[news] CKUT Radio: Confronting the WTO Ministerial in Cancun Mexico

[Stefan Christoff]

CKUT Radio: Confronting the WTO Ministerial in Cancun Mexico

Listen to an interview with Aziz Choudry of the Popular Mobilization
Against the WTO in Montreal and Tom Hasen an organizer with the Mexico
Solidarity Network currently in Cancun about the grassroots mobilization
to confront and oppose the World Trade Organization Ministerial meetings
which are set to take place in Cancun from September 10th - 14th.

A popular mobilization in opposition to the WTO Ministerial meetings which
represents many different sectors will continue their struggles against
capitalism in different ways in Cancun: peasants, indigenous and black
communities, trade unionists, students, women's movements and
environmental organizations are taking to the streets to oppose the WTO.
This mobilization follows a strong resistance of thousands of people who
took to the streets of Montreal against the WTO Mini-Ministerial meetings
which took place at the end of July.

Cancun has been turned into a militarized city with upwards of 20 000
police and two navy frigates on hand to attempt to suppress the massive
demonstrations planned to take place in the coming days. There are
indications that the coming WTO Ministerial meetings are set to fail,
given the heavy disagreements of WTO member countries over the
agricultural subsidies maintained by G8 nations which are responsible for
crushing many agricultural markets of countries and communities throughout
the global south. Those organizing to confront the WTO are also
highlighting the link between the WTO's economic policies to the continued
displacement and poverty of indigenous peoples and communities throughout
the world.  Thousands will be taking to the streets of Cancun to reject
the legitimacy of the WTO and call for it's abolition.

-> To listen to an interview with Aziz Choudry & Tom Hasen on the Cancun
mobilization visit:
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=7739

-> Visit the Peoples Global Action Network's page on the resistance to the
WTO Ministerial in Cancun at:
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/cancun/

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Trade Talk: Speaking in Tongues
By Aziz Choudry / ZNet September 06, 2003

It's enough to make your eyes glaze over.

Modalities. Conditionalities. Most-favoured nation. Rules of Origin.
Phytosanitary Standards. TRIPS. TRIMS. GATS. WTO. APEC. FTAA. NAFTA. Trade
negotiators, governments, the media and many non-governmental organisation
(NGOs) are pumping out material brimming with an alphabet soup of acronyms
and jarring technical jargon.

The torrent seems particularly bad right now. Another World Trade
Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting looms imminently, with a November
Summit of the Americas not far behind, where trade ministers and officials
will meet to discuss the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), a trade
and investment agreement between all of the countries in the Americas
except Cuba.

The arcane language of trade negotiations and global economics resembles
the incomprehensible utterances of those who, in a state of apparent
religious ecstasy, believe themselves moved by a divine force and speak in
tongues. Whether it is a belief in salvation by God or the global free
market economy, "true believersâ" frequently feel that they alone have the
truth, the light and the way.

The inaccessibility of this language remains a big plus for the economic
interests "governments and corporationsÓ behind initiatives like the WTO
and FTAA as they seek to mould the world so that global capital can do
what it likes, when it likes, how it likes, and with whomever it likes. It
is as though they have devised a secret code to keep most of us none the
wiser about what they are doing and not particularly interested in finding
out, either. That is a surefire way to minimise popular understanding,
public debate and dissent.

The dense, confusing jargon and the rather abstract-sounding nature of the
Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT which
established the WTO) led to the subject being dubbed a "ratings killer" by
New Zealand media some years ago. It has only been popular education and
action on these and other agreements, especially mass mobilisations and
non-violent direct action that have focussed any public attention on them.

Deconstructing and demystifying the WTO and global economics through
popular education in terms that we can all understand is an important task
if we are to reach out beyond activist and NGO networks and build genuine
mass movements that can seriously contest the power of global capital and
local elites.

But those of us who closely follow trade negotiations with morbid
fascination and concern like soap opera addicts also have a tendency to
adopt this gibberish. Perhaps there is something hypnotic and strangely
seductive about these words, once we have figured out what they mean.
After the initial bewilderment and alienation, they seem to become rapidly
incorporated into our own vocabulary. Then we want to proudly show off our
new words.

Why do so many NGOs critical of the WTO spend so much time speaking the
same language as the trade bureaucrats?

Is it to seek legitimacy in the eyes of officials and institutions? "Take
us seriously, we can use long and complicated words and phrases too".

Is it an initiation rite into a cozier world away from the fraught and
unglamorous work of mobilizing in communities? "I'm not one of those nasty
anti-capitalists, let's talk about modalities".

When we try to fight them in their language we risk sacrificing the power
to name our world and assert our values.

Policy analysis, research and advocacy are important but these must be
directed by and used to advance the needs and demands of grassroots
struggles, not the interests of NGOs which want to maintain good relations
with governments and officials by showing that they speak and understand
the same language literally and figuratively. Unsurprisingly, that
language tends to exclude criticisms of colonialism, capitalism or
imperialism.

The framing of issues in this language, and the narrow focus on technical
aspects of texts and official processes is hardly conducive to popular
education for mobilization, and indeed shuts out the majority of our
societies.

This addiction to technical jargon tends to obscure, rather than advance
popular understandings of these processes and institutions and their
effects on our lives. It inevitably permeates our "popular education"
resources. It runs the risk of connecting only with a very small segment
of societies in certain NGOs and activists who eagerly read the regular
email bulletins on WTO negotiations. Without being connected to broader
political, economic and ecological questions, and struggles for justice
and dignity on the ground, their activities and analyses can seem as
disconnected from on-the-ground reality as the heady world of trade
bureaucrats.

Writing about "NGOism" US global justice activist Patrick Reinsborough
says that there is a "terrifyingly widespread conceit among professional
campaignersâ that social change is a highly specialized profession best
left to experienced strategists, negotiators and policy wonks. NGOism is
the conceit that paid staff will be enough to save the world."

I have nothing against sound critical policy analysis but I worry about
the way in which this language in the gospel according to the WTO (or the
FTAA, World Bank, IMF, etc) comes to frame so much of what we do and say.
It is all-too-easy to develop a severe case of tunnel vision from poring
over complex wordy documents and to adopt the bizarre compartmentalization
of life-and-death issues which the agreements, provisions, articles and
clauses of official texts lend themselves to.

Some NGO policy analysts do excellent work in monitoring negotiations and
disseminating information. They are able to expose concrete examples of
the anti-democratic processes and powerplay that characterizes WTO
negotiations. But there is often a real sense of disconnect between their
priorities and the priorities and struggles of peoples movements. Many
people most directly affected by neoliberal policies and mobilising at the
grassroots may not be familiar with the jargon but have a keen
understanding of what is going on and a bigger picture analysis which is
often missing in the world of professionalized NGO policy analysts.

The devil lies not only in the details of trade and economic agreements,
but in the underlying economic, social, political and environmental
agendas underpinning them. Too many of the analyses of trade negotiations
have too little political analysis. We fetishise the minutiae of these
agreements at the risk of losing sight of the fact that they are
manifestations of bigger systemic problems - like capitalism and
colonialism.

A certain elitism has already developed in global justice networks where
policy "experts" in relatively well-resourced organisations are elevated
to guru-like status and get to interpret the texts and meanings of
meetings for the rest of us. These interpretations and the accompanying
suggestions for action are often divorced from the lived realities of
daily struggles for justice and dignity, and a political analysis of the
bigger picture. They often urge reformist solutions to try to change or
insert some words here or there, rather than challenging the underlying
values and principles on which the agreements are based, or heeding
popular demands for radical transformation of the prevailing economic
order.

We need to be wary of the development of an emergent class of high priests
of policy analysis, who are claiming the space, authority and mandate to
set strategy and direction of global justice movements. The gulf between
them and the aspirations of peoples struggles needs to be acknowledged and
addressed. If anyone is going to save the world from the ravages of
neoliberalism, it will be community mobilizations and mass movements, not
professional NGOers speaking in tongues.

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