Letters to the Editor

WTO policies do not promote democratic trade

To the Daily:

All this week and into the next, delegates from the 135 member nations of the World Trade Organization are meeting in Seattle. The event has drawn 2100 observers from 775 international NGOs and as many as half a million protesters, representing issues from labor to indigenous property rights to agriculture to biodiversity. Even as you read this the dissonance of their individual voices and activities are united in a common goal: democratic trade.

Since its creation in 1995, the WTO has worked under a banner of free trade to facilitate a corporate-managed prerogative in which short-run profits dominate other values. Free trade is championed by neoliberal economists as a means of maximizing efficiency in production and growth by reducing trade barriers between autonomous states. But there is (as there always seems to be in an economic system notorious for cost externalization) a certain irony in associating the word "free" with this type of trade.

Only a handful of bureaucrats are called upon to manage the trade affairs of much of the world in a body which exercises unchecked judicial power on the laws of nations. Members are not elected by the people of representative nations and hold no formal accountability for their actions. Rulings on challenges to laws deemed unfair to trade (such as health codes for food or emission standards on fuel as well as tariffs) are final. There are no conflict-of-interest rules, and the deciding panelists often have little appreciation of domestic law or of governmental responsibility to protect workers, the environment or human rights.

From a ruling that allowed the United States to impose trade sanctions on the EU for barring imports of hormone-treated beef, to the support of intellectual property rights laws on plants and animals that favor U.S. and European pharmaceutical corporations' exploitation of indigenous knowledge and cultural resources in "underdeveloped" countries, to rulings against countries which oppose importing fish netted without simple measures taken to protect sea turtles, we see a common theme emerge: Trade, in itself a multifunctional interaction that expresses an autonomous nation or
culture's ethical, ecological and social as well as economic values, is reduced by WTO actions to narrow abstractions of growth and efficiency.

In its practical application, neoliberal free trade can be summarized as such: "We will produce as much as we can to flood your markets with our goods and work as hard as we can to keep your goods out of ours." This is not a system of trade that favors development, or equality, but the continued sequestration of capital wealth into the hands of a small few at the health, labor and environmental expenses of billions.

This concentration of power is frighteningly undemocratic. Every single environmental or public health law challenged at WTO thus far has been ruled illegal. Perhaps most disturbing of all, corporations have begun to use the mere threat of massive lawsuits against governments to get them to repeal existing environmental, health and labor laws. These suits frame existing laws as trade barriers, and the money requested is for profits which would have been earned had the laws not been in existence. Free, indeed!

Concerned students, activists and local citizens are joining their voices today with those in Seattle, and we encourage all University students and faculty to do the same! All day today on the Diag we will be distributing information to raise awareness on how the WTO operates and the issues at stake in the current round of negotiations.

We encourage you come out to the noontime rally, and also to stop by to write letters and sign petitions to President Clinton and congressional representatives calling for more democratic trade reform. This evening at 6 p.m. in 2024 Dana, Prof. Ian Robinson will be giving a lecture on the WTO's history, problems and alternatives. We urge all of you to attend these events, to follow media coverage of the negotiations and the protests and to join us in working toward equality, justice and democracy in global trade!

Joseph Groenke

SNRE and LSA senior

Facts discredit stereotypes of terrorists

To the Daily:

In Rabeh Soofi's letter to the editor "Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee 'whines'" (11/24/99), she argues that since the group called "Arab Muslims" "composes the largest terrorist threat to American security ... the world (is justified) to pass such quick judgement on Arab Muslims as a whole" when there are suspicions of terrorist activity. For some reason it is still necessary at this point in history to show that ignorance and stereotypes are wrong.

If my memory serves me right, a white man with ties to Michigan named Timothy McVeigh killed more Americans than any Arab terrorists. Workplace violence is a far greater threat to the average American than any Arabs. Also, according to the State Department's last report on terrorism (1998), other regions in the world had many more anti-American acts of terror than the Middle East (http://www.state.gov/www/global/terrorism/). Stereotypes conveniently neglect facts.

Soofi's argument is justifying stereotypes in general. We all know stereotypes have a grain of truth in them; that does not mean they are acceptable bases for policies, media coverage or the worldviews of the college-educated. Each of these require slightly sophisticated understandings (you would hope). Simplistic notions such as "well since some do, assuming they all are capable is fine" should not fly in an academic environment.

She makes the accusation that "the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee are apologists of Arab Muslims around the world." First, she groups a highly diverse, multi-sectarian, multi-national, multi-class group into one conveniently monolithic category ("Arab Muslims") as if there is homogeneity. This is the result of ignorance. Second, to be an apologist of a broad and diverse group such as Arab Muslims, means that the group is accused or can be found guilty of some crime. What is the crime ADC is apologetic about? What is a crime, that as a group, Arab Muslims have committed? Perhaps it is the great crime against humanity that conservatives have been fighting against: being different.

Soofi suggests that the crime this broad group is guilty of is that "Arab Muslims ... further their causes ... through death and terrorism." That is news to me. ADC is an organization with Arab Muslims (and Christians) and has not killed or terrorized anyone, although we have received terrorizing e-mails from others. I could point her out to thousands of Arab Muslim organizations in the Arab World that work hard for human and civil rights by building schools, running hospitals, lobbying politicians and other civil methods. However, their activities are not deemed newsworthy. It is easier for the media to report news that fits into the associations people already hold (Arab = terrorist) rather than challenge ignorant assumptions with contrary ideas.

What about the Christian fundamentalists who bomb abortion clinics and shoot doctors? Does this mean we should be on the look out for White Christians?

Soofi makes an absolutely puzzling defense of stereotypes based on statistics quantified meaninglessly with such vague terms as "endless," "countless" and "numerous." Yet, the total percentage of Arab Muslims willing to actively engage in acts of terrorism is less than one ten-thousandth of 1 percent. And according to the State Department, anti-American terrorist acts in the Middle East amounted to five out of 111 world-wide. It should be noted that Western Europe accounted for 13 and that in the period from 1993 to 1998, this imbalance is equally disproportionate.

Soofi speaks so highly of "facts" but completely ignores them. They do not mesh with her severely limited understanding of a group she so adamantly and unjustifiably chastises.

I suggest that we must try to build more complicated views of the world through education and open-mindedness. We should discard the simplistic associations that we use to process world events because they tend to lead to severely limited conclusions such as in Rabeh Soofi's letter. If we filter news about Arabs and Muslims with the association of them as terrorists, we will make the same mistakes we did after the Oklahoma City Bombing, TWA flight 800 and on a regular basis when Arabs try to fly anywhere. However, if we understand that the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims are not terrorists, the negative repercussions that arise from ignorance - hate crimes, prejudice, discriminatory policy and violated rights - will be avoided.

Will Youmans

LSA Senior

11-30-99