the globalisation of solidarity and protest.
They will be an opportunity for all those concerned and angry at where corporations and their governments are taking to world to get out on the streets to raise their voices, alongside thousands of their brothers and sisters.
In preparing for the CHOGM protests, we'll be building on what we achieved with M1: the coalitions will be broader, the organisers will be more experienced and more prepared, the planning will be more thorough and the message will have even more.
We can hardly wait — global justice is coming.