Beware Politicians Bearing Gifts - Brief Article

Ecologist, The, April, 2000

We live in a flash world. A billion pounds lavished on a disposable plastic carbuncle (to borrow an over-used term), and tens of millions spent on cloning, let's face it, a fairly ordinary sheep. But even more flash, or so it seems, was the promise made before the break of the millennium by our trusted leaders that they would cancel the colossal debt owed to them by our southern neighbours. Dolly and the carbuncle[ldots] they're not so hard to explain. Big business and egotism more or less sums them up. But the latter[ldots] freeing the developing world of previously much sought after debts? Not so easy.

Amid great whoops of excitement, first Bill Clinton, then the UK's Gordon Brown, followed by a host of other public figures, declared support for the Jubilee 2000 agenda. With barely a flicker of outrage -- surprising considering the furore that follows comparatively minuscule events such as MP John Prescott's use of a government car to protect his wife's hair-do -- the green light was lit. Even the US Congress complied. 'It is this great nation's moral imperative to extend the circle of prosperity and opportunity to those in need,' declared Clinton. According to Bob Geldof, it was Blair's instincts, 'deeply rooted in his background' that led him to the same conclusion. 'I felt we had access to a generation of rock and roll politicians,' Geldof said.

But one thing seems to have slipped through the net. When have western countries ever exercised this 'moral imperative'? Where it concerns the relationship between the West and the rest, there has never been such a thing as a free lunch. Why is it that our leaders were so willing and able, even 'enthusiastic' to describe Gordon Brown's reaction, to embark on so altruistic a gesture? Why was the US Congress willing to sign up? Why was the Adam Smith Institute, notorious for its belief that the interests of capital and those of the masses are identical, happy to offer Jubilee 2000 a sympathetic comment? What is the World Bank doing, allowing spokespeople to praise the efforts of the group? Let's not forget that this institution has more than almost any other been the target of mass protests throughout the developing world on grounds that it has acted as a veritable engine of poverty creation.

One reason may be that debt-cancellation is a campaign that has grown more and more powerful. With international superstars joining forces with well-organised pressure groups, it was clear that the campaign, for which more than 17 million people had registered support, would move boulders -- if not mountains. The clever thing to do, as far as our leaders and their business associates were concerned, was not to attempt to blow into the wind, but rather to harness that wind for alternative purposes.

A second reason could be that debts internationally have reached unmanageable levels. Some put the figure at [pounds]350billion. Even on the most unlikely of days, repayment of such debts would never happen. On the contrary, it is not unlikely that those nations 'indebted' to the West might one day band together in defiance of their creditors[ldots] and default. Another reason -- perhaps more likely -- is that the debt relief promised to the poor nations comes with a spaghetti-like tangle of strings, and those strings will likely ensure not only that indebtedness will return, but also that western industrial interests (who have similarly remained uncharacteristically quiet on the issue) will be well catered for. Establishment acceptance of the campaign is not altogether surprising. Nor is how they have almost certainly harnessed the wind. What is surprising is that alarm bells remain silent.

Cynical? Perhaps, but this view is shared by many of the project's supporters. The Adam Smith Institute's spokesman, for instance, is quoted as saying that 'this debt burden is holding back development[ldots] cancellation is in our interest as well as theirs'. Gordon Brown, too, is said to have consulted the Foreign and Commonwealth Office before announcing Britain's position on the issue. The FCO, or at least the department that deals with British exports, has explained that debt-relief is in the interests of UK exporters.

We know that in the small print of both Clinton and Brown's declarations, there are various requirements. Debt forgiveness would be granted only to those who could demonstrate that such a boost would be used 'productively'. 'Both the IMF and the World Bank,' said Brown, 'will show how structural reform[ldots] can bring less poverty and more growth.' But let's not forget that it is precisely those Structural Adjustment Programmes, as they are tenderly referred to, that are responsible for bringing about acute debt in the first place. Ghana's Structural Adjustment Programme, for instance, is one of Africa's longest-running, and that country, having been one of the most favoured aid recipients in the developing world, can barely be considered to have 'grown'. Since the creation of these abhorrent structures, and their declared mission to eradicate world hunger, the world has seen an 11-fold increase in world trade and a five-fold increase in economic growth, while more than one-fifth of the world's people have sunk beneath the poverty line. In short: not much to write home about.