Matt,

Just a couple of thoughts loosely based on your mail:

Our Minister of Trade got himself showered with tear gas. Paradoxically by the police =). This was maybe called for, but still quite odd to hear about in a country who experience riots once a year (I'm talking about Sweden, yes), and even then, the riots consist of three skinheads trying to light a candle by a statue of an 18th century king, and four anti-nazi demonstrators trying to kick their ass.

Speaking of nazis, four of our major newspapers recently did an exposé on 62 of our most powerful nazis, counting major nazi leaders, propaganda spreaders, and those serving time for major crimes. The exposé consisted of putting out their names and pictures, whereabouts and crimes for everybody to see. Those were not pretty pictures. My point is that it was an excellent to try and rid our country from this problem, to show everybody what these people are up to and thus show everyone what nazism really is - inhumane.

Now to this very complicated subject of the World Trade Organization. I am proud of you, that you stand up for something you believe in.

As for WTO, I do not see things quite as you do. Naturally, a conscience is difficult for an organization to have, considering what it consists of. Many countries have joined together in this cooperation, and many (mostly western) cultures meet in an attempt to control the market (or whatever other goals they have set up). So the main objective is not to profit for the sake of profiting, as I see things. Your way of comparing WTO with Darth Vader may not be showing quite the whole truth, since nothing is that simple, even if it shows a giant *part* of the truth. A point is made that I agree with: there are a lot of perverse things about WTO and the way they control many economies. I agree that it is, on the whole, a negative entity.

It is though a symptom of the globalization of economy. Which is something very difficult to stop. I agree it is a negative thing, national economies are more and more difficult to control. Maybe global solutions are needed to stop the economic globalization - paradoxically enough? I am not the person to say.

The riots are here called "The battle of Seattle" ["Slaget om Seattle"] and it is generally viewed very neutral. No newspaper has so far taken any firm standpoint, but it will probably not be long. The tear gas that hit our dear minister will probably be interpreted as that the riots are something barbarous. As for me, I am against civil disorder in that magnitude, unless it is for defending democracy, which kind of is what you guys did. The way I understand it, the police attacked you first and with much force. It is understandable if you did not have a "license" or whatever you call it to demonstrate - but still people should be treated as people and a couple of jumpy policemen should answer in court to why they used so much force. It looked even worse for them in the international press than if they would have stayed put, if that is what the government was afraid of.

In the matter, I am rather neutral, since I do not know very much other than what I have read in the paper and in your e-mail. Mail me your address, and I'll send you the front page of "Dagens Nyheter" ["The Daily News"] and you can see for yourself what it looked like, even if you can't understand what it says. Might be fun to look at, since you where there.

Nils

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Mattro replies:

Hi Nils,

Thanks for the Swedish perspective. It's great to hear what the news in other nations is saying about big events in Seattle, or anywhere.

Just to clarify: Despite TV images and photographs... no one here is calling what happened yesterday a "riot". Both the protestors AND the city officials agree that the vandilization of stores, was more like hooliganism.. just a bunch of opportunists making asses of themselves and making the REAL protestors look bad. Our local media here in Seattle has admirably and steadfastly reminded their viewers/readers that the looting and destruction was brief, never consumed more than a half dozen blocks, and was conducted by a very small group of agitators.

The overall masses were never swayed to violence (like the L.A. Riots of '92), and many tried to stop the agitators when the cops (for some reason) never broke rank from the lines they were holding to go arrest the vandals. Subsequently most of the jerks got away.

To clarify their position, which was VERY clear on the streets here in Seattle, the protestors want assurances that, as the economy of individual nations is globalized, all the work that has gone into protecting the environment, halting human rights violations, and maintaining worker's rights here and abroad (such as the right to unionize) are also sustained and expanded. "People over Profits" is one of the slogans I saw a lot.

Obviously there are factions in the protest, (numerous unions, many enviro activist groups, "Free Tibet" people, etc.) but everyone agreed to work together which was VERY inspiring to see before all that ugliness came to pass.

Additionally, every one involved would like to see the WTO run its business more like the UN does where meetings are open to the press and public. WTO decisions are currently made behind closed doors by people the group won't even identify. These are the people settling trade disputes.

Let's keep talking about this!

Update: The above comments were made on 12/1. By the weekend of 12/5, all levels of print and electronic media were referring to what happened in Seattle as "rioting".

Unless one is describing the police activity that followed as "rioting" (which it seemed to be at times), I take issue with the assessment that what the violent protestors did on Tuesday 11/30 in downtown Seattle was rioting. As stated above, it was more in line with what the Brits call "hooliganism". In my mind, a riot is a sustained period of violence where people are hurt or killed, and property is actually burned to the ground (once again, as in L.A. '92). The violence that took place Tuesday was far too brief and caused no physical harm to another human being... ie: it was too peaceful, if you will, to be considered a real riot. All the shops that were hit by vandals were back in business within days... how many "riots" have you heard of where this was the case?

All this may just be semantics however, in this case, using the word "riot" to describe what happened seems more sensationalist manipulation of reality than it an actual truth.

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