April 20-22 marked the Second People’s Summit of the Americas, a gathering in Quebec of labor, environmental, and social organizations from throughout the hemisphere. And in case you missed it, inside a walled fortification in the city’s center also met leaders from 34 countries to discuss the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Inside the barricades, leaders mentioned free trade and democracy. Outside the chain-link wall, people marched for fair trade and exercised democracy.
Seattle. Washington. Prague. Quebec. The struggle continues for a voice in the globalization being negotiated behind locked doors by corporate leaders—an increased corporatization that threatens to usurp local and national sovereignty in favor of profits for transnational corporations.
Concurrent with events in Quebec, in hundreds of cities throughout the Americas, people gathered in support of fair trade, trade that takes into account the needs of the people and environment linked to that trade. Human rights, the environment, and the standard of living for low-wage workers are interlinked issues in an interlinked hemisphere—indeed, an interlinked world.
As people gathered along the US-Mexico border, the US-Canada border, and others cities throughout the countries to celebrate solidarity and call for an alternative vision to FTAA, 40,000 peaceful demonstrators voiced their concerns in the streets of Quebec. Not to be outdone, riot police unleashed tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets, turning the streets into a zone of terror by Saturday night. The Ligue des Droits et Libertes, Quebec’s Civil Liberties Union, condemned the tactics used by police which resulted in an escalation of violence and injury. But behind the clouded pictures of riot police waging war on demonstrators was a message—a message from the people, we the people, the foundation of democracy…
“We want to build bridges between the peoples of the Americas, draw on the pluralism of our histories and our cultures and to strengthen each other in the exercising of a representative and participatory democracy. We want to share the same passion for an absolute respect of human rights and the same commitment to have these rights respected. We want to live together a true equality between men and women, to take care of all our children and to share the wealth fairly and in solidarity.
“We want fair trade.”
These sentiments were articulated by the network of organizations and social movements that gathered at the People’s Summit in Quebec, a message that needs to be heard amid the corporate US hegemony that dictates FTAA and other policy.
The
FTAA being negotiated will essentially do for half the world what
WTO has so far failed to do—barely—for the entire world.
These trade agreements—WTO, GATT, NAFTA, etc—are
NOT about FREE trade. Rather,
they are about creating more wealth for the corporations currently
in power. It is a vicious,
positive feedback loop—the corporations with the most money
use the power that comes with it to write the rules so that they
can make more money and write more rules to suppress positive change
and evolution towards a restorative economy.
What
we are seeing is commerce becoming government.
Corporations were never supposed to have so much power, they
were originally founded to serve society, not to suppress
the rights of society—the rights to a clean environment, air
to breathe, safe drinking water, health, quality of life—the
things we need and desire to live out our lives in health and harmony.
Jane
Jacobs wrote a book called Systems
of Survival
in which she talks about the two moral syndromes of society;
she calls them as the Guardian and the Commercial.
Each syndrome, with its own set of functions, is very good
at contributing to society in its own sphere, but problems arise
when one tries to take over the other.
When corporations form organizations such at the WTO to set
policy for everyone, they egregiously overstep their role and take
away from true government.
Government must come from the people, the individual citizens,
free from the influence of corporate money and influence.
It is sad how the current state of business, especially in the United States, is so resistant to change and evolution. As Paul Hawken wrote, “Industrialism is over, in fact; the question remains how we organize the economy that follows. … We cannot wait for business to set a new course. We have to educate our businesses and, wherever appropriate, let them educate us." If we don’t let our voices be heard at places like Seattle and Quebec, then we will have failed to stop the juggernaut before it devours our existence.
What we need are agreements that do more than give transnational corporations unfettered privilege to new resources and markets at the expense of the people and at the expense of our democratically enacted laws that protect our environment. By their very nature and scope, these agreements must involve all the stakeholders affected and not just the stockholders that are affected by new profits. We need rules that benefit everyone and not just the top stratum, rules that take into account our need for a sustainable future and that allow us to exercise our democratic rights as citizens in the decision making process. That, after all, is the essence of democracy, not an agreement negotiated behind walled barricades by corporate financed leaders with corporate goals of increased profit as the main focal point.
In keeping with the undemocratic nature of FTAA, President Bush will return to Washington with eyes on gaining fast track authority from congress so that he can push forward authoritatively on FTAA and other agreements without the need for congressional approval. Fast track would only further muffle the voice of the people as expressed through elected representatives.
More than ever, our voices must be heard, the message must continue to spread. We must tell our representatives to say no to fast track and to say yes to fair trade that takes into account our broader concerns of human rights and the environment, so that everyone—not just the corporations currently making the rules—benefits from a fair trade area.
To access Alternatives for the Americas: Building a People's Hemispheric Agreement, go to www.web.net/comfront/alts4americas/eng/eng.html.