War on free trade tops the agenda at activist school

Saturday, January 27, 2001
MARK MacKINNON, Globe&Mail

PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL -- They sit in a sweaty classroom with the summer sun beaming through an open window. Fifty-three people -- overcrowded by any standard -- take notes and raise their hands to ask questions as the teacher speaks.

The subject isn't math or science. It's the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas and how to stop it. This southern Brazilian city is filled with antiglobalization activists from North and South America, some of whom are veterans of the protests that rocked Seattle and Prague in the past two years. The lesson being taught now is simple: The FTAA, like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, is an anti-democratic tool that will make big corporations richer while the average citizen's quality of life erodes.

The way to stop the FTAA from happening? Show up en masse in Quebec City this April for the Summit of the Americas, when the Western hemisphere's heads of government are to next meet, and make yourself heard. Or so the class is told.

Alicia Daughtrey, a young American activist leading the session, talks to the class about the "success" of the Seattle protests -- which at times degenerated into a running street battle with riot police -- and how that model must be relied upon again at Quebec City.

"The hope is that -- as we saw with the WTO meetings in Seattle -- having those marchers outside and having a strong grassroots organization will shake the negotiators so they're forced to change," she says. Across the street a line of police stand guard over a local McDonald's, fearing it might be a target once class lets out.

But the meeting in Porto Alegre, with some 5,000 registered participants (an estimated 15,000 more participated in an opening march through the city's streets), has been peaceful. Dubbed the World Social Forum, the goal is to work toward a vision of society that this worldwide movement of activists supports, rather than talk about all the things it opposes.

However, everyone foresees a return to street protests. "I know there are going to be great protests in Quebec City," says 21-year-old Julia di Giovanni, a university student from Sao Paulo. "There are many people here in the forums trying to organize a unified protest from the south to Alaska."

In halting English, Ms. di Giovanni says she'll be there, placard in hand, "if I can find the money." At the forefront of this anti-FTAA battle are Canadians, including about 30 delegates at the forum. Throughout the FTAA primer class, Canadians get to their feet to speak about the negative impact on Canada of the 1988 Free Trade Agreement with the United States, and the subsequent expansion of that deal to include Mexico. They detail how the trade agreements have eroded sovereignty and made it difficult for governments to introduce new environmental protections and labour standards. The Central and South American delegates listen attentively, nodding their heads and asking questions about how they can best help the fight.

Most in the crowd are young students, several sporting T-shirts bearing a picture of revolutionary leader Che Guevara. But sprinkled through the room are older activists who've never given up hoping.

Maude Barlow, chairwoman of the nationalist Council of Canadians, sits at the front of the classroom, behind a long desk where the teacher might ordinarily be. She lets others do most of the talking, but when she speaks people listen.

"We should consider this a struggle or a war against our governments -- they're on the wrong side," the onetime Liberal says solemnly, to cheers. She adds that the FTAA threatens public services, like health care and education, by potentially opening them up to bidding by private, profit-driven, companies.

Her credibility is questioned by some in Canada, who view her as having cried wolf once too often. But around the World Social Forum, she's known simply as "Maude," one of the acknowledged founders of a movement that's grown beyond her highest hopes. What began as a losing fight against the 1988 free-trade deal grew into something bigger when the Council of Canadians -- now, with 100,000 paid members, a larger organization than the New Democratic Party -- hooked up with counterparts in Mexico and the United States to try and block the North American free-trade agreement in 1993.

It grew again during a successful campaign to prevent the signing of the Multilateral Agreement on Investments in 1998. That struggle made the antiglobalization movement an international force, one that uses the Internet to share information and organize rallies around the globe.

"We could not have done Seattle if not for the MAI," Ms. Barlow says. "Contacts were made, the Internet campaign was launched. It was the first global fight."