Fwd (GLW): S11 spells trouble for Labor

["Alan Bradley" <alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following article appears in the current issue of Green Left Weekly
(http://www.greenleft.org.au):

S11 spells trouble for Labor
BY PETER BOYLE

Thousands of activists from the mass social movements of the last three
decades joined with younger activists in a massive show of strength at the
S11 blockade. It was a profoundly empowering event that revitalised faith
in ?people's power? in the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands more.
The legacy of two decades of retreat before the capitalist neo-liberal
offensive faded away in three glorious days of popular mobilisation.

Our victory was not just that our peaceful mass blockade caused some
disruption to a meeting of the world's corporate chiefs and their political
lap dogs, but in the massive erosion of the political legitimacy of the
capitalist ruling class and the institutions it uses to enforce its will.
We were also reminded that despite the great wealth and power of the ruling
class, we, the people, have power in our united action.

The Australian's political editor, Paul Kelly, argued that S11 is to the
Australian Labor Party what Pauline Hanson was to the Coalition. Labor, he
says, faces serious troubles on its left flank. The left has found a
movement it can unite on and seriously challenge the public credibility of
the leaders of the major parties.

The weeks of pressure, attempted political blackmail and manoeuvring by the
Bracks Labor government failed to prevent the trade union movement from
showing solidarity with the blockade. The ALP failed to do its traditional
job as ?minder? of progressive social movements. This function has been
eroded by the very public bipartisan support for corporate globalisation.
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We had a taste of this break from Labor's control in the anti-Pauline
Hanson protests, in the mass show of solidarity for the MUA when it came
under attack from Reith and the stevedoring bosses and in the mass
solidarity with East Timor last year.

This break has developed further since, especially in Victoria, where a
couple of powerful unions, the AMWU and CFMEU, are prepared to act more
independently of Labor than ever before. With them are thousands of
activists from other social movements and a non-Labor left that has grown
in confidence and influence.

The Labor politicians' attempts to attack the challenge from the left will
further hurt their dwindling public support. The Labor premiers of Victoria
and NSW looked like conservative lunatics, trying to label the peaceful and
democratic S11 movement ?bully boy fascism?. Police violence was the only
violence at S11, and it was a Labor government urging them on.

Federal Labor leader Kim Beazley chose to lie low on S11, as did most other
Labor politicians.

The job of defending the WEF and corporate globalisation was left to
Bracks, Peter Costello and John Howard. But the Labor and Coalition
arguments that corporate institutions like the WEF are on anything but a
mission to boost the profits of the giant corporations were met with public
derision. The corporate chiefs at the WEF meeting could only lamely concede
that they had to work harder at convincing the public that their objective
was to help the world's poor!

The spectacular failure of this bipartisan defence of corporate
globalisation echoed the exposure of bipartisan support for the toppled
Suharto dictatorship and bipartisan complicity in the 1975 Indonesian
invasion of East Timor.

S11 confirmed that, following Seattle, the legitimacy of institutions like
the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank
and the World Trade Organisation is under serious challenge in the streets.
This new movement is learning from its experience and is getting better
organised, even while keeping its political breadth and creative spirit.

There was a much greater influence of the organised left at S11 than at
Seattle, Washington, Philadelphia or Los Angeles, and its impact will be
noted by the broader anti-corporate movement as well as by its enemies. But
the anti-corporate globalisation movement has to become more than simply a
movement that waits to target the next high-profile summit of corporate
chiefs, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and similar institutions.

In Australia, the progressive political alliances that made S11 a success
will have to be built upon and find new projects that challenge the
bipartisan pro-corporate political agenda. The left has to grow to better
fill the vacuum left by the rightward moving ALP.

[Peter Boyle is a member of the National Executive of the Democratic
Socialist Party.]