BY ROHAN PEARCE
Predictions made by mainstream media commentators and spokespeople for the ruling elite that the movement against corporate tyranny would die in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks were disproved by the successful protests against the World Economic Forum (WEF) in New York, global capitalism's new "hallowed ground".
During the January 31-February 4 meeting of the world's most powerful capitalists and their most loyal politicians, up to 20,000 anti-corporate activists participated in a variety of protests, conferences and teach-ins. They defied the patriotic hysteria rampant in the US and the intimidation by the New York Police Department (NYPD) to protest against the profit-first plotting of the CEOs and heads of government (and their NGO lap dogs).
On January 31, police displayed the respect for democratic rights that protesters have come to expect when they arrested seven activists from radical anti-HIV/AIDS activist group, ACTUP, for performing banner drops.
Around 1000 people protested against the use of sweatshop labour outside a store of the fashion label GAP, a "permitted" demonstration sponsored by the peak US trade union council, the AFL-CIO, the New York City Central Labor Council and Students for Global Justice (SGJ).
SGJ's successful anti-WEF counter-summit attracted 1000 attendees over its two days. The conference featured plenaries such as "Globalisation, militarism, the neoliberal agenda and its discontents" and "Another world is possible, globalising justice and solidarity".
The Public Eye on Davos conference, organised by the Berne Declaration and Friends of the Earth, achieved a total attendance of 1500 for its four days. The conference heard greetings from Miguel Rossetto, vice-governor of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, where the World Social Forum was simultaneously being held.
On February 1, the Another World is Possible coalition and the Pagan Cluster organised an anti-WEF vigil. Other actions on the day included a rally to support the struggle for better wages for Haitian workers exploited by Remy Cointreau and a "rally for the planet" organised by the Save the Redwoods/Boycott the GAP Campaign.
The latter featured a 200-year-old old-growth stump from a redwood tree, cut down by the Fisher family (the owners of GAP), which activists had brought almost 5000 kilometres from California for the protest.
The small, colourful protests of the first two days were dwarfed by the turn-out at protests held in February. About 3500 people participated in a lively Reclaim the Streets (RTS) march through Central Park. It included a samba band, a contingent of "Billionaires for Bush and Bloomberg" and lots of pan-banging protesters in support of the Argentina uprising.
Act Now to End War and Racism (ANSWER) held a 5000-strong anti-war rally outside the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the venue of the WEF meeting.
ANSWER and RTS protesters also joined a permitted march organised by Another World Is Possible, in which 15,000 people participated. Continuing the intimidation of the preceding weeks, NYPD officers video-taped participants. The police then charged protesters on the march without warning or provocation, according to eyewitnesses, and used pepper spray and batons as they arrested more than 40 people.
Smaller protests continued on the fourth day of the WEF. Police arrested more than 80 activists at a rally organised by anarchist group Anti-Capitalist Convergence.
All up, more than 130 activists were arrested over the five days of the WEF, the last of whom was finally released on February 6. The New York People's Law Collective (<http://www.tao.ca/~nycplc>), which handled legal support for those arrested, reported on the New York Indymedia site, that protesters were held for over 48 hours for minor misdemeanors or violations. According to NYPD policy, such charges should normally only warrant 4-6 hours' detention.
Despite not reaching the remarkable size of the protests in Genoa last year or the continuing mobilisations in Argentina, the New York protests are extremely significant. Protesters showed a much higher political understanding compared to some previous protests the movement has organised.
Participants did not respond to the provocation of the police with significant violence or property destruction (a Black Bloc organised for the protest was predominately peaceful). The protests showed that the slogan "Another world is possible" is firmly entrenched in the movement, with discussions on the alternatives to corporate globalisation being a feature of the protests and counter-conferences.
Throughout the protests, solidarity with Third World struggles against First World corporate predators and imperialist governments was the overriding theme. The spirit of the protests was best summed up by one contingent's pan-shaped placards that declared: "WEF: They are all Enron. We are all Argentina."
[For full coverage of the anti-WEF protests, visit <http://nyc.indymedia.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 13, 2002.
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