[NOTE: A slightly different version of this article appeared on
http://www.rabble.ca]

In what is perhaps global capitalism's ultimate annual general meeting,
the World Economic Forum (WEF) begins another round of high-powered
panels, cocktail parties, and networking sessions later this Thursday in
New York City. Over 3000 delegates -- including more than 1000 corporate
executives, as well as Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and
International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew -- will be meeting at the
super-posh Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in midtown Manhattan from January 31 to
February 4.

Dubbed "Fortress Waldorf" by security officials, the hotel will be
surrounded by concrete barricades protecting a five-block "frozen zone"
where entry will be restricted strictly to official delegates. City
officials have brushed off pre-Civil War statutes, dating back to 1845,
which ban the wearing of masks. And the thousands-strong New York Police
Department (NYPD) promises to arrest on-sight any groups of three or more
individuals that may dare to mask-up.

If delegates -- who are paying about US$ 25,000 for the privilege to
hobnob at the WEF -- decide to venture out into the streets of Manhattan,
they'll have their own roving security perimeter. According to the New
York Times: "When the conferees seek to navigate the streets outside the
Waldorf- Astoria, at least 100 of them will be passengers in new Audi
automobiles driven by armed retired and active law enforcement officers.
When they get to their cocktail parties or other soirees, armed guards
will be mingling among them."

The WEF, founded in the early 1970s, usually meets in the relative
isolation of the Swiss Alps, at the ski village of Davos. Funded by the
largest 1000 global corporations, the WEF aims to create an exclusive,
high-powered environment where "governments and business can freely and
productively discuss challenges and work together to mold solutions."
According to a WEF press release: "The unique atmosphere of the Annual
Meeting creates opportunities for the formation of global partnerships and
alliances."

It's also become the target of the global anti-capitalist protest
movement, that sees the WEF as a key driving force behind various "free
trade" treaties, the agenda of institutions like the World Trade
Organization and the International Monetary Fund, as well the policies of
an array of neo-liberal governments.

The past two Davos meetings have been significantly disrupted by
demonstrators, despite the logistical challenge of protesting at a ski
village (and even an official ban on protests by Swiss authorities last
year). Major mobilizations have also accompanied recent WEF regional
gatherings in Melbourne, Australia (September 2000), Cancun, Mexico
(February 2001) and Salzburg, Austria (July 2001).

The attacks of September 11 have provided the organizers of the WEF the
opportunity to display their own brand of capitalist camaraderie by moving
their Annual Meeting to New York in "a sign of global solidarity with the
people of New York." To oppose the WEF, in the minds of some WEF sponsors
and organizers, is to be somehow complicit with terrorism, or at least
disrespectful of the victims of September 11.

A recent New York Daily News editorial makes the case against protest and
protesters quite bluntly: "New Yorkers have suffered enough of late. We're
mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. You have a right to
free speech, but try to disrupt this town, and you'll get your
anti-globalization butts kicked."

The "solidarity" of the WEF, and the almost ritualized demonization of
protesters by the corporate media, outrages New Yorkers like David
Graeber, Christina Karatnytsky and Yvonne Liu. They are all organizers
with the Anti-Capitalist Convergence (ACC) and, each in their own way,
they consider the WEF's move to New York as nothing less than "hiding
behind our dead" (a slogan that has become common among New York's
progressive and radical activists since the WEF meeting was announced).

To the suggestion that protests might not be appropriate after September
11, Graeber responds, "The people laying the groundwork for this
mobilization [against the WEF] _are_ New Yorkers." He adds: "We're
outraged at the cynical manipulation of our grief by the WEF."

Karatnytsky, a librarian, rejects the attempts by the WEF to coopt the
horror of September 11: "I spent three days serving food at Ground Zero,
and I experienced that pain," she recounted this week. "People are trying
to separate protesters from the people who live in this city, and that's
purely self-serving."

Liu -- who also works with Students for Global Justice -- finds the WEF a
particularly appropriate target for the first major direct action style
protest in New York since September 11: "The WEF's obscurity makes it all
the more dangerous. People are not even aware of the role it plays in
determining global economic policy." Liu emphasizes that anti-WEF teach-in
and demo organizers will be underlining their own brand of solidarity --
particularly with resistance movements in the global South, and most
particularly with the ongoing anti-IMF and anti-government revolts in
Argentina.

Consistent with their strategy of "reflection" after September 11, most
reform-minded unions and NGOs are opting out of a major street-level
mobilization against the WEF -- and many of their leaders are opting to
travel to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. That means the
main street protest organizers in New York belong to cash-poor but dynamic
new grassroots organizations like the Another World is Possible (AWIP)
Coalition and the ACC.

Karatnytsky describes the ACC as "an antidote to the NGO-ism and
liberalism we often see at these protests -- watering down messages to try
to reform institutions that are inherently corrupt." She adds critically:
"The trend of the NGO, like the trend of the charity, is to perpetuate its
own existence."

Consistent with the ACC approach, Liu offers the following reminder:
"People should know that direct action is being planned. Now, more than
ever, it's important to be on the street."

In Graeber's view: "If radical direct action is still possible in New
York, that sends a message everywhere that the door that was opened in
Seattle remains open."

Paraphrasing a common Quebec City slogan, Karatnytsky can't resist adding:
"It didn't start in Seattle, and it won't stop in New York City!"

WEB LINKS:

New York City Independent Media Center: http://nyc.indymedia.org

The Anti-Capitalist Convergence (ACC) of New York: http://www.accnyc.org

Another World is Possible (AWIP) Coalition:
http://www.anotherworldispossible.com

World Economic Forum (official site): http://www.weforum.org

Interesting article: "Keepers of the Flame: As Moderate Groups Turn Down
the Heat, Anarchists Light a New Way for Dissent". Village Voice. Week of
January 30 - February 5, 2002:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0205/kaplan.php