WORLD VIEW: The global citizens' movement which emerged into the media glare in Seattle in 1999, and consolidated its presence in Prague in September 2000, had become an unstoppable force by the time 300,000 people gathered in Genoa in July 2001 to confront world leaders attending the G-8 summit.
There was a remarkable buzz in Genoa, a dynamic, positive energy directed at humanising an unjust economic order. There was no rule book to guide the participants, each one responsible for their own behaviour during the unpredictable days ahead. In the camp site set aside for accommodation purposes, a Japanese monk set up home beside a teenager from California, each one responding to a deep, inner call for a halt to the madness that passes for global economic policy.
The new movement embraced a process of democratic globalisation based on equality and justice, challenging the corporate version which imposed its profit-based outreach programme at gunpoint in poorer nations.
This week, yet another report noted Ireland's progress to the number one slot in one of those globalisation league tables so beloved of capital.
Contrary to media assumptions that the "professional protesters" idled in coffee shops between summit conferences, living off their parents' trust funds, this reporter discovered committed activists with working lives, children at home and - surprise, surprise - they even seemed capable of independent thought.
The world media reprinted the opinions of esteemed economists who dismissed the protests as naive and echoed suggestions that if the protesters really wanted to influence policy they should seek dialogue with the bureaucrats and bankers inside the summit walls.
The advice reminded me of a cartoon in which an employee enters the office of the chief executive of a corporation to complain about company policy overseas. "Thank you for working within the system," responded the executive, "now get out of my office and get back to work."
If the bulk of protesters were naive, the Black Bloc anarchists were football hooligans, with no knowledge of the issues under discussion. In Prague I watched as the Black Bloc collected rubbish bins and paving stones to build barricades. The masked protesters looked warily at me and a photographer, suspicious of the large lens snapping images which might later be used as evidence in a hostile courtroom.
A tall, hooded figure advanced towards me, his intentions impossible to decipher: "Hi Michael," he said, and a bear hug followed. His voice transported me thousands of miles to a small village in south-east Mexico where an Austrian teenager worked on a community water project.
Five years later, Andres journeyed to Prague to express his outrage at the destruction of farming lifestyles in Mexico. Like thousands more demonstrators, Andres recognised that the institutions meeting behind metal fences in Europe were overriding the decisions and aspirations of local communities elsewhere.
It is hardly a utopian ideal to demand land, water and health for the world's population when the resources are at hand and easily mobilised.
In the days leading up to the Genoa summit the authorities closed down the airport and railway stations and severely restricted access by road. The city centre was off limits even to local citizens as the port city was transformed into a war zone with a whiff of martial law.
The media reported various bomb scares and explosives finds, hardly the tactics associated with the alternative globalisation movement.
On the Austrian frontier, activists from No Borders were attacked, one woman losing five teeth. A boat-full of protesters from Greece was held and the passengers attacked by riot police.
On the day of the main protest in Genoa, three marches were attacked in a pre-emptive strike that occurred a mile from the security zone. The brutal onslaught resulted in one death, 200 injuries and 600 arrests.
The demonisation process to which the protesters had been subjected worked, and few media voices departed from the official version.
Since then, charges have been dropped against protesters, while 148 police officers are under investigation, a turnaround that has been greeted with silence from the same media that so loudly proclaimed the evil intentions of the summit demonstrators.
The leap of faith that linked peaceful if confrontational activism with the sheer terrorism of targeting innocent civilians proved easy after September 11th, 2001. If the protesters had been treated as criminals before the Twin Tower outrages, now they were terror suspects.
In an article titled "Fear in Florence", Time magazine warned readers that "self-styled anarchists from across Europe will descend on a city too fragile to manage their bad intentions". Once more the media frenzy served to justify the security force clampdown, and distracted attention from the alternative economic proposals that emerged from over 400 workshops.
Since September 11th, 2001, the movement for a just global order has expanded, attracting larger numbers than ever to its protest-and-proposal events. The highlight was the Florence Social Forum, which attracted 35,000 participants and climaxed with a march of half a million people who protested against US plans to invade Iraq.
The level of violence exercised against protesters in Genoa is enacted daily, and more brutally, all over the world. People are not only killed by bullets as they protest at privatisation projects, they are also killed by hunger as their fallow lands produce export crops which no longer command a price abroad.
Flexible labour laws allow bus drivers to perform risky 18-hour shifts while women are sacked should the obligatory pregnancy tests turn positive in Maquila assembly plants along the US-Mexico border.
Globalisation is a horror story for the globe's "non-peoples", the poor majority who have no welfare system to protect them from fickle trade winds.
The global justice movement has no appointed leaders but many inspirational voices, recognised and respected by activists around the globe. The peaceful uprising against global economic terror has just begun.