OPINIONS

FORUM 2000, SEATTLE AND GLOBALIZATION

By Barbara Wolf

Most of us have read about the protests in Seattle during the meetings of the World Trade Organization, and less than a week ago we have read about similar protests in Melbourne, Australia. Protests are planned for Prague meetings in October.

What is the background of these protests?

Last week I attended FORUM 2000, where there was extensive comment on Seattle and why it happened. I have just put my report of FORUM 2000 on the web site, http://www.globalmeditations.com/forum2000.htm. Perhaps it will help you to understand what is the meaning of globalization, which is at the root of the protests.

The FORUM 2000 was a week long meeting held in New York City from September 4-10, 2000.

The State of the World Forum yearly brings people together to discuss issues confronting humanity, and this year its meeting, called Forum 2000, was attended by an estimated 1800 from 80 countries. Its web site, http://worldforum.org, has up-to-date information, including live interviews, on the gathering, which it calls a 'global town meeting'.

Forum 2000 coincided with the Millennium Summit a few blocks away at the United Nations, which brought together 150 heads of states, some of whom attended both conferences, and so you can see that, indeed, New York City was the site of a most unusual gathering of peoples.

The main theme of this year's Forum 2000 was 'a post Seattle' dialogue on Shaping Globalization: Convening the Community of Stakeholders. Since globalization and the World Trade Organization (WTO) walk hand in hand, there was indeed much discussion concerning the WTO, whose web site is http://www.wto.org

Major speakers represented states/nations, international institutions, corporations, unions, major religions, academia, the science and technology fields, non-governmental organizations, and others. For your convenience, Global Meditations Network web site has a 15-page listing of speakers. http://www.globalmeditations.com/forum2000sp.htm

What was amazing to me was the diverse composition of the panels, and yet the sessions were excellent.

Some of the speakers include:

1. MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, founder of The Gorbachev Foundation, who supports globalization but says a structure is needed where citizens have a role is what is being done.

2. LOWELL BRYAN, Director of McKensey and Company, whose concept is that art, science, business, civil society, and government are interconnected, and therefore billions of people are interconnected.

3. HUGUETTE LABELLE, President of the Canadian International Development Agency and recipient of the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Public Service of Canada, who says globalization, trade liberalization, and technological advances have brought great wealth and great poverty.

4. JAY MAZUR, President of Unite!, Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Workers, who says the protest in Seattle was the voice of the left out; the voice of the rights of trampled workers; the voice of farmers who have lost their livelihood; voices of air and water.

5. GEORGE BECHER, International President of the United Steelworkers of America, who first worked with a labor gang at Granite City Seel, Granite City, Illinois, says workers have no share in globalization. Multinational corporations search world wide for the cheapest way to produce their products.

6. RICHARD BARTLETT, Vice-Chairman of the Mary Kay Holding Corporation, and as such, he is in charge of 630,000 business women in thirty nations, says today 200 million people are learning how to do enterprises and be leaders and to become democratic. This is globalization.

7. JOHN SWEENEY, President of the AFL-CIO, and therefore a voice for 13 million workers, says globalization has been shaped by powerful government and corporate muscle. One billion laborers are either unemployed or underemployed.

8. VANDANA SHIVA, Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy, says globalization was shaped by corporate males of northern countries who, when they made the rules for globalization, wiped out all rights of labor, children, etc.

9. GARY SAMPSON, senior advisor to the Director General of the World Trade Organization and professor of economics, says no one has pushed 138 countries to join and to agree to conduct themselves according to the rules of the WTO.

10. LOLI WALLACH of the Washington-based Public Citizens Global Trade Watch, opened her talk to say that the current version of globalization has a short future.

11. NAT COLLETTA, Director of the World Bank Post-Conflict Unit, which works with ex-combatants, says, for globalization to work, there is a need for a rule of law, a justice system, and governance, and there is need for active participation by the populace.

12. MAUDE BARLOW, Chairman of The Council of Canadians says globalization of human rights is needed.

13. GEORGE SOROS, philanthropist and founder of Open Society Foundation, says civil society should be mobilized, not to destroy international institutes, but to strengthen them.

14. MARTIN PALMER, Director of International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture (ICOREC), an alliance of religions and conservation that addresses environmental issues, says ICOREC is today involved in 100,000 projects world wide to help the ecology or to help humanity.

15. HELEN CLARK, Prime Minister of New Zealand, worries that talk of a missile defense system could not only push China into expanding its arsenal, but it could retard the goal of nuclear dismantling.

16. DOUGLAS ROCHE, member of the Senate of Canada, takes up the theme of the New Zealand Prime Minister in calling for nuclear disarmament.

17. NORLEEN HEYZER, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), says  globalization needs capital, but not short term speculation, as well as trade with rules and investment that supports local economies and small businesses.

18. QUEEN NOOR of Jordan chaired a session, and she says women and children are the key to whether we achieve or fail with globalization.

19. CAROL BELLAMY, Executive Director of UNICEF, says all should have a right to health and education and these basic fundamentals should not be violated. Every year, seven million children die from complications of malnutrition.

20. OLARA OTUNNU, Under Secretary General & Special Representative to the UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, says children in conflict, child soldiers, have deep psychological social trauma.

21. THE BALKANS YOUTHLINK CHORUS of Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian children who suffered during the war, sing to us.

22. CRAIG KIELBURGER, founder of Free The Children, who is seventeen years old, says his organization has constructed 200 primary schools in developing nations, set up alternative incomes for families, and linked children from industrialized and developing countries.

23. MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN, founder and President of the Children's Defense fund, says spiritual progress must keep pace with technological programs. The new order needs to be compatible with children, and it needs a strong moral movement.

24. JANE GOODALL, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, who for years has studied in Africa the behavior and social relationships of chimpanzees, says there are striking similarities between humans and chimpanzees, and this has led her to participating in child initiatives. She started Roots and Shoots, which enables young people from pre-school to university level to continue to coordinate projects locally  that promote care and concern for the environment, animals, and human communities.

25. RAFFI, founder of the Troubadour Institute, and introduced to us as a children's troubadour, sings children's songs he has composed.

26. MUHAMMAD YUNUS of Bangladesh, founder of Grameen Bank, which offers credit without collateral for the poorest,

 says today there is a potential for technology to bring people out of poverty, to create a new society. Poverty is created by policies, concepts, institutions. If the inner capacity of a person is recognized, then eventually there will be no poor persons in the world, and poverty will only be in museums.

27. COLIN POWELL, chairman of America's Promise, says we must become involved as volunteers. We must become involved with children. There is need for more mentors, more foster homes. We need to make certain that children are given more skills. A child is waiting to be touched by someone who cares, so touch him.

Barbara Wolf is the co-ordinator of Global Meditations Network whose purpose is to help 'shrink' the world by sending news from here and there so people can realize that all have similar thoughts and concerns, that all are brothers no matter where they live. Familiarity reeds tolerance, then love and understanding, and this leads to peace.
Her computer is based in the United States, her email address is bjwolf@rochester.infi.net, and her web site is http://www.globalmeditations.com

If you wish to send any information or comments, email us as mail@ambassadors.net.

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