Think you're hit hard by the current economic meltdown? Those across the globe, suffering under neoliberal trade policies, IMF/World Bank "restructuring," and soaring food prices are welcoming us to the party. Not surprisingly, as bailouts in astronomical figures are thrown about by elites at home and abroad to rescue the global financial sector, the worst-off among us get nothing. A recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies finds that "the approximately $4.1 trillion that the United States and European governments have committed to rescue financial firms is 40 times the money they’re spending to fight climate and poverty crises in the developing world." Seeing as how the West is directly implicated as a causative agent in these countries' climate and poverty crises, such funding would hardly be charity.
Link to full report here.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Skewed Priorities
Sunday, May 20, 2007
PAUL WOLFOWITZ RESIGNS FROM WORLD BANK! or DARTH VADER LEAVES DEATH STAR!
This week Paul Wolfowitz was forced to announce his resignation from the World Bank in the midst of an investigation into a corruption scandal. Many people—including myself—indulged a good bit of schadenfreude to see the Bush appointee go down. And while I'm all for enjoying this moment, I'd urge we pull back on popping open the bubbly just yet. In the larger scheme, Paul Wolfowitz's exit from the World Bank should be greeted with as much joy as watching Darth Vader ousted from the Death Star. And I'll tell you why…
Much as Anakin Skywalker was no minor player in the events that caused the downfall of the Galactic Republic, Paul Wolfowitz wasn't just any member of the current White House junta. As Deputy of Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz was a major powerbroker. He was one of the elite members of the old guard brought in under the first term of George Bush the Younger and a key proponent of the now infamous ideology known as neo-conservatism. Like Anakin Skywalker's turn towards the power hungry Sith, Wolfowitz and numerous other neoconservatives had traveled down a twisted road before going over to the "Dark Side." A motley group made up of self-described "liberal Cold War warriors," disaffected radical leftists turned reactionaries, right-wing advocates of American hegemony and adherents of authoritarian philosophers like Leo Strauss, neoconservatives arose under their own Sith patriarchs like Irvin Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. Wolfowitz worked his way through the Pentagon and even the administration of President Jimmy Carter, to finally hone his emergent ideology under the Reagan Administration and especially under George Bush the Elder.
In 1997, along with such neocon ideologues as Richard Perle, Dick and Lynne Cheney, Jeb Bush, William Kristol and others, Wolfowitz would become a charter member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the preeminent neoconservative think tank. Like the policies of Chancellor Palpatine, PNAC adheres to an ideology that the Republic's military strength should be used to bring order to the world and unchallenged supremacy. Where Palpatine and his apprentice Darth Vader would eventually turn the Republic into an Empire, PNAC speaks of something similar—a Pax Americana of the 21st century, which would "extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces." To this end, in 1992, following the first Oil War of the Gulf, Wolfowitz would co-author a 1992 draft Defense Planning Guidance which, among other fantastic goals, "called for US military dominance over Eurasia;" the refashioning of the US military into a global police force; and the use of "preemptive strikes" against any nation that threatened American supremacy. When it was leaked to the media, the draft guide was so radical it caused global outrage and was immediately disavowed by George Bush the Elder, who ordered it rewritten—by none other than then Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney. In 1997 Wolfowitz would sign his name to another infamous letter, this time to then President Bill Clinton urging "regime change" in Iraq as a stepping stone towards global American dominance. In 2000 Wolfowitz would help author and endorse what some have called one of the most "chilling" blueprints for American Empire— Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For A New Century.
Wolfowitz's time to shine however would come in 2001, after the attacks of September 11th. Having found his way back into the halls of power with the administration of Bush the Younger, Wolfowitz and compatriot Richard Perle would become two of the leading advocates in the Administration for an invasion of Iraq—hijacking the catastrophe of 9/11 for a war long planned. Wolfowitz is in fact recognized as a "key architect" of the Iraq War. Along with Perle, the administration, former cohorts at PNAC and others, Wolfowitz was not only a key planner of the war, but used the cowered mainstream press to help sell the American public on false claims of Iraqi WMDs. Wolfowitz would most famously claim that the war would be easy, cost something "under $50 billion" and that oil revenues from "liberated" Iraq would foot the bill. Today the cost of the war, simply in monetary terms, is over $400 billion and rises every second. When the war turned sour however, and visions of the Pax Americana came slamming against global reality, Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies slowly began jumping ship, retreating to the shadows or turning on each other in a bizarre blame game, rather than answer for their heinous plans that have ruined a country, left hundreds of thousands mutilated, maimed, traumatized or dead, inflamed radical extremists and thrown the global security of the world into chaos. (Architects of the Iraqi War- Where Are They Now?) Wolfowitz however somehow managed to wrangle out a reward for such utter failure; and instead of simply retiring to some think tank or other private position, was given none other than a seat at the helm of the Death Star—the World Bank.
In the Star Wars universe, the Death Star is described as "the code name of an unspeakably powerful and horrific weapon developed by the Empire… an instrument of terror, meant to cow treasonous worlds with the threat of annihilation." Some have argued that the World Bank, is little different. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) was founded in 1946 as a way to finance reconstruction projects in World War II-ravaged countries, primarily Europe, who had poor creditworthiness. Today its purported reason for existence is to help nations, especially the more impoverished, in their development and economic policies. But instead, along with complimentary world bodies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank has spread more terror among the world's impoverished than anything approaching development.
The transnational advocacy group 50 Years is Enough, which monitors the World Bank and IMF, points out how these detrimental policies take hold:"Structural adjustment—the standard IMF/World Bank policy package which calls for slashing government spending, privatization, and opening up countries to exploitative foreign investment, among other measures—has deepened poverty around the world. In the two regions with the most structural adjustment experience, per capita income has stagnated (Latin America) or plummeted (Africa)."
Like the Death Star, the World Bank and IMF are owned and run by a powerful empire—this one made up of international banks and the elite brokers of the neoliberal global political economy that convene at such events as the G8 Summit or WTO Conference. Though a diversity of nationalities work at the World Bank, its head is always an American, usually chosen by the sitting President. The IMF in turn is always led by a member of a powerful European state. Together, along with the interconnected trade policies that govern the world, the World Bank operates as one of the forces that keeps poor nations poor, helping ruin their economies with disastrous neoliberal reforms, laying their markets open bare for rich nations to loot and maraud and strangles entire regions in stifling debt out of which they can never climb. It is a system that helps to engender a world where a few have and the masses of the global population live in poverty or die due to lack of food, medicines and more.
It was only fitting that Paul Wolfowitz, like Darth Vader, would be placed in charge of the weapon of mass destruction the World Bank has become. That an architect of war attempted to pass himself off as a humanitarian was the first bit of folly—and is part of the creepy perversity that is neconservatism: saving the world by, as Michael Franti crooned, attempting to "bomb it into peace." That Wolfowitz's fall came out of corruption is also a bit of sweet irony, as his vision of the organization upon take-over of its helm caused upheaval among the staff as he attempted to ram in his own specialized reforms to "fight corruption." And yet for all the seeming "oil and water" mix many in the mainstream press have tried to spin the Wolfowitz-World Bank scandal as, their joining was in many ways a proverbial match made in heaven—or that other place.
Journalist John Nichols notes as much in an article for The Nation, quoting from the poet, anti-apartheid activist and African development campaigner, Dennis Brutus:"Wolfowitz's arrogance, his insistence that any problems were the result of his colleagues' actions, never his own, were a perfect match for the World Bank, which has always refused to take responsibility for its own disastrous policies and projects, laying blame instead with the borrowing country, even though the common denominator in so many botched projects, violations of human rights, and failed policy packages has been the presence of the World Bank. The combination of war and economic crimes for which he was responsible, made Wolfowitz an appropriate symbol for the institution."
Thus with the fall of Wolfowitz from the World Bank let us not engage in too much schadenfreude. Darth Vader may be gone, onto who knows what new mischief, but the Death Star remains "fully operational." Now not everyone at the World Bank, its varied workers and staff, may think of their organization as a weapon of mass destruction. And many may actually believe it can serve some good. Even one of its former taskmasters turned critic—economist Joseph Stiglitz—yet believes so. However, willing to risk the crossing of sci fi and fantasy genres in my analogy, the Bank—like the One Ring—serves the interest of the elite and the powerful who govern the finances of the world, and keep most of the world's population impoverished. It serves only one master and has been unable or unwilling to do much good for those who still put faith in it. So let us not get so caught up in the removal of one figure—no matter how powerful—and lose sight of the real threat to millions that yet exists by the very existence of the institution.
Naomi Klein posits her thoughts on the true meaning of the saga of Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank in her article "Sacrificial Wolfie":"What we should absolutely not do…is participate in the effort to cleanse the Bank's ruinous history by repeating the absurd narrative that the reputation of an otherwise laudable antipoverty organization has been sullied by one man. The Bank understandably wants to throw Wolfowitz overboard. I say, Let the ship go down with the captain."
Indeed. Don't abandon your X-Wing fighters just yet. We've still got a Death Star to take down.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Bono's Lament for Africa- Critiquing the Best of Intentions
U2 frontman and anti-poverty activist Bono lamented this week that the world's industrial nations are not fulfilling their promises of aid to Africa's poor made at the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2004. A new report compiled by his advocacy group DATA (Debt Aids Trade Africa) pointed out that the G8 is way off target on aid to Africa, having increased aid by $2.3 billion since 2004, when the Gleneagles commitment showed it should have risen by $5.4 billion. This is not the first time Bono has walked away disappointed. After meeting with the incoming Democratic House and Senate in December of 2006, he expressed "alarm" that he could not get the US Congressional leaders to keep up their commitment to aiding Africa. Still full of disappointment, Bono has stated he will remind the G8 financial ministers of their commitments to Africa at an upcoming meeting in Germany.
Bono… Bono… Bono… Where do I begin?
First off, let me say that overall I think Bono is the "real deal." That is, I think the rock star truly is moved by issues of poverty and AIDS in Africa. Sure there is something bizarre and ironic about a rich white guy flying around in private jets and staying in posh residences all the while claiming he wants to end global poverty—about as paradoxical as Oprah Winfrey's wonderfully generous gift of opening up a school in South Africa for impoverished young girls, but then disparaging the black youth of America as driven by materialism, when she controls a powerful media empire that endorses material consumption and capitalism (rewarding audience members with free cars and inviting them to peek into lavish birthday celebrations of the elite) as part of living a better, happier, fulfilling life. Maybe money makes the wealthy blind to their own hypocrisies. Nevertheless, I believe Bono is trying to do what he thinks will help. And for that he should be commended. I'm certain his actions have made a difference in many peoples lives. However, what I think his good intentions suffer from is a pragmatic approach that exposes a depth of incredible naiveté, failing to get at the heart of the matter and worse still, allowing those who control the reins of global power to avoid any real responsibility.
The push to free modern postcolonial Africa of poverty predates Bono. Numerous transnational movements and organizations have long formed networks demanding that issues of AIDS and poverty engulfing much of Africa be acknowledged by various wealthier nations and world bodies. Most forcefully, there has been strong activism to rid Africa of strangling debt. Groups like Africa Action and 50 Years is Enough in fact have argued that these debts are illegal, what they called odious debts—part of rich nations' policies that date back to the Cold War and the post-colonial era, giving massive "loans" with soaring high interest rates to corrupt leaders as political pay-offs and bribes, and now holding the citizens of those countries responsible for monies they never benefited from. The Democratic Republic of Congo stands out as a prime example, where the dictator Sekou Mobutu amassed large loans that conveniently found its way into European banks, while miring the country in billions in debt. These were not mere acts of theft, but part of a global system that willingly gave to leaders like Mobutu who carried out the bidding of the West. In the past 30 years in fact, Africa's loan debt has skyrocketed a stunning 400%.
More outrageous still, is that many African countries have become so mired in debt they are paying out more to their creditors than can be spent on their own development. Zambia for instance pays out more in debt to its rich creditor nations (including Western controlled institutions like the IMF and World Bank) than it spends on its entire healthcare budget; more than it spends on its schools, roads and infrastructure. These loans often come with gross stipulations that may for instance allow poor country A to purchase large items (like machinery) from rich nation B that issued the loan, but not the necessary tools or parts to fix that machinery. So when something breaks down, poor country A might actually have to get another loan from rich country B to purchase a new machine. These types of unethical schemes result in a need for more loans and thus incur more debt. Written into many of these exploitative deals—along with payoffs to the right officials—are also policies that allow rich nations to control the infrastructure of the poor countries that are in debt to them, or allow an unfair advantage that creates lopsided trade agreements. Debt thus not only hinders many poor nations from investing in their own infrastructure—schools, hospitals, roads—but severely negates their political and economic sovereignty, allowing the rich nations of the world to dictate policies that induce more poverty, creating systemic cultures of corruption and contributes to the usually attendant factors of hunger, conflict and disease.
Trade itself has also been a hotly contentious topic of the more established anti-poverty activists. While the neoliberal policies of globalization have pushed free markets, many activists have demanded * fair * markets and Fair Trade. Currently, powerful nations—using loans and aid and payoffs—have been able to strong arm the trade partnership with Africa. It allows for a grossly unequal system that allows for wealthy nations to hand out billions in subsidies to its own farmers while forcing Africa to lay open its markets bare. As the West floods the markets of poor African nations with cheaper goods—from chicken to cotton—local markets are wiped out, destroying the livelihoods of millions of farmers and thus adding to the ranks of poverty and domestic instability. Worse still, African nations lose control over their own domestic policies.
The food crisis that struck Niger in 2005 is a choice example. In order for the Niger government to receive loans and some meager form of debt relief from the G8 countries, it had to do away with long established emergency food hand outs to the poor—as part of neoliberal economic reforms that call for less state programs and more of a focus on profit. Attempting to prove its subservience to the G8 policies, Niger instead offered millet at subsidized prices which the poor could not afford. When a severe drought stuck the country in 2005, food that would have been available to feed the poor was nonexistent—and 3.6 million people faced starvation. The Niger government, fearful of a backlash from the G8 if it broke away from the disastrous imposed neoliberal model, continued to hold back on free food distribution. Only when things reached such a level of crisis that anti-poverty activists forced Western news media to pay attention, did the G8 back off and allow Niger to carry out its state feeding program to the poor.
While Bono, and other celebrity causes such as the ONE Campaign, certainly speak out about debt and trade, they have beocme decidedly more low-key about it over the years. What is focused on the most is the notion of "aid." Yet much like the odious debt that strangles Africa, efforts at "aid" are at times illusory. "Aid" to African countries from rich nations has often been as mired in exploitative politics as loans and trade. To receive "aid" one has to be a country in good standing. Good standing is often defined publicly as one free of corruption and engaging in democracy. In reality however, this is often code for a nation that agrees to follow dictates and policies of who ever gives them "aid." This can be anything from following the lead of rich nations at the UN, in trade negotiations, etc., opening up their small fragile markets to competition from goods like genetically modified seeds that may wipe out local agricultural industries or allowing multinational corporations to use one's seas and land to dump toxic waste.
In one of the most ironic twists, "Aid" can even come with stipulations demanding a poor country only spend the money it is given buying goods from the nation who gave the "Aid" in the first place! A report in 2005 found that for every $1 the United States gave in "Aid," it made back 86 cents simply by forcing poor nations to purchase goods made in America. Add in the numerous political strings that probably came with the receipt of "Aid," and you have a situation where rich nations are engaging in what the report called global "political grandstanding." In this way wealthy nations and their corporations can put on a great appearance of "helping the poor" while at the same time keeping the same global economic rules in place that allow them to exploit those very same poor, extracting billions in goods and resources far beyond what any "aid" provides.
And herein lays one of the most unsettling issues I've had with Bono and groups like ONE. These celebrity pushes to get people involved in global anti-poverty campaigns have been phenomenal. But they have come at a cost. In order to get many of us in rich nations, and our leaders, to pay heed to the world's poor these groups have muted any calls for responsibility on our side of the world. Rather than pointing out how the global economy that we live in, that our nations endorse and create, strangle the world's poor, we are told instead to feel sorry for Africa. We are shown pictures that tug at our hearts, at our minds, and appeals to our humanity. But we are not told to feel any responsibility. We are shown the starving faces of Niger, but not the machinations of our own nations in helping cause that starvation.
If we have guilt, it is only in that we have so much and they have so little. We are not told however to connect that the very reason we have so much—from the mineral rich coltan mines in war ravaged Congo in our cell phones to giant ocean trawlers (so-called "fish factories") that are now clear-cutting the African seafloor and pushing local fisherman off Mali and other nations into poverty—is rooted in the fact that others have so little. It is we who are strangling the world's poor, to meet our needs, our way of living. As one scientist put it, if the rest of the world were to live like we do in the West, we'd need another 3 Earths. We don't see our nations' responsibility in pushing exploitative loans in order to maintain the global political economy that ensures we can keep up our present culture of trade dominance and rapacious consumption. Our role in all of this is minimized to near the point of negation. Places like Africa are poor in our imaginations, solely because of bad leadership and rotten luck. No one wants to ask, if Western nations like Belgium and the United States sponsored and helped orchestrate the overthrow of the Democratic Congo's elected leader Patrece Lumumba, and then helped keep its dictator Mobutu in power, what measure of responsibility do they bear for years of repression, not to mention a disastrous war from 1998-2003 (shamefully ignored by the world) that would leave some 4 million people dead? We just tell those who do to "shut up and take our charity."
Of course, I do recognize that the recipients of "charity" may not care about such things. I have the benefit of a full belly and health insurance to sit back and make my criticisms. Yet that is my point—the gratitude of those who are in need should not be used as the measuring stick of the justness of our global system. What is more, by not acknowledging the West's culpability in many of the dire issues facing much of Africa, the depictions of a "dark" and "troubled" continent filled with endless human misery and backwardness—something even many well-meaning liberals engage in—are allowed to fester. Rather than seeing Africa's poverty as a problem with definitive historical and contemporary causes of the modern world, these issues are instead made somehow "naturally endemic" to the continent—as if it's peoples and cultures have known no other form of existence; as if it currently resides in a vacuum outside the global political economy; as if colonialism had never happened; as if indigenous states and forms of government (from Mali to Zimbabwe) had never existed at all; as if things have just always been this way. It is an Africa wiped clean of a functioning past and literally inverted and shaped to fit the West's imagination, a place of naturally "savage" wars and naturally brutal dictators that erupt sui genesis—Conrad's Heart of Darkness brought to life and thus erasing any form of responsibility by external actors. This perception of Africa is not only as dangerous as the dire issues that plague the continent, but is directly related. It is a form of racism that allows for the expectation of the worst to come out of Africa, the exotic, the threatening, the bizarre—and then similarly allows for policy to be shaped to fit those expectations.
I can understand why Bono and others take their soft-shoe approach. The frontman of U2 is no fool. He's well aware of all of this. But he has opted for a pragmatic approach because as the saying goes, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So rather than laying a great deal of well deserved blame at the feet of rich nations, instead there are calls for such nations to be more "generous." But the cost of this tactic can be tremendous. By not acknowledging the role of the West, of the rich nations, in Africa's current dilemma, and allowing us to wear white wristbands touting our gracious charity, a crime of epic proportions is being committed. Africa remains portrayed as a basket case continent, filled with never-ending seeming misery that has always been so and which can only be saved by good people (mostly white, naturally) in the West. This perversion of reality is akin to setting fire to someone's house and then congratulating yourself when you show up outside their smoldering ruins with blankets and hot chocolate. And it proved the perfect tool for the G8.
The calls for rich nations to erase debt, make trade fair and stop their strangle hold on Africa had been growing increasingly leading up to the G8 summit in 2005. From the famed Battle in Seattle at the WTO in 1999 to the many anti-poverty movements that melded into anti-war protests worldwide, the cries were getting stronger. The G8 and other world bodies like the IMF and World Bank (which these same nations control) knew concessions would have to be made, but had no intentions of doing anything radical. Enter an Irish rock star with a big heart and a pragmatic approach. Using Bono and other celebrities as shields from other more forceful and long established vocal activists, rich nations made pledges and commitments that in the end amounted to very little—but allowed for great photo-ops and allowed millions of "Johnny and Suzy come lately" anti-globalization activists to wave their white ONE bands happily while at grand concerts none of the world's poor could ever attend. Some more established activists who made alliances with Bono were described as "embarrassed" that the U2 frontman believed something had been accomplished at the G8 Summit of 2005. Trade campaigner John Hilary pointed out that the results of that summit actually set the movement towards fair trade "backwards." Salih Booker at Africa Action probably summed up the disappointment of the more established activists in his strong worded statement that July:This G-8 plan is inadequate and a contemptuous response to African demands for justice. It is an unapologetic confirmation of the global apartheid system, in which the most impoverished continent bankrolls the development of the rich world. Their announcement to increase aid to Africa is the greatest hoax of our time. While they trumpet miniscule increases in development assistance, they continue to extract billions of dollars a year in debt repayments from countries excluded from this diminutive debt deal.
And so here we are a mere two years later, and the G8 and the World Bank and IMF have done very little even to stand by the meager pledges it made in 2005. Bono and his pragmatic allies had countered anti-poverty critics back then by saying a first step had been achieved, and more was certainly to come. Now it seems the U2 frontman is finding out that in actuality he may have been taken for a ride, allowing himself to believe that power would concede with "pleases" and "may i?" rather than forceful demands. When Bono goes back to make his case, he might want to keep some of the following in mind.
Tell the G8 that Africa does not need more deceptive "aid" or odious "loans" or debilitating neoliberal "free market policies." Africa does not require a charity or a handout. Rather it is owed for decades of past exploitation, with trade that is FAIR and allows its people to prosper. Africa's debt need not be "forgiven," but cancelled, and a real Marshall Plan of epic proportions should be undertaken by the UN in which its past exploiters are forced to contribute to help set things right—with African solutions being used first and foremost to tackle African problems. If the U.S. could pressure the IMF and World Bank to erase Iraq's debt gathered under their former ally Saddam Hussein, why can they not do the same for so much of Africa? If "freedom is on the march," then free Africa of the vultures who have too long helped strip the continent bare. If Africa is to be portrayed as victims, have the guts and strength to call out the victimizers. The West is not responsible for all of Africa's problems, but our hands are certainly not clean—not by far.
To Bono's celebrity friends at ONE, American Idol and elsewhere, the one-dimensional image of Africa as a helpless, inept, and continually war-torn continent mired in disease and famine needs to find a balance that provides a more realistic portrayal. Lagos, Nigeia is a teeming metropolis. At night Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire is lit up like NYC. In some parts of Africa people may even live in suburbs, attend universities and find ways to celebrate their culture while pushing for a fair chance at modernity. Sure there are also slums, rural villages lacking basic things like clean water and other dire symptoms of poverty--but the overall picture is much more complex. Start pointing out the vast mineral and human potential of Africa. Depicting Africa as an "exotic" land even with the most well-meaning campaigns (I am African) is not only embarrassingly offensive, but helps engender the very sentiments that so easily marginalizes an entire continent of human beings. Start involving the voices in Africa (not just the ones we're familiar with in the west, like Iman) attempting to bring change, like Wangari Maathai or those at the World Social Forum—the continent doesn't need any more missionaries. Take a look at PBS's AFRICA. Attend African film festivals which can be illuminating on African social life and politics. Support one like FESPACO held in Burkina Faso each year. Getting ourselves to understand that those we seek to help aren't "projects" but people, just like us, might go a long way in bringing the continent that gave birth to humanity more humane treatment.
