Re: <nettime> Pierre Khalfa (ATTAC-France) on violence & the movement after Genoa

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

After Genoa, there is a lot of discussion going on within and about the 
future of 'the movement', quite some, but not all of which is very 
helpful. In my opinion, Pierre Khalfa's contribution belongs to the former 
rather than to the latter category, and that is the reason why I forwarded 
it.

I would strongly disagree with Nik on his appreciation that the train of
'the movement' is now being boarded while moving on all sides by hordes of
fellow (and apparently 'ticketless') travellers. The opposition against 
what is now termed corporate globalisation has a long history (Oxfam, for 
instance was founded just after the war. Its brief has not changed very 
much since)

What is true however, and what probably prompts him to dubb the more
'institutionalised' parts of 'the movement' as Johny-comes-latelies, is
that there has been a break in activism somewhere in the late eighties -
early nineties, when a lot of people in the so-called (then) Third World
movement moved onto well paid NGO jobs where they could lobby for
'development' in more confortable surroundings (hey, we have a mortgage
and a family to sustain!)  and have since not been seen in the streets,
especially not when the police goes on rampage.

That some of these very same people now blame 'the violence' on assorted 
Black Bloc, anarchists etc. is of course most unhelpful, but should not 
distract from the need to have an as broad as possible alliance of forces 
to oppose corporate globalisation. And I think that is the positive lesson 
from Genoa. An other world is possible, even if it is a long road.

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