Learning What the IMF is about by Lory Crowder My friend Berna and I went along with two other individuals from Phil Forum on a rather unexpected detour as we were looking for the location of the Independent Media Center. The IndyMedia participated at the WTO protest in Seattle last December, documenting what most mainstream media do not always capture, such as police abuse with pepperspray and rubber bullets. We walked the walked the streets of Washington as police sirens blasted and the helicoptors hovered over the cars passing by. I felt like I was in a war zone. To live is to participate. After an hour and what seemed like miles of walking we finally came across this neglected and vacant alley with abandoned beat up houses. Nestled in the middle of it all was a spacious warehouse occupied by citizen joes with their camcorders and cameras wrapped around their neck, computers with screens showing the most recent updates and pictures of the protest and 6 sets of TVs channeled to CNN and local news. It looked like a makeshift media center. Eventually after a bit of confusion we all received Press badges and went on our way. Our next adventure led us to fellow New Yorkians. We tagged along as they led us to a congregation of what seemed like die hard protesters. They were adorned with trekking back packs, shirts proclaiming their repulsion against the IMF/World Bank. In the next 2 hours we got the 101 on Protesting. This particular assembly of people are referred to as the Affinity Group a support network of people who have specific roles during a protest and everything is done as an entity. For example, there may be a team of medical people providing needs to protesters who were pepper sprayed. There may be another team responsible for determining the particular route and plan of action for the march and so on. The woman who was giving us the quick tutorial basically informed us that the Affinity Group's intentions were to take the more active approach to protesting and volunteer themselves to be arrested or in other words militant protester. We were putting ourselves in danger for simply being there with them. They were conspiring and plotting how to stop the IMF and World Bank discussions in any means possible. We were in full understanding that we were part of the non-violent contingency. The following day Phil Forum and other People's Assembly organizations marched. It was amazing because we had two very noticable 20 ft puppets. One was of a woman displaying the Philippine flag with pride while the other was of her face haggard and posters against the IMF and World Bank. We led the protest and every once in a while we stop along the way and have speakers discuss what the IMF and World Bank have been doing. It was so liberating to be walking with fellow Filipinos and people from all walks of life hoping that our chants would be heard and that our efforts would be noticed. Other article at BagongPinay on Globalization: From the Philippines to DC: a Path of Understanding Globalization _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Home | Site Map | Contact Us | All rights reserved. ©2000 NewFilipina ©2000 BagongPinay.