[Reader-list] Negri-Hardt on Genoa

[Shekhar Krishnan]

NY Times July 20, 2001
>
>               What the Protesters in Genoa Want
>
>               By MICHAEL HARDT and ANTONIO NEGRI
>
>Genoa, that Renaissance city known for both openness and shrewd
>political sophistication, is in crisis this weekend. It should have thrown
>its gates wide for the celebration of this summit of the world's most
>powerful leaders. But instead Genoa has been transformed into a
>medieval fortress of barricades with high-tech controls. The ruling
>ideology about the present form of globalization is that there is no
>alternative. And strangely, this restricts both the rulers and the ruled.
>
>Leaders of the Group of Eight have no choice but to attempt a show of
>political sophistication. They try to appear charitable and transparent in
>their goals. They promise to aid the world's poor and they genuflect to
>Pope John Paul II and his interests. But the real agenda is to
>renegotiate relations among the powerful, on issues such as the
>construction of missile defense systems.
>
>The leaders, however, seem detached somehow from the
>transformations around them, as though they are following the stage
>directions from a dated play. We can see the photo already, though it
>has not yet been taken: President George W. Bush as an unlikely king,
>bolstered by lesser monarchs. This is not quite an image of the future. It
>resembles more an archival photo, pre-1914, of superannuated royal
>potentates.
>
>Those demonstrating against the summit in Genoa, however, are not
>distracted by these old-fashioned symbols of power. They know that a
>fundamentally new global system is being formed. It can no longer be
>understood in terms of British, French, Russian or even American
>imperialism.
>
>The many protests that have led up to Genoa were based on the
>recognition that no national power is in control of the present global
>order. Consequently protests must be directed at international and
>supranational organizations, such as the G-8, the World Trade
>Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The
>movements are not anti-American, as they often appear, but aimed at a
>different, larger power structure.
>
>If it is not national but supranational powers that rule today's
>globalization, however, we must recognize that this new order has no
>democratic institutional mechanisms for representation, as nation-
>states do: no elections, no public forum for debate.
>
>The rulers are effectively blind and deaf to the ruled. The protesters take
>to the streets because this is the form of expression available to them.
>The lack of other venues and social mechanisms is not their creation.
>
>Antiglobalization is not an adequate characterization of the protesters in
>Genoa (or Göteborg, Quebec, Prague, or Seattle). The globalization
>debate will remain hopelessly confused, in fact, unless we insist on
>qualifying the term globalization. The protesters are indeed united
>against the present form of capitalist globalization, but the vast majority
>of them are not against globalizing currents and forces as such; they
>are not isolationist, separatist or even nationalist.
>
>The protests themselves have become global movements and one of
>their clearest objectives is for the democratization of globalizing
>processes. It should not be called an antiglobalization movement. It is
>pro-globalization, or rather an alternative globalization movement — one
>that seeks to eliminate inequalities between rich and poor and between
>the powerful and the powerless, and to expand the possibilities of self-
>determination.
>
>If we understand one thing from the multitude of voices in Genoa this
>weekend, it should be that a different and better future is possible.
>When one recognizes the tremendous power of the international and
>supranational forces that support our present form of globalization, one
>could conclude that resistance is futile.
>
>But those in the streets today are foolish enough to believe that
>alternatives are possible — that "inevitability" should not be the last
>word in politics. A new species of political activist has been born with a
>spirit that is reminiscent of the paradoxical idealism of the 1960's — the
>realistic course of action today is to demand what is seemingly
>impossible, that is, something new.
>
>Protest movements are an integral part of a democratic society and, for
>this reason alone, we should all thank those in the streets in Genoa,
>whether we agree with them or not. Protest movements, however, do not
>provide a practical blueprint for how to solve problems, and we should
>not expect that of them. They seek rather to transform the public
>agenda by creating political desires for a better future.   We see seeds
>of that future already in the sea of faces that stretches from the streets
>of Seattle to those of Genoa. One of the most remarkable
>characteristics of these movements is their diversity: trade unionists
>together with ecologists together with priests and communists. We are
>beginning to see emerge a multitude that is not defined by any single
>identity, but can discover commonality in its multiplicity.
>
>These movements are what link Genoa this weekend most clearly to the
>openness — toward new kinds of exchange and new ideas — of its
>Renaissance past.
>
>Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri are the authors of "Empire.''
_____

Shekhar Krishnan
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