Wallach's war: Making the difference

Wallach's war: Making the difference

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta PostJakarta

Trade is obviously good, but when it massively favors only
certain nations at the expense of others, global trade will
eventually become globalized devastation.

Lobbyist and activist Lori Wallach of U.S.-based Public
Citizen -- a nonprofit research and litigation institution
founded by Ralph Nader in 1971 -- makes clear her unwavering
support for fair trade.

A graduate of Wellesley College and Harvard Law School,
Wallach clearly has the intelligence and training to back up her
position.

Of course, she did not suddenly plunge into the war against
unfair trade. Wallach has, according to the activist, always been
sensitive to her surroundings, people and their livelihoods.

Being neutral is not in her nature, as Wallach prefers to pick
a side and stand up for her beliefs. Growing up, she was
sometimes called the "child lawyer" because of the frequency with
which she came to the defense of her friends and even a teacher.

Born on Jan. 19, 1964, in northern Wisconsin, Wallach was in
the first generation on her father's side to be born in the U.S.
Her father's family came to the U.S. in 1938 after fleeing Nazi
Germany.

"My parents were not political but they had a very strong
sense of what is right and what's wrong and they wanted us to
understand the world. So even when we were little kids we would
go to places where we could see how things were different.

"Basically, our parents used to say if you believe something
is right you have to stand up for it. That you just don't want
people to love you or to disagree with you, but you should not
just be neutral."

Wallach also saw her father work very hard in his small
business to provide for his family. Her Jewish faith also shaped
her belief that hell and heaven is what people make for
themselves in this world. "We don't recognize life after death,
so here we are with our deeds."

With her educational background and experience -- working in a
public law firm for food safety and in other firms -- Wallach
could have landed a cushier job with a much nicer paycheck, but
these jobs did not provide her happiness, "nothing for my soul".

"I want to do work that not only provides me enough money, but
also makes me happy. And it has to be something where I can make
a difference."

So she worked in a public law firm, fighting for public
interests. It was there that she was confronted with corporations
that eluded responsibility for public safety, environmental
damage and many other wrongdoings in the name of NAFTA, GATT and
numerous other sophisticated trade agreements.

"Trade agreements are not merely about trade. They are linked
to food inspection, taxes, environmental issues, jobs,
livelihoods and wages, public health and safety, and
democratically accountable governance," she said during a recent
interview in Jakarta.

At the invitation of the Jakarta-based Institute for Global
Justice, Wallach was here to meet with activists to discuss how
to promote public awareness of the unmet promises of global trade
agreements.

As a citizen of the United States, she understands that for
many people in Asia, her country is seen as the source of many
troublesome trade agreements and pressure in the name of the war
on terrorism.

"One reason I wanted to come here is for people to understand
that there is a different America. That's me, my family and my
friends, and the people who live there. Because for many people
in Asia, what they know of America is the corporations, and they
should know corporations do not care about people in the U.S. and
they do not care about people here. And they know the military.

"Many people ask me if I support the war (in Iraq)? Of course
not, it just outrages me and the majority of people in the U.S.
do not support the war.

"We have a president who is a fundamentalist; a different kind
of fundamentalist but equally as dangerous as any fundamentalist
because he's not thinking. It doesn't matter whether its
fundamentalism of capitalism, fundamentalism of communism or
Christian or Islamic fundamentalism," Wallach said.

She said U.S. corporations and the military were two faces of
the United States that gave a bad impression of who Americans
were.

"Our people were once promised that globalization would be
good for them; better jobs, more democracy, development, the
number of poor reduced. These have been lies. In our country
poverty is increasing as it is in other countries. This is an
experiment, a human experiment, very cruel, and if we are to
change it we must work together.

"The reason we protested in Seattle in late 1999 in part was
to tell the people in the rest of the world, 'OK, we're slow to
understand. People in developing worlds, you already knew about
the IMF and the World Bank. It took us a long time to understand
and now we understand too and together we can fight these
rules.'"

It will be a difficult fight, but the resourceful Wallach,
director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch Division,
believes it can be won. With coauthor Michelle Sforza, in 1999
she wrote Whose Trade Organizations? Corporate Globalization and
the Erosion of Democracy. She is on a tour to promote the book,
which has been translated into numerous languages.

"This will give people a understanding of what's really inside
these trade agreements," she said.

With the U.S. presidential elections approaching, Wallach said
she had prepared strategies and tactics to continue her fight if
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry replaced Bush.

"We have organized civil society and the unions. People all
across the country have been asking of all of the candidates --
what is their position on the WTO, on NAFTA. It has become the
top issue in the campaign and during the end of the Democratic
primary.

"So Kerry has been forced to say he's against NAFTA or NAFTA
expansion, and has promised to review, in his first 120 days in
office, all trade agreements."

Does that signal a light at the end of a tunnel?

"No, because it's not a war just for citizens of the U.S. It's
a global war and people around the world must fight together and
make the difference."