This is the speech that Murray Horton delivered on his national speaking tour, which took place in April, June and July 2002. Bear in mind that it was written and delivered before the snap election was called or held. Ed.

The last time I did one of these speaking tours was in 1999 (a whole millennium ago), so it’s instructive to look at what has changed since then, for better or worse. Of course, 1999 was an election year also (and that is the reason for the timing for this tour). We have had a change of Government after nearly a decade of Tory rule, and we are told that Rogernomics is officially over. The party * that I voted for is actually in power, although how much longer that will be the case is in doubt, as is its very continued existence. *The July 2002 election saw the Alliance gone from Parliament. See the cover story for more on that. Ed.

In the bigger picture, the last three years have witnessed the unprecedented growth of opposition to what is loosely called globalisation, highlighted by the huge and extremely militant demonstrations against its gatherings all around the world. These protests have become an issue in themselves, generating their own momentum and creating their own martyrs. Behind those angry headlines and photos is a huge movement that embraces many different issues and causes, and unites people from the First World and the Third World, from the global North and South. But there are also many different shades of opinion within that movement, and the perspective of white First World activists can be quite different to that of their Third World counterparts.

Since the September 11 2001 atrocities in the US, we have had the added ingredient of war. Now, in fact, war has always been part of the ingredient but it has been seen by the First World as peripheral because it didn’t affect us, it was always something that happened to "them", quite often in our name. September 11 changed all that, as the head ofices of global capitalism and military imperialism were directly attacked, attacks that were breathtaking in their savagery and audacity; attacks that caused a huge physical and psychological impact on the American Empire and its minor vassal states (such as New Zealand).

So those are the three areas that we need to look at and discuss the activist response to each of them, individually and taken as a whole. In the past, in my speeches, I’ve tended to pack in a lot of facts and figures (which tend to be quite mindboggling when discussing things like the global economy). This time I will concentrate on broader analysis and some suggestions on what we can do about it. Lovers of facts and figures need not despair – I’ve got them with me and/or they are readily available from CAFCA (see Murray’s "Who’s Running The Show? And What We Can Do About It", in Watchdog 99, April 2001. Ed.).

We need to define our terms here. "Globalisation" does not mean "progress" and we are definitely not opposed to progress. Progress for whom is the key question? So let’s put aside all the diversionary discussions about whether to oppose globalisation makes us "Luddites, Neanderthals", etc. Nor does opposition to globalisation mean opposition to internationalism. Quite the opposite – internationalism is the key to our work. It has been the secret of the success of the anti-globalisation movement. Nor should opposition to globalisation be mistaken for opposition to immigration, refugees, boat people, or what have you. CAFCA doesn’t actually have a policy on the subject – because it is not our issue – but I personally don’t have any problem with the free movement of peoples (I’m married to an immigrant, for a start). It is the proponents of globalisation that have the double standard, wanting unrestricted access to the world’s markets but not wanting the world’s peoples to have access to their countries – look at Australia, with its desert concentration camps, Pacific dumping grounds, official lies and State violence directed at poor wretches trying to get away from poverty, war and misery. It makes me very pleased that my Australian grandfather had the good sense to get out of there and never go back. He was an Australian boat person who came here for a better life – funnily enough, New Zealand didn’t treat him like a criminal.

What we are talking about is "corporate globalisation". It’s just a modern name for imperialism, but one in which companies, rather than countries, set out to colonise the world, including New Zealand. Essentially it means that the global economy’s biggest and most powerful players – transnational corporations (TNCs) – aided and abetted by their governments, work towards achieving their goal, which is the dominance of the global economy, for their profit and power. Corporate globalisation is one of the most reactionary forces in world history – opposition to it is both progressive and liberating, not to mention vital for the survival of the planet and all life on it. The extremist ideologues of this want what I call corporate feudalism, whereby the TNCs assume the role of the State in all-important aspects of the economy, and profit mightily in the process. The recent history of New Zealand provides a very good working model of this.

The corporate State is already a reality in many countries of the world, including the biggest and most powerful, the US. So when people ask me (as they always do): "Why do governments pursue these policies?", the answer is easy in the case of governments like the US. Because the politicians and officials are simply servants of the TNCs and they stand to gain personal riches and power by advancing the interests of the corporations from whence they came. I’ll give you a new word to describe the Bush Administration – it is an oiligarchy. Oil is the heroin of capitalism (much more important than money), so control of the world’s oil is a must for those wishing to both run and profit from the American Empire.

In the case of countries such as New Zealand, it’s not so nakedly obvious. Certainly the small cabal of businessmen who benefited from the epidemic of privatisation here had every incentive to support corporate globalisation. In many cases, they’ve now asset stripped, sold out at a profit, cashed up and buggered off overseas, taking their booty with them – just like the pirates of old. Politicians here do not stand to personally profit from it (although a few have made lucrative post–Parliamentary careers as consultants and directors of corporate boards), so the reason that they pursue these lunatic policies is simply because they believe in them, seduced by the nostrums of the witch doctors who peddle the snake oil.

Corporate globalisation reaches its logical conclusion with the alphabet soup of international institutions ranging from APEC to the WTO and every other acronym inbetween. This is where the drive is greatest to establish the corporate super-State, in secret, unaccountable, wheeling and dealing among the elite. It has been the meetings of these institutions that have been the targets of the huge protests with which we’re all familiar. They have taken some heavy body blows – the defeat of the proposed MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment) and the aborting of the 1999 Seattle Summit of the World Trade Organisation are but two examples. But they’re not likely to give up that easily. There are a number of battles that need to be fought right now. The WTO did manage to hold a Summit in 2001, in Qatar, a meeting which was deliberately held as far away as possible from protesters. The result was to launch fresh negotiations for the new Millennium Round, with a 2003 deadline. The most sinister development from Qatar was that of the rich countries forcing "new issues" onto the agenda. Effectively this resurrects the MAI and brings it under the umbrella of the WTO, rather than as a stand-alone agreement. Central to the "new issues" is an investment agreement, which revives the aim of standardising a laissez faire regime of unrestricted foreign investment across all WTO members. Other key "new issues" are a competition policy (which basically would open up national economies to TNCs) and a Government procurement policy, which would prevent governments favouring local suppliers or local industry development. There are other related negotiations like the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which is dedicated to forcing open a very wide definition of services (such as water, health and education) for the benefit of the TNCs.

Running parallel to the painfully slow progress at the WTO has been the much faster conclusion of a whole raft of regional and bilateral free trade and investment agreements. For instance, virtually all of North and South America is scheduled to be covered by the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In New Zealand, the Labour-led government has taken up National’s bilateralism with alacrity, rammed through the agreement with Singapore, is well advanced on a comparable one with Hong Kong and is in hot pursuit of the "holy grail", a free trade and investment agreement with the US.

So what is the activist response to corporate globalisation? As John Pilger said, in a recent speech in Sydney, we need "mass action that is constant and unrelenting". In New Zealand the progressive movement’s contribution to the international anti-globalisation campaign has been more than a decade of research, analysis and agitation of the highest calibre. The contribution of individuals such as Jane Kelsey, Bill Rosenberg and Aziz Choudry, to name but three of my colleagues, has been world class. And groups such as CAFCA, GATT Watchdog and, now, ARENA, have led the way. International solidarity has been a central feature of that work from the outset and is the key to the success of the anti-globalisation movement. The most outstanding example is the absolutely gargantuan annual gathering that is the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil,

However, that can be seen as "elitist" work, not mass action. New Zealand has never had anything like the huge protests that have become the characteristic of the anti-globalisation movement overseas. Partly that is because of our tiny population, but it is also because the issue has not fired here, to the same extent. A lot of the information about the global economy and its institutions can seem very lofty and far removed from everyday life. The secret is to show their life and death relevance to ordinary people. There are no shortages of issues being bitterly fought right now, such as the struggle against commercialised water supply in Auckland, and the plans of that city’s Council to sell off housing and other publicly owned assets. Everybody in the New Zealand anti-globalisation movement needs to realise that these battles (to name a couple) are part of our war – for instance, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) has enormously negative implications for health, education and water supply in this country. All organised groups need to add corporate globalisation to the list of issues on which they are campaigning. The trade union movement, unlike its overseas counterparts, has not done this yet (with some honourable exceptions). It is vital that workers be both informed about, and organised against, corporate globalisation. It is their deadliest enemy.

New Zealand got out of the Vietnam War, became nuclear free and ceased sporting ties with South Africa because of mass movements that led to changes in the political status quo. The current campaign against genetic engineering (GE) shows the same trend – a mass movement (which is anti-TNC in many respects) backing up a political campaign, headed by the Greens. There is no magic formula – an anti-globalisation movement has to be built the same way, and built in a way that it involves all sectors of society, and gives everybody a level of involvement and activity with which they are comfortable, be it circulating a petition among their neighbours, writing articles or occupying a corporate boardroom. The late 1990s sucessful campaign against the MAI shows how it can be done – unfortunately the Alliance, which distinguished itself there, no longer plays any sort of campaigning role (it might do now that it doesn’t have to worry about being in Parliament any more. Ed.).

There are all sorts of practical things that grassroots people can do – I’ll give you a couple of examples with which I’m familiar. We’ve organised several tours of the global economy as it is represented in Christchurch (most recently, as part of the protest by a coalition against the November 2001 WTO meeting in Qatar). These are always very popular (we filled a bus with paying passengers one time and had to turn people away) and put the spotlight right on these TNCs, literally on their doorsteps. This can be replicated in every city and town in New Zealand. We have co-organised the Roger Award for several years now, and it has assumed a life of its own. It gives ordinary people the chance to nominate their pick as the Worst TNC in New Zealand that year, and to say why. Believe me, the TNCs (and their PR companies) take a great deal of notice, and definitely don’t like it. The Roger, which is invariably ignored by the TNC-owned media, is extremely empowering and a great way to involve people, to have fun whilst at the same time providing some grassroots accountability for these Masters of the Universe. On the other hand, CAFCA circulates our Corporate Code of Responsibility, which is a simple outline for how we want TNCs to behave in our country (if we have to suffer their presence). We urge people to take this to all election candidates, MPs, and local government officeholders and urge them to adopt it or some similar set of conditions, enforceable by law, to regulate the activities of the owners of our country.

When we are asked: "Well, what alternative do you propose for the likes of the WTO?", that is the big question. We have no objection to trade, no more than we object to progress. Unrestricted free trade and corporate rule is quite another matter. At a bare minimum we call for a complete freeze on all of New Zealand’s existing global, regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements. No new agreements. And while that moratorium is in place, let’s have a proper national debate about what sort of trade and investment relationship New Zealanders do want to have with the rest of the world. That is not to be disparaged as "Stop the world, I want to get off". It is exactly the same approach that New Zealand has taken with other major issues before – most recently, with GE – to put everything on hold while we sort out whether it is in our best interests. New Zealand led the world by becoming nuclear free, because we saw that the nuclear alliance was in the interests of neither us nor the world. We can set exactly the same example with opposition to corporate globalisation.

A significant section of the anti-globalisation movement defines itself as anti-capitalist. CAFCA does not specifically do so - we specialise in imperialism which Lenin called the "highest stage of capitalism". We go after the mongrel not the fleas. So, we are primarily an anti-imperialist organisation. That is CAFCA’s position – speaking personally, I want to leave you in no doubt that I am opposed to capitalism per se and seek its replacement by something better.

Until 2001, the pendulum had swung most markedly in the direction of the huge anti-globalisation movement and the billions of people that it represents.

Things changed again, in the most dramatic way possible, with the terrorist atrocities of September 11 2001 and the US-led war in response to them. This has provided the already very reactionary Bush government with the excuse to swiftly implement a police State apparatus in the US, and to revert to an extremely old form of globalisation – imperialism, backed up by naked military force. This has taken two parallel courses – one has been to emphasise the most oppressive functions of the State, namely an apparently endless and borderless "war on terror", backed by a massive increase in the resources and powers lavished on the military, cops and spies. The second course has been to demonise all dissent, including the anti-globalisation movement (undefined "terrorists" have replaced "Communists" as the 21^st Century’s bogey men) and to argue that the only way to "defeat the terrorists" is to ram through the globalisation agenda. Thus the US House of Representatives gave Bush fast track authority to negotiate trade and investment agreements, a measure that had been languishing for years. For its part, the Labour/Alliance government tried to ram through repressive new laws with no debate, laws such as the Terrorism Suppression Bill, and none too subtly tried to link its sending the Special Air Service (SAS) into Afghanistan and the value of NZ spybases such as Waihopai, with its chances of getting a free trade and investment agreement with the US. The trigger happy unilateralism of the US, drunk on its own perceived might, is its own worst enemy and will increasingly alarm and alienate the allies riding on its coat tails.

The State as an institution is suddenly back in fashion, but, unfortunately, for reactionary reasons – to fight wars, to exact revenge, kill and torture enemies, and to frighten and bullshit people, including its own, into acquiescent silence. The TNCs see this huge mobilisation of State violence as being an essential aid to seizing resources, principally oil, for private profit. It is an old, old alliance, that between emperors and pirates, working for their mutual enrichment.

There is, of course, nothing new about war as an essential part of both capitalism and especially of its logical development, imperialism. It is just that it has been presented in the First World as something that doesn’t affect us, but something that we do to "them". Thus we have had the daily bombing of Iraq, coupled with the decade of genocidal sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. Countries such as Colombia, Angola and Sudan have had decades of relentless war, with millions dead. Sometimes these fringedwellers of Empire become of strategic importance and suddenly we are told that what happens there is of vital significance to us. In an obscene sort of beauty pageant, their wars become "fashionable". Thus, Indochina was the obsession of the 60s and 70s and Central America of the 80s. When was the last time you saw a TV news report from either of those regions? The world is now paying the price of having ruined Afghanistan as an expendable pawn in the 1970s and 80s Cold War. I take an interest in the Philippines – since the 1980s the local military, with US backing, has practised "low intensity conflict", a military model first tried out on Central America. The use of death squads, terror and large counter-insurgency tactics are the distinguishing characteristics. Of course, there have been some long running small wars in the First World, such as Northern Ireland, and these have been fully exploited to train for urban counter-insurgency and its accompanying police State.

September 11 changed this hands-off policy, so after a quarter of a century of the "Vietnam syndrome" (ie a singular reluctance for US troops to be put in harm’s way, a reliance solely on air power, and a preference for the dead bodies to be those of non-American allies), the US is now directly engaging in a multitude of small wars – in Afghanistan, the southern Philippines, Yemen, and throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus. The potential is very high for Uncle Sam to come a gutser in one or more of these "Bush wars", maybe in several simultaneously. And they are highly alarming to even the most servile of American allies, who didn’t sign up to fight the rest of the world in perpetuity. They don’t share Bush’s war comic phraseology about an "axis of evil". Even prior to Bush’s ascendancy to the Presidency the US military had adopted a policy of "full spectrum dominance". That slogan applied to war from, and in, space – Bush has enthusiastically adopted the bizarre Star Wars concept – and that mindset, of nakedly violent global dominance, is now the openly practised obsession of the US, virtually to the exclusion of all else.

Undeniably, we the activists have suffered a setback in the wake of the backlash from September 11, with the US and its satellites waging an old fashioned imperialist war against anyone they don’t like, and Western "democracies" adopting the trappings of the police State, using the excuse of "anti-terrorism". But the current anti-globalisation movement sweeping the world is the most hopeful development in decades. That mass movement will continue to grow, mature and strengthen and it will also be an anti-war movement. Indeed, the first major post-September 11 anti-globalisation protests took place, most appropriately, in New York, in early 2002, in opposition to the meeting of the World Economic Forum. The enemy is now in plain sight and the battles will be that much more sharply defined. The naked militarism and imperialism of the US presents a challenge at one level; on the other hand, it does us a favour by stripping away any illusions people may have about the essential nature of capitalism: Do as you’re told or we’ll kill you.

So, what is the activist response of New Zealanders to "the war on terror"? Simple, all of us, in whatever campaigns with which which we’re involved, need to incorporate an anti-war position, we need to work together to build an anti-war movement that is part and parcel of the anti-globalisation movement. CAFCA grew out of the anti-war movement of the 1960s and 70s; so, in many respects, we are returning to our roots. It feels good. And if you want a specific New Zealand anti-war campaign to get your teeth into, then join the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) in fighting for the closure of the Waihopai spybase. I am the Organiser for both CAFCA and the ABC. Usually, in CAFCA talks, I don’t mention my ABC work. No longer. It is part and parcel of what CAFCA and the broader anti-globalisation movement is campaigning about.

More than any token commitment of SAS troops to Afghanistan, Waihopai is New Zealand’s key contribution to the American military and Intelligence Empire. Basically it is an American spybase operating from New Zealand, flying a New Zealand flag, staffed by Kiwis and paid for by New Zealand taxpayers. ABC has been fighting it since it was first announced, in 1987 (under the previous Labour government). We might be nuclear free and out of ANZUS but that essentially symbolic situation matters little while we are such a key part of the American-led Intelligence network. New Zealand is one of only five countries to belong to the UKUSA Agreement, which operates the notorious Echelon electronic spying project – many much bigger US allies aren’t part of this inner circle and NZ actually helps the US spy on them, as well as whichever enemy is the current target. So that’s what must be New Zealanders’ unique contribution to the global anti-war movement – close the Waihopai spybase.

What is the activist response to this year’s general election? CAFCA is aligned to no political party, nor do we endorse any particular party or parliamentarism as a whole. Traditional Parliamentary and political party work has its advantages - fighting the MAI within NZ is a good example. The Alliance did excellent work on it and we got the most unlikely allies, such as the odd ACT MP, who was not happy with it for his own reasons. But I would discourage reliance on politicians. The 1984-99 period saw an endless procession of broken promises, worthless pledges and betrayal. I didn’t get dewy eyed over the election of a Labour government – we were born during a Labour government; this is the third in CAFCA’s lifetime. We certainly didn’t pack up just because the Alliance was in government and the Greens are in Parliament (and we certainly won’t be packing up in reaction to the latest Government. Ed.).

In fact, the Alliance ended up staring into the abyss precisely because it achieved (a minor share of) power and the resulting compromises by its Ministers and MPs caused intolerable tensions between the Parliamentary caucus and the Party (a situation that has been the status quo in Labour for decades). I believe that the Greens would have faced exactly the same dilemma if they had replace the Alliance as Labour’s junior partner (Labour’s turning its back on the Greens as its junior partner, in favour of United Future, has probably, paradoxically, ensured the Greens’ survival as a credible party for at least the next three years. Ed.).

Labour may have halfheartedly renounced Rogernomics, but it’s done virtually nothing about rolling it back, apart from absolute necessities such as the emergency renationalisation of Air New Zealand. Labour remains wedded to the model of virtually unrestricted foreign investment and free trade, plus a blossoming military and political relationship with a nakedly imperialist US.

Having said that, we believe that there are many good activists working at the grassroots of several parties, and those are the people that we want to reach and they are the ones with whom we want to work. We have had a very good relationship with Alliance activists going back years, and a more recent one with Green activists (never discount Labour either, the youngest member of the ABC committee is a very committed Labour activist and aspiring politician). These are a natural constituency for the likes of CAFCA and the rest of the NZ anti-globalisation movement. As to what we want specifically from this election – we want the issues of corporate globalisation, foreign control, free trade, war and all the rest front and centre as election issues. Let’s work to have the election fought on opposition to them. How do we get them on the agenda? By all the tried and true means that pressure groups have used to get their issues before the politicians and the voters (see the cover story for an indepth analysis of the 2002 election. Ed.).

But relying on politicians, political parties and elections is far from enough. Winning the MMP battle a decade ago was a great victory over the politicians and Big Business who bitterly opposed it - but we have to realise that MMP simply delivers a more representative Parliament; it doesn’t choose a government, let alone provide any different sort of government. Politicians do still hold some power over the TNCs - but only if they choose to exercise it. If they can’t or won’t do so (and the MAI was definitely aimed at stopping any politicians who might be thinking of doing so), then we shouldn’t waste time with them. We have to do it ourselves.

Which means we have to build a genuine grassroots people’s movement. I’m not suggesting yet another party - we’ve got too many now. Movement building is damn hard work - you have to agree on what you’re for, not merely what you’re against. And you get into all sorts of turf wars with people who want their single issue to be the priority and not compromise.

So, rather than starting from scratch, the next best thing is networking. That is, building links and sharing information with all manner of existing groups. But to be pro-active about it - cooperate and coordinate campaigns. And, most importantly, establish the common ground between us all. That’s the vital part. All around New Zealand there are groups directly fighting TNCs - whether they be genetic engineering companies, polluting gold miners, predatory power companies, union busting forestry companies, abusive cleaning companies, greedy oil companies, phone companies putting cellphone towers in against the wishes of local communities or absentee millionaires building luxury resorts and refusing Kiwis traditional access to their own land. For example, in the late 90s, CAFCA worked with Canterbury farmers and rural residents, who were fighting plans to build the South Island’s biggest landfill in their backyard. They were none too keen on the involvement of garbage TNC, Waste Management, and that’s where we could help them.

Add to that the huge number fighting the indirect effects of foreign control, by which I mean everything that has been done to "make New Zealand attractive to foreign investors". So then you get all those who have been fighting hospital closures, the commercialisation and rundown of the health system, the destruction of the Welfare State, the attack on unions and workers, the deliberate impoverishment of a huge number of New Zealanders. What has been done here is good old fashioned class warfare - from the top down. We need to be organising the middle and bottom.

Bring together the Greypower/RSA/National voters who fought to keep their small town hospitals open, with the so-called "Maori radicals" who are fighting for land and self-determination; bring together the community groups fighting to keep their power, water, housing, buses, airports, ports, etc, in public ownership, with the unions and workers fighting to keep their jobs and improve their wages and conditions; bring together the middle class parents concerned about the impact of cellphone towers on their kids’ health, with the newly impoverished underclass who are fighting the legacy left by market rents, benefit cuts and dependence on food banks. Thrash out what we have in common and realise that we all have a common foe - an economic and political system that benefits only the TNCs and local Big Business. Dump phony issues, such "as these bloody Maoris are ruining the country with their demands", and realise that the Treaty is the one thing that has stopped yet more of New Zealand being flogged off. For instance, it’s the only reason that the land itself, rather than just cutting rights, was not sold when the State forests were privatised. Accentuate the positive - all round the country are examples of people helping themselves, standing tall without reliance on the State or our new corporate sponsors. The Peoples Centres in Auckland and Wellington are excellent examples.

New Zealand has a distinct national identity, a people’s identity, not to be confused with flagwaving bullshit and artificial hype. In the case of the Maori they are a completely unique people, culture and language. The Treaty is a unique partnership and provides a powerful weapon with which to fight the foreign takeover.

And we have a distinct people’s ethic, that of the fair go. There has been a deliberate attempt to kill the fair go in recent years and to permanently stack the balance in favour of the rich and powerful, of the local and international variety. There has been an attempt to destroy the natural cooperative nature of New Zealand society, both Maori and pakeha. But, despite nearly two decades of relentless propaganda and all out attack on the egalitarianism that made this country virtually unique in the capitalist world, it hasn’t succeeded. That bedrock belief in the fair go is one of the things that makes me most hopeful about New Zealand.

Despite the post-September 11 global crackdown and the transformation of the US Empire onto a permanent war footing, I remain optimistic because more and more people are seeing that what we’ve been saying from the outset is right – that foreign control is economic and political recolonisation; that globalisation is just another word for good old fashioned imperialism; and that the root cause of the whole thing is capitalism. We don’t have to explain to people any more what is a transnational corporation. At its simplest, we can say "We told you so". But it goes much further than that. Our side has started winning some battles in recent years, such as that against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, or against the World Trade Organisation’s 1999 meeting in Seattle. But these battles have to be fought and won over and over again (which is the nature of war, after all).