By Mike Verdin
BBC Online22 January 2003
Anti-globalisation demos just aren't what they used to be. In 1999, at the Battle of Seattle, the violence of "fair trade" protests shocked the West, still basking in its victory against the threat of communism. Two years later, a meeting of the G8 club of economic superpowers in Genoa attracted 250,000 demonstrators, one of whom died in clashes with police.
The World Economic Forum in Davos suffered its own problems in 2000, when 500 demonstrators dressed up as skiers to evade a demonstration ban. A year later, dissenters took the battle to Zurich, where three police officers were injured by stones, and more than 100 people arrested.
Rogue dissenters But this year protesters are not only going to be allowed into Davos - on Friday, at least - but are, it appears, to be helped to the venue by authorities. According to documents seen by BBC News Online, the Oltner Alliance, a protest group, has been in talks with officials over ensuring peaceful demonstrations.
Since June, police and demonstrators have sought agreement on ways to filter out potentially violent protesters. The $10m security drive implemented by Swiss authorities at this year's summit includes measures to frisk would-be demonstrators for anything more offensive than an anti-WEF banner.
While the Oltner Alliance may be committed to protest without "any physical harm to anybody", police believe that about 5% of protesters will come prepared to use violence, the documents say. A rallying call on the website of another protest group says, ominously: "We are going to confront the rulers with resistance that cannot be ignored." More consoling is that the relevant internet page has received less than 10 hits a day.
Davos no more Indeed, if anti-globalisation campaigners BBC News Online contacted were representative, Davos is unlikely - bar the outbreak of a US-led war against Iraq - to prove a significant flashpoint. The Davos policing tactics are reminiscent of the "divide and rule" strategy which at the Mayday demonstration in London two years ago marginalised more militant protesters.
There is also the emergence of an alternative forum which has given anti-globalisers a voice. Ask the average free trade campaign how many people it is sending to Davos, and the quota will almost certainly be less than the number sent to the World Social Forum (WSF) in Brazil.
Lula lovers Typical is the response of the London-based World Trade Movement. "We are not sure if we are sending anyone to Davos yet. "We don't know if we have anyone spare. Everyone is going to the World Social Forum."
Last year, the second WSF attracted some 60,000 people concerned over trade/globalisation, including half the French cabinet. This year, delegates will include Brazil's newly elected president, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, credited as a former WSF organiser.
Block the bloc The attraction of the event? "There has been nothing like it in history," says Noam Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has become a figurehead for the movement. "There has never before existed such a collection of individuals and movements."
What is more, it is rooted in the developing world, which protesters see as being particularly failed by capitalism. Indeed, the gathering, at Porto Alegre, comes amid mounting Argentine anger at the role global institutions, such as the World Bank, have played in the country's downfall. The forum is also expected to take particular note of proposals, backed by the Zapatista movement in Mexico, to counter the extension of the North American trade bloc, Nafta.
Fluffy Davos Ironically, the rise of the World Social Forum comes as Davos is vigorously embracing social issues. The WEF trailed its 2003 summit, themed Rebuilding Trust, with a poll revealing the declining opinion citizens have of their leaders. Yet seven years ago, before the Battle of Seattle, it was meeting under the banner "Sustaining Globalisation". And even in 2000, at the peak of the dot.com boom, it had a distinctly pro-corporate feel.
"People hoped that some of that dot.com gold-dust would rub off," one senior businessman, and Davos regular, said. "There was this feeling that the internet could solve all the world's problems. That we were standing at the end of history. "Now there has been a little sober reflection, following the bursting of the dot.com bubble." If you fancy attending forums entitled "Giving a voice to the disenfranchised", or "Can't we all just get along", you need fly not to Porto Alegre, but Davos.
Room for both? Indeed, the ground covered may prove so common that some, such as Salil Shetty, chief executive of development agency ActionAid, would see increasing contact between the two summits. "We should be seeking to encourage dialogue," says Mr Shetty who, while a Davos delegate, receives daily updates from Porto Alegre.
Ed Mayo, director at anti-globalisation think-tank the New Economics Foundation, also sees both forums playing important roles. WSF campaigners have begun arriving in Brazil "In a world which is increasingly globally focused, you need global institutions." The WSF may even emerge as the dominant summit.
"The WSF has so much creativity, consensus. It is wholly chaotic, but much clearer in its aims," Mr Mayo says. "In the long run it is going to be more relevant than the WEF." The challenge for the WSF will, as a movement comprising so many factions, to maintain coherence.
Still, for now it has attracted the media spotlight, and the anti-globalisation throng. In the future, who knows, its success may even trigger the eruption of pro-capitalist protests.
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