Expressing opinions effectively in the 21st century

This past weekend New York City welcomed the World Economic Forum (WEF), which is traditionally held in Davos, Switzerland, the town from whence it derives its nickname. Upon arriving at Davos, every participant received a complimentary hand-held computer in place of printed conference schedules and registration forms. From the start, the 2002 WEF Annual Meeting established itself as a 21st century endeavor.

Why, then, are the protestors gathering outside the WEF events stuck in the 1960s?

A flier posted last week by the Another World is Possible coalition on campus described the WEF as the place "where the schemes that lead to atrocities like GATT and the WTO are hatched." Let's set aside for a moment the characterization of the entire World Trade Organization — whose official functions include monitoring international trade policies and providing assistance to developing countries — as an "atrocity" and clarify this imprecise description of the WEF.

The Forum describes itself as a not-for-profit, independent organization "funded by the contributions of 1,000 of the world's foremost corporations . . . [acting] in the spirit of entrepreneurship in the global public interest to further economic growth and social progress." As its mission statement explains, the WEF is an organization of "business and society in partnership to improve the state of the world."

Insiders and outsiders alike recognize Davos as one of the foremost gatherings of the world's preeminent corporate and political leaders. It is, therefore, an attractive venue for those wishing to change the way business and society "improve the state of the world." The WEF is thus a popular backdrop for protesters like those who appeared most conspicuously at the 2000 World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle.

Broad generalizations about protestors in Seattle are easy to come by, but it serves no purpose to dwell on their excessive wardrobe reliance on hemp or apparent fear of hairdressers. More striking than the demonstrators' common ground is their great diversity. The 'Seattle protestors' are not a monolith; opponents to the WTO ranged from those wanting to save the environment to those wanting to save their own jobs from offshore relocation to those wanting to save the developing world.

However, the Seattle protesters' appearance is memorable not for the significance of their messages but for the vandalism with which they presented their disapproval. Unfortunately, the stark differences between groups of dissenters have been almost completely obscured by the use of violent dissent by the most extreme.

Following the Forum's conclusion, the New York Times ran an article commending the New York Police Department's WEF patrol, entitled, "Shrewd anticipation helped avert trouble." The one-tenth of the NYPD force allocated to the Forum's few blocks was deployed in expectation of protest, not in response to it. That protest at such meetings can now be assumed a priori as part of a larger protesting trend diminishes the dissent of each demonstration.

After each day of last weekend's conference, the Times devoted several articles to the protestors, but all focused on the level of violence and the mechanisms of disruption; talk of protest messages were hard to find. The protest activities in Seattle, and last summer in Genoa, subverted their own cause. Now, the voice of protestors is no longer heard; the attention is not on their message but their presence.

Only the protestors themselves are to blame. While it may be true that the press has little interest in attending to anti-establishment movements, and most dissenting groups lack resources to run publicity campaigns, the real problem is that those who descended on New York ran picket lines and snake marches but never once stood up and told the WEF what to do instead. They gave the media nothing of substance to report.

As Another World advertised its WEF protest preparation meeting: "Wondering what the WEF is and why activists are protesting? Want to learn about nonviolence and protest tactics?" It is as though WEF is an excuse for Another World to practice the trendy tactics of protest. Nowhere does the meeting claim to brainstorm strategies for changing that with which they disagree.

Furthermore, had the protestors taken the time to understand the difference between the WTO and the WEF, they might have changed their tune. The last year evidenced that the WEF is not a forum for empty promises. One of the WEF's major programs is the Global Health Initiative, designed to increase private sector involvement in curtailing HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria worldwide. Among the WEF's 36 "Strategic Partners" — organizations demonstrating active involvement in Forum endeavors to "improve the state of the world" — are the Coca-Cola Company and the pharmaceutical giant, Merck & Co; both have in recent months instituted substantive programs to alleviate the spread and impact of AIDS in Africa.

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With groups protesting from all sides, the WEF has no use for complaints unaccompanied by suggestions for change. Appeasing one group will inevitably increase the ire of another. That is why the "system" no longer responds to 60s-style sit-ins; they cannot quickly dish out promises to multiple conflicting causes. If dissenters instead sat down and wrote out a plan for change, a plan that reflects research, thought and realistic expectations, they might be taken more seriously.

Princeton students, in particular, should know better. In the classroom, we know we will not be taken seriously by vocalizing disagreement without thinking through the argument and suggesting an alternative. We cannot allow our education to remain an empty exercise, and there is no reason to treat the real world with any less gravity. Julie Straus is a Wilson School major from Potomac, Md. She can be reached at straus@princeton.edu.