The New Radicalism

By Rachel Neumann, AlterNet. Posted July 22, 2004.

Long-time political activist David Solnit was one of the key organizers in the direct action against the WTO in Seattle in 1999 and the 2003 shutdown of San Francisco's Financial District the day after the US invasion of Iraq. He is a driving force behind the use of puppets, public education, and theater in protests. He is the editor of a new book that collects diverse and passionate voices aimed at providing a how-to guide to "the new radicalism." Globalize Liberation is a manual to help movements develop strong clear analysis of what's wrong and why, a collection of visions of positive alternatives, and a resource and inspiration for strategies on getting the world we want.

Rachel Neumann: While Globalize Liberation is a harsh critic of many tenets of corporate globalization, it seems, fundamentally, a hopeful book. "All we have to do," You write, "is change everything."

David Solnit: Hope is key. If our organizations, analysis, vision and strategies are lanterns, then hope is the fuel that makes them burn bright and attracts people to them. Globalize Liberation is consciously a hopeful book. The dictionary defines hope as "Desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment." Everyone who contributed to the book desires a radically better world, but the confidence that it will be fulfilled is told in concrete experiences from communities in North America and around the world. The essays in Globalize Liberation come out of these interesting times when social movements around the world that are bigger, stronger, more radical and democratic and more connected to each other than at any time in history.

What, right now, gives you the greatest hope?

The positive alternatives people everywhere are organizing that pre-figure a better world are hopeful. Two examples in the book are the unemployed "Piquetero" groups in Argentina pooling their relief money – won through highway blockades – to make coop bakeries, brick factories and popular education centers; and the San Francisco Community Land Trust's work to take affordable housing off the market as a step towards a self-managed non-capitalist city. Also, the fragile legitimacy of the US government and global corporate capitalism is at an all-time low – it's crumbling. This is all cause for confidence and hope.

There is a lot to do to nurture our desire for, and confidence in a better world – like appreciating victories and strengths, and working with people and groups that make us hopeful. Getting people to explain the how-to of their victories for the book has made me more optimistic than when I started.

In your introduction to the book you talk about a new radicalism and use examples of people's movements around the world. Do you think these movements – which often operate without funds, institutional support, or media recognition – pose a real threat to the other, better-funded, corporate view of globalization? And, if so, how do they do this?

First, the term "New Radicalism," is my effort to positively begin defining the grassroots movement of movements around the globe. Contributing author-activist Patrick Reinsborough explained the term, "This name is offered along with some accompanying common principles as an umbrella term for a wide range of creative grassroots movements promoting systemic alternatives around the globe. The New Radicalism meme may prove to be a useful container to help with the self-definition process of cross-movement organizing. As many of us work to strengthen our vision of a movement of movements, we need tools to recognize each other, build solidarity, and share our over lapping visions."

New radical movements are the backbone of the resistance to corporate globalization and have defeated much of the agenda of the corporate globalizers. The WTO, still reeling from Seattle, collapsed again in Cancun due to street resistance led by Mexican campesinos with many other sectors. It was this resistance together with opposition from governments of the global South under pressure from social movements at home. The FTAA also has essentially collapsed due to mass opposition. At their Ministerial meeting in Miami all they could do was damage control – any discussion of the FTAA would have ended in collapse.

Rachel Neumann is Rights & Liberties Editor at AlterNet.

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