Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 14:32:45 -0400
Web: www.flfairtrade.org
We want to thank the many people and organizations, locally, nationally, and internationally who collaborated on this piece.
We hope that this 'Why a Parade?' can begin to offer a basis for discussion and focus for the upcoming weeks leading to the Miami FTAA Ministerial and perhaps beyond, and begin to address some of the concerns that have been raised about having a parade.
A parade is not a new or innovative concept, rather a synthesis of organizing philosophies that have been used quite effectively by mass people's movements in the Global South.
The premise is simply that people have a tremendous amount of experiential knowledge, and that our responsibility as organizers is to assist in creating the space so that their expressions of resistance to oppression can be articulated in the form most comfortable to each participant.
A parade would be instrumental in bringing people's experience back into the organizing process, and would also serve to build a movement that will last beyond Nov 21. The parade creates the space which allows those participating in the parade/march, and the 'People's Festival Against the FTAA- Another World is Possible' event (that will hopefully follow the parade), to see the diverse spectrum of people affected by, and opposed to, these 'free trade polices'.
The parade is not simply a 'celebratory event." What is celebratory is the historic nature of such a collaborative effort by the many communities and people affected and fighting back! As organizers, the parade places us into the role that does not say, "Let me teach you" but says "show in your vision, how trade policies affect you." You choose how you want to illustrate the part of your life it affects, and you choose the medium for your expression. The parade is a tool that recognizes the complexity of individual social relations.
On a very practical level, we are engaging people as carriers of the torch, and organizers of their many worlds. We are not asking people to show up for a march, or to be passive participants in an organized event, but to be creators, sharers, and storytellers. Participants are asked to organize whatever "constituency" they wish. If trade policies affect their lives as a parent, then they can organize other parents. If a farmer or worker has been displaced by trade policies, then he may wish to organize other farmers or workers. In this way, participants can meet with others who share their beliefs and create a common vision, portraying their struggles, their hopes, and their victories.
The parade will provide participants with a clear and real understanding of the vastness of those affected, as well as the opportunity to see how our diverse struggles are connected. It will be a moving mosaic of people and cultures that have come together to say no to the FTAA. The parade will become a larger representation of the strong force against corporate globalization.
The other structural part of using the parade, as an organizing tool, is the recognition that for the many who will participate, there are many more who won't. From the same community, union, or group that builds floats, develops art, and creates its space in the parade, there are members who may fear ridicule, police reprisals, or who may be unwilling to risk the liability of being seen as a malcontent. The parade affords them an alternative way of participating. To bring a chair and sit and watch the parade is in itself a form of participation in which the person is learning, seeing the diversity of the opposition, and hopefully the opportunity of the future.
How do we create the space for those participating in the parade to see not only what is just in front or behind them - but the breadth of diversity of the parade? The answer is "The Peoples' Festival Against the FTAA- Another World is Possible." As the parade concludes in Bicentennial Park or whatever destination, the floats do not disappear, the bands to not go home, but the parade continues into the park. Each group has space to set up a pavilion of what was in the parade as well as other aspects that perhaps could not be in the parade.
Many who may not have chosen to participate in the parade can set up the area ahead of time for the arrival of their group. For those who could not make the parade or were fearful of what the media is certain to portray as the "potential of violence," the "The Peoples' Festival Against the FTAA- Another World is Possible" provides the potential of a safer environment. The quality of creative involved learning and information sharing is emphasized in lieu of simply the quantity of participants. In this way, the parade would be a celebration of the diversity and unity of resistance. In Barachabarameja, Colombia, there is a group of women known as the Woman's Peace Movement who are targeted by the para-military. As one organizer stated - "we have two options; we can take on the characteristics of those we oppose, the violence, the hatred, the demand for homogeneity, and we will then eventually become what we oppose; or we can develop our tactics based not only on what we oppose, but on who we are and what we want for our future.
The Parade and "The Peoples' Festival Against the FTAA- Another World is Possible" can be that glimpse not only of the diversity of who we are in our struggle, but, to use the Zapatista phrase, what we will become as "one world with room for many worlds."
In solidarity,
Eric Rubin
State Coordinator
Florida Fair Trade Coalition
(727) 896-8224