Nationalize This! What Next for Anti-Globalization Protests?

At a recent London meeting of the World Development Movement, a group campaigning for reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the state of things a year after the ʻanti-globalizationʼ protests in Seattle was summarized for the packed audience by Naomi Klein, one of the protestsʼ most conspicuously medianominated representatives. We donʼt need to invent a movement, she declared, but to recognize the movement we already have. Following the anatomization of the corrosive effect of transnational corporations and the institutions of neo liberalism on our own ʻcaptive stateʼ by George Monbiot (another much publicized commentator), Klein made the case for bringing the protests home. As many activists and commentators agree, the time has come to start fighting globalization in our own back yards. Of course the clash between protesters and police will carry on in ʻworld citiesʼ across the globe, but the ability of these actions to embarrass, harass and pressurize their targets will depend on building local resistance to the immediate impact of globalization in protestorsʼ home states. Massive campaigns of public education linked to ongoing direct action against all the forms of neo-liberal trespass will build this international movement, giving it the momentum it needs gradually to change the way capitalism operates