The following call for a national student mobilisation during the January 31-February 4 meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) was issued by Students for Global Justice. It has been slightly abridged.
Every year, 1000 top business leaders come together to shape the global agenda, while political elites and media luminaries gaze on admiringly. By its own description, the WEF is a special club of elite business leaders, whose annual meeting is the world's global business summit.
At the New York WEF summit, the world's richest CEOs will collaborate with the world's most powerful politicians to set the global economic agenda. Meanwhile, in the halls of US Congress, the world's most powerful politicians are collaborating with the world's richest CEOs to expand the "war on terrorism".
The WEF agenda has already led to a world in which every day 19,000 children die in the developing world from undernourishment. At the same time, the world's richest 200 people have doubled their wealth in the last five years.
This neo-liberal economic agenda has also led to a world in which the US government, spending over $270 million annually on its military budget, supports dictatorships and autocratic regimes and leads other nations into wars that kill millions more innocent people. Most recently, this agenda has led the US government into another protracted war, while it attacks the rights of workers, students and immigrants at home.
It has led to a world where the people of Tuvalu are faced with the possibility of fleeing their island nation if the rise in sea level caused by global warming continues. A world in which as many as 50,000 endangered species disappear forever each year and where 214,000 acres of rainforest — an area larger than New York City — is cut down every day.
It's time to make the connection. The same people who stand to gain from extending the war are perpetuating the global economic conditions that foster terrorism. Capitalism propels war and war protects capital. US imperialism and global corporate domination go hand in hand.
In the name of democracy, in the name of economic justice, in the name of the global anti-imperialist struggle and in the name of the Earth, we call all students, activists, rabble-rousers and concerned citizens to share their ideas, fears, inspirations and tactics. Our "leaders" will never make the necessary changes; it's up to us to do it for ourselves!
Join us to say:
- No to the "war on terrorism";
- No to the WEF;
- No to the global economic conditions that foster terrorism; and
- Yes to a world organised around the principles of democracy, equity, sustainability and solidarity.
[Visit the Students for Global Justice web site at <http://www.studentsforglobaljustice.org>.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 6, 2002.
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