By Danny Fairfax
Seattle, November 30, 1999: The summit of the World Trade Organisation, a gathering of world leaders and corporate chief committed to implementing a new round of pro-business trade talks is stopped by 80,000 protesters blockading the summit site. News of the action spreads around the world and activists everywhere take inspiration from the blockade and plan to replicate the success of Seattle in their own cities.
A new movement is born. It is a global movement opposed to the ravages of corporate exploitation — Third World debt, neo-liberal austerity and sweatshop labour. The institutions that direct this process, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, become special targets of the young movement's wrath.
In the following months the flame of protest spread to cities worldwide including Washington, Davos, Melbourne, Prague, Barcelona, Nice, Seoul and Gothenburg.
Genoa, July 21, 2001: The G8 meeting, the bloc of the world's eight largest economies, provokes massive anti-corporate demonstrations. The city is engulfed by over 300,000 protesters who are vehemently opposed to the insane logic that the leaders of the world's richest eight nations can make decisions affecting the entire world. The mobilisation is the biggest yet, with participating contingents from all over Europe and the world.
To make sure the summit goes ahead, the Berlusconi government turns the city centre into an impenetrable fortified "red zone". The 20,000 strong riot police greet the peaceful demonstrators with severe repression. One protester is shot dead and hundreds of activists are arrested, beaten and even tortured in custody.
The scenes at Genoa showed just how afraid the ruling class is of this movement and the lengths they are willing to go to in order to crush it. But the movement emerged from Genoa stronger and more confident than ever before.
New York, September 11, 2001: Hijacked airplanes crash into the World Trade Center towers, killing almost 3000 people. The Bush government exploits the tragedy to embark on a "war against terrorism" which is in reality a war against any Third World nation not slavishly obedient to US foreign policy. Corporate pundits declare the death of the anti-corporate globalisation movement but the upsurge of millions in Argentina and elsewhere prove them wrong.
A big part of the US's imperialist war drive is an attack on the idea of solidarity with the oppressed masses of the third world. Now more than ever before the left needs respond to this by promoting the cause of global justice and building real links between activists struggling for freedom and democracy internationally.
The most significant and important event promoting international solidarity occuring in Australia this year will be the Second Asia Pacific Solidarity Conference, being held at Sydney Boys High School, March 29-April 1. The conference theme is "Global revolt, global links".
More than 100 international delegates from more than 40 countries are scheduled to attend the conference. Highly anticipated speakers include Dita Sari, from the Peoples Democratic Party in Indonesia, Farooq Tariq from the Labour Party of Pakistan, Luis Bilbao from the Union of Militants for Socialism in Argentina, Alex Callinicos from the Socialist Workers Party in Britain, and activists from the US, France, India, South Korea, East Timor and representatives from socialist Cuba.
A high point of the conference will be an international protest against the Australian government's treatment of refugees and asylum seekers at Sydney's Villawood detention centre on March 31.
This will be the gathering of the key movements and campaigns that are reshaping politics in Australia and much of the world today. It will be a truly unique gathering: it seeks to link leftists from all continents into a truly global movement; it brings together anti-capitalist left parties from diverse traditions, countries and historical backgrounds; it aims to link the movements of today with the solutions of tomorrow; it bridges the tactics and issues of each campaign with a strategic alternative to corporate exploitation and global inequality.
To find out more about the Second Asia-Pacific Solidarity Conference phone (02) 9690 1230 or visit the conference web site at < http://www.global-A href="mailto:revolt.org"><revolt.org>.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, February 13, 2002.
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