Backward Never: Social Movements in the U.S.
October 28, 2005 - Africa Action Baraza 2005
by Marie Clarke Brill
In 10 minutes, it would be impossible to cover the vast and complex social movements in this country – or to sufficiently address the varying definitions of social movements. My purpose is simply to start our discussion with a preliminary analysis of the state of the peace and economic justice movements in the U.S. and some of the challenges we face in building more just U.S. foreign policy.
Ann-Louise spoke this morning about the overriding influence of President Bush’s “War on Terror” in both U.S. domestic and foreign policy. Not only does “security” take precedence over basic human rights and human needs in policy, but this war on terror and the nationalism that it has spawned has done significant damage to our civil liberties in the United States and has been a major challenge to building social movements.
Before September 11th 2001, the global justice movement was on the rise. Labor, religious groups, students and organizations working on a host of issues including debt, trade, health and the environment were coming together and demonstrating their unified strength in major mobilizations. Tens of thousands marched in the streets of Seattle in the November 1999 protests at the World Trade Organization and tens of thousands came out again six months later in the 2000 protests at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings. Plans had been laid for another tremendous mobilization in Washington DC for September 2001. However, September 11 changed the environment so significantly that we were forced to cancel that demonstration.
While the progressive edge of our society recognizes that true patriotism demands that we challenge our national leaders and build political change, mainstream USA has become harder to reach on international justice issues since 9/11. There was a moment after 9/11 where people asked, ‘why do people hate us so?’, but that teaching moment passed quickly and many in Middle America retreated to the “hail to the chief” mentality that defies critical thinking.
Similarly, there was a moment after Hurricane Katrina when many felt that finally racism in social structures had been exposed for all the world to see and many others started to ask good questions about racism in our society and structures; but we have yet to see that flicker of awareness ignite a renewed fight against global apartheid.
Despite this challenging environment we are again seeing a growth in our peace and global justice movements. The peace movement has developed into a strong anti-war movement since September 11, 2001 but it is challenged by internal divisions and factions. The majority of the peace movement is focused on Iraq, but one of the divisions centers on how much attention should be given to other conflicts in the Middle East – especially the liberation of Palestine.
While there has been some effort to bridge the peace and global justice movements, they have not been fully successful. For example, there was a vibrant peace mobilization in Washington DC on September 24th – which happened to also be the weekend of the IMF and World Bank meetings where Africa – and debt cancellation – were key agenda items. While discussions took place on how to link these movements, the mobilization was an anti-war protest. Except for a global justice feeder march and a global justice tent, the economic justice messages were lost.
Since 9/11 the global justice movement has struggled to regain mobilization momentum in the United States. The greatest gains have been made by sections of the movement that have been focused on specific issues like debt, HIV/AIDS, and trade. Between 2001 and 2005 there were small victories and growing mobilization on each of these issues. On debt, creative rallies and major letter writing and media campaigns pushed policy makers to start discussions on 100% debt cancellation by the IMF and World Bank for impoverished nations. On health bird-dogging and public pressure campaigns helped to force President Bush to the famous commitment by Bush in 2003 to fund $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa which turned into the problematic PEPFAR program and convinced the Presidential candidates in the 2004 elections to make commitments to fund HIV/AIDS.
Much of the trade work has focused on Latin America, with fights over the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) but we all know what will come “afta” and conversations are heating up on the Southern Africa Custom Union-FTA and other Africa trade agreements.
This year, 2005, has been billed as the “Year for Africa”. While much of the world mobilized around the Global Call to Action Against Poverty and Make Poverty History, in the U.S. a few organizations created the ONE campaign to work on the Millennium Development Goals. While they nominated themselves to be the U.S. arm of GCAP, much of the mobilization on these key issues continued outside of the ONE campaign and continued to be focused on specific issues like debt and HIV/AIDS.
Despite popular opinion that the ONE campaign embodies the global justice movement, the movements that are most in tune with movements in Africa, and that are carrying the most progressive message and building grassroots power for change continue to grow outside of Bono and the ONE campaign.
While GCAP took many shapes worldwide, Africa Action found the ONE campaign in the U.S. to be problematic. While the slogan was “justice not charity”, the faces of the campaign were those of predominantly white celebrities, most notably Bono and Brad Pitt. The mobilizing done by the ONE campaign developed a large list of people who committed to wear white arm bands and sign a pledge but they did not actually activate this list strategically to influence policy. Instead the ONE campaign focused on grass-tops advocacy. While we in the streets called for the unconditional cancellation of debts for all African nations and discussed the illegitimate nature of those debts, the ONE campaign celebrities were in the suits celebrating the limited debt deal that provides some debt cancellation for 18 nations (14 in Africa). Even the ONE campaign found it hard to celebrate much else after the G-8 agreement in light of the limited pledges made on aid and the dearth of progress on HIV/AIDS or trade.
On HIV/AIDS the focus continues to be greater funding for the Global Fund and the rising star seems to be the students in the Student Global AIDS Campaign that hosted earlier this year the largest march on HIV/AIDS in a decade and the Campaign to End AIDS which is marching as we speak to Washington DC for rallies next week. Africa Action’s Campaign to End HIV/AIDS in Africa will support the funding work but will focus our energies on targeting pharmaceuticals to put people over profit and patens and to ensure greater access to treatment in Africa.
On international debt, the Jubilee movement continues to push hard with groups like Africa Action and others for the recognition of the illegitimate nature of Africa’s debt and full cancellation of the debts of the Global South without harmful conditions. The greatest challenge to this movement is how to handle the progress made at the G-8 and IMF/WB meetings – this small victory – in a way that empowers the movement and does not cause the activists to drop the issue thinking, “debt is done”.
While it does not fit exactly in the global justice movement or the peace movement, there has been growing mobilization on several key conflicts in Africa. There is increasing interest in the Northern Uganda conflict and the DRC but perhaps the most vibrant is a growing movement to stop genocide in Darfur. There are several coalitions of people of faith and conscience including Save Darfur and the Sudan Task Force and two vibrant student groups, STAND (Students Taking Action Now Darfur) and the Genocide Intervention Fund that are taking action and raising awareness.
The challenges to this movement are the inconsistency in the “ask” of the administration. When demands such as a multinational intervention have risen to the top people have often gotten distracted by limited legislative initiatives, sanctions, divestment campaigns or even strategies to politically support the rebel movement. Considering that this Administration has prioritized the “war on terror” and the South-North Peace Agreement over the genocide that they acknowledge is occurring in Darfur; it is hard to imagine progress without a more united social movement escalating pressure with a common demand.
We hope that our conversations later today and tomorrow will help us to think critically about our social movements in the U.S. and how we can better engage and empower these movements to be effective vehicles of change in U.S. Africa policy. We will continue this discussion and more actively mobilize people outside of this room on the tour that follows this Baraza. We will take our African guests to four cities this year and they will participate in roughly 25 public events over the next week.
To conclude, building social movements in the United States can be a challenge. We are indeed in the belly of the beast, but we are seeing incremental change and we are successfully raising our voices in solidarity with African social movements. Ultimately we shall overcome.
"When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. "Where do we go from here?" 1967
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