CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
Henk Elegeert
HmjE at HOME.NL
Thu Aug 16 10:48:18 CEST 2001
REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/tvaradarajan/?id=95000964
"
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
Riots Inc.
The business of protesting
globalization.
BY KENDRA OKONSKI
Tuesday, August 14, 2001 12:01
a.m. EDT
Sweeping up the broken glass in Genoa, Italy,
merchants
must have asked themselves: Who paid for this riot?
After all, an army of activists doesn't just descend
on a
city without some leadership--and some money to pay
organizers, rent meeting places, print posters and
so on.
So let's follow the money.
Antiglobalization protests have become a big
business
that involves millions of dollars, transnational
organizations and a global agenda. Even
Greenpeace--a
global enterprise with offices in London, Buenos
Aires,
Washington and Tokyo--has a chief financial officer.
Indeed, the antiglobalization movement seems like
corporate dystopia, a mirror image of the business
world
complete with trade associations, venture
capitalists,
management recruiting and marketing campaigns.
Instead
of selling T-shirts or toothpaste, the agitators are
selling
limits on cross-border trade.
Start with holding companies. The Genoa Social
Forum, a
constellation of nonprofits that organized a
"countersummit" to give the protesters a patina of
intellectual respectability, served as a central
coordinating hub. The Italian government provided
$1.3
million to pay for conference facilities and
translation
services, Genoa Social Forum organizer Carlo
Schenone
told the press.
Playing the role of "business roundtable" of the
antiglobalization movement is the International
Forum on
Globalization. One of the forum's associates in
Genoa was
Susan George, who is also vice president of the
Paris-based Association for the Taxation of
Financial
Transactions for the Help of Citizens, known as
Attac.
Other forum members in Genoa included Kevin Danaher
of
San Francisco's Global Exchange, Walden Bello of the
Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South and Vandana
Shiva of the Delhi-based Research Foundation for
Science, Technology and Ecology. Another forum
member, Jose Bove of the French farmers union
Confederacion Paysanne--famous for driving his
tractor
through a McDonald's in France--also turned up in
Genoa. These people meet regularly under the forum's
auspices.
The forum is funded largely by the Foundation for
Deep
Ecology, a San Francisco-based philanthropic
foundation
that was endowed with the fortune of Esprit Clothing
Co.
magnate Douglas Tompkins. With assets of more than
$150 million in 2000, the foundation serves as a
kind of
venture-capital fund for the movement by providing
seed
money to groups around the world.
Through the forum, the foundation has helped
energize
groups like Attac, which was a major player in
Genoa.
Attac itself is a kind of holding company of
international
nonprofits and trade unions who believe that
economic
globalization "only expresses the interests of
multinational corporations and financial markets."
While
Attac largely focuses on lobbying for a tax on
international capital transactions, it spends much
of its
time building coalitions with nonprofits focused on
other
issues--such as AIDS, the environment, human rights
and organic farming--to combat globalization on all
fronts. These opportunistic organizations help the
movement look like a genuine grass-roots uprising
and
swell its numbers. This strategy is not unlike the
alliances
that firms sometimes form to crack new markets.
Like all big businesses in Europe, the
antiglobalization
movement works closely with labor unions. In Genoa,
the
bulk of the marchers came from two Italian trade
unions,
the Confederazione General Italiano del Lavoro and
the
Confederazione Italiana Sindicati Lavoratori. These
unions were brought together with the help of the
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, a
Brussels-based network of international unions.
And the unions also supply a lot of the money. The
Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging, a group of Dutch
trade unions, and other European labor groups have
created "international solidarity funds" partly to
fund
antiglobalization groups. This ensures a bumper crop
of
protesters and a steady stream of press releases.
These solidarity funds are, in turn, funded by
European
governments. According to a report by Labor and
Society
International, a British group that works with trade
unions and nonprofit groups, the Dutch unions'
Department for International Cooperation received
$6.75
million in 1997 from the Dutch government. That same
year, the German government provided about $50
million
to the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a foundation that
carries
out an antiglobalization agenda with trade unions
and
political parties.
In Sweden and Norway, the governments contribute 80%
of the money that makes up the union solidarity
funds,
which also ends up promoting the antiglobalization
movement. Canadian social-justice funds, set up by
Canada's major trade unions, are similar. The
Canadian
International Development Agency, a government
entity,
matches union contributions by a ratio of
three-to-one.
In short, much of the money that fuels the
antiglobalization protests against intergovernmental
meetings is provided by many of those same
governments.
At its heart, the antiglobalization business is a
foundation-, union- and government-funded coalition
of
convenience. That's why when reporters wade into the
crowds at antiglobalization demonstrations they
quickly
learn that there is no overarching philosophy, no
shared
ideology. If reporters probed more deeply they might
learn that a shared interest holds the protest
industry
together--a fear of a borderless, dynamic world. In
that
world, a shopper in Malmo or Manchester would be as
free to buy sugar from Martinique as from the
European
Union.
The left is ideologically opposed to free trade. Its
philosophy requires a vast number of regulations on
everything from factory emissions to working hours.
If
these regulations are not simultaneously imposed
across
the globe, then some nations' businesses will
benefit from
a lighter regulatory touch.
Businessmen are quick to object when their overseas
rivals have a competitive advantage and can either
relocate to enjoy lower costs or lobby government
officials to reduce the cost of these supposedly
"costless" edicts. Either way, political resistance
to
regulation grows. So would-be regulators need some
way
to keep out goods from nations unburdened by
questionable regulations. And that leads them into
the
arms of trade unions, which are looking for
protectionist
barriers to save uncompetitive jobs in dying
industries.
Perhaps the EU's truth-in-advertising laws should
require
the antiglobalization movement to change its name to
the "protectionist caucus."
If you are a European taxpayer or union member,
chances are you are also a passive investor in the
ventures that wrecked Goteborg, Genoa, Seattle, and
the rest. The protesters hope that you enjoyed the
show, but now want you to go back to work and pay
your taxes. There are more international meetings
coming
up this autumn and the activists could use another
round
of financing.
"
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