Barbed wire and
safety fences are dismantled, the police and army are withdrawn and
freedom of movement is restored. The 43rd
annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) ended last month
with negligible protests against the ‘global leaders’.
Every year in late January, the Swiss mountain town Davos is
temporarily turned into a fortress. On the streets, policemen,
soldiers and bodyguards outnumber unarmed citizens by far.
More than
2,500 ‘global leaders’ met in Davos this year “to improve the
state of the world.” as the WEF claims. It’s difficult to make
much sense of this year’s motto ‘Resilient Dynamism’.
Nevertheless, a lot was discussed, much optimism spread but no
decisions taken; at least in front of the cameras.
Even
though temperatures were frosty, sunshine reigned at this year’s
annual meeting. At least from the business perspective, the global
economic crisis is receding. “The worst is behind us. The optimism
for recovery is there,” Axel Weber, chairman of the board of
directors of the scandal-ridden bank UBS proclaimed.
Meanwhile
Davos mayor Tarzisius Caviezel couldn’t stop raving about the WEF’s
economic importance for Europe’s highest city: “The pictures
broadcast throughout the world are invaluable advertising for Davos.”
Indeed,
visual publicity was much worse a decade ago – trashed fast food
restaurants, broken windows, a martial police presence, clouds of
tear gas, peaceful protesters beaten and showered by water cannons.
This year,
barbed wire was cleverly covered by large white canvas. The security
personnel’s only challenge was to guide the countless SUVs and
limousines through the town’s narrow streets.
A decade
ago, thousands of protesters challenged the ‘global leaders’,
threatening to shut down the World Economic Forum. It wasn’t just
about expressing alternative opinions in Davos, but about chasing the
rich and powerful out of town. “Wipe out WEF” was their slogan.
In past
years the police did everything possible to keep protesters away from
Davos, and put up with riots in other Swiss cities. Whoever tried to
travel to Davos was stopped; trains and coaches were blocked in the
lowlands.
About 50
people joined a rally in Davos. Rolf Marugg, secretary of the local
Green Party was pleased, though he had expected more. “It’s
important that we as locals protest against the meeting, the order of
the globalised economy and the often dirty doings of the WEF
participants,” Marugg said.
Pointing
at the WEF’s rather vague motto, the Green politician said that the
world doesn’t need dynamism and resilience but a slowdown and
change. “The current crisis proves that those self-appointed global
leaders’ only ability is to drive economy, society and the
environment against the wall. ‘Resilient Dynamism’ therefore only
means to keep up the current crisis system by any means possible.”
Over the
last few years, small demonstrations are tolerated in Davos; they no
longer constitute a threat. The rally went almost unnoticed.
Additionally, Greenpeace temporarily shut down a Shell gas station,
criticising the company for planning to drill for oil in the Arctic.
In another token protest, three activists approached the congress
centre with smoke flares to protest against the exploitation of women
in the global economy.
A decade
ago going up to Davos in late January was on every left-wing
activist’s agenda. David Böhner, now in his forties, was a leading
figure in Switzerland’s anti-globalisation movement. “Our protest
was fundamentally anti-capitalist and directed against the
increasingly powerful multinational corporations,” he said.
“Any
social movement needs some kind of point of reference. In our case,
the World Economic Forum provided a suitable projection screen.” At
that time, no meeting of the G8, the European Union or the WTO was
safe from resistance protests.
Böhner
didn’t travel to Davos this year. “The demonstrations against the
WEF don’t interest me any more.” The political capacity to ignite
has long gone, he said, and a ritualised form of protest carries
little potential.
It was in
the early 2000s that opposition was loudest and most radical. Even
though the authorities were quick to deflect from political content
by nurturing a debate on violence at the protests, it was then when
the activists’ arguments were most heard.
“Another
major reason for the decline of the anti-WEF movement surely was the
police repression,” David Böhner added. The turning point was in
2004, when 1,082 demonstrators were held in the freezing cold in the
town Landquart, 40 kilometres from Davos, after violently being
pulled out of a train by the police.
The
authorities succeeded, because disputes flared up within the
movement. Mobilising for demonstrations in Davos became senseless,
unwise and unattractive. In the following years, increasingly smaller
rallies were held in other Swiss cities.
Meanwhile,
the WEF facilitated media access and invited ‘civil society
leaders’ to their debates to counter critique. The Open Forum to
run parallel to the WEF was invented.
But
despite its polished image, the World Economic Forum remains a
dubious platform for politicians and business leaders to consult
behind closed doors, far from any accountability. The official
programme is just one side of the coin.
On behalf
of the World Economic Forum, Nicholas Davis argues that if every
meeting was made public, nothing would get decided. “Some
conversations – over delicate or sensitive issues – frankly have
to be held behind closed doors. Our aim is to be as open as possible
without jeopardising our mission to improve the state of the world.”
This report was first published here by IPS Inter Press Service.
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