Lectures 8 & 9 (2009)
The film ‘The Fourth World War’ is one narrative of resistance to neoliberalism or corporate globalisation from within what has come to be known as the alter-globalisation or anti-globalisation movement. While the term ‘anti-globalisation movement’ has gained popularity in the mainstream media and academia, many activists from within the movement have begun to use the word ‘alter-globalisation’ to signify an other or alternative form of globalisation, to reflect both a critique of corporate globalisation and a belief in the possibility for a different kind of globalisation. Use of the latter term would also signify a belief that the increasing interconnectedness at a global level has had both positive and negative results, the positives lying primarily in the growth of connections between and amongst those fighting the effects of neoliberal policies or corporate globalisation. The development of technology and the emergence of global activist networks would also be celebrated as positive outcomes of globalisation.
‘The Fourth World War’ was made by two activists from New York, Rick Rowley and Jacqui Soohen, who threaded into a single narrative footage collected by themselves and others from struggles in Mexico, Argentina, South Korea, South Africa, Canada, the USA, Palestine, and Iraq. They have lived in or visited many of the places that feature in the film. They were in South Africa in 2002 during and after the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and were present in Cape Town during the struggles of the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC) documented in the film. They come from a particular tradition of struggle within the movement in which a critique of the mainstream media and representation under neoliberalism has emerged. This critique and alternative to the mainstream media is represented in particular by the Indymedia (or Independent Media) network. Indymedia emerged in 1999 during the anti-WTO protests in Seattle when activists outraged by the representation of protests and protesters in the mainstream media set up their own network to produce their own stories and disseminate information about the protests. Making use of the internet, video, audio and print technology, the network has since grown globally – see http://indymedia.org The guiding philosophy of the network is the enabling of the unmediated production of stories and knowledge, that is, the belief that people are able to tell their own stories without the mediation of the news. Rick and Jacqui, coming from this network and tradition, tell us that they are presenting us with one story of corporate globalisation and resistance against it. They are not, then, setting out to give us an objective account of neoliberalism. Instead, they speak from within various struggles against corporate globalisation and the power of the USA, and give us one understanding that has emerged from within this alter-globalisation movement of what the alternative to neoliberalism is. This understanding falls broadly within those traditions that would be called autonomist and anarchist. These traditions are critical of the state form and the reach of the market and speak of alternatives in terms of autonomy from the state and the market.
The film draws quite heavily from and builds on the autonomous thinking of the Zapatistas, a self-organised community of indigenous people in Chiapas, one of the poorest states in Mexico. Under the leadership of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), the Zapatistas have held land and lived in community against and outside the command of the Mexican state since 1994. In the film, we hear their ‘leader’ (masked), Subcommandante Marcos, speak out against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), adopted in 1994, to open up trade barriers between North America, Canada and Mexico in the interests of corporate capital. While the EZLN was established to defend the autonomous community’s territories from attack by the Mexican army, the Zaptistas have put forward new ways of thinking about organising and living – in non-hierarchical ways that depend on social relations of equality outside of the state and the market. Read the article by Subcommandante Marcos in your course pack. It shows very clearly the influence of Zapatista philosophy on the making of the film:
- the pervasiveness of war in all forms – war in its traditional forms (Iraq and Palestine) and in new forms; the end of the Cold War (the third world war) has been followed by the fourth world war (neoliberalism) – felt in everyday life, in the violence of institutions and structures, in the relations between neighbours; on the body – numbing us to the depth of things; us seeing only surfaces; forcing each of us to assume a position in these wars; neoliberalism as this/these war/s.
- the enemy not easily defined – known and felt in many forms;
- resistance outside of the traditional forms (e.g. the party) – in the streets; against Power; ‘The time to dialogue with power has ended’; refusal, disobedience.
- the alternative as made by us, in struggle – Zapatista slogan – ‘Walking we ask questions’ – the belief that there is no predetermined solution to the problems we are confronting, but that the answer/s lie in our coming together in struggle against them. ‘The story that remains is the story that will be written by us.’ Also the belief that we come to know each other (outside of the relations through which neoliberalism produces us) in struggle and to build new social relations in and through struggle. ‘Life is a struggle’ – woman occupying land in the film – the belief that we struggle for and make the life we live in the here and now, and not prepare for some perfect future that might still come.
- Self reliance – not relying on the state, but making demands of it and/or turning one’s back on it. [Explore each through discussion].
- ‘I am the other’; wearing the mask as symbol of each of us becoming the other in struggle, that is, in recognition of our common but different experience of neoliberalism and our decision to refuse it, to fight against it, and to build outside of and against it.
The film draws the different experiences of corporate globalisation into the single narrative as framed by the above themes – discuss through the examples – South Korea (1996), Argentina (2001) – ‘Let them all go’, etc.
There are other political traditions and approaches to change that make up the alter-globalisation movement. These can be categorise, very broadly, in the following manner:
- The ‘Old Left’ or traditional left parties, organisations, coalitions, and other groupings – formations that tend to be guided by a single over-arching ideology or philosophy e.g. various strains of socialism. Examples here would include the Third World Network (with Samir Amin), and the Workers’ Party of Brazil. Alternatives in these spaces would be imagined in terms of the struggle to change the role and powers of nation states through, for example, the strengthening of representative organs (e.g. political parties) of the working class in order to seize state power and effect change, and the strengthening of links between developing nation-states against the interests of the developed capitalist world. The successes of working class organisations and representatives in countries like Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia would be celebrated here as examples of alternatives to neoliberalism in the making. Contestation of the UN system and the dominance of the USA in institutions like the IMF and World Bank would also be prioritised here.
- Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international donor organisations – such formations tend to prioritise alternatives that are possible within existing global and local juridical and economic frameworks. Strategies for changes include lobbying and advocacy work, in particular working within the human rights frameworks established through the UN system. In the main, these organisations see themselves as ‘empowering’ ordinary people through funding, capacity building, training and education, and legal assistance. In most cases, this category of formations encourage and facilitate engagement with the state by citizens, working from the belief that a state should be held accountable to its citizens, and that they can provide assistance to the state in its delivery to its citizens.
Each of these traditions/approaches (autonomist and anarchist; ‘old left’; and NGO and donor) can be found in new social movements – those taking up environmental issues, basic services, gay rights, women’s rights, access to land, education, health. New social movements, and the alter-globalisation movement, are characterised by a diversity of ideologies, tactics, and strategies.
[Much of the lecture involved debate and discussion of the film, as well as a review of the upcoming test.]
