Appreciating the Movement of the Movements

Abstract

This review essay surveys the theoretical insights emerging from within the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement, also known as the Anti-Globalisation Movement, or the Movement of the Movements, and also reviews the literature focused on this phenomenon by those closely involved, as well as other observers. The central concern is to understand the nature and significance of the Movement of the Movements as it operates across local, national, and global boundaries, and to consider its capacity to represent and mobilise the many millions worldwide who stand to gain little or nothing, but may lose a great deal, from neo-liberal globalisation.

Notes

1. According to Graeber (2002:61), ‘It's hard to think of another time when there has been such a gulf between intellectuals and activists; between theorists of revolution and its practitioners. Writers who for years have been publishing essays that sound like position papers for vast social movements that do not in fact exist seem seized with confusion or worse, dismissive contempt, now that real ones are everywhere emerging.’ However, Graeber probably overstated his case, even in 2002.

2. Wainwright's study contains an excellent annotated listing of most key activist and research networks with websites and postal addresses, which is a good starting point for someone interested in learning about the field of the Movement of the Movements. Among her many positions, Wainwright is connected with the Transnational Institute (TNI) in Amsterdam and the Centre for Global Governance at the London School of Economics (LSE).

3. Gateway sites include Indymedia (www.indymedia.org), which operates in approximately 50 countries, and Our World is Not for Sale, a hub for activists (www.ourworldisnotforsale.org), and finally People's Global Action, which co-ordinates such groups as Ya Basta! in Europe and the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement (MST) (at www.agp.org). This list is by no means adequate, but constitutes a realistic starting point for anyone who wishes to explore the thousands of interrelated web sites that make up the virtual Movement of the Movements. Training in non-violent direct action and civil disobedience is provided by the inimitable Ruckus Society (at www.ruckus.org).

4. At the WSF and regional Social Forums, the work of translation has been undertaken by Babel, an organisation set up in Barcelona. For discussion of translation issues, see Bullard (2005) and De Sousa Santos (2005).

5. I owe much to the Community Development Journal, which enabled me to work out some ideas on activism through being on the editorial board for many years, and being invited to write a piece for the journal on ‘something hopeful’ (Hintjens 2000). In The Hague, I am grateful to know Peter Waterman, who has responded to my constant enquiries about activism in the Netherlands with patience and restrained supportiveness.

6. Michel Albert (2002:125) asserts that the left needs to answer three crucial questions before it can get people motivated to become involved en masse. These are: What do we want?, How do we get it? and What can I do that will matter? However, Albert's approach is rather classical, to the extent that he asks the question in terms of ‘we’, begging the further question of who belongs to this ‘we’.

7. Monbiot (2003: 6) for example suggests an all-or-nothing solution: ‘Unless we are prepared to take our arguments to their logical conclusion [i.e. democratic world government], we may as well furl our banners and go home’. Yet because of his insistence on democratic principles, Monbiot acknowledges a few pages later that ‘… if, in the initial referenda, the people of the world reject a world parliament, then a world parliament will not come into existence’ (p.109).

8. The Polycentric World Social Forum 2006 was proposed in January 2005 in Porto Alegre as an attempt to globalise the experience of the World Social Forum, reducing transport costs and making the Forum more accessible to marginal voices.

9. Peter Waterman, personal communication, 18 May 2005.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen Hintjens

Helen Hintjens lectures in Development and Social Justice at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. Before that she worked for many years at the Centre for Development Studies in Swansea, Wales. She has published extensively on post-colonial relations, human rights, and social justice in the context of Rwanda, of the French, British, and Dutch Caribbean, and in relation to asylum and refugee issues. Her interest in assessing global social-justice movements arises out of a long-term concern to combine research on refugee and asylum rights in Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK, with a commitment to advocacy and policy work in this broad area, especially given the current cold political climate for North–South relations.