Socialist Action /May 2001
Anti-FTAA Protest at Mexican Border
By PAUL McKIM
The author is a member of Youth for Socialist
Action at Santa Monica [Calif.] Community College.
As tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the
streets of Quebec City, about a thousand people protested against the Free
Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA) at the US-Mexico border in San Ysidro,
Calif.
Most of them were students, bused in from various
schools around the state. Activists at the Southern California campuses
of UCLA and UC Irvine both organized buses to bring people to the protest,
and some came from as far away as the San Francisco Bay Area.
The highlight of the event was a march to the border,
where an impromptu rally was held at the entrance. Although hundreds of
cops in riot gear lined the streets and helicopters circled overhead, we
were able to avoid any major confrontations with the police.
Before the march there was a rally in a nearby
park, where numerous activists spoke about the negative effects of the FTAA
on the people of the Americas. Tom Morello, from the group Rage Against
the Machine, was a featured speaker.
A theme for many who spoke was the globalization
of resistance. The borders erected by capitalist governments to keep us
separated were repeatedly denounced, and protesters chanted, "las luchas
obreras no tienen fronteras" ("the workers' struggles have no
borders").
The demonstration was coordinated with Mexican
activists who held a simultaneous rally across the border in Tijuana. Many
from the American protest later crossed the border to participate in activities
on the other side. The following day there was a bi-national solidarity
conference held in Baja California.
The only break in the spirit of international solidarity
came from the secretary treasurer of the San Diego Central Labor Council,
who defended the position of the Teamsters Union officialdom that Mexican
truckers should be stopped from entering the United States. "We are
going to raise standards for workers on that side of the border by enforcing
the laws on this side," he said. Unfortunately, this argument is just
a cover to those in the labor movement who target Mexican workers as the
problem rather than the bosses in this country.
But the vast majority of protesters in San Ysidro
were young people who have become fed up with a system run for the profits
of the few rather than the interests of the great majority. They see the
FTAA as another step towards the further domination of corporations over
our lives, which it is.
But trade agreements like this one will continue
to be made as long as capitalism exists. The current organization of our
societies cannot benefit the majority of people no matter what trade agreements
are in place.
The laws they pass to restrict or free the flow
of capital across borders only benefit the rich. We need to build a society
in which the majority of people democratically control every aspect of our
lives, a society based upon, as one popular slogan put it, "human need
not corporate greed." This requires a socialist transformation of society.
Socialist Action /May 2001 |