i was at the WTO protest yesterday. getting tear gassed was probably the worst physical experience i've had in my entire life. my lungs were on fire, eyes were watering, face felt like a million fire ants were crawling on it, and mucus was freefalling out of my nose. once the canisters exploded everyone took off and ran. we ran for two blocks. i realised then that if i was put in a life-and-death situation, my survival instincts would kick in and i would fight in order to not die.
a girl was so exhausted she couldn't run anymore. alan and i and three other people carried her as she cried out in pain. after that we went back and sat down with the korean farmers. they passed around sunflower seeds, some kind of blackcurrent rice whisky, soju and cigarettes, and let us try on their drums. all the while the riot police kept closing in on us until all 900 or so of mostly korean farmers were barricaded in completely. i think someone told me 9000 police officers were deployed that night. it was getting cold and no one had eaten much for the entire day but spirits were high nonetheless.
at around 11pm there were rumours flying around that the police would start arresting people soon and that protesters were allowed to leave, but only if they have a hongkong ID card. maia, alan and i didn't but decided to try our luck anyway. we were let through sometime around midnight. i left because i was scared, hungry and exhausted. i guess i chickened out. according to the news the police started physically removing the protesters one by one and putting them into a police bus an hour or so after we left. i think they're still removing them now, around 12 hours later.

now, why did we go to the demonstration in the first place? for me, it was mainly out of curiosity. i'm not a radical or an activist or a free mason jesus freak. i don't agree with the WTO because i think it is unfair towards developing countries and will only make the gap between the rich and the poor wider. developed countries want to keep their tariffs and subsidies to protect their own farmers but insist that developing countries open up their market for free trade and do away with their tariff systems that protect the often vulnerable local industry. in my economics class i was told that free trade works because a lot of money can be generated by a globalised economy and even though there might be some countries that will lose out, the winners (rich countries) can compensate the losers (poor countries) by giving out aid and loans. but isn't that just another form of imperialism? why must developing countries always depend on the developed countries for aid? i'll be the first to admit that i don't know nearly enough about this topic and maybe i'm just spouting off anti-WTO propaganda from my ass at whim, but even so i still think i will take a stand and my stand is that i don't think free trade is fair.