|
The Kids Are All Right By Craig Aaron Nothing sums up the promise of the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle like a sign spotted at the labor rally on Nov. 30: "Teamsters and Turtles--Together at Last." Sure, there are plenty of details and differences to be ironed out, but this could be the start of something big. "The Battle in Seattle" was portrayed in much of the mainstream media as a showdown between black-hooded anarchist ninjas and boisterous, body-armored riot police. But while the violent, unprovoked police crackdown was shameful, even criminal, it was ultimately a sideshow. "The terms of the free trade debate have forever been changed; no amount of tear gas or police harassment of demonstrators after the fact changed the bottom line," Geov Parrish wrote in the Seattle Weekly. "For one day, a ragtag army of nonviolent global citizens spoke--and the world listened." There has been a lot of talk about Seattle as some sort of throwback to the '60s. Indeed, neoliberal commentators have tried to portray the protests as the last gasp of the old left dinosaur--an attack on the bogeyman of globalization by unrepentant, tree-hugging hippies and myopic union members. "The core of the anti-trade movement is the leftover left," Charles Krauthammer sneered in Time. "Having had little to do since the fall of the 'socialist camp' a decade ago, the left finally found its voice in Seattle." Krauthammer is right about one thing. The left did find a voice. But it was the age of unfettered corporate capitalism that got pushed a little closer toward extinction. Not to take anything away from the legions of veteran organizers and activists who have dedicated decades to fighting the good fight, but the real story of Seattle was the youth. After all, Generation X (for lack of a better term) is supposed to be a group of apathetic, narcissistic kids weaned on Reaganomics and Baby Gap. Maybe they are. "Turning points in our nation's political history, occasioned by the collapse of an existing civic and political consensus, have usually been accompanied by rampant individualism, weakened institutions and heightened levels of political alienation," explained Ted Halstead in an essay on Gen X politics in the August Atlantic Monthly. "But such periods of civic unrest have also stimulated new political agendas." For that generation, my generation, Seattle could be a defining moment (even for those of us who weren't there). Gen X has felt the brunt of downsizing, temporary employment and benefit cutbacks; young people make up a large chunk of the more than 40 million Americans without health insurance. They fear growing economic insecurity and inequality. At the same time, they are most concerned about issues of environmental conservation and human rights. Seattle showed that within the various interest groups and issues--from Teamsters to turtles, Zapatistas to sweatshops--lie the seeds of a common political agenda centered on the idea that the global market should be governed by values other than profit maximization. Most important, Seattle radicalized a new generation of potential leaders. Consider Stephanie Lane, a University of Chicago student who also happens to be an In These Times intern. Though Stephanie already was active in campus politics and the anti-sweatshop movement, Seattle was an epiphany. She was arrested with hundreds of others while peacefully marching downtown on the morning of Dec. 1. They were detained on a bus at the Sand Point Naval Station for 14 hours, refusing to disembark unless they were guaranteed lawyers and phones. They were finally forced off with pepper spray. After two nights in the county jail, Stephanie was arraigned and released. Outside the jail at a vigil for the other prisoners, she heard that the talks had been canceled without any agreement on a new round. "My life has completely changed," she wrote in an e-mail message after returning home. "So many people have now become charged, radicalized activists. And the word WTO has spread like wildfire. Conversation against the WTO and about its problems has grown in multitudes. Our collective voices have begun to be heard. ... This is just the beginning." Let's hope so. Craig Aaron is managing editor of In These Times.
|