Mainers in Solidarity with Anti-FTAA Activists in Miami
While activists were protesting the FTAA in Miami, we, here in Maine, were
doing our best to get the word out. The Brunswick-area Fair Play Players
offered a skit called "Trick or Treat America" at various locations around
the state. In it President Bush, the Fortune 500 and the trade ministers of
the FTAA countries get the treats, while the students, old people, sick
people and children are left with the crumbs.
During the same week, at Bowdoin College there was a series of activities
around globalization, sponsored by Sociology Professor Joe Bandy's class on
globalism. Assistant Professor Kristen Ghodsee of the Women's Studies
department simulated a business conference in which she explained to the
assembled business people that hiring women is the best way to get the most
productivity with the least trouble. Of her pictures of women at work around
the world one was particularly wrenching. It showed young girls who make
electronic microdevices. By the time they are 23 years old they have become
legally blind from such close work, and are then discarded for a new batch
of young girls.
Marc Kielburger is a dynamic young man who, at 18, spent seven months living
and working in the Klong Toey slums of Bangkok, Thailand. The little boys he
met there played soccer with an empty coke can because a ball was beyond
their means. Marc noted that they spoke unaccented English, which meant, he
knew, that they were the sex slaves of English-speaking visitors to
Thailand. Marc currently serves as Executive Director of Kids Can Free the
Children, the largest network of children helping children in the world,
with over 100,000 members active in 35 countries. Kids Can Free the Children
has built over 350 primary schools, providing education to more than 20,000
kids, has shipped millions of dollars worth of medical supplies to
developing countries and has sent over 150,000 school and health kits to
children in need. (See www.freethechildren.com for more information).He
talked of the children of Sierra Leone, many of whom had their arms chopped
off in the war for diamonds. His message was simple: We in the wealthy
countries are responsible because our demand for diamonds is fueling these
wars.
Colby Prof. Jonathan White had an answer for the economists who claim that
free trade has bolstered the economies of many countries. Gross domestic
product as a way of measuring the wealth of a nation is nonsense, he said.
By averaging the incomes of a few multi-millionaires with those of the great
majority of the population, the economies of these countries look good on
paper. But the great majority remain poor.
Students are learning that there is more to economics than the bottom line.
They have come to see that even if American corn is cheaper for Mexicans to
buy, the overall effect of dumping American corn on Mexico is to disrupt the
lives of thousands of farmers, destroy communities, force people to
immigrate to the United States, and increase racism in this country.
Back to Peace Talk Index,
Winter, 2003 - 2004