[pf] Smile, And We Might Yet Defeat Global Capitalism

by Tom Wheeler

29 December 2000 16:28 UTC

Published on Friday, December 29, 2000 in the Independent / UK

Smile, And We Might Yet Defeat Global Capitalism
by Mark Steel

"We need a revolution," said the lad, no more than 19, in the packed meeting
organised by People and Planet at the University of Warwick. "And we, I mean
us here, can begin to make that revolution – right after this meeting by..."
He paused. What would he say? By mobilising the peasantry of the Coventry
area? By going on a Long March to Leicester? "By smiling," he said. "When
these capitalist bastards see everyone smiling, they won't know what to do."

There are obvious flaws to this strategy, not least that such a movement
would be bound to split, with a militant wing breaking away to laugh, while
the smilers denounced them as impatient hot-heads. But the most notable side
to his speech was that somehow it didn't seem mad. In fact there was an
endearing freshness about him. He was enthusiastic, genuinely interested in
what everyone thought of his idea, and it was positive – his starting point
was "we can do something".

And it came a few days after I'd been on holiday in Athens, during which I
was invited to a meeting about "anti-capitalist protest". The first shock on
arriving was the venue, a beautiful open-air theatre, bats fluttering
through the twilight above clicking crickets while lights from the Acropolis
flickered as a backdrop. I wanted to scream: "This is all wrong. Don't you
know meetings like this are supposed to be in bare, freezing halls with a
broken heater, and start an hour late because no one can find the bloke with
the key? You people don't know how to organise a meeting at all." Then
instead of the customary 10 people, 700 arrived, including the deputy leader
of the Greek equivalent to the TUC, and the writer of the year's
best-selling novel throughout Greece.

These incidents would tell us nothing about the year 2000, except that
unofficial global rumblings tend to back them up. The book No Logo, by Naomi
Klein, a cry against corporate greed, has sold over 100,000 copies. And it's
spawned a library of books with titles like Globalize This!, Globalization
and Resistance and Resist Globalization. Soon all the permutations will be
used up, so we'll get books called "Resisting national global corporate
trans-corporate globo-nationalness". Susan George, a veteran campaigner
against third-world debt, who has spent 25 years speaking largely to
handfuls of academics, now regularly fills theatres holding a thousand or
more, so that long-term fans probably feel like supporters of Fulham or
Sunderland, muttering "Baaah, it was cosier when we were shite."

One "anti-capitalist conference", in Millau, France, attracted 80,000
people. Internationally newsworthy protests against Third-World debt and
huge corporations took place in Melbourne, Prague and Nice. Ralph Nader, the
US presidential candidate supporting this movement, won 2.5 million votes
and attracted between 10,000 and 16,000 at his rallies. If enough
journalists had been covering these events, one of them would have declared
that anti-globalisation was the new rock and roll.

None of this was sufficient to threaten world leaders. But it was a sign of
changing values. In 1989, at the fall of the Berlin Wall, the consensus was
that the free market had triumphed, and was destined to enrich the planet.
Now, while there is little nostalgia for the grotesque regimes of Stalinist
eastern Europe, the free market staggers across the stage to a diminishing
audience. In Russia, life expectancy has decreased by 10 years, and in
Africa the average income in almost every country continues to decline.
"Structural adjustment programmes", in which economies are taken over by
organisations such as the World Bank, who enforce privatisation and cuts in
public spending, have been imposed on 90 countries.

Gradually, these measures are provoking opposition. One consequence of this
trend is that "globalisation" has become one of those words – like
"glasnost" in the Eighties – that everyone uses though few can explain what
it means. A common definition is that you can no longer do anything about
anything. For example John Monks, the leader of the TUC, when asked for his
opinion on job closures at Luton, blamed "globalisation". He looked like a
football manager interviewed after a game, wistfully remarking, "I don't
agree with the decision but at the end of the day what globalisation says is
final and we've just got to accept it."

By the end of 2001, if you take a dodgy car back to the dealer you bought it
from, you can expect them to squeal, "Well there's nothing I can do about
that, it's yer globalisation, see."

One strange result of all this has been that the most enthusiastic backers
of the ethos that nothing can function unless someone will make a profit
from it are the old parties once considered to be on the left – and none
more so than Britain's New Labour. They continued to embrace big business as
a virtue, and search for any last utilities to privatise, like someone with
no money hunting down the back of the settee. Eventually they could yell,
"Aha, I've found air traffic control, that'll do."

So disillusionment with the major parties continued, and when this was
reflected in historically low turn-outs at elections, the excuses were
surreal. "The reason people didn't bother to vote for us," said New Labour
spokesperson Patricia Hewitt, was that "they are satisfied by us." Which
must make for some splendid debates during canvassing. "Will you vote for
us?" "No thank you, because I think you're marvellous." "Well vote for us
then." "No, I don't want to spoil your splendid record by voting for you."

Across western Europe and America a similar pattern has emerged, of
traditional left-of-centre parties becoming increasingly tied to the free
market, as the failures of that market become more apparent. So if you're
19, and flushed with a desire to redress the growing inequality stalking the
planet, you're hardly likely to venture in that direction. And joining
Labour to turn it into a radical campaigning party would seem as ridiculous
as joining the RAC to turn it into a radical campaigning breakdown service.

So the modern generation of activists looks outside the old organisations.
They are often described as anarchists, but only because "anarchist" has
come to mean anyone radical with a nose-stud. Some are members of groups
such as Jubilee 2000, including the Christian couple who told me that they
had taken their holiday in Prague because "we can go to a museum in the
morning and a protest in the afternoon." But most are not part of any
organisation. Instead, they are the thin end of a wedge that includes
millions around the world who have come to the conclusion that, when the
richest 360 people on the planet own the same amount of wealth as the
poorest two billion, something has gone wrong.

And, when you think about it, if all the two billion got together and smiled
at the 360, that would look pretty spooky.

© 2000 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd.

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