Debates in the movement
They grasped that globalisation was about more than investment and trade, that it was also about military competition and geopolitical domination. They have discovered, or rediscovered that, as Arundhati Roy put it at Porto Alegre, the real name of ‘Corporate Globalisation’ is ‘Imperialism’.Some commentary from Alex Callinicos on debates within the European antiwar movement. Also, activists in New York send an open letter on movement building and race.
originally posted by zagg
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From the letter:
But to realize our potential for building a mass movement requires, first and foremost, clarity as to who actually constitutes the "mainstream" and why. The right, the corporate media and elite policy makers persist in painting "mainstream America" as white and middle class. Even many white liberals cling to the notion that building a mass movement against war necessitates the use of techniques and rhetoric that "don't scare away" middle class whites. This way of thinking is anachronistic. The nation's demographics have changed sharply over the last 40 years, even more dramatically over the last decade, with the result that people of color are fast becoming a majority in the U.S. More importantly, since people of color-war's principal targets-have the greatest interest in holding back the war tide and, thus, activists of color have the most politically developed perspectives on the subject, they are a key source of ideas on how to strengthen work and improve outreach. Add to this the fact that more and more white working class and middle class families are struggling to survive under the crushing burden of globalization's negative effects and it becomes clear that resistance against the Bush war machine must reflect the spectrum of needs, aspirations, goals, intellectual resources and colors of a multiracial, multinational, multilingual and multi-class mainstream.
Posted by: zagg | February 27, 2003 3:42 PM