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What does the Terror Attack on the World Trade Center mean for the Anti-Globalization Movement?

By Gretchen Dutschke Klotz

After the first shock and the feeling of personal involvement (a feeling shared by people all over the world, not only Americans and not only the people of New York, Washington and Boston) we begin to analyze and to figure out what all of this is going to mean for us. As an American I suddenly saw myself placed in a strange contradiction which I did not immediately know how to resolve. Nor do I now know. But I hope we can begin a discussion of this.

We are the object of the terrorist attacks simply because we were born in America. It doesn’t matter what our politics are. On the other hand we know why the people of the third world hate us. And we oppose the policies of our government which have led to this situation. I must admit that my first thought when I saw those buildings collapsing and the screaming people streaming out of them, was how can I go to Washington and demonstrate when it will seem as if we are demonstrating for the terrorists who want to kill us? If even I thought that, what will the average media dependent, non critical American think.

Certainly, such thoughts didn’t last long. Because I quickly realized that the reason all those people had to die is because our government has been killing in Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Columbia, Guatemala, Iraq, Serbia, killing also by creating poverty and starvation in so many countries as capitalization destroys traditional infrastructures. People are angry because of the endless killing. They fight back. And we die too. That’s how it is. You cannot kill decade after decade and not suppose the victims will remain passive forever.

The thing about corporate globalization is that although the corporations which are part of the world wide network originated in many countries, they are now multi-national. Is Siemens still German? What about DaimlerChrysler? Shell? Random House? And so on. So why is the USA the target? Is it because the USA blatantly proclaims and practices the politics of the global corporations without even trying to act as if they cared about the environment and ordinary people all over the world? While at the same time other nations whose multinational corporations have just as much benefit from these US policies try to act as if they cared about people and the environment? Or maybe it’s simply because the USA is bigger, much bigger, than any of the others and it has a weapon arsenal which can destroy the world several times over.

In any case, the horror of what happened in New York is fading as the United States gears up for war in the Middle East. Our media attuned eyes now see aircraft carriers, tanks, and soldiers filing into airplanes. We see Kabul, a city of ruins, where poverty stricken people either try to escape to a maybe safer place or resign themselves to yet more war. So this is the side of globalization that we recognize quite well: the war against the world in order to feed the hunger of those global corporations.

The military industrial section is happy for the war in Afghanistan. The energy industries want secure oil supplies. Since most oil reserves are in the Middle East it is important for the global corporations to have control over them. The US military will do its job and guarantee sufficient oil for the corporations that need it. Well, not all corporations. The point is that even if there is a blurring of national interests in the global economy, there still are nations ! and national interests. Multinational corporations which put themselves under the American shield will get what they want, as long as they subject themselves to US conditions.

The reasons why the anti-globalization movement started in the first place are being paraded before our eyes again. In order to secure resources, in order to provide profits for corporations, the lives of people all over the world are being expunged. Within the US national security forces designated to fight terrorists will clamp down on all opposition. What is to be done?