File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0107, message 339


Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 08:42:08 -0700
Subject: e: AUT: Hardt-Negri: Men of the Year?
From: Kevin T Mahoney <counterpublic-AT-juno.com>


>From Today's New York Times

JUL 20, 2001
 
What the Protesters in Genoa Want
 
By MICHAEL HARDT and ANTONIO NEGRI
 
   G enoa, that Renaissance city known for both openness and shrewd
   political sophistication, is in crisis this weekend. It should have
   thrown its gates wide for the celebration of this summit of the
   world's most powerful leaders. But instead Genoa has been transformed
   into a medieval fortress of barricades with high-tech controls. The
   ruling ideology about the present form of globalization is that there
   is no alternative. And strangely, this restricts both the rulers and
   the ruled.
 
   Leaders of the Group of Eight have no choice but to attempt a show of
   political sophistication. They try to appear charitable and
   transparent in their goals. They promise to aid the world's poor and
   they genuflect to Pope John Paul II and his interests. But the real
   agenda is to renegotiate relations among the powerful, on issues such
   as the construction of missile defense systems.
 
   The leaders, however, seem detached somehow from the transformations
   around them, as though they are following the stage directions from a
   dated play. We can see the photo already, though it has not yet been
   taken: President George W. Bush as an unlikely king, bolstered by
   lesser monarchs. This is not quite an image of the future. It
   resembles more an archival photo, pre-1914, of superannuated royal
   potentates.
 
   Those demonstrating against the summit in Genoa, however, are not
   distracted by these old-fashioned symbols of power. They know that a
   fundamentally new global system is being formed. It can no longer be
   understood in terms of British, French, Russian or even American
   imperialism.
 
   The many protests that have led up to Genoa were based on the
   recognition that no national power is in control of the present global
   order. Consequently protests must be directed at international and
   supranational organizations, such as the G-8, the World Trade
   Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The
   movements are not anti-American, as they often appear, but aimed at a
   different, larger power structure.
 
   If it is not national but supranational powers that rule today's
   globalization, however, we must recognize that this new order has no
   democratic institutional mechanisms for representation, as
   nation-states do: no elections, no public forum for debate.
 
   The rulers are effectively blind and deaf to the ruled. The protesters
   take to the streets because this is the form of expression available
   to them. The lack of other venues and social mechanisms is not their
   creation.
 
   Antiglobalization is not an adequate characterization of the
   protesters in Genoa (or Göteborg, Quebec, Prague, or Seattle). The
   globalization debate will remain hopelessly confused, in fact, unless
   we insist on qualifying the term globalization. The protesters are
   indeed united against the present form of capitalist globalization,
   but the vast majority of them are not against globalizing currents and
   forces as such; they are not isolationist, separatist or even
   nationalist.
 
   The protests themselves have become global movements and one of their
   clearest objectives is for the democratization of globalizing
   processes. It should not be called an antiglobalization movement. It
   is pro-globalization, or rather an alternative globalization movement
   one that seeks to eliminate inequalities between rich and poor and
   between the powerful and the powerless, and to expand the
   possibilities of self-determination.
 
   If we understand one thing from the multitude of voices in Genoa this
   weekend, it should be that a different and better future is possible.
   When one recognizes the tremendous power of the international and
   supranational forces that support our present form of globalization,
   one could conclude that resistance is futile.
 
   But those in the streets today are foolish enough to believe that
   alternatives are possible that "inevitability" should not be the last
   word in politics. A new species of political activist has been born
   with a spirit that is reminiscent of the paradoxical idealism of the
   1960's the realistic course of action today is to demand what is
   seemingly impossible, that is, something new.
 
   Protest movements are an integral part of a democratic society and,
   for this reason alone, we should all thank those in the streets in
   Genoa, whether we agree with them or not. Protest movements, however,
   do not provide a practical blueprint for how to solve problems, and we
   should not expect that of them. They seek rather to transform the
   public agenda by creating political desires for a better future.
     We see seeds of that future already in the sea of faces that
   stretches from the streets of Seattle to those of Genoa. One of the
   most remarkable characteristics of these movements is their diversity:
   trade unionists together with ecologists together with priests and
   communists. We are beginning to see emerge a multitude that is not
   defined by any single identity, but can discover commonality in its
   multiplicity.
 
   These movements are what link Genoa this weekend most clearly to the
   openness toward new kinds of exchange and new ideas of its Renaissance
   past.
   Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri are the authors of "Empire.''
 
      Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information


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