STATEMENT

WTO, the Empire and Religious Wars:

Taking the Faith Communities to the Front Lines

PEACE FOR LIFE SECRETARIAT

2005 SEPTEMBER 28

WTO and Globalisation

The World Trade Organization (WTO) 6th Ministerial Conference is scheduled to take place in Asia on the 13th to the 18th of December 2005. Surely the gathering will draw in anti-globalisation protesters from around the world as have been previous WTO meetings. But as far as international economics and finance goes, the ministerial meeting takes centre stage as its gospel of free-market fundamentalism has become the dominant doctrine for economic growth committed to by nearly all state governments, albeit in varying degrees of adherence and for variable reasons.

The WTO is part of the triumvirate that includes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and together they have taken much of the governance of world trade and finance. The ultimate objective being the hegemonic project orchestrated by the United States to create the world in its own image, usually referred to as globalisation—that is the integration of the entire world into a global economy within the rubric of unregulated capitalism, or the freedom of capital to move anywhere in pursuit of highest return.

The beginning of the 21st century saw a new chapter in global hegemony: the advent of the borderless war, the militarisation of the globalisation agenda—employing state terrorism to consolidate and expand economic, political, cultural and military domination. The United States in its unrivalled position as a lone superpower has assumed the role of empire, taking more and more the function of world governance. September 11 became the perfect pretext to launch the U.S. war on terror. Afghanistan became the first victim of its show of force, and to the “axis of evil,’ a warning. But it was the invasion and occupation of Iraq that the naked depravity of imperial expansionism showed itself bare for the entire world to see.

The turn of the century also saw a new way of dealing with global hegemony: privatized global terror, the Al-Qaeda being its best known adherent. The distinction of combatants and innocent civilians has all but disappeared. Both sides of the divide have done away with the rules of civilized warfare, punishing people for the sins of their leaders. An eye for an eye; terrorism for terrorism.

This, at the time when the combined effects of the “conditionalities” imposed by the International Monetary Fund, the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization’s measures to protect property rights, “free” trade and investor access had become all too manifest. For the non-industrial South it was a situation of external debt servicing outpacing export earnings, foreign exchange instability and massive capital flights in a recessionary environment; bankruptcies had become a common occurrence, victimizing entire economies, not just individuals and small businesses. In social terms, it translated into the exacerbation of venality within state bureaucracies, of existing inequalities in various aspects of power relations, and of mass poverty. The created condition also meant the surrender of sovereignty of the state’s governance of its economy and finance to the three global institutions. Environmental and health concerns as well as safeguards for people’s rights had become mere economic “externalities,” distortions or “trade barriers.” For the majority of the world’s people, women and children especially, the mantra of free trade and liberalised economy spelled suffering the violence of depredation—loss of jobs, destruction of farms, demise of emergent national industries, compromised food security, erosion of social services, growing insecurity, environmental degradation, the subordination of the imperatives of a human society to the demands of capital accumulation.

Empire and Religious Wars

Religion today, more than any other time within the last century, has become a major justification of social and political action. The Christian Right is in the forefront in the propagation of dogma that justifies empire and military hegemony. And for those who feel victimised, in the face of suffering, collective fury, alienation, and insecurity, religion has become—as it has always been through the centuries—a source of strength and unity; it is also a fountain of hatred and terror. Empire builders have always known that religion can be exploited to make the spread of empire (and the rise of emperors) a divine inevitability, and to transform their enemies into devil incarnates, to whom people’s rage should be directed. Empires fostered religious wars.

Thus, the U.S. war on terror—using religious rhetoric and symbols to define it—has also become a religious war, polarizing communities and further eroding inter-religious relations. Religious extremism exists on both sides of the current Christian–Muslim divide, distorting the set of beliefs, creating false image, and feeding distrust within and about each other. Muslims and Christians in many communities have become mortal enemies, their shared victimisation and common heritage notwithstanding.

WTO Ministerial Conference and the WCC’s DOV

The coming WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong is likely to try to resurrect the failed negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, two years ago. And many analysts believe that a deal will be made. But the problem with WTO does not lie on the details of whether the Doha round of negotiations can be revived or NAMA (Non-Agriculture Market Access) agenda will derail all other negotiations. It is not even whether the contentions on agricultural subsidies will be threshed out or not, or whether developing countries will get a “fair deal” in the SPs and SSMs (Special Products and Special Safeguard Mechanisms). The problem with WTO is that it is there at all, an exclusive club of the world’s business colossi, clearing the way for finance capital, opening all available resources wherever for exploitation by multinational corporations, and convincing state governments that free trade along with free movement of capital—human and environmental costs notwithstanding—is the only way to prosperity.

Coincidentally, the World Council of Churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV) Focus on Asia ends within a few days of the Hong Kong meeting of WTO. For the ecumenical community, this twin occurrence begs for analysis and reflection since they are, in a sense, ideological protagonists in the issue of what it takes to create a better world: for the world financial institutions, it is the workings of the “invisible hand” in a liberalized economy; for the ecumenical movement, at least in the Asian context, it is overcoming violence by ‘Building Communities of Peace for All,’ in which implicit in ‘overcoming violence’ is the challenge of rooting out the sources of violence and addressing them. That “overcoming violence” is necessary for those who believe in “peace as a foundation for the future of the world” and requires the recognition that the struggle against empire is integral to it and is part of the faith communities’ social obligation and moral responsibility.

PfL Action

In December 2004, Peace for Life (PfL) was formally launched in an inaugural forum under the theme, “Sowing Seeds of Peace in the Era of Empire: Christians in Solidarity with Muslims.” As a body, it defined itself as a multi-religious, inter-cultural movement for global justice and peace; it is also a forum (space) where stories about people’s aspirations, heroism and struggles are shared and kept alive. But beyond the form and its physical presence is the call for action, of building people’s solidarity and mobilising faith-based resistance to the empire’s war on terror and destructive forces of corporate globalisation, a “call on people of all faiths and convictions to speak out and rise up against the violence, fear, and greed that drive empire.”

Peace for Life has scheduled to hold a round table forum in time for the 6th Ministerial Conference of WTO. This is part of regularly programmed activities aimed to facilitate the promotion of social movements’ agenda for peace among religious leaders and identify areas where the churches can be in total solidarity with the constituencies of these movements. The PfL Secretariat has chosen the time and venue to underscore the importance of being part of the growing global alliance against free-market globalisation and being counted among those in opposition to WTO. The choice is both symbolic and a gesture of solidarity.

Peace for Life Secretariat

Metro Manila, Philippines

28 September 2005