BATTLE IN SEATTLE PROVIDESAN INSIDE LOOK AT A PEACEFUL PROTEST & BLOODTHIRSTY POLICE
The opening session of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle on November 29, 1999, was canceled because peaceful demonstrators blocked all the intersections leading to the meeting. The quasi-docudrama, written and directed by Stuart Townsend, carefully recounts the events of that week and supplies several titles at the beginning and end of the film to provide background for those who may have little knowledge of the events, but those portrayed are fictional. Arguments against WTO, eloquently stated throughout the film, may be dismissed as propaganda because no serious debate is featured. Nevertheless, Battle in Seattle serves to clear up many misconceptions: (1) WTO, though attacked globally for paying more attention to corporate profits than to environmental, health, and poverty concerns, did not have these issues on its agenda. (2) Planning for the protest began six months earlier and was highly professional. (3) Seattle’s mayor wanted protests to proceed peacefully but was pressured to authorize violence on the basis of a phony assessment of a supposed threat by demonstrators. (4) Although organized as a peaceful protest, goons shattered shop windows; in one scene, a goon is identified as a police officer, and police are not on the spot while vandalism is ongoing. (5) Police violence was entirely unprovoked. (6) Mass arrests were also unjustified; no charges were filed in court. (7) President Bill Clinton arrived in the dead of night after police imposed a curfew; although he intimated that the issues raised by the protesters should be taken up at the plenary sessions, they were not. (8) Those arrested were released after trade unions threatened a general strike. The Political Film Society has nominated Battle in Seattle as best exposé and best film on human rights of 2008. MH
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