Culture jamming is a form of subvertising. Many culture jams are intended to expose questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture. Culture jamming makes use of the technique détournement, which uses the language and rhetoric of the mainstream paradigm or culture to subversively critique that paradigm or culture. Tactics include editing logos to critique the company, product or concept they represent, or wearing fashion statements that criticize the current fashion trends by deliberately clashing with them. Culture jamming often entails using mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, commonly using the original medium's communication method.
Culture jamming is a reaction against social conformity. Prominent examples of culture jamming include the adulteration of billboard advertising by the Billboard Liberation Front and contemporary artists such as Ron English. Culture jamming may involve street parties and protests.
While culture jamming usually focuses on subverting or critiquing
political and advertising messages, some proponents focus on a different
form which brings together artists, designers, scholars, and activists to create works that transcend the status quo rather than merely criticize it.
Origins of the term, etymology, and history
1984 coinage
The term was coined in 1984 by Don Joyce of the sound collage band Negativland, with the release of their album JamCon '84. The phrase "culture jamming" comes from the idea of radio jamming: that public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication, or to disrupt dominant frequencies. In one of the tracks of the album, they stated:
As awareness of how the media
environment we occupy affects and directs our inner life grows, some
resist. The skillfully reworked billboard... directs the public viewer
to a consideration of the original corporate strategy. The studio for
the cultural jammer is the world at large.
Origins and preceding influences
According to Vince Carducci, although the term was coined by Negativland, culture jamming can be traced as far back as the 1950s. One particularly influential group that was active in Europe was the Situationist International and was led by Guy Debord.
The SI asserted that in the past humans dealt with life and the
consumer market directly. They argued that this spontaneous way of life
was slowly deteriorating as a direct result of the new "modern" way of
life. Situationists saw everything from television to radio as a threat
and argued that life in industrialized areas, driven by capitalist
forces, had become monotonous, sterile, gloomy, linear, and
productivity-driven. In particular, the SI argued humans had become
passive recipients of thespectacle,
a simulated reality that generates the desire to consume, and positions
humans as obedient consumerist cogs within the efficient and
exploitative productivity loop of capitalism. Through playful activity, individuals could create situations, the opposite of spectacles. For the SI, these situations took the form of the dérive,
or the active drift of the body through space in ways that broke
routine and overcame boundaries, creating situations by exiting habit
and entering new interactive possibilities.
The cultural critic Mark Dery traces the origins of culture jamming to medieval carnival, which Mikhail Bakhtin interpreted, in Rabelais and his World, as an officially sanctioned subversion of the social hierarchy. Modern precursors might include: the media-savvy agit-prop of the anti-Nazi photomonteur John Heartfield, the sociopolitical street theater and staged media events of 1960s radicals such as Abbie Hoffman, Joey Skaggs, the German concept of Spaßguerilla, and in the Situationist International (SI) of the 1950s and 1960s. The SI first compared its own activities to radio jamming in 1968, when it proposed the use of guerrilla communication within mass media to sow confusion within the dominant culture. In 1985, the Guerrilla Girls formed to expose discrimination and corruption in the art world.
Mark Dery's New York Times article on culture jamming, "The Merry Pranksters And the Art of the Hoax"
was the first mention, in the mainstream media, of the phenomenon; Dery
later expanded on this article in his 1993 Open Magazine pamphlet, Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs,
a seminal essay that remains the most exhaustive historical,
sociopolitical, and philosophical theorization of culture jamming to
date. Adbusters,
a Canadian publication espousing an environmentalist critique of
consumerism and advertising, began promoting aspects of culture jamming
after Dery introduced founder and editor Kalle Lasn to the term through a series of articles he wrote for the magazine. In her critique of consumerism, No Logo, the Canadian cultural commentator and political activist Naomi Klein examines culture jamming in a chapter that focuses on the work of Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada. Through an analysis of the Where the Hell is Matt
viral videos, researchers Milstein and Pulos analyze how the power of
the culture jam to disrupt the status quo is currently being threatened
by increasing commercial incorporation. For example, T-Mobile utilized the Liverpool street underground station to host a flashmob to sell their mobile services.
Culture jamming is a form of disruption that plays on the emotions
of viewers and bystanders. Jammers want to disrupt the unconscious
thought process that takes place when most consumers view a popular
advertising and bring about a détournement. Activists that utilize this tactic are counting on their meme
to pull on the emotional strings of people and evoke some type of
reaction. The reactions that most cultural jammers are hoping to evoke
are behavioral change and political action. There are four emotions that activists often want viewers to feel. These emotions – shock, shame, fear, and anger – are believed to be the catalysts for social change.
The basic unit in which a message is transmitted in culture jamming is the meme.
Memes are condensed images that stimulate visual, verbal, musical, or
behavioral associations that people can easily imitate and transmit to
others. The term meme was coined and first popularized by geneticist Richard Dawkins, but later used by cultural critics such as Douglas Rushkoff, who claimed memes were a type of media virus. Memes are seen as genes that can jump from outlet to outlet and replicate themselves or mutate upon transmission just like a virus.
Culture jammers will often use common symbols such as the McDonald's
golden arches or Nike swoosh to engage people and force them to think
about their eating habits or fashion sense. In one example, jammer Jonah Peretti
used the Nike symbol to stir debate on sweatshop child labor and
consumer freedom. Peretti made public exchanges between himself and Nike
over a disagreement. Peretti had requested custom Nikes with the word
"sweatshop" placed in the Nike symbol. Nike refused. Once this story was
made public, it spread worldwide and contributed to the already robust
conversation and dialogue about Nike's use of sweatshops,
which had been ongoing for a decade prior to Peretti's 2001 stunt.
Jammers can also organize and participate in mass campaigns. Examples of
cultural jamming like Perretti's are more along the lines of tactics
that radical consumer social movements would use. These movements push
people to question the taken-for-granted assumption that consuming is
natural and good and aims to disrupt the naturalization of consumer
culture; they also seek to create systems of production and consumption
that are more humane and less dominated by global corporate late capitalism.
Past mass events and ideas have included Buy Nothing Day,
virtual sit-ins and protests over the Internet, producing
‘subvertisements' and placing them in public spaces, and creating and
enacting ‘placejamming' projects where public spaces are reclaimed and
nature is re-introduced into urban places.
The most effective form of jamming is to use an already widely
recognizable meme to transmit the message. Once viewers are forced to
take a second look at the mimicked popular meme they are forced out of
their comfort zone. Viewers are presented with another way to view the
meme and are forced to think about the implications presented by the
jammer.
More often than not, when this is used as a tactic the jammer is going
for shock value. For example, to make consumers aware of the negative
body image that big-name fashion brands are frequently accused of
causing, a subvertisement of Calvin Klein's 'Obsession' was created and
played worldwide. It depicted a young woman with an eating disorder
throwing up into a toilet.
Another way that social consumer movements hope to utilize
culture jamming effectively is by employing a metameme. A metameme is a
two-level message that punctures a specific commercial image but does so
in a way that challenges some larger aspect of the political culture of
corporate domination. An example would be the "true cost" campaign set in motion by Adbusters.
"True cost" forced consumers to compare the human labor cost and
conditions and environmental drawbacks of products to the sales costs.
Another example would be the "Truth" campaigns that exposed the
deception tobacco companies used to sell their products.
Following critical scholars like Paulo Freire,
Culture jams are also being integrated into the university classroom
"setting in which students and teachers gain the opportunity not only to
learn methods of informed public critique but also to collaboratively
use participatory communication techniques to actively create new
locations of meaning." For example, students disrupt public space to bring attention to community concerns or utilize subvertisements to engage with media literacy projects.
Culture jamming is sometimes viewed as artistic appropriation or a form of vandalism.
The intent of those participating in culture jamming sometimes differs
from that of people whose intent is either artistic or merely
destructive. While there are some clear differences, such as culture
jamming usually being political while vandalism tends to aim for
destruction, the lines are not always clear-cut; some activities,
notably street art, may be deemed culture jamming, artistic appropriation, vandalism, or even all three.
Some scholars and activists, such as Amory Starr and Joseph D.
Rumbo, argue that culture jamming is easily co-opted and commodified by
the market, which tends to "defuse" its potential for consumer
resistance.
Others claim that the culture jamming strategy of rhetorical sabotage, as used by Adbusters, can be incorporated and appropriated by clever advertising agencies, and thus is not a very powerful means of social change.
Some practitioners
have called for moving beyond the current sense of "jamming" to a newer
understanding of the term that would encourage artists, scholars and
activists to come together and create innovative, flexible, and
practical mobile art pieces that communicate intellectual and political
concepts and new strategies and actions.
An agent provocateur (French for "inciting agent") is a person who commits or who acts to entice another person to commit an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation
or entice legal action against the target or a group they belong to or
are perceived to belong to. They may target any group, such as a
peaceful protest or demonstration, a union, a political party or a
company.
In jurisdictions in which conspiracy is a serious crime in
itself, it can be sufficient for the agent provocateur to entrap the
target into discussing and planning an illegal act. It is not necessary
for the illegal act to be carried out or even prepared.
Prevention of infiltration by agents provocateurs is part of the duty of demonstration marshals, also called stewards, deployed by organizers of large or controversial assemblies.
History and etymology
While the practice is worldwide anciently, modern undercover operations were scaled up in France by Eugène François Vidocq
in the early 19th century, and already included use of unlawful tactics
against opponents. Later in the same century the police targets
included union activists who came to fear plain-clothed policemen (agent de police in French). Hence, the French agent provocateur spread, just as is, to English and German. In accordance with French grammar, the plural form of the term is agents provocateurs.
Common usage
An
agent provocateur may be a police officer or a secret agent of police
who encourages suspects to carry out a crime under conditions where
evidence can be obtained; or who suggests the commission of a crime to
another, in hopes they will go along with the suggestion and be
convicted of the crime.
A political organization or government may use agents
provocateurs against political opponents. The provocateurs try to incite
the opponent to do counter-productive or ineffective acts to foster
public disdain or provide a pretext for aggression against the opponent.
Historically, labor spies, hired to infiltrate, monitor, disrupt, or subvert union activities, have used agent provocateur tactics.
Agent provocateur activities raise ethical and legal issues. In common law jurisdictions, the legal concept of entrapment may apply if the main impetus for the crime was the provocateur.
In the "Trust Operation" (1921–1926), the Soviet State Political Directorate (OGPU) set up a fake anti-Bolshevik underground organization, "Monarchist Union of Central Russia". The main success of this operation was luring Boris Savinkov and Sidney Reilly into the Soviet Union, where they were arrested and executed.
Also in New York City, an undercover motorcycle police officer
was convicted of and sentenced to two years in prison in 2015 for
second-degree assault, coercion, riot and criminal mischief after an
incident at a motorcycle rally. In 2013, the officer, Wojciech
Braszczok, was investigating motorcyclists by blending in with a crowd
during the rally; at some point another motorcyclist was hit by a
motorist, Alexian Lien. Braszczok is later seen on video breaking a
window to Lien's car and assaulting him with others in the crowd. His
actions were investigated by the NYPD and he ended up facing charges
along with other members of the rally. Braszczok was eventually
convicted on some of the charges laid, and received two years in prison.
Europe
In February 1817, after the Prince Regent was attacked, the British government employed agents provocateurs to obtain evidence against the agitators.
He should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior. [...]
infiltrate the movement with agents provocateurs (sic) inclined to do
anything [...] And after that, with the momentum gained from acquired
popular consent, [...] beat them for blood and beat for blood also those
teachers that incite them. Especially the teachers. Not the elderly, of
course, but the girl teachers, yes.
Another example occurred in France in 2010 where police disguised as members of the CGT (a leftist trade union) interacted with people during a demonstration.
Canada
On August 20, 2007, during meetings of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America in Montebello,
three police officers were revealed among the protesters by Dave Coles,
president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of
Canada, and alleged to be provocateurs. The police posing as protestors
wore masks and all black clothes; one was notably armed with a large
rock. They were asked to leave by protest organizers.
After the three officers had been revealed, their fellow officers
in riot gear handcuffed and removed them. The evidence that revealed
these three men as "police provocateurs" was initially
circumstantial-they were imposing in stature, similarly dressed, and
wearing police boots. According to veteran activist Harsha Walia, it was other participants in the black bloc who identified and exposed the undercover police.
After the protest, the police force initially denied, then later
admitted that three of their officers disguised themselves as
demonstrators; they then denied that the officers were provoking the
crowd and instigating violence.
The police released a news release in French where they stated "At no
time did the police of the Sûreté du Québec act as instigators or commit
criminal acts" and "At all times, they responded within their mandate
to keep order and security."
During the 2010 G20 Toronto summit, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested five people, two of whom were members of the Toronto Police Service. City and provincial police, including the TPS, went on to arrest 900 people in the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. The RCMP watchdog commission saw no indication that RCMP undercover agents or event monitors acted inappropriately.
An
agent provocateur can tell the target that the proposed crime involves
elements which bring it under the jurisdiction of a specific country.
For example, that some of the drugs involved in a drug-smuggling plan
will eventually go to the United States, even if that is not the
immediate destination. This brings the conspiracy within the
jurisdiction of US courts, even if the target never joins any plan to
smuggle drugs to the US directly.
Participants base their criticisms on a number of related ideas. What is shared is that participants oppose large, multinational corporations having unregulated political power, exercised through trade agreements
and deregulated financial markets. Specifically, corporations are
accused of seeking to maximize profit at the expense of work safety
conditions and standards, labour hiring and compensation standards,
environmental conservation principles, and the integrity of national
legislative authority, independence and sovereignty. As of January 2012, some commentators have characterized changes in the global economy as "turbo-capitalism" (Edward Luttwak), "market fundamentalism" (George Soros), "casino capitalism" (Susan Strange), and as "McWorld" (Benjamin Barber).
Supporters believe that by the late 20th century those they
characterized as "ruling elites" sought to harness the expansion of
world markets for their own interests; this combination of the Bretton Woods institutions, states, and multinational corporations has been called "globalization"
or "globalization from above." In reaction, various social movements
emerged to challenge their influence; these movements have been called
"anti-globalization" or "globalization from below."
Opposition to international financial institutions and transnational corporations
People opposing globalization believe that international agreements and global financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization,
undermine local decision-making. Corporations that use these
institutions to support their own corporate and financial interests, can
exercise privileges that individuals and small businesses cannot, including the ability to:
The movement aims for an end to the legal status of "corporate personhood" and the dissolution of free market fundamentalism and the radical economic privatization measures of the World Bank, the IMF, and the World Trade Organization.
Activists are especially opposed to the various abuses which they
think are perpetuated by globalization and the international
institutions that, they say, promote neoliberalism without regard to ethical standards or environmental protection. Common targets include the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) and free trade treaties like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the Trans Pacific Trade Agreement (TPPA), the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services
(GATS). In light of the economic gap between rich and poor countries,
adherents of the movement claim that free trade without measures to
protect the environment and the health and wellbeing of workers will
merely increase the power of industrialized nations (often termed the
"North" in opposition to the developing world's "South"). Proponents of
this line of thought refer to the process as polarization and argue that
current neo-liberal economic policies have given wealthier states an
advantage over developing nations, enabling their exploitation and
leading to a widening of the global wealth gap.
A report by Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food,
notes that "millions of farmers are losing their livelihoods in the
developing countries, but small farmers in the northern countries are
also suffering" and concludes that "the current inequities of the global
trading system are being perpetuated rather than resolved under the
WTO, given the unequal balance of power between member countries."
Activists point to the unequal footing and power between developed and
developing nations within the WTO and with respect to global trade,
most specifically in relation to the protectionist policies towards
agriculture enacted in many developed countries. These activists also
point out that heavy subsidization of developed nations' agriculture and
the aggressive use of export subsidies by some developed nations to
make their agricultural products more attractive on the international
market are major causes of declines in the agricultural sectors of many
developing nations.
Through the Internet, a movement began to develop in opposition to the doctrines of neoliberalism which were widely manifested in the 1990s when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) proposed liberalization of cross-border investment and trade restrictions through its Multilateral Agreement on Investment
(MAI). This treaty was prematurely exposed to public scrutiny and
subsequently abandoned in November 1998 in the face of strenuous protest
and criticism by national and international civil society representatives.
The neoliberal position argued that free trade
and reduction of public-sector regulation would bring benefits to poor
countries and to disadvantaged people in rich countries.
Anti-globalization advocates urge that preservation of the natural
environment, human rights (especially workplace rights and conditions)
and democratic institutions are likely to be placed at undue risk by
globalization unless mandatory standards are attached to liberalization.
Noam Chomsky stated in 2002 that
The term "globalization" has been
appropriated by the powerful to refer to a specific form of
international economic integration, one based on investor rights, with
the interests of people incidental. That is why the business press, in
its more honest moments, refers to the "free trade agreements" as "free
investment agreements" (Wall St. Journal). Accordingly, advocates of
other forms of globalization are described as "anti-globalization"; and
some, unfortunately, even accept this term, though it is a term of propaganda
that should be dismissed with ridicule. No sane person is opposed to
globalization, that is, international integration. Surely not the left
and the workers movements, which were founded on the principle of
international solidarity—that is, globalization in a form that attends
to the rights of people, not private power systems.
Anti-war movement
By 2002, many parts of the movement showed wide opposition to the impending invasion of Iraq.
Many participants were among those 11 million or more protesters that
on the weekend of February 15, 2003, participated in global protests against the imminent Iraq war. Other anti-war demonstrations were organized
by the antiglobalization movement: see for example the large
demonstration, organized against the impending war in Iraq, which closed
the first European Social Forum in November 2002 in Florence, Italy.
Anti-globalization militants worried for a proper functioning of
democratic institutions as the leaders of many democratic countries (Spain, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom) were acting against the wishes of the majorities of their populations in supporting the war.
Chomsky asserted that these leaders "showed their contempt for
democracy". Critics of this type of argument have tended to point out
that this is just a standard criticism of representative democracy
— a democratically elected government will not always act in the
direction of greatest current public support — and that, therefore,
there is no inconsistency in the leaders' positions given that these
countries are parliamentary democracies.
The economic and military issues are closely linked in the eyes of many within the movement.
Appropriateness of the term
The
movement has no singular name, chiefly because it has no singular
leader or consensus to give it one. It has been called a variety of
names based on its general advocation for social change, justice, and
radical activism, and its general opposition to capitalism, neoliberalism,
and corporate globalization. Activists also resisted using a name
conferred by corporate media to smear the intention of their protests.
Some activists were also not necessarily against globalization.
Many participants consider the term "anti-globalization" to be a misnomer. The term suggests that its followers support protectionism and/or nationalism,
which is not always the case – in fact, some supporters of
anti-globalization are strong opponents of both nationalism and
protectionism: for example, the No Border network
argues for unrestricted migration and the abolition of all national
border controls. S. A. Hamed Hosseini (an Australian sociologist and
expert in global social movement studies), argues that the term
anti-globalization can be ideal-typically used only to refer to only one
ideological vision he detects alongside three other visions (the anti-globalist, the alter-globalist and the alter-globalization). He argues that the three latter ideal-typical visions can be categorized under the title of global justice movement.
According to him, while the first two visions (the alter-globalism and
the anti-globalism) represent the reconstructed forms of old and new
left ideologies, respectively, in the context of current globalization,
only the third one has shown the capacity to respond more effectively to
the intellectual requirements of today's global complexities. Underlying this vision is a new conception of justice, coined accommodative justice by Hosseini, a new approach towards cosmopolitanism (transversal cosmopolitanism), a new mode of activist knowledge (accommodative consciousness), and a new format of solidarity, interactive solidarity.
Some activists, notably David Graeber, see the movement as opposed instead to neoliberalism or "corporate globalization".
He argues that the term "anti-globalization" is a term coined by the
media, and that radical activists are actually more in favor of
globalization, in the sense of "effacement of borders and the free
movement of people, possessions and ideas" than are the IMF or WTO. He
also notes that activists use the terms "globalization movement" and
"anti-globalization movement" interchangeably, indicating the confusion
of the terminology. The term "alter-globalization" has been used to make
this distinction clear.
While the term "anti-globalization" arose from the movement's opposition to free-trade agreements (which have often been considered part of something called "globalization"),
various participants contend they are opposed to only certain aspects
of globalization and instead describe themselves, at least in
French-speaking organizations, as "anti-capitalist", "anti-plutocracy," or "anti-corporate." Le Monde Diplomatique 's editor, Ignacio Ramonet's, expression of "the one-way thought" (pensée unique) became slang against neoliberal policies and the Washington consensus.
Nationalist opposition against globalization
The term "anti-globalization" does not distinguish the international leftist anti-globalization position from a strictly nationalist anti-globalization position. Many nationalist movements, such as the FrenchNational Front, Austrian Freedom Party, the Italian Lega Nord, the GreekGolden Dawn or the National Democratic Party of Germany are opposed to globalization, but argue that the alternative to globalization is the protection of the nation-state. Other groups, influenced by the Third Position, are also classifiable as anti-globalization. However, their overall world view is rejected by groups such as Peoples Global Action and anti-fascist movements such as ANTIFA. In response, the nationalist movements against globalization argue that the leftist anti-globalization position is actually support for alter-globalization.
Anti-WEF graffiti in Lausanne. The writing reads: La croissance est une folie ("Growth is madness").
Several influential critical works have inspired the anti-globalization movement. No Logo, the book by the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein who criticized the production practices of multinational corporations and the omnipresence of brand-driven marketing in popular culture, has become "manifesto"
of the movement, presenting in a simple way themes more accurately
developed in other works. In India some intellectual references of the
movement can be found in the works of Vandana Shiva, an ecologist and feminist, who in her book Biopiracy documents the way that the natural capital of indigenous peoples and ecoregions is converted into forms of intellectual capital, which are then recognized as exclusive commercial property without sharing the private utility thus derived. The writer Arundhati Roy is famous for her anti-nuclear position and her activism against India's massive hydroelectric dam project, sponsored by the World Bank. In France the well-known monthly paper Le Monde Diplomatique has advocated the antiglobalization cause and an editorial of its director Ignacio Ramonet brought about the foundation of the association ATTAC. Susan George of the Transnational Institute
has also been a long-term influence on the movement, as the writer of
books since 1986 on hunger, debt, international financial institutions
and capitalism. The works of Jean Ziegler, Christopher Chase-Dunn, and Immanuel Wallerstein
have detailed underdevelopment and dependence in a world ruled by the
capitalist system. Pacifist and anti-imperialist traditions have
strongly influenced the movement. Critics of United States foreign policy such as Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, and anti-globalist pranksters The Yes Men are widely accepted inside the movement.
Although they may not recognize themselves as antiglobalists and
are pro-capitalism, some economists who don't share the neoliberal
approach of international economic institutions have strongly influenced
the movement. Amartya Sen's Development as Freedom (Nobel Prize in Economics,
1999), argues that third world development must be understood as the
expansion of human capability, not simply the increase in national
income per capita, and thus requires policies attuned to health and
education, not simply GDP. James Tobin's (winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics) proposal for a tax on financial transactions (called, after him, the Tobin tax) has become part of the agenda of the movement. Also, George Soros, Joseph E. Stiglitz (another Economic Sciences Nobel prize winner, formerly of the World Bank, author of Globalization and Its Discontents) and David Korten have made arguments for drastically improving transparency, for debt relief, land reform, and restructuring corporate accountability systems. Korten and Stiglitz's contribution to the movement include involvement in direct actions and street protest.
In some Roman Catholic countries such as Italy there have been religious influences, especially from missionaries who have spent a long time in the Third World (the most famous being Alex Zanotelli).
Internet sources and free-information websites, such as Indymedia, are a means of diffusion of the movement's ideas. The vast array of material on spiritual movements, anarchism, libertarian socialism and the Green Movement that is now available on the Internet has been perhaps more influential than any printed book.
Although over the past years more emphasis has been given to the
construction of grassroots alternatives to (capitalist) globalization
and the movement's largest and most visible mode of organizing remains
mass decentralized campaigns of direct action and civil disobedience.
This mode of organizing, sometimes under the banner of the Peoples' Global Action
network, tries to tie the many disparate causes together into one
global struggle.
In many ways the process of organizing matters overall can be more
important to activists than the avowed goals or achievements of any
component of the movement.
At corporate summits, the stated goal of most demonstrations is
to stop the proceedings. Although the demonstrations rarely succeed in
more than delaying or inconveniencing the actual summits, this motivates
the mobilizations and gives them a visible, short-term purpose. This
form of publicity is expensive in police time and the public purse.
Rioting has occurred at some protests, for instance in Genoa, Seattle
and London – and extensive damage was done to the area, especially
targeting corporations, including McDonald's and Starbucks restaurants.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of formal coordinating
bodies, the movement manages to successfully organize large protests on a
global basis, using information technology to spread information and organize. Protesters organize themselves into "affinity groups,"
typically non-hierarchical groups of people who live close together and
share a common political goal. Affinity groups will then send
representatives to planning meetings. However, because these groups can
be infiltrated by law enforcement intelligence, important plans of the
protests are often not made until the last minute. One common tactic of
the protests is to split up based on willingness to break the law. This
is designed, with varying success, to protect the risk-averse from the
physical and legal dangers posed by confrontations with law enforcement.
For example, in Prague during the anti-IMF and World Bank protests in September 2000
demonstrators split into three distinct groups, approaching the
conference center from three directions: one engaging in various forms
of civil disobedience (the Yellow march), one (the Pink/Silver march)
advancing through "tactical frivolity"
(costume, dance, theatre, music, and artwork), and one (the Blue march)
engaging in violent conflicts with the baton-armed police, with the
protesters throwing cobblestones lifted from the street.
These demonstrations come to resemble small societies in
themselves. Many protesters take training in first aid and act as medics
to other injured protesters. In the US, some organizations like the National Lawyer's Guild and, to a lesser extent, the American Civil Liberties Union,
provide legal witnesses in case of law enforcement confrontation.
Protesters often claim that major media outlets do not properly report
on them; therefore, some of them created the Independent Media Center, a collective of protesters reporting on the actions as they happen.
The Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, that took place in West Berlin in 1988, saw strong protests that can be categorized as a precursor of the anti-globalization movement. One of the main and failed objectives (as it was to be so many times in the future) was to derail the meetings.
Paris89
A
counter summit against G7 was organized in Paris in July 1989. The event
was called "ça suffit comme ça" ("that is enough") and principally
aimed at cancelling the debt contracted by southern countries. A
demonstration gathered 10,000 people and an important concert was held
in la Bastille square with 200 000 people. It was the first anti-G7
event, fourteen years before that of Washington. The main political
consequence was that France took position to favor debt cancellation.
Madrid94
The 50th anniversary of the IMF and the World Bank, which was celebrated in Madrid in October 1994, was the scene of a protest by an ad hoc coalition of what would later be called anti-globalization movements.
Starting from the mid-1990s, Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World
Bank Group have become center points for anti-globalization movement
protests. They tried to drown the bankers' parties in noise from outside
and held other public forms of protest under the motto "50 Years is
Enough". While Spanish King Juan Carlos was addressing the participants in a huge exhibition hall, two Greenpeace activists climbed to the top and showered the attendants with fake dollar bills carrying the slogan "No $s for Ozone Layer Destruction". A number of the demonstrators were sent to the notorious Carabanchel prison.
J18
One of the
first international anti-globalization protests was organized in dozens
of cities around the world on June 18, 1999, with those in London and Eugene, Oregon most often noted. The drive was called the Carnival Against Capital, or J18 for short. The day coincided with the 25th G8 Summit in Cologne, Germany. The protest in Eugene turned into a riot where local anarchists drove police out of a small park. One anarchist, Robert Thaxton, was arrested and convicted of throwing a rock at a police officer.
Seattle/N30
The second major mobilization of the movement, known as N30, occurred
on November 30, 1999, when protesters blocked delegates' entrance to
WTO meetings in Seattle, Washington, USA.
The protests forced the cancellation of the opening ceremonies and
lasted the length of the meeting until December 3. There was a large,
permitted march by members of the AFL-CIO, and other unauthorized marches by assorted affinity groups who converged around the Convention Center. The protesters and Seattle riot police clashed in the streets after police fired tear gas at demonstrators who blocked the streets and refused to disperse. Over 600 protesters were arrested and thousands were injured. Three policemen were injured by friendly fire,
and one by a thrown rock. Some protesters destroyed the windows of
storefronts of businesses owned or franchised by targeted corporations
such as a large Nike shop and many Starbucks windows. The mayor put the city under the municipal equivalent of martial law and declared a curfew. As of 2002, the city of Seattle had paid over $200,000 in settlements of lawsuits filed against the Seattle Police Department for assault and wrongful arrest, with a class action lawsuit still pending.
Washington A16
In April 2000, around 10,000 to 15,000 protesters demonstrated at the IMF, and World Bank meeting (official numbers are not tallied). International Forum on Globalization (IFG) held training at Foundry United Methodist Church.
Police raided the Convergence Center, which was the staging warehouse
and activists' meeting hall on Florida Avenue on April 15.
The day before the larger protest scheduled on April 16, a smaller
group of protesters demonstration against the Prison-Industrial Complex
in the District of Columbia. Mass arrests were conducted; 678 people
were arrested on April 15. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winning, The Washington Post photographer Carol Guzy was detained by police and arrested on April 15, and two journalists for the Associated Press also reported being struck by police with batons.
On April 16 and 17 the demonstrations and street actions around the IMF
that followed, the number of those arrested grew to 1,300 people. A class action lawsuit was filed for false arrest. In June 2010, the class action suit for the April 15th events called 'Becker, et al. v. District of Columbia, et al.' were settled, with $13.7 million damages awarded.
Washington D.C. 2002
In
September 2002, estimated number of 1,500 to 2,000 people gathered to
demonstrate against the Annual Meetings of IMF and World Bank in the
streets of Washington D.C. Protesting groups included the Anti-Capitalist Convergence, the Mobilization for Global Justice.
649 people were reported arrested, five were charged with destruction
of property, while the others were charged with parading without a
permit, or failing to obey police orders to disperse. At least 17 reporters were in the round-up. Protestors sued in Federal Court about the arrests. The D.C. Attorney General had outside counsel investigate apparent destruction of evidence, and forensic investigations continue, and the testimony of the Chief of Police. In 2009, the city agreed to pay $8.25 million to almost 400 protesters and bystanders to end a class-action lawsuit over kettling and mass arrests in Pershing Park during 2002 World Bank protests
Law enforcement reaction
Although
local police were surprised by the size of N30, law enforcement
agencies have since reacted worldwide to prevent the disruption of
future events by a variety of tactics, including sheer weight of
numbers, infiltrating the groups to determine their plans, and
preparations for the use of force to remove protesters.
At the site of some of the protests, police have used tear gas,
pepper spray, concussion grenades, rubber and wooden bullets, night
sticks, water cannons, dogs, and horses to repel the protesters. After the November 2000 G20 protest in Montreal,
at which many protesters were beaten, trampled, and arrested in what
was intended to be a festive protest, the tactic of dividing protests
into "green" (permitted), "yellow" (not officially permitted but with
little confrontation and low risk of arrest), and "red" (involving
direct confrontation) zones was introduced.
In Quebec City, municipal officials built a 3-metre (10 ft) high wall around the portion of the city where the Summit of the Americas was being held, which only residents, delegates to the summit, and certain accredited journalists were allowed to pass through.
Gothenburg
Attack of police during the riots in Gothenburg, 15 June 2001
On June 15 and 16, 2001, a strong demonstration took place in Göteborg
during the meeting of the European Council in the Swedish city. Clashes
between police and protesters were exacerbated by the numerous
vandalism of the extreme fringes of the demonstrators, the so-called black-blocs.
Images of devastation bounced through the mass media, putting a
negative shadow on the movement, and increasing a sense of fear through
common people.
Genoa
The Genoa Group of Eight Summit protest
from July 18 to July 22, 2001 was one of the bloodiest protests in
Western Europe's recent history, as evidenced by the wounding of
hundreds of policemen and civilians forced to lock themselves inside of
their homes and the death of a young Genoese anarchist named Carlo Giuliani—who
was shot while trying to throw a fire extinguisher on a
policeman—during two days of violence and rioting by groups supported by
the nonchalance of more consistent and peaceful masses of protesters,
and the hospitalization of several of those peaceful demonstrators just
mentioned. Police have subsequently been accused of brutality, torture
and interference with the non-violent protests as a collateral damage
provoked by the clash between the law enforcement ranks themselves and
the more violent and brutal fringes of protesters, who repeatedly hid
themselves amongst peaceful protesters of all ages and backgrounds.
Several hundred peaceful demonstrators, rioters, and police were injured
and hundreds were arrested during the days surrounding the G8 meeting;
most of those arrested have been charged with some form of "criminal
association" under Italy's anti-mafia and anti-terrorist laws.
International social forums
The first World Social Forum (WSF) in 2001 was an initiative of Oded Grajew [pt], Chico Whitaker, and Bernard Cassen. It was supported by the city of Porto Alegre (where it took place) and the Brazilian Worker's Party. The motivation was to constitute a counter-event to the World Economic Forum held in Davos at the same time. The slogan of the WSF is "Another World Is Possible". An International Council
(IC) was set up to discuss and decide major issues regarding the WSF,
while the local organizing committee in the host city is responsible for
the practical preparations of the event.
In June 2001, the IC adopted the World Social Forum Charter of
Principles, which provides a framework for international, national, and
local Social Forums worldwide.
The WSF became a periodic meeting: in 2002 and 2003 it was held
again in Porto Alegre and became a rallying point for worldwide protest
against the American invasion of Iraq. In 2004 it was moved to Mumbai, India),
to make it more accessible to the populations of Asia and Africa. This
Forum had 75,000 delegates. In 2006 it was held in three cities: Caracas, Venezuela, Bamako, Mali, and Karachi, Pakistan. In 2007, the Forum was hosted in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2009 it was in Belém, Brazil, and in 2011 it was in Dakar, Senegal. In 2012, the WSF returned to Porto Alegre.
The idea of creating a meeting place for organizations and individuals opposed to Neoliberalism was soon replicated elsewhere. The first European Social Forum (ESF) was held in November 2002 in Florence.
The slogan was "Against the war, against racism and against
neo-liberalism". It saw the participation of 60,000 delegates and ended
with a huge demonstration against the war (1,000,000 people according to
the organizers). The following ESFs took place in Paris (2003), London (2004), Athens (2006), Malmö (2008), and the latest ESF in Istanbul (2010).
In many countries Social Forums of national and local scope were also held.
Recently there has been some discussion behind the movement about
the role of the social forums. Some see them as a "popular university",
an occasion to make many people aware of the problems of globalization.
Others would prefer that delegates concentrate their efforts on the
coordination and organization of the movement and on the planning of new
campaigns. However it has often been argued that in the dominated
countries (most of the world) the WSF is little more than an 'NGO fair'
driven by Northern NGOs and donors most of which are hostile to popular
movements of the poor.
North Korea
After
the Second World War, North Korea followed a policy of
anti-globalization. However, in recent decades have shown a distinctive
rise in globalization movements in North Korea. North Korea introduced a
number of reforms in areas such as technology and trade.
The reform that had the most significance to North Korea was trade.
North Korea saw a change in trading partnerships. They now not only
traded with themselves but also with South Korea and China. North Korea
introduced these reforms because they were lacking in areas of
technology and trade and they realized that they could not maintain
themselves as a society without help from other nations. But even with
these new reforms North Korea still remains the most isolated society in
the world.
Impact
The
global justice movement has been quite successful in achieving some of
its key aims, according to academic and global justice movement activist
David Graeber.
For example, many countries no longer rely on IMF loans and so, by the
mid-2000s, IMF lending was at its lowest share of world GDP since the 1970s.
Criticisms
The anti-globalization movement has been criticized by politicians, members of conservativethink tanks, and many mainstream economists.
Lack of evidence
Critics
assert that the empirical evidence does not support the views of the
anti-globalization movement. These critics point to statistical trends
which are interpreted to be results of globalization, capitalism, and
the economic growth they encourage.
There has been an absolute decrease in the percentage of people
in developing countries living below $1 per day in east Asia (adjusted
for inflation and purchasing power). Sub Saharan Africa, as an area that
felt the consequences of poor governance and was less responsive to
globalization, has seen an increase in poverty while all other areas of
the world have seen no change in rates.
The world income per head has increased by more over period 2002–2007 than during any other period on the record.
The increase in universal suffrage, from no nations in 1900 to 62.5% of all nations in 2000.
There are similar trends for electric power, cars, radios, and
telephones per capita as well as the percentage of the population with
access to clean water.
However 1.4 billion people still live without clean drinking water and
2.6 billion of the world's population lack access to proper sanitation.
Members of the anti-globalization movement argue that positive data
from countries which largely ignored neoliberal prescriptions, notably
China, discredits the evidence that pro-globalists present. For example,
concerning the parameter of per capita income growth, development
economist Ha-Joon Chang
writes that considering the record of the last two decades the argument
for continuing neo-liberal policy prescriptions are "simply untenable."
Noting that "It depends on the data we use, but roughly speaking, per
capita income in developing countries grew at 3% per year between 1960
and 1980, but has grown only at about 1.5% between 1980 and 2000. And
even this 1.5% will be reduced to 1%, if we take out India and China,
which have not pursued liberal trade and industrial policies recommended
by the developed countries." Economist and political scientist Mark Pennington and NYU professor of economics William Easterly have individually accused Chang of employing strawman arguments, ignoring counter-data and failing to employ basic scientific controls to his claims.
Jagdish Bhagwati
argues that reforms that opened up the economies of China and India
contributed to their higher growth in 1980s and 1990s. From 1980 to 2000
their GDP grew at average rate of 10 and 6 percent respectively. This
was accompanied by reduction of poverty from 28 percent in 1978 to 9
percent in 1998 in China, and from 51 percent in 1978 to 26 percent in
2000 in India.
Likewise, Joseph E. Stiglitz, speaking not only on China but East Asia
in general, comments "The countries that have managed
globalization...such as those in East Asia, have, by and large, ensured
that they reaped huge benefits..." According to The Heritage Foundation, development in China was anticipated by Milton Friedman,
who predicted that even a small progress towards economic
liberalization would produce dramatic and positive effects. China's
economy had grown together with its economic freedom.
Critics of corporate-led globalization have expressed concern about the
methodology used in arriving at the World Bank's statistics and argue
that more detailed variables measuring poverty should be studied. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research
(CEPR), the period from 1980 to 2005 has seen diminished progress in
terms of economic growth, life expectancy, infant and child mortality,
and to a lesser extent education.
Disorganization
One
of the most common criticisms of the movement, which does not
necessarily come from its opponents, is simply that the
anti-globalization movement lacks coherent goals, and that the views of
different protesters are often in opposition to each other.
Many members of the movement are also aware of this, and argue that, as
long as they have a common opponent, they should march together – even
if they don't share exactly the same political vision. Writers Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri have together in their books (Empire & Multitude) expanded on this idea of a disunified multitude: humans coming together for shared causes, but lacking the complete sameness of the notion of 'the people'.
Lack of effectiveness
One argument often made by the opponents of the anti-globalization movement (especially by The Economist),
is that one of the major causes of poverty amongst third-world farmers
are the trade barriers put up by rich nations and poor nations alike.
The WTO
is an organization set up to work towards removing those trade
barriers. Therefore, it is argued, people really concerned about the
plight of the third world should actually be encouraging free trade,
rather than attempting to fight it. Specifically, commodities such as
sugar are heavily distorted by subsidies on behalf of powerful economies
(the United States, Europe, and Japan), who have a disproportionate
influence in the WTO. As a result, producers in these countries often
receive 2-3x the world market price. As Amani Elobeid and John Beghin
note, the world price might decline by as much as 48% (by 2011 / 2012
baselines), were these distortions to be removed.
Many supporters of globalization think that policies different
from those of today should be pursued, although not necessarily those
advocated by the anti-globalization movement. For example, some see the
World Bank and the IMF as corrupt bureaucracies which have given
repeated loans to dictators who never do any reforms. Some, like Hernando De Soto,
argue that much of the poverty in the Third World countries is caused
by the lack of Western systems of laws and well-defined and universally
recognized property rights.
De Soto argues that because of the legal barriers poor people in those
countries can not utilize their assets to produce more wealth.
Lack of widespread support in developing countries
Critics have asserted that people from poor and developing countries
have been relatively accepting and supportive of globalization while
the strongest opposition to globalization has come from activists,
unions, and NGOs in wealthier developed countries.
Alan Shipman, author of "The Globalization Myth" accuses the
anti-globalization movement of "defusing the Western class war by
shifting alienation and exploitation to developing-country sweatshops."
He later goes on to claim that the anti-globalization movement has
failed to attract widespread support from poor and working people from
the developing nations, and that its "strongest and most uncomprehending
critics had always been the workers whose liberation from employment
they were trying to secure."
These critics assert that people from the Third World see the
anti-globalization movement as a threat to their jobs, wages, consuming
options and livelihoods, and that a cessation or reversal of
globalization would result in many people in poor countries being left
in greater poverty. Jesús F. Reyes Heroles
the former Mexican Ambassador to the US, stated that "in a poor country
like ours, the alternative to low-paid jobs isn't well-paid ones, it's
no jobs at all."
Egypt's Ambassador to the UN has also stated "The question is why all of a sudden, when third world
labor has proved to be competitive, why do industrial countries start
feeling concerned about our workers? When all of a sudden there is a
concern about the welfare of our workers, it is suspicious."
On the other hand, there have been notable protests against
certain globalization policies by workers in developing nations as in
the cause of Indian farmers protesting against patenting seeds.
In the last few years, many developing countries (esp. in Latin
America and Caribbean) created alter-globalization organizations as
economic blocs Mercosur and Unasur, political community CELAC or Bank of the South which are supporting development of low income countries without involvement from IMF or World Bank.
