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THE SEATTLE PROTEST

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The 1999 Seattle WTO Protests Linh Nguyen Course Director: Professor Eduardo Canel Teaching Assistant: Angelica Hasbon 17 February 2020 York University

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In November 1999, a conference was held by the WTO in order to begin a new Millennial Round of trade negotiation. However, thousands of protesters gathered outside the building, which resulted in the meeting being disrupted. This event gained widespread recognition, and it was later known as the 1999 Seattle WTO Protest. The protest set a precedent for the later anti-globalization movement, as it was able to shut down WTO meeting, which had never happened before. Nevertheless, even though the protest was a huge success, it is not advisable for the social movements to follow the footstep of it, as the tactics used in Seattle 1999 are proved to be both unsuitable nowadays. In this essay, I will be talking about the protest in detail, as well as discussing about the development issues addressed by the protest. Finally, I am going to point out why it is not advisable for the present movements to adopt the same tactics as the 1999 Seattle did. The 1999 Seattle Protest The origin, goal, and targets of the protest. The protesters made it clear to the public that their goal is to shut down the WTO in order to prevent globalization, which favors the corporations and facilitates corporations’ greed. According to Epstein (2010), it was no surprise that big firms such as the Nike and the Gap were targets of the Seattle protesters. Even before Seattle, there had been a huge pressure from activists that made firms pay more attention to the labour and environmental issues. Among thousands of people participating in the protest, there was a vast majority of members from either labour unions or environmental organization. The labour union claimed that globalization could cause numerous American workers to be unemployed, as corporates would export jobs to other countries’ workers, which are cheaper in price. The labour standard would be lower, which violates the rights of workers in the less developed countries. The environmental organization,

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on the other hand, stated that the trade agreement would lead to pollution export to countries that could not afford strict regulation (Epstein & Schnietz, 2010). The Seattle Protest not only targeted at corporation, but it went beyond so. It criticized the capitalist globalization, which could be facilitated had the 1999 WTO meeting succeeded. Capitalist globalization makes resources available to be exploited by the states and global capital. It is a brutal system, yet, it is still demonstrated as a palatable enough system for people to continue (Smith J. , 2020). Therefore, it was necessary to expose the true face of this system. Another reason for the protest is that people had lost their trust to the WTO. According to Smith (2000), in order to tackle problems regarding to the globalization problems, there was a suggestion that the people representative should have their say in the WTO meeting. However, he deemed the idea as naïve since WTO is an organization for the national leaders, and that people representatives sitting in the same would not bring any social change. The author also noted that WTO is a trading organization that was managed by the rich. Therefore, its rules are only to benefit the rich and to help business do more business. Tactics used by the protesters. Wood (2020) noted that the Seattle protest was not at all innovative. There were massive march and rallies. There were nongovernmental organizations leading the counter-summit. There were meetings and press conference. All of which had already been done before. However, what made the protest so well-known and successful was the direct action, which included the use of the blockage, or more specifically the lockbox. It was indeed an effective tactic as the blockage was able to close off the center of the city, and as a result, successfully prevent delegates to attend the WTO meeting. The protesters also used the consensus decision-making model, where members of the protest were divided into hundreds of affinity group. Each group would decide

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the place they would occupy and the tactics they would use. After they made their final decision, the group will send one representative to attend meetings at a vacant warehouse. These meetings were to make sure that every place got covered and to keep each other informed. The representatives, however, were not encouraged to reveal their groups’ tactics, as there might be outsiders sneaking into the meeting (Gillham & Marx, 2000). In addition, there were also a formation of black bloc, where the protesters would cover themselves in black clothing (more particularly black masks) and destroy corporates’ symbols (Wainwright, 2000). Development issues addressed by the protests The Seattle protest addressed issues regarding the inequality, poverty, labour, and environment. In summary, the protest stood its opposition to the neoliberalism, which is the source for all the problems above. According to the textbook (Haslam, 2017), neoliberal policies have contributed immensely to the social inequalities, more specifically to the inequalities between the Global North and the Global South. With the facilitation of globalization, Global North corporation can easily enter into the market of the Global South. Thus, the local business will be greatly damage as it cannot afford as much competitive edge as the huge foreign corporations. Furthermore, neoliberalism combined with globalization create more opportunities for the rich to accumulate even more wealth. According to Haslam (2017), that there are thirtyfour per cent (out of 1826) super rich people from the US, whereas there are only 13 billionaires before the widespread of neoliberal policies. He also stated that the rich individuals’ income (which only accounts for one hundred millionth of the world’s population) is even more than the that of the poor. This is the evidence of how unevenly distributed the wealth around the world is, where only the few get to live a comfortable life while the many struggle with poverty.

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Free trade is used by the capital leaders in order to legitimize their exploitation of both labour and environment. That is why labour unions and environmentalists find themselves in a hard position where they struggle to defend themselves from the capitalists’ greed. A clear example of this scenario is when the US government implemented the tuna fishing regulation (under the pressure of environmentalists), the law was accused of unfairly restricting free market by capitalists. As a result, the government loosened the legislation. Indeed, just as Marx’s remark on the free trade (1848, as cited in Wainwright, 2000), it is not for the freedom of one from another, but the freedom of the capitalists to exploit others. Assessment of the outcome The success of the Seattle Protest. A study pointed out that the investors seriously thought that the WTO meeting as a major failure rather than a minor event. Not only did the protest successfully stop the WTO meeting, it also brought damage to firms, as the stock market price declined after this event (Epstein & Schnietz, 2010). The Seattle Protest victory against the WTO had been widely broadcasted and debated. As a result, the newly founded Indymedia project has released videos such as "This is What Democracy Looks Like”. In addition, after the protests, numerous trainers travelled around the world to teach people about the Seattle tactics, including blockading and decentralized decision-making. The protesters were invited to a great deal of events to give. They also wrote books and article about their experience. Hollywood even decided to feature this protest in their movie called “The Battle in Seattle”. The old Seattle tactics are not suitable for social movement nowadays. Even though the Seattle protest gained significant success, it was met with various criticism. Firstly, the protest was criticized for the lack of diverse voice (Gassma, 2002; Wood

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L., 2020). It was significantly dominated by the white, with less than five per cent of the protesters being people of colour. This view was widely shared and debated from an activist named Elizabeth Martinez, who wrote an article called “Where Was the Color in Seattle” (2000, as cited in Wood L., 2020). In her piece, she found the idea of the protest intriguing at the beginning. However, as she was watching the video “This is What Democracy Looks Like”, she wondered if democracy really looks like that, because none of the people in the video even look like her. Not only does the protest favoured people from a certain race, it was also in favour of the wealthier class, as opportunities for of convergence, creating alliances and media coverage were not accessible for ones who did not have the resources. The second criticism concerns with the strategy black bloc. There were many claims that the violence was unecessary and it only led to more violence from the police. It also went against the initial identity as a peaceful protest (Wood L. , 2020). Despite the criticism about the Seattle protest, people are so confident about its model that many even attempted to adopt it multiple times. However, the model was indeed not perfect. Beside the critiques above, the tactics themselves contain a lot of problems. The blockades were criticized for preventing their own ally, including other protestors from entering their area and medics from helping people with injuries. In addition, while the secrecy of the group representatives is to prevent the infiltration of the outsider, it also caused limitation to the flow of information (Gillham & Marx, 2000). On the other hand, just as the protesters try to succeed, the police are even more eager to prevent the protesters. During their protest against the IMF in Washington DC, organizers tried to repeat the success in Seattle. However, the protest ended with hundreds of arrests as the police have gotten used to those tactics. Intense surveillance was used and delegates were snuck into the meetings. As of now, the police force has been so

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powerful that there is less and less people feeling encouraged enough to be part of a big movement (Wood L. J., 2012). Conclusion Even though 1999 Seattle protest has ended for more than two decades, the event still intrigues much debates and researches. In this paper, I have provided detailed information regarding to the context the protest. The Seattle protest was led by labour unions and environmental organizations. All of which fought against the corporate greed, which is why their goal was to shut down the WTO meeting. Since the meeting were to facilitate capital globalization, people were concerned that capital leaders will take this opportunity to exploit even more labour and resource. I also pointed out the strategy that protesters used in Seattle 1999, which can be summarized into three main tactics: decentralized decision-making, blockages, and black bloc. I also mentioned the development issues that were addressed by this protest. The first issue is the wealth inequality and poverty. Globalization create more market for foreign corporation, which damage the local business. Furthermore, with globalization, rich people are given more opportunities to accumulate wealth, thus become even richer. This create an uneven distribution of wealth: the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. The second issue regards to the environment and labour, where capital leaders use free trade to legitimize their exploitation. Lastly, I discuss the success of the protest, then draw out critiques to conclude that the tactics used by Seattle protesters in 1999 were no longer suitable to apply for movements nowadays. The protest was not diverse, was prone to violence. Furthermore, the police has

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already adapted to the Seattle tactics, so less and less people are prone to participate in a mass protest. Bibliography Epstein, M. J., & Schnietz, K. E. (2010). MEASURING THE COST OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND LABOR PROTESTS TO GLOBALIZATION: An Event Study of the Failed 1999 Seattle WTO Talks. The International Trade Journal, 129-160. Gassama, I. J. (2002). Confronting Globalization: Lessons from the Banana Wars and the Seattle Protests. Oregon Law Review, 707-738. Gillham, P. F., & Marx, G. T. (2000). Complexity and Irony in Policing And Protesting: The World Trade Organization in Seattle. Social Justice. Haslam, P. J. (2017). Introduction to International Development. Approaches, Actors, and Issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smith, J. (2020). Making Other Worlds Possible: The Battle in Seattle in World-Historical Context . Socialism and Democracy. Smith, N. (2000). Global Seattle. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18, 1-5. Wainwright, J. P. (2000). The battles in Seattle: microgeographies of resistanceand the challenge of building alternative futures. Environment and Planning: Society and Space, 5-13. Wood, L. (2020). “The Seattle Model”. Socialism and Democracy. Wood, L. J. (2012). The Cops and the Courts. In L. J. Wood, Direct action, deliberation, and diffusion : collective action after the WTO protests in Seattle (pp. 123-134). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press ....