A Convergence of Globalization and Militarization
By Theresa Wolfwood, Board member, Vancouver Island Public Interest Research
Group and director, Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation.
For decades, people the world over have been victims of the military might of
the U.S. and other minority world bullies. From Cuba to Angola, from the
Mayan jungles to the streets of Jakarta, from Iraq to Columbia, peaceful people
have been the object of the brutal force of U.S. power, the bomb and the buck
working together. Now we know a little of what millions of others have
learned from the school of hard punishment for all those who challenge the
global hegemony of corporate power. Governments and their media talk about
"democracy" but when the people demand it - out come the guns, the
tear gas, the bombs and the poison.
Finally, the analysis and experience of majority world workers for peace and
social justice has come home to America. We learned from millions of
people who have risked their lives and freedom to resist military and corporate
domination during the last fifty years. We learned to form small
democratic groups with solid bases in community, rather than big hierarchical
groups who lose touch with grassroots and soon become co-opted and charmed by
the corporate elite who manipulate them and call them "responsible."
As our social movements grow in numbers, sophistication, communication and
effectiveness, we will have to anticipate the attempts to weaken us. We
can expect campaigns against us based on denial, smear tactics, lies, divide and
conquer, co-option, pay-offs, infiltration and flattery with the bestowal of a
few crumbs. In Seattle, the "good NGOs" were given official
observer status, while grassroots groups met and demonstrated in public.
Watch out!
The military industry has a special status in every trade agreement. In
NAFTA the military corporations are exempt from any rules that forbid special
national treatment of industries. Canada and the U.S.A continue to
subsidize and promote military production. Our government just started a
new $30M program to help arms sales abroad. We continue to subsidize
companies that contribute handsomely to political parties, like Bombardier, a
major donor to the Liberal Party. If any level of government in Canada
wants to encourage development and fund local employment, they can't do it -
unless they develop a military industry. That NAFTA condition was built
into the MAI. In all WTO plans for "free market trade," military
industries are excluded.
Military equipment made in Canada ends up in Mexico, Indonesia, Chile and many
other countries directly and through our export of parts and equipment to the
U.S. and is used against our friends in their struggle for dignity and
independence. We must unplug our nuclear power and related war and toxic
industries, we can support new renewable energy technologies and conservation
and disempower the military. Nuclear energy has always been the benign
"respectable" front for nuclear weaponry, but they are inseparable.
We have to stop all nuclear development. As we continue to be threatened
by nuclear war preparations, we have to integrate our work for the environment
and peace. War preparations leach our social programs, let our government
off the hook of its responsibilities to citizens and divert our resources to
death industries. And if our land and water is contaminated by nuclear
poison, organic foods won't save us. While the holiday season was upon us,
the Canadian government signed another 10 year contract with the U.S. military
for the use of Nanoose Bay as a maritime weapons testing range. So U.S.
nuclear armed and powered ships will continue to use Canadian waters and
threaten our lives. The government says we need that agreement for our
"security." But our government also sold the CNR to a U.S. rail
company. It would seem that having our major transport system in the power
of a foreign company is not a threat to our security.
We know we live in a society that worships consumerism but what about our love
affair with violence and militarism? It is not just our biased trade
agreements but the forces of globalization and our immersion in a culture of war
that we must confront and change.
While our civil services cut back and have hiring freezes, the armoury in
downtown Victoria has a permanent "Now Hiring" sign. As rural
peoples in the majority world are driven from their land - because of failing
cash crops, cheap imports and landlords who convert to mechanized farming -
women are forced to support their familes in globalized employment - in
sweatshops, domestic servitude and the sex trade. Young men, unemployed
and angry, are ripe for militarization.
Modern warfare is based on the greed of the increasingly rich defending their
privilege from the poor - increasing in number as complicit governments support
corporate rule. When national governments fight their neighbours or their
own people who demand justice, it is this growing disposable population of
desparate young men who are brainwashed and forced into the killing business,
for the sake of salary and status, and do the dirty work of killing and dying
for the elites.
So-called "rogue states" are not oppressive dictatorships like Burma
and Indonesia, but countries that will not obey global corporations. These
are the states, like Serbia and Cuba, that are punished by embargos and military
intervention. Watch Columbia and Venezuela where indigenous peoples' land
claims threaten oil companies.
Globalization and militariz-ation are inseparable mutant twins. NATO
bombed Yugoslavia into being a permissive environment for the global drug trade
of foreign armed thugs; and for access to oil pipelines and the once state-owned
mines by big powerful corporations. After a war that destroyed Iraq's
social infrastructure and killed thousands of civilians, nine years of economic
sanctions have killed a million and a half people, mainly children. Many
are suffering the results of poisoning by depleted uranium used in bombs and
missiles. The Canadian military enforces the U.S./UN trade embargo that
prevents our farmers from selling grain to Iraq - once a major customer.
The WTO and its buddies like NATO and OECD won't go away after a week of
spectacular demonstrations and speeches. What these events do is alert the
world to the dangers of globalization while the bureaucrats and executives
retreat to their fortresses to plan their next assaults on our freedoms.
As we saw the failed MAI incorporated into the WTO, the failed WTO plans will be
incorporated into the newest scheme -the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
This TAP will combine NAFTA, the EU and Free Trade of Americas Agreement into a
new form of corporate rule.
More than anything we need to create a culture of peace and justice at home in
solidarity with those who struggle in much worse conditions than we have in
Canada.
We need to root out the culture of violence in our own society. Let's stop
the glamourization of violence in media, entertainment, toys and video games.
We can stop the takeover of education, starting at the elementary level, by
corporations who present a bland, passive, consumption -orientated version of
teaching and learning. Let's expose our government's complicity in war
preparations and corporate domination. We can take over governments,
starting at the local level. We have to see that creating a culture of
peace, justice, ecology and cooperation is our real work as we resist
globalization and militarization. As the Zapatistas say, "We Want a
World with Room for Many Worlds."
Source: January 2000. Email: <bbcf@islandnet.com>