European Conference for Peace and Human Rights
Launch Conference, Brussels 31.1 - 1.2.2002
Writing in the "N.Y. Times", Thomas Friedman expressed the following view about globalization three years ago: "For globalization to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is. The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. Mc Donald's cannot flourish without Mc Donnell Douglas."1 There can be no clearer statement of the nature of the dominant version of globalization and the dangers it entails for the future of humanity.
Then George W. Bush, "who stands closer ideologically to Mr. Reagan than to his own father" according to the International Herald Tribune,2 was elected to the office of President of the United States.
Indeed within a year, the Bush administration withdrew from the Kyoto Agreement, froze the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), refused a draft agreement to enforce a 1972 Treaty banning germ warfare, opposed a Treaty on small arms, walked out of the UN World Conference on Racism in Durban, and abandoned the ABM Treaty, a move that "buried an entire era of arms control" .3 The "hawks" that view the international treaties as a "multilateral straightjacket" for the USA, have many reasons to celebrate.
Such positions and the reactions they provoked created a situation that could be described "the USA versus the rest of the world". But the barbaric terrorist attack of 11 September 2001, a crime characterised by Noam Chomsky as "a gift to the hard jingoist right", enabled G.W. Bush to promote a "new kind of cold war" to rally the American people around him; he passed the NMD plan without much resistance, launched the war on Afghanistan and made almost all countries join his "anti-terrorist campaign". And although he drew fire for his military Tribunals, for which many accused him of being "the President who sunk the Bill of Rights"4, he achieved unprecedented popularity inside the US.
With such developments under way, the world situation can by no means be described as "the end of history". On the contrary, what Jacques Atali said on the occasion of the WTO Millenium Round has been confirmed: "There is a belief that history ended with a joint victory of democracy and the market, without seeing that, in fact, this was the beginning of the pitiless history of the struggle of the market against democracy".5
A different world is possible
However, the SOS signals are not the only ones in our common global home. There are hopeful signals as well, which lend substance to Bruce Kent's call to "give ourselves time to dream some dreams"6. The mass popular outburst in Seattle just 26 months ago was followed by the first "World Social Forum" in Porto Alegre, just a year ago. Protest was reinforced by the vision represented in the slogan "another world is possible" and by the Porto Alegre Declaration, which was the basis for the Genoa Social Forum six months later. So within a short time this new multi-form and multi-colored movement replied to all those who repeated M.Thatcher's TINA, the acronym for "There Is No Alternative".
There is an alternative. Not only because the movement against neo-liberal globalisation is spreading. But also because the problems created by this globalisation are assuming explosive dimensions, with Argentina being the most recent example of the neo-liberal dead ends.
And it's not only the third world that's suffering. Even the sole remaining superpower is not immune to contemporary scourges. The social contradictions within the USA are very acute. "The top 1 percent of Americans have more wealth than the bottom 90 percent", according to a recent report from the M.S. Eisenhower Foundation, placing the USA "first among industrial nations in wealth inequality".7 This is the stark reality, as the US military budget is going to increase by 6 percent, amounting to $350 billion in the next fiscal year; the estimated cost of the NMD alone is more than $100 billion.
Therefore, there is ample room for the social and peace movements to develop globally and inside the USA.
The movement against neo-liberal globalisation and the new peace movement are already linked together. "Militarism and corporate globalisation reinforce each other to undermine democracy and peace", declared the 1st Porto Alegre Forum. And the Appeal of Perugia, where the largest peace march Europe has seen for many years took place last October, reciprocated by saying that "we are moved by the awareness that 'another world is possible' and in order to build it, it is necessary to promote globalisation from the bottom up".
The two movements have common political demands but it is not just about overlapping agendas. As world interdependence grows, so does the necessity of linking these movements organically and increasing international solidarity.
The European peace movement of the 1980's can be a source of inspiration for our present struggles, not only because of its inventive forms of action, its internationalism, its broad and mass character and its ability to attract young people but also because of its pioneering role in promoting a peace culture and in putting forward ideas such as "Common Security", "Peace through disarmament", "peace with justice, development and ecological protection", etc. These ideas are becoming dramatically timely today, especially after 11 September 2001.
A profound democratization of the international system is urgently required, but it cannot be achieved without the emergence and development of an international civil society, able to defeat the present undemocratic, unjust and inhumane world order.
The nuclear disarmament agenda is coming back to the fore. However, the top priority issue today is the North-South gap. It is not by accident that the "World Social Forum" was born in Porto Alegre and subsequently came north to Genoa, or that the focuses of global action have been the meetings of the WTO, G8, the IMF and World Bank.
The need for a global agenda does not mean that the European agenda of the new peace movement is of less significance. Let us not forget Yugoslavia and the Balkans.
Ken Coates reminded us of "the powerful vision for an undivided Europe of democracy and peace", which inspired the European peace movement during the cold war. This vision has not materialized yet, despite the demolition of the Berlin Wall, nor is it compatible with a headline seen during G.W.Bush's first tour of Europe: "Bush sees Europe united under an expanded NATO".
Europe has a special responsibility to help bridge the North-South gap by taking immediate steps to cancel the poor countries' debt, to increase aid, to apply the Tobin Tax, etc. In this context, building Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation and assuming an active role to end the Palestinian tragedy and to establish the State of Palestine with East - Jerusalem as its capital are first priorities as is the solution of the Cyprus problem on the basis of UN resolutions.
Finally, we must struggle for Europe to play a positive and decisive role in upgrading and democratising the United Nations.
31 January 2002
Footnotes
1. New York Times, 28-3-1999
2. International Herald Tribune, 19-1-2001
3. D. Sanger, International Herald Tribune, 17-12-2001
4. W. Safire, New York Times, 15-11-2001
5. Le Monde, 27-7-1999
6. Papers submitted to ENPHR Launch Conference, Brussels 31.1 - 1.2.2002
7. International Herald Tribune, 2-3-1998