One of the problems that occurs during discussions of global poverty (on the rare occassion they take place at all), is the seeming cognitive dissonance between the way our global economy works and the direct result it has on the crisis of developing countries. Nothing speaks to this as well as malnutrition, where market liberalization and forced structural adjustments have wreaked havoc with food availability throughout the poor nations of the global south. Whether it's Haiti, who 30 years ago grew its own rice but has been today forced to beg for food aid, or the very man-made 2005 famine in Niger, the pattern remains constant. Then, as now, the stewards of the global economy are willfully blind to their hands in these crises, and often--fantasically--actually insist on even more of the free market's hand to fix the disasters: as if trying to douse a fire by pouring more gasoline.
Laurent Pinsolle at the french magazine Marriane2 tackles this circular logic, deconstructing a recent article in the conservative magazine The Economist that attempts to tout how market liberalization can save the starving masses of the world it helped to create. Read it all here.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Free Market Famines
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Skewed Priorities
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.
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Other Human Rights
The 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be rightly lauded as a landmark in international attempts to formalize the rights and responsibilities between governments and their citizens....however, we need only glance at a few statistics; almost three billion people live in poverty on less than US$2.50 a day, and the number of hungry actually increased this year to nearly one billion people. As the world reaped record levels of harvests in 2008, the most basic right to food is still denied to around 1 in 6 people on the planet.
Human Rights. Say the word and most of us think of numerous rights we celebrate as part of Western liberalism--freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to vote, freedom of expression and other democratic principles. We judge other countries on how they meet these rights, and are quick to condemn them when they fall short. But those rights only make up a part of human rights. Another set of human rights, we rarely talk about or ignore altogether. These are the rights that men, women and children be afforded enough food to eat, clean water to drink, habitable shelter, freedom from want or poverty. Those rights we have decided are more so privileges, to be pitied or helped along with charity, but not the same as the democratic ideals we uphold. So we can spend all our time righteously condemning the jailing of one dissident, and somehow ignore millions suffering from malnutrition, disease and other maladies. That many of these lack of human rights also relate to our standard of living--from free trade imbalances to resource exploitation--probably pushes us into greater silence.
The article below by Robin Willoughby, a Research Officer at Share the World's Resources (STWR), points out this glaring discrepancy in our notions of human rights.
Human Rights... For Who?
Human rights are increasingly viewed through the rhetoric of military intervention, democracy and political freedom, whilst the UN's pivotal role in securing social and economic rights in the developing world continues to be marginalised, argues Robin Willoughby.
http://www.stwr.org/the-un-people-politics/human-rights-for-who.html
10th December 08 - Robin Willoughby - STWR
The 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be rightly lauded as a landmark in international attempts to formalize the rights and responsibilities between governments and their citizens. If we ask if the Declaration has proven a success, however, we need only glance at a few statistics; almost three billion people live in poverty on less than US$2.50 a day, and the number of hungry actually increased this year to nearly one billion people.[1] As the world reaped record levels of harvests in 2008, the most basic right to food is still denied to around 1 in 6 people on the planet.[2] But how did we get to this situation?
An answer to this can be simply put: on the international stage, the world's most powerful nations have prioritised those human rights associated with political freedom and peace and security, at the expense of those rights related to economic justice.
In the sphere of peace and security, the richest nations have used their political and military clout to pursue a highly defined and specific human rights agenda, highlighting the importance of themes such as intervention, democracy and political freedom. This trend is illustrated by the creation of such bodies within the United Nations (UN) as the Peace Building Commission and Counter-Terrorism Committee, as well as by the growth in interventionist peacekeeping missions. At the same time, more human rights bodies have been created under the purview of the UN Security Council, such as ad hoc tribunals to address human rights abuse in places such as Rwanda and Yugoslavia.[3]
International discussions on human rights are invariably focused on such themes as the danger posed by terrorism, threats to democracy in Zimbabwe or the need to invade Iraq in the name of human rights. This constricted view has also led to the widespread incorporation of military terminology into human rights semantics. ‘Humanitarian intervention' can be used to describe a military invasion; ‘muscular humanitarianism'[4] has become a label for aid and reconstruction work; and US-based human rights advocates recently described the need for a ‘peace surge'[5] to solve complex political problems in Darfur.
New actors have moved into a combined human rights and humanitarian fold. The EU is developing a rapid reaction force as part of its human rights-based foreign policy, while NATO has incorporated a ‘structural intervention force' to intercede in countries that are perceived as ‘failed states', humanitarian emergencies or threats to peace and security. The World Bank has also entered into this new arena, incorporating a reconstruction and intervention arm into its operations, as witnessed in the aftermath of the South East Asian Tsunami in 2006.
The result of this prioritisation of democracy, peace and security and ‘humanitarian' causes can be seen in a split between those human rights laws most palatable to the Global North, and those most urgently needed by the majority world. Unlike the one-sided prioritisation of individual human rights and security issues by the largest powers, economic and social rights have been severely sidelined.
The largest financial powers, led by the US and EU, now channel economic policy and implementation through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Through these bodies, their founding members are able to impose a vision of human rights and economic development that conforms to their own geo-strategic and political vision. According to this thinking, the removal of trade barriers, growth of capital accumulation and empowerment of business will lead to an inevitable ‘trickle-down' effect to the poor to secure human rights.
In contrast, the UN remains heavily marginalised as an actor within economic affairs. The UN agencies vested with the authority to ensure economic rights and freedoms have been downsized, marginalised or silenced as a voice in policy making. The UN Economic and Social Council - the UN body endowed with the authority to promote economic rights and full employment - has never been fully enabled to fulfil its mandate. Under pressure from the larger economic powers, much of its authority has passed to the preferred international institutions of the Global North: the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
A similar fate has befallen the UN Conference of Trade and Development (UNCTAD). During a series of conferences in the 1990s, the most powerful members of the UN - led by the US - threatened to cut funding to UNCTAD unless it conformed to the dominant ideological thinking of economic globalisation. Initially created in 1969 to offer a voice to the developing world and a negotiating forum on economic policy between rich and poor nations, the forum has now been sidelined and merely offers ‘technical advice' to poorer countries.[6]
Other UN agencies such as the UN Development Program (UNDP) are currently threatened with further funding cuts or marginalisation. Last year, under a barrage of criticism from the US media (described as ‘rising like Frankenstein's monster to challenge the power of the UN Secretariat'[7] and as ‘cavorting with a roster of thug governments'[8]) the US Congress cut its funding to the agency, diverting the money instead to UN bodies that fit with the US vision of development and human rights, namely the UN Entrepreneurship Initiative and UN Democracy Fund.
Such a marginalisation of the UN role in economic development has resulted in an almost complete lack of intellectual pluralism in discussions of our future direction to secure economic rights. The model of free-market economic growth and the ‘trickle down' theory of wealth to secure basic needs have been broadly accepted and institutionalised, at a time when poverty, inequality and hunger are increasing for the majority of the world according to the UN's own figures, in large part because of these very policies.
With human rights viewed through such a narrow prism, some analysts suggest that both the UN and other aid agencies could be perceived as a ‘Trojan Horse' for the economic and political interests of the most powerful nations.[9] Following from this logic, it is perhaps little surprise that there has been an increasing distrust of UN staff and humanitarian workers in the field.
Rather than a focussing on a narrowly imposed view of human rights, the anniversary of the UN Declaration gives us the opportunity to take stock of global priorities. An agenda that promotes peace, security and democracy has resulted in a form of ‘military humanitarianism' and security-based human rights that play into the hands of the most economically powerful. In addition, the promotion of the economic rights of the majority world has been institutionalised in the World Bank and IMF, leading to a highly ideological attempt to secure basic human rights.
To respond to these challenges, international governments should equally prioritise all of the rights and responsibilities in the UN Declaration to include those on economic justice, such as the right to adequate living and social protection, fair remuneration, and the right to adequate food and shelter. Such a holistic approach would help government and international bodies to tackle other complex human rights problems such as peace and security, terrorism and gender relations.
A rejuvenated UN has a key role to play in such a prioritisation of basic human rights. To achieve this aim, the UN should regain its independence as a forum for economic policy making. The organisation can only play a central role in global governance if it can act independently and incorporate different visions of economic development, rather than follow the ideological constraints of the World Bank and IMF. A much needed rethink on the future world economic direction would aid the UN's image in the eyes of those countries most in need of its help.
The recent coordinated bailout of the global banking system shows that if international governments feel there is sufficient cause then they can coordinate and act with remarkable speed. The ‘bottom billion' excluded from the benefits of economic globalisation are now waiting for their own government bailout. It is through these policies that we can achieve the wishes of the original drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: political pluralism, peace and security and true economic and social justice for all.
Robin Willoughby is Research Officer at Share the World's Resources (STWR), an NGO advocating for essential resources such as food, water and energy to be shared internationally. He can be contacted at: robin(at)stwr.org.
References
[1] Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion. ‘The Developing World Is Poorer Than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight against Poverty', The World Bank Development Research Group, August 2008. See also Adam W. Parsons, 'Do the Poor Count? ', Share the World's Resources, 15 September 2008.
[2] FAO, ‘Number of Hungry People Rises to 963 Million', Press Release, 9 December 2008.
[3] See Aurelio Viotti, ‘In Search of Symbiosis: The Security Council in the Humanitarian Domain,' International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 89, No. 865, March 2007.
[4] Walden Bello, ‘The Rise of the Relief-and-Reconstruction Complex', Journal of International Affairs, Spring/Summer 2006, Vol. 59, No.2.
[5] Enough Project, ‘US Activists Call on Obama to Lead a ‘Peace Surge' in Darfur', 6 November 2008, retrieved 9 December 2008,
[6] See Boutros Boutros-Ghali, ‘Reinventing UNCTAD,' South Centre, 20 February 2006.
[7] Claudia Rossett, ‘Ban the Old Ways: UN Ethics Test,' in UN Lives on the Dark Side, IO Watch Note 2007.
[8] Claudia Rossett, ‘Ban the Old Ways: UN Ethics Test,' in UN Lives on the Dark Side, IO Watch Note 2007.
[9] Amii Omara-Otunnu, ‘Western Humanitarianism or Neo-Slavery?', Black Star News, 7 November 2007, see also Alex de Waal, ‘No Such Thing as Humanitarian Intervention,' Harvard International Review, 21 March 2007 and Noam Chomsky, ‘Humanitarian Imperialism: The New Doctrine of Imperial Right', Monthly Review, September 2008.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Robert Zoellick: Bush's New Man at the Death Star
So looks like the Empire will soon have a new head at the Death Star. This week President George Bush the Younger nominated Robert Zoellick to the top position at the World Bank--to replace the outgoing Paul Wolfowitz. Zoellick, a former U.S. Trade Representative, is more than likely to be confirmed as the next World Bank president sometime this month. And since his nomination, praise has poured in for his roles in global trade talks, the crisis in Darfur and relations with China. But, we heard much the same praise given to Paul Wolfowitz when he first got the job. Is Robert Zoellick really that different from his predecessor? Here's a hint... he was nominated by *George Bush.* That should be just about enough to sow doubts, but in case you need more....
So who is Robert Zoellick? Well turns out he's one of the gang. Like Paul Wolfowitz, Zoellick is a member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). As discussed in a previous article, PNAC adheres to an ideology that America's military strength should be used to bring order to the world and unchallenged global supremacy; the conservative think tank endorses the notion of a Pax Americana. It is a vision of an America for the 21st century, which would "extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of U.S. military forces." In 1997 Zoellick, along with Wolfowitz and other notable necons, would sign his name to a letter to then President Bill Clinton urging "regime change" in Iraq as a stepping stone towards global American dominance.
While there has been praise for his involvement in Sudan's Darfur crisis, there has also been criticism. In 2005, Africa Action angrily denounced Zoellick for his admittance that the U.S. was engaged in intelligence sharing with the government in Khartoum:Africa Action today expressed outrage at U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick’s testimony before Congress, in which he acknowledged that the Bush Administration is maintaining an intelligence-sharing partnership with the government of Sudan, even as it continues its genocidal campaign against the people of Darfur and prepares for more violence against the people in eastern Sudan, who are also rebelling against Khartoum. Zoellick also failed to describe any new and urgent U.S. action designed to stop the genocide and protect civilians in Darfur.
When it comes to globalization and trade, Zoellick has hardly been a friend of the impoverished. In a 2003 article titled Robert Zoellick's Free Trade Evangelism, the transnational advocacy network CorpWatch detailed his "bullying" tactics against smaller nations that did not fall in line fast enough with American economic policies:...in Central America there are mixed feelings about Zoellick who moved aggressively to target the countries that joined the G-21: Costa Rica and Guatemala, by threatening their membership in a proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
The global justice network 50 Years is Enough notes much the same:
"I told them that the emergence of the G-21 might pose a big problem to this agreement since our Congress resents the fact that members of CAFTA are also in the G-21," he said. "If we want to construct a common future with them, resistance and protest do not constitute an effective strategy. In my talks with some of these countries, I sense that they are drawing the right conclusions."
In addition Zoellick warned Costa Rica in early October that it must open its services market and privatize its telecommunications, electricity and insurance industries if it wants to join CAFTA.Zoellick served as the U.S.’s chief trade negotiator for Bush’s first term. . “He earned a reputation as a powerful bully in middle- and low- income countries,” said Jessica Walker Beaumont of the American Friends Service Committee. “His condescending lectures about ‘can-do and won’t-do nations’ at the 2003 WTO summit in Cancun, when the US didn’t get its way, became notorious. It’s hard to imagine that, after defending US corporate profits so zealously, this is the person who is going to champion development on behalf of the world’s poor.”
They go on to say:“While no one could be as outrageous as Wolfowitz, the architect of the Iraq war, Zoellick is a full-fledged neo-conservative too, a supporter of invading Iraq since 1998. The best that can be said for him is that, like Wolfowitz, he’ll be an appropriate symbol of what the World Bank has become – an agency dedicated to entrenching U.S. economic domination.”
So, in the end, Zoellick and his supporters may attempt to paint his appointment to the World Bank as a new start, but it seems mostly like more of the same. This supposed "changing of the guard" will hardly reflect any changes in policy.
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.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
GOD: Creator, Savior, Free Market Capitalist
So the other day, I'm sitting watchin VH1 Soul (everything BET should be, but isn't) and there's a video by Common--one of the finest emcees out today--where he's performing before a live crowd. Being part lyricist and part philosopher, Common often prologues his songs with a bit of witty words on politics, spirituality, activism, etc. This time would be no different. Sometime during the performance, he urged people to give thanks to God that both he and they are able to live in a place where food and goods are bountiful--rather than in some of the more impoverished regions of the globe. Those words got me to thinking. Are the trappings of the modern Western world due to some benevolence of God? Is God a Free Market Capitalist who sends plauges of odious debt on poor nations and smites them with unfair trade practices? Is this a God who performs miracles through legacies colonialism and exploitation that blesses the West and curses the rest? Or are we trying to use "faith" to avoid an ugly truth.
To paraphrase and summarize, Common began to recount the many ills affecting much of the world--from Katrina to the Iraq War to global poverty. He then asked the crowd to count their own blessings, and to give thanks to "God" that we (presumably "we" in the West) are able to partake in such bountiful amounts of food, a higher level of living, Puma kicks and Ipods. Because, afterall, we could be as bad off as so many other parts of the world. To this Common was greeted by a round of applause from the audience. Watching through the flat screen of my television, I was only left frowning with alot of disturbing thoughts.
This is not a slight on Common, whose music I've enjoyed since he was Common Sense. But it is part of a larger issue that's troubled me all throughout this holiday season, including our current move towards the Greco-Roman derived New Year, where many will be giving their thanks and blessings for their fortunate lot in life.
If the reason we in the West are able to enjoy our Blackberrys and deck ourselves in diamonds or designer apparel is because of God--then I'm assuming this God figure is a free market capitalist who works through neoliberal trade policies that favor rich nations, destroying the fragile economies of poor countries, making them dependent on those who would exploit them, including helping to sow the seeds of conflict that always follows poverty and disease, and endorse past events from slavery to colonialism that helped set up this system to begin with.
Common's words, while superficially nice, seem to exist in a world of disconnection. There's a false ideology that the rest of the world is poor, simply because that's the way things are, or--even more disturbing--because some God entity has seen fit to bless the West and curse the rest. But this ignores the reality that in fact we are all very connected.
Poor nations are kept poor today because rich nations have made it so. They've been able to do so because a legacy of colonialism has allowed them to retain economic power, writing the laws of trade unfairly to benefit themselves and keep everyone else mired in poverty or something close. Its no coincidence that the nations that make up the G8 come primarily from the old colonial powers. It's no coincidence that many nations like those in Africa are in debt to the very nations that once conquered and held them as colonies. Without slavery, much of the West--including the US--would not exist as a power today, or perhaps have existed at all. Without colonialism, the riches of Britain and France and Belgium would not have come about. The divide of rich and poor on this planet is written in a history of blood and conquest, and its legacy continues with us strongly today. It is far from happenstance.
The God that supposedly favors the West must also not mind environmental destruction, as the US drains a vastly disproportionate amount of the world's resources. Today, the average US citizen consumes well over *thirty* times what the average citizen in the Third World does. The developed nations of the world account for only 20% of the global population, but are responsible for pumping out over 75% of the world's pollution and waste. The richest 20% of the world consumes some 86% of all the goods and services used. In short, we in the West are literally devouring the planet, and as the rest of the world tries impossibly to follow in our footsteps, we are depleting forests and oceans to feed our capitalist-driven gluttony. Global warming is but one of the side-effects we'll be reaping as a result.
Basically put, this is a vastly unfair world. And its not by coincidence that it is so. No, I'm not talking about some conspiracy theory where a few men get together and have secret meetings to decide the fate of the 6 billion and growing members of the global community. Those are fictitious tales created to deflect us away from our own responsibility. The truth is much more mundane and much more damning.
The world is unfair because of a global economic system maintained by trade agreements that are passed as we tune into American Idol; it's maintained everytime we buy a pair of sneakers or some clothing that is being sewn together by the desperate in places like the Saipan or Bangladesh; it's maintained by our desire for flashy diamonds that send the poverty stricken into war in Sierra Leone, and even the coltan in our mobile phones that help drive mining/resource wars in the Congo that kill millions; it's maintained by a massive arms trade, of which the US is remarkably the number one death merchant. It's the real world that we'd rather not see, as we don our little white ONE bands and try to act as if we are the saviors of the world's poor, and not a key factor in their continued existence. The troubling reality is that in some way, we're all complicit--even if by varying degrees of responsibility.
Lest I seem to be standing too high on my soapbox, let me state that I don't set myself apart here. I'm as much a part of the system as all else. And like everyone in this consumerist driven society, I want nice things too--and would rather not think about what has to be done in order to acquire it. But at the least I try not to delude myself, into believing the world that exists to benefit some today, while keeping others poor, is the work of some God entity.
Unless of course in the end, this God people worship in the West really is a God of free markets, neoliberalism, sweat shops, poverty and hunger--with prophets with names like Creflo Dollar, inducing their flock with divine pyramid schemes and Horatio Alger parables of eventual wealth. And if that's the case, then maybe we should think on overthrowing that God and replacing Him/Her/It with a better one. Or perhaps, if this is the best a God can inspire, maybe we could do without such a being at all.
