poverty and history

[helenic]

"At the turn of the millennium, the United Nations General Assembly agreed on a set of development goals, the supreme one being the eradication of poverty. It is not trivial that world leaders use the language of “eradication” instead of “relieving”. But victory it was not. We have the means to end poverty; the world is endlessly rich and more redistribution would not be costly. The real impediment is the old one: it is about will. ... Unnecessary misery persists because the will to end it comes not from our hearts, where we are all pure, but from our collective opinions and actions, where we are not." Stein Ringen

On an aesthetic rather than political level I am pretty much indifferent to Live 8. The fact that the same people are organising it means that it feels less like "cashing in" on Live Aid's success. But this event nonetheless suffers by comparison to its predecessor: I don't expect the music to be of comparable quality or the national mood to be as overwhelmingly affecting.

But on a political level - and that's ostensibly what this is all about - I cannot, in good conscience, be indifferent, particularly when I have so many reservations about the way the entire campaign is being organised and presented. For a start, I'm not at all sure about Geldof. His dynamism, his force, his charisma are definitely better working against poverty than for it. Howoever, just as the Live 8 website is simplistic and sensationalist, I've found many of his statements leading up to G8 to be naive, over-simplifying, obscuring. And I have the same problem, to a lesser extent, with the Make Poverty History campaign. Geldof's aim is to get the world leaders on his side, and thus his challenges to them are not as strong as some might want them to be. He praises the aid and debt relief efforts made so far without making any mention of the conditions placed on them, or the ways in which the economic policies of the governments involved are damaging these countries far more than the sums mentioned are helping them. I don't think Geldof is corrupt, but it's the age-old problem of a punchy versus a nuanced message. Geldof is an extremely persuasive and powerful spokesman, but that power, that sound-bitey and emotive catchiness of his phrasing, does not allow for subtleties. Which is, perhaps, as damaging as it is rousing.

I was there in 1998 at the G8 protest in Birmingham, and although I was too young to understand, for the most part, the political dimensions of what I was campaigning for, I was as thrilled as anyone else when the UK agreed to 100% debt cancellation. I'm still thrilled by that, although I find the version on the Make Poverty History site somewhat abhorrent, smugly emphasising how much more the UK has done than other countries, how it "must now push other countries to follow its lead", while somehow not actually mentioning which countries are responsible for the fact that "little more than 10% of the total debt owed by the world's poorest countries has been cancelled". "Rich countries" are impersonally blamed, with no particular pressure on America, and no acknowledgement of the many ways in which the UK supports the arms trade, economic exploitation of impoverished communities and governments, or corrupt governments that further the poverty of their own people.

Which is, of course, pretty much what went wrong in 1985. The organisers of LiveAid did not succeed in running aid efforts directly, and instead channelled most of the £50m raised through the NGOs in Ethiopia. As David Rieff writes, "the relief effort may have cut the death toll by between a quarter and a half. The problem is that it may have contributed to as many deaths." I really know very little about this (any more information would be appreciated!) but a quick google shows that the story doesn't vary much (it may well originate from a single source): the government in Addis Ababa learned to manipulate the NGOs, and much of the aid money was used to fund the Dergue's policy of forced resettlement, which affected nearly four million people and killed, through systematic and compulsury over-land deportations of starving people, shocking numbers of them. "The trip usually took five or six days. To this day, no one knows how many people died en route. The conservative estimate is 50,000. MSF's estimate is double that."

For Oxfam, and Geldof, there was no political dimension to the famine - it was presented as being as natural and biblical as the tsunami last year, thus neatly relieving the need for any responsibility on the part of governments or economic powers. The Dergue was corrupt, is thankfully no more, and the NGOs were passive or accidental, rather than active or deliberate, participants in its crimes. However it goes without saying that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. If the campaigners in Edinburgh succeed and the amount of aid going into Africa is increased, who will decide how it is spent, and how public will be the process by which that decision is made?

The problem is that aid on its own is not enough - if failing social systems are as much responsible for poverty as environmental circumstances, then aid will at best relieve poverty - it will never make it history. And yet how does one approach the reorganising of social or political infrastructures in other countries, without being in danger of approaching the hubristic atrocities committed in Iraq over the last few years? To what extent do "we" (the UK, the UN, the west, the rich) have the right to "reorganise" other countries, however corrupt and damaging they are?

On one level it seems that the emphasis should move away from active participation. As Ringen notes, "Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa fails to allow Africa responsibility for itself, a peculiar form of reverse prejudice". That's not to say there should be an end to aid. But rather that the focus of efforts to end poverty should be in minimising the control and influence we have over these countries' economies. Aid and debt relief are often given on conditions of privatisation, especially of public utilities (the Make Poverty History website gives the example of the water supply in Tanzania, controlled by the UK company Biwater), or other market changes designed to benefit foreign importers and financial institutions. The Dergue resettlement in the 1980s was facilitated, however accidentally, by NGOs' participation in government policies, rather than concentrating on local, direct aid - agriculture, education, healthcare. Equally, stopping our activity in the third world will in many cases do far more good than increasing it. As George Monbiot puts it, "[Bono and Geldolf] urge the G8 leaders to do more to help the poor. But they say nothing about ceasing to do harm." If we cannot stop funding from being misdirected, like the Dergue atrocities, like the US HIV relief that is currently being channelled to fundamentalist Christian groups campaigning against condom use, then perhaps funding should not be our focus but raising awareness of the damage being done by our own economic and trade policies, the control we have over market forces, our exploitation of poorer economies? Monbiot expresses it forcefully:

"At what point do Bono and Geldof call time on the leaders of the G8? At what point does Bono stop pretending that George Bush is "passionate and sincere" about world poverty, and does Geldof stop claiming that he "has actually done more than any American president for Africa"? At what point does Bono revise his estimate of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as "the John and Paul of the global-development stage" or as leaders in the tradition of Keir Hardie and Clement Attlee? How much damage do Bush and Blair have to do before the rock stars will acknowledge it?"

It's a tough one. Clearly, the mistakes of the past, and the damaging and corrupt elements of globalisation, should not be used as arguments to "give up" on aid. On an immediate and occasionally even long-term level, it demonstrably works; it saves lives. However, it's a tricky balancing act to pull off. If "social justice rather than charity" should be our concern, where do we draw the line? How much interference is acceptable and how much is arrogant? Since we cannot hope for a real, global redistribution of power or money any time soon (and even that comes with associated dangers - the Dergue resettlement was undertaken on communist principles), what is the ethical way to use the power we have? Where lies the best position between being patronising and being indifferent?

Comments

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

I would say that being patronising (debt relief) lies in-between being indifferent and being pro-active. The odds of persuading our government (and other wealthy countries) to give some of their wealth away, are far higher than the odds of persuading them to put fairer and more sustainable economic policies in place.

As you've pretty much observed, Geldof is going for what's possible, not what's 'right'. Something is better than nothing.

And of course, it's possible view the debt relief issue as a staging post for activists... once the debt is relieved, and at least the burden of interest etc is taken away, then people can start pointing out that there are still all these other problems, and publicising the possible solutions to those.

Third world debt has taken centuries of institionalised crappiness to build - it's going to take more than a couple of rock concerts to set it to rights, but at least now the issue is known to more people. That will give them a mental platform to put the next set of issues on top of.

[lovelyoliver.livejournal.com]

ultimately the campaign to make poverty history fails to identify the single greatest obstacle to improving the lot of the disenfranchised in the third world, the massive corruption of the governments. while wrtiting off debt may help it won't change the infrastructure of exploitation which is in place. its the usual problem suffered by those with an earnest desire to do good, they simply don't understand what a wretched unpleasant beast humanity is.

there are ways of working with the governments of the third world by offering incentives but the sad truth is that the most effecient solution would be a program of active colonialism, conquering corrupt states, removing their governments and administering them while the necessary framework for genuine democracy and managed capitalism are put in place. this is the critical error made in iraq, rushing to get democracy in place before the war torn country can deal with it. people need to _see_ the benefits of western values before they will buy into them. you can't simply say "do it this way and at some point your lives will improve" you need to improve their lives tangibly.

but colonialism was the great evil which corrupted the third world in the first place and so the idea that you can use the framework of armed conquest and colonial administration (designed to have a definate beginning, middle and end) for a genuinely positive purpose is anathema since we've all been told that our colonial history is a stain on the nation. i see this as a great moral hypocricy, if that was really the case then governments would not shy away from the difficult descisions necessary to change the world. you don't make poverty history by organising benefit concerts, all social change is the product of struggle (in some form or another) and to assume otherwise, as geldoff and his motley collection of badly educated bleeding heart musicians have done, is grossly naive.

[deliberateblank.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's necessarily moral hypocrisy - even "post colonialism" just about every developed government has been completely willing have unsupportive foreign governments replaced with ones with even worse domestic policy as long as their foreign policy is economically advantageous. Just look at events throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s and now. There has been some gnashing of teeth when our governments have been caught red handed, but we've really done nothing to stop them and they're now stopping even pretending to be embarassed about it.

We simply do not have the moral high ground to be going in and forcing change at the end of a gun, and it is frightening to think that is what is increasingly openly happening.

(I was going to mention something about non-military diplomatic and economic pressure working in some cases to effect a change of leadership, if not a change of policy. I was in particular thinking of Mugabe who last I checked I thought had agreed to step down, but Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe) says he's still there. Did something go tits up in a way not mentioned in that article or am I getting him confused with someone else I wonder?)

live8

[malcolmlambert.livejournal.com]

The little I know about this suggests that much of the theoretical rationale for the liveaid process comes from the work of Sachs - see eg Jeffrey D. Sachs The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time; The End of Poverty: How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime. The latter (with forward by Bono) probably being the better known.

Sachs has both a good track record (Bolivia, Poland) and a bad one (Russia) - and seems genuinely to believe that poverty can be solved by altering the system. As I read it, his prescription comes down to this: more aid, debt eradication, better trade terms, access to technology. Whether he is right or not is difficult for a non specialist to evaluate. Certainly the economists I've talked to say that his approach will probably help, but ...

And the "buts", as always, are important. The biggest but(t) belongs to the US. (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun). Seriously though, whether the US really commits to the package remains open to doubt at the moment - and if Live8 helps with that, then for me that's enough of a reason to support it.

The other "but" comes from the people on the ground - in this case, the Commission on Africa that Tony Blair was involved in. Their response too was of the "yes, but" variety. In their case, the buts were the things that Sachs and the technocrats don't mention: conflict and civil war, the devastation of the environment, the race to be the first to remove natural resources, privatisation which can mean control lies with multinational companies, uncontrolled population increases, disease.

To their list, I would want to add the one highlighted by lovelyoliver (hi!): the corruption and inhumanity of some of the rulers in poorer countries. I'm not uncritical about western democracies, but the old observation that drought and famine are rare in democracies, remains true as far as I can see.

So: is live8 a good thing? Yes.
Is it enough? Probably not.
Bob Geldof may perhaps not be a nice man. But overall, I think what he is doing and saying clearly comes down more on the side of the saints than the sinners - and if it comes to a yes/no decision, I want to be on his side. But ...

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

I was there in 1998 at the G8 protest in Birmingham

Hey, so was I!

[adamw]

Well said - I found myself agreeing with pretty much everything you say.

As well as the fact that maybe governmental issues in Africa need to be tackled, as well as corruption, a start could also be made on stopping arms sales to African countries, too. In this insane paradox, we (the British) are calling for debt relief on one hand and then fuelling the fire with the other.

This whole situation needs so much more than is being given at the moment - however it needs the engagement of all countries that are involved - something I am sad to say is unlikely as long as the US, for example, continues to follow it's insular policies that only suit itself.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Hah, I've been meaning to post on this for a while, you've said most of what I wanted to say! I think Monbiot and the like's criticisms of Live 8/MPH are very much to the point. One other article (http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2005-06/21bond.cfm) I've seen, on ZNet (http://http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm), goes so far to suggest that Oxfam in particular has been co-opted by the Blair Government, with which it has somethign of a 'revolving door'.

I think "stop doing harm" is one of the main things. This includes stop extracting debt repayments. There is a problem of corruption in African countries, but there is no way that taking large quantities of money from them is actually doing any good.

Then, corruption. Thing is, corruption takes two to tango, and "we" are very often one of the tangoers. Large arms deals are almost always associated with bribes, including the big 2000 arms deal from various European countries, including the UK, to South Africa. A South African middleman has just been convicted of corruption in relation to the deal, and the Deputy President fired. Then there's the role of western companies in the exploitation of Africa's vast mineral wealth, very little of which ends up benefiting the majority of people in the countries in question, with vast sums going into the leaders' pockets or on arms, etc. Whether or not the western companies are actively corrupt (though I suspect this is often teh case), they are certainly knowingly colluding in the robbery of the population by their leaders (or sometimes, as is the case for coltan and other minerals in DRC, the robbery is by rebel groups or even foreign powers, Uganda and Rwanda.)

That doesn't answer the question of how you try to positively deal with corruption in African countries. I share your ambivalence, and really don't know what the answer is. You could stop giving aid, which would cause immense harm; you could ignore corruption in giving aid/debt relief etc., which perpetuates harm; or you can impose conditions which involves immense hypocricy coming from a country like Britain or the US (or France etc.), and which is so open to manipulation, using conditionality to benefit western multinationals rather than the people of the recipient countries, as is currently the case.

Ideally, I'd want for us to be the sort of country that wouldn't be being hypocritical and domineering in trying to tackle corruption in African countries, but that would mean a total change in our power structures, which is not coming soon. In the meantime, I guess you have to have some sort of messy compromise that does link aid etc. to tackling corruption to some extent, but for campaigners to watch our governments like hawks, and to cry fowl very loudly whenever they start abusing this.

[ixwin.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

I share your unease, although not for all the same reasons (though I agree that corruption is a huge problem, and not one the west can ignore). I feel woefully uninformed on the topic generally, though.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

His dynamism, his force, his charisma are definitely better working against poverty than for it.

This line strikes at my discomfort with the Live8 concept, because vanishingly few people are for poverty. We don't seriously imagine that if Geldof were not organising such rallies then it would be campaigning for "Keep poverty present". Clearly having a concert per se doesn't help reduce poverty, so the only benefit can be as a public statement to the effect, "We don't like poverty." But nobody likes poverty, so the statement is empty.

That's a bit cynical, perhaps, because although nobody likes poverty, plenty of people are apathetic about it, and the idea, as I understand it, is that our government and others should take notice that the people really care about eradicating poverty, and the government should take note and pull their finger out.

The problem with that is that I have the impression that the UK government is already fairly gung-ho on the issue and that the problem lies with other nations, notably the Americans, and I doubt that Bush is going to be much influenced by a big concert in Hyde Park. Related to this, I suspect that the government (and this government more than any past government) already knows what the public attitude to poverty is: everyone would prefer it to go away, some are passionate, most are apathetic, few are willing to make personal sacrifices.

Then there is the other problem, which seems to me a problem with most of the mass protests of recent years, that they know what they are against but not what they are for. If poverty in Africa can be solved at all, then it will require a very complex solution, which is not one which can be worked out via the medium of protest marching. Yet (and I realise this deviates slightly from the original topic), it seems to me that the Gleneagles protest is likely, if anything, to hinder those who have the responsibility for finding that complex solution.

Again, and without wishing to deny our responsibility, it seems to me that no attempt to impose a solution from outside can ever be successful. Africans, after all, are people just like us, and not children, and they have the capacity to run their own affairs to the benefit of the common good. Certainly we can try to act in helpful ways and to stop making things worse, but ultimately I don't see that the imposition of our political or economic models can be successful in and of itself. It seems that such paternalism, both in colonial and post-colonial times has been the cause of many modern problems.

So what do we actually do? Well, having said the problem denies easy answers, I won't attempt to give an easy ansewr. A certain amount of sticking plasters will probably continue to be necessary, even though it can mask the underlying problem, because it would be contrary to our humanity to see people starving and not to give aid. In terms of helping people to help themselves, I suspect that education must be hugely important, but I'm not sure how to tackle that problem without resorting to old models of mission.