Susan George

In recent days and weeks, I have answered innumerable times the same set of questions from the press and some days it seems to me I have time for little else. In order to simplify everyone's life, I have decided to refer queries to the following replies.

1. Question: "What do the events of 11 September mean for the anti-globalisation movement?"

Answer: First off, please do not refer to this movement as "anti-globalisation" or in French "anti-mondialisation". This qualifier is an invention of the media and does not correspond to the reality of the movement which is a citizens movement for global justice. It is in favour of democracy and solidarity, it is internationalist in attitude and scope and no one in it wants to close off the borders or hide behind frontiers.

2. The events of 11 September make our movement and our demands even more relevant than before. This is particularly true for ATTAC, now present in 30 countries, which is a large component of the citizens movement, especially in Europe. While we would not say that one can combat terrorism directly by building a fairer and more equitable world, it is certainly the case that poverty and inequality make a rich recruiting ground.

3. Concrete example: [Source: speech by President Bill Clinton at the Conference on Globalisation organised by the Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt on 30 October 2001]: Children in the religious schools in Pakistan [madrassa] know the Koran in-and-out but cannot add 2 + 2 and one child claimed that dinosaurs were still living on earth. Why are they in this school? Because the secular schools are fee-paying and their parents can't afford them. Perhaps we can't attack terrorism directly but we could certainly help Pakistan educate all its children.

4. Question: "How would you do that?"

ATTAC is proposing several measures, all designed to free up resources to begin reducing the rich-poor gap. ATTAC means Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions to Aid Citizens. Indeed, one of our main goals is to institute taxation on international capital movements ["Tobin"-type taxes] with which to constitute a fund that would undertake such activities.

We also work for debt relief. Poor countries over the past decade and more have paid several Marshall Plans to the rich. Poor people are dying under the "structural adjustment" programmes designed by the World Bank and IMF, whose goal is to squeeze enough resources from indebted countries that they can keep servicing their debts. Debt is really a political tool. Example: the US has recently cancelled over $370 million of Pakistani debt; it did the same for Egypt during the Gulf War. Debt provides both carrots and sticks for creditors. Every year, the G-7 say they are cancelling debt and every year nothing happens.

Attac is further calling for the abolition of tax havens ["paradis fiscaux"]. George Bush has given this campaign real help! Whereas we were always told it wasn't technically or legally possible, it's now suddenly possible to identify accounts, trace their transactions and freeze them. Getting rid not just of terrorist access to such havens but also that of criminal traffickers of all kinds--drugs, prostitution, armaments--would make available vast resources internationally.

There is no shortage of money in the world; there is a shortage of vision and political courage.

5. Question: Isn't your movement, aren't you anti-American?

This is nonsense. We work all the time with counterpart organisations in the US. Personally, when I was fighting against the Vietnam War or against US policy to bring down the Sandinistas by supporting the Contras in Nicaragua, I felt I was being extremely patriotic. Let's remember the founding values of the United States. I am personally against the bombing of Afghanistan not just on moral grounds, although these are important, but because I think it is politically foolhardy and absolutely contrary to the interests of the US.

We are not going to avenge the crimes of 11 September by bombing innocent civilians. We are only going to make the predictions of Samuel Huntington about the "clash of civilisations" come true. When I first read it in 1993, I thought this concept was rubbish, but it could become true.

We will encourage recruitment by terrorist networks in Moslem countries, even moderates will become radicalised. I certainly would be if I were being bombed. Furthermore, bombing doesn't work. We tried in against Khadafi in the mid 1980s and against Saddam Hussein for 10 years. Both of them are still there.

Now is the time to remember the great Chinese general Sun Tzu who said 2500 years ago: Do not do what you would most like to do. Do what your enemy would least like you to do.

Our enemies want us to radicalise and inflame the Moslem world, they care nothing about their own poor people. We should stop supporting every corrupt regime in the Middle East. We should make the Israelis talk seriously to the Palestinians and make sure they have a viable state.

Attac's programme is more important than ever because the world is even more dangerous than it was. We will not be silenced.