March 2001

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

From the editor's desk

FTAA--what's at stake, we ask. Acronyms bewilder, official names dissolve in Orwellian doubletalk, and besides, the meeting is up in Canada. There's a word much bandied about these days--stakeholder. To our ear, it sounds like a guest at a barbecue or a participant in a particularly grisly execution. Actually it refers to parties who have a particular interest in a decision because they will be deeply affected by its outcome. In this case, that's us.

This issue of Peacework tries to explain why that is so. If you read straight through, you may hear more than you really want to about globalism the Free Trade Area of the Americas, but you will also hear why we dare not choose to sit this one out. We start off with an 18th century Quaker who had a firm fix on the spiritual and ethical questions that are in front of us today. Walden Bello comes next, a widely-respected Philippine scholar-activist who has seen the effects of globalization and corporate control from the vantage point of poor countries disproportionately paying its costs. In light of the year just past, he tells us that the adjective "inevitable" need no longer be appropriate; "the anti-globalism forces are now in the ascendancy."

Good news, but not enough. Many editorials trumpet that "the kids can't articulate what it is they want. There's no clear message. Take away their puppets and they don't know what to say." Not at all, responds Naomi Klein. She has listened in the caucus rooms and in the streets from Seattle to the Hague, and she's heard a very clear message: it's about whom you trust to govern; it's about reclaiming an old idea--democracy. Our colleague Arnie Alpert offered to review the book he thinks is most useful in understanding this vision of the rising activist movement and how to go about achieving that vision, Globalism from Below. Read the review; read the book.

We move on to specifics. The AFL-CIO Executive Council lucidly describes the ingredients of a truly fair trade agreement. So there's a platform. As they represent a substantial portion of the US labor force, they are stakeholders; they should be at the table in Quebec along with the trade bureaucrats and corporate lobbyists to deliberate specifics of a massive hemispheric agreement. But these talks are closed-door affairs. So the streets perforce become the forum. There has been lively argument, intense training, and powerful mobilization for that. What shall we expect and what are the issues? Arnie Alpert scans the reports from Quebec for us and spells out a critical debate within the anti-globalization movement--between those committed to nonviolence and those who believe in "a diversity of tactics."

While the protests in Seattle were overwhelmingly nonviolent, the media focused on a few participants bent on smashing glass. The message was blurred, and the issue was reduced to kids vs. cops. Our volunteer web-searcher found two images from actions of the past year--one in Boston at the presidential "debate," one at a WPC meeting in Canada--which define the problem. We see a policeman at UMass, young, bewildered; and we see a protester in Calgary up against a fence, young, bewildered. The two young men look a lot alike. George Lakey, who is fresh from assisting with nonviolence trainings in Quebec, has issued a working paper on methods of effective protest. We have room for only a portion here and strongly urge you to ask him for the rest. Lakey tells us: "Our power lies in our choices. We can choose to design our confrontations using appropriate symbology so that the part of the public we most want to influence will see us as the people standing up for justice. It's our choice."

And what if, like many of us, you can't get to Quebec? A grassroots movement is springing up around the country to monitor effects of these trade agreements. It seems that local legislative initiatives, which we can work on in our home communities, promise to be effective. A correspondent has written us about his dream of cooperative movement networks and collaboration--perhaps at least as practical as visionary. Mike Prokosch is a master organizer and practical visionary. He talks about specifics for the future at this "teachable moment."

Finally, two codas: The drug trade, globalization gone wildly askew, and the US's part in it, is playing havoc in Colombia. And "free trade," and the hegemony inspiring it, has a tendency to reproduce. Our colleague Joseph Gerson spells out an uncertain landscape in Asia.

Thus for stakeholders--possibilities, much work, grave risk, guarded optimism.

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