When the streets of Genoa, Seattle and Washington teemed with anti-globalisation protestors, the streets of Cairo, Amman, Riyadh, and other Middle Eastern cities were silent. Here, it seems, the movement is as shy as governments are repressive.

On one hand, a few scholars write occasionally, mostly in opposition newspapers, and appear on the Arabic services of international broadcasters to offer critical analyses. On the other hand, workers stage strikes and mount other forms of resistance, though mainly in isolation. For the most part, however, there is no real organised expression of opposition despite the extensive work of international organisations in restructuring the economies of Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and even Syria.

"There is a strong debate among the activists here as how to join or be part of the global justice network," says Gasser Abdel Razeq, a human rights activist. "But the political atmosphere here makes it even harder for us now more than ever to do so."

Activists say political repression has become more of a problem since last September's terrorist attacks in the United States.

"Mass arrests are not only used very widely against all shades of Islamists, violent or non-violent, but against other political orientations as well," says Abdel Razeq. "Nobody is immune."

Same ideology

Repression at home and indifference abroad have contributed to the weakness of the region's anti-globalisation movement, he and others note.

"Reaching out to the Middle East is critical and crucial now more than ever for any international movement that seeks a truly global new vision of the world," Abdel Razeq insists.

"We definitely share the same ideology," says Karam Saber, executive manager of the Cairo-based Land Centre, a group that has pioneered work on issues like labour rights, the environment, and indigenous people's rights.

"The anti-globalisation campaigners in the West and elsewhere come from the same place where we here come from. We are both against all forms of oppression. There is a need now for us to get together. But so far we have not,'' Saber adds.

Bahi el-Din Hassan, director for the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, charges that the choice of Doha, Qatar, for last year's World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting was an indication that the international financial and trade community felt it could use the region's repressive atmosphere to hold meetings away from the eyes and protests of demonstrators.

"This alone is enough reason for action and for international civil society organisations to either set up shop here or share with us the way they view events and analyse them," he says. "We need to learn how they operate to be able to do it on our own, which is clearly much better."

To market their interest in joining the global justice movement, activists here say the Middle East is crammed with stark imbalances, injustices, and economic exploitation — factors that have contributed to a wave of terrorism, religious militancy, rising poverty, and resentment.

They argue that the struggle of Palestinians in the face of US-backed Israeli military might epitomises the fight against economic and political domination.

"For the international anti-corporate globalisation movement to have roots in this region, they must take note that Israeli practices against the helpless Palestinians typify the ultimate pattern of Western domination against the poor, the landless, and the defenceless," Hassan says.

Classic example

Hassan is one of the few Arab activists who attended this year's World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He and others here fault the global social justice movement for ignoring what they see as a classic example of economic power leading to political domination in the Palestinian occupied territories.

"How can the movement be credible when they look the other way when it comes to Israel?" Hassan says. "Israel acts as the sole guardian of US economic and political exploitation and supremacy in the region."

Rick Rowden, a campaigner at the Washington-based advocacy group Results, says he agrees civil society groups in the West and elsewhere must reach out to potential partners in the Middle East.

Official repression by Western-backed regimes has led people to turn to radicalism as a way of expressing themselves, he says, adding, "I've understood this as reason why the mosques have gotten so powerful — it's one of the only places people are freer to do so."

When confronted with the question why the Middle East — a key strategic area with some 260 million people — has received little attention from the international community, however, activists in the West appear to scratch their heads.

"It is something that I have wondered about myself," says Nancy Alexander, a veteran Washington-based activist and analyst of the World Bank and structural adjustment. "The region should be a potential interest to globalisation campaigners. There are some very serious issues in terms of the nexus of military and economic power, governance structures, and poverty."

Initiative

Some academics have criticised the role of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, primarily in Egypt and, to a lesser degree, Jordan, she adds, but the ''presence of these groups is relatively sparse".

In Alexander's view, it is up to Middle East groups to take the initiative and extend a hand to outside groups. "Since there are few groups in the region explicitly protesting around IFIs (international financial institutions) or even globalisation issues, the invitation is not really there for groups from outside," she says.

Activists here, however, say they are doing just that — reaching out with direct contact and, where possible, through media such as this.

"We know very well that we have to deal with our problems ourselves," says Hassan. "At the end of the day, it is we who will work out a solution for our problems, whether they (international civil society groups) are with us or not. But we at least need to start a debate them. They, too, have to do something." — IPS