The Anti-Manichaeist

There is a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong right now. It sounds like things are not going well and that there are quite a few, 4500, vehement protestors from all over the region. Apparently one of the problems is that the US tends to make food donations that help out our farmers but easily upset the delicate balance of local agricultural trade.

A CNN reporter asked protestors from a wide variety of backgrounds why they were protesting. Here are a few of the responses.

Dominic, 25, an applied chemistry student from Dhaka, Bangladesh:

We have come here to express Bangladesh solidarity against the WTO’s education policies. Education is our fundamental right, and the WTO’s push for privatization of the education sector will hurt students.

Jung Ku-Woo, a pig farmer from southern South Korea:

I am here to show solidarity with South Korea’s rice farmers, who don’t receive government subsidies like rich European and American farmers.

Tushar Rehman, 46, from Dhaka. Works with Global Call to Action Against Poverty:

We are a poor country but we are trying to fight the policies of the WTO, who support rich countries. The WTO should be for all people, regardless of poverty or wealth.

Yeh Song-Lee, 24, from Seoul, South Korea. Works for the Korean Democratic Labor Party:

WTO represents free trade and neo-liberalism, which essentially means privatization as it opens up services like food, agriculture and the industry of goods. But these polices don’t care about real people’s lives — the people behind these industries. The WTO just thinks about its profits, which mostly benefit rich capitalists. This makes me angry, so I’m here to protest against that.

We must listen to these voices and bear in mind that there is no such thing as free trade. All trade is done in the context of markets and all markets function on the basis of rules, rules that can be fair or not-so-fair to all the groups whose interests are at stake.

dlw