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Attac conference in Berlin
Unbridled opportunism and unwavering loyalty to the state
By Stefan Steinberg
26 October 2001
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The anti-globalisation movement Attac* held the first national
conference of its German section in Berlin last weekend, under the
slogan �Another World is possible�. Bernard Cassen, one of Attac�s
founders and a director of the French news monthly Le Monde
Diplomatique, and Susan George, vice president of Attac in France and
author of a number of books devoted to the consequences of
globalisation were among those who addressed the conference. One of
the main speakers was Oskar Lafontaine, the former German Social
Democratic Party chairman and briefly economics minister in the SPD-
Green Party coalition under Gerhard Schroeder.
Attended by some 2,500, and held over two days, the conference was
divided into a number of plenum discussions featuring leading Attac
members, as well as a host of workshops organised by over 70 various
pacifist, feminist, environmental and radical groups and NGOs (non
governmental organisations). Several leading members of the German
trade union bureaucracy were also present, such as IG Metall
executive member Horst Schmitthenner, and Margret M�hnig-Raane,
executive member of the new Ver.di trade union, as well as prominent
representatives of the Greens, such as Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
In his opening speech on Friday evening, psychologist Horst-Eberhardt
Richter made clear that the potential audience of Attac embraced all
of those who felt they had �lost out� as a result of globalisation.
Despite occasional heated exchanges and controversies, the entire
conference made patently clear that Attac is characterised by
unbridled political opportunism. In a number of contributions,
leading Attac members emphasised that they had absolutely no plans or
perspective for a fundamental change of capitalist society. Instead
they limited their criticism to what they described as the
�irresponsible repercussions of neo-liberal politics� and called for
a strengthening of the national state as well as international
capitalist organisations.
Attac and the nation state
The basic perspective of Attac was outlined by the editor of Le Monde
Diplomatique Ignatio Ramonet in a lead article four years ago: �The
globalisation of finance capital has made people insecure. It evades
and humiliates national states as the authoritative guarantor of
democracy and general well being... in combination with the trade
unions and many other organisations which have cultural, social or
environmental aims, Attac could emerge as a gigantic pressure group
of civil society in establishing a world-wide solidarity�. (December
12, 1997).
In a discussion he held with the right wing economist Thomas
L.Friedman, Ramonet was even more blunt about the role of Attac as a
pressure valve to dissipate growing social instability. Ramonet
declared: �In order to satisfy their basic needs, there are millions
of people all over the world who are prepared to erect barricades and
employ violence. I regret such a solution as much as Friedman. But
when we are clever, then it is not necessary that things proceed so
far. Instead we should make a tiny portion of the world�s wealth
available to the �damned of the earth�.� He closed his remarks with
the questions: �What can we do? How can we prevent half of humanity
from revolting and turning to violence?�
During the Berlin conference, speakers and delegates openly expressed
their concern at the decay and discrediting of national political
structures and the necessity of restoring credibility to and
strengthening democratic institutions. The defence of capitalist
property relations was made perhaps most bluntly by one of the
principle speakers in the opening plenum discussion, the judge J�rgen
Borchert. He described some of the disastrous social consequences
arising from the liberalisation of capital markets and then appealed
for a return to previous forms of market economy, which he claimed
were based on the principle of equality. He went on to plead for a
better deal for small businesses and closed his contribution with the
ominous warning that the �first victim of social discontent was cash
values.�
Borchert shared the platform with Barbara Unm�ssig from the
organisation World Economy, Environment and Development (Weed) and
Bernard Cassen, whose own contribution will be dealt with later.
Unm�ssig made unmistakably clear that the purpose of Attac was
limited to finding the ear of the political establishment. She
declared that the movement had recently achieved an important
breakthrough, and that its arguments for economic reform were now
being taken seriously by such newspaper as Germany�s Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung and the Financial Times. At the same time, she
emphasised that Attac had no binding theory, world-view or religious
or ideological basis.
The priority of strengthening the national state to enable
interventionist measures to restrict the movement of international
capital (�throwing sand into the wheels of finance capital�) lay at
the heart of the discussion on the second day between Oskar
Lafontaine, Wolf-Dieter Narr, professor for political science at
Berlin Free University and Ingeborg Wick, a feminist and
representative of a women�s NGO working in under-developed countries.
At the start of his contribution, Lafontaine posed the question,
which power should determine social development? Emphasising the loss
of political power by individual nations as a consequence of
globalisation, he called for a return to the role of the national
state and the �primacy of politics�. The flow of capital must be re-
regulated, he said. The �re-nationalising� of the financial markets
was the prerequisite for retaining a welfare state. In the sphere of
international relations he called for a strengthening of the United
Nations and, in particular, the creation of an UN economic council
which could intervene in economic affairs on a world scale. In the
course of the Kosovo war, the UN had been left out in the cold, he
complained.
Lafontaine had announced his affiliation to the Attac movement a few
weeks ago and is undoubtedly its most prominent German supporter.
Since tamely retiring from all leading political positions following
his dispute with Gerhard Schroeder and the German Bundesbank in
spring 1999, Lafontaine has maintained a regular media presence in
order to argue for the strengthening of national sovereignty in
response to globalisation.
In a recent column he wrote for the tabloid Bild newspaper,
Lafontaine elaborated some of his proposals for the German state.
Under the headline, �How should we proceed after the terror attacks?�
he maintained that empty state coffers and an overly liberal
immigration policy were endangering the security of the German state.
He criticised the Schroeder government for its Green Card policy of
allowing the limited immigration of skilled foreign professionals,
implying that the measure facilitated the training of potential
terrorists in Germany. He finished his column with the appeal, �We
have to put an end to the belittling of the state. We are the state!�
In his own contribution, Wolf-Dieter Narr criticised Lafontaine�s
glorification of the state. The problem was not just capitalism but
politics as a whole, Narr said. The state represents �organised
irresponsibility� and is wedded inseparably to imperialism. The
return to national-based politics was both false and naive, he
claimed. The world can only be organised on a global basis. He then
spoke of the necessity for a grass roots movement, but had little to
say its nature. He finished by expressing his agreement with Oskar
Lafontaine on the necessity for strengthening the United Nations.
However confused and mealy-mouthed, Narr�s contribution immediately
provoked consternation from other Attac representatives. The first to
speak was Ingeborg Wick, who energetically rejected any criticism of
existing institutions. It was only possible to achieve anything, she
claimed, through such institutions. It was a mistake to ignore the
establishment. Lafontaine then proclaimed his �dissent� with Narr�s
position regarding the role of the state and spoke of the necessity
for a �politics of small steps�. In response, Narr immediately began
to retreat from his former stance. He had no solution himself, he
admitted, and for his own part no particular problems with the state.
After all, he was the only member of the panel who was officially
employed by the state.
In addition to Lafontaine and Narr�s appeal for a strengthening of
the UN, other leading members of the German Attac movement have also
emphasised the necessity of reinforcing existing international
organisations. In a recent interview with Der Spiegel magazine, Attac
coordination committee member Peter Wahl declared: �The claim that
Attac roundly rejects international organisations is incorrect.
Increasingly, globalised markets must be countered by a global
framework of control that once again brings the omnipotent market
under democratic control. The WTO [World Trade Organisation], IMF
[International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank can theoretically be
regarded as appropriate institutions to this end.�
Attac and the US war in Afghanistan
Nowhere was the extent of the political opportunism that is rife in
Attac more evident than on the issue of the war in Afghanistan. In
its role as a �gigantic pressure group�, the organisation sees the
war entirely from the standpoint of how it can further its own
agenda.
Attac has issued two brief statements criticising US military action
in Afghanistan as a contravention of international law. At the
conference, leading speakers dealt with the war largely from the
standpoint of how the changed situation after September 11 could be
exploited by Attac to advance its own ends. None of the statements
drawn up by Attac on the war attempt to delve into the economic and
strategic background of the US-led aggression. And in individual
workshops where participants attempted to raise such issues the
reaction by Attac members was distinctly hostile.
The caution with which Attac tackles the issue of war was explained
in a comment by one of the speakers in a podium discussion, Bettina
Gaus, who conceded that there were very many different opinions on
the war inside Attac. She shared the podium with Daniel Cohn-Bendit,
a leader of the Green Party in the European Parliament and a member
of the French Attac movement for the past four years. In an interview
with the German taz newspaper, Cohn-Bendit declared his preference
for a United Nations-led military operation to unseat the
�fascistoid, anti-women Taliban government� with support given to
�the liberation struggle of the Afghan opposition, with planes,
weapons and soldiers.� None of the other four speakers on the
platform challenged Cohn-Bendit�s fulminations about what he
described as the necessity to develop a pan-European answer to
American-led globalisation.
�Never was Bush closer to Attac than today!�
The reason for Attac�s ambiguous position regarding the war becomes
clear in light of a comment made by its founder, Bernard Cassen. In
an interview with the newspaper Taggespiegel, Cassen declared: �Never
was Bush closer to Attac than today!� Anybody who thought this was
just a slip of the tongue was corrected at the Berlin conference.
Bush�s war policy was a main theme of Cassen�s speech to the
conference.
The recent moves by President Bush, he explained, �to dry out tax
oases� and police certain forms of speculative banking represented a
change of course, which �reflected favourably and even legitimised
policies proposed by Attac.� Cassen continued by saying that Bush�s
emphasis on the primacy of politics over the economy��the economy has
to serve the state and not the other way round��represented a
rehabilitation of the role of the state, which Attac warmly welcomed.
In similar manner, Cassen also greeted �the recent cancelling of
debts by America to Third World Countries such as Pakistan.�
Precisely the same point was repeated by one of his closest
collaborators in France, Susan George. In her closing address to the
conference she confirmed: �Even George Bush has recognised that tax
oases are bad for business. Thank you George Bush! You have shown the
advisability of implementing the Attac programme.�
The economic and fiscal measures undertaken by Bush in response to
the attacks of September 11 do not have the slightest progressive
content. Subsidies made by the Bush administration to the airlines
and other industries hit by the financial downturn and the aftermath
of the September 11 events are aimed at bailing out shareholders,
enabling the companies to cut jobs and streamline at the expense of
ordinary workers. At the same time, the Bush administration is
pressing ahead with tax handouts that will drastically widen the gulf
between rich and poor in American society.
While Cassen and George have only positive comments to make on the
economic �turn� being made by George Bush, they, and indeed the
conference as a whole, had nothing to say on the attacks on
democratic rights being undertaken by the various states constituting
the anti-terrorist alliance. In the name of the struggle against
international terrorism, national and international police and
intelligence bodies are being given unprecedented powers to oversee,
coordinate and control the lives and activities of millions of
ordinary citizens, while immigration controls and the persecution of
foreign workers and students is being intensified across the globe.
The political and social physiognomy of Attac
It would be wrong to regard as a mere oversight the fact that such
issues played virtually no role in the Attac conference at the
weekend. The two-day gathering in Berlin very clearly revealed the
political and social physiognomy of the movement. Attac is a pole of
attraction for those in society who are profoundly disturbed at the
prospect of social instability arising from the break-up of the
relatively stable post-war economic and political conditions. The
Attac perspective, however, is entirely oriented towards the past.
The forces around Attac yearn for a return to a period when national
capitalist states exercised broad control over the economy and
society.
Despite the emphasis Attac makes on protest actions and
demonstrations, the organisation is hostile to any genuine mass
democratic movement. Its perspective is limited to applying pressure
on existing institutions, seeking the ear of the powerful and
increasing Attac�s own influence within the political establishment.
This accounts for its enthusiasm for the state and indifference to
the attacks currently being made on democratic rights.
It was possible to detect some differences in attitudes, between the
layers of a greying older generation and the young people and
students who slightly outnumbered them at the conference. Many of the
older delegates were evidently disgruntled members or former members
of the Green Party or activists from pacifist organisations, with
thirty years of protest politics behind them. In Attac, they see the
chance for a fresh start, although they have failed to draw any
significant political consequences from their previous activities.
The leading lights of Attac at the congress�such as Cassen, George,
sociology professor and long-standing member of the Swiss social
democrats Jean Ziegler and Cohn-Bendit�all occupy prominent positions
in respected universities, editorial offices and government
organisations. Also in evidence at the conference were stalwarts of
the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor party to the
East German Stalinist SED). Although the PDS was not prominent in
podium discussions. What unites all of these forces is the fear that
the current economic crisis could give rise to a new social movement,
which develops independently of the existing rightward-moving
mainstream political parties.
Although it was evident that the German trade unions had made no
appeal to their members to attend the conference, leading members of
the bureaucracy made their own appearance to sniff out the potential
of Attac for pursuing their own chauvinist campaign against the
�excesses of globalisation�.
Also in evidence at the conference were two radical groups� SAV
(linked to Britain�s Socialist Party organisation of Peter Taaffe,
and Linksruck (which has ties to Britain�s Socialist Workers Party).
SAV and Linksruck have both joined Attac, and made considerable
efforts to mobilise their members for the conference. Both groups
have a long history of entering and participating in various
political organisations�the SPD, the German peace movement, the
Greens and the PDS. Now they have evidently decided to operate as a
left fig leaf for Attac.
There were indications of a more militant attitude amongst some
younger participants, mainly students, who applauded loudly when any
criticism was made of the war against Afghanistan or the policies of
the current German �red-green� coalition government. Nevertheless it
was apparent that most of the youth attending had very little
political experience. In her closing contribution, Susan George
sought to exploit the limitations of her audience by urgently warning
against �theological and doctrinal purity�. What was important, she
emphasised, �was to concentrate on what unites us and not get lost in
debates over controversial issues�. It was an unmistakable appeal not
to disturb the thoroughly diffuse and confused political foundation
of the movement, thereby making the manipulation of its supporters
all the easier.
All in all, the unsavoury impression left by last weekend�s
conference was the determination of the Attac leaders to utilise the
movement to demonstrate their own worth as a factor for ensuring
social stability to the political elite.
*Attac stands for � Association for the Taxation of Financial
Transactions for the Aid of Citizens�
Copyright 1998-2001
World Socialist Web Site
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