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People’s Movement And Alternative
Sukomal Sen, General Secretary, All India State Government
Employees’ Federation and General Secretary, Trade Unions
International of Public & Allied Employees
The Offensive of Imperialist Globalization
For the last one and half decades the world is witnessing the
disastrous result of imperialist-led neo-liberal globalization
on the common people of all capitalist countries. During these
last few years, the offensives of globalization on the working
people were further intensified. Now, World Bank, IMF & WTO are
putting enormous pressure on different countries particularly
the developing countries, for strictly following the notorious
formula of globalization.
During this period, the world has witnessed sharpening division
between the rich and poor countries and conspicuous inequality
in wealth and living standards between different countries – the
rich capitalist countries on the one side and the poorer
developing countries on the other. The former are getting richer
while the latter being rendered poorer. Besides, this
international inequality between nations, each nation is also
getting more sharply divided between two sections of the people,
one growing rich and richer everyday and the other sliding into
more and more poverty, hunger, unemployment, loss of jobs, lack
of basic facilities for human living, primary education, medical
care. Their destitution and impoverishment is increasing by each
passing day.
The Western imperialist countries are guilty of hypocrisy. They
have pushed the poor countries to eliminate trade barriers, but
kept up their own barriers, preventing developing countries from
exporting their agricultural products, thus depriving them from
desperately needed income from export. And in this respect
United States is one of the prime culprits. They are also guilty
of hypocrisy as the West has driven globalization agenda,
ensuring to garner disproportionate share of the benefit at
the expense of the developing world. It was not just that more
advanced industrial countries decline to open up their market
for the goods from the developing countries – for instance,
keeping their export quotas of multitude of goods from textiles
to sugar – while insisting that those countries open up their
market for the goods from the Western countries. It was not just
that the more advanced industrial countries continued to
subsidise agriculture, making it difficult for the developing
countries to compete, but insisting on the developing countries
to eliminate their subsidies for agriculture and industries.
Western countries’ Banks benefited from loosening of capital
market controls in Latin America and Asia while these regions
suffered from inflows of speculative hot money that comes into
and out of a country, often overnight, often without
understanding whether a currency is going to appreciate or
depreciate that had poured into the countries, then suddenly
reverse. The abrupt outflow of money left behind collapsed
currencies and weakened banking systems. The Uruguay Round
also strengthened intellectual property rights. American and
other Western drug companies could now stop drug companies in
India and Brazil from “stealing” their intellectual property.
But these drug companies in the developing world were making
these life-saving drugs available to their citizens at a
fraction of the price at which the drugs were sold by the
Western drug companies. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret
Thatcher preached free market ideology in the United States and
in the United Kingdom. The IMF and World Bank have become the
new missionary institutions, through which these ideas were
pushed on the reluctant poor countries that often badly needed
their loans and grants from the banks, then these two
institutions were joined to WTO which was formed in January,
1995 – resulting in the conclusion of the GATT negotiation.
The Prime Ministers, Finance Ministers of the Western Countries
and the international bureaucrats, the faceless symbols of the
world economic order are under attack every- where. The protests
at the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization in 1999
were a shock, since then the movement has grown stronger and
the fury has spread. Virtually every major meeting of the
International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization is now the scene of conflict and turmoil. The death
of a protestor in Genoa in 2001 was just the beginning of what
may be many more casualties in the war against globalization.
Riots and protest against the policies of and actions by
institutions of globalization are hardly new. For decades,
people in the developing world have rioted when the austerity
programmes imposed on their countries proved to be too harsh,
but their protests were largely unheard in the West. What is
new is the wave of protests in the developed countries as well
as the wave of protest globally everywhere.
India is one of the worst victims of this imperialist driven
neo-liberal globalization and along with the Indian workers,
employees community including government employees are also
joining the battle everywhere. This feature has to be further
accelerated as offensive of globalization in India is becoming
sharper.
The revolt like protest action and riots developed in Argentina
against the shivering crisis imposed upon them by their
government shamefully following the dictates of IMF and World
Bank. The vigorous protests and the changes in the Government
thereafter are pointer to the direction in which the
anti-globalization struggles are spearheading. The latest event
in Brazil, the biggest country in Latin America, occupying the
ninth place in the world economy has shown the right path to
the forces of anti-globalization struggle and the forces of
democracy and freedom. The recent Brazilian people’s electoral
verdict electing a leftist President defeating the rightist
government which was brazenly following the policies of
neo-liberal globalization, is the most significant and welcome
victory for the forces of anti-globalization and democracy and
freedom. In fact, globalization is undermining the sovereignty
of the nation with the domination of imperialist countries of
the West. Brazilian election was a sound rebuff to the attempt
of subjugation and undermining national sovereignty. Another
very inspiring international event was the militant mass upsurge
in Venezuela on 13 October 2002 which successfully resisted and
defeated the US imperialist coup and reinstalled President Ugo
Chavez to his presidential position. This is an unprecedented
bravery and determination of the people of any country to teach
the US imperialist and its lackeys in a country which dared to
dislodge a directly elected popular President who refused to
ditto US dictated policy.
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