This article was published in the NZ newspaper, the "Evening Post" on
16/9/00.
MELBOURNE AND S11
Nandor Tanczos, Green MP
"No violence, no violence," we were chanting as the police came over the
top of us. To assure them that we were non violent, to demand the same from
them? Whatever the reason, it helped with the fear. A few moments before
we had been sitting talking, singing, and laughing together. We were on
'QW' gate we were told, and the rumours were flying that a couple of buses
had been parked around the corner, ready to rush the gate. Police on
horseback, looking like Roundhead cavalry from the English civil war,
paraded in front of us. Helicopter lookouts hung in the air.
A group of demonstrators had arrived to reinforce our numbers. I recognised
Ciaron O'Reilly from the Catholic Workers, but none of the others. We
clapped and cheered to welcome them, just as the group had cheered 'Team
Aotearoa' when we arrived to bolster the then very thin line.
A rumour went around that we were about to be charged by the cavalry.
Should we stand up or remain seated? A quick discussion and vote: remain
seated. A marshall came round and showed us how to link arms and legs in
case we were charged. Time went by, and we relaxed a bit.
Suddenly it was all on. Someone shouted "police coming" and then riot
police in helmets with drawn batons were climbing over the top of us. The
ground was covered with people, so they just stood on us. I ducked my head
and saw a policeman kicking a demonstrator in the kidneys, wondered if I
would get the same.
The amazing thing was there were so many. They just kept coming, and kept
coming and kept coming. My leg must have looked like a stable foothold
because a heap of them chose to stand on my shin in exactly the same place.
That started to hurt after the first few, but there wasn't much I could do
to stop it. The girl on my right was crying. "I'm so scared. I'm so
scared". I tried to tell her it would be alright, but it was difficult when
I couldn't see what was happening. I was vaguely aware that they had
brought in the horses and that most of the people had been dragged away.
Then she was pulled off me and was lost in the confusion. Were we being
arrested?
Green MP Sue Bradford and I were dragged away together. I ended up on my
back before being lifted up and thrown against a fence. A small group of us
were trapped against the fence by a horse before making our way to rejoin
the rest of the demonstrators. The riot police were lined up along a
corridor they had created and we saw a number of buses drive in. The
blockade had been broken.
I found out later that 11 people had been hospitalised by the police, with
one person knocked unconscious. Over 50 had needed medical attention. It
made me angry later to hear Australian Prime Minister John Howard calling
this crowd 'hooligans'. If this really was a crowd of hooligans things
would have been very different. The casino would have been trashed for a
start, but at the time I left Melbourne not one window had been broken. If
it was a violent crowd there would have been extensive police injury, but
the reality is that almost all of the injuries were done to demonstrators.
At the press conference later the legal observers reported back about what
some of them were: broken teeth, broken ribs, stitches to the head among
other things. This is in contrast to the very rare incidents reported in
the Australian media such as people jumping on Richard Court's (Premier for
Western Australia) car. Indeed it seems obvious that despite the
commentary, the media footage showed a very non-violent, if resolute, group
of protestors.
That the Australian media commentary, and therefore the international
picture, was hostile to the demonstrators is not surprising. The very aim
of the demonstrations was to draw attention to the kind of power being
exerted by people such as Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer, who between them
own a very significant proportion of the Australian and international
media. Kerry Packer also owns the Crown Casino where the talks were being held.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a think tank. It is unelected,
undemocratic and exclusive, a hand picked selection of the most influential
people in the world. The biggest one thousand corporations plus academics,
elite media and politicians attend as guests. Their annual meeting at Davos
in Switzerland is considered by them to be the global summit that sets the
political, economic and business agenda for the year.
It has spawned associated foundations and networks to further its agenda:
Global Leaders for Tomorrow - young business, political, academic, art and
media leaders; the Informal Gathering of Editorialists and Commentators;
the Business Consultative Council which has consultative status with the
UN, among others, plus a number of regional groupings.
Through its various initiatives such as the World Trade Organisations (WTO)
it has huge sway over our world. Multinational corporations, like any
organisation or entity, will try to create conditions for their own growth.
The danger is when such organisations carry the kind of power that the WEF
does today.
The power is not just economic, but political as well, and it threatens the
integrity of our democratic institutions. The argument against labelling
genetically engineered food, despite public demand, because it will disrupt
trade is an example of this. Under the WTO it becomes illegal for a country
to put barriers in the way of free trade, even if it considers that trade
potentially hazardous for its people. Laws to safeguard the environment,
health and safety standards, human rights or local economies are liable to
be declared illegal - and increasingly are being. As have laws to ban
importation of products of sweatshop labour.
The regulations on intellectual property rights being pushed by this agenda
have become the new land clearances. What has been held in common until now
is increasingly being privatised by corporations. Attempts are on by
multinational companies to patent traditional crops such as basmati rice
and neem in India, and traditional Maori medicines here in New Zealand. The
people who have developed those crops and that knowledge will have to pay a
corporation to use their own resources.
Globalisation means the destruction of traditional livelihoods and local
economies. In India a new packaging order which made the sale of open oil
illegal has shut down many small cold-pressing mills and has been estimated
to have affected 10 million livelihoods. Employment in a Nike factory under
sweatshop conditions is the compensation.
The argument that the free market will solve the world's problems is
simplistic and naive. The reality is that the market is governed by rules
that favour multinational corporations over local economies. The
demonstrations in Melbourne, Washington, Seattle, and the ones that will
happen in Prague later this month were an attempt to show that many people,
from many different backgrounds are ready to question those assumptions and
to say no to the idea that multinational corporations should be free to run
the world for their own profit at the expense of the environment, human
rights, local economies and the majority of the people on this planet.
I would say that the forum got the message.
--
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