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Anti-Globalization:
A Small Critique In February the World Economic Forum met here in New York City. Up to 20,000 people took to the streets to protest this forum. In March 16, 2002 Reuters conservatively estimated that "At least a quarter of a million Europeans flooded onto the streets of Barcelona Saturday to protest against what they saw as an EU sell-out to U.S.-run global business and a threat to their social welfare systems." 250,000 people in Barcelona in protest to the European Union's globalization. 20,000 in New York. I need not even mention Seattle, Quebec, or Genoa where the mainstream media portrayed the protesters as "violent gangs of anarchists" repeatedly. I have numerous articles from CNN and Reuters that portray anarchists and the protesters at these globalization movements. This definitely needs to be countered. Every mainstream media coverage I have read for the past month has assumed that WEF protesters would be "violent" and that protesters simply want to break things and cause general destruction (Richard Esposito's "Law of the Fist" in the Village Voice was a fine example of this), and corresponding to this they have assumed that the State wants peace. Protesters come to cause violence and fight, but the police and the State (armed with guns, clubs, shields, pepper spray, handcuffs, tear gas, water canons, etc.) are really peaceful! This is a false assumption that is made about the state quite often. Whether or not violence is a part of the protest is largely a choice of the police forces, who are certainly armed for more violence than any protester, a large number of whom are pacifists and anti-war advocates anyhow. The news media has assumed that protesters do not represent the average person, but these elected persons do. The protesters therefore have to earn the "rights" to protest, meanwhile the summit organizers and participants do not have to earn the "rights" to set agendas that will turn the whole world into a big shopping mall. Never mind that in the United States, not even half the population voted in the last presidential election. Never mind that these "elected" officials do not know even a fraction of these people they supposedly represent. It is they who represent the "people." Never mind that 250,000 of these people just took to the streets of Barcelona! It is this single "elected" person who represents humanity! Such audacity in the news media, I sincerely think we need to smash our radios and televisions. Utter propaganda is coming out of them, which assaults the mind of every listener. They are a menace to society with every syllable that comes over the airways, both right and left (one side punches us in the right side of the face, and then we are hit with a counter punch from the left to "offset" the smack we just received from the right.) I have nothing good to say about the media nor do I have anything good to say about "globalization." At a protest in front of the GAP in New York City union representatives from the AFL-CIO openly declared that they were "not anti-globalization" but were "pro-fair-globalization." After hearing this, coupled with the crowds repeated insults to the few anarchists who showed up and how they were dressed, I left in disgust. Unions in America have nothing radical to offer. They offer no vision. Most of them were waving American flags even. They were more concerned about losing their jobs than anything else. I am not exaggerating here. I am completely against globalization at all. The anti-globalization movement focuses on exploitation of the "Third World" by the "First World" in terms of wealth. The movement has missed the crucial factors of our time that have people "alienated" as Ellul and Marx call it. Mainly they do not question technological progress, the scientific pursuit to get to the core of humankind and change it fundamentally, through psychology, sociology, genetics, propaganda, etc. They do not question whether it is a good thing to remake "Third World" nations in the image of the West. They do not question whether technology and other techniques are good things to be implementing. Technique creates class divisions. An aristocracy is set up who know how to use the techniques and specifically propaganda. This aristocracy is then able to conceive, organize and control. And the other much larger class are those who simply carry out the steps of technique and do so without much knowledge. The AFL-CIO Union at the GAP completely misses this. As a result there is a fundamental lack of self-awareness in these movements that reflects our cultures of the west. Although there is some awareness of these dangers, especially in the ecology advocates, it is by-and-large a necessity that the movements grapple with this and see that globalization means more than exploitation but the globalizing of Western techniques to harness power, regardless if people are exploited or not. This past week I had the privilege to hear Ralph Nader speak and bought his newest book. He bemoaned that Americans are withdrawing from political activity in disgust. I asked him about this, saying in effect that we should not take it for granted that mass demonstrations (the protesters assume this) and large forums (politicians and others assume this) held by world leaders is where "real politics" is done. But in reality, I wonder if the "real politics" and the "real revolution" is not done in less pompous ways, without all the mass hysteria and grandeur. The news media will never report on the subtle ways in which lives are changed through individuals treating other individuals as the most important thing in the world, affirming their dignity, doing the small daily things for people that change the heart of the doer and sometimes the heart of the receiver. Even the Green Party, though it has a great many things to say that I agree with, has given us an illusion. For example, they are for decentralization, but the solutions they propose to our society, universal health care, publicly funded elections, etc. seem to me to be impossible to implement without centralization. There is no turning back in our society. We are a centralized society and increasingly so. To propose centralized solutions to decentralize seems to me to be ridiculous…sort of like how the communists thought the state would simply whither away someday: we see how that turned out! A withdraw is in order. Mr. Nader told me that I cannot escape the effects of government, even the North Pole has toxins in it, and the more I try to organize on a local level the more they will exclude me and others from means of communication and ways of organizing. But I do not want the radio or television. The more they try to repress the more resistance is needed. Complete noncooperation is what brings the machine to a halt, not some cog or wheel in the machine thinking it can alter the course of the machine. The cogs and wheels have to be taken apart and thrown away for the machine to cease. All of this is to say that we cannot ignore globalization. Christians have a responsibility to be salt in the world and to name the powers. The techno-military-statist complex needs to be named and unmasked. Technique is every bit as much of a power and principality as the State and Mammon. As a Christian and an Anarchist I have intended to engage anti-globalization for these reason above. And more I have intended to engage anarchists specifically because, I agree with Ellul, that Christians have some specifically Christian things to add to this movement (I have written this elsewhere, and this is a summary of Ellul). 1) That progress is not inevitable and that an anarchist society is unlikely. Christians should be realistic. We should not aim to conquer ALL power or to use power for others good, and thus become political. We can make small cracks in the system and therefore freedom (what I believe God wants for people) will be possible. If anarchists organize into parties, and divide people up into good and bad, etc. they will lose and will become just another power themselves. Christians can bring a realism to them. Failing to establish an anarchist society is no reason to lose hope. If an anarchist society were established it would become another manifestation of power. We cannot use this power, which will flood the cracks we have opened and therefore kill any possibility for freedom. That is a lot. 2) That
human beings are not good by nature. It is not merely rulers who are the
"bad guys" but all people who are under this system, generally
WANT to be under it, and are not capable of living without it. Our Christian
hope is that in spite of this realism, we have only 2 options 1) to organize
a repressive regime that puts people in their place, or 2) to work for
the transformation of individuals (conversion) so that we can begin to
live together without coercion. Which means virtues of nonviolence, truth,
and justice must be used. These two options are not compatible, and we
cannot be neutral and stay out of it. Withdrawal from Capital Hill does
not mean absolution of responsibility. For more
in depth reading on Christian responsibility and rejection of power read
Jacques Ellul's Anarchy
and Christianity and also chapter 6 of Jesus and Marx entitled Anarchy
and Christianity also. |
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