Page 82 - Beyond Methods

70 Maximizing learning opportunities
The Indian and the French examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Many labor organizations and political activists around the world regularly protest against multinational companies, accusing them of world economic domination. They also protest what they consider to be immense harm that multinational corporations inflict on small businesses in many countries. For the last few years, protesters have been marching to the venues of meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, or the World Trade Organization (WTO), all of which, they argue, directly or indirectly aid multinational corpo- rations in their world economic domination. Every year, they stage demonstrations on May Day (1 May) to protest economic globalization, and they usually target multinational corporations like McDonald’s.
Given below are the first two paragraphs of a long essay that ap- peared 1 May 2001 in the on-line edition of The Economist, an inter- nationally reputed magazine based in London (http://www.economist. co.uk). The essay is titled “Mayhem in May” and was written by the staff of the magazine.
Mayhem in May
1 May 2001
From The Economist Global Agenda
The first of May is one of the highlights of the increasingly de- manding social calendar of anti-globalization activists. Nowadays large numbers of protesters also show up at meetings of the IMF and World Bank, the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum’s in Davos, Switzerland, and any talks on trade liberaliza- tion such as this month’s Summit of the Americas in Quebec. Plenty of anti-globalists were again out in force on city streets throughout the world this week for May 1st, the traditional day of solidarity for labor movements. Berlin, Sydney and Melbourne saw violent con- frontations with the police. In London this year’s theme was Mo- nopoly, the capitalist board game. Scheduled events include a mass bike ride, a pigeon feed on Trafalgar Square and the building of the world’s largest cardboard hotel in Mayfair.
For all their entertainment value, and despite the stupid vio- lence which mars some of them, the anti-globalists’ demonstrations cannot be dismissed as a recurring juvenile joke. How to reduce poverty in the third world—and whether globalization is a help or a hindrance—is one of the most pressing moral, political and eco- nomic issues of our times. Undeniably, anti-globalism demonstra- tions have moved these questions higher up the public agenda. Whether they are pushing governments towards more enlightened answers is quite another matter.