March 16th, 2002By Naomi Klein Most of the news out of Argentina focuses on angry professionals who have lost access to their savings. The truth is that, in a country where half the population lives below the poverty line, the vast majority of the protests are simply attempts meet desperate needs for food, shelter and work. One of the symbols of this grassroots militancy is Emilio Ali, a leader of the "Piquetero" movement. The piqueteros are groups of unemployed workers whose hunger has driven them to find new ways of wining concessions from the state. In a reversal of the traditional picket line (they have no factories to close) the piqueteros block roadways into the cities, often for weeks at a time, stopping traffic and the transportation of goods. Politicians are forced to come to the road pickets and negotiate and the piqueteros regularly win basic unemployment compensation for their members, a right stripped away by decades of the IMF's "sound economic policies." Emilio Ali is from an extremely poor family in the upscale tourist city of Mar del Plata. A year and half ago, he led an occupation of a supermarket by piquetero families, many of them suffering from...

16 March, 2002

March 11th, 2002By Naomi Klein When the White House decided it was time to address the rising tides of anti-Americanism around the world, it didn't look to a career diplomat for help. Instead, in keeping with the Bush administration's philosophy that anything the public sector can do the private sector can do better, it hired one of a Madison Avenue's top brand managers. As Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Charlotte Beers' assignment was not to improve relations with other countries but rather to perform an overhaul of the U.S.'s image abroad. Beers had no previous diplomatic experience but she had held the top job at both the J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather ad agencies, and she's built brands for everything from dog food to power drills. Now she was being asked to work her magic on the greatest branding challenge of all: to sell the United States and its war on terrorism to an increasingly hostile world. The appointment of an ad woman to this post understandably raised some criticism, but Secretary of State Colin Powell shrugged it off. "There is nothing wrong with getting somebody who knows how to sell something. We are...

11 March, 2002

February 11th, 2002By Naomi Klein On the first day of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre Brazil, the hallways were buzzing with rumours of defections from the North. Top delegates were jumping ship from the World Economic Forum in New York and coming to Porto Alegre instead: a European prime minister, World Bank directors, even corporate executives. Some never showed up, others did. But debates raged nonetheless about what it all meant. Was it evidence of the Forum's new strength (it attracted some 60,000 participants, after all) or a sign of imminent danger? The World Social Forum was founded last year as an alternative to the annual gathering of the top 1,000 corporations, world leaders and opinion-maker who usually meet in Davos, Switzerland but this year met in New York City. But with these new high-powered arrivals, the WSF now risked turning from a clear alternative into a messy merger: teams of photographers trailed politicians; market researchers from PricewaterhouseCoopers trolled hotel lobbies, looking for opportunities to "dialogue"; students threw a cream pie at a French minister. It was much the same muddle in New York, with NGOs acting like corporations, corporations rebranding themselves as NGOs, and pretty much everyone...

11 February, 2002

December 19th, 2001By Naomi Klein Since the release of The Video, Osama bin Laden's every gesture, chuckle and word has been dissected. But with all the attention on bin Laden, his co-star in the video, identified in the official transcript only as "Shaykh," has received little scrutiny. Too bad, since no matter who he is (he is most commonly identified as the Saudi mujahedin Khaled al-Harbi), he offers a rare window into the psychology of men who think of mass murder as a great game. A theme that comes up repeatedly in bin Laden's guest's monologues is the idea that they are living in times as grand as those described in the Koran. This war, he observes, is like "in the days of the prophet Muhammad. Exactly like what's happening right now." He goes on to say that, "it will be similar to the early days of Al-Mujahedeen and Al-Ansar (similar to the early days of Islam)." And just in case we didn't get the picture: "it is the same, like the old days, such as Abu Bakr an Othman and Ali and others. In these days, in our times." It's easy to chalk up this nostalgia to the usual...

19 December, 2001

December 12th, 2001By Naomi Klein Last weekend, while crossing the border back to Ontario from Buffalo, our car was stopped by a customs officer. "What were you guys doing in the States?" he asked. "Do any shopping?" "Okay, have a great day." Nothing strange here, except for one detail: this man had a U.S. flag on his sleeve. He stopped every car before waving them on to Canadian border guards who repeated the process all over again. It felt like a glimpse into Fortress North America, a not so distant future in which U.S. security officers are the gatekeepers not just of the U.S. border but of the entire continent. Post September 11, many Canadians see some border integration as the unavoidable price of protecting our $700-billion annual trade relationship with the U.S. Exports now make up 43 per cent of Canada's GDP, up dramatically from 25 per cent a decade ago. Eighty seven per cent of those exports go directly to the U.S. With almost half of our economy now directly dependent on an open border, it's difficult to see how Canada can stand up to U.S. pressure. But as Monday's budget shows, Canadians are being asked to give...

12 December, 2001

November 21st, 2001By Naomi Klein On Saturday night, I found myself at a party honouring Nelson Mandela and raising money for his children's fund (I'm still trying to figure out how I ended there). It was a lovely affair and only a very rude person would have pointed out that the party was packed with many of the banking and mining executives who refused to pull their investments out of apartheid-run South Africa for decades. Mr. Mandela was in Canada this week to receive the highest honour my country has to offer: he was the second person in our history to be made an honorary citizen. So only someone with no sense of timing would have mentioned that, as the Liberal government was honouring Mr. Mandela, it is ramming through an anti-terrorism bill that would have sabotaged the anti-apartheid movement on several fronts had it been in place at the time. (Many other countries are passing similar laws.) The anti-apartheid movement here in Canada and elsewhere actively raised money for the African National Congress, which would easily have fit most anti-terrorism bills' sloppy definitions of a terrorist organization. Furthermore, anti-apartheid activists deliberately caused "serious disruption" to the activities of companies...

21 November, 2001

November 16th, 2001By Naomi Klein This weekend, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf asked the U.S. to show a little love in return for his cooperation. Specifically, he is fixated on some F-16 fighter jets, sold to Pakistan and then withheld because the country was developing nuclear weapons. It's the kind of back-scratching diplomacy we've come to expect since September 11: an aid package here, a loan there. And then there are all the smarmy understandings that the U.S. will look the other way when the Chinese or Indonesian militaries beat back liberation movements within their borders, since all state repression seems to be part of the war on terrorism now. Are these back-room pay-offs and gentlemen's agreements really going to be the only legacies of September 11, or is there more the world community could be demanding during this, the most multilateral of moments? Facing an enemy that respects no border, the Bush administration has made many demands of the world community since September 11: military support, intelligence information, police force cooperation, and the collaboration of financial institutions. It has asked for the harmonization of border controls and of airport security. It has requested land bases, air space, and asked its...

16 November, 2001

November 7th, 2001By Naomi Klein What do you call someone who believes so firmly in the promise of salvation through a set of rigid rules that they are willing to risk their own life to spread those rules? A religious fanatic? A holy warrior? How about a U.S. trade negotiator. On Friday, the World Trade Organization begins its meeting in Doha, Qatar. According to U.S. security briefings, there is reason to believe that al Qaeda, which has plenty of fans in the Gulf state, has managed to get some of its operatives into the country, including an explosives specialist. Some terrorists may even have managed to infiltrate the Qatari military. Given these threats, you might think that the U.S. and WTO would have canceled their meeting. But not these true believers. Instead, U.S. delegates have been be kitted out with gas masks, two-way radios and drugs to combat bio-terrorism (Canadian delegates have been issued the drugs as well). As negotiators wrangle over agricultural subsidies, softwood lumber and pharmaceutical patents, helicopters will be waiting to whisk U.S. delegates onto aircraft carriers parked in the Persian Gulf, ready for a Batman style getaway. It's safe to say that Doha isn't your average...

07 November, 2001

October 24th, 2001By Naomi Klein Just hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, Republican Representative Curt Weldon went on CNN and announced that he didn't want to hear anyone talking about funding for schools or hospitals. From here on it, it was all about spies, bombs and other manly things. "The first priority of the U.S. government is not education, it is not health care, it is the defense and protection of U.S. citizens," he said, adding, later: "I'm a teacher married to a nurse—none of that matters today." But now it turns out that those frivolous social services matter a great deal. What is making the U.S. most vulnerable to terrorist networks is not a depleted weapons arsenal but its starved, devalued and crumbling public sector. The new battle fields are not just the Pentagon, but also the post office; not just military intelligence, but also training for doctors and nurses; not a sexy new missile defense shield, but the boring old Food and Drug Administration. It has become fashionable to wryly observe that the terrorists use the West's technologies as weapons against itself: planes, email, cell phones. But as fears of bioterrorism...

24 October, 2001