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BBC Asks....Where Did All the Protesters Go?
EFL
Just a few hundred people picketed the latest IMF-World Bank spring meetings - a far cry from a few years ago when it seemed no summit of world financial institutions was complete without thousands of protestors on the streets.
And the giant puppets! Don't forget the puppets!
Over the next couple of years, protests and policing dominated the headlines at a string of major summits - in Prague, Davos, London and Quebec City. The complaints of myriad groups - loosely arraigned against unaccountable, corporate-led aspects of globalisation - came to the fore.
But what has happened - where did all the protests go?
Outside the World Bank building in DC, activist Sue Frankel-Streit, 41, prepared to take part in a public temper tantrum street theatre show with the Cardboard Chaos group.
At least it wasn't a barf fest...
Some police officers were redeployed after their commanders noticed there were more cops than protesters fewer than expected protesters showed up. "What happened in the wake of Seattle was that many people went into the community and organised from home," she said. "It isn't that the movement has got smaller, people are just taking action in their communities - which is where they are making the most difference."
Uh, right, Sunflower Moonbeam.
| So why are you out here today, Sunflower? |
Another reason protests have gone off the boil is that some protesters graduated and had to get a J-O-B believe that while the problem have not been fixed, the international community is moving towards addressing the big issues.
| Yessir, Senator, Kofi's right on it. |
In January, protests planned for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, were called off. Many who may have attended were at a rival event: the World Social Forum in Brazil's Porto Alegre.
"Switzerland is too cold, man! Can't do a nude protest in the snow, dude!"
Also marching in Washington on Saturday was Preston Duncan, 21, unemployed slacker looking for the hot chicks part of the DC poetry insurgency collective.
Some unsoliticed advice, kid....keep it off the resume. No one will be impressed. Not even Soros.
"Some people break windows, we use the emotional appeal of what we are doing 'cause chicks really dig sensitive guys - I think that's more likely to make people want to rally round."
Inevitably, the post-9/11 war on terror has also shifted the focus. Some say it has led to more effective oppressive policing of protests. When leaders from the G8 group of industrialised nations met for their annual summit in 2004, they did so on a secure island off Georgia. The first protest took place more than 100km (62 miles) away.
Well, at least it was closer than Porto Alegre...
Longtime underemployed and former hot chick Activist Theresa Reuter, 64, a veteran of scores of protests since the 1960s ain't that a shocker!, told the BBC: "It has been scary this weekend - there are a lot of police officers around, they have closed off the streets. You, know, a lot of my friends are not here because they couldn't get the day off at the Quickie Mart do not want to end up on some list as a suspected terrorist."
Posted by: Desert Blondie 2005-04-23 |
