under, against, beyond

labour and social movements confront a Globalised, informatised, capitalism Peter Waterman

20 Papers on Workers, Women, Unions, International Solidarity, Communications and Culture

www.into-ebooks.com/book/under-against-beyond

Front Cover Illustration

The author, presenting a paper to a union/academic conference on The Past and Future of International Trade Unionism, organised by Amsab/Institute of Social History, Gent, Belgium, 2001.

The Author
Born London, 1936, to a Jewish Communist family, Peter did a Diploma in Journalism at the Regent Street Polytechnic and got his first job as English Editor (effectively chief sub-editor) of World Student News, the magazine of the International Union of Students, Prague, 1955-8. After diploma studies at the trade-union associated Ruskin College and a Batchelors degree at Oxford University, he returned to Prague, 1966-9, where he worked as a labour educator for the World Federation of Trade Unions (primarily in Africa). Leaving the Communist world (and the world of Communism), he got a Masters in West African Studies in Birmingham, and taught at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, 197072. From then till 1998 he worked at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. Here he was successively associated with the Labour Studies and the Politics of Alternative Development programmes. Since retirement in 1998 he has published various books, compilations and numerous academic and political papers the latter almost all to be found online. He has had many papers published by the Montevideo-based Choike portal. He is currently associated with amongst others - the Network Institute for Global Democracy (Helsinki), the Programa Democracia y Transformacin Global (Lima), with two online journals, Interface: a Journal for and about Social Movements, the Global Labour Journal, and with the India Institute for Critical Action - Centre in Movement (CACIM) in New Delhi. Here he has been co-editing a book series on the World Social Forums, Challenging Empires. Peter has a blog on the UnionBook blogsite. He spends several months a year in Peru, where his longtime partner, feminist writer and activist, Virginia Vargas, lives. He has been present at many of the World Social Forums and has in recent years also traveled for his work to Russia, the USA, Sweden, Finland, Hongkong and South Korea. Peter is currently completing his autobiography, under the working title Itinerary of a Long-Distance Internationalist.

Acknowledgements
Since most of the individual papers below have extensive acknowledgements I would here only wish to add one to Into-Ebooks for so rapidly agreeing to publish this compilation. Into has come from nowhere (well, actually, Finland) to establish not only an independent and alternative online publishing operation but also to an impressively international network of such. Many people ignorant of Finnish may be puzzled by its chosen name. It means Zest in, predictably, Finnish. Given that almost all its publishing is in English (admittedly the core imperial language), we may remain wondering why it did not call itself Zest and then translate this for the few Finns who do not know English - or have no access to Google or Wikipedia. In the meantime, however, it has added dramatically to my knowledge of Finnish, previously limited to Nokia.

Contents
Introduction...6 Needed: A New Communications Model for a New Working-Class Internationalism8 Communicating Labour Internationalism A Review of Relevant Literature and Resources.....35 The Nervous System of Internationalism and Solidarity
Transmission and Reception of International Labour Information in Peru (with Nebiur Arellano) .60

A More Real Thing than Big, Big Coke The New Internationalism....119 From Global Information to Internationalist Communication Reconceptualising the Democratisation of International Communication.150 For the Liberation of Internationalism A Long March Through the Literatures194 Between the Old International Labour Communications and the New The Coordinadora of Spanish Dockworkers...266 One, Two, Three, Many New Internationalisms!
On a New Third World Labour Internationalism and its Relation to those of the West and the East298

Understanding Socialist and Proletarian Internationalism

The Impossible Past and Possible Future of Emancipation on a World Scale380

Social-Movement Unionism A New Model for a New World.....449 International Labour Communication by Computer The Fifth International? ..479
4

Globalisation, Civil Society, Solidarity

The Politics and Ethics of a World Both Real and Universal562

Hidden from Herstory

Women, Feminism and the New Global Solidarity......640

Holding Mirrors out of Windows

A Labour Bulletin, A Feminist Agenda, and the Creation of a Global Solidarity Culture in the New South Africa...664

The Newest International Labour Studies Fit for the New World Order?......740 Critical Globalisation Theory and the Global Womens Movement? Some Propositions on Solidarity, Communication and Citizenship..780 Of Saints, Sinners and Compaeras
Internationalist Lives in the Americas Today.806

International Labours Y2K Problem

A Debate, a Discussion and a Dialogue (a Contribution to the ILO/ICFTU Conference on Organised Labour in the 21st Century)843

Reflections on the 2nd World Social Forum in Porto Alegre Whats Left Internationally?....911 Place, Space and the Reinvention of Social Emancipation on a Global Scale Second Thoughts on the Third World Social Forum......953 Bibliography...... 985

Introduction
Presented here in chronological order is a set of Working Papers I produced with the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, between the 1980s and the 2000s. This has now become the International Institute of Social Studies of the University of Rotterdam. What permitted this collection was the Institutes decision to put online not only the computerised Working Papers it had at hand but others it had to scan. At time of writing, these amounted to over 500. One can view and download them free, one by one at repub.eur.nl/res/col/9760/. I applaud this addition to open-access academic resources. What encouraged the present collection was, of course, the ease with which digititalised material can be re-wrapped, re-presented and therefore re-published. I did this work, part time, over one week. If I had been a computer whiz - even computer competent - maybe I would have done it in as many hours. But, just after Mayday, 2011, in Helsinki, I discovered www.into-ebooks.com, which not only publishes e-books but also links an international network of independent (Left? Non-Commercial? Radical?) e-publishers. Here is something to applaud even louder in so far as I believe that Cyberia provides the privileged space for emancipatory international communication and action. If these were the permitting conditions, what justifies making my contributions to the series available? Simply that many of the final form versions have been shortened, that they are scattered in books, magazines and journals worldwide, and that many of such are, of course, copyrighted. Some have never reached final-form publication. I am equally shocked and impressed to realize they run to almost 1,000 pages. Lets consider a couple of examples. Holding Mirrors out of Windows (No 3), which runs to over 80 pages, was finally published in two parts in a small-circulation bulletin, Democratic Communique, in 1995, though probably cut - and certainly without its appendices. At the time of writing this introduction, as well as the international relations of Cosatu (the Congress of South African Trade Unions) are again becoming a subject of serious reflection, at least for Cosatu itself. Republicaton of this paper raises the possibility that it could contribute to reconsideration of international labour and social movement communication and culture within South Africa and more widely. International Labours Y2K Problem (No. 18), runs to some 70 pages. I did post it around that time to one of my two experimental websites, where it can still be found at www.antenna.nl/~waterman/y2kpap.doc. Google suggests to me, however, that it was never elsewhere published. Since it was offered to but (to the best of my memory) rejected by the International Labour Organisation, the paper represents my criticism of the international labour hegemons and reveals the sensitivity - to even the smallest of pinpricks! - of this Vatican-Kremlin-Pentagon of global labour policy. I have taken the liberty (since, as feminists might remind us, liberty must be taken) of adding to the database of ISS Working Papers, one entitled Hidden from Herstory (No. 13). This was originally published in 1993 as Working Paper 17 in a Sub-

Series on Womens History and Development, produced by the Women and Development Programme at the ISS. I cannot find this series on the ISS website. I hope that drawing attention to the matter may lead to it being added to the online WP Series alongside any other sub-series. The version linked to here was published in an Occasional Paper series of Women Living under Muslim Laws (WLUML) regrettably without the relevant bibliography. A complete version, published in the now-venerable Economic and Political Weekly in Mumbai, may still be available via this URL for US$9: www.jstor.org/pss/4400349. At a certain point of time I stopped publishing my working papers with the ISS. When negotiating my latest (last) submission, I was told, privately, that these were being treated by the editors as final-form publications. Oh!? This did not, of course, stop me producing working papers, if for other institutions, or directly online. I provide in the bibliography below a list of such online sources and resources, updated to 2009. I regret I have not kept up with my previously rather systematic recording of my own publications. Anyone interested can find more recent ones on the Choike portal or my new blogsite on UnionBook (for which see below) Any comments on either the form or contents of this collection would be welcome. So would further circulation or reproduction with a formal reference to the ISS as the original publisher, to Into-Ebooks as the present one, and with a notification to me. Finally, it is my belief that no trees were killed in the production of this publication. If, unknowingly, I have somehow added to global warming or, for that matter to the extraction of surplus value from anyone but myself I would appreciate being informed of the extent and suggestions of how I might compensate for this. Peter Waterman The Hague June 2011 peterwaterman1936@gmail.com Personal Page on Choike blog.choike.org/eng/tag/peter-waterman Blog Page on UnionBook www.unionbook.org/main/search/search?q=peter+waterman&page=6

WLUML Occasional Paper 3

OCCASIONAL PAPER 3
March 1994

Peter Waterman, Hidden from Herstory: Women, Feminism and the new Global Solidarity
Preface The women's movement has long been active internationally and is often considered the exemplar of both the new social movements and a new kind of internationalism. Yet it is difficult to find even a single theoretical article on the historical or contemporary forms of feminist internationalism. There is, also, limited historical or contemporary research directly on the problem. It is therefore necessary to first ask why this might be so and then suggest how the vacuum might be filled. The extensive literature around the subject, does provide a sufficient basis for such theorising. There also exists a relevant body of feminist and other emancipatory writing which could contribute to the construction of such a theory. There remains a need for identifying the various possible fields for specialised research, and rubrics for possible overviews. We also need theoretically-informed studies of cases, types, forms and axes of international solidarity with and between women. The absence of systematic strategic or policy discussion on feminist internationalism is a further problem. Recognition of the specificities of international solidarity between women could make its own contribution to an understanding of a new global solidarity of people and peoples more generally. Peter Waterman teaches on alternative social movements, international relations and communications within the new M.A. Programme on the Politics of Alternative Development Strategies at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. Since 1984 he has been researching alternative international relations and communications, with special reference to the Third World and labour (the Demintercom Project). He has produced numerous papers, journalistic articles, several self-published low-cost collections, bibliographies, etc. The academic papers, many of which have been published elsewhere in more permanent form, have mostly first appeared as ISS 'Working Papers' (Nos. 21, 28, 32, 37, 39, 42, 61, 76, 97, 110, 129). He is working on a book provisionally entitled 'From Labour Internationalism to Global Solidarity'. Institute of Social Studies PO Box 29776 2502 LT The Hague Netherlands Tel:070-4260460 Cable: SOCINST Telex: 31491 ISS NL Fax: 070-4260799

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 Contents 1. Introduction: the very model of a new internationalism? 2. Missing links 2.1. Hidden from herstory 2.2. A women's movement activity without a feminist theory 3. Suitable cases for treatment 3.1. The questions solidarity poses 3.2. South v. North; movements v. institutions; virtue v. evil 3.3. Beyond dichotomies: internationalism in and around Latin America 4. The literatures around internationalism 4.1. Overview: subjects, actors, areas, debates 4.2. Review: some women of North and South, unite! Women workers of some lands, unite! Middle-class feminists of some lands, unite! All women of all lands, unite? 5. Research needs 5.1. Tools, compasses and softer devices 5.2. Locally-specific analyses 5.3. Declarations of strategy, forms of organisation 5.4. Popularisation and mobilisation 6. Conclusion: from women's internationalism to global solidarity Endnotes 1. Introduction: the very model of a new internationalism1 The development of this paper from a simple bibliographical note provides a case study in the difficult relations between female feminists and (pro-)feminist men. This story is too long, complex, painful (and funny) to be told here. The fact that the paper did develop owes much to two feminist friends, activists and thinkers: Gina Vargas, of the Flora Tristan Women's Centre in Peru, and Marieme Helie-Lucas, from Algeria, who coordinates a network on Women Living Under Muslim Laws. Both reacted warmly to earlier drafts. They circulated these to their own networks. They invited me to contribute to feminist workshops. As a result of such efforts, an earlier draft of this paper is to be published in Spanish (Waterman Forthcoming) and possibly in Portuguese. Thanks are also due to the participants in an informal workshop on the theme held at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, April 1992. These included Gina and Marieme, Ewa Charkiewicz (Poland), Nira Yuval-Davis (Israel / UK), Sylvia Borren (New Zealand / Netherlands), Anissa Helie (Algeria / France), Loes Keysers (Netherlands) and Helma Lutz (Germany / Netherlands). They seem to me to represent some kind of 'feminism without frontiers' - a view of this world and an alternative one, developed by and for women but also addressed and available to the other 49 percent of us. I below make considerable use of one or two contributions to the workshop. Without the encouragement, warmth and humour of these 'companeras' I would have continued to feel like Sandra Harding's Lurking Monster: A kind of monster lurks in the logic of white feminist discourses: he is a white, economically privileged, Western, heterosexual man - and he is a feminist too. (Harding 1991 a: 278). The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the women's movement - the 'prototypical' new social movement - and international solidarity. The exercise will be tentative because of the relative scarcity of contemporary case studies and the virtual absence of theorising on the subject. This paper is the
1

Previous versions of the chapter have been published in Spanish (Waterman 1992) and English (Waterman 1993). The second of these provides an overview of a wide variety of literature and an extensive bibliography. 2

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 draft of the last but-one chapter of a book I am writing under the working title, 'From Labour Internationalism to Global Solidarity'. I hope to complete the manuscript by the end of 1992. Earlier chapters direct themselves primarily to labour and socialist internationalism - to considering the old internationalism in a new light. In so far as the contemporary 'international women's movement' (the meaning of which is itself problematic) is a new type of movement and has developed separately from, or in opposition to, the labour and socialist ones (which is also questionable), it provides original inputs into an understanding of a new, pluralistic and multi-faceted 'global solidarity'. As we will see, this paper moves us in such a direction. The last chapter of my planned book will, therefore, attempt to generalise from this particular experience to the possible meaning of 'global solidarity' more generally. It will be exploratory in the sense of seeking within the activity, and within other relevant theory, lessons for a new kind of international solidarity more generally. Whether or not the women's movement is considered the prototypical NSM, it has a rich experience of international solidarity, and it is the richest source of contemporary emancipatory social theory. The relative absence of writing on international solidarity between women provides a stimulus to the form of this paper; that of presenting it as a research problem. I will below consider in turn: the relationship between feminism and internationalism (Part 2); case studies revealing the problematic relationships both between women internationally and between feminism and internationalism (Part 3); the growing literatures around, if not always directly on, such topics (Part 4); various research needs (Part 5). The conclusion considers the contribution that an understanding of women's movement internationalism can make to an understanding of a new kind of global solidarity more generally (Part 6). 2. Missing links 2.1. Hidden from herstory There is a long history, and a rich and varied contemporary experience, of international relations and solidarity in the women's movement. This is evoked for me by the name Flora Tristan. The historical figure was a declassed French-Peruvian aristocrat, social outcast and cosmopolitan, a socialist, feminist and internationalist. She identified herself with men and women workers of France, the poor of London and of early C19th Peru (Mies 1983 b, Dijkstra 1992). The contemporary organisation that bears her name is a Peruvian women's centre, set up on a voluntary basis by socialist feminists during the UN Women's Decade. This is materially supported by Dutch funding agencies, politically and morally by feminist academics and activists from the First World, deeply involved in Latin-American feminist and women's networking (which took off, significantly, not in Latin America but in Copenhagen, 1980) and in the international women's movement more generally (Vargas 'passim'). The problems of feminist internationalism may be evoked by the same two Floras: for one (if not the) dominant image of internationalism between women is still that of the relationship between middle-class progressive or feminist women of the First World and of the poor and oppressed women of the Third (Mies 1986, 1989). It is difficult, if not impossible, to think of either historical or contemporary national women's movements in isolation from each other. Indeed, it is my impression that the contemporary experience of feminist and women's internationalism is richer, more complex and varied than that of the contemporary labour movement. This may be, firstly, due to the lack of a perceived threat by the international women's movement to the commanding heights of capital or state: this has provided a relatively benign atmosphere for the development of the movement internationally (even if it may meet the utmost hostility or difficulty under authoritarian regimes of right and left)2. Considering the second wave of the feminist movement in Latin America, Francesca Miller (1991: 192 [2346]) supports the first of these arguments, but also reveals how even authoritarian regimes have allowed space for the development of feminist movements. However, the liberal capitalist states have also been prepared to stimulate ecological and human-rights conferences and movements, and the Western trade-unions and their internationals have benefited greatly from state funding (usually from the same 'development aid' as has funded many women's and feminist projects in the Third World). It may be, secondly, due to the coincidence of the new feminist movement with the move
2

Considering the second wave of the feminist movement in Latin America, Francesca Miller (1992:192) supports the first of these arguments, but also reveals how even authoritarian regimes have allowed space for the development of feminist movements. 3

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 from industrial to information capitalism, this having both provoked and facilitated international awareness and linkages. This, however, is surely true of the labour and other social movements also. It may be, thirdly, that the very novelty and energy of the feminist movement - and the absence of any feminist equivalent to the bureaucratic international socialist or union organisations - that has provided space for a new wave. And that the sensitivity of the women's movement to the multiple levels and forms of domination has promoted the exploration of new forms and contents for international contacts (Boulding 1975, Bernard 1987). These movements may, in any case, be all the more effective in the long term for their operation at the margins, or in the interstices, of overt economic or political power concentrations and conflicts internationally. It may be, finally, due precisely to the global address of the contemporary feminist movement. By 'global' here, I mean not simply worldwide but 'holistic' (Bunch 1987 b: 301-5, 334, 339). Women's movements are evidently rooted in territorial places - communal, national, regional. And they just as evidently address themselves primarily to the region of gender relations. But, as is evident from the international declarations referred to below, it is common cross-national or global problems that are in the forefront of their attention. And the inter-relation of women's emancipation and other emancipatory struggles is customarily made explicit.3 It is, again, Francisca Miller who reveals the intimate interconnections of both waves of LatinAmerican feminism to much broader political issues. This is true of the predominantly liberal feminism of the earlier period and the predominantly socialist one of the present (Miller 1990, 1991). 2.2. A women's movement activity without a feminist theory Given the above, why does there not seem to be even one theoretical book or article about women and international solidarity, nor one theoretically informed history of this? Even international surveys and articles with titles like 'Sisterhood is Global' or 'Planetary Feminism' (Morgan 1984 a, b, Papandreou 1988, Schreiner 1988) either assume a shared identity and common response or fail to problematise the relationship between the sisters globally. 4 This is precisely identified and convincingly criticised in the process of a friendly review of the Morgan anthology by Chandra Mohanty (1992: 83-4). She says: 'Universal sisterhood, defined as the transcendence of the 'male' world ... ends up being a middle-class, psychologised notion which effectively erases material and ideological power differences within and among groups of women, especially between First and Third World (and, paradoxically, removes us all as actors from history and politics). It is in this erasure of difference as inequality and dependence that the privilege of Morgan's political 'location' [in New York City] might be visible. Ultimately in this reductive utopian vision, men 'participate' in politics while women can only hope to 'transcend' them. It should additionally be pointed out that Morgan's claim to present an anthology on 'The International Women's Movement' is actually a collection on 'national' women's movements, with little reference to any international organisations, activities or ideas - apart from an item on women in the UN (Hedevary 1985) and her own asserted transcendental ethic. The same is generally - though not entirely - true of special issues of journals on the topic. (Feminist 1980, Lova 1986, Quest 1978 a, Woman of Power 1987, Women's Studies International Forum 1991). Even the documents of - and most papers on - international feminist conferences do not do this (see First
3

It is, again, Francesca Miller who reveals the intimate interconnections of both waves of Latin-American feminism to much broader political issues. This is true of the predominantly liberal feminism of the earlier period and the predominantly socialist one of the present (Miller 1990, 1992). 4 This is precisely identified and convincingly criticised in the process of a friendly review of the Morgan anthology by Chandra Mohanty (1992: 83-4). She says: Universal sisterhood, defined as the transcendence of the 'male' world... ends up being a middleclass, psychologised notion which effectively erases material and ideological power differences within and among groups of women, especially between First and Third World (and, paradoxically, removes us all as actors from history and politics). It is in this erasure of difference as inequality and dependence that the privilege of Morgan's political location' (in New York City) might be visible. Ultimately in this reductive utopian vision, men participate in politics while women can only hope to transcend them. It should additionally be pointed out that Morgan's claim to present an anthology on "The International Women's Movement" is actually a collection on national women's movements, with little reference to any international organisations, activities or ideas - apart from an item on women in the UN (Hedevary 1985) and her own asserted transcendental ethic. OCP-03.rtf 4

WLUML Occasional Paper 3 Women's Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1990, Isis International 1990 a, Mujer/Fempress 1991, South Asian Feminist Declaration 1991, Sternbach et.al. 1992, Vargas et. al. 1991).5 One exception to the rule is the chapter on the period 1974-90 of Miller (1992), which includes 'international feminism' in its title. Another is the conference report and reflections of Keysers and Smith (1991). Both will be returned to below. How is this possible in a movement otherwise so sensitive to history, theory and strategy? It seems to me that it may be because there is no established liberal or socialist discourse here that would stimulate or provoke a feminist reaction. It may also be because of the incorporation / subordination of 'internationalism' by or into other theoretical / ideological discourses - such as those on Dependency, Development, International Relations, Race, Class and Culture (see Goetz 1991, Grant and Newland 1991, Mohanty 1991 a, b, 1992, Newland' 1991). Possibly - and more positively - it may again be because the new movements see their problems much more in global than in international terms. Yet we know of numerous tensions between feminists 'internationally: a contemporary Flora Tristan might be met on landing in the Third World with denunciation as a White Western Middle-Class Bourgeois Liberal Feminist. We know of many problems in creating solidarity between women across significant borders or boundaries, such as Western ones 'benefiting' from cheap goods produced by Third World ones (Mies 1986, 1989). Or Third World feminists 'failing to show solidarity' with their Black sisters from the First World (Hooks 1986 or 1991). Or of guilt-ridden, leftwing, First World feminists who see the racist mote in the eye of the First World, whilst missing the racist beam in that of the Third (Helie-Lucas 1991 or Makelem 1990). We know of missing links in the internationalist chain: the West-East one has been weak (Mamanova 1988), the East-South one is possibly non-existent. Attempts to deal with these in dichotomous terms (particularly North: South, Black: White, or even Male: Female) are increasingly recognised to be part of the problem rather than of the solution. But direct address to alternative principles and strategies of international relations are still rare. There are here fundamental issues requiring attention. What exactly do we mean by 'the international women's movement': personal empowerment on a world scale? global networking? international organisations? a global culture? Or all of these, in eclectic and universalistic embrace (Bernard 1987). What is the relationship between the international feminist movement (whatever that means) and such an international women's movement? What is the class or ethnic relationship between women's movements internationally - if we are to avoid simple centre-periphery or dominator-dominated models (see Bulbeck 1988, Joseph and Lewis 1981, Mies 1986, 1989, Mitter 1986)? 3. Suitable cases for treatment There are numerous paradoxes of international relations between women and women's movements that need to be understood before they become problems, and then mutually-destructive disputes. I will consider two or three problematic cases, areas or axes here, without necessarily pretending to have solutions to them. 3.1. The questions solidarity poses Let us consider the significance of Western capitalist state funding for women's - and even socialist-feminist - projects in the Third World. What happens to 'the gender approach', to 'empowerment' and 'autonomy' when they not only become part of First-World state development strategies but even some kind of 'progressive conditionality' on the basis of which - for example - Dutch state or non-governmental organisation (NGO) aid may be granted to backward' Latin American or African states or NGOs? If it is suggested that we here have a process by which Western feminists, and even their Third World counterparts, are successfully pressurising the North American or West European governments to recognise Third World women's interests, what model of representation is operating here, what theory explains this practice, what ethic informs it? How does the concept and practice of the 'pressure group' (from liberal
5

One exception to the rule is the chapter on the period 1974-90 of Miller (1992), which includes international feminism in its title. Another is the conference report and reflections of Keysers and Smith (1991). Both will be returned to below. 5

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 pluralist theory and practice) relate to that of the emancipatory social movement? Should feminists even associate themselves with the Western, racist, capitalist and patriarchal discourse and practice of development, a discourse that excludes emancipation and subordinates democratisation (Lumis 1991)? Some of the problems are revealed, but not again discussed, in an article by Kathleen Staudt, who has written widely on women, feminism, development aid, and aid bureaucracies (1985, 1987, 1990). Her 1987 article is on a women's centre in the 'maquiladora' zone of Mexico, the cheap-labour export-processing area on the border with the US. Staudt's study suggests contradictions between 'reformist' and 'radical' elements in its programme. She employs an evolutionary empowerment model, rising from the personal level through networking to an organisational one. Questions not raised in her paper, nor in the whole collection of which it forms part, are the following. How, in terms of feminism or women's solidarity, can we understand the US Inter-American Foundation's role in funding such an evaluation (if not the project itself)? How, in the same terms, are we to understand the relationship of the US feminist researcher to the Mexican (feminist? women's?) project, its organisers and its beneficiaries? Even if one accepts Staudt's empowerment model (new social movement theorists consider the network a 'higher' form than the organisation), what are the implications for feminist solidarity of such a North-to-South movement of concepts or models? And their specific institutional or academic channelling? Supposing that one accepts that government ministries and state-funded development agencies do provide a 'traditional space' (c.f. Vargas 1991 a on the women's movement in Peru) for feminists to contest, by what token can it be demonstrated that they are taming the white, male, capitalist, imperial or bureaucratic tiger, and not just being taken for a ride? Should it not be a requirement of feminist (or union) activity within aid that 'aid' be interpreted within a 'solidarity' discourse, instead of the latter being assumed inherent to the former? And that the struggle should be seen primarily as one of replacing the institutions and procedures of aid (tax-funded, government-controlled, state-administered or supervised, top-down, on a donor/recipient model) by those of solidarity (publicly-contributed, publicly and democratically-controlled, movement supervised, on the horizontal axis and an inter-active model)? In so far as one is involved in a dialogue with development politicians or administrators (or those major national and international agencies tagged by Graham Hancock 1991 the 'Lords of Poverty') should this not be in function of an autonomous international solidarity network of feminists and women (otherwise 'donors' and 'recipients')? How, in a minimally more technical or specialised sense, would we distinguish (or oppose?) 'bad' government aid and 'good' government aid (for a 'good' social-democratic aid agency in Latin America, see Evers 1982). Material on the basis of which such questions could be raised does exist, although little of it raises these questions (Ford-Smith 1990, Himmelstrand 1990, Jensen 1990, Kardam 1990, Ministry of Development Cooperation 1991, Moser 1991, Vrouwenberaad 1989, Wieringa 1990, Yudelman 1990). One is here also involved in often considerable flows of cash, from quite specific sources to quite specific projects, organisations and individuals (and not to others). Shouldn't this aspect of the relationship - at once the most material and the least visible - receive more than the passing mention, the occasional footnote? Particularly where a sometimes considerable proportion of the 'aid to Third World women' is actually paying for First World institutes and consultancies, researchers and consultants, at First World rates? I am evidently not proposing that we limit our understanding of the international relationship on the North-South axis to 'the foreign hand' (as do Gandhi and Shah 1991: 303-7), but that it should be treated openly and frankly, according to feminist principle (as attempted by Gandhi and Shah and by Ford-Smith). Treatment of this potentially explosive/destructive issue should not be left to the Thirdworldist or fundamentalist left (Karat 1984, Petras 1990: 2148), nor to the rightwing or muckraking journalists (Eppink and v. Straaten 1991 a, b). Yet they seem to be the only ones who actually present figures or make criticism of the cash nexus. Refusing to face this issue would seem to indicate the guilt and dependency inevitably associated with development and aid; confronting it would seem to suggest the mutual responsibility associated with solidarity. In so far, finally, as many feminist academics, professionals and organisers are simultaneously engaged in and committed to both 'development' and 'autonomy', I do feel there is an obligation to confront the increasing criticism not simply on the political but also on the professional and personal levels. Susan George puts the issue squarely:

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 [I]n one crucial respect, people working in the field of 'development' are wholly disqualified from claiming 'professional' status. Unlike other, genuine, professionals, they are accountable to no one (except in the normal hierarchical way). If they make a mess of a development project, they will not be there to see it and they can walk away from their victims, towards the next disaster. In the realm of their professional conduct, they are not even accountable to themselves or to their fellow members of the corporation because they are not held to any particular ethical norms [...] In the development domain, no universally accepted measures, no acknowledged methods exist for distinguishing fact from dogma, truth from falsehood, success from failure, myth from reality. As a consequence, the practice of these 'professionals' can proceed forever with no reality check ever intervening. The fact that most of them, and the agencies they work for, are totally beyond the reach of any sort of political accountability as well only serves to make matters worse. (George 1992: 168-9). What such a criticism would seem to imply, if it is to be taken on board by those involved in development and aid projects at either end of the international relationship, is not simply a sense of responsibility and a practice of openness. It also suggests the necessity for discrimination between particular projects and practices, and the public pronouncement and personal assumption of a feminist ethic amongst development professionals. 3.2. South v. North, movements v. institutions, good v. evil Related to, but distinct from, the above problem is that of the many contemporary women's movements that seem to operate both inside and outside international agencies and to see international solidarity solely or primarily as a North/South issue. One of them is on health and reproductive rights and it has given rise to one of the few serious reflections on what it itself calls 'global solidarity' (Keysers and Smyth 1991. C.f. Mies 1992, Reinalda and Verhaaren 1989: 279-82, UBINIG 1992). The report is primarily on the 6th International Women and Health Meeting, Manila, 1990, attended by some 500 women from 60 countries. But it also gives an overview of previous conferences, starting with a first one in Europe, 1977. It mentions a movement away from 'individual choice' in matters of contraception, etc, to questions of community-level health needs, and to recognition of the necessity for global organisation and action against the powerful national and international population control and health institutions. This movement has been accompanied over time by criticism of Eurocentric discourse within the movement, and insistence that a variety of Third World experiences and voices be heard. The Manila meeting was concerned precisely with the creation of global solidarity for women's health and reproductive rights. An opening address linked issues of women's health with global economic crisis, militarisation, violence against women, and international population-control policies. Two planned workshops, on 'Redefining Global Solidarity' and maintaining 'Feminist Integrity in Mainstream Organisations' were merged, leading to intensive and animated exchanges on research, funding, communication, organisational networking, campaigns, as well as on such issues as co-optation, institutionalisation, radicalism versus reformism, racism and classism. Women from the Third World. raised their concerns over the existing unequal distribution of resources (information and funds) between them and their sisters in the North. Information should not only be disseminated from the established institutes but there should also be an active sharing of experiences, strategies, ideas, etc. amongst all women in the health networks, implying that also South-South and South-North communication should be facilitated. (Keysers and Smyth 1991: 28) Both the Third World organisations and their funders expressed a desire to 'attain a more empowering funding relationship' (ibid). Despite this apparently rather advanced agenda, Loes Keysers and Inez Smith identify the operation of both explicit and implicit dichotomies during the meeting. The explicit one was between the international institutions (World Bank, Population Council, International Planned Parenthood Federation) and the grassroots organisations. This is, however, underlaid by 'a more elaborate dichotomy', which, 'for the very fact of remaining unspoken, is highly dangerous' (ibid). They present this diagrammatically as follows: 'Institutionalisation Grassroots work' OCP-03.rtf 7

WLUML Occasional Paper 3 North White Rich In terms of power: Dominant Powerful Marginal Powerless South Black Poor

Keysers and Smyth recognise the real-world origins of such a dichotomy in the North/South divide, the death of the early myth of global sisterhood, and in the appropriation of feminist language and concerns by powerful rightwing institutions. At the same time, however, they see it as simplistic, since it implies that institutions are unproblematically evil and the grassroots unproblematically good. And also because it 'carries a heavy burden of personal, individualised accusations and distrust' (29) against feminists working within the institutions. The authors consider it necessary, with respect to the institutions, to distinguish incorporation from meaningful access, and, with respect to the grassroots, to recognise the danger of self-isolation. They conclude here that it is important to realise that the two sides of the dichotomy raise problems and questions which have much in common: the danger of marginalisation on the part of the grassroots groups is mirrored by the risk of cooption on the other. The scarcity of resources and the financial vulnerability... of the grassroots groups, has echoes in the question of accountability which work within 'mainstream' institutions raises. The problems of efficiency and efficacy experienced by grassroots organisations appear as a carbon copy of those which, on the other side, emerge from working in highly hierarchical and bureaucratic systems. (ibid). They propose, as antidote to the common problems, and the asserted or implied dichotomies, the possibility and necessity of cooperation: [M]uch can be done to prevent the marginalisation of grassroots organisations by the transmission of information from those located in the agencies/organisations in which such information is produced or simply available. Those working in powerful institutions, on the other hand, would find guidance in the thorny question of accountability if grassroots groups made them answerable to them. (30) The mirrors, echoes and carbon copies here, it should be pointed out, are only so from a 'feminist point of view'. They assume, in other words, that there 'are' feminists, or a feminist movement, in the institutions as well as in the grassroots organisations. If, and to the extent, that this is established, the injunction above follows. I do not wish to add more, particularly since the implications of the argument are spelled out elsewhere below. I would only like to say that the positions taken here imply a much more complex and difficult world of solidarity activity, but also one that is infinitely richer. It suggests multiple places, spaces and levels of solidarity work, with these essentially interdependent on each other. It is also subversive of the deeply-rooted dichotomising of 'reform within' and 'radicalism beyond' in national and international movements, suggesting that today each is a condition for the existence of the other. Maybe they always have been but this has been obscured by past civil and uncivil war between and amongst Politically Correct progressives, blind to the advantage they were giving to the reactionary and conservative right. 3.3. Beyond dichotomies: internationalism in and around Latin America To get beyond the North-South axis, which dominates such discourse as there is on international solidarity within the women's movement, we can look at one 'regional internationalism' in the South. In Latin America there is now a rather developed feminist movement (Safa 1990, Vargas 1992 and the bibliography below). There is also possibly the most intensive and extensive feminist regional internationalism, and one which has apparently developed in a fruitful dialectic with a more general one. This does not mean that Latin America has escaped such debates as those suggested above. But that a longer history of informal and

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 formal relations has allowed a working through and, possibly, a working beyond such dichotomies. For the earlier period, I will limit myself to a couple of points and a couple of comments. Francesca Miller (1990) is primarily concerned with the participation of Latin-American feminists in intraAmerican conferences, themselves attached to the International Conferences of American States (i.e. both North and South America). She argues as follows: [T]he transnational arena held a particular appeal for Latin American feminists. There are a number of reasons this was so. Within their national communities, they were disfranchised; and, as elsewhere, the national social and political arenas were characterised by androcracy. Moreover, Latin American female intellectuals were particularly alienated from politics as practised within their countries, excluded from leadership positions by the forces of opposition as well as by their governments. The inter-American arena in the first half of this century proved to be an important domain for feminist activity, one in which women activists from throughout the Americas pursued a number of the longstanding goals of international feminism. Two of the themes that emerge in the examination of women's concerns in this period are... legal and civil reform and the search for international peace. (Miller 1990:*) Women played an active role in the Latin- (later Pan) American Scientific Congresses which began in 1898. The women who attended these also played a significant role in a first international feminist congress. According to Reinalda and Verhaaren (1989: 103), this was not an international but a Latin-American congress,6 although it was attended by women from five European countries and the United States. This took place in Buenos Aires in 1910, was sponsored by liberal, labour and socialist organisations and took up a broad range of feminist and social reform issues. As the scientific congresses became politicised (i.e. diplomatic events), women felt the necessity to organise themselves separately. Eventually there was created an Inter-American Commission of Women within the International Conference of American States. According to Miller (1990: 13-14), the participants in such conferences were neither diplomats nor spouses, nor were the Latin Americans simply endorsing something sponsored by North American feminists.7 Does Miller overstate her case? The account of Reinalda and Verhaaren (1989: 103-8) is somewhat more nuanced or complex, since it reveals the rather active role of the inter-state bodies, and certain individual male diplomats, to forward women's issues. This account also gives more space to the energetic pioneering activities of the US women's movements. The anti-imperialist Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (Foster 1989) was heavily involved and influential. One of the conferences specifically attacked North-American imperialism. The Latin Americans also attacked their own governments: In this era, the women active at the international level had little tradition of identifying with the nation-state. To the contrary, they had historically articulated their position as other, within the home, the society, and the nation, and looked to the transnational arena as the space where they could find mutual support from one another and publicise their agenda. (19) The existence of the transnational arena, and of foreign feminism, obviously also made a contribution to the development of national ones. The veteran Colombian liberal feminist, Ofelia Uribe de Acosta, considers the holding of an International Feminist Congress in Bogota in 1930 to have been the beginning of the feminist movement in Colombia. In 1963, aged 63, she also wrote a history of Colombian feminism, inspired by a global perspective I hadn't had at the start. I read about Susan B. Anthony, about so many other women in other countries who had faced difficult situations... This delving into the history of other women, in other countries, during other times, gave me a lot more self-confidence... (Torres 1986) 1 can find no record of a 1930 congress in Bogota in the other literature. As for Anthony, she was a pioneering 19th century US feminist, active also internationally (Reinalda and Verhaaren 1989: 19, 23). According to Renalda and Verharren (1989: 103), this was not an international but a Latin-American congress, although it was attended by women from five European countries and the United States. 7 Does Miller overstate her case? The account of Reinalda and Verhaaren (1989: 103-8) is somewhat more nuanced or complex, since it reveals the rather active role of the inter-state bodies, and certain individual male diplomats, to forward womens issues. This account also gives more space to the energetic pioneering activities of the US womens movements. OCP-03.rtf 9
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WLUML Occasional Paper 3

In so far as these women felt excluded from their national polities, we would seem to have a parallel to labour internationalism before labour was enfranchised, unions and parties recognised and incorporated into the nation-state. Miller, in any case, reveals in this period no such identification with states as were to appear during the second wave in the 1970s. This second wave was actually preceded by initiatives of states, inter-state organisations, the Communist movement and Third-World movements. Given that these all related to nation-states or blocs of such, it may be not be so paradoxical that they actually collaborated, at different places and times, thus providing platforms for major conflicts in Third-World / First-World, nationalist / imperialist, socialist / capitalist, or revolutionary-women/bourgeois-feminist terms. These conflicts found most dramatic expression at the NGO Tribunal held at the International Women's Year Conference, Mexico City, 1975. Here the North American Betty Friedan was taken to represent (or played the role of?) Northern Imperialist Middle-Class Feminist. And the Bolivian Domitila Barrios de Chungara was taken to represent (or played the role of?) Southern Nationalist Revolutionary Proletarian Woman (Greer 1986, Miller 1992:199-202 and the bibliography below). Cuba, simultaneously Third-Worldist, nationalist and Communist, spearheaded state-socialist international women's initiatives, through the FMC (Federacion de Mujeres Cubanas / Federation of Cuban Women). Vilma Espin, revolutionary veteran, wife of Raul Castro and Central Committee member, has led the organisation almost as long as Fidel Castro has Cuba. She has also always avoided calling herself a feminist. The FMC, which has played a major role in raising women's issues and changing women's roles within Cuba, also saw itself as the vanguard of the Women's International Democratic Federation - the Communist front organisation for women. A statement by Castro at an FMC congress in 1980 reveals, in all its richness (or poverty), the nature and discourse of an internationalism of blocs as addressed to women: Our federation has undertaken a lot of important internationalist work in the Women's International Democratic Federation, and also in the United Nations, with IWY and the International Year of the Child... The FMC has earned a great deal of prestige internationally, in international bodies, in women's organisations in other countries - countries of both the socialist camp and the capitalist camp - liberation movement organisations and organisations of underdeveloped countries. I think that our federation has contributed enormously to the foreign policy of the revolution. (Cited Miller 1992: 213) Under the impact of the feminist movement, both the Cuban organisation and its relations with others in Latin America subsequently underwent a certain change. This is a rare and promising case, since it is usually the autonomous social movements that are drawn or pushed in the direction of the statist ones. In this case, the Cubans were possibly both drawn by the feminist wave and pushed by the increasing isolation and decline of world Communism. Unfortunately, however, the FMC (like the party of which it is a front organisation) seems to prefer to sink whilst flying the flag of revolutionary anti-imperialist womanhood than to tack to meet the post-Communist winds. At a Spanish-sponsored international forum on 'Women, Political Power and Development', Seville, September 1992, Vilma Espin was both marginalised by the sponsors and self-marginalised by her own archaic discourse. The Latin American feminists present revealed their pluralism and generosity of spirit in defending and even promoting her within the forum (Personal Communication). She may have appreciated the gesture, but it seems likely that it would be evaluated by the space it provided for Cuban Communist discourse on women, not as a model of behaviour to be learned from and emulated. Looking at the five Feminist Encounters that have taken place between 1981 and 1990 (Miller 1992, Sternbach et. al. 1992, Vargas 1992 a and the bibliography below), it seems to me that the feminist movement in Latin America has been able to reject such discourses whilst still addressing itself to the women's experiences they articulated. This may be because the major social source of the new wave of feminism was neither the traditional political / state elites nor the 'popular women's movement' organised by populist, socialist or Communist parties. They came largely from the same ranks as those involved in the first wave - educated middle-class women, often academics. Such people had access to the work of people like Friedan and Simone De Beauvoir, sometimes studied in Western Europe or the USA, sometimes been exiled there. Being, again, often from socialist backgrounds, they were also open to respect for and cooperation with poor urban or rural women. Developing this internationalism has been a far from painless process. But, along the way, Latin American feminism has not only demonstrated a remarkable pluralism, flexibility and tolerance. It has also earned the respect of Northern feminists:

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 Latin American feminisms hold lessons for feminists in industrialised countries. We... could revitalise our own movements if we tapped the enormous creative energies embodied in our own 'movimientos de mujeres' (women's movements). The present vitality of Third World feminisms within the industrialised world is indicative of this potential. Regressive economic policies and rightwing governments in the 'First World' have also created conditions ripe for the mobilisation of poor and working-class women and women of colour... Just as North American or European feminism has provided crucial insights for the second wave of feminism in Latin America, perhaps now Latin American feminisms can enrich and inspire our own movements. (Sternbach et, al. 1992: 433-4). This is true in more senses than these authors reveal, since they concentrate on the Encounters, and then deal with these more as political than intellectual events. But Latin American feminism (either inside or outside the Encounters) has also produced theoretical and strategic documents of considerable originality and potency. These not only contribute to the enrichment of Northern feminisms. They also reveal an openness to other social movements, and thus potentially to other internationalisms: We are living in a time, not only in Latin America, characterised by the simultaneous emergence of new social subjects, multiple rationalities and identities, expressed in the social movements. This opens up more individual and collective possibilities for transforming social values. It also reflects the fact that experiences of oppression and subordination, and the resistance to them, are expressed in so many different ways that there cannot be one global explanation which encompasses all social conflicts. The acknowledgement of these multiple and diverse rationalities refutes the idea of an emancipatory process that articulates aspirations within one dynamic only and through an exclusive and privileged axis. (Vargas 1992 a: 196). In what may be the first attempt to conceptualise the Latin American feminist internationalism, Gina Vargas has sketched both its extent and limitations (Vargas 1992 b). She distinguishes the various streams, forms, themes and actors, suggests significant periods and identifies current problems. The streams are the feminist, the popular and that of women in the 'traditional-formal' spaces (parties, unions, federations). Of these, as suggested above, it is the feminist one that has been most involved in internationalism. The forms include networks of many kinds, themselves organising conferences and campaigns, keeping in touch through magazines, newsletters or e-mail (c.f. Miller 1992: 217-8, 225-7). Some of these networks extend across the Southern continents or are concerned with South-North dialogue. The themes include health and legal services, popular education, communication itself, and issues such as race, sexual option, ecology, etc. The actors, apart from the feminist activists, increasingly include women from different class, racial, party, labour, peasant and youth organisations. The two periods distinguished by Vargas are those of the building and unfolding of the international movement (1980-87) and that of its expansion and enrichment (1987 on). The first period was marked by a Latin American version of global sisterhood which initially provided a collective identity but also suppressed differences. During the second period such differences have found public expression in the Encounters and other meetings. These differences include contradictions between and within distinct Latin-American regions (Central America, the Caribbean, South America). There are political tensions linked to nations / regions which have not yet been freely discussed: the failure of Peruvian feminists to take up an imaginative Ecuadorian proposal for de-nationalising a frontier dispute; the initial difficulties some Central American feminists had in condemning a Peruvian terrorist movement for assassinating the best-known popular feminist leader in Lima (they apparently considered it a revolutionary guerrilla movement of the Central American type). The late arrival of the popular sectors in international relations reveals, or gives rise to, a series of problems. One is the existing domination of South-North international relations not simply by middle-class feminists but by those in the NGOs. These have long had 'a special relation with agencies, governments and women in the North'. And this relationship has, until recently, been questioned neither from within the NGOs nor from outside. Another is the patronising of the popular sectors by the middle-class feminists in Latin America. Yet another is a possible patronising of them by Northern aid agencies or solidarity committees: Support from governments and/or women in the North in this case has some vices: their proposals and demands are fundamentally inspired on ideological proposals... alien to the feminist proposal, OCP-03.rtf 11

WLUML Occasional Paper 3 and/or that feminism itself aims to surpass: populism and Marxism, generally in their less creative expressions (emphasis laid upon anti-imperialist postures more than on democratic ones). The relationship of women in the North, in the case of the [Latin-American] Domestic Workers' Union, has thrived a lot upon the basis of class (poor women versus petite-bourgeoisie), stemming from a guilty and only economic-minded solidarity on behalf of women in the North. (ibid). This need not always be the case, as is suggested by the activities of Mujer a Mujer/Woman to Woman.8 What follows is extracted from a study of international labour computer communications (Waterman 1992: 40-44). Mujer a Mujer (MaM) is a feminist collective of women from Canada, the US, the Caribbean and Mexico, based in Mexico City itself. MaM began, around 1984, as an international solidarity project for women workers and seems to have either avoided or surpassed the traditional North-to-South aid/solidarity model. With Mexican and other Latina women growing in numbers in North America, with increasing numbers of US plants shifting there, and now with the Free Trade Area (FTA) confronting the peoples of all three (see Cavanagh et. al. 1992, Kamel 'passim', Moody and McGinn 1992), MaM appears to recognise that solidarity is a multi-directional as well as a multi-faceted matter. MaM is involved with labour, community, women's, communication and computer groups in Mexico and North America. It was a major mover in the first Trinational Women's Conference on Free Trade and Economic Integration, held in Mexico, February 5-9, 1992. The activities of MaM reveal, furthermore, that labour networking is 1) not restricted to trade-union networking, and 2) that it can be a result, or even an integral part, of the work of a new social movement - in this case a feminist one. An account of the Trinational Women's Conference, by a MaM activist and conference co-organiser, indicates the way this movement is broadening both beyond wage-labour and beyond the initial three countries involved: The world is changing so quickly that even as we met the notion of 'tri-national' links was beginning to appear outdated... Maquilas [cheap-labour assembly plants] have already taken root in countries like Guatemala and El Salvador. Our analysis and solidarity must begin to weave new connections. The focus on women's labour sometimes constrained our insights. While much path-breaking solidarity has been begun through union and other networks, we must not limit ourselves to those sectors. In Mexico, women within the 'urban poor movement' have begun to look at issues of free trade, where it comes from and how it will change their struggles. They have already identified the need to develop an international perspective and solidarity links. (Yanz 1992: 8. My stress - PW) MaM is primarily oriented toward working women, and it could therefore be understood to be interested only in international solidarity of or with women as workers. This is evidently not the case, since its newsletter, 'Correspondencia', shows that it takes up general feminist issues, such as those of reproductive rights, violence against women, lesbianism, the position of coloured and indigenous women. Unlike most international labour networks, this one is also theoretically minded. It presses for a gender perspective on all issues - such as the FTA. Some of the materials from the Trinational Conference, indeed, seem to suggest that, whilst the event presented women's demands, a feminist perspective was not yet sufficiently developed. Thus, the Canadian report concludes that: For the future, we have more work to do to strengthen our gender analysis. We need to be linking theory, research, education and action. (ibid) MaM also introduces us to new ways of conceiving the 'mass', 'members', 'followers' or 'audience' addressed by the activists (whether these be workers or women), in so far as value is given to real-life diversity rather than an abstract unity: The concept of 'masses' gives way to the valuing of the diversity of unique 'identities'. Each new emerging 'social actor' ('sujeto historico') claims power in areas of experience damaged or buried by domination. Women, for example, bring the intimate and domestic worlds into public view and What follows is extracted from a study of international labour computer communications (Waterman 1992: 40-44). OCP-03.rtf 12
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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 action. Indigenous peoples confront and offer alternatives to the spread of a racist and environmentally destructive monoculture. ('Correspondencia', August 1990: 2) Interestingly enough, MaM's activities have even raised major strategic issues on labour internationalism that have so far remained little-debated in the male-dominated organisations or fora - of right or left. At the Trinational Conference there was, thus, discussion on whether or not it made sense to demand that the Free Trade Area bring about an 'upward harmonisation' of working conditions and rights, given that it was premised precisely on the difference in costs, rights and conditions: We all spoke of the need for further research and exchange of information in order to be able to act strategically in this new world... There were those who emphasised 'upward harmonisation' as a goal for regional struggle. Others favoured demands which could be immediately achievable within the logic of the new system, in order to lay a solid foundation for future struggle. (Trinational Women's Conference 1992: 14) One does not have to have a specific position here to recognise the opportunities and dangers opened by both strategies, and therefore the importance of wide-ranging debate on the issue. Within the activities of MaM, and the reflections on its conference, we can see connections both with Latin American feminist internationalism and with a new kind of labour internationalism. Within the experience of feminism in and from Latin America, we can see possible ways forward from the paralysing dichotomies bequeathed by the traditional politics of protest. This is not to set up Latin American feminist internationalism as a land promised to jaded or faded feminisms elsewhere. The only guarantee for its further creative development would seem to be a rigorous self-reflection (most of the present overviews are written by outsiders), as well as critical reflection on the good and bad experiences of Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. 4. The literatures around internationalism Despite the lack of theory on international women's solidarity as such, there does exist a growing literature around the subject. It is possible to recognise that each of the books, articles or types of literature makes its individual contribution: together they would seem to me to provide a basis for more systematic discussion on feminism and internationalism. There follows an attempt to group relevant literature types, followed by a more extended review. 4.1. Overview: subjects, actors, areas, debates There has been some debate on 'women, feminism and international relations', largely limited by the parameters of international relations theory and by the failure to explicitly address the issue of solidarity (Grant and Newland 1991, Halliday 1991, Millenium 1988, Molyneux 1991, Runyon and Peterson 1991). On the other hand, Cynthia Enloe's book, on 'Making Feminist Sense of International Politics' (Enloe 1990, reviewed Bourne 1990, Hamilton 1990) starts from feminism, ignores academic international relations theory and suggests a whole new agenda for future analysis and struggle. She has chapters on tourism, nationalism, military bases, diplomacy, bananas, 'blue jeans and bankers' and domestic servants! These are not the subjects of conventional international relations textbooks of either right or left. Enloe wants to get away from the notion that women are either victims, passive, innocent or absent in international relations, revealing precisely how they are involved, where they are complicit, how they struggle and what this all implies. Along the way she reveals that 'international relations' is not a subject but a discourse (pale, male and somewhat frail). One would like to see her or someone else make its implicit conceptualisation explicit. And to spell out its implications for effective alternative strategies. There is a pioneering history of 'women's movements and international organisation', which (if translated out of Dutch!) could stimulate both debate and historical research internationally (Reinalda and Verhaaren 1989). This is 500 pages long, covers 1868 to 1986, pays full attention to the Communist and Third World and is extremely well organised. Judging by its treatment of the contemporary international women's health issue (276-83) it also shows balance and insight. It has, moreover, a 20-page theoretical reflection at the end (376-95). This would seem to at least chalk out another agenda for theoretical discussion in so far as it covers: the women's movement OCP-03.rtf 13

WLUML Occasional Paper 3 as social movement, nationally and internationally; women's discontents; women's ideas on equality; women as subject and object of international relations. It also attempts to conceptualise the different waves of the international movement and the various phases of these waves. Despite the bias toward legal norms and formal organisations, this sketch represents something of a challenge. There are also regional histories or overviews, such as those on Latin America already mentioned. Even where the latter might not be primarily concerned with relations between the sisters internationally, they can provide sources for reflection on such. There has been much written on 'theoretical debates between academic feminists', usually on Black/White, First World/Third World differences. Some such authors seem to confuse or conflate their theoretical concerns with 'the international women's movement' as such. Bulbeck's book (1988) is a very useful survey and critique of debates amongst academic feminists internationally (covering global patriarchy, race and gender, imperialism and development, etc). It is entitled One World Women's Movement, but it begins by stating: This is not primarily a book about the position of women across the globe. Rather it is an analysis of the debates between feminists in different cultures... (ix). The 'different cultures' (not the same as different nation-states) then turn out to be the now-familiar Northern and Southern, Black and White. However, she does directly address the question of the possible meaning - or possible future meaning - of what she, again, specifically calls not an international but a global feminism (147-54). She offers three possible models of such: 1) a homogenous movement united against men and patriarchy; 2) one that recognises the differences implied by race and imperialism but which prioritises the struggle against male domination; 3) and one that sees it as a constellation of localised movements, which movements engage now in a struggle for higher wages for all workers, now in a struggle for freedom from a political regime, now in a struggle for women's control of reproductive choice, and whose members are united by only one belief - that there are forms of oppression based on gender differences and that these must ultimately be addressed if women are to achieve satisfactory autonomy in society. (148) She favours the third one, recognises that no feminist has a programme for its realisation, and suggests that this may be in the nature of an orientation which implies that the movement is self-creating. Whilst I share this orientation, I would consider attempts to work out principles, strategies and programmes as a necessary and urgent part of such a self-creation. There is, I believe, only one book that seriously attempts to deal with the international women's movement in its ideological, communication and protest forms, as well as its institutional ones, and that recognises the multiplicity of its levels, places and spaces. This is by Jessie Bernard - who wrote it at the age of 84!. It is entitled 'The Female World From a Global Perspective'. Jessie Bernard's is a Western, liberal, universalising vision in both negative and positive senses (c.f. endnote 4). Negatively, there is its 19th century self-satisfaction and optimism about incremental progress, as also, perhaps, its understanding of the 'female world' descriptively and uncritically as a sociological entity, a de facto cultural structure - of laws, customs, mores, traditions, attitudes, beliefs - in which female infants are born and shaped. (Bernard 1987: viii) It nonetheless provides, in Part 3, the only existing attempt to overview and evaluate the international feminist movement, in terms of its meetings, communications and campaigns. Moreover, she recognises the distinction between feminist and women's internationalism - that she is talking about the international relations of a small elite of women, who are literate, who are in a position to participate in international meetings. Small in number as they may be, they are important far beyond their number because they supply the paradigms, the perspectives, the strategies, the policies, the visions for many less privileged women everywhere. They are by no means representative samples of their native lands. They probably have more in common with one another than they do with the non-literate women of their homelands. A woman judge from the United States, that is, is probably on more nearly the same wavelength as that of an African woman judge than that of a Chicana agricultural worker in the US Southwest. And the African judge, similarly, is probably more nearly like her US counterpart than she is like women in the bush at home. (125) Bernard does not assume that the 'Feminist Enlightenment' (Chapter 6) will necessarily 'result in global female solidarity' (xi). But it seems to me that her four Cs (conferences, communications, campaigns and culture) provide a useful framework for further investigation of, and discussion on, the subject. One would, again, like to see socialist, radical or ecofeminist treatments of the same areas of activity. Another way of thinking about the women's movement globally is in terms of where it is 'moving to'. Asoka Bandarage (1991) has written a pioneering essay 'In Search of a New World Order'. This relates to an increasing body of alternative world order literature by other feminists (Henderson 1983, Mische 1978). Bandarage attempts to synthesise socialist, feminist, ecological and spiritual criticism of our current world order. She also seeks OCP-03.rtf 14

WLUML Occasional Paper 3 to synthesise modern technology with ancient wisdom. But her way (or Way?) is primarily spiritual, both in content and tone: it represents an appeal to a latent sense of ethical responsibility and offers a new global ethic. Perhaps one has to be a spiritual person to respond to this kind of writing! A non-spiritual' and problem-raising note on feminism and international ecological movements is that of Ewa Charkiewicz-Pluta (1992). A hard-edged work, with less global address, but also combining feminism, socialism, ecology and spiritualism is that of Mary Mellor (1992). Given the existence of such work, we can be sure that Bandarage has opened a vein which is likely to be energetically worked in coming years. Despite the crucial role of 'feminist academics in international networking' and in promoting women's internationalism more generally, little has been written directly about this. Rosi Braidotti (1990, 1991, 1992) has produced some reflections on feminist academic internationalism in relation to the European Community. This is refreshing precisely because it has no interest in rehashing the theoretical debates. She recognises the traditional role of scholars in the creation of international webs of a 'high culture' at a time in when this is being undermined by a commercialised and universalised 'low' culture. She raises various questions about the role feminist academics might play in relationship to MacDonaldisation and Benetonisation. Rejecting high-culture nostalgia in face of the new media, she asks: why not market in a more convincing manner the products of 'high' culture: Why not use these technological tools to make 'high' culture into a worldwide phenomenon? Why can the university standards of knowledge not be used as guidelines for the future? Why should Madonna (the contemporary version thereof) be the heroine of our times; why not Simone de Beauvoir, Alexandra Kollontai, Rosa Luxemburg? (Braidotti 1990:115) Various, extensive, challenging answers to such questions are being offered by those interested in the democratisation of international culture and communication (Frederick 1992, Tehranian 1990, Waterman 1992). Braidotti also reflects on the possibility/necessity of feminist scholars acting effectively as world citizens. She plays here with the concepts of the Exile, the Nomad and the Migrant in the development of international feminism. Such concepts, as she recognises, are more than metaphors. The problem with Braidotti's piece is not so much that she plays with concepts but also with roles, in this one short piece adopting the pose or voice (or standpoint?) of Cosmopolitan Academic as well as PopCulture Pundit, of Academic Feminist as well as Feminist Academic. One nonetheless hopes her thoughts will be developed - and that they might serve as a model or stimulus for writing about other international feminist; subjects or actors. There is a growing feminist literature on 'coalition and alliance' which, even where not directly addressed to it, is of evident relevance to the development of global solidarity movements. This literature has emerged as a reaction against a theory and politics of 'difference' that often ends up in not so much recognising as essentialising and fetishing such (Mohanty 1992, Walby 1992, YuvalDavis 1992 a,b). I will consider the argument of Alperin (1990). Alperin identifies three political models of diversity and consequent strategies of alliance: 1) the pluralist, or contemporary liberal one, implying the assimilation or coexistence of different interests or communities without social transformation; 2) the separatist one, of various Marxist, feminist and ethnic or nationalist movements, implying one primary structural repression, or source of all such, the ending of which provides the key to emancipation); 3) the interactive model, recognising: a) that there are multiple oppressions; b) that no single form can be considered a-priori determinant; c) that the oppressions interact in complex ways so as to reinforce one another; d) that the elimination of one oppression - even if considered determinant - would not necessarily eliminate the others. Each of these positions has implications for alliance. Alperin holds to the interactive position, which she sees as implying the following strategic principles: 1) the necessity for separate spaces and consciousness-raising (as the separatists propose); 2) an understanding of and action against other oppressions (that may otherwise be reproduced within, or accepted by, the particular group); 3) an understanding of and action on the interaction of specific oppressions in specific historical situations, in relationship to specific groups. Given, Alperin argues, the interlocking of different oppressions, alliances are necessary for mutual comprehension and effective struggle. Moreover, in so far as theory cannot be divorced from practical activity, such alliances are necessary for a fuller and more liberating comprehension of society. It seems to me that Alperin's perspective is relevant to an understanding of relations both between and within the new internationalisms. An interactive model and strategy could, in fact, apply at every level or scale. Thus, it could be applied to 1) middle-class feminist internationalism on reproductive technologies, 2) relations between middleclass and poor women within this, 3) relations between this particular and other feminist international isms, 4) between feminist and nonfeminist internationalisms.

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 4.2. Review: some women of North and South, unite!9 What follows is extracted from a book review, later incorporated into a long review article (Waterman 1989). It is now time to pass from notes to some more substantial reflections. The longer review below offers, firstly, a full expression of certain issues and arguments presented briefly above, and, secondly, evidence of how feminists address (or fail to address) themselves both to labour internationalism and to internationalism more generally.10 Sylvia Walby (1992) has also jointly reviewed Mitter and Mies, recognising other strengths and limitations of these works. 1. Women workers of some lands, unite! Swasti Mitter's book is on women in the changing global economy (Mitter 1986, reviewed Elson 1988). It is more of an analytical than a theoretical work, being clearly oriented to political action, and ending with a list of relevant women's networks in Europe. The book is concerned with the changing structure of employment worldwide, with the creation of a sub-proletariat of women workers, with the implications of this both in the Third World and in the First, and with the inter-relationships of class, gender and race in this whole new process. The last chapter is entitled 'Women Working Worldwide' (the name of a British-based solidarity group, see Shaw 1991). It summarises the argument of the book, shows how women wage-earners are responding to the situation organisationally, and considers possible strategies that could favour them. I will comment on this last chapter. Stressing the implications of and for gender and race structures internationally, Mitter's analysis shows us a radically transformed working class, or a radically transformed image of the working class. Identifying with the casualised female, black and Third-World workers, she argues that these are increasingly fording themselves and each other internationally, and surpassing the limitations of a union movement dominated by males and whites. Her critical discussion of 'alternative left' strategies in Britain and Europe ends with an insistence on the contribution to be made by the women and black workers at the grassroots. We have here, in other words, a socialist-feminist view on labour internationally and on labour internationalism. Even if one accepts, however, the notion of a polarised working class and the increasing importance of the peripheral workers, and agrees on the necessity of their specific internationalism, the evidence and interpretation of international organisation and strategy is thin and unconvincing. What it amounts to are some pathbreaking conferences and useful information networks, some critically-examined First-World strategies and some uncritically-praised Third-World models. The limited space devoted by the book to organisation and action itself restricts the attention given to internationalism. Nor is any relationship shown to either labour internationalism or women's internationalism more generally. Nor does Mitter's model allow for the (then-existing) Communist world, the existence of which might complicate her set of binary oppositions (male/female, core workers/peripheral workers, white/black, First World/Third World). What we do nonetheless see is a distinct subject and area of labour and women's internationalism, an implicit challenge to both of these to allow for this, an implicit requirement that this internationalism be examined more closely and theorised more rigorously. 2. Middle-class feminists of some lands, unite! Maria Mies' book is also on women in the new international division of labour (Mies 1986, reviewed Judd 1989). It is a wide-ranging work of some theoretical complexity and originality. It conceptualises and analyses the contemporary world as shaped by 'capitalist patriarchy'. And it ends with a chapter entitled 'Towards a Feminist Perspective of a New Society' (205-35). Given the nature of the work, as well as the greater proportion of space allowed for consideration of strategy, it is interesting to see how this chapter compares with Mitter's. Mies refers to the international feminist movement as a 'truly anarchic-,' one (210). Her own contribution to its discussions seems itself to draw less from any post-Marxian socialism than from an anti-industrial anarchist or socialist utopianism, finding contemporary expression in the ecological movement.
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The following section is drawn from a long review article. Sylvia Walby (1992) has also jointly reviewed Mitter and Mies, recognising other strengths and limitations of these works. 16

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Even those unable to accept Mies' particular paradigm of the world as solely or simply capitalist-patriarchal are likely to find her metaphor of colonising divisions (man/woman, human/nature, rationality/emotionality, white/black, etc.) powerful (210). As, also, her counter-principles, rejecting such destructive oppositions and proposing relations of equality, reciprocity, collectivity, autonomy and of the production of life as the purpose of life (218). She seems to me here to not only specify aspects of a new internationalism but to extend these back, down and in - to the national, inter-personal and personality level. The specification, further, of body-politics and consumption relations as priorities for internationalist activity significantly extends the traditional range and understanding of internationalism (227-8). Body-politics specifies the human-rights struggle in a form significant to women. A 'consumer liberation movement' gives a cutting edge to an existing consumer movement that often compromises with modernising capital or sophisticated state bureaucracies. The most provocative and problematic of Mies' ideas is that of a middle-class feminist internationalism. Although I have myself elsewhere suggested that contemporary internationalism is largely a middle-class phenomenon, and that wage-earner internationalism is often initiated or articulated by academics and professionals (Waterman 1988), this is the first time I have found someone prepared to come out of the closet as a middle-class internationalist! Or does she? The attitudes, interests and demands are expressed as general, if not universal ones, are given priority, and are even presented as determinant for the Northern end of the North-South solidarity relationship. This leads on to the question of the role of workers, or peasants - or, for that matter, prostitutes - in international solidarity activity. It seems to me that Mies' dismissal of the possibility of solidarity between workers North and South is actually dependent on orthodox Marxist categories and attitudes, if not arguments. She characterises this as the 'sphere of economics or economic struggles', which she sees as 'almost fully controlled by the international and sexual division of labour' (232). She says there is here no material base for solidarity. She does not even address her Western middle-class consumer's solidarity to Southern women factory workers, since the two are related internationally in a 'contradictory, even antagonistic way' (232). It seems to me that this argument accepts a capitalist concept of workers - sees workers as defined by and for capital. Only in liberal thought, surely, is the relationship between workers internationally seen as a zero-sum game in which higher wages for workers there mean a loss for workers/consumers here. And even if there are real difficulties in creating solidarity on wages/jobs issues (which, incidentally, are political issues), it is difficult to argue that improved women worker rights including body-politics ones - there are at the expense of those here. It should, finally, be pointed out that whilst her argument against the possibility of women wage-worker internationalism is based on 'material' obstacles, her argument for the possibility of a consumer-producer internationalism is based on a somewhat iffy transcendence of such: if women are -'ready to transcend' the boundaries set by the international and sexual division of labour... if they accept the principles of a self-sufficient, more or less autarchic, economy; if they are ready... to replace export-oriented production by production for the needs of the people, then it will be possible to combine women's struggles at both ends of the globe... (232-3. Original emphasis) What of the peasants? The international relation she proposes is between a 'feminist-led' consumer liberation movement in the North and a 'women's' production liberation movement in the South. Without dismissing the possible value of such a relationship, it is clearly one of un-equals and un-alikes: on the one hand Northern / feminist / middle-class / consumers and on the other Southern / women / peasant / producers. And what of prostitutes? The examples of solidarity mentioned by Mies are either between Western and Southern middle-class feminists or between Western feminists and Southern 'working-class' prostitutes. Both types of action are original, necessary and admirable. But should not the aim be autonomous international solidarity between the prostitutes (c.f. Pheterson 1989 a, b, c)? Mies' attitude towards technology (see also Roth and Mies 1983, Mies 1989), furthermore, is one that seems to me hard to sustain either in logic or in political action and personal behaviour: Computer technology... is destroying all productive human powers, all understanding of nature and, in particular, all capacity for sensual enjoyment. (218) OCP-03.rtf 17

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Faced with the horrors of such new technologies in the hands of greedy, shortsighted and vicious men, the recourse to either anathema or Luddism is comprehensible. The problem, surely however, is not technology but, technocracy, the latter signifying both a social elite and an ideology. Without modern capitalist technology Mies would probably have never been in India. And the international women's networking she wishes to further could hardly exist. Electronic technology makes it possible (not necessary) for creative intellectual workers, such as she and me, to do our own household tasks without household servants or housewives, our own typing, proofreading, even printing and publishing, without consigning these manual tasks to a caste of routine workers. Mies' attitude here can be contrasted with that of philosopher Donna Haraway (1991) and novelist Marge Piercy (1980, 1991). Marge Piercy's feminist utopian novel (1981) combines electronics and genetic engineering (babies can be born in laboratories, men can choose to breast-feed) with Mies' own direct relationship to nature and each other. International struggles over the new technology, internationalist uses of the new technology, are ones the international women's movement is already fruitfully engaged in (Capek 1990, Cruz 1989, Kassel and Kaufman 1990). A final problem is with the limited area of Mies' internationalism. This runs only on the North-South axis. Although Mies makes frequent reference to, and powerful criticism of, the (then) Communist world, it is not theorised nor addressed politically/strategically. Hers is, like that of Mitter, another imperialism-fixated worldview. I began this discussion by tentatively relating the feminism of Mies to anti-industrial anarchist utopianism. We could now add that it is also explicitly middle-class and Western. Again, this is a characterisation, not a castigation. Perhaps, as Mies implies for the international feminist movement, we need all these class, national, group, gender and ideological internationalisms before we can see what internationalism is. Perhaps we also require what Mies attempts to offer - a model of a future society based on a surpassing of the principles dominating present ones - to guide our present internationalist activities beyond urgent but short-term and often defensive needs. Speaking from such a position, in any case, she is able to see and say things about internationalism that have not been said before. If one feels that Mies over-generalises or universalises from this position, we are still confronted with the problem of how a worker, women's, prostitutes' or peasants' internationalism could be articulated without paternalistic rhetoric or charity. Or its maternalistic equivalent, for that matter.11

I believe that the dichotomies are to a large extent reproduced in the paper of Mies (1989) to a previously mentioned international woman and health conference, held in Bangladesh. Here she sees international differences/divisions between women 'precisely expressed' in terms of 'metropoles and colonies' (34). In her view of international relations between women, the 'contradictory or even antagonistic relations' are apparently between poor women in the South and middle-class women in the North (36). Whilst she recognises Northern women as being manipulated and exploited by the same 'techno-patriarchal' and capitalist forces as those in the South, she considers that those in the North both well-to-do ones and also poorer ones', profit from 'the loot accumulated by white man'. She criticises the individualistic and technocratic attitudes to reproductive technologies predominant amongst Northern women, claiming that the 'other complete perspective is provided to us by the poor women in the South' (37). Mies believes that unity can nonetheless be forged by the joint struggles of North and South, city and countryside, middle and working-class, and that it should be a reciprocal one, going from North to South and vice-versa. This appears, in sum, to be a largely Manichean world, in which contradictions are also structural and cumulative. It is for this reason, surely, that the 'complete perspective' is provided by the poor women in the South (accumulating the maximum negativity?). It seems to me that there may here also be a reproduction of the logic of traditional socialist and/or Thirdworldist internationalism, including a totalising contradiction (metropole / periphery), a privileged revolutionary subject (poor/Third World/Women), a primary socio-geographical axis (North/South), plus revolutionary intellectuals (the enlightened middle-class women of North and South), representing the long-term interests of the masses concerned. Another traditional element is the combination of economic determinism with political voluntarism. There are other problems. The international reciprocity proposed by Mies is, presumably between the enlightened middleclass women, since self-activity (nationally or internationally) of the poor women concerned is nowhere reported or proposed. However, Mies also fails to deal even implicitly with the structural position or the political role of these Southern middle-class women. Mies, however continues to innovate in proposing global alternatives, as in a paper proposing a 'new moral economy' to replace a world capitalist one that is increasingly divisory, destructive and repressive (Mies 1983). OCP-03.rtf 18

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 Maria Mies seems not to have changed her position since writing that book. I believe that the dichotomies are to a large extent reproduced in her paper to an international woman and health conference, held in Bangladesh (Mies 1989). Here she sees international differences/divisions between women 'precisely expressed' in terms of 'metropoles and colonies' (34). In her view of international relations between women, the 'contradictory or even antagonistic relations' are apparently between poor women in the South and middle-class women in the North (36). Whilst she recognises Northern women as being manipulated and exploited by the same 'techno-patriarchal' and capitalist forces as those in the South, she considers that those in the North 'both well-to-do ones and also poorer ones', profit from 'the loot accumulated by white man'. She criticises the individualistic and technocratic attitudes to reproductive technologies predominant amongst Northern women, claiming that the 'other complete perspective is provided to us by the poor women in the South' (37). Mies believes that unity can nonetheless be forged by the joint struggles of North and South, city and countryside, middle and working class, and that it should be a reciprocal one, going from North to South and vice-versa. This appears, in sum, to be a largely Manichean world, in which contradictions are also structural and cumulative. It is for this reason, surely, that the 'complete perspective' is provided by the poor women in the South (accumulating the maximum negativity?). It seems to me that there may here also be a reproduction of the logic of traditional socialist and/or Thirdworldist internationalism, including a totalising contradiction (metropole/periphery), a privileged revolutionary subject (poor/Third World/women), a primary socio-geographical axis (North/South), plus revolutionary intellectuals (the enlightened middle-class women of North and South), representing the longterm interests of the masses concerned. Another traditional element is the combination of economic determinism with political voluntarism. There are other problems. The international reciprocity proposed by Mies is, presumably between the enlightened middleclass women, since self-activity (nationally or internationally) of the poor women concerned is nowhere reported or proposed. However, Mies also fails to deal even implicitly with the structural position or the political role of these Southern middle-class women. 3. All women of all lands, unite? In comparing these two pieces we have to first deal with the most obvious difference, that between a socialist-feminist working-class internationalism and an anarchist/ecofeminist middle-class one. Although Mitter makes no reference to Mies-type positions in her chapter, it is clear where she thinks priority should be placed, where the main libratory agent is to be found. And whilst Mies makes passing reference to wageworker or union action, she is quite explicit in prioritising the middle class. We would seem to have to choose between Position A, Position B, Position A + B or, of course, Position X. It would be in the spirit of letting 100 internationalisms bloom to opt for A + B + (any future hypothetical) X. But one needs here a more specific and principled reason for one's option. My argument would begin, I think, with a rejection of the 'classism' explicit or implicit in both items. Mitter's women workers are evidently only partially or temporarily proletarianised. They also have been, are, or will be, petty-commodity producers and housewives. Mies' middle-class women are, presumably, to a considerable extent wage-dependent either through their own wages or those of male family. 'Middle class' and 'working class' may, in any case, it seems to me, be taken to represent not so much existing social categories as the competing claims for social hegemony of the bourgeoisie and proletariat respectively. In so far as we are concerned to surpass both capitalism and proletarianisation (also post-capitalist), a transformatory project needs to surpass these categories. The women of Mitter and Mies are all - differentially - involved in contradictions concerning body-politics, commodity production and consumption - not to mention others. The creation of a transformatory force surely requires both the separate and joint struggles of both categories. In and beyond 'their' class. Nationally and internationally. The logical similarity between the apparently opposed positions does not end here. Both are opposed, explicitly or implicitly, to the White Male Northern Worker and his Hierarchical, Bureaucratic, Sexist, Racist Union. In so far as they are here visualising not a project, tendency or ideology, but permanent social categories and institutions, they are echoing labour aristocracy theory. Crudely (but it is a crude theory) this is the idea that rich, secure workers are conservative, pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist workers. The argument cannot be empirically substantiated. But it doesn't need to be since it has another function - that of conceptual foil in the presentation of the really oppressed/exploited, those who are - and are therefore really revolutionary (at least potentially). That the most oppressed or exploited are the most revolutionary cannot be substantiated either: they are customarily passive, sometimes actively reactionary, and in OCP-03.rtf 19

WLUML Occasional Paper 3 progressive movements often volatile and without the social psychology or technical skills necessary to sustain alternatives. It seems to me to follow that whilst the autonomous organisation and action of women is essential, this is opposed to hierarchy, sexism, racism, bureaucracy, etc., to their primary sources and promoters (capital, state, patriarchy) not to the more-privileged categories of the oppressed and exploited.12 Underlying this problem is a deeper one. It has to do with dichotomic oppositions more generally. These appear in Mitter as opposition between male and female, core and peripheral workers, organised and unorganised, white and black, First and Third Worlds. In Mies they appear in terms of 'colonising oppositions', against which she offers as antidote a holistic view of the world, nature and self. It seems to me that if one wants to surpass these in political action one must surpass them also in thought. Mies does not do this consistently. Sometimes she only reverses the dichotomy, as with her rhetorical symbol of the White Man. The problem is that this is not solitaire: it is more like hide-and-seek, a game everyone can play, and in which the seeker herself can be sought - and caught. Mies must have had the experience of being opposed and condemned by Black Third-World Leninist Women as a White European Bourgeois Imperialist Feminist. So we need a holistic logic to understand a holistic world and to create a holistic society (Hartsock 1987, Harding 'passim'). I think such a view would allow us to understand that new technology is both this 'and' that, and that we need to combine Mies' visible communal autarchy with the mutually-beneficial international trade relationships sought by Mitter. Finally, I would like to return to the 'middle-class' feminist internationalism of Maria Mies. As someone who, like Mitter, has been primarily concerned with what should properly be called 'internationalism for workers', I feel that it is now more than time that we spoke for ourselves and not in the name of others. Contemporary internationalism, including wage-worker internationalism, is largely the affair of professionals, academics and organisers. We would certainly further internationalism if, when relating to those we are trying to persuade or assist, we made this explicit. In attempting to create a new kind of internationalism it is essential that we speak in our own voice, and that in this voice we dialogue with others. 5. Research needs The development of an understanding of women and internationalism cannot consist solely of critique. It also requires a programme of activity. 5.1. Tools, compasses and softer devices We would still, for example, seem to need a number of quite basic intellectual tools or compasses. These could be provided quite rapidly if the will was present. They include c 'comprehensive bibliographies' (c.f. Brown, Grant and Long 1988, Dickstein 1991), so that we know what books, or articles are available. We also need to know the major sources - such as those of individuals, organisations, social ' history and women's archives. And we then need extended, literature reviews - as distinguished from bibliographical notes like those above. I have myself got a couple of hundred items of bibliography relevant to women, Underlying this problem is a deeper one. It has to do with dichotomic opposition more generally. These appear in Mitter as opposition between male and female, core and peripheral workers, organised and unorganised, white and black, First and Third worlds. In Mies they appear in terms of colonising oppositions, against which she offers as antidote a holistic view of the world, nature and self. It seems to me that if one wants to surpass these in political action one must surpass them also in thought. Mies does not do this consistently. Sometimes she only reverses the dichotomy, as with her rhetorical symbol of the White Man. The problem is that this is not solitaire: it is more like hide-and-seek, a game everyone can play, and in which the seeker herself can be sought and caught. Mies musts have had the experience of being opposed and condemned by black Third-World Leninist Women as a White European Bourgeois Imperialist Feminist. So we need a holistic logic to understand a holistic world and to create a holistic society. I think such a view would allow us to understand that new technology is both this and that, and that we need to combine Mies visible communal autarchy with the mutually beneficial international trade relationships sought by Mitter. OCP-03.rtf 20
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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 feminism and internationalism on my personal! bibliographical database. See the introduction to the bibliography below. There is an evident need for 'historical research', though Reinalda and Verhaaren provides us with an impressive` overview of the institutional terrain (see also Cooper 1987,' Horwitz 1977, Kaplan 1985 or 1988, Kopp 1930, Schroder 1983, Shulman 1983, Walker 1977). The techniques now commonplace in feminist historical work could be fruitfully employed here. Oral histories need to be produced before another generation of veterans passes away. We need to identify and reflect on the biographies and autobiographies of past female internationalists, whether feminist or not (e.g. Peggy Dennis 1977, Dijkstra 1992 on Flora Tristan, Ettinger 1987 on Rosa Luxemburg, Emma Goldman 1977, Mackinnon and Mackinnon 1988 on Agnes Smedley, reviewed Seldon 1988). And we need to encourage the contemporary feminist internationalists to write their own autobiographies: there is much to be learned from these, and biographies communicate to non-specialists in a manner that social-scientific writing cannot even aspire to (for a sketch see Bunch 1987 a). There is an obvious need for extensive 'contemporary research', examining, for example, the areas or cases mentioned in passing by Mitter and Mies, or dealt with more extensively by Enloe. Research here can, of course, use the techniques of participant observation or action research. All international organisations, projects and campaigns need a systematic research dimension, however modest. If self-reflexivity is an essential characteristic of modernity (Giddens 1990), then this has not yet been recognised amongst the feminist internationalists. There is a major and urgent need for 'theoretical work', at different levels of sophistication and generality. We need to distinguish here between concepts, conceptualisations and theory. But in many cases, even the concepts or conceptualisations developed in other areas (or at other levels) of feminist, socialist or critical social science could be fruitfully employed. See, for example the recognition of multiple identities and sites of struggle in Chhachhi and Pittin (1991). See also the distinction/relation between traditional, feminist and popular 'spaces' in Vargas (1991 a). This notion could certainly be developed, and applied at the global level, by taking account of the discussion of time, place and space in the work of Chhachhi and Pittin, as well as of David Harvey (1989: Part 3) or Giddens (1990). The well-developed feminist epistemological debates on 'standpoint', 'difference' and 'alliance' (e.g. Harding 'passim') could certainly contribute to theory on international solidarity. 5.2. Locally-specific analyses We need 'area-specific' studies. This means, for example, studies of women's internationalism within or between specific geographical regions (Goetz 1991, Helie-Lucas 1991, Hoegsholm 1990, Hoskyns 'passim', Koji 1989, Mamanova 1988, Newland 1991, North 1990, Peoples' Plan 21 1989). Or with/between specific socio-cultural groups, such as women in Islamic communities (HelieLucas 1990 c). We also require studies of international struggles on particular issues (some already mentioned), such as prostitution, migration (Lutz 1992), foreign debt, peace (Helie 1992), reproductive rights, sexual harassment, consumption and ecology, new technology, etc. The identification of ever more specific areas would itself stimulate a need for more general theories on women's or feminist internationalism. A particular feminism that has been particularly active internationally, despite repression and discrimination, is that of 'lesbians', often together with gays (Altman 1990, Borren 1992, Reinalda and Verhaaren 1989:2835, Verhagen 1988). One recent pamphlet (Anderson 1991) not only lists the national and international organisations (such as the International Lesbian and Gay Association and the International Lesbian Information Service) but mentions the effectivity of international support work, reports on means of networking (including the electronic), and advises on how to go about this. We need theoretically-informed studies of forms of 'communication' amongst women internationally. Existing ones tend to be short reports on experiences that do not necessarily reveal how international women's or feminist communication does or should differ from that of - say - socialists (Anand 1990, Bernard 1987, Capek 1990, Cottingham 1990, Corral 1988, Isis International 1988, 1990 b, Karl 1980, Kassell and Kaufman 1990, Mujer a Mujer 1992, Roach 1991, Rush and Allen 1990, Santa Cruz 1990).

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 There are increasing studies on the position of and solidarity with (or between) 'women workers', waged or unwaged (Committee for Asian Women 1989, Chapkis and Enloe 1983, Elson 1986, 1991, Grune 1989, Kamel 'passim', Shaw 1991). But these, again, are not theoretically informed, and there does not even seem to be much progress in strategic thinking here. It is yet another of those ironies of history, of which people of the Marxist tradition are so fond, that theoretical and strategic reflection on solidarity amongst workers is much developed than that on women - workers or not (Brecher and Costello 1991 a, b, South African Labour Bulletin 1991, Waterman 1991 a). One of the few extensive studies on solidarity between and with working women is that on those in the sex industry (Pheterson 1989 a, b, c, c.f. Bunch 1987 b: 306-20), this raising many issues of more general significance than the highly specific case might suggest. 5.3. Declarations of strategy, forms of organisation There is a need for continuing discussion of global feminist strategy and appropriate forms of organisation. General statements on alliances, coalitions and networking are hardly sufficient unless they are related to historical and contemporary experience, or spelled out in the form of proposals. The concept of 'networking', for example, needs to be defined in communication and/or political terms (see, respectively, Mulgan 1991, Diani 1992). We then need to examine the forms actually tried or taken by international feminist initiatives. An interesting case to examine would be the - presumably unsuccessful - 1977 project for a 'Feminist International', which suggests both roots in socialist tradition and strivings for an alternative form (Quest 1978 b). A new declaration or discussion document could greatly stimulate both political and theoretical reflection. This would be a document that proposed principles for international solidarity relations with or between women. It could draw on historical and contemporary experience, both negative and positive. And it could be concerned with surpassing present shortcomings or obstacles. A 'negative' model for such a policy-relevant declaration is provided by the critique of myths about women and politics in Latin America (Catalyst 1991: 14-15, CIDHAL Noticias 1988). More positive ones, at least on the regional level, also exist (First Women's Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1990, Isis International 1990 a, Mujer/Fempress 1991, South Asian Feminist Declaration 1991). So does one specifically on the reproductive technologies (FINRRAGE-UBINIG 1989). We will return to these below. 5.4. Popularisation and mobilisation The need for theory must be balanced off against the necessity for work accessible to the activists and the internationally aware but inactive wo(man). Much feminist theoretical work (like its patriarchal predecessor or model?), does not so much theorise as academise major moral and political issues, thus alienating them from the activists (not to speak of the mass). Alternative models for studies of internationalism are provided by the work of Enloe (1990) and that of Saunders (1989). Enloe's work succeeds by its address to daily and domestic life, past and present: it reads like a novel. Saunders' narrative work on international support for the British miners' strike of 19845 manages to provide us with a thumbnail history of national and international labour movements as it moves from country to country. Kamel's work (1990 a) provides another model, coming from the international women's movement but being addressed to international solidarity more generally, and taking the form of an attractive and practical organisers' handbook. 6. Conclusion: from women's internationalism to global solidarity The recognition of international solidarity as a specific and fundamental area for feminist research and strategy would make its own contribution to the development of theory and activity on the new internationalism more generally. A number of the mentioned male-authored works on globalisation, and even on struggles for alternatives to such, make only passing or token reference to gender, women's struggles and feminist theory (Giddens 1990, Harvey 1989, Held 1991, Sklair 1991). A feminist critique and alternative is clearly called for here. In so far, in other words, as we recognise that there is no single primary subject of such solidarity, and in so far as we further recognise that it has no predetermined goal or end, we can only know what a new internationalism is as each possible area is explored and each possible subject of internationalism speaks. What would seem to be needed is a gender-sensitive theory which would identify what is specific to that of women and then relate it to the internationalism of people and peoples more generally.

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WLUML Occasional Paper 3 However, we are confronted with the paradox that a new social movement so active internationally and so internationalist, seems so little aware of this. And that feminist theorists, so busy and productive in so many other areas, should have so little to say here. I also suggested at the beginning, however, and have indicated elsewhere, that this may be because this movement is less interested in relations between nations! than in global problems. The words 'global' and 'global solidarity' do recur in these pages. And where international or inter-regional documents are produced, they tend to deal with common global or regional problems. Moreover, they tend to 'cross borders' in their analysis and demands, whether these borders are those of gender, race, class, or a territorial understanding of the region or world. Thus the earlier-mentioned European document raises little' question of relations between states, nations or, nationalities within the CSE but declares that No European state accords equal rights to all people within its borders and that the structure of our society is dictated by the inequality which exists between men and women, natives and aliens, dominant cultures and ethnic groups and between the rich and the poor. (First Women's Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1990). It then addresses itself to the problems of 'all people over and above the nations and borders of the CSCE states'. The South Asian document states that Who we are today is as much a product of a common heritage of the legacy of colonialism and the struggle of earlier generations to create a just and equal society. In the post-independence period we share common structure[s] of oppression and exploitation imposed by dominant class/caste and patriarchal rule, reinforced by almost identical government responses to the legitimate aspirations of people. (South Asian Feminist Declaration 1991). Whilst evidently recognising the way in which state. nationalism, ethnic or religious chauvinism I fundamentalism, and militarism divide the peoples of the region, it proposes a broad common orientation, as well as a linkage of the women's movement with others. The Declaration of Comilla, on reproductive technology, clearly recognises a 'patriarchal, industrial, commercial and racist domination over life' as a global problem, facing women of all countries, classes and ethnic groups, although with evidently differential (and divisory) implications and effects. It just as evidently proposes a global response, appealing to men as well as to women: We appeal to all women and men to unite globally against dehumanising technologies and express our solidarity with all those who seek to uphold and preserve the diversity of life on our planet and the integrity and dignity of all women. (FINRRAGE-UBINIG 1989). It seems, in other words, as if the lack of a feminist focus on internationalism could also be understood as a shift of gaze toward a broader horizon. That horizon will have to be explored in the final chapter of the work from which this paper is extracted. In the meantime we would do well to ponder the tragic life of Rosa Luxemburg, an outstanding representative of classical labour and socialist internationalism. In a work otherwise thoroughly sceptical of revolutionary utopianism, James Billington (1980 a, b) reveals a soft spot for the internationalism of Luxemburg. Writing before the collapse of Communism, he says that if the revolutionary faith does revive in those lands where Rosa Luxemburg lived and died, it seems likely to be moved by her ghost stalking the stalags of Stalinism and the dachas of its directors. To them, she can speak of forgotten dreams - reminding them that a Jewish woman once argued that Poles should unite with Russians for their common good; that Germans would benefit from revolution in Russia; and that social revolution would directly abolish both the national identities and the authoritarian controls that repress the creativity of working people themselves. (Billington 1980 b: 503). Yet it is my impression, from a recent biography, that Luxemburg's internationalism went alongside a denial of her identity as Jew, Pole, Woman and, in some way, Person. Concluding on her unhappy relationship with both her lovers, Elzbieta Ettinger says: OCP-03.rtf 23

WLUML Occasional Paper 3

Capable of effecting change in the consciousness of the workers, she believed she could also change an unhappy man into a happy one. The difference between the amorphous crowds she so easily swayed and the individual escaped her. So did the distinctions inherent in divergent cultures and social conditions; she saw humanity but not the individual human being. 'Contact with the masses gives me inner courage and tranquillity', she said, but [her lovers] Jogiches or Zetkin seldom evoked these sensations. With them she felt unloved, unappreciated, and unneeded, or at best was constantly afraid of not being loved, appreciated, or needed. Lonely and sick at heart, she increasingly sought in humanity the wholeness and security that her parental home and her lovers had failed to give her. (Ettinger 1987: 160). Rosas internationalism was, in other words, an alternative to identities she could not recognise, or with which she could not come to terms. Many contemporary feminisms argue for the necessity of joining together such divided and denied identities. And many contemporary international feminisms are suggesting a shift of paradigm away from the impossible past of internationalism' (which is why, for Rosa, it could only be a dream) and toward a global solidarity to be built day by day in our waking hours.

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INTERNATIONAL LABOURS Y2K PROBLEM: A DEBATE, A DISCUSSION AND A DIALOGUE (A Contribution to the ILO/ICFTU Conference on Organised Labour in the 21st century)

Peter Waterman

November 1999

Working Paper 306

The Institute of Social Studies is Europe's longest-established centre of higher education and research in development studies. Post-graduate teaching programmes range from six-week diploma courses to the PhD programme. Research at ISS is fundamental in the sense of laying a scientific basis for the formulation of appropriate development policies. The academic work of ISS is disseminated in the form of books, journal articles, teaching texts, monographs and working papers. The Working Paper series provides a forum for work in progress which seeks to elicit comments and generate discussion. The series includes the research of staff, PhD participants and visiting fellows, and outstanding research papers by graduate students. For further information contact: ORPAS - Institute of Social Studies - P.O. Box 29776 2502LT The Hague - The Netherlands - FAX: +31 70 4260799 E-mail: workingpapers@iss.nl ISSN 0921-0210 Comments are welcome and should be addressed to the author:

ABSTRACT This paper argues for the reinvention of the international labour movement in order to confront our globalised networked capitalist order. It reviews a wide range of recent literature. It also considers the following two overlapping dialogues. The first is The Conference on Organised Labour in the 21st Century co-sponsored by the International Labour Organisation and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (here jointly considered as part of the crisis of labour internationally). Whilst the defensive value of such existing international organisations/institutions is allowed for, it is argued that the network provides the principle of movement for labour in the 21st century; 2) The second type of dialogue is taking place in precisely such networks (or network-based events) as are currently addressing themselves to labour and globalisation. It is here suggested that whilst these may be more politically appropriate as a site of international labour movement debate, they have their own limitations.

CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION: 'GENEVA, WE HAVE A PROBLEM'............................................1 2. ASHES, DIAMONDS AND ACTUALLY-EXISTING INTERNATIONALISM.........3 3. THE SECOND COMING OF INTERNATIONAL COLLECTIVE BARGAINING....9 4. THE PERIPHERY STRIKES FORWARD....................................................................12 5. THE CROSS-BORDER, CROSS-MOVEMENT, NORTH-SOUTH ALLIANCE......17 6. PLACE, SPACE-DISCIPLINE AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM..................................19 7. INTERNATIONAL LABOUR HISTORY: BACK TO THE FUTURE?.....................23 8. UNIONS AND CYBERSPACE: USE AND VALUE...................................................30 9. LABOUR AND GLOBALISATION: THE DIALOGUE OF WHICH MILLENNIUM? .........................................................................................................36 THE THEORETICAL/IDEOLOGICAL PARAMETER: ASSUMING THAT WHICH REQUIRES
QUESTIONING?..................................................................................................................38

THE INSTITUTIONAL PARAMETER: THE IDEOLOGIES OF THE STRUCTURES........................41 THE COMPUTER/COMMUNICATIONAL PARAMETER: NO PARAMETERS?............................47 10. LABOUR AND GLOBALISATION: WHICH DIALOGUE OF THE MILLENNIUM? .........................................................................................................50 11. CONCLUSION: NOT SO MUCH IN AND AGAINST AS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE............................................................................................56 REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................57

1. INTRODUCTION: 'GENEVA, WE HAVE A PROBLEM'1 Launched into space by the inter-nationalisation (sic) and inter-nationalism (sic)of the early-20th century, both international labour and international labour relations find themselves in a condition not dissimilar to that of the Soviet/Russian international spaceship Mir. They send desperate, complaining or demanding messages back to Geneva and Brussels, where can be found the headquarters of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and other international trade union organisations. Headquarters, unfortunately, seem to be as much afflicted by the Y2K problem as the spaceship itself. Now Y2K refers to the incapacity of many computerised devices to deal with any year beyond 2,000. Our destructive bug is that of a globalised and informatised capitalism. Our question must be whether either our spaceships or headquarters can be patched up, or supplied with the requisite new chip. Or whether they need to be re-invented on the basis of new knowledge, understandings and values. Fortunately, for our increasingly earthbound space programme, there has recently been a quite dramatic increase in attention to the problems of labour internationally and even to labour internationalism.2 This has obviously been stimulated by the impact of neoliberal globalisation and provoked by a frankly pro-capitalist and managerial celebration of the global market. Amongst writers on the Left it has also evidently been provoked by the Leftist - or Leftish - dismissal of work as providing a significant collective social identity, and the labour movement as having any such universal mission or emancipatory capacity as was once claimed for it. If the initial response to the capitalist, state and ideological assault on labour was a massive and general disorientation, this new wave of both political and academic writing suggests not only recovery but re-assertion. What has so far been missing is an international labour movement dialogue on this. Yet, unless one believes that the truth is or can be the possession of one privileged

In the course of discussing a forthcoming co-edited special issue of her journal on labour internationalism, Jane Wills, Editor of Antipode, provided me with both a stimulus to and resources for this paper. Thanks, further, to the regretably anonymous evaluator for this ISS Working Paper. I have tried to avoid excessive self-reference: interested readers can track down other sources of information or ideas on the Global Solidarity Website at http://www.antenna.nl/~waterman/. 2 See Hyman 1999b, Martn 1998, Waterman 1999, for reviews of a total of 20 plus items, with 50 plus references, and only marginal overlap. For a view of labour and globalisation close to my own but which is somewhat wider theoretically and rather more positive about the traditional international labour organisations, see that of Ronaldo Munck (1998).

party, organisation, theory or ideology, such a dialogue is the only way of re-creating or even re-inventing a labour movement appropriate to new hard times which are also complex ones. A dialogue is more than either a debate or a discussion. Whilst debate suggests polemic and victory, and discussion a mutual willingness to listen, a dialogue suggests a process of mutual learning. The necessity for such a dialogue around the future of the labour movement, it seems to me, comes out of the crisis or impotence of the major labour movement traditions, whether theoretical or ideological. What this all means is that simple oppositions (within the Left) of Reformists and Revolutionaries, or (amongst the Revolutionaries) of the True and the False, become increasingly empty, irrelevant and demobilising. As we will see, thanks to globalisation, the technical and political necessity and possibility for such a dialogue now exist. Amongst two major pro-labour traditions dominating the revival of labour studies at the present juncture I highlight those of political economy (PE) and Institutionalism. A third tradition, to which I will not here give much importance, is the Developmentalist/Dependency one (which itself developed as the promise/threat of social or socialist revolution moved from the unstable capitalist core to the unstable capitalist periphery). My categories cut across the traditional ideological or academic ones. Rooted, however, as these too are, in the disappearing past of national-industrial-colonial capitalism, we need to consider whether they are adequate to an understanding of our New World Disorder. I am, however, less concerned to deny the possible value of one or all, than to try to identify what is of value amongst them, and to also look for new approaches that might extend or surpass the currently dominant ones. The paper addresses itself to the two problems arising: the necessity to go beyond PE and Institutionalism, and the necessity for a meaningfully global dialogue - global in the sense of both worldwide and holistic. I will begin with work in the PE and Institutionalist traditions, then move to a broader literature. I will end with a discussion of two appropriately new phenomena. The first is the implications of computerised communication for the labour movement. The second is the attempt at a global discussion on labour globally. As such, this paper itself attempts to make the move from debate to dialogue. Readers will certainly inform me of any shortcomings here.

2. ASHES, DIAMONDS AND ACTUALLY-EXISTING INTERNATIONALISM An explicit political-economic and implicit state-national discourse dominates the revival of Left labour studies in the epoch of globalisation. And not only in the US or Anglo-Saxon world, where many of these writings originate, since the collective works include studies on or from other parts other of the world, as well as on the international arena. The keywords in the Left PE lexicon are: capital, labour, industry, class, imperialism, nation, state, revolution. Customarily these are presented in pairs of binary opposites: capital/labour, capitalism/socialism, imperialism/nationalism, state/people, re-

form/revolution, and even industry/agriculture. Customarily, they are posed on a hierarchical plane, as inferior and superior, vicious and virtuous, past and future. The Left PE view is consistent with the Marxist notion that space is passive and time active, that time conquers space: it is capitalist speed and dynamism that will free 'peoples without history' from the 'idiocy of rural life'. And, again consistent with Marx, the workers will first have to settle affairs with their - their?- national capitalist classes before liberating everyone everywhere. It is not that the new PE work is necessarily blind to gender, ethnicity, community and culture. But that it gives these only a particular weight against the great universals: workers will have to first settle their (national?) gender, ethnic, communal and cultural differences and divisions before they can, after clearing the battlefield of particularisms, liberate themselves - and everyone else - in a Final Struggle of Universal Classes.3 The purpose of the Meiksins Wood, Meiksins and Yates (1998) collection, if we are to be guided by the EMW introduction, is to reassert such traditional Marxist verities in the face of 'globalisation', and various right and Left theories that seem to her to deny the revolutionary potential of the working class and international revolutionary socialism. I welcome the effort. It marks the US-based Monthly Review's rediscovery of labour as a significant force for emancipation. This work takes a clear position on labour under globalisation, which differs clearly from the convictions of both myself and others about the matter, and therefore makes possible dialogue about such on the Left.

In view of my criticism of a Left PE caricature of others immediately below, it would be fair to ask whether I am not here caricaturing Left PE. In the course of a critique of New Social Movement theory, Barker and Dale (1999) present a nuanced Trotskyist theorisation and analysis of waves of working-class struggle in the 1980s-90s. This not only surpasses my stereotype but also supports my own conviction about the continued pertinence of class and the re-emergence of labour struggles. They continue, however, to consider class as the great explainer and class struggle as the great solution (they also fail to confront informatisation and new forms of organisation of work). Martn (1998), however, in a classical Trotskyist leftier-thanthou polemic on labour internationalism, illustrates the caricature perfectly.

Possible but not necessary. A dialogue, additional to earlier-mentioned characteristics, would seem to require recognition of, or a recognisable representation of, the position of the other party/ies.4 Yet, I feel, a significant pro-labour position (to which I will have to return) is caricatured in the following quotation:
[T]here is a kind of abstract internationalism without material foundations. It is one thing to recognise the importance of international solidarity and co-operation among national labour movements. That kind of internationalism is not only essential to socialist values but strategically indispensable to the success of many domestic class struggles. But some of the left invoke an 'international civil society', as the new arena of struggle, or 'global citizenship' as the basis of a new solidarity - and that sounds less like an anti-capitalist strategy than like a kind of whistling in the dark. When people say that the international arena is the only one for socialists, that global capital can only be met with a truly global response, they seem to be sayingthat the struggle against capitalism is effectively over. (Ellen Meiksins Wood 1998:10)

The collection is divided into sections on: theories of labour and class in a changing world; the American scene; and the foreign-cum-international one. Whilst the intention of the introduction is clearly to recognise, specify and promote a new wave of labour militancy, it is also, apparently, to show how this can be done within a traditional MarxistLeninist framework and vocabulary. It is the 19th century weltanschauung and the vocabulary mentioned above, that explains why globalisation is here held within distancing quotes. And also why internationalism itself is presented primarily as a relationship between national working classes/movements, themselves addressing nation states. At the same time, however, there are chapters devoted to the relation of class to gender and ethnicity and even of the industrial/urban to the agricultural/rural. There are also the more specialised chapters, focusing on organising the unorganised, on labour education, on current union or socialist leaderships (US, the ex-Communist world, the European Union, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions). And there is even one chapter, on class-community-internationalist unionism in Los Angeles, which seems to burst out of the dominant discourse and debouch onto something different. The editors are wise in putting a question mark at the end of their main title. The overwhelming impression from the collection is that, with the exception of certain movements in East Asia and Mexico, the labour movement in the age of globalisation is still marked more by ashes than diamonds. National trade union and Left strategies in the US,

Or forerunners. There is a 10-15 year-old US tradition of writing about international labour of which Monthly Review may be unaware. A good recent example would be Labour Research Review (1995).

the ex-Communist world, the European Union, and at international level, may be changing but are apparently all marked by profound ambiguities, limitations and compromises. Thus, Gerard Greenfield's rare and welcome chapter on the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which won the trade union Cold War and is now the unchallenged leader of international unionism, reveals that the very premise of all its meagre activity in East and South-East Asia is neither 'organise' nor 'agitate', far less 'mobilise', but compromise.5 And this compromise is not with the turbulent working people of the region but with any and every national or interstate agency with which it might, hypothetically, be able to bargain around a table. The Mexican case study, which prioritises urban proletarian leadership, is actually about labour's response to a rural movement. But it here reproduces the Latin American Left tradition of reducing what is actually an indigenous movement to a PE category, something achieved politically only at a cost in blood to both the indigenous and the Left (Peru, Guatemala). The Zapatista leadership of this particular indigenous uprising, is concerned not simply with local land and cultural rights, but national democracy - and addresses itself to the global civil society Ellen Meiksins Wood dismisses as lacking a material base. Other contributors also seem to be rooting amongst the national/industrial ashes in an attempt to find some glowing embers. How else are we to understand Peter Gilmore's piece on Communists and workers in the ex-Communist world? This is an informative but depressing piece. It says that large parts of the population 'have remained strongly attached to socialist values' (162) - presumably of a late-C19th or early-C20th mark. It appears that the party-political bearers of such are divided into Western-type SocialDemocrats, anti-Western and nationalist authoritarians, and broad-church Socialist Democrats favouring a large state sector and state planning. Whilst Gilmore apparently identifies with this last socialism, rather than the more pro-Western or proto-fascist one, he does not tell us where even this might stand on women, ecology, militarism, ethnic minorities or public transport. Nor on internationalism, traditional or new, material or immaterial. I would have thought that it would be a socialism with such concerns on its banners that might best articulate (join and express) the broadest range of worker and popular suffering and discontent there - as well as to bring it the maximum of solidarity from and with the

Greenfield provides a powerful corrective to the informative but rosy-coloured view of the ICFTU as 'contesting globalisation' by Robert O'Brien (1996).

West and South.6 Co-Editor, Peter Meiksins, confronts Left theorising about difference and differentiation in the contemporary working class by arguing that 'the old labour movement may have more to teach us than we acknowledge' (34) about these. Indeed. But what? There has got to be more to be learned about national or international labour history, and its lessons for us, than that contemporary labour requires a 'real "class" project' (36). As in Russia, 1917? 'History' also tells us, for example, that labour once was the citizen movement, the social movement, i.e. that it addressed society as a whole and not just the working class (Johnston 1999). The major diamond amongst the ashes is Eric Mann's Bus Riders Union/Sindicato de Pasajeros in Los Angeles. This is more than a case study: the organisation is a product of the author's own Labour/Community Strategy Centre. Mann, a veteran of MarxismLeninism and labour-community struggle, has little but criticism for union leaderships right down to local level. His case study, however, is not of a proletarian or trade union movement at all! It is of the relationship between a revolutionary ideologist/organiser, a non-governmental organisation and a voluntary, mixed-class organisation in a multi-ethnic community of the poor. It is an urban social movement, addressing itself to the felt needs of the community for public transport! In a related case, the Strategy Centre organised a similar community confronted by toxic emissions. Because of the national/ethnic origins of these communities, it has been apparently possible to mobilise them against California's anti-immigrant laws, in solidarity with unions and the Zapatistas in Mexico and against the blockade of Cuba. This is, fortunately, not the only contribution going further than the editorial orientation. There is powerful criticism of the 'end of work' thesis (Doug Henwood). The piece on women and labour (Johanna Brenner) not only reveals the mutual

It is oddly reassuring to find that the sterility of old Left and labour strategies in the North is reproduced in Latin America. An article inspired by a meeting of the Socialist International in Buenos Aires makes, perhaps, the unkindest cut of all, referring to both the local and international movement as 'the inoffensive Left' (Dearriba, Rosenberg and Sabat 1999). In a study on the Left, social movements and democracy in Latin America, Kenneth Roberts (1998) both demonstrates and explains the parallel crisis of the radical and reformist Left in such different cases as those of Chile and Peru. Roberts is clear that this crisis is an outcome of neo-liberalism and globalisation, and that a possible way out is through a bottom-up strategy of popular empowerment, bringing together class and new social movements, allied to others internationally. This suggests to me that any renewal of the Left has to be both universal (world-wide) and global (supranational), with consistent principles applied North and South, nationally and globally. Such an understanding may prevent the splintering that has marked and marred traditional internationalisms, even during their periods of growth.

dependency of each movement on the other but proposes new concepts and analytical strategies. In the light of the book's general scepticism about 'globalisation', and the literal internationalism urged on us by Ellen Meiksins Wood (and the Canadian union specialist and consultant, Sam Gindin) I must return to my earlier quote. EMW, a recentlyappointed editor of the now venerable Monthly Review, has, it must be said, a rather 19th century notion of 'matter', which does not seem to include its more complex, lightweight or 20th century manifestations, such as 'ideas', 'culture', 'information' or even, possibly, 'gender'. She privileges the economic and political, and, of course, political economy. She similarly privileges the 19th century nation and state (sans quotes) as the unproblematised terrain and target of emancipatory struggle. And, finally, she considers the working class the privileged bearer of emancipation and internationalism. I am not sure of exactly whom her Left immaterial internationalists are, since she not only fails to allow them to speak for themselves but does not even name them. Familiar, as I am, with a wide range of Left literature on global civil society and citizenship, etc, I cannot recall anyone arguing that globalisation can only be combated in the international arena. In so far as she might be thinking of someone like, for example, David Held, then a quote may suggest how he relates to a globalised capitalist world:
Faced with overlapping communities of fate - with, this is, a world in which the fortunes of individual political communities are increasingly bound together citizens in the future will need to be not only citizens of their own communities, but also of the regions in which they live, and of the wider global order. They must be able to participate in diverse political communities - from cities and subnational regions, to nation states, regions and wider global networks. It is clear that a process of disconnecting legitimate political authority from states and fixed borders has already begun as legitimate forms of governance are diffused below, above and alongside the nation state. But the cosmopolitan project is in favour of a radical extension of this process so long as it is circumscribed by a far-reaching commitment to democratic rights and duties (Held 1998).

It would, finally, seem to me that whilst EMW is whistling in the gathering dusk of the industrial-national-capitalist era for a nation-state-oriented internationalism, others are doing increasingly visible damage to global patriarchy, environmental destruction, militarism, imperialism, ethno-cultural homogenisation and neoliberal economic globalisation (the computer-articulated campaign against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment). And - as with the Zapatistas - with scarcely a socialist slogan to be seen (see, for an overview of the movements, Fernndez Durn 1999)! Could there possibly be an inverse 7

relationship between national-industrial socialist truisms on the one hand and effective confrontation with globalisation on the other? There are, of course, other traditions of political economy. Or, perhaps one should say, other political economists, unworried about whether their analyses prove Marx right. Myron Frankman, for example, who appears rather well-informed about classical political-economy (meaning one with moral and philosophical concerns) argues provocatively for a 'planet-wide citizen income', an idea which certainly stimulates the little grey cells (Frankman 1998). Another example of such, quite surprisingly, is the International Chemical, Energy and Mineworkers Federation (ICEM 1999). This is one of a group of ITSs (International Trade Secretariats) that has been gaining energy and bite over the last five years or so. It has the practice of commissioning and publishing professional and - for an international union - pathbreaking reports. Suffice it to say that this one actually straddles the distinction between the current section of this paper and the next one, not only analysing the dramatic changes taking place in the global political economy, and proposing far-reaching reforms in both the international institutions and procedures of labour relations and also of the United Nations and international financial institutions more generally. I became aware of it too late to give it the critique it really deserves, but not too late to indicate its coverage and flavour. Coverage. Part 1 is on corporate power and the world social economy, covering not only the ICEM-related industries and corporations but also the transformation of the global economy, and its implications for incomes, national and international differentials, and the increasing subordination to the mega-corporations of the inter-state agencies. Part 2 is on global unionism and a new kind of solidarity. This deals in some detail with the range of arenas and strategies in which the ICEM is active. But it also discusses its present or proposed activity in public arenas internationally, in the reform of global governance and of the control of corporations. As for flavour, how about this?
The mega-corps are coming under increasing pressure from a wide constellation of issue-based citizens groups. NGOs such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Third World Network, womens groups, consumer associations and many others have begun to construct a global civic society around the global corporation. Much of the territory that these groups occupy was a part of the original trade union philosophy. The specialisation of these groups is a reflection in part on the fact that trade unions have allowed themselves to be restricted to workplace bread and butter issues and to leave wider social questions to others. Fragmentation of this kind allows those being criticised to divide the opposition and to set one group against another.

The NGOs have begun to learn this lesson of solidarity and have begun to group together over major issues. The most impressive example of this in action was the combined assault by a wide range of social groups upon the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which resulted in its withdrawal from the globalisation agenda at least for the time being. Most of the international trade union movement was notably absent from the alliance separated by its own decision to push for a set of labour protection clauses within the body of the agreement, rather than to oppose the agreement itself. It now seems certain that this debate will be revived within the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This will give a second opportunity to forge a stronger civic alliance that this time can include the trade unions

I look forward to seeing Monthly Review come to terms with arguments concerning international institutions and global civil society, but coming out of a political-economic analysis and an international trade union organisation. 3. THE SECOND COMING OF INTERNATIONAL COLLECTIVE BARGAINING Breitenfellner and Ramsay, Euros rather than Gringos, are concerned to identify and further union power at the international/global level. Both papers are well informed and informative. And although both are, I think, prisoners of institutions and strategies that are part of the crisis of labour internationally, no one interested in surpassing this crisis can afford to miss them.7 Breitenfellner (1997), works for the Austrian Federation of Trade Unions (GB) and is writing here in the journal of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). He not only favours the development of 'global unionism' but has a definite theoretical/ideological understanding of such:
Global unionism is not an end in itself, but a means of resolving problems that arise in the world economy. First, unions could be instrumental in spurring governments to cooperate with each other. Second, they may reproduce their national function at the worldwide level by instigating tripartite agreements between global labour, global business and the international community of states in order to bring global financial markets - i.e. the fourth player - under control.

Too late for inclusion here is the more substantial work by Leisink (1999), similarly Eurocentred and similarly concerned with establishing a global framework for the regulation of capital-labour relations. It is similar to the others also in its global neo-Keynesian orientation. An exceptional contribution to the collection is that on globalisation and Australian labour relations by Rob Lambert (1999a). This is exceptional both in seeing Chinese and Indonesian labour relations as significant for those of this (post-)industrialised nation state, and for its advocacy of some kind of international social movement unionism as a necessary inter/national strategy. Rob Lambert has been the key figure behind the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (see further below).

This approach of course focuses on the institutional dimension of the international political economy[W]hat is at stake ultimately is the pursuit of social justice and global security [] Only the establishment of reliable institutions and a commitment to cooperate - two aims of global unionism - can contribute to achieving stable international relations. (532)

Breitenfellner considers in turn: the position of labour in the global economy, the limits to national sovereignty, the challenge these present to unionism, and 'the fragmentary foundations of global unionism' (543ff).

As an overview of the matter, making a wide-ranging and judicious selection of disputes, campaigns, union forms, levels, and different possible strategies, this is an admirable piece. It leans heavily in the direction of the industrially-specialised International Trade Secretariats (ITSs) as providing the key to the future. It concludes (551-3) that global unionism is a desirable element in 'restoring the socio-economic balance of power' (552). Global unionism, it argues, can draw on the tradition of labour internationalism; it can and should go beyond diplomacy, information exchange and policy coodination; it needs to develop strategies, to operate and bargain internationally; it should be based on local experience; it should use the new communications technology for contact with the base; it should see itself as part of a global civil society:
The ultimate aim of global unionism would be to institutionalise a system of tripartite social partnership for the purpose of regulating the global economy in the interest of greater equality, prosperity and stabilityThe real challenge of globalisation is to take advantage of the new opportunities if international solidarity is to embrace more than traditional worker anthems. (ibid)

The limitations of this truly innovatory scenario are, as I have suggested above, those of an existing institutionality. The keyword in the argument is restoring. There exists, in the mind of Breitenfellner (as well, no doubt, as in that of the GB and the ILO) a Paradise Lost, a past in which there existed a socio-economic balance of power, which, through collective bargaining between social partners, promoted the greatest good of the greatest number. There is also, clearly, a Paradise (to be) Regained, in which a tripartite agreement between global labour, global capital and a global community of states is to tame a fourth player, the global financial markets. There are here both lacunae and leaps. National Keynesianism was limited to certain parts of the working and popular classes, in certain countries with a dominant position 10

in the international hierarchy. And, whatever economic and social benefits it may have provided, it Left labour politically disarmed in the face of neoliberalism. Both national and international collective bargaining are bi- or tripartite, yet Breitenfellner slips in a fourth party - a diablo ex machina tripartita. Is financial capital, then, the unacceptable face of international capitalism? To be dealt with only as a problem for tripartism? To be eventually included in quatripartite labour relations? Or to be recognised as the most dynamic, global, destructive and intangible element within the third party (as argued forcefully by Castells 1996-8)? Is not the practice and ideology of tripartism itself responsible for the current disorientation of labour nationally and internationally? Can, in any case, National Keynesianism and Collective Bargaining be hoisted/foisted globally, or even to the restricted level of the EU? And - a less rhetorical question - does Harvie Ramsay provide some answers to our Y2K problem? Ramsay (1998), a veteran international labour specialist, writes a briefer and more modest paper, focused precisely on the EU level of our globalising world. It is similarly institutional, examining in turn: Theories of international unionism, Prospects for international unionism in Europe, and Conclusions for collective bargaining at EU, European industry and MNC level. Its particular interest for me lies in his identification of past or present theoretical/strategical approaches to international unionism: Evolutionary Optimism (the rise of MNCs will inevitably lead to countervailing power in the shape of international unionism), Managerial Scepticism (which I will leave to managerial sceptics), Left Pessimism (with which he identifies himself and his onetime colleague Nigel Haworth), National Alternativism (strong governments and IR systems can resist MNCs), and Contingency Theories (given certain circumstances, certain MNCs may favour European-level bargaining). Ramsay associates himself, cautiously, with this somewhat iffy approach. I am puzzled about Ramsay's Left Pessimism, unless this is a Gramscian one of the intellect, ineluctably associated with Gramsci's optimism of the will. The suggestion of one of his past joint-authored pieces was that labour internationalism would have to go beyond the factory wall and union office (Haworth and Ramsay 1984). This was a move in the direction of the 'labour-community alliance' (Brecher and Costello 1990, Mann 11

above, Kamel and Hoffman below), and a major stimulus to my own thinking about 'the new internationalisms' and 'the new social unionism'.8 Pessimism about institutions can lead one to address movements as sources of new institutions. 'Solidarity at Last?' suggests a search for its possible meanings and contemporary sources. But this is not the case with Ramsay's piece which, after another detailed consideration, here of international capital, the EU's own promotion of international bargaining, the nature and functions of international unionism, reaches its predictably iffy conclusion. This is that, despite formidable obstacles to, and contradictions within, trade union policies at EU level, unions need to do more research, to expand information exchange, become more flexible and open. Which, however, 'may also promote fresh central union efforts to retain control' (525). If, after almost 100 years, the Iron Law of Oligarchy still rules, do we not need principle of labour self-articulation which it cannot govern? There is, of course, nothing wrong with institutional labour studies. The problem arises, at least for a critical sociology, when the institutions form the parameters of the thought. I also see nothing wrong in speculating, or even working toward, a future institutional framework appropriate to a newly recognised terrain of dispute. On the contrary. But an institutionalism that imposes old institutional conclusions on new social premises fails to recognise the historical relationship between social movement and social compromise. Does the same limitation affect studies of labour and globalisation at the capitalist periphery, notoriously unstable and volatile, and where one might therefore assume a scepticism as to a labour institutionality imported from the customarily opposed West? 4. THE PERIPHERY STRIKES FORWARD Here I want to look at two collections revealing the experience and views of the labour movement and the allied Left from what used to be called the Third World. This Third World is, of course, a concept that belongs to the later period of national-industrial capitalism, and of the international politics of ideological blocs. At that time there developed mass radical-nationalist movements, which were anti-imperialist and were nominally in favour of 'positive neutrality'. The radical-nationalist project tended, in practice, to op8

Also important to note is work on globalisation which does not begin with unions or the labour movement but which nonetheless recognises labour struggles as essential to 'the politics of resistance' (Gills Forthcoming).

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erate in the political and theoretical places and spaces allowed for them by West/East rivalry. Thus, alongside, or overlapping pro-Western or pro-Communist unionism, there developed a radical-nationalist variety with its own state-supported regional internationals (at least in Africa and the Arab world). There also developed theories of development/dependency, which themselves entered the analysis of labour and unionism, and which distinguished this area from, or opposed it to, the rest of the world. The two collective works under consideration, one from Latin America and one from India can be taken as indicating the passing of that era and the beginning of what the first one calls a 'painful insertion into an uncertain world'. Portella de Castro and Wachendorfer (1998) comes from the stable of Nueva Sociedad, a Caracas-based political journal and publishing house, itself partially supported by the West German, Social-Democratic, Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Whilst most Left Latin American publishing houses have abandoned any interest in labour, or internationalism, Nueva Sociedad continues to produce work addressed to both. This particular one considers in turn: Latin and North American responses to economic globalisation; national labour responses, including those of West German unions and the Brazilian landless movement (MST); union responses at enterprise or sectoral level; and the international reshaping of Latin-American unionism (by changes within the ICFTU regionally, the AFL-CIO, and the new international union strategy of 'social clauses'). The book as a whole ought to be translated into English as a matter of some urgency. I would have thought that it was in the interest of the Canadian and/or US unions to do so. This is because of the unique breadth and insight it provides into the Latin American - indeed hemispheric - union movement at a moment of transition. For our current purpose the most important section is obviously the last. This gives a detailed, optimistic but sober account of renovation in the international relations of trade unions in the hemisphere. There is not too much talk of 'internationalism' or 'solidarity' here, and with good reason given a half century or more of trade union imperialism from the North and trade union nationalism in the South. The latter, it should be noted, served Latin American labour as ambiguously as the former did US workers. This is because the nationalism customarily meant subordination to Left or right nationalist projects of particular parties, regimes or states. And these, in turn, divided workers and unions nationally as well as crossnationally. 13

One contribution to the book reveals that, as recently as 1995, the attempt to develop a common Latin American trade union position on the 19th century-type territorial/resource conflict between Peru and Ecuador was stymied by the identification of the two unions concerned with the positions of their respective states. (The matter was, I recall, eventually solved, over the heads of their respective unions and civil societies, by the Presidents - much to the chagrin of a previously silent, now enraged Peruvian Left). This particular contribution, by Kjeld Aagaard Jakobsen (1998), on the ICFTU's regional organisation, is something of an eye-opener. The Inter-American Regional Organisation of Workers, universally known by its Spanish initials as the ORIT, was, during the Cold War, a byword for US corruption, covert operations, the splitting and domination of Third World unions. The AFL-CIO used it at will, conjointly or alternatively to the ICFTU itself and its very own, but state-funded and CIA-linked, American Institute for Free Labour Development. Perhaps it is a combination of the hyper-irrelevance of the ORIT, the savage effects of neo-liberalism on labour in the sub-continent, and the failure of the Eurocentric ICFTU to respond with speed and relevance to globalisation, that has led to the ORIT playing something of a vanguard role with respect to both the continent and the ICFTU. It would have been nice if this new internationalism had reached the ORIT from the shopfloor. But given the past dependence on nation states, national parties and nationalist ideologies, any mass internationalism amongst Latin American workers has been the exception.9 The ORIT has been not only democratising itself internally and reaching out to unions regardless of political or international affiliation.10 It has also been playing an active role in various cross-sector, cross-border civil society alliances attempting to confront the wave of inter-state free-trade initiatives in the Americas. This, inevitably, means entering non-union networks, alliances and coalitions11 - to the silent chagrin, here, of the ICFTU in Brussels. So the ORIT has been impacted from the grassroots, if not the shopfloor. Or - if one prefers to concentrate on the institutionalised expression of such - we

At a massive independent Left trade union Mayday demonstration I attended in Mexico City, 1999, there were several anti-Gringo but not one internationalist speech, slogan, sign or symbol. 10 The major Peruvian union centre remains, I believe, affiliated to the Communist phantom (or ghost of Communism) I worked for, 1966-9, the World Federation of Trade Unions. 11 Such as the Social Alliance of the Americas, of which other leading members are Common Frontiers (Canada), the Quebec Network on Continental Integration (RQIC), the Mexican Network Confronting Free Trade (RMALC), the Alliance for Responsible Trade (ALR, USA), the Brazilian Network for the Integration of the Poor (REBRIP), the Civil Society Initiative on Central American Integration (ICIC), and the Latin American Co-ordination of Rural Organisations (CLOC). See Alianza Social Continental (1999a,b), Kamel and Hoffman (1999:113-15).

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could consider this as the horizontal impact of the NGOs in the Americas. A major question facing both the ORIT and the AFL-CIO (and the Canadian unions for that matter) must therefore be the development of a healthy, open and democratic dialectic with civil society more generally.12 A major influence on the ORIT, for good or bad, must remain the AFL-CIO. A David within the labour force and civil society of the USA, it remains a Goliath on the hemispheric scene. The chapter on the AFL-CIO, by Russell Smith (1998), is the most detailed account I have yet seen of the transformation of the international policy and institutions of this organisation. Assessments of this transformation have so far tended to be in terms of whether or not it has changed from the days of the AFL-CIO-CIA. Smith enables us to see this in more differentiated and qualitative terms. He considers personnel, financing and the AFL-CIO's own publicity in the (paradoxically non-electronic!) America@Work. He sees the changes as providing an opening for the Latin American movement to develop a South-North solidarity relationship of a more meaningful nature. But, again, he identifies continuing obstacles and challenges. The transformation of the AFLCIO has definitely been a factor, additional to the previously-mentioned ones, in the revival of the ORIT. John and Chenoy (1996) is, in some ways, an even more remarkable book, coming out of an India where, for decades, the unions and the Left - or Lefts - have combined a rhetorical internationalism, institutional or moral affiliations with different foreign national or international Left leaderships, and the practical pursual of a variety of national and nationalist policies that isolated them even from their immediate neighbours in South Asia.13 Published by one of the tiny labour resource groups created by the independent Left in the 1980s, this book addresses itself directly to the matter of 'social clauses'. The idea of inserting a social clause into multilateral trade agreements means a requirement that imports into the North from the South depend on Southern state observance of certain labour conditions. Such clauses were initially a protectionist device, proposed

The ORIT, as well as certain heavy dancers amongst the Latin American national unions, has, I understand, been a problematic presence within at least one of the 'cross-sector, cross-border' conferences, fora or fronts in the hemisphere. See, for an insider's view of one or two of these events, de la Cueva (1999). 13 Contrast two Indian labour movement collections on Indian labour and unions in the era of globalisation, both of which are almost totally dominated by the Left PE paradigm, neither of which makes more than a token gesture, or shows marginal awareness, of labour internationalism, and both of which are (consequently?) marked more heavily by pessimism of the intellect than optimism of the will (Shramik Pratishthan 1999, Working Class 1998).

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by certain sections of capital and certain Northern states, often supported on jobs or human rights grounds by Northern unions or human rights bodies. The book claims to merely record an Indian debate. The contributions of the national union representatives lean toward a traditional Indian nationalist-protectionist position. But space is nonetheless provided for those rejecting a binary for/against logic, on the grounds that this implies identification with either a Northern or an Indian capitalist interest! Amongst those proposing the necessity for a third, independent, analysis and strategy, no single position can be identified. But we hear the voices of a whole range of thinkers and activists, from the labour, women's, ecological, children's, human rights and other such movements. What the book therefore represents is a new contribution to what is - or still needs to be - a truly international debate on the international strategy of labour in the era of globalisation. The most remarkable contribution for me is that of the Indian eco-feminist, Vandana Shiva (1996). Shiva, who has previously tended to a simple oppositionism (feminist, thirdworldist, rural, local), here presents a sophisticated and eloquent argument from the standpoint of the international solidarity. She sees social and/or environmental clauses as protectionist, unilateral (one way, and top-down internationally), ineffective, and divisive of international solidarity. The trade related labour standard
does not address the issue of restructuring of production and the dispensability of the worker. In fact, it diverts attention from the fundamental problemThe real crisis related to work in the globalisation period is that the destruction of work and livelihood is taking place at an unprecedented rateIn the context of the end of work, the real challenge is to protect work. This is a matter of public intervention in technology policy []As unilateralism is based on domination and control, it weakens Southern States and Southern citizens in evolving their own systems. Most issues and most sectors of economic policyneed to be addressed domestically through movements of civil society creating accountability of state and civil systems (101107)

I am not sure this is the last word on the matter, any more than we can expect last words to come from any particular person, country, region or sector. But the very presence of such voices provides some kind of guarantee against a bad old tradition under which international trade union organisations, or Left intellectuals with international reach, could create their particularistic universalism on the safe assumption that the periphery would not strike back.

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Whatever, however, the old Third World might or might not contribute to labour and internationalism, we might expect even more from the place at which, to put it euphemistically, the peso meets the dollar.
5.

THE CROSS-BORDER, CROSS-MOVEMENT, NORTH-SOUTH ALLIANCE There is nowhere in the world where the First World meets the Third World so

sharply as on the frontier/frontera between the USA and Mexico (I am here excluding their daily confrontation on the streets of New York, Sao Paulo or Moscow).14 There is no period in which they have met so dramatically as that following the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. And there is no such front of neoliberal confrontation as that of labour. This conflict is centred on the maquiladora, now the collective term for the cheap-labour assembly plants on the Northern border of Mexico. Rachel Kamel and the American Friends Service Committee ('Friends' in the sense of Quakers) have been working in and on this geographical and industrial area for 15 or 20 years, particularly with the large numbers of women workers in the zones. This persistence provides a model that international socialists, whizzing around the world in a dizzying hunt for the Weak Link in the Capitalist Chain, might care to follow.15 The Kamel and Hoffman (1999) collection of articles, interviews, documents and declarations is inspired by no explicit theoretical framework or ideological position. It is certainly informed by a ecumenical Christian ethic, thus reviving a religious universalism at the service of the poor. The collection records and reveals the situation of workers, women, unions, communities, and of the various cross-border projects and alliances that are attempting not to resist globalisation, in the name of some right- or Left-nationalist development project, but to confront it, in the name of working people on both sides. The collection is strongest where it is recording, or analysing, the impact of neoliberalism on the Mexican side (actually, of course, Mexicans are on both sides). About half of the book is devoted to the industries, to the position of women, to health and envi-

For a case in which the North/South relationship is more-or-less reversed, consider the extensive and varied relations between South African trade unions and their less-developed 'Northern' neighbours (some are within the country!), in Motau (1999) and Shopsteward (1999). 15 In 1993 I met Argentinean Trotskyists, seeking this weak link inMoscow! It appeared to me that they were less concerned with international labour solidarity in some practical and plebeian sense, more in what one might call the reimport of revolution.

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ronmental issues. The other half is intended to deal with cross-border solidarity in general, with the AFSC and its Mexican counterpart in particular, and with alternatives to NAFTA in the future. Much of the space is, however, taken by further analyses of the situation. And where the book does deal with solidarity projects, it is neither comprehensive nor critical. Two final documents reveal the extent to which what have been called 'crossborder, cross-movement' alliances (Pollack 1999) are spreading out from the frontera to North America in general (thus including Mexico and Canada), and from there to the whole hemisphere! Focal points here are the interstate conferences at which so-called freetrade agreements are shaped up or approved. In both Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Santiago, Chile, in 1997, unions, pro-labour groups, and varied national or regional movements and alliances (human rights, women, ecological, rural, indigenous peoples) met together to draw up proposals for 'social alliances' alternative to those of the governments and corporations (Cumbre de los Pueblos de Amrica 1999). Significant in both cases has been the initiating role of the Mexican network. This has been evidently energised by the frontier experience. And it is called the 'Mexican Network Confronting Free Trade'. Network: not, thus, union or organisation. Confronting: not, thus, 'collective bargaining with', nor simply 'rejecting', (though elements of both may be found within its proposals and activities). The network, and the experience, have strong labour and union roots, but seem prepared to recognise the new hemispheric/global terrain of struggle and to seek for a radicallydemocratic alternative to neo-liberalism (for the problems of developing such, see Bakvis 1998, Carr 1996, Pollack 1999). Whilst this well-designed and illustrated reader, with its bibliography and resource listing, is likely to become a standard organising and teaching text, we do need critical analyses of the solidarity organisations and campaigns, which are more problematic than this book suggests (Nissen 1999). In the meantime, those concerned with alternatives to globalisation, or trying to develop solidarity in different places or at other levels, will find in it a source of both inspiration and material for reflection. One question that might arise would be: why this particular zone or frontier, rather than the EU zone, or the EuropeanOther frontier? I have already given a PE answer to this. But it seems to me that if we want to understand not only why but how, and not only the advanced model but its hypothetical limitations, we are going to have find something that reaches places that traditional PE fails to do. 18

6. PLACE, SPACE-DISCIPLINE AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM The political-economy model has been seriously subverted, or at least qualified, by radical social geography, which insists that people are as much made by, and makers of, place/space as they are of work and industry. What the Herod (1998) collection is offering us is some kind of historical-geographical materialism. Whilst not necessarily disputing the previous vocabulary, it adds to it: place and space, scale, mobility, locality, globality, and geographies of industry/employment, domination, resistance and challenge. The social geographers - these social geographers - seem to have no such problem with globalisation as do the PE people. Maybe the discipline concerned with space is simply more open to the world than the one bound to time (in which, again classically, 'the more advanced countries show the more backward ones their future'). There is, of course, no guarantee that academic social geography will allow equal space and weight to gender, ethnic and other identities/determinants. It may simply be that the breach opened in the Great Wall of Nim (National Industrial Marxism) allows others to slip through alongside or after the geographers. It is nonetheless the case that this new collection will be an eye-opener for those concerned with the emancipatory potential of labour in the era of globalisation. And those concerned with emancipatory labour studies. And, in particular, for those concerned with international labour and labour internationalism, which, alongside theory, must be the focus of this comment. There are, actually, two introductions to this largely US-oriented collection. There is a foreword by Richard Walker, which traces out, perceptively and self-critically, the itinerary of Left labour studies since the 1960s. He identifies, first, the two traditions: of labour-process studies (Harry Braverman) and cultural studies (Edward Thompson). These, he says, declined in the 1980s (confronted by the rise and rise of neo-liberalism?). Following this, he says, studies of labour shifted into the landscape (an appropriate response to the increasing mobility and scale of operation of capital?). He then identifies a split amongst the geographers into a declining political-economic tradition and a rising cultural one. Whilst far from rubbishing the radical indeterminism of postmodernism, he both recognises and wishes to further a new kind of labour studies, both within and beyond geography. This, he says:
must begin from the standpoint of the new global working class, which in its great variety of peoples and backgrounds overturns many conventional suppositions from the outsetBut it must get back to being political economy; that is, it must take the logic of capitalist economies and the force of class as essential

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premisesThe presumption still remains that for the great mass of the world's people work is still the central fact of existence [] What we need, in particular, is a political economy of place [G]eographic inquiry must be telescopic, able to move up and down the scale of placesGlobalism is as real as the persistence of localism, but when and where and how it matters is for us to puzzle out, not to assume. [xvi]

There is much more, in the same penetrating and provocative vein. I am myself not at all sure that we should prioritise a geographical-historical political economy over - say - a cultural, feminist, ecological or communicational approach to labour and emancipation. It depends, surely, on what kind of PE and what kind of Non-PE. Walker has also, surely, got to be wrong in holding E.P.Thompson (social activist, internationalist and inveterate enemy of a-social Left academic obscurantism and political posturing) responsible for post-modernism! But Walker certainly suggests the potential of a labour studies beyond the confines of Thompson's (1967) 'time, work discipline and industrial capitalism'. Andy Herod does a similarly enlightening job when he reviews the literature on trade unions and space. He also provides thoughtful introductions to the three sections of the book, these being little review essays in their own right. Herod argues that workers are as much products - and producers - of space as they are of workplaces and industry. He considers in turn how different labour laws or regulations affect the spatial structure of unionism, how unionism is affected by the economic geography of capitalism, how union organising responds to place, how it is affected by particularities of place and context. A seven-page bibliography suggests the extent of this new tradition - to which classical political economy, or institutional studies of unionism, have made little reference. We should, however, note a shift of focus from labour (Walker) to unionism (Herod). There is here a significant slippage, in so far as the trade union, as we know it, is a product of and response to industrial and national (or colonial) capitalism, whereas the book itself is informed by an understanding of globalisation and the kind of global labour force mentioned by Walker. Thus, Herod himself remarks on the extension of union organising from a national to an international scale, and even from space to cyberspace (21-2). But no case is made for focussing on an institution of labour representation indelibly marked by the parameters of company, industry, product, market, locale and skill, as laid down in a nowpassing period of industrial capitalist/statist development. The limits of the self-restriction are revealed in the international section of the collection, which is, significantly for the era of globalisation, also the first one. The studies 20

here of the International Metalworkers Federation in Eastern Europe, of Mexican and Japanese unionism, all raise major questions in this reader's mind about the union form of labour self-organisation. Herod himself reveals the IMWF (my W distinguishes it from another body involved in global space-production) trying to check the capitalist (under)development of the ex-Communist world. This is clearly seen as threatening its traditional space of operation, and such shaky rights and privileges as might have been left over from national Keynesianism in the West. One cannot deny the possible combination of universalist/solidarity motives with particularist/protectionist ones amongst IMWF officers. But researchers are surely required to ask, and not only rhetorically (as I am going to do, at somewhat irate length): who in the world knows or cares about what IMWF is doing here? Which workers know? In East or West Europe, or even in Geneva? Which metalworkers know? Which members of members of the IMWF know? Which leaders or activists amongst these know? Which contribute financially (or is this all paid for out of some compensatory slush or hush fund of the European Union, rather than the solidarity funds of European unions?)? Which are activated by such activities? What attitudes or values are transformed? The fact is that even if the IMWF does have good policies, publications, databases and websites, it is invisible within national, regional and global civil society. As a socio-cultural factor - and balanced against the human-rights, ecological, women's, consumer, or even anti-dam movements - the IMWF hardly reaches weigh-in. What it seems, at best, to be doing is confirming what Manuel Castells (1996-8) has argued: that unionism, whilst still necessary for the defence of workers, has no emancipatory potential. Indeed, Castells suggests - in an argument yet more radical than that of the present book - that capital and labour exist in two increasingly separate universes, the space of flows and the space of places (discussed Waterman 1999a:366). So whilst the IMWF may be demonstrating that the forward march of labour has restarted, what it is so energetically promoting in Eastern Europe may do nothing to even check a forward march of capital that never halts. One can put this in much more practical, institutional and industrial relational terms: they are trying to project beyond the European Union, statenational collective bargaining or industrial relations practices that do not take account of the globalisation logic dominating the EU itself (Hyman 1999b:106-9). The contributions on Mexico by Altha Cravey, and Japan by Robert Hanham and Shawn Banasick, actually reveal, even more dramatically, the subordination of traditional trade unionism - sometimes following considerable violence - to the spatial imperatives of 21

capital and nation-state. This has, of course, occurred in different ways, themselves shaped by worker resistance and even union achievements. But the problem for the unions is evidently more than one of ideology or strategy, since radical and even Marxist-led unionism has also been smashed or tamed in both places. It is revealing, again in both cases, that signs of hope are provided by the kind of movements already mentioned: oriented to the shopfloor, the local community, to cross-movement and cross-border alliances. In Mexico and Japan these often small and marginal movements seem to be recognising the global in both the spatial and the holistic sense of this word. They are doing in practice what Walker is urging in theory. I have no intention of spreading the aura of doubt or pessimism that surrounds even those international labour studies with other intentions. Nor to add to the optimistic trend, bent on service to, rather than critique of, contemporary international unionism. Nor do I wish to suggest that the current work leans excessively in one such direction. On the contrary. It reveals much past and locally-specific labour creativity. And by looking at labour in space it has itself played a role in creating, the work rather suggests the necessity for space-sensitive labour organising strategies. Here I am thinking of the more national or local cases in the collection. Thus, the Jane Wills chapter on space, place and tradition in labour organising in Warrington, UK, reveals how a local anti-union tradition can be transformed by contact with other workers/areas, and by the arrival of outside organisers. The uses of restricted locales (or specific discourses of insiders/outsiders) by local elites and capital are revealed in Don Mitchell's study of a Californian region in the 1930s. This again draws attention to the way in which restriction of relevant space, and the definition of such, can confine labour strategies that, particularly today, must be globally informed if they are to be locally effective. It also highlights the subversive impact of the non-local, the foreign and the stranger in the expansion of worker self-identity. And - speaking of discourses - the Lee Lucas Berman study of clerical worker organisation and struggle at Yale reveals how Foucauldian categories can be employed to analyse both elite strategies and labour responses. All in all this is a pathbreaking collection, wide-ranging, rigorous and readily accessible to non-academics. There remains for me the Castells problem, indicated above, itself reinforcing the argument of David Harvey, a major source of Left historicalgeographic materialism. A decade ago Harvey said: 22

[T]he capacity of most social movements to command place better than space puts a strong emphasis upon the potential connection between place and social identity. This is manifest in political action...The consequent dilemmas of social or working-class movements in the face of a universalising capitalism are shared by other oppositional groups racial minorities, colonised peoples, women, etc. - who are relatively empowered to organise in place but disempowered when it comes to organising over space. In clinging, often of necessity, to a place-bound identity, however, such oppositional movements become a part of the very fragmentation which a mobile capitalism and flexible accumulation can feed upon. 'Think globally and act locally' was the revolutionary slogan of the 1960s. It bears repeating. (Harvey 1989: 302-3)

I take the positions of Harvey and Castells as serious warnings rather than apocalyptical inevitabilities. Harvey has, surely, already been proven wrong by the new global social movements that understand the dialectical interpenetration of the local and the global. As for Castells, he actually confines his strictures to unions rather than labour. This is the good news. The bad news, as suggested above, is that workers are in local place and capital in supra-geographic space! Castells does, however, seem to allow for labour to play a part in contemporary emancipatory movements but only in so far as it recognises (in my language) the equally particular universalisms of the new and increasingly global radical-democratic movements. Castells is also aware that our new world is networked as well as globalised and that, in confronting this, some emancipatory movements have no fear of flying. It appears to me that a labour movement appropriate for a globalised and networked capitalism will therefore need to be not only aware and active spatially but also holistically and even cybernetically. The question is whether labour - or those who wish to reconnect the unions with Marx' 'real movement that transforms the present state of things' (Arthur 1970:56-7. Original emphasis) - will see this as a threat to be defended against or a challenge to be confronted. 7. INTERNATIONAL LABOUR HISTORY: BACK TO THE FUTURE? Following up the notion that labour indeed has much to learn from the past, I will here consider two very different kinds of work. The first is that of Bob Reinalda, an episodic narrative history of one of those ITSs that many consider hold the key to a revived future labour internationalism.16 The second, by Forman, is a history not of international-

For a less episodic one, see the jointly-authored 500-page history of the International Union of Food and Allied Workers Associations (IUF) by Nystrom and Rutters (1989). This I only discovered, 10 years later, on the shelves of the South African Labour Bulletin, Johannesburg - suggesting that there might be a number of other such to be unearthed!

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ism but of nationalism in the international labour movement. Whilst the first is more empirically central to our concerns, and will therefore receive most attention, it is the second that has the most radical vision. It must be said that the important Reinalda (1997) collection on the International Transportworkers Federation (ITF) makes a curious initial impression. Some 10 of the 26 chapters are by Reinalda himself, including a chapter on the ITF as a transnational actor, which goes half a century beyond the indicated closing date. The Edo Fimmen of the subtitle, the longtime General Secretary of the ITF, and a major figure of interwar international unionism, is the subject of five or six separate chapters. The book was planned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ITF in 1996 and appears to have been stitched together in something of a rush. The question must arise of whether such a fragmented work allows us to go beyond celebration and beyond 1996. I think the answer, in both cases, must be 'yes', even if this requires a considerable interpretative effort by the reader. The reason for this is the quantity and variety of material here assembled and, then, the quality of work by the 15 or so assorted European contributors. A pity, only, that Reinalda did not take the contributions and work them into an integrated monograph.17 The personification of the ITF with the figure of Fimmen (and other individuals sketched) opens up a relatively unexplored, and certainly untheorised, vein in the study of labour and socialist internationalism. We might, paraphrasing the Russian Marxist Plekhanov, call this the role of the individual in international labour history. We do need to reveal and understand the role of the active historical agents of labour internationalism if we are 1) to communicate internationalism to a non-academic readership, and 2) consider what kind of active agents - if not leaders - are required for a contemporary or future internationalism. Given the importance of this book, I will use it, alongside my own and other sources, to reflect on the future internationalism of the labour institutions. The ITF came out of the wave of transportworker protest and action, particularly in the Europe of the 1890s-1920s. During the interwar years it was a significant part of the Social-Democratic union internationalism that was both independent of Moscow and opposed to the rise of fascism. Although closely allied with the nation-state-based International Federation of Trade Unions (1919-49), Fimmen himself actually favoured a general

Would it not have served the book's sponsor and publisher better to have translated and published the outstanding full-length history by contributor Sigrid Koch-Baumgarten 1988?

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union international based on industry (an international of internationals). The ITF also established its place in relationship to the ILO, created to solve 'the social problem' after WWI. Despite its entry here into international collective bargaining, the ITF continued to support mass mobilisation and international industrial action. It also actively supported anti-fascist movements and underground unions within fascist states. The book gives extensive coverage of transportworkers' resistance to and under fascism before and during WWII. At this time the ITF contributed significantly to, and was supported by, the British and US anti-Nazi war efforts, thus discovering the benefits of collaboration with liberaldemocratic states - and their intelligence operations. Although efforts were made to develop an anti-racist internationalism in the 1930s, this had reportedly booked little success amongst its major members by even 1953. Fimmen was a Dutch clerical worker, of christian socialist origin. He knew English, French and German, and represented the cosmopolitan and internationalist tradition within an international unionism increasingly divided by nationality, state and bloc (liberal, Communist, fascist). He made repeated attempts to breach the gap between the Social-Democratic and Communist trade-union internationals, earning himself little more than the abuse of the Communists, and scorn from his SocialDemocratic comrades. He was also prepared to put his life and liberty on the line in defence of unions confronted with fascism. Reinalda attempts to bring his account up to 1996, to theorise it, and project it into the future. But his theoretical sources exclude any Left-of-ITF ones, and his explicit frame of reference is the a-critical concept of the 'transnational actor'. His brief review of Functionalist, Rationalist and Extended (beyond the nation) approaches also excludes any source more recent than about 1980. He himself seems to favour the Extended approach in so far as this allows for the role of trade unionism within the 'international system'. Whilst this latter notion allows for recognition of the activity of the ITF in relation to, for example, the ILO or IMO (International Maritime Organisation), it is a positivist concept which restricts critique to the parameters of an existing institutional framework. His ten-page summary of the half century, 1945-96, highlights the ITF's longstanding campaign concerning sailors under so-called Flags of Convenience (cf. Lillie 1999). This is, indeed, one model of international unionism, in so far as 1) FoC ships are registered with proshipowner states, 2) crew are hired from cheap-labour countries, 3) effective solidarity action has been often taken by dockworkers acting in the interest of workers in this other industry. It involves the ITF in international negotiations, and results in equally interna25

tional collective agreements, including a shipowner-collected but ITF-administered welfare fund. Through such action the ITF has not only recovered millions of dollars in backpay for crew. It also has a well-financed welfare function. We need further research to establish the implications of all this. It could be that we have here a paternalist operation, in which the ITF provides services for a Third World labour force that has no direct, or even indirect, control over its benefactor (thus approaching the model of 'development co-operation'). There is also a paradox regarding the disinterested internationalism of the dockers here. When the Liverpool dockworkers called for international solidarity during their heroic strike against triumphant British neoliberalism in 1995-8, the ITF had at least two reasons for failing to support them. The first was that these were, in a manner of speaking, subjects of one particular nation and therefore of a particular national affiliate of the ITF. (The British Transport and General Workers Union was itself afraid to openly support the strike). The second reason is that, given its role as collective agent for international FoC crew, it is registered as a national union under anti-union labour legislation in Britain, and therefore unable to take the requested solidarity action without risking its funds and/or its headquarters. The fascinating account of ITF collaboration with US intelligence during World War II, by Reinalda himself, is not extended to the post-1945 period. But its involvement with the CIA during the Cold War is well-established, particularly in the violent repression of Communist dockworker unions in France and Italy, as well as in the even more violent repression of Communist and Left-nationalist unionism in Latin America and Africa. Irving Brown, long the leading AFL-CIO official within the ICFTU and international trade union movement, was also a sponsor of the ITF's Mediterranean Anti-Communist Vigilance Committee (for which see File 159/1/18 in the ITF Archive at Warwick University; Koch-Baumgarten 1999: Section 3.5.). New evidence reveals that he was also heavily implicated not only with the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) but with the CIA's mafia and drug-smuggling operations. This was particularly, but not solely, with the infamous 'French Connection'. Brown worked here intimately with Pierre Ferri-Pisani, a 'drug smuggler connected with Marseilles crime lord Antoine Guerini' (Valentine 1999:62). Ferri-Pisani, a former resistance fighter, was a key figure within antiCommunist dockworker unionism in the Mediterranean. He was at one time an Executive member of the ITF, present at its congresses and conferences and wrote in its publications. 26

He committed suicide in 1961.18 I mention all this to suggest how a shift from social mobilisation to identification with or dependence on hegemonic national or international power-holders, can descend into international conspiracy, espionage and, in this case, drug-running.19 That this drug-running provided not only funding for Cold War unionism but also caused the deaths of tens of thousands of the - possibly non-unionised - poor in the USA reveals the most radical disjuncture that has ever existed between unionism as an international social project and unionism as an instrument of capital, state and bloc politics.20 Reinalda's treatment of the ITF's policy for the future shows it struggling to keep afloat in a world in which transport is being further rationalised, integrated, privatised and internationalised on the FoC model (the case of aircrews, also dealt with in Lillie 1999). Regarding international transport policy, a longstanding matter of ITF concern, it apparently
believes in a rational, co-operative and publicly planned transport system, both nationally and internationally co-ordinated to provide an efficient and integrated service for goods and passenger transport. Broader social costs and benefits should be taken into account in transport planning, because of transport's social function. Current international trends to liberalise and deregulate transport are seen by the ITF as a step backwards from such a public service concept. The art will be to find a proper middle road between 'the extremes of a planned transport industry and its complete liberalisation'. (31)

This literally middle-of-the-road policy places the ITF alongside the more rational and farsighted international bureaucrats and technocrats, whilst accepting capitalism, and failing to relate to ecological or community movements with radically other visions. This

Some of this information comes from Rathbun (1996). This is a sycophantic, infantile and unreliable biography of Irving Brown, published by a vanity press. It is a fitting memorial to the eminence grise of Western cold war unionism. Brown reportedly told Rathbun that Ferri-Pisani committed suicide as a result of his concentration camp experience. Bearing in mind their common involvement with the French Connection, other possibilities may come to the minds of those who saw the movie of the same name. The mafia connections of Ferri-Pisani were, incidentally, known and published 21 years ago. This was in the classical British work on 'trade union imperialism'. Consistent with the somewhat erratic nature of this work, he is, however, here identified as Pierre Fissani (Thomson and Larson 1978:14). 19 This is not to endorse the 'trade union imperialism' thesis of Thomson and Larson (1978), which sees unions as instruments of capitalism, imperialism or the Western bloc. The alternative position, as expressed in a book concentrating on the International Metalworkers Federation (MacShane 1992), rightly stresses the autonomous European and union origins of anti-Communism. MacShane, however, overstates his case, failing, for example, to even mention the relationship between Irving Brown, one of his major protagonists, and the CIA. 20 However peripheral this episode might have been to the history of the ITF, a public coming to terms with this episode would certainly help the re-invention of the organisation as a radical-democratic and movementoriented one.

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is in itself consistent with a bureaucratic vision of internationalism, as a relation between national - in the future regional - union organisations, rather than between workers (far less between workers and allied movements). Neither the ITF nor Reinalda take account of worker-based movements that have questioned not simply the policies of the organisation but its structural form. I am thinking here primarily of two waves of waterfront dockworker activity, the first linking West European dockers in the 1980s, the second springing from the already-mentioned Liverpool strike in the 1990s.21 In the first case the ITF was simply ignored as irrelevant. In the second case it was bitterly criticised - and circumvented. In the first case, the movement produced its own eco-socialist critique of the global transport industry. In the second it not only touched dockers in South Africa, Brazil and India, but led, in 1999, to a proposal for an international dockworker body, not so much opposed to as complementary to, the official unions. In both cases the 'relational form' developed was the network. In both cases the internationalism was one of communication rather than organisation. The fear or hostility the ITF shows toward independent international worker activity must lead one toward a certain scepticism concerning the extensive range of relations with new social movements reported by Lillie (1999). Whilst these are to be welcomed, one would need to investigate the extent to which they are internalised within the ITF, rather than being seen as external relations with allies, functional to an otherwise untransformed organisation and membership. Reinalda's work is, in summary, a study of international unionism in the era of national/industrial/imperial capitalism. No more than any other internationalist could Fimmen avoid this maze. Indeed, he helped to create it at the same time that he tried to escape it. My point here is to reveal how contradictory a character international unionism had during this, now thankfully passing, era. It is also, of course, to suggest that the FoC internationalism of the ITF may be inappropriate as the model, or even a model, for the era of globalisation. We are going to have to work over this material with a more critical theory, and to cast our net wider than the institution itself. And, for a history relevant to the future, we may have to go back earlier than Edo Fimmen, to the Tom Mann and Ben Tillet Era. This period, beginning with the great London Dock Strike of 1889, was one in which British labour activists would, at the drop of a hat, go by rail and ferry to Antwerp or Rotterdam, to help organise strikers there. When, during the national British dock strike of

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For which consult the relevant archives at http://www.labournet.net/docks2/other/archive.htm.

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1989, the Liverpool dockers went off, quite spontaneously, to seek the solidarity of their fellows in Rotterdam, this was castigated by one ITF leader as 'strike tourism'. And now for something entirely different. Or is it? It is rare enough to find a pathbreaking book on the labour movement. It is certainly impossible to find one on nationalism that throws so much light, gives so much importance, to internationalism. Michael Forman (1998), another American, does not even claim to trace out the implications of his work for internationalism, even if he demonstrates greater insight than most would-be socialist internationalists. His claim is quite other. It is that the internationalism of the classical labour and socialist movement provided it with a unique understanding of nationalism, which it placed in intimate relation to ideas about 'democratic republicanism, sovereignty, and the nature of the internationalist labour movement itself' (viii). It was only as the socialists moved away from such a cosmopolitan view of democratic accountability that they became entrapped by nationalism. After Marx and Bakunin, after Bauer, Lenin and Luxemburg, after Stalin, and after Gramsci, what remained was a 'national liberation Marxism' (17). The rest is not so much history as the present of the ex-Communist world, explaining precisely why Gowan's East European socialism spans a spectrum from the Social Democratic to the National Socialist. Here is Forman's vision of the dilemma of the Left - indeed of democracy - in the era of globalisation:
The two main tenets of neoliberalism, free trade and privatisation, anchor elite discourse (though arguably not practice) on a world scale. Cultural phenomena originating in the advanced (post)industrial societies, from popular music to social movements like feminism and environmentalism, are being reproduced even in the seemingly most unlikely locales. International organisations, from the United Nations to the European Union and the Andean Pact, are proliferating and blossoming, albeit in stilted ways. At the same time, a second national awakening jolts the former Eastern bloc; exclusionary nationalism shocks the triumphant capitalist democracies; genocidal conflicts tear apart countries in Europe and Africa; and irredentism plagues Asia Coupled with popular opposition to international arrangements (e.g. the Maastricht Treaty and the North American Free Trade Agreement) and broad-based distrust toward international organisations, these trends speak to a pervasive particularism as the modal response to the neoliberal capitalist world order. It is almost as if internationalism only survived in the boardrooms of the major transnational companies, while reactionary and progressive movements nurtured provincialism, albeit in different terms. (17)

I guess that the greatest value of Forman for our subject matter is in showing 1) the intimate interrelationship between a radical-democratic nationalism and internationalism, 2) the extent to which an internationalist orientation is necessary for any non-ethnic, nonparticularistic, nationalism, 3) the necessity for any international union project to be rooted in such a broad vision of globalisation/nationalism/internationalism, 4) the necessity for a 29

new socialist and labour internationalism to address itself to the democratisation of such international institutions as do, or might, express a cosmopolitanism free of those capitalist interests that inevitably provoke localist and authoritarian reactions.22 Forman mentions neither the ILO nor the ICFTU. He does, however, bring us at least to their figurative doorway. But, before entering, let us consider whether today the figure should be of a real door or a virtual portal. 8. UNIONS AND CYBERSPACE: USE AND VALUE I recall, in the mid-1980s, as something of a promoter of international labour computer use, visiting a computerisation advice centre for workers and unions in Hamburg. When I asked whether the centre's impressive library and archive was computerised, they said, 'No: we are against computers'. When, more than somewhat stupefied, I enquired how they then educated unionists about them, they pointed to a dusty PC under a bench, but took pains to reassure me that it didn't work. Around the same time, an American Leftist was arguing that
even a fairly small number of microcomputers, somehow linked, might make a sizeable difference, if they are available to workers [...] The common languages shared by computer users, even though limited in subject matter, together with the graphical and expressive possibilities of computers...are among the ways that computer links could help forge cultural unities between workers in different countries. (Goldhaber 1987:10-11)

Both then and now, much Left discussion of computerisation has divided the antis from the pros, the pessimists from the optimists - a clear indication of a primitive state of debate. With international labour activists, engagement customarily preceded reflection. Computer communication is what made the new labour internationalism of the 1980s-90s possible. Which may be why the history of international labour computer communication can be rather seen in terms of the pragmatists and the utopians (which, of course, does not exclude the existence of pragmatist visionaries or realistic utopians). Those leaning to the pragmatic-if-visionary end of the spectrum are associated in my mind with the American Charles Levinson (Lee 1996). The position of this international union leader and writer,

He thus adds significantly to v.d. Linden and Lucassen 1999, whose learned and comprehensive essay on 'global labour history' curiously ignores both the international and any political implications of this history for the contemporary movement).

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was consistent with his notion of countervailing power: they have them so we have to have them. The other tendency, represented by Goldhaber (1983 as well as 1987) begins with some notion of the emancipation of the working class: here, it is suggested, is a means of communication that can recreate the autonomous international working-class culture destroyed by the industrial and residential restructuring consequent on the rise of consumer capitalism. There are other positions between and around. Tangential to the pragmatic position would be that of those who see unionism as simply adapting - and selling - itself to the computer industry. A Dutch article on unions and collective bargaining in the information technology sector, reveals the union to be primarily concerned to convince the dismissively anti-union managers that unions and collective agreements favour intercompany competitivity and the development of capitalism - presumably of Dutch nationalityor at least base (de Vos 1999). My own position, tangential to the labour utopian one, has been that globalisation/informatisation makes both possible and necessary a more general 'global solidarity culture' to which international labour computer use must relate and to the creation of which it could contribute (Waterman 1999b). Richard Barbrook (1999a) goes further than the pragmatic and deeper than the utopian. He not only proposes cyberunions for cyberworkers but argues that the cyberindustry reveals the libertarian future within the hyper-capitalist economy. Barbrook first argues, in a classical Marxist spirit, that this most advanced capitalist industry, child of the military-industrial complex and the university elite, is pregnant with an anarcho-communist future. Despite its increasing commercialisation and concentration, both anarchistic/creative individuals and profit-greedy corporations have found it essential to give if they want to get their lifeblood - information - back. Barbrook offers a history of capitalist development as well as its illegitimate child, the Left:
During the Sixties, the New Left created a new form of radical politics: anarcho-communism. Above all, the Situationists and similar groups believed that the tribal gift economy proved that individuals could successfully live together without needing either the state or the market. From May 1968 to the late Nineties, this utopian vision of anarcho-communism has inspired community media and DIY culture activists. Within the universities, the gift economy already was the primary method of socialising labour. From its earliest days, the technical structure and social mores of the Net has ignored intellectual property. Although the system has expanded far beyond the university, the self-interest of Net users perpetuates this hi-tech gift economy. As an everyday activity, users circulate free information as e-mail, on listservs, in newsgroups, within on-line conferences and through Web sites. As shown by

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the Apache and Linux programs, the hi-tech gift economy is even at the forefront of software development. Contrary to the purist vision of the New Left, anarcho-communism on the Net can only exist in a compromised form. Money-commodity and gift relations are not just in conflict with each other, but also co-exist in symbiosis. The 'New Economy' of cyberspace is an advanced form of social democracy.

The New Left? And Anarcho-Communism? And Social Democracy? If this seems weird, exotic, even menacing, to those in the labour movement unfamiliar with classical anarchism or small 'c' communism, Barbrook's manifesto for digital workers may seem more pertinent. Expressed in the familiar internet form of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), Barbrook (1999b) poses such as these: How does digital work differ from its analogue forms? How can digital work be creative? What distinguishes digital artisans from cyber-entrepreneurs? What divides digital workers from each other? What are the common interests of digital workers? How can digital workers organise to advance their common interests?

His answers require him to compare and contrast the craft, industrial and informational phases of capitalist labour, and to show how digital work can combine artisan skills with industrial productivity. He insists on the extent to which digital labour combines the worst of Fordist industrialism with the new artisan skills - technical, aesthetic and relational. He also recognises the extent to which the new reproduces the old class, inter-worker and inter-national divisions. His Post-Industrial, Post-Communist, Manifesto therefore seeks for common interests and, therefore, common organisation and action:
As in other industries, workers in the emerging digital economy also need to defend their common interests. However, most of the existing labour organisations are not responding quickly enough to the changes in peoples working lives. Although formed to fight the employers, industrial trade unions were also created in the image of the Fordist factory: bureaucratic, centralised and nationalist. For those working within the digital economy, such labour organisations seem anachronistic. Instead, new forms of unionism need to be developed which can represent the interests of digital workers. As well as reforming the structures of existing labour organisations, digital workers should start co-operating with each other using their own methods. As theyre already on-line, people could organise to advance their common interests through the Net. Formed within the digital economy, a virtual trade union should emphasise new principles of labour organisation: artisanal, networked and global.

This is, I feel, a realistic utopian writing relevant to our radically dystopian present. Its possible implications seem to me even more radical. In so far as his manifesto ap32

peals as much to values as to interests, is this a union or a social movement (I assume that the party, or at least The Party, is over)? In so far as it proposes a new principle of labour self-organisation, relevant to the new form of capitalism, is this only relevant to cyberworkers, or to all workers? In so far as a globalised and networked capitalism requires a form of organisation that is artisanal, networked and global, is this relevant not only to workers, but to all radical-democratic social movements everywhere (see Pollack 1999)? I lean toward the last answer to all these questions. My point is, obviously, not to deny the quite specific, if radical, proposal made. It is to extend it. The necessity, or at least possibility of, such generalisation is revealed by Arturo Escobar, writing, appropriately, not of labour and organisations but of women and cyberspace:
Networks - such as women's, environmental, ethnic and other social movements networks - are the location of new political actors and the source of promising cultural practices and possibilities. It is thus possible to speak of a cultural politics of cyberspace and the production of cybercultures that resist, transform or present alternatives to the dominant virtual and real worlds. This cybercultural politics can be most effective if it fulfils two conditions: awareness of the dominant worlds that are being created by the same technologies on which the progressive networks rely (including awareness of how power works in the world of transnational networks and flows); and an ongoing tacking back and forth between cyberpolitics (political activism of the Internet) and what I call place politics, or political activism in the physical locations at which the networker sits and lives. (Escobar 1999:32)

This literature engages energetically with an informatised capitalism, where previouslyreviewed work either ignores it or waves vaguely, if favourably, in the general direction of a computer-empowered unionism. If we put together the arguments of Barbrook and Escobar, we can see how labour could re-insert itself into the 'real movement that transforms the present state of things'. How, against this background does the latest major contribution to the literature on unions and computers fare? Art Shostak (1999) is an American labour specialist, educator, sociologist and futurist. His CyberUnion belongs to a quintessentially American tradition of post-industrial, hi-tech, up-beat, hot-gospel, hard-sell, can-do works such as Megatrends (Naisbitt 1982). Published in hardback in May 1999, in paperback in September, this inspirational/educational handbook is likely to find itself on large numbers of North American trade-union bookshelves, or in an equal number of Christmas stockings. If anyone can sell fast computers to slow unions it will be Art Shostak. Based on a series of easilymemorable formulae and slogans, one can imagine it being chanted, memorised and ap33

plied. He divides unions into three categories, according to their attitude towards computerisation: CyberNaught, CyberDrift and CyberGain. Moving up this ladder unions will be in a position to adopt 'a Third Wave CyberUnion F-I-S-T Model'. FIST here stands for Futuristics, Innovations, Services and Traditions. What 'traditions' seems here to mean is the undifferentiated celebration of an unexamined past we can find in another particularly American obsession, the search for 'roots'. Shostak identifies himself with the new AFLCIO of President John Sweeney, which is apparently committing itself to infotech with the same enthusiasm that it is adopting an 'organising model' instead of, or in addition to, a 'service model' of unionism. This latter is a development considered sceptically by Kim Moody (1998: 71-2), who also stresses the new leadership's 'obsession with technique, media dependency and a proliferation of institutes' (68). Moody stresses what is missing in the Sweeney revolution, this being democracy - a word absent from Shostak's index, even if he shows a final sensitivity to the issue. In promoting his model, Shostak quotes approvingly the 'computer-savvy' Research Director of a US trade union:
"I've saved thousands of jobs, thousands! We come into bargaining knowing more about the company than they do, by far. We've researched everything, I mean everything - their return on investment, their philanthropy profile, their executive profit-sharing payoutlike, I mean, everything! When they say they can't afford this or that, we come right back and show them how they can - and we show them what they will gain if they doAnd when we've got the contract we were after, we sell it to our members, and begin to prove to the company they were right all along to go along". (229-30)

Is this the language of the trade unionist or the managerial consultant? What tradition is being here promoted, if not that of Samuel Gompers and the Business Unionism which led to the long decline of the old AFL-CIO? It is evident that corporations want, if any kind of unionism at all, only that which increases profits. But is it the function of computerempowered unionism to demonstrate to corporations, and workers - with higher speed and greater efficiency than heretofore - that unionism endorses this bigger-union-slice-ofbigger-capitalist-pie ethic? Readers may suspect a certain Olde Worlde distaste for New World razzmatazz in my initial response above. They will be right. But my reasons are not necessarily those of the 19th century European literary visitor. The question in my mind is whether style does not itself carry an ideological and/or a pedagogical, charge. Like his pro-capitalist forerunners or models, Shostak is selling, not proposing. He provides answers, not questions. 34

The reader is therefore being asked to believe and buy, not to think, far less to criticise. There are quite other styles of popularisation and mobilisation. One common North American - now possibly international - style is that represented by Kamel and Hoffman above. An earlier one would be that of the international worker film, photography and theatre movements of the 1920s-30s. Although the most dynamic of these were the Communist ones, rapidly reduced to pro-Soviet ones, the notion here was of international worker self-activity, based on a critique of capitalism, and of an oppositional and collective alternative to such. Adapted to our present world and means of communication, what such a model might suggest is that of an international worker, or labour, or radicaldemocratic, computer movement.23 As a matter of record, both radio and video have their own alternative international networks - and books (Girard 1992, Thede and Ambrosi 1991). In this very area of international labour computer use we have the admirable handbook of Eric Lee (1996) which, whilst being equally enthusiastic, is far less formulaic, far more question-raising, and is cognisant of labour traditions far wider than those called upon by Art Shostak. Shostak's book not only fails to deal substantially with union democracy but also that of the national - indeed universal - kind as US union activists confront corporations for the right to communicate electronically within their workplaces (Cohen 1999). The breathless enthusiasm of Shostak for a Born-Again Unionism obscures the quite dire condition of the US movement revealed not only by such Left critics as Moody but by passing passages in Shostak himself. The fact that 25 percent of unionists have PCs needs to be balanced off against the fact that they are an income elite (wages 34-73 percent higher), and that they are only 10-12 percent of the workforce. In San Francisco, December 1999, I was informed that even the computer-operating and computer-owning longshoreworkers, who had been active in the campaign of solidarity with the Liverpool dockworkers, used computers at home primarily for the consumption of entertainment. Addressing these issues would lead to a book that might raise consciousness as well as increase use. Those aware of such shortcomings of Shostak can still make good use of it. Each chapter ('Computers as a Servicing Aid', 'Computers as an Organising Aid') is followed by

I once made the mistake of proposing this model to a Dutch trade union workshop on communications, to be met by looks of not so much hostility as blank incomprehension.

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readings that enable us to see how computer-oriented unionists in the US are thinking and acting. Each chapter is also followed by sources and resources. And it must be recognised that Shostak may be more generous to radical others than this radical other has been to him. So one can find many Left and innovative books and sites in his lists. His final part is, indeed, devoted to 'A Little Help from Our Friends' (activists, women, international labour movement). His last chapter is a problem-raising and reflective one on 'The Choices We Must Make'. And his last sentence begins:
All the more reason to seek resolution soon of five significant challenges the use of computers poses for organised labour, namely, finding the right ways to subsidise access, to relate to union democracy, to protect against technological tyranny, to establish high standards, and to promote vision-aiding possibilities in computer use. (22)

Pity he didn't start the book with this conclusion. And spell out his vision thing. 9. LABOUR AND GLOBALISATION: THE DIALOGUE OF WHICH MILLENNIUM? I recall here - vaguely given the passage of time - Philip Roth's scandalous novel of the 1960s, Portnoy's Complaint. After a couple of hundred pages of hilarious but anguished sexual confession, it turns out that we are in the psychiatrist's chamber. And Dr Rosenstein-Gildenstern (or whoever) says to the narrator, 'Gut. Shall ve begin?' (or whatever). Much of Labour's Complaint, as reported above, seems to have been taken on board by the Conference on Organised Labour in the 21st Century (COL21). Now to be seen on a computer screen near you. This international, trilingual, electronic conference is intended to contribute to a four-year research programme on the same subject, run by the ILO's International Institute of Labour Studies (IILS). COL21 is co-sponsored by the ILO and the ICFTU. Although officially launched in mid-September 1999, the conference site has an early list of contributions from 1998. In mid-August 1999, when I signed up to participate, the site further reported a December 1998 consultation, and published the contributions of three participants. It also published a Background Document, identifying as key areas for discussion: the changing patterns of employment and union membership, change in management-labour relations; the public status of unions, the impact of a hostile economic environment, the threat/challenge posed to national unions by economic internationalisation. 36

The conference is 'aimed at trade unionists and labour researchers', intended to be open, and to allow for some kind of dialogue. Thus, there is offered the chance to respond to the two opening speakers, Juan Somavia, General Director of the ILO and Bill Jordan, General Secretary of the ICFTU.24 Guest speakers will be regularly invited to act as panellists on subjects related to the above document. In a further specification, themes are extended to: employment and development, law and unions, responses to globalisation, unions and structural adjustment, collective bargaining and social dialogue, informal sector and marginalised workers, social protection, recruitment and organising, political strategy (relations with parties and NGOs), women, youth, union structures and services. This event appears to have not only high web visibility but also legitimacy within at least parts of the labour movement internationally. My concern is that the initiative be not limited by the apparent ideological, institutional or even electronic parameters of the event. Let us consider these.

The opening statements of Somavia (1999) and Jordan (1999) were received too late for them to be added to, or substituted for, the statements discussed below. That of Somavia adds little either in quantitative or qualitative terms, reiterating the compromise at the origin of the ILO: 'Yes to the market economy and no to the market society'. That of Jordan is more substantial in both terms, addressing itself to globalisation, the nation-state, global institutions, the corporations, the NGOs, and to the national and international union movement itself. It still, however, seems to be deeply divided in its concerns and address. Thus, it tries to combine a concern with 'balance' and 'fairness' within a globalising market society (which it does not call capitalist), with a morality that is in conflict with such. In the absence of specification, any such ethical appeal as might be here suggested is bound to be diffuse in meaning and blunt in effect. And the ICFTU address seems to be as much to governments, interstate organisations and corporations (persuading them to act in more civil ways) as to workers and citizens (mobilising them to civilise the hegemonic forces). Perhaps the most interesting parts are those concerned with the unions themselves and with their relations with the NGOs. It is to be hoped that these matters will be taken up during COL21.

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The theoretical/ideological parameter: assuming that which requires questioning? I am here going to consider the three initial 'non-interactive' papers posted on the COL21 site in 1999. Whilst not being ILO papers, they were obviously invited and posted on ILO initiative. They may be taken as suggesting at least the initial ideological extent and limitations of the planned event. A couple of quotes from the COL21 paper of Henk Thomas (1999), a Dutch social-democratic professor of labour studies at an institute of development studies, reveal an analysis that not only assumes uncritically the past, present and future development of capitalism, in all its emanations (and under all its pseudonyms), but also an existing interstate hierarchy, with unions everywhere in the female inferior position, i.e. providing a service to male superiors. Thus, in
Western European countriesthe labour movement has continued to acquire a high degree of legitimacy in addressing issues of the wider social agenda. One maymention the role of the labour movementin restructuring the economy, such as the need for wage restraints in the eighties when global competitive forces had a huge impact on the reshaping of Western European economic structures as well as on major characteristics of labour markets. Also, the distinct role that trade unions have played in enterprise restructuring, such as in the restructuring of the automobile industry in the United States, is proof of union strength and potential[] A special policy issue forms the role which development co-operation may play in strengthening the position of trade unions in weak labour markets and in situations where as yet no organisational labour strength could be built. Development cooperation - both bilateral and multilateral - has at times allowed for generous donations to the trade union movement. For example, special subsidies granted to donor trade unions to enable programmes of institutional building for the receiving labour organisations. Such funding may have a national approach and thus contribute to the building and expansion of strong programmes of international co-operation. Also, cases such as the Danish one with a strong preference for multilateral channelling of funds, e.g. through the ILO or ICFTU, each with its regional headquarters, have become part of the current donor scene.

I will not go into the assumption about union legitimacy within Western societies (widely noted as falling, since the 1960s, along with that of government, political parties, the churches, business, the judiciary, the press). Nor about the, now-rejected, US auto union's 'company-union love-fest' (Moody 1998: 63). The major point to be made is that the argument uncritically assumes: a certain underlying institutional framework (if we include particular labour market patterns); the 'developmental' function of trade unions within both 'developed' and 'developing' countries; that those of the former should act as (state-funded) patrons/missionaries/ intermediaries in relation to those of the latter. 'Development' here, means, at least implicitly, the development of capitalism. There is an assumption, further, 38

that developed capitalism means developed unions, with the best developed union/capitalism relation being in states like The Netherlands and Denmark, which also have extensive state-funded programmes for 'developing' countries. The notion that, particularly with globalisation, we are in one world of struggle, in which the first may be the last and the last may be the first (earlier, admittedly, a Christian notion than a Social-Democratic one), appears foreign to Thomas. There is here accepted, in other words, almost everything that has been questioned or problematised in the earlier part of this essay. The analysis, it must be said, also lacks any sense of crisis and seems motivated or informed less by any academic discipline, theoretical school, social values or humane ethic than by the purpose of advertising a policy or consultancy service to 'development co-operation' in general, the ILO and ICFTU in particular. As such the piece seems unlikely to be of value to those within these institutions who recognise that the crisis of labour internationally is a crisis not only for but also of these institutions. Or who, unlike Thomas, recognise the existence of globalisation - or at least 'globalisation'. Robert Taylor is the labour specialist of the Financial Times in London (a fact curiously unmentioned by the ILO). His contribution (1999) is consistent with the pieces of Breitenfellner and Ramsay, covering much of the same ground. It also assumes tripartism, therefore ruling this out of discussion. In line with a tripartite view of the world, he is as much concerned to adjust unions to global capitalism as global capitalism to unions. And he considers that (inter)government organisations can or should play the articulating role between these:
[I]t is evident trade unionsneed to demonstrate their approach is not incompatible with the creation of successful market economies. Trade union rights are good for workers but they are also good for business. The most affluent countries in the world are the ones which not only have trade unions but also integrate them successfully into their societies through forms of corporate governance and in alliance with non-governmental associations. Few trade unions have managed so far to come to terms with the new world of increasing globalisation but if they hope to survive and grow again they will have to make radical accommodations[T]he need for more transnational industrial relations requires the trade unions to reassert their primary objectives in a modern language that resonates in the flexible labour markets and workplacesBut the attitude of governments cannot remain passive and disinterested. A sympathetic public policy approach is required if trade unions are to develop, providing legal frameworks that do not prevent the development of transnational industrial relations[] For success, more trade unions at international level will need to forge links with non-governmental organisations. In its 1997 report on the state in a changing world, the World Bank called for a public strategy that required trade unions to

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establish networks that embrace the wider civil society beyond any specific workplace or industry with environmental, community and women's groups. In this way, it is argued, they can reach common cause, integrating producer with consumer interests and helping to revive a more active and ethically responsible social citizenship. This will be helped by the changing role of the state from being less the direct provider of rights and services to being the enabler of diverse and pluralistic activities in a society which encourages and promotes secondary and autonomous civil associations. It means also trade unions will have to make a strategic break with their more traditional workplace-centred culture and embrace more decentralised and flexible structures that appeal more to individual employees both as workers and consumers.

It is somewhat alarming for myself - as an advocate of a unionism oriented toward social movements and civil society - to here discover how rapidly the World Bank has adopted and adapted these into something functional to its own hegemonic purposes (though this is, as argued below, a game that subalterns can also play). More alarming is to see Taylor depending on the state and interstate organisations to legitimise social alliances between movements that, in recent decades, have themselves identified capital, state, technocracy, patriarchy and the World Bank as the source of the problem rather than the means to a solution (George and Sabelli 1994:223-51)! Global civil society is here reduced to a global neo-Keynesianism. Richard Hyman (1999b) is a professor of industrial relations, with a reputation as a Marxist theorist on labour. He also falls amongst my institutionalists, but his point of reference and address is clearly the labour movement rather than 'industrial peace', 'development' or tripartism. In confronting the multiple global crises - of work/lessness, of unionism and of society more generally - he seeks solutions within the labour movement itself, or around it amongst allies. His central argument is the necessity for labour to begin a new battle of ideas. In part this is by entering the institutional/ideological terrain of the new workplace and processes, revealing their contradictions or duplicities, and bending them to worker interests. He proposes a new labour project addressed to Security, Opportunity, Democracy, Community and Solidarity. This is a thoughtful and provocative piece that should appeal to the more modern and/or radical international unionists. Above all, it reconnects a contemporary or future unionism to its origins, and with a broader social and international history:
Solidarity forever is one of the most fundamental trade union slogans. Solidarity has a double meaning: support by union members for each others struggles, but also support by the stronger for the weaker within society (or indeed between nations). The broader, moral underpinnings of collective action have in many countries become eroded; if solidarity is to survive, it must be re-invented. The diversity of work and labour market situations in the contemporary world means

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that a traditional, standardised trade union agenda can be neither practically effective nor ideologically resonant. The task is to move from an old model of mechanical solidarity to an new model of organic solidarityAny project aiming to create such a model must recognise and respect differentiations of circumstances and interests: within the constituencies of individual trade unions, between unions within national labour movements, between workers in different countries. The alignment and integration of diverse interests is a complex and difficult task which requires continuous processes of negotiation; real solidarity cannot be imposed by administrative fiat, or even by majority vote. Its achievement is possible to the extent that unions rediscover the conviction, and persuade both their own members and members of civil society more generally, that they have a mission as a sword of justice.

I am not convinced that the Hyman strategy, of against-from-within, is one that can connect the labour movement with others that begin from non-, anti- or post-capitalist premises. Nor am I sure whether the 'continuous process of negotiation' between workers, between unions, between countries, can be carried out in a forum hosted by the ILO, sponsored by that organisation and the ICFTU. The institutional parameter: the ideologies of the structures We are, today, increasingly sensitive to the power relations underlying and surrounding, as well as within, our theoretical, ideological, analytical or strategic utterances. The notion of a 'Conference on Organised Labour in the 21st Century'; that it is hosted by the International Labour Organisation; that it is sponsored by the Director of the ILO and the General Secretary of the ICFTU; that it is meant to contribute to a project of the ILO's research institute; that this dialogue is being monitored by the ILO; that it is in all or part copyrighted - all these must be seen as part of the process, and therefore likewise open to analysis and challenge.25 Both the ILO (as the highest instance of international labour relations, norms, laws) and the ICFTU (as the major international representative of unionism) are today suffering something of an identity crisis. This is, as already suggested, a result of a revolution within capitalism which is tending to undermine and/or circumvent them. Both the ILO and the ICFTU are products of the national/industrial/colonial stage of capitalist development. Both were products of massive (inter)national social movements, conflicts and con-

The notion that structures carry their own ideologies comes, relevantly, from a critique of the ILO by Jeff Harrod (1977). Harrod's paper actually gives an overview of the history, structure, activities and functioning of the ILO, with a particular focus on the 'developing countries'. It therefore also deals with the 'ideology of the programmes', and the tensions between the two ideologies. Along with the elsewhere mentioned work of Robert Cox, it provides an essential point of reference for a contemporary critique of the ILO.

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sequent world wars. The ILO, and the ICFTU's forerunner, the IFTU, came out of the social conflicts that preceded WWI. They represent a surprisingly long-lived and durable international compact between unionised labour, capital and state. They could also be seen as having offered, jointly, a cosmopolitan and reformist alternative to the Communist International and revolutionism. The ICFTU came, similarly, out of WWII, being even more marked by what now became the Cold War between the liberal capitalist West and the authoritarian Communist East - with each trying to control the de-colonising South. Both the ICFTU and the ILO are literally international in the sense of their constituents being defined in terms of nation-state identity. Jointly these institutions have expressed a liberal-cum-social-democratic project of bipartite or tripartite labour relations. The 19th Century 'social problem', Labour versus Capital, became the 20th Century 'social compromise', with the State as supposedly neutral arbiter. Since 1945 the ILO and ICFTU have increasingly shifted the focus of their attention (and funding) from the socially unstable capitalist core to the socially unstable capitalist periphery, and their primary discourse from 'industrial peace' to 'development'. The ILO might be surviving better than the ICFTU in so far as it long ago discovered how far 'work' goes beyond the sphere of bi- or tripartite industrial relations. What is more, it continues to be a state-funded organisation (despite continuing tensions with the US), has massive staff and resources, and is part of a family of United Nations agencies. The ICFTU, on the other hand, has a tiny staff, its affiliates grant their international a token one percent of their national income, and it is thus dependent for 40 percent of its income on state or inter-state 'development co-operation' funds. The ILO and ICFTU were also marginalised, in different ways, during the UNsponsored Social Summit of 1995. The ICFTU found itself defined as one nongovernmental organisation amongst a myriad, rather than the privileged representative of the poor. It was reduced to publicly arguing that the event should have been run by the ILO, or on ILO lines, which would have put Labour proudly on the podium, as a partner of Capital and State, patronising the 'single issue' NGOs! Yet the ICFTU is for 40 percent of its activity, the kind of development NGO it was, until just after the Social Summit, either dismissing or denigrating. Given all the above, it seems reasonable to speculate that Bill Jordan and Juan Somavia (who was Chair of the 1995 Social Summit!) are jointly concerned to either restore their organisations as the central international institutions of labour representation, 42

dialogue, compromise and norm-setting for the 21st century.26 In so far as the ILO represents a contribution toward a cosmopolitan law above that of competing and conflicting capitals and nation states, one should be in favour of not only preserving but extending it. This would be compatible with the argument of Forman, as well as of more substantial arguments in favour of cosmopolitan democracy and global citizenship (Held 1995). Held, indeed, even seems to consider the ILO, with its tripartite structure, to be some kind of model for a reformed set of UN institutions open to civil society. I do not know, to start with, whether significant representatives of capital, capable of taking decisions on behalf of their constituency and/or imposing 'best practice' standards upon them, are interested to take part. I am, moreover, not sure whether labour should favour structuring capital/management into interstate bodies of any kind. Most radical-democratic global movements are trying to reduce the direct or indirect influence of capital within such. The current crisis of the ILO. I cannot claim current expertise on the ILO.27 But I am generally aware of the challenge presented to it by the development of new interstate institutions more central, or more appropriate, to the development of a neoliberal and globalised capitalism. And of the concern of itself and its supporters that the ILO should both assert itself and adapt itself to neoliberalism, globalisation, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation. As Breitenfellner (1997:544) says:
[T]heILOis unique in that it is tripartiteoffering an example of how a future 'global social partnership might function'. If the ILO were strengthened, it could take its place beside theWTOIMFand the World bank in the concert of world economic organisations' (Breitenfellner 1997:544)

And, as the ICFTU (1996) put it, in a defensive and diplomatic statement, addressed to the ILO's Governing Body, it should ...ensure that any steps to modify ILO procedures or structures are taken in full respect of the organisation's established mandate and with the aim of advancing its objects;

Although a well-informed respondent to a draft of this paper assures me that it was an ITS initiative, with the ILO being suggested as a less-partisan convenor of such a dialogue than the ICFTU itself. 27 Indeed, I am not sure who has such. Twenty years ago, a detailed, professional and damning criticism of the ILO was made by Robert Cox, a former insider, a highly-respected innovator in international and industrial relations theory (Cox 1996). This suggested it was bureaucratic, authoritarian, secretive and overanxious to mollify the then-hostile government and unions of the USA. The ILO was thus apparently unfit to play its international liberal-democratic role even in the Old World Order. One would like to know whether it has become more democratic, flexible and independent of the hegemonic states in the intervening period.

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...continue to promote the ILO's role in international economic and social policy-making, particularly through enhanced and balanced co-operation with the IMF, the World Bank, the UNDP and the WTO, with a view to ensuring that considerations of social justice are taken into full account, and that workers' rights are respected;

The problem for the ILO is that the major corporations, capitalist powers, and the others involved in this concert, consider the ILO and long-standing labour rights and procedures as obstacles to 'free trade'. And that the ILO, like most traditional liberal or socialdemocratic organisations, feels obliged to persuade these other parties that it is not so. One major way it has been trying to do this is through a new Declaration on Fundamental Principles (ILO 1998) that allows governments to accept the traditional standards - but without actually ratifying or applying them. The earlier-mentioned campaigning body, the Open World Conference, which has collected hundreds of labour movement signatures to a letter addressed to the WTO 1999 Conference, puts it like this:
In June 1998, under pressure from the WTO and IMF to create a 'less constraining framework for ensuring international labour standards', the ILO adopted a new 'Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work'. The principles and rights promoted in this declaration correspond to seven of the existing ILO Conventions. On June 20, 1999, the G8 Summit in Cologne, Germany, issued a communiqu pledging to 'promote effective implementation' of this new ILO declaration. We, the undersigned, state categorically: If this ILO 'Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work' is to be of any value to working people the world over, the seven corresponding Conventions of the ILO must be ratified, implemented and enforced fully by every government participating in the WTO Summit in Seattle! (OWC 1999a)

As an inter-state organ, the ILO has never been able to impose the standards it sets. Rhetoric has always been more important than enforcement. This might be no bad thing in a movement or organisation addressed to the mobilisation of civil society. But this is hardly the image created by the ILO. And now it is confronting its crisis by further reducing such power as it might have had and reinforcing the rhetoric. Two questions arise in my mind here. The first is whether a policy of concession or appeasement is the wise posture to adopt in the face of fundamentalism. All labour and democratic history suggests the opposite. The second question is whether the ILO should even be trying to establish a niche as an international financial or economic development institution rather than the international labour rights one. I do not pretend to have an answer to this one. But, in any case, it does seem clear that the ILO is in need of not simply defence or reform but of reinvention

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in the light of the labour problem and the relevant social forces, as they exist under globalisation, in the 21st Century. The current crisis of the ICFTU. As for the ICFTU, it seems to have been emasculated by not only the neoliberal assault but the very collapse of Communism! The ideological identity and often fragile cohesion of the ICFTU has, since its foundation, been largely dependent on being the enemy of its enemy. The loss of its own evil empire has left the ICFTU no other enemy than one which has not only become extremely powerful, aggressive and elusive (the Castells argument), but which appears not particularly interested to compete in the International Tripartite Games.28 It is true that the ICFTU has, in the footsteps of Amnesty International, proven capable of sharply criticising the USA, the core capitalist state (which combines the maximum labour rights rhetoric with the minimum national and international implementation of ILO standards). In a detailed 15-page statement it declares that
The USA has ratified only one of the seven core labour standards, which cover the right to organise a trade union, to bargain, the prohibition of discrimination and child labour, as specified by the UN's International Labour Organisation (ILO). This is one of the worst ratification records in the world... (ICFTU 1999)

But it shows little or no capacity to address the international labour movement and public opinion about such issues, far less to mobilise them for visible and effective action. Indeed, I was only made aware of this document by the campaigning, mobilising, international labour network, the One World Conference (mentioned above and below). On globalisation, however, the ICFTU repeatedly finds itself outflanked. Whilst it was proposing or negotiating for a social clause in the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, a network of campaigning social movements and NGOs not only opposed the MAI but (taking advantage of inter-state contradictions) destroyed it. And whilst the ICFTU seeks for a place within the existing international financial institutions, others are insisting on the need and possibility of surpassing them with more relevant and democratic alternatives (Held 1998). We thus seem to be faced with a major problem concerning what I would call 'the principle of articulation for international labour and labour internationalism'. This is not

28

Indeed, this is also true of Social Democratic national governments, including 'Third Way' New Labour in the UK. See New Statesman 1999). One wonders how the attitudes of such might be projected within the ILO.

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only a matter of union ideology/ies, nor of their limited, varying or even declining representation of both labour-in-general (including that of women, the casualised, the selfemployed) and the waged/salaried. It is a matter also of the relevance of even meaningfully representative-democratic organisations to both a globalised and networked capitalism and to any kind of labour movement. It has been suggested in a number of places above that the appropriate form for movements (national and international) today is that of the network, coalition or alliance. It is these that can be, as Enzensburger (1976) said of the electronic media, 'As free as dancers, as aware as football players, as surprising as guerrillas'. Yet it would seem madness to reject the representative-democratic organisation that is, for millions of workers world-wide, their only defence against an increasingly global, aggressive and destructive capitalism. Perhaps the solution lies, precisely, in distinguishing between labour representation and labour movement, between international labour and labour internationalism. International labour could be seen as represented by the organisation, gelled in the institution; labour internationalism could be seen as advanced by the network. This may seem to be the empirical case when we consider the various conferences on labour and globalisation mentioned below. For the traditional international institutions of labour representation this would imply three steps: Abandoning the notion that they are either the sole or the privileged representative of labour. This is, after all, a privilege that, since it relates to the passing period of national-industrial capitalism, is also a prison; Recognising the network and networking as the source of movement and innovation. This would mean welcoming labour and labour-allied networks or NGOs into their fora - including that of the ILO; Recognising that the new internationalism is, primarily, a communications internationalism, with electronic media as primary means and a global solidarity culture as central value. Much of such a programme of reinvention is, I think, either implicit or explicit in the earlier reviewed material. The rest is being, or could be, advanced by the networks. Just as the networks in and around labour provide the - or at least a major - source for re-invention, so could and should institutionalised international labour be for the ILO. International labour surely needs to see the ILO not so much as a fortress that protects it 46

than as a public platform from which it can address not only capital and state but global civil society (here understood as a site of permanent struggle against the ideological and institutional hegemony of market and state). I have already suggested the necessity for the inclusion of all relevant expressions of labour discontent (whether women's, environmental, petty-entrepreneurial, rural, etc). I have here no model in mind, but critical reflection on the UN Conferences and Summits of the 1990s might produce one.29 The computer/communicational parameter: no parameters? Participation in COL21, after just a week or so in August 1999, was impressive, in terms of numbers (462 signed up, almost 100 introductions/contributions), as well as of the interests and backgrounds of respondents. I had expected the response to be strongly skewed toward the US and UK, the academy, and the usual on-line suspects - Young, White, Male, Professional, Northern.30 A rapid and impressionistic analysis, based on some 48 contributions, spread over four days in late-August, revealed the following: 43 were from core capitalist countries, primarily anglophone, mostly North American; 44 were from males; 25 were from union activists or employees and 25 from academics (the last two being often overlapping categories); 12 were from pro-labour NGOs; 16 appeared more oriented toward collective bargaining; 26 were concerned with international labour issues. About age and ethnic origin we can only guess.31 It would be easy to dismiss such a participation, as limited precisely to the usual suspects. I prefer to take note of it as qualifying the open and international nature of the event, whilst stressing its radical potential. This lies in the number of academicallyqualified/employed and union-oriented/allied participants concerned with the future of labour under conditions of globalisation. Moreover, the marginal presence of women, people from the capitalist periphery, non-anglophones, is not the end of the story. This is not, after all, an election, it is a discussion and even, possibly, a dialogue. Whilst we could

So might a critical reading of O'Brien et. al (eds), (Forthcoming). This deals with the relationship between the international financial institutions on the one hand, and the women's, ecological and labour movements on the other. 30 For a direct contribution to COL21 (unpublished as of mid-November 1999?) from an Old, White, Male, Professional, Northern, Academic, see Waterman 1999c. 31 As of mid-October 1999, the number of contributions had risen to over 250. Although the intention was for participants to respond to the two opening statements (by now translated into Spanish and/or French), these had given rise to no serious overall response. Indeed, the only on-going debate was that about social clauses. Important as this issue is, the failure of more general discussion to develop is both surprising and disappointing.

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end up with a lot of white, northern, anglophone, pro-labour academic guys talking to each other (about the implications of globalisation for anglo-saxon-type labour relations, and their European or international projection), the weight readers accord a particular contribution is not going to be determined by its representativity but its perceived pertinence. Let me select a few messages, from just one day's mail, that I perceive as pertinent for a dialogue on labour in the age of globalisation:
Date : Thu, 19 Aug 1999 10:09:46 +0200 Subject: hello from san francisco Message: #1 My name is Medea Benjamin and I am the director of corporate accountability for the human rights group Global Exchange. I have been focusing on US transnationals and their labor practices overseas. Global Exchange was one of the groups spearheading the campaign against Nike for labor abuses in Asia, and we are presently undertaking a campaign against the garment company the GAP,pressuring them to pay their factory workers a living wage and allow independent monitoring of their factories. We also recently launched a campaign around US businesses and workers' rights in China. I am very interested in being in touch with people who are involved in labor rights in the garment/shoe or toy industries so that we can collaborate! Date : Thu, 19 Aug 1999 10:31:57 +0200 Subject: Introduction Message: #5 Hello and greetings from Vancouver. My name is Ritu Mahil. I became a union organizer at age 5 when my parents first organized the Canadian Farmworker's Union. One of my earliest memories is picking berries on a farm, pretending to be a farmworker, and signing up members. Anyway, I've stuck with the movement ever since. Last year, as part of the Graduate Students' Society on campus I helped organize our university TAs into CUPE Local 4163. I am currently completing my Law and Master's of Public Administration degrees from the University of Victoria. My main motivation for pursuing both degrees was to further my understanding of labour relations. I am fortunate to presently be working in a firm in Vancouver which exclusively practices trade union side labour law. I am hoping to complete my MPA degree next year as well and am searching for a thesis/project topic which will combine my legal training and my interests in organized labour.Looking forward to an interesting discussion. Date : Thu, 19 Aug 1999 10:58:32 +0200 Subject: Re: Introduction Message: #13 Hello to all participants; This is Kwang Young Shin. I am a professor in sociology at the Chung-Ang University in Seoul, Korea.I am doing research in labor movement and labor politics in the developing countries and the developed countries in a comparative perspective. Now I am working on the shifting labor politics during the political transition and economic globalization in East Asia. I am also interested in gender and labor movement. I teach industrial sociology, political sociology and class analysis. I am very pleased to have an opportunity to engage in the electronic conference on "Organized Labour 21", which will be vital for the next labour's struggle for justice and equality. Let's share our experience and research for the future.

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How the IILS understands and uses the contributions is yet to be seen. This forum is, after all, created for the purposes of the IILS itself, the ILO and the ICFTU. But, if the initial participation is seen as potentially more radical than these bodies have demonstrated themselves to be, so are the parameters of an electronic forum more porous than those of an academic or trade union conference or publication. I have been wondering whether such an open electronic conference, with email distributed by a list, and an accessible online archive of contributions, does not facilitate or provoke the creation of one oriented less to international labour relations and more to the international labour movement. What I am thinking about is the possibility of creating a parallel, or consequent, site/conference, in an electronic equivalent to the famous 'sealed train'. As some readers may recall, Lenin returned to Russia from Switzerland during World War I, taking advantage of an offer from the German military-industrial-political elite, which mistakenly thought he would only undermine the Russian war effort. More recently, the same principle was exploited by East German dissidents, using West German audiovisual media to get their message back through East German censorship. Cyberspace is not necessarily more democratic than other media, but it is infinitely more open and flexible. Certain international labour lists or sites have already signalled the existence of COL21, praised it or encouraged their visitors to take part in it. But what I am speculating about is the creation of a space oriented toward the international labour movement, which could, for example, download selected contributors/contributions, to encourage a more movement-focussed conference. There is, more modestly perhaps, nothing to prevent one creating, from contributions to COL21, one's own database of interesting email addresses, so as to invite participants to a parallel/later site or conference. And then, more ambitiously, of seeking to involve those presently marginalised or excluded. The basis for my reflections here is a certain familiarity with the limitations of both the international trade union websites and the autonomous international labour ones. The former are, customarily, trade union bulletins or magazines in electronic form. They do not usually invite discussion. They may have areas locked off from the public. They are intended to broadcast, one to many, like a radio transmitter, not provide feedback like,

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well, a computer network.32 By the autonomous ones I mean the websites or lists run by pro-labour groups or individuals, and intended precisely to encourage direct solidarity, participation and feedback. Some are highly professional. Some are very lively places. Most are non-party and non-sectarian in both form and content (though self-obsessed and fundamentalist socialists have found the internet a godsend: at last they can practice their solipsism on a world scale). The lists often carry discussions, though these tend to be on immediate and dramatic problems or campaigns. Websites may indicate discussion pages. However, neither the themes discussed nor the range of discussants has, over a period of several years, touched what is already suggested by COL21. 10. LABOUR AND GLOBALISATION: WHICH DIALOGUE OF THE MILLENNIUM? There are academic and/or labour equivalents to what the ILO is offering. There has, indeed, been a flood of such that have either recently taken place, are taking place this year, or to be expected in the future. Given the sponsoring and the agenda of the ILO/ICFTU event, these deserve attention. For five examples consider the following:33 The 2nd World Meeting Against Globalisation and Neoliberalism was to be held September 1999 by Brazil's major trade union centre, the Central Unica de Trabalhadores (CUT 1999, Working Class 1999). This was to include the following elements:

For a devastating critique of UK union sites see Lee 1999. For directories of relevant labour discussion documents and sites, see LabourStart 1999 and Workers on the WWW Unite! 1999. For an exceptional nonanglophone labour site, see Chronique de l'Itinrant lectronique 1999. 33 I am excluding consideration of two other union events on globalisation I have become aware of since completing the body of this paper. One is an international seminar proposed for Bangladesh, about which I have no other information, and which was still seeking foreign funding in September 1999. The other is a Conference on Globalisation and Labour Standards, apparently organised by the ICFTU, December 1998. Consistent with the ICFTU tradition of obliging the nobility, this one actually invited the Director General and senior staff of the WTO to a day of consultations there! See http:/www.icftu.org/english/pr/1998/eprol267-981203-dd.html. I am also leaving out of consideration the events due to occur in Seattle, USA, late-November 1999, during the WTO's conference there (Seattle Weekly 1999). This event is evidently going to see a major confrontation between capital/state on the one hand and a global-civil- society-in-the-making on the other. Unlike such previous confrontations, both the US and the international trade union organisations are going to be prominently present. A major US coalition, the Citizens' Trade Campaign, is attempting to co-ordinate the positions of a broad range of NGOs, unions and other movements. Given the ICFTU's ambiguous (at best) position on the WTO, its relation to this event (which will include civil disobedience and, possibly, violence against property and persons) will bear watching.

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Lecture on Global Capitalism (Brazilian economist) Report on European Union (ETUC and European unionists) Asian Crisis and Workers' resistance (KCTU, Korea) South Africa Today (COSATU, South Africa) Latin America, Mercosur, Nafta and trade unionism (3 lecturers plus Latin American unionists) Final declaration Public event: Against Neoliberalism! In Defence of Workers' Rights!

Whilst both programme and format belong to the tradition of Left/nationalist unionism in Latin America (the official Cuban unions are involved), whilst contributions are structured nationally/regionally, and whilst it is set up in opposition to 'collaborationist' unionism, it is addressed to globalisation, includes trade unions from Africa, Asia and at least Western Europe. And the network base of the event is intended to avoid competition with existing internationals. The Open World Conference in Defence of Trade Union Independence and Democratic Rights is a French-US Trotskyist initiative that has had considerable impact within national trade union movements in Europe, the Americas and even further afield. Its Western Hemisphere Workers Conference Against NAFTA and Privatisations, in November 1997, expressed itself against neo-liberalism and globalisation in terms of traditional Leftist/nationalist denunciation. But its Organising Committee has moved on to a much more specific and nuanced stand, in its earlier-mentioned declaration on international labour standards, the ILO and the WTO (Open World Conference 1999a). The proposal for its February 2,000 Conference in San Francisco also suggests something more specific in subject matter and broader in participation than the Brazilian event (Open World Conference 1999b): The Struggle Against Child Labour (Helio Bicudo, member, Human Rights Commission, Organisation of American States, Convenor, 2nd Session of the International Tribunal against Child and Forced Labour) The Fight Against Sweatshops, Delocalisations, in Defence of Labour Codes and ILO Conventions (Rubina Jamil, Chair, All Pakistan Trade Union Federation and Coordinator, Asia Pacific Workers Solidarity Links)

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The Fight Against IMF/World Bank Structural Adjustment Plans and the Struggle to Cancel the Debt (South African trade union leader) The Independence of Trade Unions in Relation to New Regional Structures - the Case of the ETUC (Patrick Hbert, General Secretary, CGT-FO, Loire AtlantiqueRegion, France)

In Defence of Free and Independent Trade Unions (a leader of the independent trade union movement in China) Report on the International Tribunal on Africa (Norbert Gbikpi-Bennisan, General Secretary, National Federation of Independent Unions of Togo)

There are workshops and panels proposed on: trade union independence; women and globalisation; the struggle for peace and self-determination; the struggle against racism and oppression; civil society and NGOs; labour-management co-operation programmes; and on the final conference declaration. The US event, Unions and the Global Economy: Labour Education at the Crossroads (Bronfenbrenner email to COL21, August 14, 1999), is co-sponsored by the AFLCIO, US labour educators and the Industrial and Labour Relations school at Cornell University. Themes include: Meeting the global economic challenge Labour education in union transformation Union strategies for worker cross-border power Impact of globalisation on workers, unions, communities Teaching global solidarity Race, class, gender and the global workforce Bargaining with MNCs Sweatshops, child labour and global solidarity Maquiladoras Immigration and globalisation Community, regional and consumer coalitions Then there is LabourMedia99, in Seoul, November 1999 - the second such International Labour Communication Conference/Festival to be hosted in South Korea. Having attended the first, in 1997, I am aware just how professional, wide-ranging and advanced 52

these are. Although associated closely to the Left opposition Korean Trade Union Confederation, the event is again organised by a network of media NGOs. The relationship posed between new communications technologies and the labour movement is as follows: As globalisation of capitalism and new development of labour movement in the world scale become apparent, new communication strategy is needed through the experience of labour movement in every nation. (The appearance of unyielding labour movement and unemployed movement in developed countries, the progress and dilemma of new labour movement represented by Korea, Brazil, South Africa etc, the start of labour movement in developing countries in Asia). The progress of digital technology as the main axis of scientific revolution has reorganised industry, culture and political relation dramatically. And the progress of technology which is combined with new liberalism has changed social situations that surround the workplace and has also given new weapons to the labour movement. Therefore, we need to construct new internal labour communication network and at the same time, alternative communication structure against conservative structure of mainstream media. In this sense, many different issues about labour movement and communication should be proposed and the necessity of estimation for actions and making for new prospect should be demanded. (Korean Labour Media Newsletter 1999. English uncorrected) The proposed programme includes the following workshops: Current labour struggles and the role of the labour net [meaning labour networks in general - PW]: capital flows, working hours, internationalism, unemployment; Confrontation with the Millenium Round of world trade negotiations; International solidarity of labouring women; Task and situation of the labour net worldwide; Possibility of establishing a global labour net; Information technology (IT) and the labour movement; Labour struggles, IT and the media; IT, workplace surveillance and the labour movement; 53

Internet broadcasting and progressive movement strategies; Possibilities of a progressive and/or labour TV channel; Possibilities of radio is one of the old media; The labour video movement.

What the hosting of this event suggests to me is that any notion that technology, labour movement modernisation and innovatory strategies flow Northwest to Southeast is, at the very least, outdated. Finally, there is the Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR) Conference, hosted by the South African COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions), Johannesburg, October, 1999.34 This certainly overlapped with the previous events in sponsorship, attendance and concerns. It struck, however, a number of quite original notes. This 'South' is not confined to the periphery, since the initiative comes from Australia, and it includes South Korea. Moreover, it was supported by a number of the ITSs. The initiative was considered complementary to, not competitive with, the established international unions. In the words of its convenors, `it creates space and meets needs'. The agenda was itself innovatory, with the intention to focus on commitments to relevant action by participant unions within a specific time period. The first full day highlighted an Australian (and international) campaign against the mining multinational, Rio Tinto, that also involved communities, the human-rights and ecological movements. The second dealt primarily with workplace and national union responses to the affects of neoliberalism, in terms of organising strategies to regain members, reach out to new types of worker and to relevant communities. The third day concentrated on `building global unionism', as exemplified by a co-operation agreement initialled on the spot between the unions covering two ports with a recent history of solidarity (Durban, South Africa and Freemantle/Perth, Australia). It also proposed a common international Mayday for the year 2,000 (quite a challenge considering Mayday's decline in the North and its often national/ist character in the South). In the mind of its Regional Co-ordinator, there lay here an express aspiration for a 'global social movement unionism':

I attended this event after completing the bulk of this paper. I am currently writing up more extensive reflections on the event under the working title, The Internationalism of Labour and the Labour of Sysiphus. More reports should be appearing in a special supplement of the South African Labour Bulletin late-1999.

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The radical nature of global restructuring and the high mobility of capital requires a global unionism Moves are now in place to forge sector to sector links across specific countries to trial run global unionism. Linkages through personnel exchanges will transmit national experiences thereby creating a readiness to act in the cause of geographically distant workers for these distant workers will now be represented inside the collaborating union, working to raise the awareness levels [] When Australian [dockworkers] leaders visited the Durban docks in South Africa to personally thank workers for their boycott actions, there was a high demand for T-shirts and other symbols. These one-off meetings are valuable. Shared experience creates a real sense of international solidarity However, these positive acts do not create a global unionism. For this to happen, structural links with a degree of permanence have to be formed. Certain unions are already in process to review the form of this change. This will be considered at the conference [] Unions that are presently leading global campaigns against multinationals have found it essential to turn outwards and form community alliances. The multinational mining giant that is attacking worker rights in Australia in the name of individual freedom is the same company that is cutting into Malagasys ancient forests to sand mine. The interests of green groups and unions coalesce [] The conference will explore the mechanics of these strategic shifts. The outcome will be the first building blocks of a global social movement unionism not as an abstract theoretical idea, but as a concrete organisational shift worked through in all its detail. (Lambert 1999b:88-9)

Singly and collectively, these diverse, independent but often overlapping events suggest a significant revival of labour movement thinking and action on globalisation and internationalism.35 Three are 'Southern' based. All seem to consider the South as part of an interdependent world of capitalist work and labour protest. They are looking, often explicitly, for a global unionism to confront a globalised capitalism - although what 'global unionism' might mean is not yet clear. We are going to need, eventually, an analysis of these events to see how they compare/contrast with each other and with COL21. But, being 'real' rather than 'virtual' conferences, we have to assume they will be restricted in attendance and reach. There is here an interesting paradox. I only got to know of these 'real' events because of the worldwide web. But they have here an extremely restricted presence and impact. They appear, or become accessible, only via lists and (personal) email. They do not have their own websites. A lack of virtuality, at least for internationalist movements today, seems to me to be an increasing restriction on their reality. Every reason, therefore, to take part in the ILO/ICFTU event and oneself to test the parameters indicated

They also overlap with such 'non-labour' international conferences as a general one on 'alternatives to globalisation', organised by the 'national-democratic' movement in the Philippines (IBON Foundation 1999). Despite this background, and the regurgitation here of what has been earlier called 'national liberation Marxism' by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Kilusang Mayo Uno union federation, this event was also the occasion for some radical new thinking about not only forms of action but even socialism as the alternative to globalisation. The contribution here by James Petras (1998) was primarily intended to present a socialist alternative. But it also represents a quite radical alternative to any existing socialist strategy I am aware of, national or global.

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above. And every reason, on the ILO/ICFTU side, to ensure that at least the outcome of these events are made available on or through its own site. 11. CONCLUSION: NOT SO MUCH IN AND AGAINST AS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE I recall here the slogan of radical British social workers in the 1970s, 'In and Against the State', and consider how it might be made appropriate to radical democratic purposes in the era of an informatised and globalised capitalism. The notion of being simultaneously inside and outside appeals, in so far as we cannot even evaluate the inside unless we also stand outside, and we certainly cannot move beyond it without this at least imaginary elsewhere. But whether, in this case, one has to be not only outside but also against, I am not so sure. I am certainly concerned to revolutionise the institutional, ideological and electronic parameters of international labour and labour internationalism. But, to my mind, revolution in this era is less a matter of creating, a 'world turned upside down', a 'first liberated territory', than in infiltrating the borders, shifting and broadening the parameters, changing the focus, and working toward a new labour internationalism and institutionality that complements that of the other radical democratic social movements internationally. This inside/outside, finally, applies not only to the old organisations/institutions. It has to apply also to such events as that of Sigtur. This has itself a problematic geometry, lying as it does on different criss-crossing axes: between a Left, but diplomatic, union internationalism and a radical-democratic assembly of labour support groups; between unionists and academics; between the (semi-)industrialised and powerful Australian/Korean/South African unions and the more traditionally 'Southern' ones. These tensions led, at their sharpest point, to an apology from an Australian convenor to the conference in general, and a pro-Chinese Indian union delegation in particular, for allowing a Hong Kong-based labour support group report on worker and union repression in China! As I have already suggested, the creation of a new labour internationalism lies not in some pre-existent power, privilege or evidently - even an initiative from the periph-

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ery. It lies, rather, in a dialogue between those occupying different and unequal positions within, between and even around this triangle of internationalist empowerment.36 REFERENCES Alianza Social Continental. 1999a. 'Alternativas para las Amricas' (Alternatives for the Americas), America Latina en Movimiento (Quito), No. 290-1, pp. 29-30. Alianza Social Continental. 1999b. 'Globalizacin, pobreza y exclusin social' (Globalisation, Poverty and Social Exclusion), America Latina en Movimiento (Quito), No. 299, pp. 12-16. Arthur, C.H. (ed). 1970. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: The German Ideology.

London: Lawrence and Wishart. Bakvis, Peter. 1998. 'Free Trade in the Americas: The Perspective of Qubec Labour and Popular-Sector Organisations', Labour Capital and Society, Vol.31, Nos 1-2 (Special Issue: Workers and Borders in the Context of Regional Blocs), pp. 154-65. Barbrook, Richard. 1999a. 'The Hi-Tech Gift Economy', Cybersociology Magazine, No. 5, April. http://www.socio.demon.co.uk/magazine/5/issue5.html Barbrook, Richard. 1999b. 'Frequently Asked Questions: Digital Workers and Artisans: Get Organised': http://www.labournet.org/1999/March/digiwork.html. Barker, Colin and Gareth Dale. 1999. 'Potest Waves in Western Europe: A Critique of "New Social Movement" Theory, Critical Sociology, Vol. 24, No. 1/2, pp. 65-104. Breitenfellner, Andreas. 1997. 'Global Unionism: A Potential Player', International Labour Review, Vol. 136, No. 4, pp. 531-55. Carr, Barry. 1996. 'Crossing Borders: Labour Internationalism in the Era of NAFTA', in Gerardo Otero (ed.), Neo-Liberalism Revisited: Economic Restructuring and Mexico's Political Future. Boulder: Westview. Pp. 209-229. Castells, Manuel. 1996-8. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. 3 Vols. Oxford: Blackwells. Chronique de l'Itinrant lectronique. 1999. http://www.itinerant.qc.ca/99-04-08.html. Cohen, Noam. 1999. 'Corporations Try to Bar Use of E-Mail by Unions', New York Times, August 23.
36

I adapt this concept, somewhat cheekily, from Lycklama Nijeholt, Vargas and Wieringa (1996), since their feminist triangle of power relates the empowerment of women to a relationship between movements, politicians and bureaucrats dealing with women's questions.

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Gills, Barry (ed). Forthcoming. Globalisation and the Politics of Resistance. London: Macmillan. Goldhaber, Michael. 1983. 'Microelectronic Networks: A New Workers' Culture in Formation?', in Vincent Mosco and Janet Wasko (eds), Labour, the Working Class and the Media. Norwood, NJ: Ablex: pp. 211-44. Goldhaber, Michael. 1987. 'Creating a Worker's Culture in the Third World', in Media Development, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 9-11. Harrod, Jeffrey. 1977. 'The Ideology of the International Labour Organisation Towards Developing Countries', The Impact of International Organisations on Legal and Institutional Change in Developing Countries. New York: International Legal Centre. Pp. 184-210. Harvey, David. 1989. The Condition of Postmodernity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Haworth, Nigel and Ramsay, Harvie. 1984. 'Grasping the Nettle: Problems with the Theory of International Trade Union Solidarity', in Waterman, Peter (ed.), For a New Labour Internationalism. The Hague: ILERI Foundation. Pp. 60-87. Held, David. 1995. Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Cambridge: Polity. 324 pp. Held, David. 1998. 'Globalisation: The Timid Tendency', Marxism Today, NovemberDecember. Pp. 34-9. Herod, Andrew (ed.). 1998. Organising the Landscape: Geographical Perspectives on Labour Unionism, Minnesota University Press, Minneapolis. 372 pp. Hyman, Richard. 1999a. 'An Emerging Agenda for Trade Unions?'. COL21 (see above). Hyman, Richard. 1999b. 'National Industrial Relations Systems and Transnational Challenges: An Essay in Review', European Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 89-110. IBON Foundation. 1999. Alternatives to Globalisation. Manila: IBON Foundation/Bagong Alyansang Makabayan. 197 pp. ICEM. 1999. Facing Global Power: Strategies for Global Unionism. (Document, by Vic Thorpe in association with Jeff Harrod, for ICEM Second World Congress, Durban, South Africa, 3-5 November). Brussels: International Confederation of Chemical, Energy and Mineworkers.

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ICFTU. 1996. '16th World Congress of the ICFTU, Brussels, 25-29/6/1996. Congress Resolutions. Strengthening the International Labour Organisation'.

http://www.icftu.org/english/congress/econres4.html. ICFTU. 1999. 'Global labour group slams USA's " appalling" record on workers rights', ICFTU Online. 7.9.99. ILO. 1998. 'ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work', 86th Session of the International Labour Conference, International Labour Organisation, Geneva, June. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/10ilc86/com-dtxt.htm. Jakobsen, Kjeld Aagaard. 1998. 'Nuevos rumbos en la ORIT' (New Challenges in the ORIT), in Maria Portella de Castro and Achim Wachendorfer (eds.). 1998. Sindicalismo y globalizacin: La dolorosa insercin en un mundo incierto. Caracas: Editorial Nueva Sociedad. Pp. 307-19. John, J. and Anuradha Chenoy (ed). 1996. Labour, Environment and Globalisation: Social Clause in Multilateral Trade Agreements: A Southern Response. New Delhi: Centre for Education and Communication. 194 pp. Johnston, Paul. 1999. 'Organise for What? The Resurgence of Labour as Citizenship Movement', http://mail.cruzio.com/~johnston/. Jordan, Bill. 1999. 'Trade Unions in the 21st Century: Response by ICFTU General Secretary Bill Jordan to keynote by Juan Somavia',

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Munck, Ronaldo. 1998. 'Labour in the Global: Discourses and Practices'. Sociology Department, University of Liverpool. 35pp. Munck, Ronaldo and Peter Waterman (ed.). 1999. Labour Worldwide in the Era of Globalization: Alternatives for Trade Unionism in the New World Order. London: Macmillan. Naisbitt, John. 1982. Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming our Lives. New York: Warner Books. 333 pp. Nissen, Bruce. 'Alliances Across the Border: the U.S. Labour Movement in the Era of Globalisation', Centre for Labour Research, Florida International University. Nystrom, Sigvard and Peter Rutters. History of the IUF (The International Union of Food and Allied Workers Associations). Bonn: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. 509 pp. O'Brien, Robert. 1996. 'Contesting Globalisation: A Response from the ICFTU 16th World Congress', Conference on the Globalisation of Production and the Regulation of Labour, University of Warwick, 11-13 September 1996. 26 pp. O'Brien, Robert, Anne Marie Goetz, Jan Aart Scholte and Marc Williams. Forthcoming. Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements. London: Cambridge University Press. Open World Conference. 1999a. 'Why You Should Support the Open Letter to the WTO'. Email forwarded by Labour List, labor@yorku.ca, 1.9.99. Open World Conference. 1999b. 'Conference Programme'. Email received 6.9.99. Petras, James. 1999. 'Globalisation: A Socialist Perspective', in IBON Foundation, Alternatives to Globalisation. Manila: IBON Foundation/Bagong Alyansang Makabayan. Pp. 148-56. Pollack, Aaron. 1999. 'A New "Internationalism" in the Making: Encounters, Networks, Alliances', Transnational Associations, No. 4, 205-17. Portella de Castro, Maria and Achim Wachendorfer (eds.). 1998. Sindicalismo y globalizacin: La dolorosa insercin en un mundo incierto [Unionism and Globalisation: Painful Insertion into an Uncertain World]. Caracas: Editorial Nueva Sociedad. 359 pp. Ramsay, Harvie. 1998. 'Solidarity at Last? International Trade Unionism Approaching the Millennium', Economic and Industrial Democracy. Vol. 18, pp. 503-37. Rathbun, Ben. 1996. The Point Man: Irving Brown and the Deadly Post-1945 Struggle for Europe and Africa. London: Minerva Press. 62

Reinalda, Bob (ed.). 1997. The International Transportworkers Federation 1914-1945: The Edo Fimmen Era. Amsterdam: International Institute of Social History. 301pp. Roberts, Kenneth. 1998. Deepening Democracy? The Modern Left and Social Movements in Chile and Peru. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 370 pp. Seattle Weekly. 1999. 'Shutting Down Seattle', The Seattle Weekly, August 19. Email forwarded by debate@sunsite.wits.ac.za. Shiva, Vandana. 1996. 'Social and Environmental Clauses: A Political Diversion', in J. John and Anuradha Chenoy (ed), Labour, Environment and Globalisation: Social Clause in Multilateral Trade Agreements: A Southern Response. New Delhi: Centre for Education and Communication. Pp. 101-12. Shopsteward. 1999. 'What Delegates will be Discussing at Congress', The Shopsteward (Johannesburg), June-July, pp. 15ff. cShostak, Art. 1999. CyberUnion: Empowering Labour through Computer Technology. Armonk (NY): M.E. Sharpe. 262 pp. Shramik Pratishthan (ed). 1999. Trade Union Movement on the Threshold of the 21st Century. Mumbai: Shramik Pratishthan. 140 pp. Smith, Russell. 1998. 'Renace el espiritu militante en la AFL-CIO: tiene eso importancia para el movimiento sindical latinoamericano?' (Rebirth of the Militant Spirit in the AFL-CIO: Is this Important for the Latin American Union Movement?), in Maria Portella de Castro and Achim Wachendorfer (eds.). 1998. Sindicalismo y globalizacin: La dolorosa insercin en un mundo incierto. Caracas: Editorial Nueva Sociedad. Pp. 307-19. Somavia, Juan. 1999. 'Trade Unions in the 21st Century (Keynote Speech by Mr. Juan Somavia, Director General, International Labour Organisation',

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Thomson, Don and Rodney Larson. 1978. Where Were You, Brother? An Account of Trade Union Imperialism. London: War on Want. 141 pp. Valentine, Douglas. 1999. 'The French Connection Revisited: The CIA, Irving Brown and Drug Smuggling as Political Warfare', Covert Action Quarterly, No. 67, SpringSummer: 61-64. de Vos, Evert. 1999. 'Poldermodel Gloort in IT-sector: Vakbonden en CAO's Rukken Op' (Poldermodel Rises in IT-Sector: Unions and CBAs Advance), Intermediair (Amsterdam), March 11, pp.34-7. Waterman, Peter. 1999a. 'The Brave New World of Manuel Castells: What on Earth (or in the Ether) is Going On?, Development and Change, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 357-80. Waterman, Peter. 1999b. 'Labour@Cyberspace: Problems in Creating a Global Solidarity Culture', Cybersociology Magazine, No.5. Waterman, Peter. 1999c. 'Needed: A New International Labour Movement for (and Against) a Globalised, Networked Capitalism'. Paper submitted to the Conference on Organised Labour in the Twenty-First Century):

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64

REFLECTIONS ON THE 2ND WORLD SOCIAL FORUM IN PORTO ALEGRE: WHAT'S LEFT INTERNATIONALLY?

Peter Waterman

May 2002

Working paper 362

The Institute of Social Studies is Europe's longest-established centre of higher education and research in development studies. Post-graduate teaching programmes range from six-week diploma courses to the PhD programme. Research at ISS is fundamental in the sense of laying a scientific basis for the formulation of appropriate development policies. The academic work of ISS is disseminated in the form of books, journal articles, teaching texts, monographs and working papers. The Working Paper series provides a forum for work in progress which seeks to elicit comments and generate discussion. The series includes the research of staff, PhD participants and visiting fellows, and outstanding research papers by graduate students. For further information contact: ORPAS - Institute of Social Studies - P.O. Box 29776 2502LT The Hague - The Netherlands - FAX: +31 70 4260799 E-mail: workingpapers@iss.nl ISSN 0921-0210 Comments are welcome and should be addressed to the author:

ABSTRACT: This paper reflects on the implications for the international trade union movement and Left of the 60-70,000-strong World Social Forum II. The reflections concern the analytical, theoretical and strategic implications of and for this first major international movement of the era of a globalized and informatized capitalism. Considered in turn are: 1. The Forum's Charter and the Call of Social Movements issued from it; 2. The impact of the Forum on the Left as an 'old social movement'; 3. Its implications for feminism as a 'new social movement'; 4. The meaning of 'Left' in the light of the Forum; 5. The strategy problem the unions still imply for the global justice movement; 6. The necessity of moving the movement away from an organizational and toward a communicational logic; 7. The need for a political-economy of global civil society construction. The Conclusion reflects on the concept of revolution in the era of capitalist globalization, as well as the role of the global justice movement in surpassing the emancipatory model of the French Revolution.

CONTENTS Error! Bookmark not defined. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 1. The Porto Alegre 'Charter' proposes relational principles that challenge both the latest capitalist (dis)order and the traditional internationalisms; The 'Call of Social Movements' represents the transition from an 'anti-global' to a 'global justice and solidarity' movement......................................................................................................... 1 2. The World Social Forum is transforming the thinking and/or behavior of both the old revolutionary and the reformist Left. (Or it should damn well do so if these want to remain on the radar screen)............................................................................................... 4 3. The Forum revealed the impact of feminism as a new social movement but also represented a challenge to such. (A provocation)............................................................. 6 4. The Left is dead! Long live social emancipation? (Another provocation)....................... 8 5. The Inter/national trade union movement represents the major challenge to the global justice movement (and to itself if it is not to be Left behind)......................................... 12 6. The institutional logic of the old internationalisms has to be transformed by a cultural one (winning hearts and minds is not just an imperial military strategy)....................... 15 7. The development of the global justice movement requires that it be considered in political-economic terms (a matter of pipers, payers and tunes) .................................... 17 Conclusion: Being There..................................................................................................... 19 References ........................................................................................................................... 21 Internet resources............................................................................................................ 27 Appendices .......................................................................................................................... 28

INTRODUCTION1 This paper reflects on the implications for the international trade union movement and Left of the 60-70,000-strong World Social Forum II. The reflections concern the analytical, theoretical and strategic implications of and for this first major international movement of the era of a globalized and informatized capitalism. Considered in turn are: 1. The Forum's Charter and the Call of Social Movements issued from it; 2. The impact of the Forum on the Left as an 'old social movement'; 3. Its implications for feminism as a 'new social movement'; 4. The meaning of 'Left' in the light of the Forum; 5. The strategy problem the unions still imply for the global justice movement; 6. The necessity of moving unionism away from an organizational and toward a communicational logic; 7. The need for a political-economy of global civil society construction. The Conclusion reflects on the concept of revolution in the era of capitalist globalization, as well as the role of the global justice movement in surpassing the emancipatory model of the French Revolution. 1. THE PORTO ALEGRE 'CHARTER' PROPOSES RELATIONAL PRINCIPLES THAT CHALLENGE BOTH THE LATEST CAPITALIST (DIS)ORDER AND THE TRADITIONAL INTERNATIONALISMS; THE 'CALL OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS' REPRESENTS THE TRANSITION FROM AN 'ANTI-GLOBAL' TO A 'GLOBAL JUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY' MOVEMENT. The WSF Charter of Principles (World Social Forum Charter 2001, Appendix 2), which was produced following WSF I, suggests that the construction of a new kind of world order is as much a matter of process as of program. Rejecting the notion of acting as some kind of global vanguard, in either leadership or policy terms, the Charter suggests that the function of the WSF is precisely that of providing an agora (meeting-place, market-place) for the movement against neo-liberal globalization. Whilst allowing for the presence of politicians and statespersons who oppose neo-liberalism, the Forum specifically excludes militaristic movements (and such politicians or governments?). Ambitious
1

Acknowledgments for comments go primarily to my longtime compaera and sparring partner, Gina Vargas, of the Peruvian feminist center, Flora Tristn, with whom I shared the Porto Alegre experience. The paper is also for Gina. As well as for Thanh-dam Truong, of the Institute of Social Studies, in The Hague, and Anissa Helie, of Women Living Under Muslim Laws, London.

in declaring that the Forum has become a global rather than a local event, the Charter is modest in denying that the WSF is more than one component part of a movement against capitalist globalization:
The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, nongovernmental and non-party context that, in a decentralized fashion, interrelates organizations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to built [sic] another world. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organizations and movements that participate in it.

The notion that the Forum does not constitute a 'locus of power' is over-modest, even disingenuous, in so far as power - like death and taxes - is always with us. Even, however, if taken as an intention, the statement will provoke participants to work out ways that will minimize the power disputes that have weakened and destroyed previous internationals right back to the Marx-Bakunin dispute that led the former to break up the First International (Collins and Abramsky 1965). That dispute was and is salutary. The Socialist/Anarchist tension is clearly present within the global justice movement, with the latter tradition being more evidently revealed within the major confrontations at neo-liberal summits (One-Off 2001). This tension, however, is also within the events of both Opposition and Proposition of the global justice movement. This is revealed by the fact that a majority of the WSF Organizing Committee felt obliged to reject any notion of creating some kind of world Left political party, or movement, vanguard. Moreover, the principles of pluralism, dialog and networking have been clearly evident both on the streets, as in Seattle 1999, and in the proposal for 'social consultation' in Europe, circulated at the Forum (European Social Consulta 2002). The Consulta is proposed by a European 'network' (what else?) that has no apparent place of origin, only cyber-addresses without country codes (where else?)! The Consulta, whose origins in Spain or Catalonia are nonetheless suggested by the word itself, proposes something that would appear completely procedural, were it not for its jab at the 'dumbing down' of culture or, more substantially, at the 'complicity between electoral democracy and the economic dictatorship of large corporations'. Aimed, precisely, at the liberal democracies which are at the heart of neo-liberal globalization, the Consulta seems to be proposing a permanent and Europe-wide generalization of the notions of pluralism, dialog and social

self-mobilization suggested by the Charter. The challenge here presented is as much to the unions and the Left as to the hegemons of globalization. The Call of Social Movements (Call of Social Movements 2002, Appendix 1) issued by a so-far unidentified alliance of such2 at the end of the Forum, represents the most forceful declaration yet of what it itself calls a 'global movement for social justice and solidarity'. It is a declaration of global war against neo-liberal and corporate globalization which includes, of course, a war against the globalization of warfare. The Call identifies most of the major negative impacts of the hegemonic model, it identifies the collective interests and identities thus negatively affected, it identifies with their struggles and demands, it declares that solidarity comes out of the diversity of democratic identities and forces, it proposes a humane, principled and ethical alternative to neo-liberalism, it makes an extended address to laboring people (not only the male, industrial, urban or unionized), to labor's needs and demands. It thus represents not only a challenge to the corporations, the (inter-)state organizations, the religious and economic fundamentalists, and their academic and media apologists. It also represents a proposal to which all democratic forces can, or should, respond. Unionists favoring global justice and solidarity can campaign for the adoption of this document within their organizations, at every level. And, at the same time, unions and other labor movement bodies, could respond to the CSM, specifying their objections or additions. There may be such objections, from the Left internationally, stating, for example, that the document is not socialist, or that it does not identify capitalism as the enemy, or that it does not attack imperialism, that it is Eurocentric, that it is reformist or palliative, leading at best to a gentler, kinder capitalist alternative (c.f. Carotenuto 2002) Whilst such criticism may be justified, and is anyway already part of the dialog, a condemnation on such grounds would be one that fails to recognize 1) the international/ist achievement this document represents, and 2) that the development of social movements is determined not by ideological rectitude but - if radically-democratic and expanding in appeal by the process of social self-education and empowerment they unleash.
2

After having eventually tracked down and seen the list of signators, I was urgently requested not to publish it. Since the list appeared to me simultaneously interesting and innocuous, I have to assume that there is some problem about it, at least in the minds of those who originally released the document without the names attached! This, once again, reminds us that building a global civil society is not the same as inhabiting paradise.

If, on the other hand, there is criticism that the document was produced out of sight of the Forum, by a self-appointed institutional, or intellectual, or whatever, elite - which may have been the case - then there can be a struggle to ensure, at the 3rd Forum, that a further such document be formulated in the spirit of the participatory democracy the present one favors. There is, in any case, no obstacle to more-radical (or moderate) others producing their own alternative such documents within the Forum (for example, the surprisingly uninspiring Declaration of Intellectuals 2002). If, finally, it is felt that the CSM is short on alternatives, then critics should ensure this is not the case in the future. I consider, for example, that it is weak on economic alternatives, especially given the small but growing number of such experiments in which working people are involved worldwide. Laboring people in Brazil and Argentina have been rather active here (see Powell 2002 for the latter case). These can no longer be adequately described merely as a 'survival strategy' (until the poor can be re-incorporated into some future capitalist economy). There is growing post-capitalist theory and strategy, in this region, going back 15 years or so (Quijano 2001, Suplicy 2000). And, given the 20 or more sessions in the Forum on the 'economy of solidarity', the absence of this notion from the CSM is striking. The same goes for the issue of a guaranteed minimum income (Euzeby 2000, Frankman 2001), as a means of overcoming marginalization, increasing needsoriented demand, undermining labor market competition and enhancing social solidarity. Indeed, the whole issue of emancipation from capitalist work (Gorz 1999, Dinerstein and Neary 2002) needs to be on the agenda of the next Forum if capitalism, rather than merely neo-liberalism, is to be identified and challenged. 2. THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM IS TRANSFORMING THE THINKING AND/OR BEHAVIOR OF BOTH THE OLD REVOLUTIONARY AND THE REFORMIST LEFT. (OR IT SHOULD DAMN WELL DO SO IF THESE WANT TO REMAIN ON THE RADAR SCREEN). The WSF, and the movement it both represents and shapes, already has the power to transform the thinking and acting of the Old Left, whether 'revolutionary', 'reformist' or 'thirdworldist'. This is because these terms have lost most of their meaning and effect over the last two or three decades. 'Revolutionary' meant insurrectionary, and those who de4

spite the miserable results of previous insurrections still argue for a sudden, total and irreversible social transformation, are increasingly condemned to self-isolation. 'Reformism' has itself come to mean merely a graduated (or even sudden and total) adjustment to neoliberal globalization, either with or without a human face. 'Thirdworldism' has lost almost all allure in its conversion from an appeal for popular emancipation and solidarity to a state doctrine of authoritarian nationalism (Mugabe). Some prominent revolutionaries, present at WSF II, may have accepted, implicitly if not explicitly, that an event and process largely funded and supported by the state (at least local) and by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs, previously 'agents of incorporation and imperialism'), not only provides a useful or acceptable platform, but even a privileged space for the advance of mass interests and transformatory processes. Significant vanguardist traditions seem to have embraced the global justice movement (Democracia Socialista 2000)!3 Given the intellectual and political experience of such organizations or individual veterans, and their common commitment to mass movements, their presence within the Forum could help protect it against its ongizacin (ngo-ization) in particular, and its incorporation into a new global capitalist project in general (Elizalde 2002). The presence of numerous foreign trade union leaders (Waterman 2002a), and officials of state-funded NGOs, as well as of academics concerned with the reform of interstate organizations, reveals the appeal of the Forum to those of the reformist tradition. In so far as the latter have also traditionally acted as lobbyists, pressure groups, elite advocacy

Others not. Or only ambiguously so. James Petras, longtime scourge of the NGOs and all their works, was evidently happy to be on a Porto Alegre platform largely created by such, and to sign the Call of Social Movements (Appendix 1). His presentation, entitled 'Reform or Revolution' (Petras 2002a) could, however, have appeared anytime since the first Russian Revolution (1905). And, whilst he evidently considers that the grounds for reform no longer exist in Latin America, he seems to think that revolution and revolutionaries are obsolescence-free. His argument here is short and vague, his references being to past national(ist) revolutions rather than to even the direct-action element within the global justice movement. In a Post-Forum evaluation (Petras 2002b), he reiterates his lifelong manicheanism, telling a 'tale of two forums', in which all the complexity is forced into two procrustean beds, one middle-class and reformist, one proletarian/popular and radical (no more 'revolutionary'?). Since the first is invested with vice, the second with virtue, he has to see the future in terms of the defeat of the one and the victory of the other. The development of the global justice movement (including the anarchists he wishes to define out of his radical camp!), is, rather, one of a continuing dialog, in which the secret is that of allowing for complexitiy and contradiction rather than reducing them to a binary opposition and ruling out the wrong one ab initio. Petras' mechanical-materialist methodology (and posture as the middle-class US academic spokesman for the revolution) is, regrettably, one that may lead readers to dismiss the significant evidence he does present. They should not do so. They should, rather, do a compare-and-contrast exercise with the present and other interpretations (to be found where that of Petras is hosted, on the Evaluations WSF 2002 webpage). All of which suggests a possible Master's paper: 'Many Tales of One Forum'.

bodies, or intellectual advisers to ruling capitalist or state elites, this reconnection with actually-existing social movements could revive a radical, aggressive and campaigning reformism, with considerable potential for undermining an increasingly tarnished elite policy and ideology. Significant here is the largely positive evaluation of the Forum by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC 2002). So much for the old social movement.4 At least until Part 5. 3. THE FORUM REVEALED THE IMPACT OF FEMINISM AS A NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENT BUT ALSO REPRESENTED A CHALLENGE TO SUCH. (A PROVOCATION). It is important to appreciate that the problematic relationship of the old social movement with capital and state, is not unique to labor. The ecological and feminist movements also find themselves torn between the Scylla of engagement with hegemonic forces and the Charybdis of autonomy from them (in the Greek myth the option for the one implies being thrown to the other). The dialectical and dialogical inter-relationship between the global justice movement in general and the feminist movement in particular was suggested by the Forum.5 There can be no doubt of the debt the global justice movement (including its nonviolent direct-action wing) owes to the women's movements and feminist thinkers of the 1970s-80s. The influence can be clearly seen within the CSM and the Charter themselves. Much of the thinking of the new movement (on counter-power resting in a democratic diversity) and behavior (public cultural outrage and celebration) can be traced back to the feminists. Following the twinned process of liberal democratization and neo-liberal globalization, however, much of the international feminist movement became, it seems to me, over-committed to a 'long march through the institutions' (national, regional, international). Whilst familiarization with the politics of hegemonic institutions had an impact on these,

The multiple contemporary dilemmas of unionism, in terms of even a national, social-democratic and industrial relations perspective, are dramatically revealed in the sophisticated analysis of Warrian (2001). Revealed but hardly solved since Warrian is thinking within the unquestioned parameters of capitalist globalization, the information economy, liberal democracy and unionism as-we-have-known-it. 5 'Suggested' in so far as I am here, more than elsewhere, perhaps, dependent on limited cases, documents and discussions. I await a full-length account. In the meantime, see the interpretation of Gina Vargas (2002).

and was necessary for the development of a globally-effective feminist movement (Vargas 2002), many never seem to have arrived at their Yenan if they had one. As one feminist pointed out at the 2nd Forum, they had learned 'the language of Geneva' only to later discover that the UN institutions had been disempowered relative to the international financial ones (Repblica de las Mujeres 2002). During the 1990s, feminist critics in the subcontinent identified, within their movement, both the reproduction of male Leftist sectarian vanguardism (Gobbi 1996) and - much more significantly - an extensive process of ongizacin (Alvarez 1997, Vargas 1996). Some of the feminist activities at the Forum revealed the mark of the Long Wander. Thus a distributed poster demanded 'Put the Woman at the Center', 'The Place of the Women is in the Leadership'. It showed, however, not the Organizing or International Committees of the Forum, but a meeting of heads of state. And an impressive (and expensive) media or cultural campaign, including posters on Porto Alegre hoardings, a hot-air balloon, tee-shirts, masks, public testimonies and professional-looking brochures, was launched against 'fundamentalisms' (Marcosur Feminist Network 2002). Whilst this campaign added 'economic' or 'market' fundamentalism to the religious, most of the testimonies concerned the religious kind. The roots of contemporary religious fundamentalism in neo-liberal globalization was only pointed out elsewhere (Correa 2002). The campaign therefore appeared to continue a Long March tradition of 'completing the tasks of liberal-democratic modernity' (no bad thing given the move of liberal democracy in the other direction).6 This campaign against fundamentalism, moreover, immediately followed the most perverse-ever campaign by the US and its allies to identify Fundamentalism with Islam and both with Terrorism, and to use this as a justification for war against one of the most-isolated, poverty-stricken and devastated countries in the

As Boaventura de Sousa Santos somewhere says, we are today confronted with islands of political democracy surrounded by seas of social fascism. A striking metaphor which does not quite capture the full reality, since the islands are also polluting the seas! Moreover, the political democracy is one of decreasing intensity. And the seas are now flooding the islands. In a shocking recent case, the Netherlands discovered that dykes of elite political consensus and inconsequence do not protect it from the seas of social fascism, and that these can also be subterranean geysers, from which emerge the smooth-talking monsters of contemporary racism, the latter lightly disguised as 'the immigration problem'.

world. The campaign, finally, it seemed to me, failed to address national/ethnic (Mugabe?) and socialist fundamentalisms (Sendero Luminoso/Shining Path?). It should, however, be pointed out that the Articulacin Marcosur at least raised the global issue of conservative authoritarianism within the global justice movement. And it was also active in at least three other areas at Porto Alegre: 'Sex, Lies and International Trade', 'Combating Discrimination and Intolerance', and 'Migrant Women: Wide and Alien Borders'. The Canadian-initiated World March of Women, moreover, was evidently born out of the global justice movement, and came out forcefully at the Forum as
an international feminist action in the struggle against patriarchal capitalism and its worst consequences: poverty and sexist violence. (World March of Women 2002).

Its leaflet was actually addressed to 'Building the World Social Forum', and finished with the statement that.
Without feminism a new world is not possible. Without changing the world it is not possible to change the lives of women. (Ibid)

The general impact of the global justice movement on the feminist one, at least in Latin America, is suggested by the fact that the 9th Latin American and Feminist Encounter, to be held in Costa Rica, December 1-6, 2002, will be devoted to 'Active Resistance in the Face of Globalization'. And that a keynote discussion statement concerning this insists that feminism has to (re?)connect itself with the Left if it is to have a message for poor women (Facio 2002). Globalization, thus, finally becomes the subject of an encuentro some six years after it was first forcefully raised at such an event (Waterman 2001:177). It will be interesting to see whether this encounter surpasses traditional Left understandings of globalization (as simply the highest stage of imperialism), and what relationship it expresses to the global justice movement. 4. THE LEFT IS DEAD! LONG LIVE SOCIAL EMANCIPATION? (ANOTHER PROVOCATION). Despite my recognition that many involved with the global justice movement would consider that what is occurring is a revival or re-invention of the Left, I would like to now argue the value of re-conceptualizing the matter in terms of social emancipation (Rethinking Social Emancipation website, Sousa Santos 2001, Waterman 2002b). This is 8

not so much because 'Left' is as old as the Constituent Assembly of the French Revolution in pre-industrial Europe, since 'emancipation' is even older! It is because the Left has been the 'counter-culture of capitalist modernity' and long dependent on that against which within which - it has posed itself. A third component of the international Left, RadicalNationalism or Thirdworldism (Carotenuto 2002), has also lost almost all progressive meaning and impact (as witness the rhetoric of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe and the endorsement of his grossly fraudulent re-election by most neighboring regimes in Southern Africa). Some of the more energetic elements of the Old Lefts are, however, seeking either rescue by, or control of a new movement which surpasses it in breadth of appeal and depth of understanding, as well as in ethical universalism. Whilst the presence of such traditional Lefts at Porto Alegre revealed their recognition of the importance of social movements, and even a growing understanding of the value of the autonomy of such in relationship to states, parties and unions, the Left parties, particularly those of Latin America, were apparently hoping to create some kind of international Left party forum on the model of the well-established Forum of So Paulo (Schvartz 2002, Hardt 2002). This child of the Brazilian Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), which meets regularly in different cities of Latin America, has just as regularly demonstrated the in-built restrictions of the party form (see, for its Havana meeting, 2001, the So Paulo Forum website). To say that it has had trouble coming to terms with the majority of the Latin American population (women), and with feminism as its emancipatory expression, would be to radically understate the problem. These are nationally-defined, and often mutually-competitive political parties, whilst the movement they are chugging behind is defined by collective interests, identities, problems or propositions of an increasingly global nature. There can, of course, be no reason why such parties should not organize an International Left Political Party Forum, on the lines of the World Parliamentary Forum that sponsored a discussion on the party-movement relationship at Porto Alegre. It is simply that one would rather be somewhere else when they are deciding which parties are Left enough to join their forum, or which parties represent the Left in India, China or the USA. (We already know which party it considers to represent the Left in Cuba). The case for 'emancipation' rests on the necessity of liberating the global social movements and global civil society (other equally problematic terms!) from the collective 9

subjects ('Working Class', 'Third World', 'Nation', 'People') the ideologies (57 oftenfratricidal claims to socialist verity), and forms (the party, the union) within which the Left has become increasingly imprisoned over the last 200 years. What began as a movement for emancipation from wage-slavery became increasingly one for regulation of relations between labor and capital/state (cf Sousa Santos 1995), including the regulation of official ideology, of follower identity, of membership rights. Whilst parties, unions, parliaments, and the nation-states to which they relate, will continue to exist (and attempt to reduce social movements to their rigid and parochial dimensions), Porto Alegre demonstrates that the innovatory or central issues, forces, forms and alternatives have moved to places and spaces which the institutional Left cannot (yet?) reach. In the time and space of a globalized, networked, informatized capitalism (Castells 1996-8), the focus for social movements, and the movement of society, becomes, increasingly, the global. Global, it should be remembered means not simply worldwide but holistic - thus also allowing for, recognizing and empowering the local and the locale (Escobar 2000). The movements take the network form (Castells and Escobar again). They are increasingly present in the arena of culture, communication and the media. And they broaden out the areas of struggle from the political-economic to the surpassing of capitalist, statist, patriarchal, heterosexual, westocentric, racist and other alienating relationships within society, amongst ourselves and within ourselves.7 Would it not therefore be more fruitful to discuss such matters in terms of emancipation than of the Left? Would this not increase the appeal to those whose experience of one or more of the Lefts has been either disappointing or, pace Marx, alienating? In discussion of what I have been here calling the 'global justice movement', but which others call the 'anti-globalization', 'anti-corporate', 'anti-capitalist' movements, or

Amongst an outpouring of new Left/Emancipatory writings on the new social movement worldwide, comes the highly original one of John Holloway (2002). Whilst this is inspired by the Italian 'Workers' Autonomy' Marxism of the 1970s, Holloway draws heavily on the tradition of critical sociology, placing 'fetishisation', rather than 'classification' at the centre of his argument. So far so original. But what is most striking to me is his invocation of an existential 'scream' of anguish, and then of a putative 'we', a rhetorical-psychological appeal to the sense and sensibility of his reader.

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'global civil society', various original attempts have been made at conceptualization. One has been discussing responses to neo-liberal globalization in terms of supporters of current arrangements, reformists, radical critics favoring another globalization, alternatives outside the mainstream, and nationalist rejectionists (Pianta 2001, cf Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor 2002). An 'alternative' theorist (Starr 2000) conceives the matter in terms of an anti-corporate movement, consisting of three tendencies, Contestation and Reform; Globalization from Below; Delinking, Relocalization, Sovereignty. She identifies herself with the last of these. I myself have identified as major popular responses to neo-liberal globalization those of Celebration, Rejection, and Critique/Surpassal as overlapping and interpenetrating types (Waterman 2001a). Christophe Aguiton (2001, 2002a), himself an experienced Left (Alternative?) unionist and a leader of the French and international global justice movements, tentatively identifies three 'poles' within the global justice movement: a Radical Internationalist, a Nationalist, and a Neo-Reformist one. The first looks beyond both capitalism and the nation-state, the second is a mostly-Southern response (France here presumably being in the South), and the third is the kind of 'global governance' tendency also present at the Forum (Rikkil and Patomki 2001) Significant is that none of these uses the language of the Left (Right, or Center), and that, in practice, each of these categorizations cuts across the Left-as-we-know- it, the Left of a national-industrial-(anti)colonial-capitalism, now passing into history. 'Left' originated as, and largely remains, a position within or an attitude toward a polity or a political-economy (national, inter/national). 'Emancipation' would seem a more appropriate term when discussing society, nature, culture, work and psychology as well, of course, that increasingly important but placeless place, cyberspace.8

The general movement beyond a traditional Left language or methodology means, inevitably, the production of rather different analyses and strategies. One looks forward to them becoming part of an international exchange. For rather different evaluations of the major French network, ATTAC (of Christophe Aguiton), see Hardt (2002) and Arraya Dujisin (2001). For analysis of Amory Starr, and other intellectuals writing on or contributing to the movement, see Barker and Cox (2002). For a much-trumpeted work, on the present order and disorder of things, by Hardt and Negri (2000), see, again, Holloway (2002: 167-75).

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I will, of course, continue to find myself using and engaged with the discourses of the Left and of Socialism (particularly when anyone attacks or defends - them) but my feeling is that a discussion of emancipation in and against a globalized and networked capitalism might re-open also the discussion of utopia to which socialist eyes have been long closed (Panitch and Leys 1999 is an honorable exception).9 5. THE INTER/NATIONAL TRADE UNION MOVEMENT REPRESENTS THE MAJOR CHALLENGE TO THE GLOBAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT (AND TO ITSELF IF IT IS NOT TO BE LEFT BEHIND). Let us assume, with gargantuan generosity, that the 60-70,000 at Porto Alegre in some way 'represent' 60-70 million people. But the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, alone, has 157 million members! (Whether they know that it has them is a mute point). 100-200 million organized in trade unions represents the largest institutionalized mass constituency the global justice movement could possibly win. Given, however, the 100 or more years of union entrenchment within what I have called national, industrial, (anti)colonial capitalism; given, further, the profound ambiguity this international movement demonstrated even at Porto Alegre, in the face of neo-liberal globalization and the global justice movement (Waterman 2002a); how can the latter impact on the former in the most effective manner? The answer, it occurs to me, is in every possible way. Indeed, also in ways so far considered impossible or even unimagined (suggestions welcome). The last and least way would be through leadership negotiation one favored by leading international unionists, and possibly by some within the global justice movement (Waterman Forthcoming). The unionists may be thinking in terms of some sort of compromise with, and possibly a commitment by, the movement (on 'spheres of influence'?, on 'non-intervention'?, on a literal 'division of labor'?). There is, however, no way the global justice movement could do this, without institutionalizing itself, and becoming a union-

A brilliant initiative here, is the page of the Philadelphia node of IndyMedia, entitled 'Alternatives to Corporate Globalization' (see Iternet Resources below). Launched in the right spirit and the appropriate space (the cyber one), this has, unfortunately, proven an irresistible attraction to antediluvian leftists and utopian fantasists in which the United States has always been rich. There must be nuggets in here somewhere, but it would require a traveller with more time than myself to sift for them. The page reflects the dilemma of the WSF: how, in the exploration and invention of a utopian alternative now becoming a matter of urgency, does one combine radical pluralism with purposeful direction.

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look-alike, capable of either ignoring or controlling its own suspicious and unruly base! I do not see, further, how one could reach a compromise between the past and the future, without the latter going backward; or between an old nation-state-based institution addressed to negotiable issues, and a new global movement which questions, well, everything. And, in so far as there might be issues or moments in which leadership negotiation might seem justifiable, and can be justified, then one non-negotiable condition surely must apply: that negotiations take place in the public sphere. Alliances and coalitions between unions and communities (variously defined) have a long history, at levels from the local to the national and the global. The presence and activity of the unions at Porto Alegre could be seen as simply continuing and furthering this practice. There is, however, an equally long history of unions instrumentalizing lessexperienced, less-structured, or less single-minded others (DeMartino 1991). There seems, on reflection, little danger of this happening to the new movement, with its developing principles of transparency, participatory or direct democracy, and public dialog. (Except in so far as we are talking of certain members or forces in the global solidarity movement which do not apparently - even practice representative democracy!). Although penetration sounds invasive, imperial and phalocentric, I am thinking here more of the increasing porosity, willy-nilly, of an international union movement that previously exercised extensive sovereignty over its affiliates and their members. The decline of worker identification with unions, and the breaking down of a single identity, understood between worker and union (Catalano 1999), means an increasing union openness to whatever else is addressing worker identities and needs. In so far as these needs are also being forcefully addressed by conservative, reactionary and fundamentalist movements some international the importance of attention by radical democratic movements increases. Penetration, incidentally, applies in both directions, since it also means the infection of the oft-times class-blind global solidarity movements by an international workingclass institution which does have I repeat - 150-200 million members. Circumvention. The international unions like to pretend (both imagine and claim) that they are the sole representatives of labor, for example within the International Labor Organization. But neo-liberalism and globalization has meant they not only represent a declining proportion of 'organizable' workers, but that these always a minority of working 13

people if housekeeping is included are a decreasing proportion of those doing industrial, service and carework for capitalism globally (for a major industrial city, So Paulo, see Jakobsen, Martins and Dombrowski 2000). The so-called 'atypical' workers are increasingly typical, and non-unionized or non-unionizable. But they are also increasingly organized sometimes in bodies that call themselves unions, but increasingly in associations and international networks, supported by NGOs that are themselves often linked closely to the global justice movement. These inter/national associations of 'labor's others' (Waterman 2002d) are also, customarily, open to a free and equal relationship with such trade unions as do not try to instrumentalize or incorporate them. This is, in other words, an area in which friendly cooperation/competition between unions and the global justice movement would be to the benefit of both not to speak of the workers concerned.10 Dialog is both necessary and possible, between and around the unions, in the period leading up to World Social Forum III. WSF II already saw discussion of the unionmovement relationship. And this only continues a process that began, if somewhat awkwardly, in Bangkok, early 2001 (Waterman Forthcoming). Whilst the CSM might itself provoke face-to-face dialog at local or national level, the obvious channel for a worldwide dialog would, of course be the internet. Whilst a reach to, or involvement of, the union (and movement) base obviously requires print or audio-visual media, union and community educational activity, an internet dialog could hypothetically reach 500-1,000 top and middle-level union and movement activists. And whilst this might seem to confine discussion to an elite, and to be biased to the North, a lively discussion on the matter, with even 50 active contributors and 500 passive readers would still represent a breakthrough. There are relevant experiences here, with the ILO/ICFTU 'Conference on Organized Labor in the 21st Century' though this is something more to be learned from than repeated (Waterman 2001b). Such a site, combining discussion with files of longer papers and an archive, could be run as a bi- or trilingual (English, Portuguese/Spanish) email list, using the free Yahoo service. Or it could be hosted by one or other union, or pro-union site, or by a site of one or other movement, providing this was one in which possible contributors would have confidence. Motivated

For a systematic discussion on relations within and between movements in and around the movement, see Brecher, Costello and Smith (2000).

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union and movement journalists, magazines and educators could translate the electronic messages into accessible forms. The exercise could be seen as an experiment and could also be a matter of discussion at the Third Forum. 6. THE INSTITUTIONAL LOGIC OF THE OLD INTERNATIONALISMS HAS TO BE TRANSFORMED BY A CULTURAL ONE (WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS IS NOT JUST AN IMPERIAL MILITARY STRATEGY)11 Although the global justice movement is way in front of the international trade union organizations in its feeling for the increasing centrality of 'the media' (commercial), communication and culture, this is not demonstrated in the 'Call of Social Movements', nor too much at Porto Alegre itself. Whilst there was plenty son et lumire during the Forum, plenty of youthful exuberance, some striking feminist events and plenty of music, the major tee-shirt around was the 30-year-old Che Guevara one.12 And the Forum tee-shirt was not one likely to tug at any collector's heartstrings. This, it later occurred to me, may be a reflection of NGO, union (CUT Brazil) and party (PT) influence on the Forum, since these do not seem to represent the cutting edge of cultural activity within the global justice movement as a whole. The privileged space for such cultural activity may rather be the direct-action events, revealed in the protests against neo-liberal globalization. A privileged form/site for such has to be the earlier-mentioned IndyMedia Center (IMC), which sprang to life, as a combination of media-savvy US electronic media operations, during Seattle in 1999. This has now become a coordinated international network of rather professional multi-media sites, with a number of such in, for example, Latin America (Hyde 2002). This represents a potent force for the global justice

In their emancipatory phase, the old internationalisms were also cultural movements, often in innovatory ways. This was brilliantly demonstrated by the thirdworldist movement that followed from the Cuban Revolution, the OSPAAAL (the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Samples of this tradition are kindly provided us by the - Anti-Castro - Cuban Information Archives (see Internet Resouces below). 12 Whatever happened to the Marcos teeshirts, and, indeed, to the Zapatistas themselves at the Forum? The overwhelmingly-civil Chiapas uprising has to be seen as a major precursor of the GJM and one hopes that, after being over-celebrated by the Left earlier, its failure to achieve certain exaggerated expectations is not now leading to it being forgotten - or excluded.

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movement. And it could also be potent in engaging the trade union organizations, or at least those union activists open to such. International union, or pro-union, media of communication remain, to varying degrees, dependents of unions, in either a material or a moral sense. Independent international labor media, whilst sometimes of professional quality, tend to be limited by some notion of service to organizations rather than of stimulation to the labor and social movements. The pro-union media, produced either by individuals or groups beholden to the unions, tend to fail in their potential of broadening out beyond the functions of information and propaganda. They thus reflect the unions back to themselves, rather than placing them in the real world of globalized capitalism, labor and social movement struggles. Coverage of the global justice movement in general, and of the World Social Forum in particular, is thus likely to do little more than echo union positions. (Check this in the archives of one of the most sophisticated international labor sites, LabourStart).13 They are at their weakest in doing what the internet is most revolutionary in doing - promoting debate, discussion and dialog. In comparison with IndyMedia, at either international or national level, they appear provincial. This does not necessarily mean that sites close to the global justice movement are likely to have much impact amongst even those labor unions and activists most open to such. This would require an explicit recognition of the importance of labor and unions to the movement, and specific approaches to the existing independent labor and movement sites, to labor issues and to the unions themselves.14 The same goes for the cultural and communications activists within the global justice movement more generally. The point here is not simply a matter of understanding the extent to which power and empowerment are shifting to the places where understandings and feelings are created. It is also one of recognizing that the way unions have 'represented' workers is one that decreasingly fits them. What is at issue here is not 'representation' in a conventional political sense, but 're-presentation', in which the conventional commonsense is challenged, and in

The Porto Alegre coverage of LabourNet Germany makes an interesting contrast with LabourStart in so far as this provides documents and reports from both within and outside the German or international unions. http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/wipo/seattle/index.html. 14 For a case of a developing social movement site that has so far ignored labor and unions, see the Comunidad Web de Movimientos Sociales, and Len, Burch and Tamayo 2001.

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which union members and the union constituency are both stimulated and empowered. This is how the evidently 'unrepresentative' global justice movement, consisting to a considerable extent of 'small and irresponsible' NGOs, has become a power in the world. 7. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GLOBAL JUSTICE MOVEMENT REQUIRES THAT IT BE CONSIDERED IN POLITICAL-ECONOMIC TERMS (A MATTER OF PIPERS, PAYERS AND TUNES) The global justice movement needs not only celebration and promotion. It also needs research and critique. And this should not be confined to the customary political, ideological - or even communicational/cultural - aspects. Whilst the movement has done much to restore the significance of the political economy (capitalism and alternatives to such) amongst the 'new social movements' of the last 10-20 years, the closest the Forum comes to recognition of its own political economy seems to be its search for funding, and possibly - its reporting on such! The promotion, however, of a radical-democratic civil society, particularly at international level requires self-awareness about the role within it of money and power.15 If, in the most general terms, political economy is the understanding of the manner in which the cash/power nexus influences not necessarily determines social development, then we also need a political-economy of the global justice movement.16 Part, if not all, of the participation in the Forum, is directly or indirectly funded by Northern states and private foundations. One does not have to be a 'funding-mentalist' (funding-fixated, a believer in piper-payers determining tunes played) to recognize that presence, activity and power in this global-civil-society-in-the-making is in large part a function of access to and the distribution of such funding. The priorities of foundations and

As good a place as any to start would be with a Special Issue of Nueva Sociedad (2001). In the contribution here of Araya Dujisin (2001), we see, however, how a considerable sophistication with respect to the role of the Internet in creating new global communities, ignores (in its case study of ATTAC) any consideration of the the money/power syndrome that might limit this powerful player in the new field. 16 Clifford Bob (2002) presents a power-political view of how, and which, Third World causes obtain international (US?) media coverage, recognition, funding and support. There is enough reality in his profit-and-loss account of relations between local causes and international (US) funders to give the global justice movement cause for systematic self-reflection - in political-economic terms. 'Global civil society' Bob claims, 'is not an open forum marked by altruism but a Darwinian marketplace where legions of groups vie for scare attention, sympathy, and money' (37). Reading his account might stimulate the new movement to develop understandings of civil society, and means for advancing such, that surpass his cynical realism and, in doing so, avoid the traps he reveals.

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development-funding agencies tend to provide parameters for the activities and orientations of recipients. This is now the commonsense in the world of development funders and recipients. NGOs and trade unions dependent on state or foundation funding tend, however, to be coy about reporting and discussing this fact (how many in the US unions - or anywhere - know that the international cooperation activities of the AFL-CIO are 90 percent dependent on the US state?). At this moment, the funding agencies may be being won over to the Forum (though I understand that there was anxiety when a major European funder of WSF I appeared to be less enthusiastic about WSF II). That such funds are available suggests that tunes played also influence piper-payers. But what happens if radical groups within the Forum make funding a major public issue? Or if the Forum should increasingly emphasize 'the complicity between electoral democracy and the economic dictatorship of large corporations'? We need to consider now (and not under pressure during a crisis) to what extent the whole project of 'global civil society construction' is dependent on state and foundation funders in Northern liberal democracies. In one case at WSF II it was clear that there was a conflation of notions of 'global civil society construction' with the foreign policy of the funding state (Rikkil and Patomki 2001). On the other hand, it is arguable that such ambiguous or even 'foreign' spaces could, and do, allow for movement-autonomy within movement-engagement with (see again, Vargas 2002). These questions suggest a priority for both research and action. Without demonizing state funding, we need to develop principles and practices that ensure that a radicaldemocratic project for global emancipation does not become reduced to an instrument for the modernization, regulation and even the (necessary) civilizing of global capitalism. This is what happened to the international/ist labor movement. It could happen to the global justice movement.

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CONCLUSION: BEING THERE History is also biography. Or, in my case, autobiography.17 Which provides me with license for some even-more personal reflections to round off this paper. Having both promoted and followed the 'new labor internationalism', 'the new global solidarity', for 15 years, I found myself in the later-90s both overtaken and overwhelmed by the new movement. In applying to attend WSF II I discovered that I was just one individual who, being no part of any significant movement or network, and no longer having academic status, had to pay his own way and find his own corner. The Charter of the Forum, the notion that every civil anti-global voice could speak, provided me with a two-hour workshop slot (Waterman 2000c), attended by 15-20 people, of whom about half were known to me and well-qualified to contribute. I had hoped that my proposal for a session on the separate meaning and inter-relationship of globalization, internationalism, networking and solidarity (Appendix 3) might merge with those of others. This did not happen. The discussion was nonetheless lively and constructive, and the event certainly created or reinforced a network of interested people from three or four continents. Next time, however, I will have to try to ensure that I am incorporated into something with a membership of more than one. In the absence of any notable interest in my presence, on the part of groups that had their own priorities and personnel, I decided to be an observer and a journalist, something I once earned my living by. My formal irresponsibility for anything except my own workshop along with my 'subject position', as white, western, male, middle-class, pensioned, etc allowed me the freedom to write this piece. And, hopefully, the power to have risen above the chaos. If this essay contributes to the further advance of a movement that has by far surpassed that of 1968, so much the better.

I have written elsewhere on my international/ist itinerary (Waterman 1993). Sidney Tarrow (2001), writes a related paper, though inspired, rather, by the itinerary of his father. Tarrow, however, entitles his paper 'Rooted Cosmopolitans' (in implicit reference to the Hitler/Stalin accusation, particularly against Jews, that they were rootless ones). Tarrow's paper is an effort to relate his new cosmopolitans to an old world of nation states. Hereby hangs a considerable literature (e.g. Biblio 2002), much of it revealing to what extent the 'cosmopolitan' is and was a eurocentric and even imperial personage. Whilst I believe that it is increasingly possible and necessary for contemporary internationalists to retain local roots, it occurs to me now that globalization both allows for and needs internationalists whose subject-position, address and field of disputation are global. I hope so, because I have to confess, or at least recognise, that I am rootless cosmopolitan whose internationalism is played out in the global arena and even worse for Tarrow? in cyberspace.

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An English poet wrote, at the time of the French Revolution,

Bliss was it in that first dawn to be alive. To be young was very heaven.

In this first dawn of a global emancipation movement, it is not bad to be old either. Reflecting back on my own reflections, it occurs to me that we may be involved in the French Revolution of the era of globalization! That it is not tied to a particular locale or state, that it is a non-violent one, that it proposes the civilizing of society rather than its violent overthrow, that it aims at a revolution of everyday life - at a cultural revolution such as Lenin (1923) sought as his revolution went sour - is a sign of maturity (cf Brecher 2002). The old idea of a 'world turned upside down' - in one mighty, violent, totalizing moment - was a sign of the incapacity of the oppressed to otherwise impose themselves on society (that incapacity being revealed shortly after each revolution in an inability to preserve it from external invasion/infection, or from internal conservatism/elitism). The task of today's revolutionaries is to make such revolutions unnecessary, and, therefore, the counter-revolutions that follow them impossible. (Also, as 2002 already makes clear, to make conservative or reactionary 'counter-revolutions' impossible within liberal democracies). That our present revolution takes place in a globalized society, has global ambitions, and addresses people(s) also in places of what Castells (cited and criticized in Thayer 2001) calls 'structural irrelevance', suggests that the conditions for a theory and practice of global solidarity are finally being laid. This revolution, moreover, although rooted and manifesting itself in territorialized places, is not only occurring throughout global space but also in that least territorial, most infinite, plastic and contradictory of places cyberspace. The Masters of the Universe and their court intellectuals may wish to think this is the end of history that the Wall Street speculator represents the peak of human evolution.18 When a fundamentalist, machista and militarist network attempted to turn this world

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In Tom Wolfe's (1988) Bonfire of the Vanities, the self-appointed Master of the Universe, who is such a speculator, is a figure of ridicule until he is stripped down to his White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Two-Fisted, core. In the light of what happened after September 11, it seems as if the US is now offering us this Action Man, armed with State-of-the-Art, Hi-Tech, Smart weapons, as the foremost representative of Western civilization, the deliverer of a profound message to 'lesser breeds without the law'.

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upside down, September 11, 2001, it only provoked a violent, machista and antidemocratic reassertion of a now evidently vulnerable mastery. That the global justice movement took September 11 and its consequences in its stride (with the partial exception of the US itself) suggests not so much foresight as a new depth and breadth of understanding of a globalized world disorder.19 Remember Scylla and Charybdis: the one extreme implies the other. A realization that these options are less opposed than interdependent suggests, however, the necessity to surpass the powerful Forum slogan that 'another world is possible'. Today, clearly, it is also necessary - and urgent. REFERENCES Aguiton, Christophe. 2001. Le monde nous appartient (The World Belongs to Us). Paris: Plon. 251 pp. Aguiton, Christophe. 2002a. O mundo nos pertenece (The World Belongs to Us). So Paulo: Viramundo. 222 pp. Aguiton, Christophe. 2002b. 'The West Bank: A First-Hand Account', Sand in the Wheels (Attac Weekly Newsletter), No. 124, 17.04.02, http://attac.org/attacinfoen/attacnews124.zip Araya Dujisin, Rodrigo. 2001. 'La globalizacin de los ciudadanos: El caso Attac' (The Globalization of Citizenships: The Case of ATTAC', Nueva Sociedad, No. 176, pp. 87101. Alvarez, Sonia. 1997. Latin American Feminisms Go Global: Trends of the 1990s and Challenges for the New Millennium, in Sonya Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino and Arturo Escobar (eds), Cultures of Politics/Politics of Culture: Revisioning Latin American Social Movements. Boulder: Westview.

There were and are elements within the movement who consider those who carried out the September 11 massacre, as heroes of Third World anti-imperialism; or who discount September 11 by reference to the history of US or Western-engineered massacres and holocausts (like Hebe de Bonafini, of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, for whom see Canavese and Gruss 2001). The majority, I would hazard, are likely to identify with the understanding incorporated in the CSM (Appendix 1). This is the mark of a movement that sees itself less as negating neo-liberal capitalist globalization than as surpassing it. For a further example of the manner in which the 'antiglobalization movement' is embracing - or becoming - the peace movement, see the report on a visit to devastated Palestine by Christophe Aguiton (2002b).

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Declaration of Intellectuals. 2002. 'Declaration of a Group of Intellectuals in Porto Alegre'. http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/eng/temas_declara_grupo_intele_POA_eng.asp DeMartino, George. 1991. 'Trade-Union Isolation and the Catechism of the Left', Rethinking Marxism, 4(3), Fall : 123-456. Democracia Socialista. 2000. 'Teses internacionalais: VI Conferencia Nacional' (International Theses: 6th National Conference). Porto Alegre: Cadernos de em Tempo. 38 pp. Dinerstein, Anna and Michael Neary. 2002. The Labor Debate: An Investigation into the Theory and Reality of Capitalist Work. Aldershot: Ashgate. 245 pp. Elizalde, Rosa Miriam. 2002. 'James Petras: EEUU no es omnipotente' (James Petras: USA Is Not Omnipotent), La Repblica (Montevideo), February 11, p. 22. Escobar, Arturo. 2000. 'Notes on Networks and Anti-Globalization Social Movements', 2000 AAA Annual Meeting, San Francisco, November 15-19. ETUC. 2000. 'Foro Social Mundial 2002. Porto Alegre 31 enero-5 febrero 2002: Informe de la delegacin de la CES' (World Social Forum 2002. Porto Alegre January 31February 5: Report of the ETUC Delegation). Brussels: European Trade Union Confederation. 9 pp. European Social Consulta. 2002. 'European Social Consulta: Internal Consultation'. Network of ESC Promotor Groups. 2 pp. eng@consultaeuropea.org. www.conultaeuropea.org. Euzeby, Chantal. 2000. 'Uma revoluo tranqila do trabalho' (A Quiet Revolution at Work), Globazio e Mundo do Trabalho. So Paulo: Le Monde Diplomatique, No. 1, pp. 28-30. Facio, Alda. 2002. 'Globalizacin y feminismo: Tema del 9 Encuentro Feminista' (Globalization and Feminism: Theme of the 9th Feminist Encounter), 9 Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe. Costa Rica 2002. No. 2, January. Pp. 2-6. Frankman, Myron. 2001. 'From the Common Heritage of Mankind to a Planet-Wide Citizen's Income: Establishing the Basis for Solidarity', McGill University May 31, 2001. myron.frankman@mcgill.ca

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1997. VII Encuentro Feminista Latinoamericano y del Caribe: El

desencuentro Feminista Latinoamericano [7th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter: The Latin American and Feminist Dis-encounter], Mujer/Fempress, No. 183, pp. 8-9. Gorz, Andre. 1999. Reclaiming Work: Beyond the Wage-Based Society. Cambridge: Polity. 185 pp. Hardt, Michael. 2002. 'Hardt en el Foro Social: Soberana nacional y militancias en red' (Hardt on the Social Forum: National Sovereignty and Networked Militancy)', Clarn, (Buenos Aires), March 13. http://old.clarin.com/suplementos/cultura/2002/03/23/u00302.htm Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambrige (MA): Harvard University Press. Holloway, John. 2002. Change the World without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today. London: Pluto. 237. Hyde, Gene. 2002. 'Independent Media Centers: Cyber-Subversion and the Alternative Press', First Monday, Vol. 7, No. 4 (April 2002), URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_4/hyde/index.html Jakobsen, Kjeld, Renato Martins and Osmir Domrbowski (eds). 2000. Mapa do Trabalho Informal: Perfil socioecnomico dos trablhadores informais na cidade se So Paulo (A Map of Informal Work: A Socio-Economic Profile of Informal Workers in the City of So Paulo). So Paulo: Editora Fundao Perseu Abramo. 64 pp. Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. 1923. 'On Cooperation'. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/jan/06.htm Len, Osvaldo, Sally Burch and Eduardo Tamayo. 2001. Social Movements on the Net. Quito: Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacin. 206 pp. Marcosur Feminist Network. 2002. Tu boca fundamental contra los fundamentalismos (Against Fundamentalisms Your Mouth is Fundamental). Montevideo: Articulacin Feminista Marcosur. 6 pp. Nueva Sociedad. 2001. 'Entre la globalizacin y el multilateralismo cooperativo' (Between Globalization and Cooperative Multilateralism), (Special Issue), No. 176, pp. 48-145.

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One-Off. 2001. On Fire: The Battle of Genoa and the Anti-Capitalist Movement. London(?): One-Off Press. 141 pp. Panitch, Leo and Colin Leys (eds). 1999. Necessary and Unnecessary Utopias, Socialist Register 2000. London: Merlin. Petras, James. 2002a. 'Reforma o revolucin? Una discussion en las condiciones actuales de Amrica Latin' (Reform or Revolution? A Discussion of the Present Situation in Latin America). [Exposicin en el Forum Social Mundial Porto Alegre 2002].

http://rcci.net/globalizacion/index.htm Petras, James. 2002b. 'Una historia de dos foros' (A Tale of Two Forums), 18 February. www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/eng/balanco_fsm_2002.asp Pianta, Mario. 2001. 'Parallel Summits of Global Civil Society', in Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor (eds). 2001. Global Civil Society Yearbook 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 169-94. Powell, Jeff. 2002. 'Petty-Capitalism, Perfecting Capitalism or Post-Capitalism? Lessons from the Argentinean Barter Network'. Working Paper Series, No. 357. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. 73 pp. Quijano, Anbal. 2002. 'Sistemas alternativos de produo' (Alternative Production Systems), in Boaventura de Sousa Santos (ed), Producir para vivir: Los caminhos da democracia participativa. Pp. 475-514. Rio de Janeiro: Civilizao Brasileira. Rikkil, Leena and Katarina Sehm Patomki (eds). 2001. Democracy and Globalization: Promoting a North-South Dialog. Helsinki: Networking Institute for Global Democracy and Ministry for Foreign Affairs. 129 pp. Repblica de las Mujeres. 2002. 'El gnero en el Foro Social' (Gender in the Social Forum). La Repblica de las Mujeres (Montevideo). February 9. Pp. 2-3. Schvarz, Nico. 2002. 'La relacin partidos-movimientos sociales en el eje del debate de Porto Alegre: Proponen crear un Foro partidario internacional de izquierdas' (The PartySocial Movement Relation in the Axis of Debate at Porto Alegre: An International Left Party is Proposed), La Republica (Montevideo), February 9, p. 21. Sousa Santos, Boaventura de. 1995. Toward a New Common Sense: Law, Science and Politics in the Paradigmatic Transition. New York: Routledge. 614 pp.

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Sousa Santos, Boaventura de (ed). 2001. Produzir para viver: Os caminhos da produao no capitalista. (Produce to Live: The Paths of Non-Capitalist Production). [Vol. 2 of Reinventar a Emancipao Social: Para Novos Manifestos]. So Paulo: Civilizao. 518 pp. Starr, Amory. 2000. Naming the Enemy: Anti-Corporate Movements Confront Globalization. London: Zed. 268 pp. Suplicy, E. M. 2000. Renda de cidadania: a sada, e pela porta. So Paulo: Cortez. 367 pp. Tarrow, Sidney. 2001. 'Rooted Cosmopolitans: Transnational Activists in a World of States', (A talk prepared for delivery at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, November 2nd, 2001). Thayer, Millie. 2001. 'Transnational Feminism: Reading Joan Scott in the Brazilian Serto', Ethnography, No. 4, June. Vargas, Gina. 1996. 1996: Odisea Feminista. Cotidiano Mujer (Special Issue: 7th Latin American and Caribbean Feminist Encounter), No. 23, November 96-March 97, pp. 2-6,8. Vargas, Virginia. 2002. 'On the Tension between Civil Society and State in the Global Arena'. (Draft). Lima. March. 28 pp. Warrian, Peter. 2001. 'Can't Get There from Here: Old/New Unions in an New/Old Economy', Sefton Lecture 2001, University of Toronto. http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/cir/library/electronicarchive/SeftonLectures/SeftonLecture19 th_2000-01_Warrian.pdf. Waterman, Peter. 1993. Hopeful Traveller: The Itinerary of an Internationalist, History Workshop, No. 35, Spring, pp. 165-184. Waterman, Peter. 2001a. Globalisation, Social Movements and the New

Internationalisms. London: Continuum. 320 pp. Waterman, Peter. 2001b. 'Labor Internationalism in the Transition from a National/Industrial/Colonial Capitalism to an Informatized/Globalized Oneand Beyond', in Bart de Wilde (ed). The Past and Future of International Trade Unionism: International Conference, Ghent (Belgium), May 19-20, 2000. Ghent: Amsab. 324 pp.

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Waterman, Peter. 2002a. 'A Report on Labor at the World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January 31-February 5, 2002, Reflects on: The Still Unconsummated Marriage of International Unionism and the Global Justice Movement'. 42 pp. Waterman, Peter. 2002b. 'Emancipating Labor Internationalism', [To appear in Boaventura de Sousa Santos (ed). Trabalhar o mundo: Os caminos do novo internacionalismo operrio. Vol. 5 of Reinventar a Emancipao Social: Para Novos Manifestos]. So Paulo: Civilizao Brasileira. www.ces.fe.uc.pt/emancipa/en/themes/index.html]. Waterman, Peter. 2002c. 'Propositions on Globalization, Internationalism, Networking and Solidarity'. 1 p. Waterman, Peter. 2002d. 'Shall the Last Be the First? The Internationalism of Labor's Others'. (Incomplete draft outline). 7 pp. Waterman, Peter. Forthcoming. 'Talking across Difference in an Interconnected World of Labor'. Transnational Associations. Wolfe, Tom. 1988. Bonfire of the Vanities. New York: Bantam. 669 pp. World March of Women. 2002. 'World March of Women Building the World Social Forum'. Montreal: World March of Women. 4 pp. World Social Forum Charter. 2001. 'World Social Forum Charter of Principles'. (Approved and adopted by the Organizing Committee, So Paulo, April 9, modified and approved by the International Council, June 10). 5 pp. Internet resources Alternatives to Corporate Globalization http://phillyimc.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/23/0039242&mode=thread Ciranda (2nd Forum Information Exchange) http://www.ciranda.net/ Comunidad Web de Movimientos Sociales http://www.movimientos.org/ Cuban Information Archives http://cuban-exile.com/doc_201-225/doc0225.htm Evaluations WSF 2002. www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/eng/balanco_fsm_2002.asp European Social Consulta. www.consultaeuropea.org, eng@consultaeuropea.org Globalizacin: Revista Web Mensual de Economia, Politica, Sociedad y Cultura (Spanish/English) http://rcci.net/globalizacion/index.htm Global Solidarity Dialog Group/List http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GloSoDia 27

IndyMedia Center (USA) http://www.indymedia.org/publish.php3 LabourNet Germany http://www.labournet.de/ LabourStart http://www.labourstart.org/ Rethinking Social Emancipation www.ces.fe.uc.pt/emancipa/en/themes/index.html So Paulo Forum http://www.forosopaulo.org/ APPENDICES Appendix 1: II Ciranda 07 Documento - Call of social movements 08/02/2002 22:18 Call of social movements 1) In the face of continuing deterioration in the living conditions of people, we, social movements from all around the world, have come together in the tens of thousands at the second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. We are here in spite of the attempts to break our solidarity. We come together again to continue our struggles against neoliberalism and war, to confirm the agreements of the last Forum and to reaffirm that another world is possible. 2) We are diverse - women and men, adults and youth, indigenous peoples, rural and urban, workers and unemployed, homeless, the elderly, students, migrants, professionals, peoples of every creed, color and sexual orientation. The expression of this diversity is our strength and the basis of our unity. We are a global solidarity movement, united in our determination to fight against the concentration of wealth, the proliferation of poverty and inequalities, and the destruction of our earth. We are living and constructing alternative systems, and using creative ways to promote them. We are building a large alliance from our struggles and resistance against a system based on sexism, racism and violence, which privileges the interests of capital and patriarchy over the needs and aspirations of people. 3) This system produces a daily drama of women, children, and the elderly dying because of hunger, lack of health care and preventable diseases. Families are forced to leave their homes because of wars, the impact of "big development", "landlessness and environmental disasters, unemployment, attacks on public services and the destruction of social

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solidarity. Both in the South and in the North, vibrant struggles and resistance to uphold the dignity of life are flourishing. 4) September 11 marked a dramatic change. After the terrorist attacks, which we absolutely condemn, as we condemn all other attacks on civilians in other parts of the world, the government of the United States and its allies have launched a massive military operation. In the name of the "war against terrorism," civil and political rights are being attacked all over the world. The war against Afghanistan, in which terrorists methods are being used, is now being extended to other fronts. Thus there is the beginning of a permanent global war to cement the domination of the US government and its allies. This war reveals another face of neoliberalism, a face which is brutal and unacceptable. Islam is being demonized, while racism and xenophobia are deliberately propagated. The mass media is actively taking part in this belligerent campaign which divides the world into "good" and "evil". The opposition to the war is at the heart of our movement. 5) The situation of war has further destabilised the Middle East, providing a pretext for further repression of the Palestinian people. An urgent task of our movement is to mobilise solidarity for the Palestinian people and their struggle for self-determination as they face brutal occupation by the Israeli state. This is vital to collective security of all peoples in the region. 6) Further events also confirm the urgency of our struggles. In Argentina the financial crisis caused by the failure of IMF structural adjustment and mounting debt precipitated a social and political crisis. This crisis generated spontaneous protests of the middle and working classes, repression which caused deaths, failure of governments, and new alliances between different social groups. With the force of "cacerolazos" and "piquetes," popular mobilisations have demanded their basic rights of food, jobs and housing. We reject the criminalisation of social movements in Argentina and the attacks against democratic rights and freedom. We also condemn the greed and the blackmail of the multinational corporation supported by the governments of the rich countries. 7) The collapse of the multinational Enron exemplifies the bankruptcy of the casino economy and the corruption of businessmen and politicians, leaving workers without jobs and pensions. In developing countries this multinational engaged in fraudulent activities and

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its projects pushed people off their land and led to sharp increases in the price of water and electricity. 8) The United States government, in its efforts to protect the interests of big corporations, arrogantly walked away from negotiations on global warming, the antiballistic missile treaty, the Convention on Biodiversity, the UN conference on racism and intolerance, and the talks to reduce the supply of small arms, proving once again that US unilateralism undermines attempts to find multilateral solutions to global problems. 9) In Genoa the G8 failed completely in its self-assumed task of global government. In the face of massive mobilisation and resistance, they responded with violence and repression, denouncing as criminals those who dared to protest. But they failed to intimidate our movement. 10) All this is happening in the context of a global recession. The neoliberal economic model is destroying the rights, living conditions and livelihoods of people. Using every means to protect their "share value," multinational companies lay off workers, slash wages and close factories, squeezing the last dollar from the workers. Governments faced with this economic crisis respond by privatising, cutting social sector expenditures and permanently reducing workers' rights. This recession exposes the fact that the neoliberal promise of growth and prosperity is a lie. 11) The global movement for social justice and solidarity faces enormous challenges: its fight for peace and collective security implies confronting poverty, discriminations, dominations and the creation of an alternative sustainable society. Social movements energetically condemn violence and militarism as a means of conflict resolution; the promotion of low intensity conflicts and military operations in the Colombia Plan as part of the Andes regional initiative, the Puebla Panama plan, the arms trade and higher military budgets, economic blockades against people and nations especially against Cuba and Iraq, and the growing repression against trade unions, social movements, and activists. We support the trade unions and informal sector worker struggles as essential to maintain working and living conditions, the genuine right to organise, to go on strike, to negotiate collective agreements, and to achieve equality in wages and working conditions between women and men. 30

We reject slavery and the exploitation of children. We support workers struggles and the trade union fights against casualisation, subcontracting of labour and lay offs, and demand new international rights for the employees of the multinational companies and their affiliates, in particular the right to unionise and space for collective bargaining. Equally we support the struggles of farmers and peoples organisations for their rights to a livelihood, and to land, forests and water. 12) Neoliberal policies create tremendous misery and insecurity. They have dramatically increased the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children. Poverty and insecurity creates millions of migrants who are denied their dignity, freedom, and rights. We therefore demand the right of free movement; the right to physical integrity and legal status of all migrants. We support the rights of indigenous peoples and the fulfillment of ILO article 169 in national legal frameworks. 13) The external debt of the countries of the South has been repaid several times over. Illegitimate, unjust and fraudulent, debt functions as an instrument of domination, depriving people of their fundamental human rights with the sole aim of increasing international usury. We demand unconditional cancellation of debt and the reparation of historical, social, and ecological debts. The countries demanding repayment of debt have engaged in exploitation of the natural resources and the traditional knowledge of the South. 14) Water, land, food, forests, seeds, culture and people's identities are common assets of humanity for present and future generations. It is essential to preserve biodiversity. People have the right to safe and permanent food free from genetically modified organisms. Food sovereignty at the local, national, regional level is a basic human right; in this regard, democratic land reforms and peasant's access to land are fundamental requirements. 15) The meeting in Doha confirmed the illegitimacy of the WTO. The adoption of the "development agenda" only defends corporate interests. By launching a new round, the WTO is moving closer to its goal of converting everything into a commodity. For us, food, public services, agriculture, health and education are not for sale. Patenting must not to be used a weapon against the poor countries and peoples. We reject the patenting and trading of life forms. The WTO agenda is perpetuated at the continental level by regional free trade and investment agreements. By organizing protests such as the huge demonstrations and plebiscites against FTAA, people have rejected these agreements as 31

representing a recolonisation and the destruction of fundamental social, economical, cultural and environmental rights and values. 16) We will strengthen our movement through common actions and mobilizations for social justice, for the respect of rights and liberties, for quality of life, equality, dignity and peace. We are fighting for: democracy: people have the right to know about and criticize the decisions of their own governments, especially with respect to dealings with international institutions. Governments are ultimately accountable to their people. While we support the establishment of electoral and participative democracy across the world, we emphasise the need for the democratisation of states and societies and the struggles against dictatorship. the abolition of external debt and reparations. against speculative activities: we demand the creation of specific taxes such as the Tobin Tax, and the abolition of tax havens. the right to information women's rights, freedom from violence, poverty and exploitation. against war and militarism, against foreign military bases and interventions, and the systematic escalation of violence. We choose to privilige negotiation and non violent conflict resolution. We affirm the right for all the people to ask international mdiation, with the participation independent actors from the civil society. the rights of youth, their access to free public education and social autonomy, and the abolition of compulsory military service. the self determination of all peoples, especially the rights of indigenous peoples. In the years to come, we will organise collective mobilisations such as: In 2002: 8 March: International women's day 17 April: International day of peasant's struggle. 1 May: Labour Day. 7 October: world day for the homeless. 12 October: cry of the excluded. 32

16 October: world food day.

Other global mobilisations will take place: 15-16 March: Barcelona (Spain), summit of the EU. 18-22 March: Monterrey (Mexico), United Nations Conference on Financing for Development. 17-18 May: Madrid (Spain), Summit of Latin America, Caribbean and Europe. May, Asia Development Bank Annual Meting, Shanghai, China 1 May: "International day of action against militarism and peace" End of May, 4th preparatory meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development , Indonesia June: Roma (Italy), world food summit; 22 -23 June: Sevilla EU summit July: Toronto and Calgary(Canada), G8 summit. 22 July: USA campaign against Coca Cola September: Johannesburg (South Africa), Rio+10. September, Asia Europe Meeing (ASEM), Copenhagen October: Quito (Ecuador), Social continental forum "A new integration is possible" November: Cuba, 2nd Hemispheric meeting against FTAA December: Copenhagen (Denmark), summit of EU.

In 2003: April: Buenos Aires (Argentina), summit of the FTAA. June: Thessaloniki EU Summit June, France, G8

WTO, IMF and World Bank will meet somewhere, sometime.

And we will be there!

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Appendix 2 Brasil, domingo, 12 de agosto de 2001 World Social Forum Charter of Principles By Organizing Comitee The committee of Brazilian organizations that conceived of, and organized, the first World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre from January 25th to 30th, 2001, after evaluating the results of that Forum and the expectations it raised, consider it necessary and legitimate to draw up a Charter of Principles to guide the continued pursuit of that initiative in the terms of the Information Note that it issued at the close of the Forum. While the principles contained in this Charter - to be respected by all those who wish to take part in the process and to organize new editions of the World Social Forum - are a consolidation of the decisions that presided over the holding of the Porto Alegre Forum and ensured its success, they extend the reach of those decisions and define orientations that flow from their logic. 1. The World Social Forum is an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a planetary society centred on the human person. 2. The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre was an event localized in time and place. From now on, in the certainty proclaimed at Porto Alegre that another world is possible, it becomes a permanent process of seeking and building alternatives, which cannot be reduced to the events supporting it. 3. The World Social Forum is a world process. All the meetings that are held as part of this process have an international dimension. 4. The alternatives proposed at the World Social Forum stand in opposition to a process of capitalist globalization commanded by the large multinational corporations and by the governments and international institutions at the service of those corporations interests. They are designed to ensure that globalization in solidarity will prevail as a new stage in world history. This will respect universal human rights, and those of all citizens - men and women - of all nations and the environment and will rest on democratic interna34

tional systems and institutions at the service of social justice, equality and the sovereignty of peoples. 5. The World Social Forum brings together and interlinks only organizations and movements of civil society from all the countries in the world, but intends neither to be a body representing world civil society nor to exclude from the debates it promotes those in positions of political responsibility, mandated by their peoples, who decide to enter into the commitments resulting from those debates. 6. The meetings of the World Social Forum do not deliberate on behalf of the World Social Forum as a body. No-one, therefore, will be authorized, on behalf of any of the editions of the Forum, to express positions claiming to be those of all its participants. The participants in the Forum shall not be called on to take decisions as a body, whether by vote or acclamation, on declarations or proposals for action that would commit all, or the majority, of them and that propose to be taken as establishing positions of the Forum as a body. 7. Nonetheless, organizations or groups of organizations that participate in the Forums meetings must be assured the right, during such meetings, to deliberate on declarations or actions they may decide on, whether singly or in coordination with other participants. The World Social Forum undertakes to circulate such decisions widely by the means at its disposal, without directing, hierarchizing, censuring or restricting them, but as deliberations of the organizations or groups of organizations that made the decisions. 8. The World Social Forum is a plural, diversified, non-confessional, non-governmental and non-party context that, in a decentralized fashion, interrelates organizations and movements engaged in concrete action at levels from the local to the international to built another world. It thus does not constitute a locus of power to be disputed by the participants in its meetings, nor does it intend to constitute the only option for interrelation and action by the organizations and movements that participate in it. 9. The World Social Forum asserts democracy as the avenue to resolving societys problems politically. As a meeting place, it is open to pluralism and to the diversity of activities and ways of engaging of the organizations and movements that decide to participate in it, as well as the diversity of genders, races, ethnicities and cultures.

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10.The World Social Forum is opposed to all totalitarian and reductionist views of history and to the use of violence as a means of social control by the State. It upholds respect for Human Rights, for peaceful relations, in equality and solidarity, among people, races, genders and peoples, and condemns all forms of domination and all subjection of one person by another. 11.The meetings of the World Social Forum are always open to all those who wish to take part in them, except organizations that seek to take peoples lives as a method of political action. 12.As a forum for debate, the World Social Forum is a movement of ideas that prompts reflection, and the maximum possible transparent circulation of the results of that reflection, on the mechanisms and instruments of domination by capital, on means and actions to resist and overcome that domination, and on the alternatives that can be proposed to solve the problems of exclusion and inequality that the process of capitalist globalization currently prevalent is creating or aggravating, internationally and within countries. 13.As a framework for the exchange of experiences, the World Social Forum encourages understanding and mutual recognition among its participant organizations and movements, and places special value on all that society is building to centre economic activity and political action on meeting the needs of people and respecting nature. 14.As a context for interrelations, the World Social Forum seeks to strengthen and create new national and international links among organizations and movements of civil society, that - in both public and private life - will increase the capacity for social resistance to the process of dehumanization the world is undergoing and reinforce the humanizing measures being taken by the action of these movements and organizations. 15.The World Social Forum is a process that encourages its participant organizations and movements to situate their actions as issues of planetary citizenship, and to introduce onto the global agenda the change-inducing practices that they are experimenting in building a new world. So Paulo, April 9th, 2001

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ABONG - Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations ATTAC - Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens CBJP - Brazilian Justice and Peace Commission, National Council of Bishops (CNBB) CIVES - Brazilian Business Association for Citizenship CUT - Central Trade Union Confederation IBASE - Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Studies CJG - Centre for Global Justice MST - Movement of Landless Rural Workers

Publicada em 26/04/2001 FSM-2002! Approuve en 9 Avril, 2002... Appendix 3 Internationalism, Networking, Solidarity in the Era of Globalisation Globalisation means a simultaneous stretching and intensification of all social relations economic, political, military, gender, ecological, cultural/ communicational - creating for the first time a meaningfully global society. This is a process that began long before capitalism and will continue after. It is also, actually, something that the major religions, secular humanist and socialist traditions have always sought. Under a neo-liberal capitalist hegemony, of course, globalisation bears the traits of the old imperialism, but has implied a dramatic intensification of all the contradictions of capitalism. This therefore means that it has also produced and enabled an intensification of opposition to neoliberalism, which is now pretty much worldwide. Precursors to internationalism can be found in religious universalism, in enlightenment cosmopolitanism, before taking shape in the C19th as labour and socialist internationalism. Inter-nationalism, however, as the name implies, was a relationship between nation-states, nationalities, nationalisms, nationalists. Despite heroic efforts and achievements, it became increasingly attenuated and hollow during the C20th, until it no longer moved anyone or anything. Its contemporary successor is something best understood as a global solidarity movement, in the sense that it addresses global problems (of which those

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of nations/nationalities are but one part), and that it addresses them holistically (neither isolating one struggle from, nor prioritizing one, over others). Networking is a relational form that has been the most common one throughout the ages, but was marginalised in the age of organized industrial capitalism. With computerization the network has become the dominant relational form, to the point that globalisation is inconceivable without it. Our present period is therefore most usefully conceived as a globalised networked finance and services capitalism (GNC for short). Whilst networking would seem to suck all wealth and power out of locales in which people live, undermining their traditional communities and organizations, we know that its 'virtual reality' has actually created the terrain on which the new global solidarity movements depend for their speed, flexibility, reach and effect. Whilst capital, state, patriarchy, religious fundamentalisms and racism can use the web, the movement that lives within and from it is the new radical-democratic and internationalist social one. The notion of solidarity is also contained, in its historically specific forms, within all notions of community, universalized by the major religions, and forming part of the secular trinity of the French Revolution (limited as 'brotherhood', and eventually by the nation-state). 'Solidarity', however, is the forgotten term in this secular trinity, never theorized even by the socialists, reduced, finally to a token. In the age of globalization, however, we are condemned to 'solidarity with others', to 'solidarity with distant strangers', if we are ourselves to survive. Our new global solidarity, however, has to rethought in network (communicational, cultural) terms, and it has to become at least as sophisticated as the GNC it seeks to defend people against, and to eventually surpass. Solidarity needs to be specified according to at least axis, directionality, reach and depth. It also needs to be differentiated in terms of at least Identity, Substitution, Complementarity, Reciprocity, Affinity and Restitution. Each of these carries part of the meaning of Solidarity, each of them alone only carries part. A restoration of this ethical principle to pride of place amongst the values of emancipatory movements would provide them with something no capitalist, no state, can either reduce to a commodity, nor claim as its own.

It is in the articulation of internationalism, networking and solidarity that emancipatory power rests in the era of globalisation.

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WORKING PAPERS
PLACE, SPACE AND THE REINVENTION OF SOCIAL EMANCIPATION ON A GLOBAL SCALE: SECOND THOUGHTS ON THE THIRD WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

Peter Waterman

July 2003 Working Paper Series No. 378

PLACE, SPACE AND THE REINVENTION OF SOCIAL EMANCIPATION ON A GLOBAL SCALE: SECOND THOUGHTS ON THE THIRD WORLD SOCIAL FORUM

Peter Waterman

July 2003

Working Paper Series No. 378

Comments are welcome and should be addressed to the author: c/o ORPAS - Institute of Social Studies - P.O. Box 29776 2502LT The Hague - The Netherlands workingpapers@iss.nl

The Institute of Social Studies is Europes longest-established centre of higher education and research in development studies. Post-graduate teaching programmes range from sixweek diploma courses to the PhD programme. Research at ISS is fundamental in the sense of laying a scientific basis for the formulation of appropriate development policies. The academic work of ISS is disseminated in the form of books, journal articles, teaching texts, monographs and working papers. The Working Paper series provides a forum for work in progress which seeks to elicit comments and generate discussion. The series includes the research of staff, PhD participants and visiting fellows, and outstanding research papers by graduate students. For a list of available Working Papers and how to order them see the last page of this Working Paper. Some of the latest Working Papers are published full text (or abstract and content page) on the website: www.iss.nl (Research / Working Papers) For further information contact: ORPAS - Institute of Social Studies - P.O. Box 29776 2502LT The Hague - The Netherlands - FAX: +31 70 4260799 E-mail: workingpapers@iss.nl ISSN 0921-0210
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ABSTRACT If the first World Social Forum, in Porto Alegre, 2001, was mostly marked by protest against the World Economic Forum taking place at the same time, and the second, in 2002, by attempts to specify the meaning of Another World is Possible!, the third, in January 2003, was marked by a questioning of the extent to which the Forumnow an increasingly globalised phenomenonwas itself practising what it preaches to others. This paper considers WSF3 in terms of: 1) the danger of going forward to the past of social movements and internationalism; 2) the problematic relationship with the old trade unions; 3) the uneven age, gender, ethnic, etc. composition of the Forum; 4) the uncertain future of a proposed global social movement network; 5) the necessity of a communications/media/cultural internationalism; 6) the possibility of an academy of global empowerment. The conclusion is that the secret of fire of radical-democratic and internationalist social movements is now a public one, thus offering some guarantee of a continuation and deepening of the Forum process.

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT CONTENTS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1 THE FUTURE OF THE MOVEMENTS AND INTERNATIONALISM: FORWARD TO THE PAST? ................................................................................... 2 THE UNIONFORUM RELATIONSHIP: MOVABLE OBJECTS AND RESISTIBLE FORCES ............................................................................................ 6 COMBINED AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: GENDER, ETHNICITY, CLASS AND AGE ................................................................................................... 8 A SOCIAL MOVEMENT NETWORK: DE/CENTRALISED?............................ 10 FROM ORGANISATION TO COMMUNICATION IN THE GLOBAL JUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT ...................................................... 12 AN ACADEMY OF GLOBAL EMPOWERMENT .............................................. 15 CONCLUSION: THE SECRET OF FIRE ............................................................. 21

RESOURCES................................................................................................................. 22 Bibliography............................................................................................................ 22 Audio-Visuals ......................................................................................................... 25 Websites and lists.................................................................................................... 25

If we agree that the most important characteristic of the Forum is the open space it offers for free exchange, then especially at the present juncture in history, the World Social Forum needs to make it its task to promote the idea of open space as a general political culture in civil and political work. Building open space building an open political culture, and defending open space needs to be seen as a project in itself, and those who believe in this idea need to come and work together on thisGiven that the World Social Forum is meant to be an open plural process, embracing people of many different persuasions, we need to work to build an organisational process that is based on norms and principles that are openly and commonly defined, and not on gentlemanly or comradely behaviour between a few and that cannot be questioned by others (Sen 2003a).

The WSFs utopia concerns emancipatory democracy. In its broadest sense, emancipatory democracy is the whole process of changing power relations into relations of shared authority. Since the power relations against which the WSF resists are multiple, the processes of radical democratisation in which the WSF is involved are likewise multiple. In brief, the WSF is a large collective process for deepening democracy. Since this is the WSFs utopian distinction, it is no wonder that the issue of internal democracy has become more and more pressing. In fact, the WSFs credibility in its struggle for democracy in society depends on the credibility of its internal democracy (Santos 2003a).

A transversal politics of location and connection demands explicit attention to concrete mechanisms that enable open dialogue, such as limiting speaking times, allowing each to speak in turn, and facilitating intensive one-to-one conversations. On a transnational level, it also requires efforts to take on board linguistic diversity. Possible measures here include communicating in more than one language, non-verbally and through translators. Furthermore, open dialogue also requires efforts to tackle the power relations between participants that structure access to dialogue and shape its outcomes. Applied to transnational politics, this necessitates that political actors make proactive efforts to redress the iniquitous geopolitical distribution of economic, social and technological resources. Thus the locations of meetings and organisations should be made accessible toand funds targeted to enable the poorest to participate in agenda-settting [] Finally, the movement praxis delineated here offers an alternative to both reformist complacency and the revolutionary model of change, one that aspires to transform social and political structures through complex processes of societal self-organisation (Eschle 2002: 33.0-31).

What we want is the full development of cyberspatial practices We want social movements and social actors to build on this logic in order to create unheard of forms of collective intelligence subaltern intelligent communities capable of re-imagining the world and inventing alternative process of world-makingThe result could be a type of worldscale networking based on internationalist principles (a Fifth International? The Cyberspatial International)[] What we want is the worlds Left to take this model seriously in their organising, resistance and creative practices. The lessons for the Left are clear! In the long run, this amounts to reinventing the nature and dynamics of social emancipation (Escobar 2003).

INTRODUCTION The World Social Forum (WSF), taking place annually in Brazil since 2001, is

one of the most remarkable expressions of the more general Global Justice and Solidarity Movement (GJ&SM). Attendance has risen from some 10,000 in the first year to 100,000 in 2003. And even if an overwhelming percentage of participants in 2003 came from Brazil itself, some 17,000 attended from abroad. And even if the largest percentage of foreign participants have come from Latin America and Western Europe, this year also saw increasing numbers from North America, and significant, if limited, participation from Africa (mostly South) and Asia (mostly India). Even if, finally, the majority of participants are university-educated, significant movements of workers and the unemployed, of the landless and of indigenous peoples havealong with their particular concernsbeen present. As satellites circulating around the Forum itself, there have also been forums of educators, of parliamentarians, of municipalities and of othersall committed to the condemnation of neo-liberal globalisation and to the slogan Another World is Possible!. And, whereas such international protest events, seminars and celebrations customarily take place in the North, this one has been firmly placed in the South. (Sousa Santos 2003a). If the first WSF, in Porto Alegre, 2001, was mostly marked by protest against the World Economic Forum taking place at the same time, and the second, in 2002, by attempts to specify the meaning of Another World is Possible! (Waterman 2003a), the third, in January 2003, was marked by a questioning of the extent to which the Forumnow an increasingly globalised phenomenonis itself practising what it preaches to others. This paper therefore considers WSF3 in terms of: 1) the danger of going forward to the past of social movements and internationalism; 2) the problematic relationship with the old trade unions; 3) the uneven age, gender, ethnic, etc, composition of the Forum; 4) the uncertain future of a proposed global social movement network; 5) the necessity of a communications/media/cultural internationalism; 6) the possibility of an academy of global empowerment.1 The
1

This is an edited version of Waterman 2003b, which is almost twice as long, reveals intellectual debts and includes a more-extensive bibliography. Stimulus for the production of a tauter version was provided by Edward Fullbrook, of the Post-Neo-Liberal Review. A reader for the ISS Working Paper Series, additionally suggested that the surgical removal of the tongue in cheek, cynical/optimistic self from the draft paper would allow the arguments to come through better. I hope that the paper has been improved as a result, though without total disappearance of the cynical/optimistic self. (Responsibility for this disposition, however, rests surely with Gramsci, though he called it scepticism of the intellect; optimism of the will). Acknowledgements, as always, to Gina Vargas, in Lima, my favourite interlocutor. 1

conclusion is that the secret of fire of radical-democratic and internationalist social movements is now a public one, thus offering some guarantee of a continuation and deepening of the Forum process.

THE FUTURE OF THE MOVEMENTS AND INTERNATIONALISM: FORWARD TO THE PAST? At the centre of initiative and decision-making within the World Social Forum

has been the Brazilian national Organising Committee (henceforth Committee) and the International Council it created (henceforth Council). These are not subject to the principles of participatory or even representative democracy. The committee members may or may not be accountable, in various political or financial ways, to their respective communities (mass organisations, non-governmental organisations, funding agencies) and the same is largely true of the Council, the role of which seems to have been to give international legitimacy to the Committee, whilst having a quite ambiguous relationship to it. The historical justification for the existence of both has been the quite remarkable vessel they have launchedan international and internationalist encounter, outside the immediate spheres of capital and state, targeted against neo-liberalism and capitalist globalisation, increasingly concerned with proposing radical-democratic alternatives to such. And this all on the understanding that the place, space and form is the guarantee for the necessary democratic dialogue of countries and cultures, of ideologies, of political levels, collective subjects and movements /organisations. In so far as re-presentation is today as important, or even more important, than representation (a problematic quality within both liberal democracies and, for example, labour movements), the forms and contents of a a new counter-hegemony have been at least sketched out by the committees of the Forum and on a global scale.2 This space has, however, never been a neutral or innocent one. (Like death and taxes, money and power are always with us, and the failure to confront these openly suggests either occupational blindness or bad faith). This space has not been as far

Since this piece was first drafted, Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2003b) has produced an original analysis and theorisation of the Forum. He gives considerable importance to the self-democratisation of the Forum that aspect of the process on which this paper concentrates. 2

beyond the old politics and parties and parliaments as it might like to claim (Sen 2003b, Teivainen 2003). The Committee consists of a number of representatives of social-movement and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the latter of which might address social movements and civil society but be answerable only to themselves. (It consists of two Brazilian movement organisations, six NGOs, of seven men, and only one woman.) These bodies have been oriented toward, or circulate around, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, Workers Party), and/or its recently-successful presidential candidate, Lula da Silva. Just as the Porto Alegre Forums have been places where this (and other Brazilian parties) could influence events and publicise themselves, so was the European Social Forum, Florence, November 2002, one in which the Rifondazione Communista (and other Italian political parties) did. Such parties, and far-lesssophisticated and interesting others, have often hidden their political lights behind NGO bushels. The WSF has been a site to which various inter-state agencies, such as those of United Nations, have access or upon which they exercise influence. Statedependent funding agencies, national and international, and the massive privatecapitalist US foundations, have supported the Forum itself, or various, selected, inter/national NGOs influential within it. The Council was created top-down by invitation of the Committee (of 90-100 members, mostly NGOs and inter/national unions, only 8-10 are womens networks). This gargantuan assembly has no clear mandate or power, therefore acting for the committee largely as a sounding board and international legitimator. The nature and representativity of the members, and the extent to which they are answerable to any but themselves, remains obscure. Many of them do little other work in the Council than turning up and then fighting for their cornersuch as the maximum number of representatives within the Central part of Forum programmes in the hands of the Committee or Council. The Council does not operate behind closed doors, but its proceedings are barely reported by its members to even the interested public. There has, recently, been formal discussion about the role and rules of the Council, consequent on an intended shift of weight from the Brazilian Committee to the international Council. But whilst part of this discussion (actually more like an interesting experiment in online consultation, for which see http://www.delibera.info/fsm2003ci/GB/) is posted on a publicly-accessible website, the existence of this is known to few. Moreover, only a tiny fraction of Council members have taken part in this consultation, again suggesting
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that their motivation for membership has more to do with a search for recognition and influence than with the advance of thisadmittedly novel and complexproject as a whole. The centre, however, is not a monolith. On the contrary, it is itself in movement, under its own momentum, as indicated by post-Forum web updates

(http://www.forumsocial mundial.org.br/home.asp) and reports of a post-Forum evaluation that was clearly addressing some of the criticism that had been publicly signalled (Vargas 2003). At the very least, however, it has signally failed to communicate itself to even an interested public. This is a matter to be returned to below. The Porto Alegre Forum is an agora in which there are a few large, wellpublicised and well-placed circus tents, surrounded by a myriad of differently-sized others (now around 1,700, implying some 3-400 events per day), proposed by social movements, international agencies, political organisations, academic institutions and even individuals. The Suburban/Peripheral events compete for visibility, for sites, for translators/equipment, often overlap with or even reproduce each other, andwhilst certainly adding to the pluralism of the Forumhave an inevitably minor impact. Whilst, again, the decision that the Forum is not a policy-forming body allows for pluralism and creativity, the result is, inevitably, domination by the Central programmeone which has been conceived without notable discussion beyond the governing committees. The concentration of power at the Centre is reinforced by the presence of our very own celebswho themselves may have to choose between appearance in a hall seating thousands, or in a classroom seating 25 (one is aware of celebrities intending to take the second option, but the compass here clearly swings to the North Pole). Indeed, even the major Central themes (sets of panels on specific problem areas), were somewhat marginalised this year, either by being placed away from the central university site, or simply by the attention focused on the celebrity events, the rallies and demonstrations. This formula is out of control in different ways. FSM3, 2003, with maybe 83,000 Brazilian and 17,000 foreign participants, was too big for the hosts to handle: a number of experienced local organisers had apparently been recruited away to Brasilia by the new government, and the original PT local-government sponsors had lost influence in both the city and the state. Unlike last year, the programme was never published completely in either English or Portuguese. A well-organised North American left, internationalist, and pro-feminist group, invited to run a five-day
4

programme on Life after Capitalism, found itself without publicity, and then geographically marginalised in a recreational club unmarked on the Forum maps, unknown to the information booths, and a taxi-ride away from the main site (www.zmag.org/lac.htm). The Brazilian feminist tent, a major focus of attention at WSF2, had been moved to some anonymous site elsewhere in the city. Other radical groups, which consider themselves initiators of the GJ&SM more generally, likewise complained of marginalisation (check websites and lists in References below). The Forum is also out of control in the sense that it is moving beyond the reach of the Centre, with regional, national, local and problem-specific forums mushrooming worldwide. Here the Committee/Council can give guidance and blessing (and even hypothetically withhold such) but little more. The Forum may slip out of the hands of the original inter/national NGO elite (I use this term loosely) as it is challenged by those who are demanding that its decision-making bodies consist of regional/national representatives (or elites?). The Forum is in danger of losing its social profile, as major politicians and governments recognise the importance of this agora, and turn up invited (President Lula da Silva) or uninvited (President Hugo Chavez). It was hardly imaginable that a Brazilian-based and PT-oriented Forum would fail to invite Lulaor wish him well on his way to Davos. But even well-wishers might have been alarmed by such newspaper headlines as Lula is Applauded in Davos and Starts the Dialogue between Porto Alegre and Davos, and IMF Approves Financial Discipline of Lula Government. This is not speak of Lulas conciliatory Davos speech itself. The Forums place as a focus for what I would call the new global solidarity is being put in question by those who seek to give it not only a national but a nationalist character. This is evidenced in the Indian case. Here a declaration of the Asian Social Forum (ASF), dominated by a major Indian Communist Party, attacked imperialist wars in Asia but forgot about the nationalist Indo-Pakistani conflictin which nuclear threats were being issued by two opposed chauvinist regimesboth enjoying US imperial military cooperation! An informative report on the ASF, in Indias left-leaning Economic and Political Weekly (Jain 2003), proposed that strong nation-states, and alliances of such, were the necessary answer to globalisation, this traditionalnot to say archaicnotion being reinforced by an editorial sub-head that turned the writers proposal into an ASF-WSF conclusion! An impressively open WSF3 event on WSF4 in India suggested that certain party-aligned leaders of recent Forums in India have
5

learned to talk the talk, but scepticism is in order about whether they can also walk the walk. Given all these problems, there is a danger that the Forum will be overwhelmed by the past of social movements and internationalism. This was one in which, remember, such movements were dominated by the institutions they spawned, by political parties that instrumentalised them, in which the movements were stateoriented and/or state-identified, and in which internationalism was literally thata relationship between nations, nationals, nationalisms, nationalists. Proletarian solidarity turned into military aid to approved regimes. West-Rest solidarity came to be dominated by one-way, state-funded, development cooperation (in areas, on problems, with funding, and to partners determined by the North-Western one). And in which Rest-Rest solidarity could be reduced, for example, to slogans of solidarity with the revolutionary movement in El Salvador, in a tribal village of India, where any sign of solidarity with other tribals, or tribals in the neighbouring Indian state, were absent.

THE UNIONFORUM RELATIONSHIP: MOVABLE OBJECTS AND RESISTIBLE FORCES WSF3 saw a growth and deepening of the relationship between the traditional

international union institutions (TIUIs) and the Forum. There are already about a dozen inter/national unions on the IC, most of which are anti-neo-liberal but not anticapitalist, and many of which are, due to globalisation, in considerable crisis. There is no evidence that they have tried to act as a bloc. With one or two exceptions, they may have been primarily concerned with finding out what kind of exotic animal this was. The increasing interest of this major traditional movement in the Forum was demonstrated by the presence, for the first time, of the General Secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU). But top officers of Global Union Federations (GUFs, formerly International Trade Secretariats) were also present, either prominently on platforms or quietly testing the water. Present, further, were inter/national union organisations/networks from beyond the ICFTU family (now formalised as Global Unions). This year there were, in addition to the radical union networks from France or Italy, an independent left union confederation from the Philippines, two left mineworker activists from India, and, no doubt, hundreds of
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movement-oriented unionists from other countries. I noted also an increasing openness amongst even the most traditional of TIUIs. Whilst the first big union event was a formal panel with only gestures in the direction of discussion (here, admittedly, only reproducing a problematic Forum formula), another major panel saw the platform shared between the Global Unions, independent left unions and articulate leaders of social movements or NGOs identified with the Forum process. The unions, moreover, seem increasingly prepared to recognise that they are institutions and that it is they that need to come to terms with a place and process that, whilst lacking in formal representativity and often inchoate, nevertheless has the appeal, dynamism, public reach and mobilizing capacity, that they themselves lack but need.3 The question, however, remains of what kind of relationship is developing here. From the first big union event, patronised by the charismatic Director of the International Labour Organisation, veteran Chilean socialist, Juan Somavia, I got the impression that what was shaping up was some kind of understanding or alliance between 1) the Unions, 2) the Social Forum and 3) Progressive States/men. The latter were here evidently represented by the unconditionally-praised PT Government and President Lula. Somavia, who had just met Lula officially in Brasilia, made explicit comparison between the ILOs new programme/slogan of Decent Work and Lulas election slogan For a Decent Brazil. In so far as the TIUIs appear to have adopted Decent Workhook, line and two smoking barrelswhat is here surely suggested is a global neo-keynesianism, in which the unions and their ILO/WSF friends would recreate the post-1945 Social Partnership model (or ideology), but now on a global scaleand with the aid of friendly governments! The model seems to me problematic in numerous ways. The main one, surely, is whether the role of the WSF, or the more general Global Justice and Solidarity Movement is going to be limited to reflecting (upon) a project aimed at making capitalist globalisation decent, or whether there will also be space here for labour movement projects that might be simultaneously more utopian (post-capitalist) and, under present conditions, more attractive (making workfor-capital an ethical issue, treating non-workers as equals of wage- earners,

I did not attend all major union events at WSF3. And, notably, I missed a session on relations between old and new social movements, within which unions were represented and union-movement relations discussed. This was, fortunately, attended by Nikhil Anand (2003), who sets this matter within a discussion of social movement theory, and who develops a conceptual approach of considerable originality and purchase. 7

addressing the closely inter-related civil-social issues such as useful production, sustainable consumption). There surely needs to be a discussion about the political, theoretical and ethical bases of the two labour utopianisms, one within and the other beyond (Waterman 2003c) the parameters of capitalism. When an old institution meets a new movement, somethins gotta give. Thus has the trade-union movement been periodically transformed since 1800. Bearing in mind that decision-makers of both the TIUIs and the WSF could have quite instrumental reasons for relating to each other, one cannot be certain that the openness within the Forums will guarantee that the principles at stake will be continually and publicly raised. Which of the two international leaderships, for example, is going to even mention the extent to which the other is dependent on (inter)state subsidies, direct or indirectsomething which others might consider a significant problem?

COMBINED AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT: GENDER, ETHNICITY, CLASS AND AGE I was somewhat alarmed, in the hotels, on the panels, at the receptions and in

the news coverage, by the number of people who looked like me: white, male, middleaged and, evidently, middle-class. I suspect the bias applies to the decision-making committees. This does not, of course, mean that women, Africans, Indians, indigenous peoples, workers or the under-30s are excluded from these. But the youth were under canvas in the Youth Camp or in private solidarity accomodation, the international peasant movement, Via Campesina, had its own forum before the event, the Argentinean piqueteros were in the streets (sleeping who knows where?), and the womens movements were less visible than they had been at WSF2 (though this may have been an effect of the decentralisation and dispersal at WSF3).4 Amilcar Cabral, assassinated leader of anti-Portuguese struggle in colonial Africa, once suggested that after independence there would (or should) occur the suicide of the petty-bourgeoisie. As the more-sceptical Frantz Fanon argued at the same time, however, the post-colonial elites were going to do everything they could to retain and increase their privileges. There are striking power/wealth differences
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Via Campesina, and other such international solidarity movements and activities of the rural poor, suggest the promising reappearance of these on the international stage. For some relevant resources, see Waterman (2003d). 8

between Forum participants, particularly visible, predictably, in the case of the South. In two or three Latin American cases, the poorer participants travelled by busthis sometimes meaning a 4-5 day journey, with entry obstacles at various border-crossings. There is no reason to assume that the existent Forum elites are suicidal, or even that they going to abandon the luxury hotels, without irresistible pressure from outside or below. In so far, on the other hand, as the WSF has declared certain principles relating to liberty, equality, solidarity, horizontality and pluralism, it might be possible to confront them (us) with the necessity of re-balancing the power equation. The elites could then put their efforts, in their home states/constituencies, into facilitating rather than dominating or controlling the Forum process. The experience of women and feminists within the Forum might point here in different directions. Women have always been around 50 percent of the participants. There are powerful feminists and feminist networks on the panels and in at least the IC, quite capable here of making the Forum a Feminist Issue (Lagunes 2003). As, also, of making a feminist contribution to, and impact within and beyond, the

Centralprogramme. There were regional and cross-regional meetings of feminists at Porto Alegre, an important one being concerned with planning for the next WSF. There were numerous panels on gender and sexuality in both the central and more marginal programmes.5 Feminists and feminisms at the Forum are, however, confronted with devising a strategy that combines working within decision-making bodies, making their presence felt within the Forum itself, and addressing a feminist and general public beyond the Forums. There remains, it seems to me, the problem of publicly confronting the decision making bodies (the shortcomings of which, with respect to womens representation, have been indicated above). Whereas leading figures might declare good intentions with respect to women and feminism within the Forum, the step from talking to walking has still to be taken here also. It occurs to me that the power/presence imbalances within the Forum might be corrected by two measures. One would be quotas for under-represented categories. The
In common Forum parlance, there is a self-managed part of the activities but no name for that which one would conventionally call official. I am using in this paper such words as central, marginal, peripheral and even suburban to suggest the differential power or weight of events or people within WSF events. One further qualification: whilst there are in my understanding only one, or two, central instances, there are multiple peripheries (e.g. inter-governmental, religious/spiritualist, autonomist, liberal-democratic, anarchist, left vanguardist). 9
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other would be a Forum programme structured according to collective subjects as well as major problems. Thus one could have major panels/programmes on labour, women, youth, indigenous peopleseven the aged (I hope to become such myself one day). At present, for example, labour may be represented in a series of union-sponsored or union-approved events, some within and some beyond the core programme. But this implies a dispersal of attention and impact where there should, surely, be concentration.6 Alternatively, or additionally, imbalances can, could and should be corrected by autonomous forums. Or what about a re-invention, in the light of the WSF, of the World Youth Festivals, of Communist origin?

A SOCIAL MOVEMENT NETWORK: DE/CENTRALISED? At two previous Forums there has been issued a Call of Social Movements.

The initiative for such has come from members of the Committee and Council, some of these being recognisable social movement organisations, others being recognisable NGOs. Both Calls have been publicly presented and then signed by 50-100 other organisations and networks. This year, the notion of a Social Movements World Network (SMWN) was widely circulated on the web and subject to a two-session public discussion within the Forum. This eventually produced a declaration, proposing a continuation of discussion about the nature of such a network, with further meetings to take place during major movement events this year (Social Movements World Network 2003). The Calllike other Forum bodies and initiativesis surrounded by a certain amount of mystery. Given overlapping memberships, are we to understand the Call as a device for going beyond the Forums self-limitation on making specific political declarations, taking specific political action? How come the Secretariat of the Call, in Sao Paulo, only came to this interested observers attention 11 months after its creation? Why did it take seven or eight months for the signators of Call 2 to be identified (at least in an obscure corner of a website), when those of Call 1 were

Fisher and Ponniah (2002), which ignores all but the Central programme of WSF2, has but two contributions on the union movement as such, and the single one on feminism does not address the international/global at all! 10

published instantaneously?7 Doesnt discussion at specific events in specific continents automatically exclude from discussion those who cant afford to fly there? What, for the purposes of this new initiative, is a social movement? (Can it be a state-funded or foundation-funded NGO? Can it be a group of academics and, if so, how many makes such a group? And: which trade unions qualify as social movements?) There is, here again, a serious lack of communication, which implies a concentration of crucial information amongst a limited circle.8 Some autonomists or libertarians see in the Call a conspiracy to centralise and control social movements internationally. But I am myself favourable to the creation of such a network. In part this is because there exists no such internationally. In part because it is going to provide information and ideas on a continuing basisand to many people/places otherwise excluded from the periodic Forums. In so far as this will have an existence in real virtuality (Manuel Castells), it may go beyond a WSF that remains largely earth-bound and institutional. The very experiment is going to be important for progress in this area. It is bound to provoke challenge. Apart from the issues raised above, certain crucial others remainabout which I may only have yet other questions. Is the network going to be primarily political/institutional or primarily communicational? In the first case, communication is likely to be made functional to the political/institutional. In the second case, we may be into a different ballgameor ballpark. In the first case, there is likely to operate a banking model of communication, in which information is collected, sorted and classified, to be then dealt out to customers/clients in terms of power, influence or profit, as determined by the information-bank managers. In the second case, there can operate the principle of

Rumour thrives where transparency lacks. The rumour here is that one of the signatory organisations of Call2 was associated with the militarist ETA movement in the Basque Country of Spain. And that PTsupporters with influence had decided that any such tenuous association with an armed insurrectionary movement might damage the chances of Lula in the coming presidential elections! 8 Influential amonst those promoting the Call are members or supporters of the Trotskyist Fourth International, associated with the name of Ernest Mandel. The most prominent here would probably be Christophe Aguiton (2002). A highly-talented activist withinand commentator onthe GJ&SM, Aguiton is also a leader of ATTAC (the Tobin Tax network). Whilst the Fourth International lacks the sectarian characteristics of the much-criticised Socialist Workers Party/Global Resistance in the UK, it surely deserves as much attention as other political parties active and influential within the Forum. 11

the potlatch, or gift economy, in which individual generosity is taken to benefit the community, with most respect going to the greatest giver. Even in the best of all possible cyberworlds, however, there remain questions of appropriate modes (information, ideas, dialogue), of form (printed word at one end, multimedia at the other) and control (handling cybernuts and our own homegrown fundamentalists). There do exist various relevant models of international socialmovement, civil society, anti-globalisation networksearth-bound or cyberspatial. Indy Media Centre (IMC) has got to be the most important here, and needs to be publicly reflected upon both for what it does well and what it doesnt (dialogue?). Finally, any Social Movements World Network is going to have to go beyond networkbabble and recognise that even networks do not exist on one, emancipatory, model. In discussing the issue, Arturo Escobar (2003) has said that
It is possible to distinguish between two general types: more or less rigid hierarchies, and flexible, non-hierarchical, decentralised and self-organising meshworks Hierarchies entail a degree of centralised control, ranks, overt planning, homogenisation, and particular goals and rules of behaviour conducive to these goals. Meshworks are based on decentralised decision making self-organisation, and heterogeneity and diversity. Since they are non-hierarchical, they have no overt goals. It can be said they follow the dynamics of life, developing through their encounter with their environments.

In the end, however, it does not too much matter, surely, in which place/space, on which model, the SMWN takes shape. The existence of the web, combining low cost of entry, wide reach and high speed, provides the assurance that such a network will be supplemented or challenged by others.

FROM ORGANISATION TO COMMUNICATION IN THE GLOBAL JUSTICE AND SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT We are here moving from cyberspace to communication, and from the World

Social Forum to the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement. Whereas the movementin-general has shown, at its best, an almost instinctive feel for the logic of the computer (Klein 2001), and has expressed itself in the most creative and provocative ways (in Quebec a man was arrested for threatening to catapult a counter-hegemonic teddy bear over the hegemonic razor-wire), this is not the case for the WSF in particular. The WSF uses the media, culture and cyberspace but it does not think of itself in cultural/com-

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municational terms, nor does it live fully within this increasingly central, and infinitely expanding, universe.9 The WSF website remains problematicpromoting year-old ideas (chosen by whom?) in its meagre library. Trying to reach a human being on this site, to whom one could pose a question, reminds one strongly of Gertrude Stein (or whoever) on Oakland, California: There is no there there. The sites own claim, that it was visited during WSF3 by X million, cannot deal with visitors, such as myself, repeatedly seeking for a there that wasnt there. The website perked up in the Post-Forum period, providing more useful information than it had during the previous year (http://www.forum socialmundial.org.br/home.asp), but it is difficult to have confidence that this improvement will continue. The only WSF daily is Terra Viva, an admirable effort by the customarily unaccountable NGO, but which this year seemed to me to add to its space-limitations, delays and superficialities a heavier bias toward the Forum establishment. The major commercial daily paper in Rio Grande do Sul, Zero Hora, gave wide coverage but, unsurprisingly, in Portuguese. For background information and orientation one was this year dependent on free handouts of La Vie/Le Monde (inspired by French social Catholicism), and Ode, a glossy, multi-lingual, New Age, magazine from Rotterdam, with impressively relevant coverage (used in this paper). Other alternative, and nonForum sites, provide better information and/or discussion than the Forum itself, for example, http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/debate-6-91.jsp. The FSM seems to me something of a shrine to the written and spoken word.10 At the core of the Forum is The Panel, in which 5-10 selected panellists do their thing in front of an audience of anything from five to 5,000, the latter being thrown the bone of three to five minutes at a microphone. And these are the lucky ones! At the other end of the Forums narrow spectrum of modes there is The Demonstration. Here euphoria is order of the day: how can it not be when surrounded by so many beautiful people, of all ages, genders and sexual options, of nationality and ethnicity, convinced that another world is possible? But here we must note the distinction made 30 years ago, between mobilisation and mobility, as related to the old organisation and the new media:

For more on this new and challenging area, see Cardon and Granjon (2003) and the Cyberspace panel within Life after Capitalism http://www.zmag.org/lacsite.htm. 10 In so far as I worship both deities, I am throwing this stone from my own glasshouse. 13

The open secret of the electronic media, the decisive political factor, which has been waiting, suppressed or crippled, for its moment to come, is their mobilising power. When I say mobilise I mean mobilisenamely to make [people] more mobile than they are. As free as dancers, as aware as football players, as surprising as guerrillas. Anyone who thinks of the masses only as the object of politics, cannot mobilise them. He wants to push them around. A parcel is not mobile; it can only be pushed to and fro. Marches, columns, parades, immobilise people [] The new media are egalitarian in structure. Anyone can take part in them by a simple switching process [] The new media are orientated towards action, not contemplation; towards the present, not tradition [] It is wrong to regard media equipment as mere means of consumption. It is always, in principle, also means of production [] In the socialist movements the dialectic of discipline and spontaneity, centralism and decentralisation, authoritarian leadership and anti-authoritarian disintegration has long ago reached deadlock. Networklike communication models built on the principle of reversibility of circuits might give indications of how to overcome this situation (Enzensberger 1976: 21-53).

There is, of course, also the Rallya panel built on the scale of the Titanic. The paucity of cultural expression at WSF3 is surprising, bearing in mind we are in Brazil, the country that brought down the corrupt President Collor by culturalpolitical protest. The WSF3 song, which has a complex lilt, is sung only in Portuguese, and did not seem to be available in written or CD form, even in this language. It was, in fact, the same jingle as that of WSF2. As in 2002 the teeshirts were not going to win any design prizes. And the most popular icon (no fault of the organisers) remains Che. I suspect there might be a market for Subcomandante Marcos, for Rigoberta Mench, for Chico Mendes, for La Naomi, for El Noam, for Arundhati, and even for Frida and Diego, or a Beatle Giving Peace a Chance, but I may be wrong. Something of an exception to the general Forum rule was, in 2002, the campaign against fundamentalisms of the Articulacin Feminista Marcosur. I had and have doubts about the interpretation of fundamentalism offered by this campaign, but it was one which intimately combined the customary Forum modes with dramatic cultural expression of undeniable originality and impact: last year there were masks, an enormous hot-air balloon, hoarding-sized posters and more. This year activity was possibly less dramatic, but peaked with a packed-out book launch, at which was also projected a 10-minute CD production of considerable inventivity and power (Cotidiano Mujer/ CFMEA 2002). Lucy Garrido, the Uruguayan designer, opted for visuals, music and minimal words, in successive English and Spanish). We could have had, we should have had, a discussion around this. Even a panel?

14

AN ACADEMY OF GLOBAL EMPOWERMENT A review of the recent literature on globalisation reminds us of what happened

in the US academy during the Vietnam War (Munck 2003). This proved to be a moment at which the academy, not only in the USA, divided between those either committed to or complicit with the existing power relations and those who challenged these. There were, no doubt, excesses on the left here (not yet free of the excesses of the right), but opposition to the war in Vietnam, to racism, to class-discrimination, to sexism, to corporatism in the university, gave rise to a wave of high-quality radicalism, some of it still alivedespite neo-liberalismtoday. Consider only the US-based NACLA Report on the Americas (http://www.nacla.org/). What has happened in the intervening years is thus argued by Arturo Escobar (forthcoming):
Social scientists in particular have been in retreat. If in the 1980s the social sciences were infusing the natural sciences with new idioms and ideas, today it seems to be the other way around. Metaphors of complexity, webs, networks, selforganisation, etc. are now being more actively developed in the natural sciences, although of course there are attempts to bring it all back to the social sciences again. The reconversion of the Humanities towards the production of critical intersubjective knowledge for social transformationwhile important in some fields such as cultural and so-called post-colonial studies, and feminist and critical race theorieshas floundered in the persistent Achilles heel of their engagement with extra-academic worlds. In this context, non-academic knowledge producers seem to have taken the lead...

The last point here is significant. Amongst the seven or eight major characteristics of the newest wave of social movements in Latin America is, according to Ral Zibechi (2003), the capacity of popular movements to train their own leaders, to develop their own educational principles, to develop their own intellectuals. He mentions the Intercultural University of Indigenous Peoples and Nationalities, coming out of Ecuadorian struggles, the 1,500 schools of the MST (Landless Workers Movement) in Brazil But I wish to here begin with the growing alternative to such from within the academy.11 Much of this lies, as one might expect, in individual academic staff and students turning their attention to either the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement in

I mention the latest such contribution to come to my attention, that of Stephanie Ross (2003). This is not simply because she is a young lecturer, still completing her PhD. It is also because she addresses herself to the problematic nature of democracy, as manifested within the events of protest rather than proposition, and more specifically to the anarchist or libertarian ideas and strategies revealed here. 15

11

general or to the Forum process in particular.12 I will mention just a couple of new academic centres and recent initiatives. They may give an impression of what must be taking place on a much wider and more varied scale and, hopefully, spilling out from the social sciences to the academy more generally. Here we might consider, first, the Centre for Civil Society/Centre for Global Governance at the London School of Economics in the UK. And, second, the Observatorio Social de Amrica Latina (Latin American Social Observatory) in Buenos Aires. If the first is oriented toward, well, a liberal/social-democratic notion of global civil society, and inspired by the LSEs tradition of social reformism and social engineering, the latter is concentrated on social movements, protest and the global movement processes themselves. These two projects should not (for political reasons) and cannot (for epistemological ones) be set up in binary-oppositional terms. They rather represent two cases of academic response to the development of global civil society and global social movements. They are both worthy of closer attention than I can give them here. Global Civil Society 2002 (Glasius, Kaldor and Anheier 2002) is the second of two weighty annuals, of which the first gave considerable attention to not only the title area but also to various global social movements and their dynamics (Anheier, Glasius and Kaldor 2001, reviewed Waterman forthcoming b). This project comes out of the presumably-globalised LSE, and with the blessings of its Blairite Director, Anthony Giddens. The current volume considers concepts, issues, infrastructure, and then has some 150 pages of records of GCS, in tables, charts, surveys and analyses. Concepts considers the implications of September 11, 2001; limits of GCS, religion and GCS. Issues include corporate responsibility, HIV/AIDS and the International Criminal Court. Under Infrastructure comes a chapter on organisational forms (institutions, networks, etc). Under Records comes Mario Piantas useful update on his painstaking GCS 2001 chapter on Parallel Summits. The Pianta update (Glasius, Kaldor and Anheier 2002: 371-7), consisting primarily of 10 charts, is largely dependent on a questionnaire addressed to relevant organisations, media and websites. Whilst the author expresses justified qualifications about his own methodology, he nonetheless feels capable of arguing that global civil
12

I had to actually retire in 1998, after 27 years of teaching about such, before this new wave began to approach shore. It is now threatening to take on the proportions of a tsunami. 16

society is maturing, that global movements are spreading, and that a development is taking place amongst them from protest to proposal.The Pianta contribution perhaps suggests the extent and limits of the project as a wholeat least so far. The limits may be suggested by his title, Parallel Summits, even if he actually goes beyond this, recognising the extent to which a dynamic is here developing that goes beyond paralleling something toward the invention of something else. But the extent of the GCS project is also revealed by Piantas attempt to empirically chart a novel and inchoate process. The ambition is the thing because without empirical data, we live in a world of impression and speculation (a possible criticism of this very paper). An excess of such datahere one-third or more of the wholecan obscure interpretation and consequent identification of strategic options. But the GCS project, it seems to me, nonetheless sets a standard for such data collection and analysis that others are going to be challenged to surpass. And there is another aspect of the GCS project that likewise sets new standards. This is the accessibility of this work, both in the sense of its excellent printed and graphical layout, but also because it is available, free, for chapter by chapter download, from the GCS website, http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Yearbook/. The Observatorio Social de Amrica Latina (OSAL, the Latin American Social Observatory), within the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, in Buenos Aires (CLACSO) is clearly a fish of a different feather. Sited within one of Latin Americas premier research institutes, this bland-sounding project actually represents what may be the most-ambitious monitoring of social movements (under globalisation) anywhere. Although its basic publication form is that of a serial journal of the same name (nine since 2001), and although a large part of it is devoted to country-by-country reports, a 2003 issue also extends beyond Latin America, and it includes analysis and theoretical debates.13 OSAL/CLACSO has also published a number of books about the current wave of protest. The OSAL website http://osal.clacso.org/ provides all this information and more. Indeed, it appears as if OSAL has high priority within CLACSO http:// www.clacso.org/wwwclacso/espanol/html/fprincipal.html, to the extent that the extensive web and CD services offered by the latter clearly overlap in subject and orientation with the former. This orientation is clearly toward the new global social
13

For a Spanish annual that monitors movements in that state, see Grau and Ibarra (2001). In South Africa there is a another national monitoring project (Weekes 2002). All of these, and the many others that do or will exist, could obviously benefit from publication in one space and from dialogue with each other. 17

movements. Starting with a critique of the impact of neo-liberalism and globalisation on the region, OSAL declares that
It aspires to stimulate analysis and reflection on the distinct forms assumed by social conflict in our societies and on the characteristics revealed by distinct social movement in the region. This task further assumes the desire to contribute to the renovation and revitalisation of Latin American social thought and, in particular, to studies on social movements. In relation to the cited theme the programme also aspires to construct a space of exchange between its own researchers and the social and political movements (OSAL Website).

After years or decades in which social-movement studies, and commitment to social movements (as distinguished from NGOs), were somewhat marginalised in Latin America, this is a dramatic declaration of commitment to movement-oriented research. Whilst the audio-visual offerings are from CLACSO rather than OSAL, these include numerous complete books and other resources (all, I think, in Spanish/Portuguese), the subjects and authors of which are often related to the OSAL project. Furthermore, CLACSO runs a computerised distance-education project, making its courses potentially available throughout the sub-continent. CLACSO had a well-equipped stall with several staff at a major WSF3 site. Additionally, however, it is represented on the International Council of the Forum. CLACSO is an influential member of the IC. And OSAL was well represented in the Core programme of WSF3. It was also active at a previous Argentinean Forum, organised at short notice, and held with considerable success, in 2002. I have warned against setting up OSAL/CLACSO as a polar opposite to GCS/LSE, as some kind of model for a university of global emancipation. But it is a challenging experiment. Of particular interest might here be the extent to which the commitment of OSAL to the movement is reciprocated by the movements themselvesparticularly those closest to it in its home base. Mention of a university of global emancipation brings us to the pre-Forum proposal of Boaventura de Sousa Santos for a Popular University of Social Movements (Sousa Santos 2003b). Launched with the blessing of IBASE, a key Brazilian NGO behind the Forum, the proposal was for the mutual self-education of both scholars and activists, with a particular focus on the South, and with a specific rooting in a proposed locale. One of many individual, even personal, initiatives arising around the WSF, this one was proposed for discussion at WSF3 and on the internet. This is not actually either a universityas it calls itselfor an academy, as in my subtitle. It is a proposal based on the authors argument that the genocides occurring under globalisation are
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accompanied by epistemicide, and that a reversal of this requires that the dominant Western episteme, dominant also in Latin Americaand amongst the global leftbe challenged by others. Sousa Santos considers there is no global justice without cognitive justice, and that we need to find ways of translating knowledges up and down the social scale, in and out of Western ones. The project draws on experience with a famous centre, CIDOC, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, itself connected with the names of Ivan Illich and Paulo Freire. The proposal is as much concerned with the empowerment of the teachers as of the activists. Not intended to be a university, it is also not intended to be a think-tank, nor a training school for activists.14 This is a project relevant to a movement that considers itself less oriented toward institutions, ideologies or even a programme, more to collective self-education through dialogue. I would myself like to see such a project developed in network terms (an alliance of interested departments, courses, schools) and in terms of cyberspace (distance education). The reasons may be self-evident: cost, reach, flexibility, the dialectic of difference. Moreover, this would be an inclusive and expansive project rather than one which was exclusive, limited and authoritative. It further occurs to me that this project needs to take into explicit account both the history and theory of emancipatory education, and recent experiments in international consciousness-raising education intended to confront globalization. I have here in mind an experiment of the International Federation of Worker Education Associations in computer-linked study circles on globalization.15 The further development of this proposal, promised by mid2003, should be worth following.

14

This paragraph has been extended following a further presentation of the project by Sousa Santos, Amsterdam, May 18, 2003. This was at the Transnational Institute (TNI). The TNI is just such a leftist think-tank, heavily engaged with the WSF. The presentation stimulated a lively and relevant exchange, during which one participant, a major thinker and activist within the GJ&SM, said, somewhat curtly, that since the poor already know who they are, she would continue to concentrate on analysing and critiquing the structures of domination. Another such person drew attention to the relevant practices of at least the early second-wave feminist movement. Yet other participants, whilst certainly challenging the speaker, repeatedly talked about academics providing a service to the movement. The discussion, in part, seemed to be illustrating understandings of knowledge, education and the movement itself, that the Sousa Santos project appears intended to surpass.

Despite considerable interest in this project, examination of materials, and glowing initial reports by both participants and those responsible, I have been unable to convince myself that these were a success. One reason is that, in its initial understanding of globalization and its impact on labour, the IFWEA seems to have accepted as its own parameters those of the Western-dominated international trade union institutions. Another is, simply, that the use of the internet here was not well thought out. In so far, however, as this represented a systematic effort to carry out an emancipatory distance-education project, that it has been at least internally evaluated, and that the project materials deal with such practical issues as budgetting, the experience deserves more serious attention. Relevant material can be found in print (International Study Circles 2000) and on the web http://www.ifwea.org. 19

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The last initiative is the most marginal in terms of recognition and power. This is less a specific project than the general orientation of a new feminist network, NextGENDERation (2003). NG is a Netherlands-based network of young feminists in academia, which appears to combine the enthusiasm of 1970s feminism with orientations and concerns of both post-modernism and, well, post-capitalism. What is of particular interest is its concentration on the transformation of the university itself:
The NextGENDERation network wants to stand for a type of feminist knowledge politics, deeply concerned with the democratisation of higher education. This concern relates to different, although interconnected, dimensions. The access to higher education, and the way in which power mechanisms such as gender, ethnicity and class structure this access on different levels (with horizontal segregation according to disciplines, and vertical segregation according to academic hierarchies), are of primary concern to us. The production of knowledge is a second dimension on which our attention is focused: the brands of critical and situated knowledges produced from feminist, anti-racist, post-colonial and antiheterosexist points of view have already began to transform the old curricula and canons. We are committed to continuing this transformation. Both of these dimensions are related to a vision of what the university, and higher education in general, stands for. From our feminist perspectives, we start from a critical distance towards the classic conception of the university as an ivory tower. At the same time, we don't buy into the current neo-liberal ideals of higher education as a training-place in function of the needs of the labour market. We are invested [sic] in a vision of the university as a place for the production of critical and socially relevant knowledge, and want to work towards that ideal in our specific historical time and space. Another university is possible!

In so far as many left intellectuals connected with the Forum consider their prime task to be telling others 1) what the other world is, and how to achieve it, 2) that they are the privileged persons or category to do so, it is refreshing to see these young feminists reminding us that changing the world begins in ones own backyard or workplace. These rapid sketches may give some impression of an academic fermentation either caused or stimulated by the Forum. The conclusion here must be that, after serious reflection on the rise and fall of post-1968 academic radicalism, we need to think of sites and forms of research and education that could survive the next equivalent of the neo-liberal backlash.

CONCLUSION: THE SECRET OF FIRE I am concerned about the future of the Forum process but not worried. Pandora

has opened her box, the genie is out of the lamp, the secret of fire for emancipatory movements is now an open one. This secret is not unrelated to that of Hans Magnus Enzensburger: it is to keep moving. In other words: a moment of stasis within a movement (institutionalisation, incorporation, bureaucratisation, collapse, regression)
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requires of activists that they make ready to move to its periphery, or to move beyond it, or to create a new movement to advance, again, the potential represented by the old movement during its emancipatory moment. Already in Florence, young libertarians were mumbling, discontentedly, Another Forum is Possible. This possibility is not only a matter of information and communication technology (which, remember, has yet to produce a computerised English/Spanish translation programme with an appropriate vocabulary). It may be the combination, precisely, of this with youthgiven that at least urban kids are growing up with mobile phones, playing arcade computer games, and therefore with an affinity for other computer technology (and a healthy disregard for attempts to coral such). For the rest, socially-engaged intellectuals will find themselves energised by: innovative social protest, and original analyses of the local-national-global dialectic in Argentina; by the belated appearance in Peru of a network, Raiz (Root), which clearly has some feeling that the WSF is more than an NGO jamboree; by the Kidz in the Kamp who were discussing under a tree, and with informal translation, how to ensure that the emancipatory and critical forces have more impact on the Forum process; by the struggle, against all odds, of the US ZNet people to mount Life after Capitalism, an event of post-capitalist proposition within the Forum; by the massive global anti-war demonstrations of February 15-16, 2003something that puzzled even radical specialists on the new social movements; by the increasing number of compaer@s, of various ages, identities, movements and sexual orientations, who believe that, in the construction of a meaningfully civil global society, transparency is not only the best policy but the only one.16

In an effort to ensure that this should be the case, I am collaborating with Anita Anand, Jai Sen and Arturo Escobar on a collection, with the working title Are Other Worlds Possible? The Past, Present and Futures of the World Social Forum. Additional contributors include a number of people mentioned in this paper, such as Nikhil Anand, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Teivo Teivainen, and Gina Vargas, as well as many others. It is hoped to publish this in New Delhi in December 2003, one month or so before WSF4 in Mumbai/Bombay. Contact address: Anita Anand at anandanita@vsnl.com. 21

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RESOURCES Bibliography Aguiton, Christophe (2001) Le monde nous appartient (The World Belongs to Us). Paris: Plon. 251 pp. Anand, Anita, Arturo Escobar, Jai Sen and Peter Waterman [eds] (forthcoming) Are Other Worlds Possible? The Past, Present, and Futures of the World Social Forum. New Delhi: Viveka. Anand, Nikhil (2003) Bound to Mobility? Identity and Purpose at the World Social Forum. (Draft). nikhil.anand@yale.edu. Anheier, Helmut, Marlies Glasius and Mary Kaldor [eds] (2001) Global Civil Society Yearbook 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 360 pp. Cardon, Domininique and Fabien Granjon (2003) The Alter-Globalisation Movement and the Internet (Jane Holister, Coorditrad volunteer translator), Sand in the WheelsATTAC Weekly Newsletter, 19 February 2003. Enzensberger, Hans Magnus 1976 (1970). Constituents of a Theory of the Media, in: Raids and Reconstructions: Essays in Politics, Crime and Culture. London: Pluto, pp. 20-53. Eschle, Catherine (2002) Engendering Global Democracy in: International Feminist Journal of Politics, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 315-41. Escobar, Arturo (2003) Other Worlds Are (already) Possible: Cyber-Internationalism and Post-Capitalist Cultures. Draft Notes for the Cyberspace Panel, Life after Capitalism Programme, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January 23-8, www.zmag.org/lac.htm. Escobar, Arturo (forthcoming) Actors, Networks, and New Knowledge Producers: Social Movements and the Paradigmatic Transition in the Sciences, in: Boaventura de Sousa Santos [ed], Para Alm das Guerras da Cincia: Um Discurso sobre as Cincias Revisitado. Porto: Afrontamento. Fisher, William and Thomas Ponniah [eds] (2003) Another World is Possible: Popular Alternatives to Globalisation at the World Social Forum. London/New York/Nova Scotia/Capetown: Zed/Fernwood/Sird/David Philip, p. 364. Glasius, Marlies, Mary Kaldor and Helmut Anheier [eds] (2002) Global Civil Society 2002. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 360-404.

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Grau, Elena and Perdo Ibarra [eds] (2001) Anuario de Movimientos Sociales: Participando en la red. (Participating in the Network), Barcelona: Icaria, p. 303. International Study Circles. A Worker Educators Manual for International Study Circles. Manchester: International Federation of Worker Education Associations, http://www.ifwea.org/isc/manual.html. Jain, Devaki (2003) The Empire Strikes Back: A Report on the Asian Social Forum in: Economic and Political Weekly, January 11, pp. 99-100. Klein, Naomi (2001) A Fete for the End of the End of History in: The Nation (New York), March 19. La Vie/Le Monde (2003) Porto Alegre 2003: A Citizens Planet in: La Vie/Le Monde (Paris), pp. 14-19. Lagunes, Luca (2003) Mujeres demandan representacin equitativa en el FSM (Women Demand Equal Representation in the WSF in: Mujeres Hoy, 23 January. http://www.mujereshoy.com/secciones/199.shtml. Munck, Ronaldo (2002) Debating Globalisation and its Discontents. Liverpool: Department of Sociology, 18 pp. NextGENDERation (2003) The NextGENDERation Network, NextGENDERation (Utrecht, Netherlands), 4 pp. http://www.nextgenderation.let.uu.nl/. Ode (2003) Another World is Possible: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the World Social Forum in: Ode: The Magazine to Change Your World. (Rotterdam). 16-page insert. Ross, Stephanie (2003) Is This What Democracy Looks Like? The Politics of the Anti-Globalization Movement, in: Socialist Register 2003. London and New York: Merlin and Monthly Review Press. Sen, Jai (2003a) The Long March to Another World: Porto AlegreHyderabad Porto Alegre. Reflections on the Past Year of the World Social Forum Processin India and Internationally (Summary). Two, Three, Many New Social Forums?, TransnationalAlternativ@s, No. 0. pp. www.tni.org.tat. Sen, Jai (2003b) The WSF as Logo; The WSF as Commons. Take a Moment to Reflect on What is Happening in the World Social Forum. Email received 26 May. Social Movements World Network. (2003) http://www.movsoc.org/htm/social_movements _meetings.htm.

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Sousa Santos, Boaventura de (2003a) The World Social Forum: Toward a CounterHegemonic Globalisation. First Draft, Presented to the International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Dallas, March, 2003. http://www. ces.fe.uc.pt/bss/fsm.php. Sousa Santos, Boaventura de (2003b) The Popular University of Social Movements: To Educate Activists and Leaders of Social Movements, as web as Social Scientists/Scholars Concerned with the Study of Social Change. Proposal for Discussion.email January 12. bsantos@sonata.fe.uc.pt; bsantos@facstaff.wisc.edu. Teivainen, Teivo (2003) The World Social Forum: Arena or Actor?. Paper Presented at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Meeting, Dallas, 28 March 2003. 16 pp. Vargas, Gina (2003) Informe del seminario de sistematizacin del Foro Social Mundial, Rio, 21 a 23 de mayo (Report of the Seminar on the Systematisation of the World Social Forum, Rio, May 23), email received, May 29). Weekes. Anna (2002) Barometer of Resistance in: Khanya: A Journal for Activists. no. 1, August, pp. 29-36. Waterman, Peter [guest editor] (2003a) Two, Three, Many New Social Forums?, Special Issue, TransnationalAlternativ@s, (Transnational Institute, Amsterdam), no. 0. www.tni.org.tat. Waterman, Peter (2003b) Second Thoughts on The Third World Social Forum: Place, Space and the Reinvention of Social Emancipation on a Global Scale. Unpublished Draft. Waterman, Peter (2003c) From Decent Work to The Liberation of Time from Work: Some Reflections on Work after Capitalism. For the Panel on Work, Life after Capitalism Programme, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January 23-8, 2003, http://www.zmag.org/watermanwork.htm. Waterman, Peter (2003d) Notes on Via Campesina http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GloSoDia/files/WATERMANIA/. Waterman, Peter (forthcoming) Women, Workers, WSF and WWW in the Civilising of Global Society (review article) to be published in: International Feminist Review of Politics. Zibechi, Ral (2003) Los movimientos sociales latinoamericanos: Tendencias y desafios in: Observatorio Social de America Latina, no. 9, January, pp. 185-8.

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Audio-Visuals Cotidiano Mujer/CFMEA (2003) Tu boca fundamental contra los fundamentalismos. (Your Mouth is Fundamental against Fundamentalism). Flash Programme. Articulacin Feminista Marcosur. www.cotidianomujer.org.uy. OSAL/CLACSO (2002) America Latina en Movimiento. Video. Spanish. 14 mins. PAL N. Buenos Aires: Observatorio Social de Amrica Latina.

http://osal.clacso.org. Social Watch (2003) The Citizens Report on the Quality of Life in the World. CDRom. Multi-media. Montevideo: Social Watch. socwatch@socialwatch.org. www.socialwatch.org. Vision Machine (2002) The Globalisation Tapes. Video. English. 71 mins. PAL. London: Vision Machine/International Union of Food and Agricultural Workers/Independent Plantation Workers Union of Sumatra (Indonesia).

visionmachine@unreal.at. Walger, Eduardo (2002) El pensamiento critico a comienzos del siglo XXI: Un documental de Eduardo Walger. Buenos Aires: Coop. De Trab. Videola Ltda. www.conlamismared.com.ar. NTSC, Eng/Spa.

Websites and lists Call of Social Movements http://www.movsoc.org/htm/social moments_meetings.htm. Choike www.choike.org/links/about/index.html. Ciranda News Service http://www.ciranda.net/. CLACSO http://www.clacso.org/wwwclacso/espanol/html/fprincipal.html Focus on the Global South focus-on-trade@yahoogroups.com Global Civil Society Yearbook http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Yearbook/ Hub/Inventati List http://www.inventati.org/mailman/listinfo/hub Life after Capitalism, Zmag/Znet www.zmag.org/lac.htm Network Institute for Global Democratisation http://www.nigd.org/ Next GENDERation,http://www.nextgenderation.let.uu.nl/ North American Congress on Latin America http://www.nacla.org/ Open Democracy http://www.opendemocracy.net/home/index.jsp OSAL http://osal.clacso.org/ Peoples Global Action www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/ free/wsf/ Radio Fire www.fire.or.cr
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Raiz, Peru http://www.iespana.es/movimiento-raiz/www.tni.org.tat Reinventing Social Emancipation http://www.ces.fe.uc.pt/emancipa/en/index.html The Commoner http://www.commoner.org.uk/ Voice of the Turtle http://www.voiceoftheturtle.org/ Web Community of Social Movements/Comunidad Web de Movimientos Sociales http://movimientos.org/ WSF International Committee Consultation http://www.delibera.info/fsm2003ci/GB/ WSF http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/home.asp WSFitself WSFitself@yahoogrupos.com.br

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Bibliography
Selected Bibliography Online (2001-9)
2001 Waterman, Peter. 2001. Trade Union Internationalism in the Age of Seattle, in Peter Waterman and Jane Wills (eds), Place, Space and the New Internationalisms, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, Vol. 33, No 1, pp. 312-36. http://www.geog.psu.edu/courses/geog497labor/Readings/Waterman2001_Trade_ Union_Internationalism.pdf 2002 Waterman, Peter. 2002. 'International Labour 2001: A Re-View' (A response to Eric Lee). Workers Online(Australia). No. 124, February 15. http://workers.labor.net.au/124/letters2_two.html Waterman, Peter. 2002. Making a Mess Abroad: The Foreign Aid Policy of the Decidedly Internationalist AFL-CIO. [Complete 2002 paper]. http://www.choike.org/documentos/afl_cio_2002.pdf 2003 Waterman, Peter. 2003. The Excessively Non-Communist Manifesto of George Monbiot. http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/Monbiot%20Review%20041003.pdf Waterman, Peter. 2003. The Liberation of Time from Work: Some Reflections on Work After Capitalism, Paper for Life after Capitalism Programme, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January. http://www.zmag.org/watermanwork.htm Waterman, Peter. 2003. Harmanising the Workers of the World: Questioning a 'Classical and Simple' Understanding of the Working Class in the Face of a Complex Global Justice and Solidarity Movement, http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,11,491, http://www.signsofthetimes.org.uk/ Waterman, Peter. 2003. Omnia Sint Communia: A New/Old Slogan for International Labour and Labour Internationalism, Contribution to a Workshop on 'The Commons and Communities: A Strategic Alternative to the State-Market Nexus', European Social Forum, Florence, Italy, 7-10 November, 2002. http://www.commoner.org.uk/. Waterman, Peter. 2003. Cyberspace after Capitalism: Some Propositions on CyberUtopianism without Cyber-Illusionism, Life after Capitalism Panel, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January. http://www.zmag.org/lac/watermancyber.htm.

Waterman, Peter. 2003. The Liberation of Time from Work: Some Reflections on Work After Capitalism, Paper for Life after Capitalism Programme, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January. http://www.zmag.org/watermanwork.htm Waterman, Peter. 2003. Proposal/invitation to sponsor an international labour event at the 4th World Social Forum, India, 2004: Does a Globalised Capitalism Require a New International Social Movement Unionism? http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/wipo/seattle/bombay/waterman.html 2004 Waterman, Peter. 2004. The Forward March of Labour Recommenced? Reflections on an Emancipatory Labour Internationalism and Emancipatory International Labour Studies, http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/gewerkschaft/smu/forwardmarch.html#anm, Waterman, Peter. 2004. Ronaldo Munck, Labour and Globalisation: Results and Prospects: A Review. http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,11,1110 Waterman, Peter. 2004. An Enfant Terrible of International Communism: A Review. http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/files/Sean-BIO.pdf Waterman, Peter. 2004. The International Labour Movement Between Geneva, Brussels, Seattle/Porto Alegre and Utopia. New Politics, No. 36. http://www.commoner.org.uk/watermanlabstud.htm Waterman, Peter. 2004. Jai Sen, Anita Anand, Arturo Escobar and Peter Waterman (eds). 2004. The World Social Forum: Challenging Empires. New Delhi: Viveka. C. 400 pp. http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1557.htmlWaterman, Peter. 2004. Adventures of Emancipatory Labour Strategy as the New Global Movement Challenges International Unionism, Journal of World-Systems Research, Vol. 10, No. 1. http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol10/number1/pdf/jwsr-v10n1-waterman.pdf. Waterman, Peter. 2004. Emancipating Labour Internationalism, Centre for Global, International and Regional Studies, University of California Santa Cruz. http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewco. ntent.cgi?article=1030&context=cgirs Waterman, Peter. 2004. From Every Minority Beginning to Speak: To Every Majority That Needs to Listen, South African Labour Bulletin, Vol 28, No. 1, pp. 24-6. http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,11,1248 Waterman, Peter and Jill Timms. 2004. Trade Union Internationalism and A Global Civil Society in the Making, in Kaldor, Mary, Helmut Anheier and Marlies Glasius (eds), Global Civil Society 2004/5. London: Sage. Pp. 178-202. http://www.choike.org/documentos/waterman_unions.pdf Waterman, Peter. 2004. The Forward March of Labour Recommenced? Reflections on an Emancipatory Labour Internationalism and Emancipatory International Labour Studies, http://voiceoftheturtle.org/show_article.php?aid=364 Waterman, Peter. 2004. Ronaldo Munck, Labour and Globalisation: Results and Prospects: A Review. http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,11,1110 Waterman, Peter. 2004. Trade Unions, NGOs and Global Social Justice: Another Tale to Tell. (Review of Development in Practice Vol. 14, Nos 1-2, pp. 5-285: 1-19). http://www.nu.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,11,1260

2005 Waterman, Peter. 2005. The Old and the New in the GJ&SM: Institutional AllianceBuilding and Communicational Dialectics around the Forum Process (Draft). http://voiceoftheturtle.org/show_article.php?aid=425. Waterman, Peter and Dave Hollis. 2005. From Corporate Globalisation to a Global Social Solidarity Unionism. Draft Presentation for Works Council Seminar on Offshoring, Nuremberg, April 2005. 15 pp. http://www.netzwerkit.de/projekte/offshoring/nbg-prop030405 Waterman, Peter and Dave Hollis. 2005. Von der Globalisierung zu einer globalen, sozialen, solidarischen Gewerkschaftsbewegung. (From Globalisation to a Global, Social, Solidarity Union Movement). Waterman, Peter. 2005. Global Civil Society 2005/6: The Saga Continues. [Draft Report on a book launch, London, October 6, 2005]. http://www.nigd.org/docs/GCSSagaContinuesOctober2005PeterWaterman. Waterman, Peter. 2005. Global Civil Society: A Concept Worth Defining; A Terrain Worth Disputing, Paper to Conference, Kapitalismus Reloaded, organised by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung and others, Berlin, November 11-13. http://www.nigd.org/docs/GlobalCivilSocietyPeterWatermanNovember2005 Waterman, Peter. 2005. Los nuevos tejidos nerviosos del internacionalismo y la solidaridad. (Collection of eight essays, plus appendices, in Spanish). http://democraciaglobal.org/index.php?fp_verpub=true&idpub=75 Waterman, Peter. 2005. A Letter From Lima, http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?2,40,5,788. http://www.nigd.org/docs/ALetterFromLimaPeterWaterman Waterman, Peter. 2005. Developing a Crucial Social Movement Triangle (Part 1), The International Colloquium on Anti-Globalism, Amsab/Institute of Social History, Gent, Belgium, 09.09.05. http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes /3245.html 2006 Waterman, Peter. 2006. Hacia un movimiento para una Carta Laboral Global, Revista Cultura y Trabajo (Medelln), No. 69, October. http://www.ens.org.co/articulos.htm?x=20150756&cmd[111]=c-1-69 Waterman, Peter. 2006. Jai Sen and Peter Waterman, with Madhuresh Kumar, The World Social Movement Bibliography. Contributions to a Comprehensive Bibliography on the World Social Forum and the Global Solidarity and Justice Movement. December 2003. http://www.cacim.net/twiki/tikidownload_file.php?fileId=12. Waterman, Peter. 2006. Trade Union Internationalism and the Challenge of Globalisation: The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?, World Forum of Alternatives, http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/default.asp?3,28,10,2557 Waterman, Peter. 2006. Peregrinations of an (ex-) Pariah. www.nigd.org/nan/nan-docstore/10-2006/peregrinations-of-an-ex-pariah Waterman, Peter. 2006. Union Organisations, Social Movements and the Augean Stables of Global Governance, Warwick University, Centre for the Study of

Globalisation and Regionalisation, Working Paper 211/06. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/research/workingpapers/2006/wp21106. pdf. 2007 Waterman, Peter. 2007. Trade Unions, Labour and the World Social Forum, Terra Viva, January 2, www.ipsterraviva.net/tv/Nairobi/en/viewstory.asp?idnews=777. Waterman, Peter. 2007. Between Decent Work and the Emancipation of Labour: Labour at the World Social Forum, Nairobi, January 18-25, 2007. http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/5197.html. Waterman, Peter. 2007. Labour at the World Social Forum, Nairobi, January 20-25, 2007: Reviving Labour as a Sword of Justice. http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tikiread_article.php?articleId=334&page%20=1FirefoxHTML\Shell\Open\Command . Waterman, Peter. 2007. International Labour Studies (UK) in the Light of Social Justice and Solidarity (Globally) (Draft). http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/files/Waterman%20international%20labour.pdf Waterman, Peter. 2007. The Networked Internationalism of Labour's Others: A Suitable Case for Research, Conference of the International Association of Labour History Institutions, Linz, Austria, September 13-15, 2007. 42 pp. http://www.openspaceforum.net/twiki/tiki-download_file.php?fileId=49 2008 Waterman, Peter. 2008. Labour Still has to Catch up with the WSF. Terra Viva. (Special Issue: Global Day of Action, January 26). http://www.ipsterraviva.net/TV/wsf2008/ CurrentExtraItem.aspx?new=28. Waterman, Peter. 2008. El movimiento sindical debe recuperar terreno, Terra Viva (Numero Especial: Da Mundial de Accin). http://www.ipsterraviva.net/tv/wsf2008Esp/ CurrentExtraItem.aspx?new=32. Waterman, Peter. 2008. Social Movement Unionism in Question: Contribution to a Symposium, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal. DOI 10.1007/s10672-008-9093-z. http://www.springerlink.com/content/anv7wuqk2h57u30p/fulltext.pdf?page=1. Waterman, Peter. 2008. Needed: A Gobal Labour Charter Movement A Work in Progress, Revue Cosmopolis, No.4. http://agora.qc.ca/cosmopolis.nsf/ Articles/no2008_4_Needed__a_global_labour_charter_movement_a_work_i?Ope nDocument Waterman, Peter. 2008. Recovering Internationalism, Creating The New Global Solidarity: Labour, Social Movements and Emancipation in the 21st Century. 238pp. Online at Choike, http://www.choike.org/ nuevo_eng/informes/6439.html. Waterman, Peter. 2008. Workers of the World, Forgive Me!: A Londoner Who Worked for Communist Union International Remembers the Prague Spring and Soviet Summer of 1968. http://www.tni.org/archives/waterman/prague1968.pdf.

Waterman, Peter. 2008. 'Back in the (Ex-) USSR: A Red Internationalist visits a Red, White and Blue Russia, 2008': http://zope2.netzwerkit.de/RusRepLatest.pdf Waterman, Peter. 2008. 'Labour@ESF Malmo September 2008: Work and/or Life?, http://www.choike.org/documentos/labour,www.netzwerkit.de/projekte/ waterman/work-life. Waterman, Peter. 2008. 'Needed: A Global Labour Charter Movement' ESF Malmo 0908): http://www.netzwerkit.de/projekte/waterman/gc. 2009 Waterman, Peter. 2009. Labour at the 2009 Belem World Social Forum: Between an Ambiguous Past and an Uncertain Future, http://www.netzwerkit.de/projekte/waterman/belem209. http://www.ukzn.ac.za/ccs/files/LabourWSFBelem2009.pdf http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/shared/shared_cssgj/Documents/working_papers/ Waterman, Peter. 2009. Can the New Global Labour Studies Stimulate a New Global Labour Movement?, http://blog.choike.org/eng/peter-waterman/612. Waterman, Peter. 2009. Peter Waterman Responds to Trevor Ngwane, Martin Leggasick, and Other Respondents, http://www.amandlapublishers.co.za/specialfeatures/debating-left-strategies/169-debating-left-strategies-peter-waterman.