SEATTLE -- After enjoying a free ride
in American news media for many years, the World Trade Organization just hit a brick wall.
The credit should go to a vast array of civic activists -- represented by tens of
thousands of protesters from every continent who took to the streets here with determined
nonviolence.
The WTO has been fully accustomed to
operating with scant media scrutiny in this country. Even for alert consumers of
mainstream news, the WTO was apt to seem distant, aloof and fully protected from the
intervention of mere mortals. No more.
By the time President Clinton arrived
in Seattle on Wednesday for the WTO summit, it was clear that mere mortals have thrown
themselves onto the gears of global trade designed by the rich and powerful. The Oz-like
curtain shielding the operators of corporate machinery had gone up in smoke -- symbolized
by the tear gas and pepper spray wafting over the city.
This month began with the acrid smell
of illusions turning to ash. For the general public, the WTO will never again be able to
claim automatic legitimacy. And while the hotshots running the WTO lose momentum, the
parallel activities of global loan sharks like the International Monetary Fund are also
sliding into further disrepute.
The peaceful marchers in downtown
Seattle compelled media attention because they were so clearly and deeply rooted in
communities across North America and every other continent. Formerly isolated from each
other, advocates for diverse interests -- the environment and labor rights, for instance
-- are finding common cause.
At a union-sponsored demonstration
that stretched for many blocks, amid protesters dressed as sea turtles (endangered by WTO
edicts), I saw a sign that captured the moment: "Turtles and Teamsters -- United At
Last." >
Over the years, news coverage has
been stuck in a default position, routine and implicit: When government leaders and top
corporate officials reach agreement on economic rules for the planet to live (and die) by,
those rules are basically sound. Kindred elites arrived in Seattle hoping for a
celebratory event. Instead, resistance spoiled their party.
Guardians of the WTO's image got a
break when a small group of hoodlums went on a window-smashing spree and drew appreciable
media attention. It's easy enough for TV cameras to videotape scenes of random violence in
a shopping district. A much more difficult task would be to cover the institutionalized
violence that is a quiet part of daily life.
While Western banks collect huge
interest on loans to poor countries, the suffering -- and the links between wealth and
poverty -- go largely unreported. That's how 20,000 children worldwide continue to die
each day from preventable diseases.
The chain of events that led to a
virtual military lockdown of Seattle's core business district at midweek was set in motion
by wide opposition to the WTO in many societies around the globe. Now, the battle of
Seattle has torn off the WTO's happy-face stickers.
Without such visible opposition,
reigning power brokers are glad to pose as tolerant souls. But at the historic crossroads
in Seattle, when the WTO found itself unable to proceed with business as usual, it was
time to exchange the velvet glove for the iron fist.
This is logical. After all, the World
Trade Organization is supremely anti-democratic. Unelected WTO officials deliberate in
secret and issue rulings that deem local or national laws to be unfair "trade
barriers" if they impede the pursuit of profits. This, we are told, is "free
trade" -- and laws that protect workers or the environment or human rights are
supposed to get out of the way.
As I write these words on Wednesday
evening, a few blocks away police are attacking nonviolent protesters in downtown Seattle
with heavy batons and new rounds of pepper spray and tear gas. Armored personnel carriers
have moved in. Some policemen are arriving on horses. National Guard troops are putting on
gas masks. All day, helicopters have droned steadily overhead.
In a perverse way, all this seems to
make sense. While boosters of the World Trade Organization keep talking about "free
trade," the consequences of contempt for democracy include more contempt for
democracy. Elites may insist on the right to rule, but the rest of us -- including
journalists -- should not go along to get along.
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