arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Susan George "getting the message out"

Susan George is Vice President of Attac, President of the Observatoire de la Mondialisation in Paris, and author of numerous books on the subject of Debt, the global financial institutions and more recently The Lugano Report.
In the third and final part of this 3 part Interview sequence recorded at the Attac summer university being held currently in France we discuss the dissemination of the message. Although she has not suffered personally from the negative effects of globalisation, "because I'm privileged, and probably because of the age I am" it's important to examine the local effects on communities. "The WTO wants to privatise absolutely everything" and if we're not careful we'll turn round one day and say "Hey, wait a minute, what happened to democracy"

A second section discusses the role of Independant Media and indymedia.org which Susan finds "terribly important, I always read the stuff that comes over the Web, I find it reliable but you need to avoid a tendancy to "ghettoisation."
"The movement in France has developed a credibility with the so-called mainstream press, but I'm still astounded by the levels of ignorance. Indymedia should strengthen it's role in informing the mainstream press."

Finally we turn our attention to the autumn and the activities in Prague (s26), other autumn mobilisations and more specifically the need to put pressure on the United Nations during the s6 Millenium Meeting in N.Y. and alert activists to Kofi Annan's recent strategic mistake to enter into a non-binding "Compact with Corporations."
Further extracts from conversations with Susan George including MP3 audio file are available at the http://france.indymedia.org website.
More coverage from the Attac Summer University can be found at http://216.10.9.55/
Attac can be contacted at journal@attac.org