Monday, November 30th, 6:30pm, McGill University, Leacock Building,
10 years ago, 100,000 environmentalists, trade unionists, anarchists, feminists and many other contingents gathered in Seattle to oppose the millenium round negotiations of the World Trade Organisation. These demonstrations not only effectively shut down the meetings but also breathed life into the anti-capitalist movement. This monumental victory triggered demonstrations across the world against the alphabet soup of major neo-liberal and imperialist agencies like the International Monetary Fund/World Bank (IMF/WB), Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), G8, G20, School of the Americas (SoA) and General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and so many more. The shutting down of the WTO meetings embodied the rage against of the post-Cold War new world order and illustrated a massive discontent with capitalism.
The speakers on this roundtable reflected on organising prior to the WTO demonstrations in Seattle and afterwards. They covered the effects of organising for the WTO on the anti-capitalist activists in Seattle and across North America.
Recorded/uploaded by David Koch
Indu Vashist, coordinator with QPIRG McGill, attended the WTO demonstrations in Seattle.