Need for
people’s action for mighty resistance
Almost all authors, contribution
of whom are under discussion, agree on one point about the need
for developing mighty resistance to the disastrous process of
Globalization with imperial ends and or if they directly do not
ask people to resist, at least they mention the facts of
people’s struggle against it with high appreciation.
Stiglitz writes, ‘ These problems
(deprivation of the poor) are hardly new, - but the
increasingly vehement world wide reaction against the policies
that drive Globalization is a significant change. For decades,
the crisis of the poor in Africa and in developing countries in
other parts of the world have been largely unheard in the West.
Those who laboured in the developing countries knew something
was wrong when they saw financial crisis becoming more complex
and number of poor increasing. But they had no way to change the
rules or to influence the international financial institutions
that wrote them. Those who valued democratic process now
“conditionality” – the condition that international financial
leaders imposed in return for their assistance – undermined
national sovereignty. But until the proletarian come along
there was little hope for change and no outlets for
complaint. Some of the protesters went to excess; some
of the protesters were arguing for higher protectionist barrier
against the developing countries, which would have made their
plight even worse. But despite these problems, it is the trade
unionists, students, environmentalists, ordinary citizens –
marching in the streets of Prague, Seattle, Washington and Genoa
who have put the need for reform on the agenda of the developed
world.
‘Protestors see globalization in a
very different light than the Treasury Secretary of the United
States, or the finance and trade ministers of most of the
advanced industrial countries. The differences in views are so
great that one wonders, are the proletarians and the policy
makers talking about the same phenomena. Are they looking after
the same date? Are the visions of those in power so clouded by
special in particular interest.?’ (pp 8 9, emphasis added
except the emphasis on ‘some’ in the first para.).
Noami Klein writes about the
protests with a different style. After narrating certain
incidents how in Western countries people are fighting against
‘brands’ and even in some countries asking for ‘boycotts’ of
branded goods and eatables and in some countries how the local
people are fighting against environmental damage, and in Asian
countries like Indonesia, Philippines etc. how the sweetshop
workers are expressing their anger, she writes ,
‘There is no doubt that
anti-corporate activism walks a precarious line between
self-satisfied consumer rights and engaged political action.
Campaigners can exploit the profile that brand names bring to
human-rights and environmental issue, but they have to be
careful that their campaigner don’t degenerate into glorified
ethical shopping, ethical guides : how – to’s on saving the
world through boycotts and personal life style choices. Are
sneakers “ No Sweet”? your rugs “Rugmark”? Your soccer balls
“Child Free”? In your moisturizer “Cruelty Free”? your Cofee
“Fair Trade” some of these initiations have genuine merit, but
the challenges of a global labour market are too vast to be
defined – or limited – by our interests as consumers” (P 426)
She further mentioned with a
caution, ‘It took almost no time, for instance, for White House
Task Force on Sweetshops, set up in response to the Kathie
Giffard scandal, to become just another shopping exercise. Any
substantial diamonds for labour – law reform were immediately
hijacked by a new agenda! What provisions would U.S. companies
have to meet therefore they could sew. “No sweet” label on their
garments! The immediate priority was finding a quick and easy
way to protect the right of Westerners to buy branded good
without guilt. Tellingly, Bill Clinton; “No Sweet” labeling
initiative is modeled after the “Dalphin Safe” stamp on Cans of
tune, which reassures buyers that the much-loved dolphin was not
killed in the canning of the fish. What this proposal fails to
group is that the right of garment workers, unlike dolphins,
cannot be assured by symbol on a level, the equivalent of a best
before date; and that trying to do so represents nothing less
than wholesale privatization of their (and our) political right
…….’ (pp 428 – 29)
She further correctly notes, ‘the
United Nations Declaration of Human Rights already recognizes
the right to freedom of association, if restricting that right
became a condition of trade and environment, it would tranform
the free-trade zones overnight. If the workers in the zones had
the freedom to bargain for their right without living in fear of
crack down or immediate factory flight, the need for private
codes and independent monitors would virtually disappear …..’ (p
436).
This is a good working and
suggestion for action to relieve the sweatshop workers from the
deprivation of their basis right and rendering them victims of
corporate exploitation.
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