What if they gave a world trade conference, and nobody protested? That's pretty nearly what happened this week in Montreal. Opponents of the World Trade Organization talked big, but could stir up only a few hundred individuals to demonstrate on the streets against a meeting of trade ministers from certain WTO countries.
Some of the protesters were the "any-means-necessary crowd," self-professed anarchists, and others were single-issue activists worried about immigration or what-have-you; pressing matters, some of them, but only barely connected with trade.
Altogether absent were any large numbers of "ordinary" Quebecers. For all the talk about "people's mobilization," it's federal trade minister Pierre Pettigrew who had the democratic legitimacy this week, not the unelectable zealots.
These wet-firecracker demonstrations do not mean that the broader public is now happily awaiting more and more globalization. This was, after all, not a major global trade meeting, but merely a "mini-ministerial" in preparation for bigger talks in Cancun in September. Still, the protests were few. Those who broke windows were a minority of the demonstrators. The police responded prudently and professionally to the disruptions.
It is the rule of law that makes police restraint possible: nobody is disappeared in this country, nobody vanishes into cells for a month; police do not torture opponents of the current government. The rule of law is what creates the framework in which democratic debate and dissent are possible - and the WTO provides exactly the same sort of rules-based framework in the field of global trade.
Globalization has become inescapable. From your dinner to your job, imports and exports are part of the fabric of everyone's daily life. Advances in communications, cheap transport and the end of the Cold War have all helped open every part of the world to every other part. Greater integration - economic, social, political, cultural - follows inevitably.
The wealth generated by this progress provides yet more consumer goods and purchasing power for people in developed countries, but can also offer a royal road out of poverty for the poorest countries. Global integration should be good for the whole globe.
The trade ministers know that. This week, two of their major subjects were reducing developed-country price supports on farm goods, because that would be an effective way to help the poorest countries sell their products; and wrestling down the prices of patented medications, another issue of the most intense interest to the poorest countries.
So the good news this week is "the system" is tackling some of the issues that fall under the general heading of global social justice. The additional good news is the public, in Canada at least, seems to be coming to accept globalization holds more promise than menace.
The bad news is the trade ministers are moving only very slowly on these matters so far. We're almost tempted to suggest what's really needed is a great big street demo - a peaceful one, of course - in support of more globalization, now.
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