From: Ranjit Ranjith <ranjit.ranjit@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 8:56 AM
Subject: The People's Movement has been Hijacked ( BEWARE OF FORD
FUNDED DALIT STOOGES )
To:
http://www.countercurrents.org/chossudovsky260910.htm
"Manufacturing Dissent": The Anti-Globalization Movement
Is Funded By The Corporate Elites
By Michel Chossudovsky
26 September , 2010
Global Research
The People's Movement has been Hijacked
"Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as "making the
World safe for capitalism", reducing social tensions by helping to
comfort the afflicted, provide safety valves for the angry, and
improve the functioning of government (McGeorge Bundy, National
Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson
(1961-1966), President of the Ford Foundation, (1966-1979))
"By providing the funding and the policy framework to many concerned
and dedicated people working within the non-profit sector, the ruling
class is able to co-opt leadership from grassroots communities, ...
and is able to make the funding, accounting, and evaluation components
of the work so time consuming and onerous that social justice work is
virtually impossible under these conditions" (Paul Kivel, You Call
this Democracy, Who Benefits, Who Pays and Who Really Decides, 2004,
p. 122 )
"Under the New World Order, the ritual of inviting "civil society"
leaders into the inner circles of power --while simultaneously
repressing the rank and file-- serves several important functions.
First, it says to the World that the critics of globalization "must
make concessions" to earn the right to mingle. Second, it conveys the
illusion that while the global elites should --under what is
euphemistically called democracy-- be subject to criticism, they
nonetheless rule legitimately. And third, it says "there is no
alternative" to globalization: fundamental change is not possible and
the most we can hope is to engage with these rulers in an ineffective
"give and take".
While the "Globalizers" may adopt a few progressive phrases to
demonstrate they have good intentions, their fundamental goals are not
challenged. And what this "civil society mingling" does is to
reinforce the clutch of the corporate establishment while weakening
and dividing the protest movement. An understanding of this process of
co-optation is important, because tens of thousands of the most
principled young people in Seattle, Prague and Quebec City [1999-2001]
are involved in the anti-globalization protests because they reject
the notion that money is everything, because they reject the
impoverishment of millions and the destruction of fragile Earth so
that a few may get richer.
This rank and file and some of their leaders as well, are to be
applauded. But we need to go further. We need to challenge the right
of the "Globalizers" to rule. This requires that we rethink the
strategy of protest. Can we move to a higher plane, by launching mass
movements in our respective countries, movements that bring the
message of what globalization is doing, to ordinary people? For they
are the force that must be mobilized to challenge those who plunder
the Globe." (Michel Chossudovsky, The Quebec Wall, April 2001)
The term "manufacturing consent" was initially coined by Edward S
Herman and Noam Chomsky.
"Manufacturing consent" describes a propaganda model used by the
corporate media to sway public opinion and "inculcate individuals with
values and beliefs...":
The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and
symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse,
entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values,
beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the
institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of
concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill
this role requires systematic propaganda. (Manufacturing Consent by
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky)
"Manufacturing consent" implies manipulating and shaping public
opinion. It establishes conformity and acceptance to authority and
social hierarchy. It seeks compliance to an established social order.
"Manufacturing consent" describes the submission of public opinion to
the mainstream media narrative, to its lies and fabrications.
"Manufacturing dissent"
In this article, we focus on a related concept, namely the process of
"manufacturing dissent" (rather than "consent"), which plays a
decisive role in serving the interests of the ruling class.
Under contemporary capitalism, the illusion of democracy must prevail.
It is in the interest of the corporate elites to accept dissent and
protest as a feature of the system inasmuch as they do not threaten
the established social order. The purpose is not to repress dissent,
but, on the contrary, to shape and mould the protest movement, to set
the outer limits of dissent.
To maintain their legitimacy, the economic elites favor limited and
controlled forms of opposition, with a view to preventing the
development of radical forms of protest, which might shake the very
foundations and institutions of global capitalism. In other words,
"manufacturing dissent" acts as a "safety valve", which protects and
sustains the New World Order.
To be effective, however, the process of "manufacturing dissent" must
be carefully regulated and monitored by those who are the object of
the protest movement.
"Funding Dissent"
How is the process of manufacturing dissent achieved?
Essentially by "funding dissent", namely by channelling financial
resources from those who are the object of the protest movement to
those who are involved in organizing the protest movement.
Co-optation is not limited to buying the favors of politicians. The
economic elites --which control major foundations-- also oversee the
funding of numerous NGOs and civil society organizations, which
historically have been involved in the protest movement against the
established economic and social order. The programs of many NGOs and
people's movements rely heavily on both public as well as private
funding agencies including the Ford, Rockefeller, McCarthy
foundations, among others.
The anti-globalization movement is opposed to Wall Street and the
Texas oil giants controlled by Rockefeller, et al. Yet the foundations
and charities of Rockefeller et al will generously fund progressive
anti-capitalist networks as well as environmentalists (opposed to Big
Oil) with a view to ultimately overseeing and shaping their various
activities.
The mechanisms of "manufacturing dissent" require a manipulative
environment, a process of arm-twisting and subtle cooptation of
individuals within progressive organizations, including anti-war
coalitions, environmentalists and the anti-globalization movement.
Whereas the mainstream media "manufactures consent", the complex
network of NGOs (including segments of the alternative media) are used
by the corporate elites to mould and manipulate the protest movement.
Following the deregulation of the global financial system in the 1990s
and the rapid enrichment of the financial establishment, funding
through foundations and charities has skyrocketed. In a bitter irony,
part of the fraudulent financial gains on Wall Street in recent years
have been recycled to the elites' tax exempt foundations and
charities. These windfall financial gains have not only been used to
buy out politicians, they have also been channelled to NGOs, research
institutes, community centres, church groups, environmentalists,
alternative media, human rights groups, etc. "Manufactured dissent"
also applies to "corporate left" and "progressive media" funded by
NGOs or directly by the foundations.
The inner objective is to "manufacture dissent" and establish the
boundaries of a "politically correct" opposition. In turn, many NGOs
are infiltrated by informants often acting on behalf of western
intelligence agencies. Moreover, an increasingly large segment of the
progressive alternative news media on the internet has become
dependent on funding from corporate foundations and charities.
Piecemeal Activism
The objective of the corporate elites has been to fragment the
people's movement into a vast "do it yourself" mosaic. War and
globalization are no longer in the forefront of civil society
activism. Activism tends to be piecemeal. There is no integrated
anti-globalization anti-war movement. The economic crisis is not seen
as having a relationship to the US led war.
Dissent has been compartmentalized. Separate "issue oriented" protest
movements (e.g. environment, anti-globalization, peace, women's
rights, climate change) are encouraged and generously funded as
opposed to a cohesive mass movement. This mosaic was already prevalent
in the counter G7 summits and People's Summits of the 1990s.
The Anti-Globalization Movement
The Seattle 1999 counter-summit is invariably upheld as a triumph for
the anti-globalization movement: "a historic coalition of activists
shut down the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, the spark
that ignited a global anti-corporate movement." (See Naomi Klein,
Copenhagen: Seattle Grows Up, The Nation, November 13, 2009).
Seattle was an indeed an important crossroads in the history of the
mass movement. Over 50,000 people from diverse backgrounds, civil
society organizations, human rights, labor unions, environmentalists
had come together in a common pursuit. Their goal was to forecefully
dismantle the neoliberal agenda including its institutional base.
But Seattle also marked a major reversal. With mounting dissent from
all sectors of society, the official WTO Summit desperately needed the
token participation of civil society leaders "on the inside", to give
the appearance of being "democratic" on the outside.
While thousands of people had converged on Seattle, what occurred
behind the scenes was a de facto victory for neoliberalism. A handful
of civil society organizations, formally opposed the WTO had
contributed to legitimizing the WTO's global trading architecture.
Instead of challenging the WTO as an an illegal intergovernmental
body, they agreed to a pre-summit dialogue with the WTO and Western
governments. "Accredited NGO participants were invited to mingle in a
friendly environment with ambassadors, trade ministers and Wall Street
tycoons at several of the official events including the numerous
cocktail parties and receptions." (Michel Chossudovsky, Seattle and
Beyond: Disarming the New World Order , Covert Action Quarterly,
November 1999, See Ten Years Ago: "Manufacturing Dissent" in Seattle).
The hidden agenda was to weaken and divide the protest movement and
orient the anti-globalization movement into areas that would not
directly threaten the interests of the business establishment.
Funded by private foundations (including Ford, Rockefeller,
Rockefeller Brothers, Charles Stewart Mott, The Foundation for Deep
Ecology), these "accredited" civil society organizations had
positioned themselves as lobby groups, acting formally on behalf of
the people's movement. Led by prominent and committed activists, their
hands were tied. They ultimately contributed (unwittingly) to
weakening the anti-globalization movement by accepting the legitimacy
of what was essentially an illegal organization. (The 1994 Marrakech
Summit agreement which led to the creation of the WTO on January 1,
1995). (Ibid)
The NGO leaders were fully aware as to where the money was coming
from. Yet within the US and European NGO community, the foundations
and charities are considered to be independent philanthropic bodies,
separate from the corporations; namely the Rockefeller Brothers
Foundation, for instance, is considered to be separate and distinct
from the Rockefeller family empire of banks and oil companies.
With salaries and operating expenses depending on private foundations,
it became an accepted routine: In a twisted logic, the battle against
corporate capitalism was to be be fought using the funds from the tax
exempt foundations owned by corporate capitalism.
The NGOs were caught in a straightjacket; their very existence
depended on the foundations. Their activities were closely monitored.
In a twisted logic, the very nature of anti-capitalist activism was
indirectly controlled by the capitalists through their independent
foundations.
"Progressive Watchdogs"
In this evolving saga, the corporate elites whose interests are duly
served by the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, will readily fund
(through their various foundations and charities) organizations which
are at the forefront of the protest movement against the WTO and the
Washington based international financial institutions.
Supported by foundation money, various "watchdogs" were set up by the
NGOs to monitor the implementation of neoliberal policies, without
however raising the broader issue of how the Bretton Woods twins and
the WTO, through their policies, had contributed to the impoverishment
of millions of people.
The Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Network (SAPRIN) was
established by Development Gap, a USAID and World Bank funded NGO
based in Washington DC.
Amply documented, the imposition of the IMF-World Bank Structural
Adjustment Program (SAP) on developing countries constitutes a blatant
form of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states on
behalf of creditor institutions.
Instead of challenging the legitimacy of the IMF-World Bank's "deadly
economic medicine", SAPRIN's core organization sought to establish a
participatory role for the NGOs, working hand in glove with USAID and
the World Bank. The objective was to give a "human face" to the
neoliberal policy agenda, rather than reject the IMF-World Bank policy
framework outright:
"SAPRIN is the global civil-society network that took its name from
the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review Initiative (SAPRI),
which it launched with the World Bank and its president, Jim
Wolfensohn, in 1997.
SAPRI is designed as a tripartite exercise to bring together
organizations of civil society, their governments and the World Bank
in a joint review of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) and an
exploration of new policy options. It is legitimizing an active role
for civil society in economic decision-making, as it is designed to
indicate areas in which changes in economic policies and in the
economic-policymaking process are required.
(http://www.saprin.org/overview.htm SAPRIN website, emphasis added)
Similarly, The Trade Observatory (formerly WTO Watch), operating out
of Geneva, is a project of the Minneapolis based Institute for
Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), which is generously funded by
Ford, Rockefeller, Charles Stewart Mott among others. (see Table 1
below).
The Trade Observatory has a mandate to monitor the World Trade
Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA and
the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). (IATP, About
Trade Observatory, accessed September 2010).
The Trade Observatory is also to develop data and information as well
as foster "governance" and "accountability". Accountability to the
victims of WTO policies or accountability to the protagonists of
neoliberal reforms?
The Trade Observatory watchdog functions does not in any way threaten
the WTO. Quite the opposite: the legitimacy of the trade organizations
and agreements are never questioned.
Table 1 Minneapolis Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP)
largest donors
(for complete list click here)
Ford Foundation $2,612,500.00 1994 – 2006
Rockefeller Brothers Fund $2,320,000.00 1995 – 2005
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation $1,391,000.00 1994 – 2005
McKnight Foundation $1,056,600.00 1995 – 2005
Joyce Foundation $748,000.00 1996 – 2004
Bush Foundation $610,000.00 2001 – 2006
Bauman Family Foundation $600,000.00 1994 – 2006
Great Lakes Protection Fund $580,000.00 1995 – 2000
John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation $554,100.00 1991 – 2003
John Merck Fund $490,000.00 1992 – 2003
Harold K. Hochschild Foundation $486,600.00 1997 – 2005
Foundation for Deep Ecology $417,500.00 1991 – 2001
Jennifer Altman Foundation $366,500.00 1992 – 2001
Rockefeller Foundation $344,134.00 2000 – 2004
Soruce: http://activistcash.com/organization_financials.cfm/o/16-institute-for-agriculture-and-trade-policy
The World Economic Forum. "All Roads Lead to Davos"
The people's movement has been hijacked. Selected intellectuals, trade
union executives, and the leaders of civil society organizations
(including Oxfam, Amnesty International, Greenpeace) are routinely
invited to the Davos World Economic Forum, where they mingle with the
World's most powerful economic and political actors. This mingling of
the World's corporate elites with hand-picked "progressives" is part
of the ritual underlying the process of "manufacturing dissent".
The ploy is to selectively handpick civil society leaders "whom we can
trust" and integrate them into a "dialogue", cut them off from their
rank and file, make them feel that they are "global citizens" acting
on behalf of their fellow workers but make them act in a way which
serves the interests of the corporate establishment:
"The participation of NGOs in the Annual Meeting in Davos is evidence
of the fact that [we] purposely seek to integrate a broad spectrum of
the major stakeholders in society in ... defining and advancing the
global agenda ... We believe the [Davos] World Economic Forum provides
the business community with the ideal framework for engaging in
collaborative efforts with the other principal stakeholders [NGOs] of
the global economy to "improve the state of the world," which is the
Forum's mission. (World Economic Forum, Press Release 5 January 2001)
The WEF does not represent the broader business community. It is an
elitist gathering: Its members are giant global corporations (with a
minimum $5 billion annual turnover). The selected non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) are viewed as partner "stakeholders" as well as a
convenient "mouthpiece for the voiceless who are often left out of
decision-making processes." (World Economic Forum - Non-Governmental
Organizations, 2010)
"They [the NGOs] play a variety of roles in partnering with the Forum
to improve the state of the world, including serving as a bridge
between business, government and civil society, connecting the policy
makers to the grassroots, bringing practical solutions to the
table..." (Ibid)
Civil society "partnering" with global corporations on behalf of "the
voiceless", who are "left out"?
Trade union executives are also co-opted to the detriment of workers'
rights. The leaders of the International Federation of Trade Unions
(IFTU), the AFL-CIO, the European Trade Union Confederation, the
Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), among others, are routinely invited to
attend both the annual WEF meetings in Davos, Switzerland as well as
to the regional summits. They also participate in the WEF's Labour
Leaders Community which focuses on mutually acceptable patterns of
behavior for the labor movement. The WEF "believes that the voice of
Labour is important to dynamic dialogue on issues of globalisation,
economic justice, transparency and accountability, and ensuring a
healthy global financial system."
"Ensuring a healthy global financial system" wrought by fraud and
corruption? The issue of workers' rights is not mentioned. (World
Economic Forum - Labour Leaders, 2010).
The World Social Forum: "Another World Is Possible"
The 1999 Seattle counter-summit in many regards laid the foundations
for the development of the World Social Forum.
The first gathering of the World Social Forum took place in January
2001, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This international gathering involved
the participation of tens of thousands of activists from grass-roots
organizations and NGOs.
The WSF gathering of NGOs and progressive organizations is held
simultaneously with the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF). It was
intended to voice opposition and dissent to the World Economic Forum
of corporate leaders and finance ministers.
The WSF at the outset was an initiative of France's ATTAC and several
Brazilian NGOs':
"... In February 2000, Bernard Cassen, the head of a French NGO
platform ATTAC, Oded Grajew, head of a Brazilian employers'
organisation, and Francisco Whitaker, head of an association of
Brazilian NGOs, met to discuss a proposal for a "world civil society
event"; by March 2000, they formally secured the support of the
municipal government of Porto Alegre and the state government of Rio
Grande do Sul, both controlled at the time by the Brazilian Workers'
Party (PT).... A group of French NGOs, including ATTAC, Friends of
L'Humanité, and Friends of Le Monde Diplomatique, sponsored an
Alternative Social Forum in Paris titled "One Year after Seattle", in
order to prepare an agenda for the protests to be staged at the
upcoming European Union summit at Nice. The speakers called for
"reorienting certain international institutions such as the IMF, World
Bank, WTO... so as to create a globalization from below" and "building
an international citizens' movement, not to destroy the IMF but to
reorient its missions." (Research Unit For Political Economy, The
Economics and Politics of the World Social Forum, Global Research,
January 20, 2004)
From the outset in 2001, the WSF was supported by core funding from
the Ford Foundation, which is known to have ties to the CIA going back
to the 1950s: "The CIA uses philanthropic foundations as the most
effective conduit to channel large sums of money to Agency projects
without alerting the recipients to their source." (James Petras,The
Ford Foundation and the CIA, Global Research, September 18, 2002)
The same procedure of donor funded counter-summits or people's summits
which characterized the 1990s People's Summits was embodied in the
World Social Forum (WSF):
"... other WSF funders (or `partners', as they are referred to in WSF
terminology) included the Ford Foundation, -- suffice it to say here
that it has always operated in the closest collaboration with the US
Central Intelligence Agency and US overall strategic interests; the
Heinrich Boll Foundation, which is controlled by the German Greens
party, a partner in the present [2003] German government and a
supporter of the wars on Yugoslavia and Afghanistan (its leader
Joschka Fischer is the [former] German foreign minister); and major
funding agencies such as Oxfam (UK), Novib (Netherlands), ActionAid
(UK), and so on.
Remarkably, an International Council member of the WSF reports that
the "considerable funds" received from these agencies have "not
hitherto awakened any significant debates [in the WSF bodies] on the
possible relations of dependence it could generate." Yet he admits
that "in order to get funding from the Ford Foundation, the organisers
had to convince the foundation that the Workers Party was not involved
in the process." Two points are worth noting here. First, this
establishes that the funders were able to twist arms and determine the
role of different forces in the WSF -- they needed to be `convinced'
of the credentials of those who would be involved. Secondly, if the
funders objected to the participation of the thoroughly domesticated
Workers Party, they would all the more strenuously object to
prominence being given to genuinely anti-imperialist forces. That they
did so object will be become clear as we describe who was included and
who excluded from the second and third meets of the WSF....
... The question of funding [of the WSF] does not even figure in the
charter of principles of the WSF, adopted in June 2001. Marxists,
being materialists, would point out that one should look at the
material base of the forum to grasp its nature. (One indeed does not
have to be a Marxist to understand that "he who pays the piper calls
the tune".) But the WSF does not agree. It can draw funds from
imperialist institutions like Ford Foundation while fighting
"domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism"
(Research Unit For Political Economy, The Economics and Politics of
the World Social Forum, Global Research, January 20, 2004)
The Ford Foundation provided core support to the WSF, with indirect
contributions to participating "partner organizations" from the
McArthur Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, The
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the European
Commission, several European governments (including the Labour
government of Tony Blair), the Canadian government, as well as a
number of UN bodies (including UNESCO, UNICEF, UNDP, ILO and the FAO)
.(Ibid).
In addition to initial core support from the Ford Foundation, many of
the participating civil society organizations receive funding from
major foundations and charities. In turn, the US and European based
NGOs often operate as secondary funding agencies channelling Ford and
Rockefeller money towards partner organizations in developing
countries, including grassroots peasant and human rights movements.
The International Council (IC) of the WSF is made up of
representatives from NGOs, trade unions, alternative media
organizations, research institutes, many of which are heavily funded
by foundations as well as governments. (See Fórum Social Mundial). The
same trade unions, which are routinely invited to mingle with Wall
Street CEOs at the Davos World Economic Forum (WSF) including the
AFL-CIO, the European Trade Union Confederation and the Canadian Labor
Congress (CLC) also sit on the WSF's International Council (IC). Among
NGOs funded by major foundations sitting on the WSF's IC is the
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) (see our analysis
above) which oversees the Geneva based Trade Observatory.
The Funders Network on Trade and Globalization (FTNG), which has
observer status on the WSF International Council plays a key role.
While channelling financial support to the WSF, it acts as a clearing
house for major foundations. The FTNG describes itself as "an alliance
of grant makers committed to building just and sustainable communities
around the world". Members of this alliance are Ford Foundation,
Rockefeller Brothers, Heinrich Boell, C. S. Mott, Merck Family
Foundation, Open Society Institute, Tides, among others. (For a
complete list of FTNG funding agencies see FNTG: Funders). FTNG acts
as a fund raising entity on behalf of the WSF.
Western Governments Fund the Counter-Summits and Repress the Protest Movement
In a bitter irony, governments including the European Union grant
money to fund progressive groups (including the WSF) involved in
organizing protests against the very same governments which finance
their activities:
"Governments, too, have been significant financiers of protest groups.
The European Commission, for example, funded two groups who mobilised
large numbers of people to protest at EU summits at Gothenburg and
Nice. Britain's national lottery, which is overseen by the government,
helped fund a group at the heart of the British contingent at both
protests." (James Harding, Counter-capitalism, FT.com, October 15
2001)
We are dealing with a diabolical process: The host government finances
the official summit as well as the NGOs actively involved in the
Counter-Summit. It also funds the anti-riot police operation which has
a mandate to repress the grassroots participants of the
Counter-Summit, including members of NGOs direcly funded by the
government. .
The purpose of these combined operations, including violent actions of
vandalism committed by undercover cops (Toronto G20, 2010) dressed up
as activists, is to discredit the protest movement and intimidate its
participants. The broader objective is to transform the counter-summit
into a ritual of dissent, which serves to uphold the interests of the
official summit and the host government. This logic has prevailed in
numerous counter summits since the 1990s.
At the 2001 Summit of the America in Quebec City, funding from the
Canadian federal government to mainstream NGOs and trade unions was
granted under certain conditions. A large segment of the protest
movement was de facto excluded from the People's Summit. This in
itself led a second parallel venue, which some observers described as
a "a counter-People's Summit. In turn, with both the provincial and
federal authorities that the protest march would be move towards a
remote location some 10 km out of town, rather than towards the
historical downtown area were the official FTAA summit was being held
behind a heavily guarded "security perimeter".
"Rather than marching toward the perimeter fence and the Summit of the
Americas meetings, march organizers chose a route that marched from
the People's Summit away from the fence, through largely empty
residential areas to the parking lot of a stadium in a vacant area
several miles away. Henri Masse, the president of the Federation des
travailleurs et travailleuses du Quebec (FTQ), explained, "I deplore
that we are so far from the center-city.... But it was a question of
security." One thousand marshals from the FTQ kept very tight control
over the march. When the march came to the point where some activists
planned to split off and go up the hill to the fence, FTQ marshals
signalled the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) contingent walking behind
CUPE to sit down and stop the march so that FTQ marshals could lock
arms and prevent others from leaving the official march route."
(Katherine Dwyer, Lessons of Quebec City, International Socialist
Review, June/July 2001)
The Summit of the Americas was held inside a four kilometer "bunker"
made of concrete and galvanized steel fencing. The 10 feet high
"Quebec Wall" encircled part of the historic city center including the
parliamentary compound of the National Assembly, hotels and shopping
areas.
NGO Leaders versus their Grassroots
The establishment of the World Social Forum (WSF) in 2001 was
unquestionably a historical landmark, bringing together tens of
thousands of committed activists. It was an important venue which
allowed for the exchange of ideas and the establishment of ties of
solidarity.
What is at stake is the ambivalent role of the leaders of progressive
organizations. Their cozy and polite relationship to the inner circles
of power, to corporate and government funding, aid agencies, the World
Bank, etc, undermines their relationship and responsibilities to their
rank and file. The objective of manufactured dissent is precisely
that: to distance the leaders from their rank and file as a means to
effectively silencing and weakening grassroots actions.
Funding dissent is also a means infiltrating the NGOs as well as
acquiring inside information on strategies of protest and resistance
of grass-roots movements.
Most of the grassroots participating organizations in the World Social
Forum including peasant, workers' and student organizations, firmly
committed to combating neoliberalism were unaware of the WSF
International Council's relationship to corporate funding, negotiated
behind their backs by a handful of NGO leaders with ties to both
official and private funding agencies.
Funding to progressive organizations is not unconditional. Its purpose
is to "pacify" and manipulate the protest movement. Precise
conditionalities are set by the funding agencies. If they are not met,
the disbursements are discontinued and the recipient NGO is driven
into de facto bankruptcy due to lack of funds.
The WSF defines itself as "an open meeting place for reflective
thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free
exchange of experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by
groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to
neo-liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form
of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centred on the
human person". (See Fórum Social Mundial, accessed 2010).
The WSF is a mosaic of individual initiatives which does not directly
threaten or challenge the legitimacy of global capitalism and its
institutions. It meets annually. It is characterised by a multitude of
sessions and workshops. In this regard, one of the features of the WSF
was to retain the "do-it-yourself" framework, characteristic of the
donor funded counter G7 People's Summits of the 1990s.
This apparent disorganized structure is deliberate. While favoring
debate on a number of individual topics, the WSF framework is not
conducive to the articulation of a cohesive common platform and plan
of action directed global capitalism. Moreover, the US led war in the
Middle East and Central Asia, which broke out a few months after the
inaugural WSF venue in Porto Alegre in January 2001, has not been a
central issue in forum discussions.
What prevails is a vast and intricate network of organizations. The
recipient grassroots organizations in developing countries are
invariably unaware that their partner NGOs in the United States or the
European Union, which are providing them with financial support, are
themselves funded by major foundations. The money trickles down,
setting constraints on grassroots actions. Many of these NGO leaders
are committed and well meaning individuals acting within a framework
which sets the boundaries of dissent. The leaders of these movements
are often co-opted, without even realizing that as a result of
corporate funding their hands are tied.
Global capitalism finances anti-capitalism: an absurd and
contradictory relationship.
"Another World is Possible", but it cannot be meaningfully achieved
under the present arrangement.
A shake-up of the World Social Forum, of its organizational structure,
its funding arrangements and leadership is required.
There can be no meaningful mass movement when dissent is generously
funded by those same corporate interests which are the target of the
protest movement. In the words of McGeorge Bundy, president of the
Ford Foundation (1966-1979),"Everything the [Ford] Foundation did
could be regarded as 'making the World safe for capitalism'".
© Copyright 2005-2009 GlobalResearch.ca
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Ranjit
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