Written by Laurence Brahm - Published by South China Morning Post on 11/22/2005

As Hong Kong braces for protests against the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting next month, it is useful to know why so many will be on the streets. Certainly, the mainstream western media will not tell you.

Ironically, those in the so –called anti- globalization movement are all for the globalization of information. Mobile phone and the Internet are most critical tools, forming an underground media that people globally must now turn to in order to understand what is really happening.

In the mainstream, multinational corporate media realm, actual events are edited, watered down a misconstrued. Newsreaders and commentators who sing the praises of globalization dismiss what is becoming a global, people’s free democratic movement with the crude label “anti-globalization”.

Why is the movement awakening under everyone’s noses, particularly at meeting of the WTO, the Group of eight (G8) industrialized nations and the World Economics Forum? Is it possible that certain democratic government mechanism are not allowing for full democratic participation?

Such though would be heretical for the western mainstream media to discuss. But, because of their refusal to provide balanced coverage, these groups have no other choice but to come out en masse to draw attention to their positions.

Amid massive populist protests during the 2001 G8 meeting in Genoa, Italy, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the international media to stop their coverage, saying: “ To give in to the protesters would be to turn democracy on its head.” Sure enough, cameras turned away from the crowds and back to Mr. Blair and US President George W Bush. Was telling the truth?

John Bunzi, founder and director of the NGO International Simultaneous Policy Organisation, says anti – globalization protests are “just the festering tip of a very large iceberg.

For, underlying these high-profile protests lies a widespread and deepening public disengagement from party politics, as evidenced by the ever-lower voter turnouts in elections around the world. As such, those voters to the left of centre are today effectively deprived of political expression of their democratic rights. So is it any wonder they take to the streets in protests?”

After Genoa, a viewer named Kaka Tim wrote an open letter to the BBC, saying:” I found your reporting of the recent demonstration against the G8 in Genoa extremely unbalanced, distorted, inaccurated and selective with the facts. The fact that I have to consult what is effectively the ‘underground’ media in order to discover the truth about what happens on political demonstrations is a disturbing development..’

He said that while the protesters came from a wide variety of background, they agreed “that the free-market policies of the multinational corporation and the wealthy western government are overwhelmingly self-serving and are driving increasing global poverty, worker exploitation, social breakdown and environmental destruction. This is a moral crusade that drove thousand to the streets of Genoa. The largest protest movement in history and a welcome rebirth of political idealism”.

Will Hong Kong become a platform for such a rebirth of idealism next month? It would be a refreshing twist. So maybe, in Mr. Blair’s word, democracy is being turned on its head. Maybe it is time for new forms of representive government to come into being. Certainly, the WTO meeting will not represent those on the streets.

Anger expressed by the so-called anti-globalisation movement in Seattle, Prague and Genoa becomes violent and radical because normal outlets for these concern are not provide among mainstream media. The New York – Washington elite set parameters of what is fair discussion in the media. But the rest of the world does not have to follow. Next month, in Hong Kong, we should not.

Laurence Brahm is a global activist, international mediator, political columnist and author. He is the leading advocate of a fresh development paradigm - The Himalayan Consensus - an innovative approach to development.

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