File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2000/anarchy-list.0010, message 261


Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 11:48:48 -0400
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Fwd: Jane's detects anarchist threat



-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Jane's detects anarchist threat
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2000 18:17:20 -0700

>19 October 2000
>
>Jane's Terrorism and Security Monitor
>
>New radical anarchism on the march
>
>THE thousands of protesters who descended upon the World
>Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Seattle in December, at
>the meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary
>Fund (IMF) in Washington, in April, and at the Democratic
>and Republican national conventions this summer, represent a
>new phenomenon in political activism. 
>
>It marks the first time since the Vietnam War that so many
>Americans, particularly young Americans, are willing to go
>to jail to make a political point.
>
>The protesters - who have like-minded allies in Western
>Europe - tend to be young, idealistic and concerned about
>the environment. In addition to an anti-establishment ethos,
>today's social activists voice deep forebodings about the
>growing power of global corporations.
>
>While the protesters have individual concerns - ranging from
>workers' rights to protecting the natural resources of
>developing countries - they are united in their opposition
>to the globalisation that has swept the US and other
>countries in recent years. 
>
>Mark Weisbrott, of the left-leaning Centre for Economic and
>Policy Research in Washington, summed it up: "We are opposed
>to this tremendous concentration of power that is
>unaccountable and causes enormous destruction around the
>world."
>
>Corporate power
>
>Institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF
>appear to be perfect foils for a whole variety of
>protesters, according to Alexander Bloom, a professor of
>American history at Wheaton College. "You have people
>concerned with the environment, labour, the anti-sweat shop
>movement and the notion that these institutions represent
>some kind of invisible corporate power."
>
>One element of the protests has been the revival of
>anarchism. Black-masked anarchists stoned chain stores in
>Seattle and protesters with giant A's pasted on their shirts
>blocked intersections in Washington during the Republican
>National Convention and in Los Angeles for the Democratic
>convention.
>
>Anarchism, it seems, is becoming fashionable. This may be
>seen in the way protesters of diverse loyalties - labour,
>environmental, and consumer groups among them - have sought
>to become a mass but leaderless movement, a collection of
>affinity groups that operate by consensus. Many of those who
>oppose international capitalism call for a return to local
>decision-making, echoing long-time anarchist objections to
>the way nation states usurped the power of cities and towns.
>
>Paul Avrich, a leading historian of anarchism at Queens
>College in New York, said: "With the decline of socialism,
>you have seen anarchism go through a revival as an easy way
>to oppose global capitalism." 
>
>He claims anarchist groups are emerging in every major city,
>but whether this radicalism will emerge into a movement is
>less than clear. Analysts argue that too many disparate
>themes do not make for coherent protest.
>
>At the Democratic convention in LA, for example, gang
>members protesting police brutality joined vegetable-eating
>environmentalists protesting about logging. Hippies marched
>with welfare mothers. Free trade foes marched with the
>self-described "radical anarchist clown bloc". Two banners
>displayed signs against the WTO and the North American Free
>Trade Agreement. They flanked another banner that included a
>discourse on revolution and the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal slogan
>(Mumia was convicted in 1981 and sentenced to death row for
>shooting a Philadelphia police officer).
>
>Boycott favoured
>
>The protest movement's leaders say their next objective is
>to spread the anti-globalisation message to religious
>organisations, unions and city councils. Many favour a
>boycott of World Bank bonds, the main financing tool the
>Bank uses to pay for its operations.
>
>Critics argue that the protesters are advocating policies
>that would hurt the very people they seek to help. Professor
>Lestor Thurow, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute
>of Technology, said: "Globalisation is similar to what
>happened a century ago when electricity and things that went
>with it (the telegraph, the telephone, the radio) replaced
>the local regional economies with a new national economy.
>"The difference is that we already had a democratically
>elected national government standing by to regulate this new
>national economy. Today, there is no democratically elected
>global government ready to regulate this new global economy.
>While the demonstrators talk about democracy or lack of
>democracy at the WTO, the IMF, or the World Bank, they don't
>really believe in global democracy."
>
>For whilst there is much of the 1960s in the tactics of the
>protestors, their 'ideology' has more in common with the
>19th century questions over burgeoning capitalism - how to
>reconcile the demands for growth with the need to preserve
>fairness. At present the protestors seem to simply want to
>tell the developing countries to stop developing.
>

   

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