----- Forwarded message from Bob Olsen <bobolsen@interlog.com> -----
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 16:48:30 -0500
To: mai-not@flora.org
From: Bob Olsen <bobolsen@interlog.com>
Subject: India: No to the WTO. No to capitalism.
No to the WTO. We’re against the whole capitalist system
The WB, IMF and WTO are beyond reform
From: "jaggi singh" <tyrone_conn@hotmail.com>
To: bobolsen@interlog.com,
Subject: India, the WTO and capitalist globalization
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 04:15:41 EST
[A slightly different version of this article was to appear in the
Alternatives supplement of HOUR magazine, a weekly newspaper published in
Montreal.]
India, the WTO and capitalist globalization
by Jaggi Singh <jaggi@tao.ca>
BHOPAL, INDIA, January 13, 2000
Mike Moore, the shell-shocked
Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), is visiting India
this week to meet with "top officials and business leaders". It’s all part
of a concerted attempt at damage control after the victory of diverse
peoples’ movements at the Battle of Seattle. According to a WTO envoy in
Geneva, "Moore clearly sees India as a key to kick-starting the negotiation
process." [Reuters, January 7, 2000].
[In an interview with India Today Magazine [January 24, 2000], Moore spoke
of the "liberating force of globalisation" and declared it "a reality, not a
policy." In Moore’s words, "The era of "isms" is over." He didn’t mention
"capitalISM."]
The official Indian government delegation to the Seattle WTO Ministerial
meetings took a hard-line stance, at least publicly, against linking trade
to labour and environmental standards. It was a position supported by all
the major parliamentary factions, including the so-called left parties.
Indeed, the government’s view not only echoes that of other governments in
the "Third World", but is critically supported by the majority of
progressive opponents of globalization in India and the rest of South Asia.
It’s not that activists here are "soft" or relativistic about labour
standards, the environment or human rights; nor are they naïve about whom
the Indian government really represents. Rather, they see Western
governments’ apparent discovery of universal human values and standards as a
ploy to ensure a competitive advantage for their own multinational
companies. This view is widespread in countries like India, with its own
historical context of colonialism, and contemporary context of
neo-colonialism (with which the "holy trinity" of the WTO, International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) are considered synonymous).
According to Sanjay Mangala Gopal, the co-coordinator of the National
Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM, representing some 125 grassroots
organizations): "We will define our own way of development and we are
capable of doing it. Who are you to teach us about child labour or anything
else?"
Gopal insists that voices from the South -- where the majority of the
world’s marginalized peoples live and survive -- should provide the
leadership to the international resistance to globalization (by definition,
this includes those pockets of the Third World in the North, such as many
indigenous and minority communities in North America). The analysis
emanating from diverse sources in the Third World -- not just the communists
-- revolves around the "Three Aunties."
They’re not talking about a kindly trio of female relatives who pamper their
nephews and nieces, but an analysis of the WTO and related institutions that
is "anti-imperialist", "anti-colonial" and "anti-capitalist," phrases which
are seemingly alien to most mainstream anti-globalization movements in the
North. As Gopal puts it, "If you want real change, you have to abolish the
capitalistic mode of development."
In the forceful words of R. Geetha, a union and women’s rights activist
based in Madras, "Who are they [the West] to impose conditions on
third-world countries? People are starving here! Why the hell should they
tell us what kind of economy we should have?"
Meanwhile, Medha Patkar, a leading organizer of the Narmada Bachao Andolan
(NBA, a more-than-decade long mass movement against destructive development
and displacement in the Narmada River Valley of India) is not shy in saying:
"The ultimate goal is to say no to the WTO. We’re against the whole
capitalist system."
As for the clear emphasis by major Western labour, environmental and
consumer organizations that the WTO needs to be reformed -- the "fair trade"
crowd -- activists here respond with varying degrees of diplomacy. In the
carefully chosen words of Patkar, "The context of developed and developing
countries is different. Those who are for reforms [will] realize over a
period of time that these institutions [WB, IMF and WTO] are beyond reform."
In Geetha’s view, "I think the organized American working class is worried
about American capital going to the Third World to exploit conditions
there." She adds, "That’s an indirect fight."
Meanwhile, one small independent Bombay monthly (which describes itself as
"a monthly that challenges the ideas of the ruling classes") writes that
"[t]he big labour unions and environmental groups" were those "whose demands
almost mirrored that of the US government." [The Voice of People Awakening,
December 1999.]
Geetha insists on having a "direct fight" against globalization, while Gopal
feels that many opponents of globalization "are looking at this issue with
one eye," by ignoring, or downplaying, the voices of the South.
While there is a strong basis of analytical unity by India’s numerous
activist groups and movements, their tactics in action are diverse,
reflective of the complex -- cliched but true -- diversity of the
subcontinent itself. The actions range from Gandhian-style non-violence to
more militant forms of direct action (including property destruction) to
armed struggle in certain rural pockets of the country. To a large extent
the tactics are complementary, but it would be too idealistic to assert
they’re not also at times at odds with each other. However, there is often a
strong sense of solidarity expressed between movements. It’s what Patkar
describes as "different strategies, but same goals" which is to be preferred
to "same strategies, but different goals" (after all, right-wing fanatics
also employ non-violence, property destruction or armed struggle as
tactics).
One group directly connected to the international anti-globalization
movement is the KRRS, the Karnataka State Farmer’s Movement, representing
thousands of peasant farmers in the southern state of Karnataka. In recent
years, the KRRS has physically dismantled -- with iron bars -- a Cargill
seed unit, trashed another office of the same multinational agribusiness,
burned Monsanto’s field trials of biotech cotton, and trashed a Kentucky
Fried Chicken outlet in Bangalore. [Their actions put in some perspective
the recent debate about so-called "violence against property" in Seattle.]
The KRRS has also been a major component of the People’s Global Action
against "Free" Trade (PGA) movement, which unites peoples’ movements on five
continents (including the Zapatistas of southern Mexico and the Landless
Peasants’ Movement (MST) of Brazil). The PGA’s "hallmarks" are a clear
rejection of the WTO and similar institutions and agreements, a
confrontational attitude, a call to non-violent disobedience, and
decentralization and autonomy as organizing principles. The PGA also added a
fifth hallmark at their recent meeting in Bangalore which "rejects all forms
and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to,
patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds."
According to the recent PGA bulletin, "The "denunciation of "free" trade
without an analysis of patriarchy, racism and processes of homogenization is
a basic element of the discourse of the right, and perfectly compatible with
simplistic explanations of complex realities, and with the personification
of the effects of capitalism (such as conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism,
etc.) that inevitably lead to fascism, witch-hunting and oppressive
chauvinist traditionalism." In the Indian context, the new hallmark serves
to distinguish progressive internationalist opponents of globalization, like
the KRRS, NAPM and NBA, from the Hindu Right who also employ much of the
same rhetoric of the anti-globalization movement.
And so, on November 30, while a state of emergency was declared in Seattle,
and various militarized police forces proceeded to brutalize thousands of
anti-WTO demonstrators, the KRRS organized it’s own demonstration in
Bangalore. Several thousand farmers, along with their allies, issued a "Quit
India" notice to multinational food and biotech conglomerate, Monsanto.
In the spirited words of one speaker at the rally: "We don't want to grow
and feed poisonous food by using the genetically modified seeds of Monsanto.
It is our responsibility to protect our natural resources. I would like to
tell the police to be prepared! We will attack Monsanto unless it quits
India."
The KRRS action on N30 is just one example of the spate of recent
anti-globalization oriented protests on the subcontinent (although
mobilizations against the WB and IMF started in earnest in the mid-1980s).
For example, also on N30, activists of the NBA organized a 1000-strong
non-violent procession in the Narmada Valley "protesting against the
anti-human agreements and institutions that are pushing India and the rest
of the world into the destructive process of capitalist globalisation."
One week earlier, 300 adivasis (indigenous peoples) from the state of Madhya
Pradesh stormed the World Bank offices in Delhi. They proceeded to block the
building and cover it with posters, graffiti, cow shit and mud (yet again,
more violence to property!). The protesters left a letter, which reads in
part, "We fought against the British and we will fight against the new form
of colonialism that you represent with all our might."
Other adivasi activists are also currently engaged in a six-month long
procession ("padyatra") from one end of Madhya Pradesh to the other in order
to highlight the ever-hastening process of land displacement in the name of
globalization.
Meanwhile, just two days ago, the non-violent protesters of the NBA
converged on the Maheshwar dam (one part of the Narmada dam system) and
proceeded to illegally occupy the dam site. About 4000 took over the site,
while 1500 were eventually arrested by the police who responded by attacking
some demonstrators.
The protests show no sign of ending, with the NAPM promising to disrupt Bill
Clinton’s anticipated visit to India in March. Their chosen slogans include,
"Go bank foreign exploiter Clinton!" The NAPM will stress "opposition to
exploiting US rulers but friendship with all those Americans who support
us."
These examples don’t even account for other ongoing movements of indigenous
persons, fisherfolk, farmers, labour activists, low caste and Dalit (former
"untouchables") organizations, youth and individuals in all parts of India.
More information on those resistance struggles, and India’s rush towards
adopting free-market globalization, will be appearing in these pages in the
upcoming months.
[Jaggi Singh is a writer, independent journalist and political activist
based in Montreal. He is currently writing and traveling in India. For more
information, or a longer, in-depth version of this article, contact him by
e-mail <jaggi@tao.ca> or by phone at 514-526-8946.]
.............................................
Bob Olsen, Toronto bobolsen@interlog.com
.............................................
----- End forwarded message -----
--
______ _________________________________________________
/ | |
| jon | jonivar skullerud |
\______ | |
\ | jonivar@bigfoot.com |
ivar | | http://www.bigfoot.com/~jonivar/ |
_______/ |_________________________________________________|
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Mar 15 2000 - 12:52:14 MET