The New Economic Order

The current scene is perversely logical. Relying on heavily armed police and National Guard troops to salvage its ministerial meeting, the WTO is doing what anti-democratic organizations have often done. Militarism may not be the first choice of men like Bill Clinton and Mike Moore. But hey — when you’ve got a world economy to run, you gotta do what you gotta do.

And so, this week, the happy-face stickers have fallen off the World Trade Organization. The rhetoric will still evoke forward-looking benevolence, even compassion, for the six billion souls who deserve the stewardship only the WTO can provide. But the message beween the lines has come into clear focus: Do it our way and no one gets hurt.

That is the messsage in the streets of downtown Seattle.

That is the message to faraway countries, matter-of-factly informed that — after centuries of colonial and imperial subjugation — the new economic order has its own demands.

That is the message to people like Amparo Reyes, who traveled from her home in Northern Mexico to Seattle so we could hear about the institutional violence perpetrated by the likes of the WTO on countless millions of human beings. "I am a worker in a maquiladora in Mexico, near the U.S. border, she said at a rally Monday. I am a signle mother with two children and I work 70 hours per week. My salary is 69 U.S. dollars per week which is only 93 cents per hour, and that is not enough to support the basic needs of a family."

Reyes added: "I work in electronic assembly for limousines and Ford cars, and we do not have any equipment to protect us from the toxic fumes. we have to work standing over each other, with 17 people in a space that is about one and half a yards wide. The international agreements like NAFTA and those made by the WTO are destroying our countries in the economic, political and cultural aspects, and also the environment. We receive very low wages. We are suffering exploitation. And all this in the name of profits."

The standofs on Seattle streets in recent days symbolize the clash between two toally different concepts of solidarity. One was articulated by Amparo Reyes when she said: "If the transnationals are moving to the borders, from one country to another country, our responsibility as workers is to fight together and show our solidarity across borders."

Meanwhile, the WTO is exercising its macabre version of solidarity: for elites. But under intense pressure, the mask is slipping. Underneath all the pseudo-civility and diplomatic jargon the world is seeing brute force imposed to move a global agenda of unfathomable brutality.

The credit for the unmasking should go to the vast array of civic activists around the planet — aptly represented by tens of thousands of protesters from every continent who took to the streets here with determined nonviolence.

And while the hotshots running the WTO lose momentum, the parallel activities of global loan sharks like the International Monetary Fund are also sliding into further disrepute.

Corporate globalizers arrived in Seatle hoping for a celebratory event. Instead, resistane spoiled their elite party.

Guardians of the WTO’s image got a break when a small group of hoodlums went on a window-smashing spree and drew appreciable media attention. It’s easy enough for TV cameras to videotape scenes of random violence in a shopping district. A much more difficult task would be to cover the institutionalized violence that is a quiet part of daily life.

When Western banks collect huge interest on loans to poor countries, the suffering — and the links between wealth and poverty — go largely unreported. That’s how 20,000 children worldwide continue to die each day from preventable diseases.

Without visible opposition, reigning power brokers are glad to pose as tolerant leaders. But at the historic crossroads in Seattle, when the WTO found itself unable to proceed with business as usual, it was time to exchange the velvet glove for the iron fist.

This is logical. After all, the World Trade Organization is supremely undemocratic. WTO officials deliberate in secret and issue rulings that deem local or national laws to be unfair "trade barriers" if they impede the pursuit of profits. This, we are told, is "free trade" — and laws that protect workers or the environment or human rights are supposed to get out of the way.

As I write these words on Wednesday night, a few blocks away police are attacking nonviolent protesters in with heavy batons and new rounds of pepper spray and tear gas. Armored personnel carriers have moved in. Some policemen are arriving on horses. National Guard troops are putting on gas masks. All day, helicopters have droned steadily overhead.

In a grotesque way, all this seems to make sense. While boosters of the WTO keep talking about "free trade," the consequences of contempt for democracy include more contempt for democarcy. Elites may insist on the right to rule, but the rest of us should not go along to get along.

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