MayDay 2000 - What You Need to Know
by John BeskeYou may have started to hear rumblings about a series of protests scheduled to take place on May 1st. Possibly, you've even heard conspiratorial whispers about anarchists shutting down the New York Stock Exchange or raiding the local Old Navy store. Most people, however, are still unaware that, even as you read this article, thousands of activists from every stripe and from all over the world are planning very big things for that day. Even some of the activists themselves aren't quite sure exactly what direction their events will take. Everyone is trying to be as inclusive as possible, and the sheer number and diversity of voices is challenge enough alone for the facilitators of the hundreds of organizing meetings taking place in classrooms, coffeehouses, union halls, churches, list serves, and chat rooms from New Orleans to Helsinki.
If things go even halfway according to the diverse plans being put forth, stories of the MayDay 2000 demonstrations will lead the evening news that night, and will be plastered across the front pages of newspapers the next day. And pundits, politicians, and everyday citizens will be scratching their heads and wondering what just happened. This article is intended to help you make some sense of the whole thing before it even begins.
At its most essential level, the planned MayDay demonstrations are the next logical progression of the Seattle protests of last December. These were very broad in scope, but the connecting thread between all the protesters was distrust of the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings that were being held there. The WTO is regarded by many as a powerful and secretive organization that helps wealthy corporations earn vast sums of money by allowing them to subvert local laws that protect human rights and stave off environmental destruction, all in the name of "Free Trade". More than 30,000 activists descended on the city to stand up for the rights of ordinary citizens against the rights of the megacorporations.
Now, these 30,000 activists are back in their hometowns, sharing their wisdom and helping to keep the message from Seattle alive. This time, however, the focus is not on such a narrow group as the WTO, but against the system that allows megacorporations to thrive even as they abuse their workers, crush their competitors, pollute the environment, buy off their political leaders, and destroy entire ways of life, all in the name of profit.
The coalitions of protesters are very multifarious -- from labor unionists struggling to protect their jobs, to environmentalists trying to protect our food supply from genetically engineered food and our natural areas from exploitation, to human rights advocates trying to protect Third World children from the horrors of sweatshop labor, to local neighborhood groups trying to preserve their way of life in the face of massive development and gentrification, as well as thousands of other cases where the livelihood, dignity, or autonomy of one group is threatened by someone trying to profit from their loss.
But why May 1st? To help understand that, here's a brief history lesson.
The Haymarket Martyrs
On Saturday, May 1st, 1886, 90,000 workers marched down Michigan Avenue in Chicago demanding an eight-hour workday. The spectacle of such an organized labor force sent tremors through corporate boardrooms and political offices. The following Monday, overzealous police attacked and killed several picketing workers at the McCormick reaper plant. This event led to an emergency meeting the following evening at Haymarket square, where 2,500 workers gathered to discuss next steps. The meeting was coming to a close and most of the people had left because it had started to rain, when 176 policemen carrying Winchester repeater rifles stormed the crowd. Someone (it was never determined who) threw a dynamite bomb toward the advancing policemen. The police panicked and started firing wildly into the darkness. When it was all over, seven policemen and four workers lay dead, mostly from gunshot wounds.The Haymarket Affair, as the event would come to be known, sent shockwaves through the whole world. The next day, martial law was declared, not just in Chicago, but in the entire United States. Labor leaders were arrested, houses were entered without search warrants, and union newspapers were shut down. In the end, eight union leaders, most of whom were not even present at the Haymarket Affair, were ordered to stand trial for the death of the police officers. Eventually, four of the eight men were hanged and another was murdered in his cell. The Haymarket martyrs have become the emblems of the workers' struggle, and May Day is considered a holiday for laborers in dozens of countries around the world, though, oddly enough, not in the U.S.
Why Vegans and Vegetarians Should Care About MayDay
In most countries where MayDay is celebrated, it is considered a holiday commemorating workers and worker justice - somewhat like Labor Day (in fact, a lot of Americans celebrated Labor Day on May 1st until its association with the holiday marking the Russian Revolution stirred up enough anti-Communist sentiment that the entire country eventually adopted the first Monday in September for Labor Day). So what does any of this have to do with vegetarian issues?The answer to that question depends largely on one's reason for being vegetarian. If you've adopted a vegetarian diet for your health, you may want to hit the streets to protest some of the many ways that corporate greed has threatened our food supply and our health. The most visible and hotly contested corporate food safety threat right now is genetic engineering. Biochemical companies have been sneaking highly unnatural frankenstein foods onto our plates for the better part of a decade, and the pace has rapidly accelerated in the last few years. Consumer protest was contained for a long time by careful manipulation of politicians and the press, but the fear of genetically engineered food has finally started to work its way into the mainstream American consciousness after becoming a major issue in Europe. A lot of biotech activists will be on the streets on MayDay.
Other food-safety issues include the meat and dairy industries' grip on American food guidelines, and agribusiness attacks on the organic foods industry.
The increasing corporate control over the world has given animal rights activists a lot to get upset about. The fast food industry and the resultant vast animal factory industries, which torture and kill over nine billion American farm animals each year while poisoning our water supply, is rapidly spreading across the developing world, usurping local low-impact agricultural techniques with humongous factory farms that will torture and kill billions more animals while turning billions more people toward a high fat diet devoid of nutrition that will put even more money into the hands of the greediest and wealthiest at the expense of the rest of the planet and its inhabitants.
Likewise, industries that profit from the suffering of animals like the barbaric and anachronistic fur industry and animal testing labs will bring many animal rights groups into the streets on MayDay.
MayDay also offers activists from every discipline the chance to share ideas, learn new strategies, and experience each others' struggles. You may come away from your local event with a clearer understanding of the interconnectedness of paths of the various groups, and hopefully you'll feel empowered by the strength of the voices around you. Remember, MayDay is about putting power in the hands of the people where it belongs. Most of the organizers see MayDay as a beginning of a renaissance in activism, that will leave everyone stronger and put the world in the more capable hands of people who can see beyond their own greed to the greatest possible good for all.
How to Find Out What's Happening on MayDay 2000
There are literally thousands of MayDay protests, marches, demonstrations, strikes, press conferences, acts of street theater, tributes, lectures, and other assorted events taking place on MayDay in cities across the planet. There are as many ways to get involved - everything from marching in a parade, donning a costume, or attending a MayDay poetry reading, to acts of civil disobedience like blocking streets and the entrances to buildings.It would be impossible to list the entire range of activities on this site, so we'll simply attempt to list some of the better web resources we've found. Here are a bunch of websites celebrating MayDay 2000:
International Sites-
MayDay 2000 - A Carnival Against Capitalism
Mid-Atlantic Infoshop - MayDay 2000
m1.protest.net (MayDay Resources)
Regional Sites-
Anarchists MayDay 2000 in New Orleans
MayDay 2K in Olympia, Washington
MayDay on the Web - Edmonton, Alberta
We'll add more as we find them, but this should be plenty to get you started...
Note: Historical refererences to the Haymarket Affair were found in the booklet "The Day Will Come-- Stories of the Haymarket Martyrs and the Men and Women Buried Alongside the Monument" by Joe Powers and Mark Rogovin for the Illinois Labor History Society.
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