Collapse in Cancün
Submitted by Reverend Chuck0:Collapse in Cancün
by Doug Henwood
The Nation
October 10, 2003
The mid-September failure of the World Trade Organization's ministerial conference in Canc(r)n was widely cheered on the left. A Global Exchange (GX) press release described it as a "failure...for the giant transnational corporations that are manipulating the trade agenda to engineer a power grab that will dramatically reduce the strength of democratically elected government." GX's Kevin Danaher celebrated a new alliance between NGOs and Third World governments, spurred on by protesters snipping open the fences insulating the delegates.
I love the movement behind those protests and consider myself part of it. I was in Seattle in December 1999 and contributed to this magazine's coverage. It was one of the most exhilarating weeks of my life. Finally, the abstractions of global capitalism had a home address where protests could be sent. But after the wreckage at Cancün, we need to think about a few things.
