Natasha Walter: Rumours of anti-capitalism's death have been much exaggerated

'To voice anti-American sentiment runs the risk of sounding frivolous or, worse, traitorous to Western ideals'

Anti-globalisation is so yesterday. Or so say a lot of people who should know. It's never been easier to dismiss the anti-globalisation, anti-capitalist, anti-corporate – call them what you will, they rarely answer back – protesters.

In the aftermath of 11 September, the wind seems to have dropped from the sails of the movement. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting that opens today in Doha, Qatar, would, in happier days, have provided the next major focus for a movement whose levels of support have been growing constantly. But now demonstrations have been cancelled, and the security fears this time around do not stem from Western idealists in white overalls shouting about poverty.

If you think back to the world before 11 September, you remember how fascinated the media was by the anti-corporate movement. Even organs that usually shy away from radicalism were intrigued by the passion and spirit of the protesters. But a lot of the vague goodwill that attached itself to the anti-corporate movement seems to have evaporated.

That's because we are now being asked to view the world in ideological extremes. "You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists," George Bush said at the start of his war on terrorism. The US trade representative Robert Zoellick has used this kind of language to cast the WTO as the epitome of the civilisation we are seeking to defend. In The Washington Post, Mr Zoellick proclaimed that the US must "counter terror with trade". "Trade is about more than economic efficiency," he wrote. "It promotes the values at the heart of this protracted struggle."

In such an overheated atmosphere, to voice any anti-American sentiment runs the risk of sounding frivolous or, worse, traitorous to Western ideals. We must stand united to defend our civilisation. So keep quiet at the back there, and no fighting in the streets, please.

Indeed, there is little appetite these days for the disruptive activity that once characterised the movement. Who now wants to see a city centre brought to a standstill, police taunted and windows broken – even in the cause of well-founded protest? Oddly, I spent the morning of 11 September walking with members of Reclaim the Streets and similar groups, chatting to veterans of Genoa and the May Day protests about the anti-corporate movement. That protest – a fiesta of life against death, as it was billed – had been organised in response to the opening of the international arms fair in London's Docklands.

I was gathering material about how useful it was to see the arms trade being put under the spotlight by the protests. Many of the protesters had come dressed in pink and silver. There were bands, dancing, pushchairs, and urgent discussions about the evil of the arms trade and whether the police would let one out to go to the loo.

Then, at the end of the march, there was a little podium and speeches. Somebody from CND was speaking when the news came in. He announced that an airplane had been flown into the World Trade Centre. The crowd around me cheered. Yes, they cheered. Move over Jo Moore, this was the most embarrassing response in Britain. Nobody there had any idea of the carnage that was going on, but a sense of heightened excitement fizzed in the air. Nothing could have exposed more clearly the limitations of some elements of the anti-corporate movement. This was what had boxed up part of the movement into a dead end – an appetite for disruption and purely symbolic actions, displayed in that sudden flare of excitement over the image of the Twin Towers toppling.

But let's not exaggerate: that's only one element of the energy that fuels the protesters. And it really isn't the most important element. No, the core of the movement has a vital future. It doesn't matter if the big street protests, such a feature at Seattle in 1999 and Genoa in 2001, go into abeyance for a bit. They had their positive effects. But many people had been saying for a long time that all the attention focused on trouble in the streets was only distracting activists, commentators and policy-makers from the more important issues.

And those issues haven't gone away. In this world that is meant to have changed so much, the world-after-11-September, nothing on this agenda has changed substantially. The demands are still there, being voiced as fiercely as possible by developing countries and their supporters.The reality behind the debate is as urgent as ever. As these negotiations open in Doha, we mustn't forget why it was that the last attempt failed in Seattle in 1999. It was because the richest countries had failed to realise that they had fallen out of step with the rest of the world. The Zimbabwean delegate Yash Tandon said those talks ran into the ground "mainly because the bigger players refused to take into account the concerns of Africa. Africa found it necessary to say, 'If you are not going to take us seriously, then we are not going to be with you.'"

Are there signs that the most powerful players in the WTO are listening this time? The words of representatives of the poorest countries suggest not. A few weeks ago in Geneva, the Tanzanian ambassador Ali Mchumo issued a statement that expressed the least developed countries' total disappointment with the draft declaration for Doha, "since it has not taken into account the interests and views of the Least Developed Countries".

Their primary concerns remain unanswered. As the richest countries preach free trade for others, allowing them to flood the developing world with cheap exports, they continue to subsidise their own farmers and to slap tariffs and restrictions on imports from the poorest countries. Developing countries are demanding, in particular, a relaxation in patent rules that make drugs for TB, malaria and Aids too expensive. But some of the richest countries in the world, including Britain, Germany and the US, are too concerned with the interests of pharmaceutical companies to consider such a relaxation. The possibility looms that these talks, too, will break down in a bitter north-south divide.

For all the talk of our politicians about building a new international consensus on everything from fighting terror to building trade, the rhetoric is unmatched by reality. The fissures in this new world order do not only run between West and East, but also between north and south. There can be no true internationalism without social justice. And that remains as true after 11 September as it was before.

n.walter@btinternet.com