Wed, Oct 17, 2001 page24

• Anti-globalization rallies mellow in wake of attacks

  • AP
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  Before Sept. 11, the anti-globalization movement had caused considerable turmoil, sending armies of noisy and sometimes-violent protesters onto the streets of Seattle, Philadelphia and Quebec City and setting its sights on Washington.

  But the movement has been mostly quiet since terrorists hijacked four US airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing thousands.

  "After Sept. 11, I don't think the public is going to identify with people running around in masks and vandalizing property," said Randy Newnham, 26, who participated in the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in which 50,000 people caused an estimated US$3 million in damage during four days of rioting.

  Across the country, words of caution are now coming from activists known for protesting what they say are large corporations' efforts to increase their power over people's lives worldwide.

  "We don't want to do or say anything that would be perceived as insensitive or uncaring to family members of the victims," said Jody Dodd of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Philadelphia.

  In the view of many anti-globalization activists, greed among Western corporations is at least partly to blame for producing a climate in which someone like Osama bin Laden, the government's prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, can be seen as a savior.

  "If you go to the Middle East, you see that the invasion of Western corporate culture raises anger. They sense that their societies are being torn apart by this invading Western culture and economics. Out of that sense of dislocation and desperation, scary things can develop," said Mark Andersen with Washington-based Positive Force.

  "If you want to make the world safer, you have to change that atmosphere," said Jason Mark of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based group that helped organize the WTO protests in Seattle.

  But this is not a message anti-globalization protesters are taking to the streets in large numbers right now. There have been no major anti-globalization protests since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

  Demonstrators had planned to protest the International Monetary Fund and World Bank's annual meeting Sept. 29 to Sept. 30 in Washington, DC, but after the terrorist attacks, the groups called off their protests out of respect for the victims. The IMF and World Bank canceled the meeting the following day.

  Instead of an anti-globalization rally, the few thousand protesters who showed up in Washington those days demonstrated against war. Some dressed as peace doves, others waved signs with anti-war sentiments such as "War will not bring our loved ones back."

  Anti-war movements have appeared on some US campuses since President George W. Bush announced his war on terrorism.

  At the University of Oregon, ranked by Mother Jones magazine as the nation's most activist-friendly campus last year, about 200 people turned out for a recent peace rally. Vietnam-era war protests, by comparison, drew thousands.

  Unlike the Vietnam War, which many Americans viewed as a distant conflict, the war on terrorism has a more immediate connection, said political analyst Gary Malecha of the University of Portland.

  "The perception is that the United States has come under attack and that now is the time for the country to unite. So any kind of civil disturbance would only get people agitated," Malecha said.
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