The Battle for the Heart of Globalization

The Battle of Seattle, a 50,000-strong protest of the World Trade Organization meeting in that city in November 1999, united labour unions, the environmental movement, Indigenous communities and social justice activists from the Global North and South as few issues had or have since. For a time, it looked possible to stop and roll back the neoliberal-ideology-fuelled, corporate-dominated version of globalization that was being stealthily codified into the WTO agreements and regional trade deals like NAFTA. Another world seemed eminently possible, and given the danger to our planet, absolutely necessary.