Other Words
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The war that may well set the course of the 21^st Century is not being waged in Afghanistan: it began on Friday, in the capital of Qatar

If you are wondering what the conflicts of coming decades will be like, look to Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif or Washington. Observe "intelligent" missiles hitting villages full of civilians. Note that the international coalition led by the USA includes "democracies" that have failed to promote any debate on the war within their own societies, and dictators convinced by the strong argument of the greenback. Watch as the Empire meticulously strives to form a new government in Afghanistan, one over which it will exercise complete dominion: it will then be an easy task to build the pipelines that will ensure control over oil and gas from the Caspian Sea. Consider the attacks on individual liberties perpetrated by the "free" nations on behalf of the struggle against a foreign foe: arbitrary jailing of foreigners, admission of torture and political assassination (as long as it is practiced abroad...), internet and telephone surveillance, news censorship. Note that the media has held silent on all this, because it has ceased to be just the (big P) Press to become (big) Business and it too is pinning its hopes on war as a means to surmount the crisis facing the system in which its business flourishes. But look beyond that. Try to make out the interests that are behind this circus of horrors. In doing so, it is worth turning your eyes towards Doha, capital of the emirate of Qatar, where the World Trade Organization (WTO) began its fourth Ministerial Meeting last Friday.

Emblematically situated in the Middle East, the stage for so many decisive episodes in our history, Afghanistan and Qatar are the venues where the Empire is seeking to mould the century to its point of view. In Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, it is showing its claws. Nonetheless, it is in Doha that it is setting out its world view. What if capitalism can again be saved from the crisis, as it was in the 1980s, without having to make concessions to societies, but on the contrary by means of further concentration of power and wealth? What if the way to do this is to transform what are currently seen as rights into merchandise? Two texts published over the last few days by the ATTAC movement, in Switzerland and France (where the document has been signed by many other groups), understand the Doha meeting as a move in this direction. The WTO's aim, says the Swiss text, is to make merchandise of "all human activities: agriculture, services, health, education, culture, genetic patrimony, water and even air pollution!".

ATTAC-Switzerland goes straight to the point. It reminds us that the purpose of the ministerial meeting is to launch the round of trade negotiations that fell through in Seattle two years ago. Using official documents (particularly the draft Doha Resolution published weeks ago by the WTO itself), it points to the three major goals of the initiative:

1. To promote the mercantilization of public services and common assets:

Coming together in powerful lobbies, large international corporations in the services sector deem that it is time to eliminate certain "obstacles" to their activities. They propose to expand the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS), which restricts sovereignty of States to legislate on this issue. They know that it will then be much easier to dismantle the free education and health systems designed to meet the social needs of several European and Asian countries, as well as social security systems driven not by profit, but by solidarity. They are also casting greedy eyes on the South of our planet. Here, some countries' laws reserve to local workers and companies a range of activities that, depending on the country in question, can include transportation, inland navigation, financial services, insurance, education, health, the legal profession, sanitation, power generation and many others. As long as these "barriers" persist, reason the service sector mega-multinationals, as long as none of these things can be transformed into merchandise, how can we expand our businesses and overcome the crisis?

2. To subordinate the sovereignty of States to the "rights" of investors

Several agreements on the agenda for a possible fresh round of trade liberalization are designed to extend the power of the WTO still further and, consequently, to reduce the power of societies and States. There is talk of protocols on forestry activities, cultural production and, more importantly, expansion of the Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS), the existing agreement on investments.

ATTAC-Switzerland warns: in practice, this is an attempt to resurrect the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI). Proposed by big business five years ago and defeated in 1998, after international mobilization that preceded the major global protests against neoliberalism, it granted sweeping powers to multinationals to head off democracy and the conquest of new social rights. It allowed companies to sue States and demand compensation whenever measures of any type - a shorter working week, protection for local industry, consumer protection measures, a new environmental code - meant a reduction in their profit margins.

3. To open up agricultural markets and put an end to the idea of food sovereignty:

To the surprise and horror of neoliberals, not everyone sees the function of agriculture as to produce food for ever-lower cost and ever-higher profit. The struggles of common farmers, the memory of great famines, concern for the environment and efforts to defend regional crops have given us the concepts of the multi-functionality of land and food sovereignty These have partially been incorporated into law, especially in Europe and Japan. States protect peasants interested in ensuring production of staple foods of the national diet (such as rice, in Japan) and willing to cultivate them with a respect for nature. They offer these farmers subsidies. Societies are aware that it is more expensive to produce under these conditions and without access to the vast expanses of land or enormous capital available to major agribusiness multinationals. Yet they are willing to relinquish neither social rights, nature protection, cultural eating habits or their landscape.

These agri-business mega-corporations are determined to steamroller small farmers and seek support in countries of the South to end the subsidies. They have the support of governments and the media. They claim that opening the European and Japanese markets would multiply food exports from countries like Brazil. They neglect to mention the crux of the matter: 1. Societies that submit their agriculture to the logic of the market will be unable to develop policies that respect farmers and nature; 2. Only large landowners, that offer almost no job openings and produce by using massive quantities of toxic agricultural chemicals, would be capable of exporting large volumes; 3. If agricultural markets are ever opened up, this will be merely the crumbs that rich nations will offer the South in exchange for something far more important: control over the industrial and services sectors, through the measures mentioned above. As in colonial times, "Third World" countries will have to content themselves with the role of producers of primary goods, and surrender the cream of their economies to foreign companies.

In every way, the Doha meeting is fruit of the war launched by the Empire on the pretext of fighting terrorism. In another text also available on independent news agencies across the Internet, Greg Palast, an American analyst, reports on the White House's efforts to use the attacks against New York and Washington as instruments to bolster the new round of World Trade Organization negotiations. On September 11, the differences among the big four in the WTO (USA, European Union, Japan, India) were so great that most observers had serious doubts that the meeting in Doha would ever actually take place.

Throughout his article, suggestively entitled Trade Jihad, Palast describes the machinations of the US trade secretary, Robert Zoellick, after the attacks took place. Flames were still rising from the World Trade Center towers when he declared, completely against all logic, that promoting "free trade" was the best way to address terrorism. He then launched into a series of international meetings where he argued that postponing of round of negotiations would signify an unacceptable defeat to the USA, at a very delicate moment politically. The White House was so determined to make a show of force that it went against its own official discourse on security and terrorism. Doha nestles in the heart of the Middle East, a mere two-hour flight from both Afghanistan and Iraq. If these were, in fact, centers for terrorism, would it not be really risky to concentrate so many diplomats, authorities and business leaders so close to them? Or is no sacrifice too great on behalf of the Trade Jihad?

In Seattle, two years ago, divergences amongst the rich nations themselves were the powder keg that helped blow the impending fresh round on trade liberalization out of the water. Quite likely something similar will happen at Doha. Despite their solidarity with the Empire, the large corporate conglomerates based in other nations of the North and the States that represent them are not in the habit of simply renouncing their interests.

European technocrats were quite happy to withdraw farm subsidies: in the long run they are also a hindrance to the advance of agribusiness on their own continent. There would have to be compensations, however. Would the US, for instance, allow French multinational sanitation companies, the most powerful in the world, to penetrate its markets? Would it be willing to review its anti-dumping legislation, recognized as arbitrary and acting in practical terms as a barrier to protect local producers when they are incapable of competing with their counterparts from Europe, Asia and even the South?

On October 19, Aileen Kwa, from the Asian studies center, Focus on the Global South, wrote an excellent report on the status of the negotiations at that time. It suggests high tensions between two contradictory movements. On one hand, divergences amongst the most influential countries in the World Trade Organization were "worse than before Seattle". On the other, the US and heads of the WTO were leading a frantic effort to reach some sort of agreement. Aileen stresses that the first draft of the final declaration of the Doha meeting had been published on September 26; and that no less than two closed-door international meetings had been held in the two weeks following -- one in Singapore, the other in Mexico City. When it finally convened on November 10, the Doha meeting appears to confirm, as we close this edition of Other Words, the tensions and nigh impossibility of forecasting before the conclusion of the sessions, scheduled for November 15.

What kind of attitude should one adopt in light of a fresh round of talks? Accept it, given the supposed risk of a worldwide recession, if it fails? Try, from within, once it is under way, to prevent the worst positions from prevailing? Or fight to stop it getting under way and thus make room for building public opinion in favor of a possible alternative?

Over the last few months, the movement in opposition to capitalist globalization has built a formidable unity around the latter proposal. Since November 9, hundreds of protests have sprung up across the five continents, always in opposition to the round which, in the end, would bring a new shockwave of neoliberal globalization. ATTAC-France has set up a special webpage to publicize them. There alone, there is news of 130 rallies in 12 countries. Inevitably, as a consequence of the counter-offensive launched by the Empire after September 11, these demonstrations have not been as massive as the one in Genoa on July 20. Particularly conspicuous by their absence are larger-scale protests within the US.

Nonetheless, the will to resist a new round is propagating round the world, indicating that the recent movement against neoliberalism is still very much alive, steadfast in its ambition to transform the world, and unwilling to scale down its demands. Among the many declarations issued on the Doha meeting, two in particular have demonstrated both how widespread and radical is the criticism of the WTO. The first is a manifesto prepared by the Council of Canadians, a well-known studies center in the North, and signed by hundreds of organizations from around the world. Its final paragraphs make it quite clear that the signatories, just like many others, see the current battle as part of a larger struggle towards a different society: "A socially just international trade system will also require change outside the WTO. [It] must take prior account of the rights and welfare of the workers and farmers who produce and provide the commodities and services. (...) We commit ourselves to mobilize people within our countries to fight for these demands and to defy the unjust policies of the WTO. We will also support other people and countries who do so with international solidarity campaigns. We pledge to carry the Spirit of Seattle around the world"...

The second document has an even stronger symbolic meaning. It is the result of a meeting in Beirut, from November 5-8, which gathered social movements and organizations from the five continents but particularly the Arab world. It is not difficult to imagine how hard it is to turn one's attention to global issues, in a region so stricken by the violence of the Israeli State, the reactionary governments supported by the Empire, and fundamentalist creeds. Nonetheless, the text reveals a far-reaching, detailed analysis of the role of the WTO, and at the same time a broad discussion of possible alternatives. It closes tellingly and hearteningly: "Our world is not for sale and peoples' lives and well being are not a material for trade". In other words, The world is not a piece of merchandise, this feeling and this rallying cry are being taken up by more and more movements and people, some quite close to both Kabul and to Doha...

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