IMF protests part of democratic process
As someone who was in Washington, D.C., for the protests against the IMF and the World Bank, I would like to respond to the April 21 opinion pieces by Melissa Waage '01 and Kushanava Choudhury '00.
Waage suggested that, instead of practicing direct action in the streets, we should "lobby" the World Bank and IMF, "suggest alternative policies" and "develop grassroots support" in the countries affected. This is exactly what we were doing. The World Bank and the IMF are controlled by the elites of government and global finance, and the only way for most of us to lobby them is by gathering by the thousands in the streets and making as much noise as possible. The undemocratic nature of these institutions was a major target of the protests.
Regarding the commitment of the activists, 20,000 people did not spontaneously gather in D.C. that weekend. The actions of April 9-17 — and yes, there were actions, teach-ins and even traditional lobbying efforts taking place all week — happened because of months of planning by committed activists, many of whom have been organizing around these issues for years or even decades. The D.C. protest was not an isolated event: It was part of a movement that began long before the WTO protests in Seattle in November — remember the fight against NAFTA? efforts to reform the World Bank's environmental policies in the 1980s? — and that will continue in the months and years to come.
Many of the people arrested that weekend suffered physical abuse and torture while being held in jail. They were deprived of food, water and medical care, threatened with rape, beaten, sexually harassed and denied access to legal counsel. More than 150 of those arrested remained in jail for five days while suffering this abuse in order to ensure that everyone was released with minimal charges. That is not what I call cowardice or lack of commitment.
Both Waage and Choudhury suggest that the real solutions lie not with action in the streets but with work by intellectuals. I suspect that almost every anarchist in D.C. would have aced Choudhury's quiz (and scored higher than a majority of Princeton students). Do not assume that because people dress in black and wear their hair in dreads that they are not intelligent and informed. In fact, one of the goals of this movement is to remove decision-making from people with degrees from Princeton and Harvard and place it in the hands of people who are affected by these policies on a daily basis. As residents of the United States, we are lucky to be able to mobilize and march on behalf of global justice for ourselves and for the millions of people who don't have that luxury. Lobbyists, reformists and intellectuals have their place, but do not assume that they can be effective without a broader movement or that they are necessarily such a movement's leaders. And do not assume that working within the system is the most effective way to bring about real, institutional change or attain justice.
The activists in D.C. were disheveled, multi-vocal, loud, angry and informed. To quote one of the most popular slogans of the protests, "This is what democracy looks like." Jolie Dyl GS
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