Chuck Morse writes "

(From Perspectives
on Anarchist Theory , the biannual newsletter of the Institute for Anarchist
Studies, Spring 2004 - Volume 8, Number 1)

The Life--or Death--of the Anti-Globalization
Movement

The anti-globalization movement that erupted
onto the scene in Seattle 1999 frightened elites and inspired activists around
the world to fight the system in a utopian, anti-authoritarian way. However,
this movement has occupied a much less significant place on the public stage
since the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001. Is it over?

We asked Marina Sitrin (IAS grant recipient)
and Chuck Morse (IAS board member) for their thoughts on this question.

Marina
Sitrin's Response / Chuck
Morse's Response

Marina Sitrin:

This question makes me immediately think of those
who negate the autonomous social movements in Argentina, arguing that because
they did not “take power” when the numbers in the streets might
have allowed it, the movements must be over and dead. It is not an analysis
based on movement history, nor is it one based on looking at things where they
are, but rather is an analysis based on a future idea of what a movement should
be, and then when that pre-conceived idea is not realized, the entire movement
is negated. This is a misguided and unfortunate view of history.

I wonder, then, if the question of the life of
the Global Justice Movement is meant to address what appears on first impression
to be a decline in the numbers of people demonstrating in the street. Or maybe
the question is directed at what we are currently doing, in that it appears
that we are multi-focused. Regardless of the motivation behind the question,
it opens a space for an important conversation. This is a very short dialogue,
with the goal of bringing about more discussion and debate on the role and place
of the movement, as well as a broader conversation on our overall goals as anti-capitalists.
To place myself in this piece, I am an anti-capitalist, against all hierarchy,
and believe in freedom and horizontalism.

The most important thing the movement has contributed
to the politics and culture of the world is a new vision, a new way of imagining
social relationships and a new way of placing ourselves as actors in the world.
This is seen even in the name. There was a conscious decision by many in the
movement to stop referring to the movement as anti-globalization, and use language
that more clearly reflected the movement’s desires: the creation of a
new sense of justice worldwide. Social movements cannot be measured in the same
way that many academic historians measure history, by counting numbers or gathering
lists of demonstrations. The way in which we measure the life and health of
a movement is in the effect and affect it creates, not just in relation to power
structures, but also in our relationships to one another, in what we are creating
day to day with one another. I believe that the Global Justice Movement is alive
and healthy and continues to generate new ideas, passions, and movements all
over the world. This is seen most in the ways in which people are organizing
globally, using horizontal visions while maintaining a clear anti-capitalist
and anti-empire focus, as well as in how we listen and relate to our various
movements around the globe, truly creating a movement of movements.

To think about the Global Justice Movement in the
US, is to immediately think of Seattle in 1999. For me, participating in the
shut down of the WTO, as well as the social creation that took place in the
planning, signified a huge shift in my imagination. This shift was not because
of the resistance in the streets, though it was beautiful, but rather the shift
came from the way in which we resisted and continue to resist. This could be
seen particularly with our parallel institutions, such as indymedia, legal and
medical collectives, and the ways in which we made decisions. Seattle reflected
a massive shift in the way that we relate to one another in every aspect of
our organizing. Decisions were made directly democratically, each person listening
to the other and striving for synthesis. Each person had a voice through the
affinity group and spokes council model, a horizontal relationship based on
the desire for freedom and not power-over or hierarchy. These models and ways
of imagining relations were the most important thing to come out of Seattle,
and have changed the ways in which activists relate to one another all over
the country. In most student groups today, as well as in other groups and collectives,
people use various forms of direct democracy and strive for horizontal structures.
This is not merely a reflection of different decision-making structures, but
is a broader reflection of shifting views on power. From the concept of power-over
and taking power, to concepts of power-to, and the creation of other power,
or anti-power.

The Global Justice Movement has changed over the
past four years, as all living movements do. The movement is theoretically stronger,
and seeks a deeper understanding and analysis of the world around us. The movement
exploded with a definitive no to capitalism. This in itself, inseparably linked
to horizontalism, was a huge step. Influenced by the Zapatistas, first there
is a “NO” and then many yeses. The movement is creating new yeses
each day. We no longer focus solely on institutions of global capital, but also
work against what many are calling “empire”. The anti-capitalism
has gone beyond individual bad corporations or institutions to attempting to
understand the role of the state, the military, and where they diverge and intersect
with government and institutions of global capital.

As we are actively developing theoretically, our
structures are in transition. While some of the direct action groups initiated
after Seattle, such as the Direct Action Network, no longer exist, many others
have since been created and have even deeper roots in communities and a broader
theoretical perspective. Groups such as the Direct Action to Stop the War in
San Francisco or the Wooster Global Action Network, and the New York City based
Anarchist People of Color network, all horizontal in structure, anti-capitalist,
and grounded in seeing the means of struggle as the ends. The effect of the
movement has also been felt in some of the more traditional reformist or radical
coalitions. For example, United for Peace and Justice in various cities uses
forms of decision-making and sometimes even a spokes council model precisely
because of the effects of those in the movement and from gathering lessons from
the movement. I do not believe that there needs to be one organization, though
various networks are of great importance if history is to be our guide at all.
Globally there is the People’s Global Action, that outside the US is still
a very strong network that links horizontal anti-capitalist groups from India
to Argentina. Over the past few years in the US there have been hundreds of
discussions, conferences, and documents attempting to spark more conversation
around forming different types of anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian networks
or groups, and the past few months have witnessed a huge increase in these discussions.
The groups in the US pre-Seattle were not in this place. Not only was there
not a discussion of linking, but not in a horizontal way, nor so clearly anti-capitalist.
We are in place much more advanced than that of the pre-Seattle period, and
it is because of the global vision of horizontalism, anti-capitalism, and direct
democracy. The movement is creating a new politic, based in many movements of
the past, and I believe the movement of movements continues to get stronger
and grow deeper roots.

The question of the life of the movement is an
important one, and from there we need to get on with the continued visioning
of the world we are creating.

Chuck Morse:

Revolutionary movements come and go. The classical
anarchist movement, the black liberation movement, the ecology movement, and
others pushed against the boundaries of the social order and then—when
faced with challenges they could not confront—collapsed into history.

The anti-globalization movement has also come and
gone. It leapt to world attention during the Seattle protests against
the World Trade Organization and died with the February 2002 mobilizations against
the World Economic Forum in New York City. Although struggles against capitalist
globalization are ongoing, this particular movement is in need of an obituary.

Signs of its demise are everywhere. The movement
is no longer capable of stirring fear among the ruling class or even generating
significant media attention (despite the fact that the protests continue). Activist
efforts to shape the movement have also diminished dramatically: books and documentaries
on the movement now appear much less frequently than before, strategy summits
are far less common, strategic innovations (like Indymedia) have ceased to emerge,
and once vibrant internal debates have largely dried up.

These things indicate more than a temporary lull
in activity: the anti-globalization movement is dead.

It died because it faltered when faced with a key
opportunity to deepen its attack on the capitalist system. It bungled a historical
moment and, as a result, lost its momentum as well as its significance for the
public at large. Although activists may take up some of the movement’s
motifs in the future, these activists as well as the political context will
be entirely different.

The anti-globalization movement was unique in three
ways. First, its opposition to global capital was premised on a deeply moral
critique of the reduction of people and nature to saleable objects, and in this
sense, it challenged the very premises of the market economy. Second, its emphasis
on participatory direct action ensured that the movement was truly democratic
and not divided between a cadre of professional organizers and a herd of passive
followers. Finally, its focus on tactics but not politics allowed people with
diverse and often contradictory convictions to work together and find some common
ground.

The movement threw itself headlong into a conflict
with the architects of the global economy, and the confrontation that ensued
was enormously educational. The summit protests illustrated the deep contrast
between the cruel, profit-driven world of the global capitalists and “another
world” premised on the joyous affirmation of life. Everything—even
the style with which each side presented its case—seemed to emphasize
the divide. The violence that erupted at protest after protest was also very
instructive: the police made our point about the barbarism of capital by savagely
repressing dissidents, and the sight of city streets in flames punctuated the
irreconcilable conflict between the two visions of the world in play.

The anti-globalization movement thus polarized
the debate about the future of the world system and, by virtue of its success,
confronted a question on which its fate would hang: if global capitalism must
be abandoned, what is the alternative? What groups and institutions should structure
economic activity? Nation-states? Associations of nation-states? Communities?
Social movements?

The world waited for an answer, and unfortunately
one was never produced. Although various proposals and schemes floated around
activist circles, a reconstructive vision was neither seriously debated nor
advanced. There were vigorous discussions of tactical issues (like the role
of violence at protests) and moral issues (like the impact of privilege on activists),
but the fundamental political questions remained unaddressed.

The movement not only failed to confront these
questions but also developed a political culture that undermined attempts to
do so. The constant affirmation of diversity, plurality, and openness—which
are undoubtedly virtues, but vacuous outside a political context—discouraged
people from seriously reflecting on the movement’s goals. Indeed, during
its terminal stages, the movement seemed flooded with professors, grad students,
and journalists who gravely warned us not to present an affirmative, coherent
alternative.

Admittedly, the deferral of political questions
had advantages. It allowed people to come together whose aims seemed deeply
conflicted—lobbyists and anarchists, turtles and teamsters, Communists
and Christians, etc.—and unexpectedly rich dialogues often resulted. Many
discovered that they had more in common with one another than they previously
supposed, and this helped the old boundaries of the Left relax a bit.

But political questions cannot be avoided for long,
especially by a movement that has captured the world’s attention. Indeed,
people became increasingly impatient with the movement’s inability to
define what it was for, as evidenced by the countless journalists who wrote
countless articles trying to penetrate the movement’s aims. But the movement
did not procure an answer, and more often than not, rejected the very legitimacy
of the question.

And then September 11th blew the movement off the
stage. Although it reentered the debate in February 2002 in New York—valiantly
asserting that opposition to globalization will not be silenced by terror—the
movement lacked an anchor and thus could not regain its momentum amid the storms
of war that began to sweep the world at the time.

It is tempting to argue that the anti-globalization
movement lives on in the Zapatistas, the Argentine uprising of 2001, Brazil’s
Landless Workers’ Movement, and other ongoing struggles in the “global
south.” Although these movements and the one that emerged in Seattle should
be understood as parts of a broader, worldwide opposition to global capital,
they are not continuous. The Mexican, Brazilian, and Argentine movements do
not define themselves as participants in the anti-globalization movement and,
more substantively, they do not focus primarily on the institutions of the world
economy but rather on domestic political authorities and their national polices.
North American activists need to be attentive to these differences.

In a sense the movement—or at least the form
in which we knew it—was destined to die. This is not because utopian aspirations
are doomed to failure (they are not) or because struggles against capitalist
globalization have ended (of course they haven’t). It is because revolutionary
social movements aim to transform the circumstances from which they emerge and
thus must always abandon old forms of struggle in order to adapt to new conditions
(conditions that they have, in part, created). In a way, the most successful
revolutionary movement will be one that renders the need for revolutionary struggle
obsolete altogether.

What is more alarming than the death of the movement
is the failure to reflect deeply on our inability to advance a coherent alternative
when presented with the opportunity to do so. The anti-globalization movement
did push beyond the boundaries of the present and helped us imagine “another
world,” but its emancipatory aims were unrealized. We must embrace the
chasm between our aspirations and our circumstances—between the “is”
and the “ought”—and use it as an environment in which to forge
an even more vigorous challenge to the world we have inherited.

From Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, Spring 2004
- Volume 8, Number 1 http://www.anarchist-studies.org/publications/pers pectives

SOURCE: http://www.anarchist-studies.org/article/articlevi ew/61/2/8/

Institute for Anarchist Studies: http://www.anarchist-studies.org/

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