Film Review: Battle in Seattle

I never imagined that I would be part of a large extra-campus student organization in this country, which not only has the most straightforward symbol – the bull of the Ketaton – but also its thinking, in my opinion. That happened by accident, because previously I had wanted to join a youth organization with its proud orange striped shirt. Whether it was a coincidence or not, after joining the organization for a long time, I accidentally found my grandfather’s “old” archives and many of them discussed the same ideology. It turned out that “abangan” blood had indeed been biologically attached to me.

Nostalgia at that time, it would not be complete if we did not review the commonplace of street actions. Especially when remembering that students had played an important role in overthrowing the New Order regime in 1998, then street actions seemed to become a necessity. "Being a student, why don't you know about demonstrations? Being a student, why only a butterfly, (going to college, going home from college), then why are you a student?" That was the pretentious attitude of student activists at that time. Carried away by the romanticism of the movement, it often led me to become a coordinator of actions several times. The first thing that must be done before carrying out an action is one of them. Processing and Machtwending, how the gathering of power is carried out and the use of the power that has been gathered.

The first two paragraphs are just a fragment of my past memory that seemed to come back to life when watching the film starring Michelle Rodriguez (Lou) and Martin Henderson (Jay). The film is set in the original event of a demonstration at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Washington, United States in 1999. In the original event, protests against the WTO were staged by more than 40,000 demonstrators consisting of environmental activists, human rights activists, and labor organizations, making the action one of the largest demonstrations in the United States. "Workers and environmentalists unite!" That's what the demonstrators shouted in the film.

Unlike other films, it is quite difficult for the audience to really know the names of each character, especially me who has difficulty memorizing the names of people I just met, especially characters in films that I have just watched again, after I first watched them maybe more than 5 years ago. Indeed, the director did not try to highlight each character in the film, practically only Lou, a woman with long curly hair and Jay, a man and environmental activist in the film whose names are not even mentioned more than a few times in the dialogue in the film. Jay and Lou are a handful of initiators in the planned peaceful action.

Watching Martin Henderson play Jay was like a perfect representation of how I used to do action. It never crossed my mind that I was doing the setting. chaos in the actions that I coordinate. I always remind my other friends to keep an eye on and guard themselves, so that no one gets left behind, even when provocation occurs and eventually ends in chaos, because the situation is out of control. Jay also coordinates his other friends. In some Scene He appears to be arguing with a demonstrator named Johnson, played by Channing Tatum, who suddenly breaks the windows of shops on the streets of Seattle. He continues to try to encourage the action to oppose the WTO to run peacefully.

Johnson is a police officer who goes undercover as a demonstrator. His job is to make the protest action peaceful. chaos, which ultimately gave the police a reason to take more decisive action to break up the demonstration that was planned to be peaceful. It appeared that at the beginning of the action, the demonstrators behaved in an orderly manner even though they were carrying out blockade towards the intersection of roads in Seattle towards the Paramount Theater, where the WTO Conference was held. The demonstrators held hands and formed a circle. Concrete tubes covered and connected each of the linked arms of the demonstrators who formed a circle at the intersections around the conference area. Not only that, they also deliberately locked their hands with chains inside the concrete tubes. One way to break the circle made by the demonstrators was of course to destroy the pipes or concrete tubes that connected each of the demonstrators' hands. This action made many Ministerial delegates at the WTO conference held in Seattle unable to go to the Paramount Theater.

The police understand that if the demonstration is peaceful, the WTO meeting agenda cannot proceed. Without a clear basis, the police cannot disperse the action, the only way is of course to make the ongoing demonstration an anarchic action so that firm action can be taken. The dilemma that is always experienced by the police everywhere when facing mass actions. Maybe some of them also disagree with WTO policies, but they still have to carry out their duties as security forces. This film reveals well the reality of demonstrations that with such a large mass there is no guarantee that the action will run without chaos. There will always be provocateurs who try to ride on an action even though it was previously planned to run peacefully.

On the other hand, this film also shows a negative portrait of an action. There will definitely be people who are harmed and even become victims of actions that lead to chaos. The expression on Dale's face, a police officer played by Woody Harrelson, looks happy. In four months, he will hold his baby for the first time with Jean, played by Connie Nielsen. His hand stroked Jean's stomach which was starting to look bigger when they were doing an ultrasound examination (USG) at a hospital. They both did not hesitate to share their happy expressions with their colleagues.

Unfortunately, Jean who worked in a boutique in Seattle at that time was trapped by the demonstrators. Dean had tried to warn Jean to go home immediately, because the demonstration in Seattle was starting to get chaotic. Not long after, a demonstrator was seen bleeding and fell into the boutique where Jean worked. Jean slowly walked out of the boutique to go home. Unfortunately, she was unable to get out of the chaos of the demonstration. The woman who was 5 months pregnant had to endure the pain of tear gas that was fired by the police who were trying to disperse the demonstrators. Among the demonstrators who scattered, she was hit by a police baton right in her womb. The woman's body fell, covered in blood in pain, crying immediately with a worried expression about the condition of the fetus she was carrying.

A few moments later Dean received news that he had to meet his wife who was lying weak in the hospital. That day seemed to be not only a disaster for the WTO but also for him, his wife had to fall because of the actions of a police officer, the profession of the father of the fetus that Jean was carrying. Tragically, even though he was facing a difficult trial, he was not given permission by his commander to take leave to accompany his wife who really needed him in those difficult times.

Apart from the other side of the demonstration that often appears unintentionally, this film is able to show the reality of what happens in a mass action. Not only the dilemma that Dean must face who must still be on duty to maintain security in the midst of his wife who is lying weak, Ella, a news reporter played by Charlize Theron, also feels the pressure that what she reports and sees directly is not always shown as it is to her viewers. Discourse on television media cannot be separated from the interests of who owns the television channel. Therefore, the objectivity of media reporting is always questioned by human rights activists and activists.

From several Scene which is prominent in the film “Battle in Seattle”, the message that is intended to be conveyed is actually the existence of covert efforts to centralize capital. However, the issues presented in the conferences that are always held by the WTO emphasize the interests of the world’s trading conglomerates. Liberalization that seems excessive often makes WTO member countries have to ratify trade agreements, or carry out large-scale deregulation and debureaucratization. In practice, in trying to do this, not a few countries become ignorant of the essential interests of their citizens.

Finally, the economic growth that countries in the world are trying to pursue through massive liberalization in all sectors of life only produces ephemeral growth figures. This is what also made Joseph Stiglitz fed up with the current state of the world economy. Irma Adelman and Cynthia Taft Morris have also warned of the risks of pursuing economic growth through their work, namely "Economic Growth and Social Equity in Developing Countries" (1973). Economic growth is not just about pursuing an increase in the percentage of a country's output each year. There is something multidimensional in it. Because of the criticism of several people, it is also what ultimately makes economic growth no longer a measure of the United Nations in determining the status of a country whether it is classified as a developed, developing, or poor country.

Bibliography

Townsend, Stuart. 2008. Battle in Seattle. Redwood Palms Pictures.