>From: "Macdonald Stainsby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "Rad Green" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, >(forwarded from Jay Moore) > >Protest generation vows to grab reins of power as they prepare for battle of >Prague > >Anti-globalisation campaigners attend training camp as bankers and ministers >gather for IMF meeting > >By Justin Huggler in Dolni Slivno >The Independent > >18 September 2000 > >The world has a new protest generation, and it has arrived in Prague. As the >city's five-star hotels fill up with the besuited bankers of the >International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, the people who have vowed >to wreck this week's summit and wrest control of the world's economy from >their grip are gathering on a disused farm in the village of Dolni Slivno, >three miles north of the city. > >They have come from across the world: not only dreadlocked veterans of >anti-capitalist campaigns, but many who have abandoned highly paid, >white-collar jobs to be here, sleeping in the shell of a wrecked bus, or in >an old barn with holes in the roof, and washing from a communal bucket. >Protest is back, and it is uniting the young from across the social >spectrum. > >Unlike the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting that protesters ruined in >Seattle last year, the summit opening tomorrow is being held in a country >directly affected by globalisation. Nowhere in the post-communist world has >embraced the global economy as eagerly as the Czech Republic: Prague is full >of McDonald's restaurants and Tesco supermarkets, and thousands of Czech >activists are expected to demonstrate alongside international campaigners >from across Europe and North America. Those at the camp are just a tiny >fraction of those expected to arrive in Prague this week - and, unlike many >who are coming, they are all committed to non-violence. > >Chelsea Mozen gave up a well-paid job in Washington DC's local government to >come to Prague. Immaculate in designer clothes, she reels off statistics to >support her case against the World Bank, while behind her a guitar lies >against a sign pointing the way to the "compost toilet". > >Scott Codey talks to journalists about the history of nonviolent protest. >His conversation is lucid and educated, full of references to Gandhi and >Martin Luther King. He quotes Gandhi, saying that the protesters are >"walking in truth". > >This week Mr Codey and Ms Mozen, clean-cut, well-read Americans, will >probably be tear-gassed and beaten by police for the first time in their >lives, as they form a human chain around the congress centre where the IMF >and WorldBank meetings are being held. > >"Being tear-gassed is a sacrifice I'm willing to make," Mr Codey says. "This >is something I feel morally compelled to speak out against." These are the >young people the IMF and the World Bank should be afraid of. > >The protesters may look clueless as they practise their human chain, but >they are the proof that the anti-globalisation movement has spread far >beyond the hardline fringe groups who want to tear down the entire economic >order. > >They will stand hand-in-hand with veteran campaigners such as Martin Shaw, >an electrician from London who gave up his job to "get out of the capitalist >economy", and now lives in a housing co-operative in London. > >But, unlike Mr Shaw, a committed anarchist who says he wants to tear down >the consumer society and live without "interference" from any government, Mr >Codey and Ms Mozen are not revolutionaries: they want to reform the system, >not destroy it. > >Ms Mozen says: "We're not saying we don't need a body to govern global >trade. We're saying we want an equitable system, where people can decide for >themselves if they want to grow food, so their children can eat, instead of >coffee beans for export." > >This time, it is not all about the sort of street protests that wrecked the >WTO summit in Seattle and humiliated President Bill Clinton last year. The >Initiative against Economic Globalisation, the Czech umbrella group for >NGOs, which set up the training camp and plans to blockade the official >summit, is also holding its own counter-summit this weekend, while the IMF >and World Bank delegates are in town. > >The protesters will not only condemn global economic policy, they will set >out their alternative vision. Revisionist academics, including the >sociologist Walden Bello and the Egyptian neo-Marxist economist Said Amin, >will address counter-summit meetings. > >Mr Codey says: "We're trying to decentralise power so local communities have >a say in their own lives." He first became interested in the >anti-globalisation movement on a trip to Nicaragua in 1995. "I'd never heard >of the IMF or the World Bank before I went to Nicaragua," he says. "But >every Nicaraguan had. I saw what they had done, how they went in and >decimated the local economy. Thousands were forced into poverty because >instead of growing food they were forced to grow products for the world >economy." > >Ms Mozen's story is similar. "I first started to think about these issues >when I studied in Bolivia," she says. "The Bolivian family I was staying >with was adamant I should learn about the IMF and the World Bank. Since I >left there were massive protests on the street where I lived. People were >killed." > >Ms Mozen rejoins the human chain of young protesters from all walks of life. >But these are not like the well-equipped demonstrators of Seattle, who came >with gas masks to withstand the tear gas. Sit down if the police charge on >horseback, the instructor tells them. > >>From tomorrow, they will face a police force renowned for its hardline >tactics under communism, and with a reputation that has barely improved >since. These young idealists have their ideas sorted out - but are they >ready to face the police on the streets of Prague? > >================ >Macdonald Stainsby. > >Rad-Green List: Radical anti-capitalist environmental discussion. >http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/rad-green >---------- >http://www.geocities.com/leninist_international/ >http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international > > >_______________________________________________ >Rad-Green mailing list >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >To change your options or unsubscribe go to: >http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/rad-green > _______________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. 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