Hoang Gia Phan is a Berkeley student writing a dissertation about the origins of citizenship. While an exchange student in Europe, Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin participated in last year’s protests against the World Economic Forum (WEF). The protests sent the organization fleeing from its home base in Switzerland. This year, the Oberlin College senior is helping organize a “Carnival Block” in the streets outside New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel where the WEF is seeking refuge. Liu, Rodrigues, Hoang and Schromen-Wawrin are just four of hundreds of college students who will converge on New York City from Jan. 31-Feb. 3 to protest the WEF and its role in promoting corporate-led globalization. They are members of Students for Global Justice (SGJ), a new, loosely knit alliance of campus activists. SGJ will be holding a two-day counter-summit starting Jan. 31 on the Columbia-Barnard campus before joining mass protests on Feb. 2. The students see the WEF as an impersonal agglomeration of wealthy businessmen (See Indy Index, Page 13) pursuing their private interests. “I don’t see them as addressing the kinds of concerns I have,” said Liu, who grew up in Bayside, Queens. “And I don’t see them as the kind of people who would build the kind of world I want to live in and have children in.” For Rodrigues, the WEF means “the richest people in the world get together with government officials to screw people over.” Rodrigues also contends this year’s WEF meeting will waste scarce resources. “The money they’re going to spend to chauffeur these guys around — at a time like this, we don’t need that.” In early December, Hoang put out a query on various student anti-war email lists about holding a WEF counter-summit. Liu responded and the organizing effort sped forward. The first conference call was held in mid-December and SGJ organizers adopted a consensus decision making process. Another larger conference call followed later in the month. Besides Columbia and the University of California at Berkeley, large contingents of students from Rutgers, Princeton, Wesleyan (Conn.), William & Mary, and the University of Wisconsin are coming to the gathering. Canadian students from Quebec and Ontario will also participate in the discussions and mass rally. SGJ organizers expect as many as 600 students to attend. The WEF counter-summit will hold plenary sessions on Jan. 31 (“Globalization, Militarism, the Neoliberal Agenda and Its Discontents”) and Feb. 1 (“Another World Is Possible: Globalizing Justice and Solidarity”) and will offer a menu of more than 50 workshops over two days. The topics will include puppet making, the environmental impact of globalization, sustainability, human rights and the corporate influences on U.S. foreign policy. “We hope people will see that the momentum can be regained around anti-capitalist and anti-corporate-globalization movements,” Hoang said. The counter summit was almost scuttled earlier this month when the Barnard administration suddenly revoked SGJ’s room reservations following a visit from the New York Police Department. In the ensuing outcry, Barnard backpedaled and granted the students four rooms for workshops on the second day of the conference. On Jan. 22, Columbia agreed to let the students use 10 rooms on both days. Schromen-Wawrin says he is interested in using the upbeat Afro-Brazilian rhythms of samba music to bolster demonstrators’ confidence and energy in the streets. For him, the WEF protests are about reclaiming the language of dissent. “The U.S. has gained a hegemonic authority over language,” Schromen-Wawrin said. “It is equating people who oppose capitalism with terrorists. This is totally bogus. We have to show that our aims are not terrorist but democratic.” A more unexpected inquiry has come from the WEF itself. On Jan. 7, Liu received an email from Parag Khanna of WEF’s Center for the Global Agenda asking if WEF could collaborate with SGJ’s “Youth Forum.” Khanna was turned down. “We didn’t think they needed our help in getting their message out,” Hoang said. “We have almost no resources.” SGJ organizers believe the group will continue to grow, but they are uncertain as to what direction SGJ’s efforts will take. Hoang suggested that the group might participate in the anti-G8 convergence in Alberta, Canada this summer. Liu would like student activists to form study groups on their campuses to further discuss issues of war, peace and globalization. Liu, who works as a computer administrator at Teachers College, is considering changing her major from neuroscience to economics and international affairs in hopes of changing the policies she is protesting. “I’m sure many of us will get absorbed by the system as we get older,” she said. “But, I hope we can do a better job than the Baby Boom did of maintaining [their values by maintaining] our values when we get over 30.” While we now distribute 12,000 free copies in New York, a free press isn't free -- we need help from our supporters. Please consider donating funds today and help keep independent media alive. A one-year subscription is available for $20. Checks can be made to the NYC IMC PRINT TEAM.