| |
|
People of Color and the FTAA
Speech by Pauline of the Colours of Resistance Network
|
|
I've
been asked to come here today to talk about the effects of FTAA on
people of colour. I think that may be a funny question to ask. A better
question is "How could we even talk about the FTAA without talking about
how it will especially hurt communities of colour, both in the South
and here in North America?"
It seems inevitable, though mostly
unsaid, that the FTAA's impact will primarily hit the over 500 million
people of colour and indigenous peoples in the Americas, who generally
make up the lowest strata of workers, are conveniently located nearest
to environmental hazards and toxic dumpsites, and are the primary target
of increasing military, police and government violence. When we talk
about privatization of resources, education and health, those who will
be hit hardest are those who already face barriers to what is left of
the public system.
Hundreds of groups are researching the
potential damages of the FTAA on issues like labour, environment, human
rights, health, education, etc. But when I listen to any of the
predominantly white social democratic "citizens' groups" I get an
interesting, yet limited, analysis of the globalization problem that
stops short of challenging at least one fundamental aspect: white
supremacy.
These groups complain that free trade deals cause
national governments to lose their power and that we 'citizens' are thus
losing democracy. I suspect that many of you will agree with me when I
question that so-called democracy (i.e. casting a vote every four years
for one rich white male over another) has developed in the Americas.
What
the media and the post-Seattle 'movement' are making a fuss over as
'corporate globalization' or 'capitalist globalization' are the same old
imperialist, colonialist and patriarchal and -- yes racist -- policies
that have plagued the planet for centuries. Corporations can't steal the
power from the state when they are all made up of the same brand of
elite. It is clear that policies like these so-called "free" trade
agreements are little more than systemic oppression on the basis of
race, class, gender, ability, etc. The FTAA will just be another of the
more recent tools to further entrench an oppressive hierarchical pyramid
of power, with various ways of dividing those on the bottom and
ensuring they stay there. Cheap labour and resource exploitation are
still the name of the game.
Now as an educated Asian Canadian who
has never even been able to travel to the rest of the hemisphere, I
hope it is clear why I could not do more than give a shallow overview of
the broad connections between free trade policies and racism in
general. I'd like to get more concrete now and talk about how recent
'globalization' may have affected local struggles here in Canada.
Many
of you involved in Anti-Racist Action's direct action campaigns have
probably noticed an increase in overtly racist behaviour like
neo-Nazism, anti-immigrant activity, and police attacks on youth, people
of colour and poor people here in Ontario. I would suggest that these
examples of overt racism are just the tip of a growing iceberg of racist
attitudes stemming from the effects of capitalist globalization:
namely, the polarization between rich and poor countries that
stigmatizes immigrants and refugees; and the polarization between rich
and poor in the same city which justifies increasing law enforcement to
protect the rich.
If crime is the reason for increasing police
budgets and power, targeted policing, military spending, and prisons,
then someone has got to commit the crimes! So the Toronto police force
can afford, for example, to have a specially dedicated Asian Crime
Investigative Unit to probe would-be refugees and other worthy Asians,
and stir up media controversies over the 'illegal immigration' crisis
where Canada is being drowned in tidal waves of the Asian Invasion. And
this doesn't even touch on the millions of people who, because of their
economic situation, could never even consider attempting refugee or
immigrant status in Canada.
This also gives the government good
excuses to "crack down" on immigration and refugee rules so that they
have more reasons to deny people access to our country's wealth and
comfort. "Economic migrants" are seen as queue-jumping opportunists who
are not suffering real persecution in their globalization-stricken
homelands.
An example of racist policies that benefit from
globalization is the federal government's Live-In Caregiver program
which brings in Third World Women to be vulnerable,
ridiculously-low-paid, domestic workers doing work that 'real Canadians'
would never want to do. If they behave well over two years, they are
given a shot at Canadian residency.
So the FTAA will probably
follow the examples of previous free trade deals and provide freedom for
capital and investment but not for labour. It's easier for money to
move and harder for people. If it does allow labour mobility it will be
restricted to highly-skilled technical workers so that North America can
further benefit from the brain drain of the South.
So if the
FTAA threatens people of colour, why aren't ppl of colour on the
forefront of the movement to oppose it? Well, answer 1 is that they
actually ARE, in the South as well as in North America, but are largely
ignored by media and even by other activists. Answer 2 is that the
well-publicized 'mainstream' activist 'movement' has not yet come to
grips with its own racism (and other internal oppressions).
That's
where anti-racist activists like us come in (and that's the main
purpose of the Colours of Resistance network that I'm supposed to be
representing today). COR's mandate mentions a need for different roles
played by activists of colour and white allies. Rather than attempting
to infuse communities of colour with the wisdom of their movements,
white activists could focus on breaking down the barriers to inclusion
and cooperation between them and organizers of colour.
Some of
these barriers may have to do with separate realities: what actions one
can afford to take part in: taking into consideration work and family
demands, travelling to a protest for an uncertain amount of time, risks
of police confrontation, arrest whether or not one can afford legal
support, risks to one's landed status, etc.
Some of the barriers
thus have to do with how many diverse forms of direct action we can come
up with, how much we can accomodate people of differing needs and
risks, and how much we respect and work with other approaches to
resistance chosen by communities of colour, that may be more realistic
and accessible. It thus may require some reflection on our parts as to
what is seen and defined as 'radical' -- both what issues and what
actions. Appreciating the contribution of a wide variety of organizing
strategies and protest tactics may help lead to a broad, multiracial and
truly threatening movement against global capitalism.
Oppressive
policies like neocolonialism and free trade are built on the
foundations of racism. To oppose them effectively we must be vigilant
anti-racists ourselves and, as your poster said, move from "days of
action" to sustained community-based resistance.
In Montreal,
we're having networking meetings for community organizers of colour,
featuring workshops by the Immigrant Workers Centre and Live-in
Caregiver groups at Teach-ins like the one this weekend, having long
anti-oppression and direct action trainings, holding roundtables and
conferences about racism in trade unions, having hip hop resistance
parties, having popular education days for women -- particularly women
of colour. It's not as much as we would like but it's a start to
becoming local, global and long-term allies in the struggle against
racism and capitalist oppression.
|
|
|
