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Interview with Naomi Klein
by: Yogesh Chawla and Sachin Pandya
N aomi Klein is one of the leading voices in the global justice movement,
though she might take issue with that characterization as a matter of
principle. She chronicles the issues, demonstrations and grassroots activism
which have largely been ignored by the mainstream media in her books No
Logo: Taking Aim at Brand Bullies, and Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the
Front Lines of the Globalization Debate.
Although Naomi is a non-fiction writer, she writes with the passion, energy
and creativity of a poet. We recently talked with her from the studios of
WORT 89.9 FM, Madison’s community radio station. We discussed the role
of art in direct democracy movements, and the manipulation and reclamation
of language, words, and ideas.
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YC: Can you give our readers a brief overview of the global justice,
anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, anti-globalization movement? And
your involvement in it?
NK: There are a lot of names for this movement and I think that probably
speaks to the fact that there isn’t one movement. There has been a kind of
convergence of movements in the past five years or so in North America and
Europe. A lot of these movements have been active for longer in southern
countries. Particularly in Latin America and India, where you have really
strong movements against the International Monetary Fund, the World
Bank, and so on.
And I think it’s quite accurate to call parts of the movement anti-capitalist
because they are. I think particularly from young people who started off
maybe questioning why corporations were so involved in every aspect of
their lives, took over so much public space, were involved in their education,
and so on. And then became active in anti-war activities and then made
connections between the two and came to a broader critique of capital and
its role in the waging of wars and in pushing down labor standards, environmental
standards and so on. And then I think that there are aspects of this
convergence of movements that are more anti-globalization. I wouldn’t
consider myself part of those movements, but there are elements that are
much more about returning to local economies. There really isn’t any
consensus or any one movement.
And I think there’s a lot of variety regionally-in European movements, and
Latin American movements and North American movements. But there are
some common themes that bring them together. And as far as my
involvement is concerned, I guess I’m a writer and an activist. And I guess
my main activist tool is writing and research. And I wrote a book a few years
ago that came out right when the protests in Seattle were happening, so
there was an explosion of conferences and convergences and I just kind of
got swept up in it.
SP: It’s a fine book, too. Just to add that.
YC: Actually both books, No Logo and Fences and Windows. You
were just talking about convergence of movements. And we saw
that in the recent anti-war protests in Madison. What we noticed,
particularly being more of a literary kind of group-is that poets
and artists had a specific presence at these events. And also in
Madison, a lot of the anti-war activities were specifically organized
by artists and writers and poets. Did you see the same thing
happening nationally and internationally and also, could you
describe this energy?
NK: In some ways I feel really unqualified to talk about the anti-war
movement in North America, because I just came back from Argentina,
where I’ve been living for close to a year. So I was in Buenos Aires during the
war. But that energy you’re describing was very present-is very present-in
Latin American resistance movements against neo-liberal economic policies
and also against the war. Which I think is just the fact that creativity is
considered once again a political-not just a political priority as in dressing
up the protests-but at the center of the spirit of how political alternatives
will emerge. A shaking off of dogmatism and a sense of "believe this because
it’s good for you," or "participate in this because it’s like homework." A
desire to capture that sense of spontaneity and creativity as a political act.
I think you see that in movements like the Zapatista movement. Which, if
one were to choose one political moment that sort of kick-started this
current wave of resistance-because I don’t think that we’re talking about
anything new-is when the Zapatistas began their rebellion, their uprising in
1994. The day that NAFTA took effect, on January 1, 1994, they put that
resistance squarely within a 500-year tradition of resisting colonialism.
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