Growing a Global Justice Movement
Stronger than Ever: Far From Fizzling Out, the Global Justice Movement
is Growing in Numbers and Maturity
by George Monbiot
© 2002 The Guardian (UK)
January 28, 2003 — Mr Bush and Mr Blair might have a tougher fight
than they anticipated. Not from Saddam Hussein perhaps — although it
is still not obvious that they can capture and hold Iraq’s cities
without major losses — but from an anti-war movement that is beginning
to look like nothing the world has seen before.
It’s not just that people have begun to gather in great numbers even
before a shot has been fired. It’s not just that they are doing so
without the inducement of conscription or any other direct threat to
their welfare. It’s not just that there have already been meetings or
demonstrations in almost every nation on Earth. It’s also that the
campaign is being coordinated globally with an unprecedented precision.
And the people partly responsible for this are the members of a
movement which, even within the past few weeks, the mainstream media
has pronounced extinct.
Last year, 40,000 members of the global justice movement gathered at
the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This year, more than
100,000, from 150 nations, have come — for a meeting! The world has
seldom seen such political assemblies since Daniel O’Connell’s “monster
meetings” in the 1840s.
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