WTO, G8,Quebec City, IMF, World Bank, & D.C. in September 2001 - The Anti-Globalization Movement

Protestor Hands Darth Vader Flowers
CHECK OUT THE WTO SLIDE SHOW (PRESS HERE)...

or (press here) for photo of WTO protest in front of NikeTown
(press here) for WNBC; Good one here.

ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT protest action

Will the Academy of Management meetings in Denver (August, 2002) be the site of the next anti-globalization protest?  We in the Academy, are after all, the folks who educate G-8, WTO, IMF, and World Bank in their globalization strategies and tactics. 

Rachael's Story - the Anti-globalization Protest at the Academy of Management meetings in Washington D.C. - Outside the August, 2001Academy of Management meetings, there was a pacifist, completely non-violent protest happening. Each morning a young university student named "Rachael" put up artistic 'anti-globalization' protest signs on the street lamps along Connecticut Avenue where all the conference attendees went to eat.  And each day some pro-globalization team of terror operatives systematically destroyed her signs.

I counted about eight different signs, each with a message about global injustice such as the Big Oil companies' violent appropriation of indigenous land.  A local artist in D.C. contributed the art on each poster, and each had some interesting statistics, and a call for peaceful action, such as a community bike ride. But some art-terrorists set out to protect the Academy of Management attendees from ever seeing Rachael's signs and reading her messages to us.  Each day her art was defaced. First the phone numbers and meeting places were scratched out. Then during the day, the secret agent team would tear at the corners of each of the posters.  They had a big job to do, since Rachel put up no less than 100 signs each night along Connecticut avenue.  By dinner time, not a single sign remained (Signs were not unlike these).

The point of this story is to present an example of non-violent direct action and a prayer for Rachel that she will bring her art and pacifism to Denver, to the 2002 meeting of the Academy of Management. My studies of the anti-globalization movement suggest that the vast majority of protest is non-violent action, but the media, by and large replays the acts of a few, who by the way seem to be posers and imposters, sent in by the opposition. 

See Boje, D. M. (2001) Global Theatrics and Capitalism presentation to 2001 Academy of Management meeting for more on this topic.

MORE ON RACHAEL'S STORY

 

G-8

See Letter to Business Week by D. Boje, August, 2001. "10 Reasons why Business Week Missed the Dynamics of G-8 Theatrics" In the G-8 editorial by Business Week, the protestors are vilified and demonized in order to split the anti-globalization movement into two parts, then magically legitimate Nike and Gap for doing what Business Week considers the right thing.

QUEBEC

 


WTO

Z-Magazine ZNET - Special Site on GLOBALIZATION AND WTO (press here).

Ian Walker: "Roy Lipski's London-based company, Infonic, is in the business of advising businesses about exactly who hates them and what kinds of nasty things they might be saying about them on the Internet. He makes the point that there are
over a million web pages dedicated to the Nike Corporation, but more than 99% of those sites have names like 'Nike Sucks'. Lipski's solution to lessening the impact of these anti-corporate 'gripe sites' is to advise companies to engage their critics and invite them to have their say on the company's own site. It's an idea many corporations still find terrifying. (From Global Resistance  Produced by Ian Walker Sunday 18/02/01).   (Hear Audio).

 

The World Trade Organization (WTO) (press here) according to Seattle. WTO is a Threat to the Environment and is being closely monitored by environmental groups (press here). See also, Trade Watch (press here). - Every environmental and public health measure challenged at the WTO has been found to violate the WTO agreements and not to satisfy the terms of the exceptions: