BY JORGE JORQUERA
MELBOURNE — Many trade unions, community groups, student associations, non-government organisations (NGOs) and even churches have declared an interest in turning the World Economic Forum's September summit here into an opportunity to raise their voices about the global order and its growing injustices and inequalities. Enthusiasm for the protests, especially amongst young people, only continues to grow.
The summit will bring together 600-800 representatives of the world's largest transnational corporations and some of the region's most senior capitalist politicians for three days of "shaping the global agenda". As such, the summit has become a ready-made symbol for the gathering rage against global capitalism.
While it is still unclear just how much of their authority NGOs, trade unions and community groups will use to mobilise their supporters, many have already scheduled public events from September 7: conferences, teach-ins, media events, festivals, protests.
Two major street mobilisations have also been set: the S11 Alliance-called non-violent mass community blockade of the summit venue, the Crown Casino, from 7am on September 11 and a Victorian Trade Hall Council-called labour rights rally the following day. The S11 Alliance and the other main activist group, S11-AWOL, have set September 7 as the "convergence" date for all those joining the protests from around the country and internationally.
The potential is immense, but considerable divergences remain.
Some of the more moderate organisations, including several unions and NGOs, are still tentative about protesting against the WEF, hoping that its agenda may prove malleable to at least some community concerns. At the other extreme, some far-left organisations and anarchist activists give the impression that they presume the S11 protests will signal the advent of a pre-revolutionary anti-capitalist upsurge.
These poles, and every opinion in between, are already being debated in the main organising bodies and coalitions.
At least three main coalition-styled forums have been meeting regularly to discuss a response to the WEF summit: the S11 Alliance, S11-AWOL (Autonomous Web of Liberation), and "planning meetings" chaired by the Victorian Trades Hall Council.
While all these forums were slow to raise a political discussion about the WEF and its agenda, the S11 Alliance has now agreed on a list of demands and the "planning meetings" are discussing a joint community declaration.
The major difference between the Alliance's demands and those of the draft community declaration is in regards to what should be done with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation.
The Alliance calls for the abolition of such imperialist institutions, while the declaration demands their transparency and democratisation. Both demand the cancellation of Third World debt, an end to structural adjustment programs and other austerity measures and guarantees for the environment, labour and democratic rights.
Both sets of demands have focussed primarily on opposition to the continuing neo-liberal offensive in both the Third World and the industrialised North. But, even within this common platform, there are considerable tensions.
Both among the far left and the moderates, there is a tendency to understate the critical anti-imperialist character of the global movement against neo-liberalism.
Among groups like the International Socialists and many anarchists, the tendency is to assume the struggles in the North will provide the leadership. Solidarity with struggles in the South is marginalised and replaced with the idea that we in the North will lead by our example.
The more liberal forces involved are also reluctant to emphasise demands such as the cancellation of Third World debt (and not simply its "relief"), as these are among the most immediate challenges to the dominance of the transnationals and imperialist governments.
But Third World struggles against neo-liberalism are developing far more rapidly than those in the First World: in this year alone, there have been general strikes or uprisings against International Monetary Fund-enforced policies in four countries (Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nigeria) and smaller-scale but escalating struggles in countless other places.
The growing scope of such mobilisations in the South, and the pressure they exert on Southern governments, is an important part of the impetus for a global movement against neo-liberalism. Solidarity with these struggles, and in particular the adoption of their demands on imperialist governments, has to be a central priority for the growing movement in the North.
The apparent tentativeness of union support means that the critical and leading element of the Melbourne anti-WEF protests will likely be the thousands of young people who will participate. The majority at the blockade are likely to be from the environmental movement, campus activists, high school students, and young workers.
Expecting as much, the corporate media has already launched a propaganda campaign to portray the S11 mobilisations as a potentially violent youth demonstration. Rupert Murdoch's Herald-Sun, in particular, has sensationalised high school students' preparations and has played up police security concerns.
The mere threat that protests might turn violent was enough to deter some community organisations from taking a clear stance, but the S11 Alliance has made it clear that the mass blockade of Crown Towers will be a non-violent action. The aim is to shut down the summit by a mass act of peaceful resistance.
How the mass blockade will be organised and coordinated is yet to be fully determined. Even more ambiguous is whether and how the labour rights demonstration and any other mobilisations will link together in a united show of opposition to the corporations.
Some in the movement have turned the Seattle-style Direct Action Network model of affinity groups and "spokescouncils" into the new schema of mass organisation. This certainly will be one proposition contesting for support among blockaders.
Others will propose a mass meeting-style organisation, that empowers all participants to have an equal say in the proceedings, without relying on that being channelled through the "affinity group".
The basic argument for affinity group organisation is to promote diversity of action. Given some basic agreements, affinity groups can supposedly do whatever they choose. If affinity groups agree to engage in a non-violent mass blockade, there will be less to argue over; otherwise there'll be problems.
The other major question will be how to coordinate and make decisions as we go along, by a "spokescouncil" or a mass meeting. But surely there is greater strength in the participatory democracy of the mass meeting than in the representative nature of a spokescouncil?
When we engage in social action against capitalism and its agendas, communities really only have one weapon: the unity of our conscious collective action. Diversity is important but dispersal can be tragic.
Without participatory mass organisation, people don't get the chance to express their views, learn through engaging with different ones, or develop their activist skills. You also end up entrusting the direction of movements to self-appointed leaders, rather than to the self-activity of people and "leaders" which they themselves from time to time chose and oust. Without mass united action, you present a divided movement to a ruling elite which, when threatened, is thoroughly united and deliberate.
If the S11 blockade can organise in a mass democratic fashion and empower all participants, then we may well provide a sufficient pole of attraction to all the unionists and other community sectors who want to take a stand against the corporations' neo-liberal agenda — and then the protests will take a whole new, much greater significance.