Resistance to the
institutions, projects and policies of neo-liberalism is nothing new.
As the 1970s drew to a close and the repercussions of the Washington Consensus
began to be felt across the world, resistance became the logical response.
Riots broke out in Ecuador in 1987 and Algeria in 1988. In response to
the implementation of IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank
Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs), strikes swept across Benin in 1989.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of West Berlin against
the 1988 IMF and World Bank Summit, and throughout the 1990s, tens of
thousands resisted the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam in India
- a World Bank sponsored mega-project. These are but a few examples. Indeed,
resistance to neo-liberalism is as old as this most recent strategy of
capital is new.
However, over the last decade we’ve seen the emergence of a qualitatively
different form of resistance to neo-liberalism. A form of ‘network
resistance’ to capitalism which, in many ways, is unprecedented.
The
Inspiration of ‘Zapatismo’
This new network resistance, sometimes referred to as a ‘movement
of movements’, was born on 1st January 1994 - the day on which the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was due to pass, unnoticed
into effect.
As the sun rose on the new year, 2,000 indigenous people, calling themselves
the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN) seized control of seven
cities in Chiapas, Mexico. Armed partly with nothing more than rifle-shaped
sticks and toy guns, they released prisoners, set fire to police headquarters,
appropriated weapons which they found there, occupied town halls, secured
major roads and declared war on neoliberalismo.
The uprising, motivated primarily by NAFTA’s removal of land rights
secured in 1917 by the Mexican Revolution, marked the beginning of a new
era of global struggle. The language in which the Zapatistas spoke, demanding
dignity, democracy and autonomy, was worlds away from the Marxist-Leninist
doctrines which had dominated the struggles of previous decades. They
were not hoping to seize state power. Nor were they fighting for secession.
They weren’t anarchists, communists, socialists or national liberationists.
The Zapatistas reposed revolution as a question, rather than an answer.
“Walking,” they say, “we ask questions.”
Support for the Zapatista uprising, and the hope which it symbolised,
had won the support of Mexican civil society, and of social movements
worldwide. Enormous pressure was put upon the Mexican government and after
12 days of fighting, a cease-fire was declared. Keen to find out more
about the struggle, and to offer their support, people asked how they
could help. The reply came that, for the Zapatistas, solidarity meant
people making their own revolutions in ways which were relevant to their
own lives. They argued that the fight for a new world, which would embrace
the dignity of all, would need to be plural and diverse. Indeed, it was
a fight for a world in which many worlds were possible.
A
Movement of Movements
If anyone had doubted the inspirational impact of the uprising, and of
Zapatismo on the world’s social movements, those doubts were shattered
in the summer of 1996 as 6,000 people gathered deep in the Lacandón
Jungle of Chiapas for the first Intercontinental Encuentro (or, Encounter)
for Humanity and Against Neo-Liberalism. Responding to an invitation from
the Zapatistas, people from every continent gathered for eight days to
discuss politics, economics, society, culture and identity. Ideas, analyses
and experiences were swapped inside giant conference centres built by
Zapatista communities deep inside the conflict zone.
One year later, in the summer of 1997, thousands converged once more for
the second Intercontinental Encuentro, this time spread over four locations
within the Spanish State. Much like the first event, the Encuentro was
seen as a huge success in providing a forum for much needed dialogue between
the world’s social movements. Yet those in attendance had already
begun to desire more. They wanted this dialogue and exchange of inspiration
to continue and - importantly - for this to translate into action which
would mutually reinforce day-to-day struggles worldwide.
A three day meeting following the second Encuentro resulted in an invitation
being issued for the world’s social movements to attend the founding
conference of Peoples’ Global Action (PGA) - a network intended
to strengthen and develop the tentative links which had been developed
through the Encuentros - in Geneva, Switzerland in February 1998. It was
here, only a few kilometres from the headquarters of the World Trade Organisation
(WTO), that PGA was born. After days of discussion between representatives
of the Indian Karnataka State Farmers’ Association (KRRS), Movimento
Sem Terra - the Brazilian landless peasants’ movement, Maori from
New Zealand, indigenous movements from South and Central America and activists
from Europe, North America and Australia, a basis for co-operation was
established in the form of a set of ‘hallmarks’. It was agreed
that the network would be open to all of those who agreed upon the importance
of working in a decentralised and non-hierarchical manner, who recognised
the importance of the principles of autonomy, who rejected the principles
of ‘free’ trade (this developed into a more general rejection
of capitalism at the second global conference one year later) and who
were committed to the use of direct action as a means of achieving social
change.
PGA came into being at a time when ‘globalisation’ was a word
on everybody’s lips. NAFTA and a number of other regional trade
agreements had recently come into effect. The Multilateral Agreement on
Investment (MAI) was being discussed, and the fifty year old General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had just been formalised into an institution,
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) - a multilateral body with the power
to force the removal of protectionist barriers upon member states and
to sanction those which resisted. As such, it appeared logical that PGA,
whilst embracing a wide range of struggles, would focus upon the co-ordination
of resistance to the WTO and other bi- and multi-lateral institutions.
The Acceleration
of Struggle in the UK
Whilst the Zapatista uprising, the Encuentros and the formation of PGA
had been developing global networks, a similar process of consolidation
was underway in the UK.
In Britain, a direct action movement had emerged and grown in strength
throughout the 1990s. Thousands had become involved with the anti-roads
movement, most famously resisting developments such as the road through
Twyford Down, the M11 Link Road in East London and the Newbury Bypass.
Thousands of others had taken part in Reclaim the Streets (RTS) parties
around the country. The practical solidarity which had been offered to
the striking Liverpool Dockers and other workers in struggle, along with
the direct confrontation with the state experienced by those involved
in resisting the road building programme had served to radicalise the
movement. By the mid/late-1990s the beginnings of an anti-capitalist movement
could begin to be seen.
At around the same time as social movements gathered in Geneva for the
founding conference of PGA, an invitation was issued by people who had
been involved in the recently disbanded Class War Federation for un-dogmatic,
anti-authoritarian groups and individuals to attend a Reclaim May Day
event in Bradford on May 1st 1998. The event, attended by several hundred,
was widely regarded as a success and is seen as the first time during
which the radical ecological direct action movement and the traditional
anarchist movement in the UK really began to co-operate.
Amongst other things, the Conference served as an opportunity to network
the actions against the rapidly approaching Birmingham G8 (Group of Eight,
most industrialised nations) Summit which were being prepared by a few
groups around the UK, including London RTS - who at that time were European
Convenors of PGA.
 A
Global First
In May 1998, only three months after the founding conference of PGA, actions
against the G8 erupted across the globe. Having noted the upsurge of radical
resistance in the UK and elsewhere, the Summit was relocated at short
notice from its original location in the centre of Birmingham to a more
tranquil, countryside location. Nevertheless, whilst tens of thousands
under the banner of Jubilee 2000 surrounded what would have been the Conference
Centre, demanding an end to the so-called ‘Third World’s’
debt, thousands of others took part in an enormous Reclaim the Streets
party in Birmingham’s city centre. Hundreds had dressed as clowns,
laughing at the absurdity of the G8 and tossing the odd custard pie at
cops foolish enough to wander through the middle of the crowd.
As the street party drew to a close, a level of militancy not previously
seen amongst those taking part in street parties began to be shown. Barricades
began to be built, the lines of riot police forming around the party were
pelted with rotting vegetables from a nearby market and a few banks were
‘redesigned’ as the party-goers were herded out of the city
centre.
Meanwhile, street parties were being held in over thirty other countries
simultaneously, including the US, Australia, Canada, Israel and Estonia.
In Prague, the biggest mobilisation since the Velvet Revolution in 1989
brought thousands onto the street, whilst in Hydrabad, India 200,000 farmers
called for the death of the WTO and 50,000 peasants and unemployed workers
took to the streets of Brasilia.
The following day, as the Second Ministerial of the WTO met in Geneva,
the city’s streets exploded. Thousands from across Europe had gathered.
Bank windows were smashed, the WTO Director General himself had his car
turned over, and Geneva experienced three days of the heaviest rioting
it had ever seen.
Of course, the mobilisations in Birmingham, Geneva and elsewhere were
not perfect. Divisions began to emerge within the movement in the UK around
the issue of militancy. In Geneva, the levels of repression unleashed
by the state exceeded all expectations. Many people were prevented from
even entering Switzerland, others were arrested and deported. However,
by and large, these first PGA-inspired Global Days of Action were considered
a success. For the first time, hundreds of thousands of people across
the globe had identified the commonalities of their struggles - and importantly,
respected and begun to try to understand the differences - and taken action
together. Harry Cleaver, an academic at Austin University in Texas, and
active in Zapatista solidarity movements, once wrote, “In a very
real sense, the Zapatista movement emerged as a tentative and transitory
solution to precisely the problem which confronts us everywhere: how to
link up a diverse array of linguistically and culturally distinct peoples
and their struggles, despite and beyond those distinctions, how to weave
a variety of struggles into one struggle that never loses its multiplicity.”
By May 1998, this process of weaving a fabric of global struggle had well
and truly begun.
It was in this position of strength, with increased communication and
co-operation between groups and movements both locally and globally, and
the success of the anti-G8 and WTO mobilisations, that discussions began
in the UK about a Global Day of Action on June 18th 1999. But that's another
story...
"We
declare: That we will make a collective network of all our particular
struggles and resistances. An intercontinental network of resistance against
neoliberalism. An intercontinental network of resistance for humanity.This
intercontinental network of resistance, recognising differences and acknowledging
similarities, will search to find itself with other resistances aorund
the world. This
intercontinental network of resistance is not an organising structure;
it doesn't have a central head or decission maker; it has no central command
or hierarchies. We are the network, all of us who resist." - Subcommendante
Insrugente Marcos, closing remarks at the 1996 Encuentro
Resources
and Further Reading
*For an inspirational overview of the emergence of the global anti-capitalist
movement from 1994-2003 see: We Are Everywhere by Notes from Nowhere (Verso,
2003): www.weareverywhere.org
*For more about the first encuentro, see: Zapatista Encuentro: Documents
from the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism
(Seven Stories Press Open Media Series, 1998).
*For an interesting article about the use of new communication technologies
by anti-capitalist networks, see: ‘Computer-Linked Social Movements
and the Global Threat to Capitalism’ by Harry Cleaver (1999).
*For access to a huge range of Zapatista information, including an archive
of EZLN communiques and links to email lists, go to the Chiapas 95 website:
www.eco.utexas.edu/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/chiapas95.html
Alternatively: www.ezln.org
*For two histories of resistance to neoliberalism see: ‘A Brief
History of Resistance to Structural Adjustment’ by George Caffentzis
and Silvia Federici in Democratizing the Global Economy by Kevin Danaher
(Ed.) (Common Courage Press, 2001). Or States of Unrest: Resistance to
IMF Policies in Poor Countries by World Development Movement (2000)
*The original RTS Call for the Birmingham action, and a report on the
street party can be found at: http://rts.gn.apc.org/birm2.htm
*A pamphlet produced by some of the organisers of the Birmingham Street
Party, reflecting on the action, can be found via the Dissent! website:
www.dissent.org.ukEditRegion3
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