Representing wide-ranging interests, thousands of protestors gathered in Washington, DC, last weekend in an effort to disrupt the meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. However, after the first day, it became clear that the protestors were failing in their efforts to stop the meetings and to get the two financial institutions to alter their policies.
There are several reasons for why the protests failed. First, the causes being supported were too diverse. Banners arguing against genetically-modified food were intermingled with calls to free Mumia, a convicted killer from Philadelphia, to free Tibet, and to help to the Kurdish people. Quite simply, the link bringing these disparate groups together was too flimsy in many cases.
One protestor, from neighboring Lebanon, said that he was protesting the way the World Bank and IMF influenced the foreign policies of other countries. The self-described anarchist asked to be identified as "AJO Speedwagon" and had spent Saturday night in jail. Wearing black clothes and donning a gas-mask in anticipation of tear-gas, he was doing his bit to advance the "peaceful" anarchist cause.
Second, the turnout was much smaller than desired. Organizers of the "Mobilization for Global Justice" had hoped for a turnout in the tens of thousands. District of Columbia and Federal security officials had planned for tens of thousands. Instead, the most generous estimates place the crowds at 12,000 people with 10, 000 being a more realistic figure. The rain on Monday did not help either, nor did the fact that many protestors were students or employed and had to return to school or work on Monday.
Fighting the world financial system is much harder than fighting for civil rights as there is no clear "right" nor "wrong." Concord resident Abby Youngblood was with the Vermont-based "Bread & Puppet Theater" and tried to explain the meaning behind their puppet. The group was denouncing the practice of "structural adjustment" by arguing that it damages indigenous agricultural practices.
Her point may be valid, but it was lost on the crowds that may have seen her display. Thus, the third point, the arguments being presented against the World Bank/IMF were too nuanced to be easily explained.
Next, the World Bank/IMF is not inherently evil. It was hard to take the protestors seriously when they were demonstrating against an organization whose avowed goal is to end poverty. While both institutions have come under attack for many decades now, the current leadership at both places have been doing a reportedly excellent job at reforming their respective organizations. Some protestors were decrying "global capitalism" in general, but at the same time filming their efforts with Japanese-built video cameras and wearing imported European sandals. The contradictions between what they were speaking and how they were actually living were too great.
Finally, the protests failed to achieve their stated goals because the security officials were prepared and executed their containment strategy well. In spite of a confrontation early Sunday morning in which police had to resort to "smokedragons," a tear-gas like crowd dispersant, the police exercised great restraint. Police vowed not to allow protestors to breach the fifty-square block perimeter established around the bank venues, but they allowed most anything else. Rather than inciting the crowds on to further violence, as appears to have been the case in Seattle, the police in Washington exercised restraint.
At one point during a tense stand-off between black-clad "anarchists" from the Blackhawk group and police, Police Chief Ramsey appeared and told both sides to "chill out." He walked up and down the lines for fifteen minutes calming his troops and assuring the protestors that gas would not be used as long as he was around and not wearing a gas-mask.
The World Bank/IMF protests were the sole subject of discussion across the District this week, perhaps a subtle victory for the group that had hoped to raise awareness, but the eclectic conglomeration of aging hippies, young internet-savvy environmentalists, and carefree high schoolers were unable to shut down the meetings. The youth of many of the protestors was the subject of many jokes. One youth was overheard saying to another, "I've never been to one of these before." The other replied, "I haven't either, but my dad told me about the ones he went to."
