Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: G8

  • A Seat at Humanity’s Table

    Frank Kelly“Everyone deserves a seat at humanity’s table.”  That was a favorite expression of my friend Frank Kelly, who died in 2010, one day before his 96th birthday.  Frank believed it was essential for a peaceful future that everyone be seated at that big table and everyone’s voice be heard.  I couldn’t agree more.  We need a table that has room for all of us, a table at which everyone is fed with opportunity; everyone’s human rights are upheld; and everyone has a chance for their voice to be heard. 


    Right now there aren’t enough seats at the table, and the seats that exist have been taken by the wealthy and dominant of the world.  But who should speak for humanity?  Should it be the G-8 or the G-20?  Should it be the P-5, the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the ones who reserved for themselves the privilege of the veto power?  Should it be corporate titans?  Should it be representatives of the military-industrial complex?  These are the people who have claimed the seats at humanity’s table for themselves, and they seem quite content sitting there, hoarding resources and opportunity, and pulling the strings of the world.  But all is not well. 


    The rich and powerful may not yet recognize it, but they are sitting on a precipice, and they have a long way to fall.  The table where they are sitting is not stable.  They may believe that they can maintain their exclusive control of the table by using their wealth and power to bring in the police to cordon off the area, but this is only a temporary fix.  Unless they open the doors and expand the table, they are headed for a fall.  And with them is likely to go the table and all the resources they have sought to maintain for their exclusive use.


    To bring everyone to humanity’s table is not just the polite thing to do, it is the right thing to do.  It is also necessary.  The poor of the world know what is going on behind locked doors.  They know that their poverty and suffering are related to the greed at the restricted table.  All that those without a seat at the table are asking for is a chance to be heard and to be part of the decision making about the great problems confronting humanity, including the inequitable allocation of resources, the militarization of the planet, the destruction of the environment, the abuse of human rights, and the list goes on.  All of these great global issues can only be effectively addressed by global cooperation, and such cooperation is not possible if chairs are missing from humanity’s table. 


    It is increasingly evident that either everyone will be seated, or at least represented at the table, or the table will become increasingly irrelevant to solving the world’s problems.  The world has become too small to treat as a country club and put up “No Trespassing” signs to keep most of the world’s people away from humanity’s table.  We’ll either find a way to make room for all of us at the table, or we will fail in achieving the cooperation needed to solve the world’s most pressing problems.

  • Why I Don’t Trust Them or Sleeping With the Enemy

    When G8 finance ministers announced last month a £40bn debt relief package for some of the world’s poorest countries, Bob Geldof praised it as “a victory for the millions of people in the campaign around the world”. Bono called it “a little piece of history”. Forget the immoral condition of enforced liberalisation and privatisation that it contained. That was not all. Bono went on to hail George W Bush as the saviour of Africa. “I think he has done an incredible job”, he pronounced, adding: “Bush deserves a place in history for turning the fate of the continent around.” He came across as serious. Does Bono know that the US is the lowest aid donor in the industrialised world, giving only 0.16 per cent of GNP? Does he not care about climate change and about Bush’s role as serial environmental abuser? Maybe he has forgotten.

    The mutual admiration club between Bono, Geldof, Blair and Bush – rock stars and men who would love to be them – has been the abiding symbol of the G8. It is deeply disturbing. It has nothing to do with the commitment and the passionate argument of the 225,000 people who took to the streets of Edinburgh on 2 July encircling the centre of Scotland’s capital to protest against global injustice. This demonstration – at which I was a speaker – provided the real backdrop, the real pressure for change. Not that many people, particularly those south of the border, would have known. Saturation television that day from Live8 in Hyde Park beamed pictures from as far away as Philadelphia, Berlin and Tokyo – cities united in superficial soundbites about desperately serious issues. The newspapers fared little better.

    Edinburgh was nowhere to be seen. Was it inadvertent, or did our celebrity musicians conspire to allow the biggest demonstration of people power in Scotland’s history and the biggest march against poverty the UK has seen to be erased from the public’s consciousness? When Gordon Brown announced his intention to take part in the Edinburgh March I was appalled. I finally understood the Machiavellian plan by prime minister and chancellor to neutralise and co-opt the efforts of hundreds of NGOs, grassroots organisations and people throughout the world united in their desire to see poverty eradicated. They achieved their aims with the help of Geldof and Bono. I know that we need to persuade politicians, but do we really need to sleep with the enemy?

    For years thousands of people have campaigned to draw the public’s attention to the harm globalisation has done to the developing world and to expose the unjust policies of the unholy Trinity – the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organisation. All of a sudden Brown wanted to march hand in hand with us. Was he going to protest against the policies the UK government was imposing on the poorest countries in the developing world? Was he aware the UK government has been instrumental in pushing an aggressive “free trade” agenda at the WTO, disregarding developing countries’ pleas that they should be allowed to defend their infant industries from predatory EU and US multinationals?

    Was he not aware that the UK also stands behind the damaging Economic Partnership Agreements designed to open markets, in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, exposing small scale producers to overwhelming competition from powerful multinationals? Is he aware that the UK has taken the lead in promoting privatisation of public services in developing countries, despite the increase in poverty this has brought to million of peoples in Africa, Latin America and elsewhere? Does he not know that the department for International Development has channelled millions from the aid budget to privatisation consultants such as KPMG, Price WaterhouseCoopers and the Adam Smith Institute, engaged to “advise” developing country governments on the privatisation of their public services? What about the UK government’s efforts to undermine international calls to hold multinational corporations to account for their activities overseas, championing the voluntary alternative of “corporate social responsibility” rather than corporate regulation? Then come the arms industry, and Britain’s seemingly unquenchable thirst to sell to the poorest and most volatile of dictatorships.

    After all the excitement of the Live8 crowd, and the self-congratulation of the organisers for what we should acknowledge was perhaps the greatest rock music spectacle the world has seen, what will have been achieved? Beside the thrill of seeing some of the greatest artist alive perform, has Blair, the same politician who misled the world over WMD in Iraq, managed to reinvent his legacy as the prophet of the social justice movement? Has the consciousness of the world really been raised, or have the consciences of the political leaders simply been soothed?

    In Scotland, we were making concrete demands from the G8 leaders, to stop imposing the neoliberal policies that have contributed to exacerbating poverty in the developing world; perhaps our aims were a little too unsettling, and a little too unpalatable, for Bono and Bob. By ignoring the real issues in the Make Poverty History Campaign and by embracing politicians with uncritical enthusiasm, they have undermined the real movement for change, helping to preserve the cycle that keeps the developing world subjugated to the financial institutions that are making poverty inevitable.

    You may wonder why I feel so deeply about these issues, I was born in one of the 18 countries in the debt relief package; Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the southern Hemisphere. Throughout my life I have seen first hand the devastating effect that poverty has on children’s lives. For me, witnessing the death of a child is not just a dramatic click of a finger, it is a terrible tragedy. Bono and Bob Geldof’s blind ambition has led them to legitimise and praise George W. Bush and Tony Blair, perpetrators of the objectionable policies that are causing the demise of millions of innocent people throughout the developing world. Although, one cannot deny they have succeeded in bringing attention to Africa, one feels betrayed by their moral ambiguity and sound bite propaganda which have obscured and watered down the real issues that are at stake in the debate.

    Originally published in the New Statesman

  • Live 8: Corporate Media Bonanza

    Live 8, “the greatest concert” ever aired live, has been presented to World public opinion as an “awareness campaign” in solidarity with Africa. Its stated objective was to put pressure on the Group of Eight leaders (G8) to increase foreign aid flows and cancel the debt of the World’s poorest countries.

    In the words of its promoter Bob Geldof, Live 8 has provided a “unique opportunity” to save a continent from a humanitarian disaster.

    The Live 8 concerts organized in the eight major industrial countries (as well as in South Africa), however, were not intended to raise money for the World’s poorest countries.

    In fact quite the opposite.

    Live 8 is a multimillion dollar undertaking, which will result in huge profits for its corporate sponsors including AOL Time Warner, the US based media giant, the Ford Motor company, through its Swedish affiliate Volvo and Nokia, the cell phone company, not to mention Britain’s EMI Music Group, which has entered into a highly lucrative arrangement with the Live 8 organizers.

    AOLTime Warner controls the US broadcasting rights which it has licenced to the Walt Disney Company for broadcast TV on ABC and a myriad of affiliated TV and radio stations, including Premiere Radio Networks, XM Satellite Radio and Viacom’s MTV Networks (for cable TV). AOL also holds the exclusive online rights for the event on the internet.

    TV air-time has been auctioned off around the world. Millions of dollars of advertising revenues are expected from the broadcasting of the event, not to mention the repeats, the video-clips, the internet broadcasting and the DVDs, which will be available commercially.

    According to the producers, Live 8 will go down as “the biggest global broadcast in history“. The organizers expect –through TV, radio and the internet– to reach some 5.5 billion people, or 85 per cent of the world’s population. The advertising industry places the number of potential viewers at a conservative two billion, approximately one third of the World’s population.

    By far this is largest media advertising operation in history, which will line the pockets of the promoters, producers, corporate sponsors, not to mention the royalties accruing to the performers and “celebrities”. A small percentage of the proceeds might accrue to charitable organizations involved in developing countries but this is not the stated objective of Live 8.

    The Ford Motor Company has used the event to promote its “up-market” Swedish car division Volvo, with advertising spots during the US broadcast.

    Volvo has also provided for artist transportation to and from the London and Philadelphia concerts as well as a VIP entertainment suite at the Philadelphia concert. (See www.adage.com/news, June 30, 2005).

    “The event, said company spokesman Soren Johansson, “fits with the DNA of the company” and “appeals to peoples emotions.” One of Volvo’s TV spots features ’Volvo for Life” award-winner Rosamond Carr, “who operates an orphanage in Rwanda, and two others talking about Volvos values and their reasons for Live 8 involvement.” (Ibid)

    Moreover, Vonage, the US based phone company is said to have spent “’six figures’ to become a primary sponsor of Premiere Radio Networkscoverage“. And will also run a Live 8 schedule on MTV Networks.

    The EMI Deal

    In a multimillion dollar agreement with the Live 8 organizers, Britain’s EMI Music Group has secured the exclusive rights on the DVDs of the concerts in six of the G8 countries including the US, France, Britain, UK, Italy and Germany:

    “An EMI spokeswoman said that once sales had paid for the advance, Live 8 would pay a ’very generous royalty rate’ to Live 8 on the rest of the sales.”

    In the words, of Bob Geldof, “I hope this will be the biggest-selling DVD of all time.”

    Meanwhile, the event has contributed to boosting stock market values with EMI’s share price triple its 2003 level.

    Distorting the Causes of Global Poverty

    The concerts are totally devoid of political content. They concentrate on simple and misleading clichés.

    They use poverty as a marketing tool and a consumer-advertising gimmick to increase the number of viewers and listeners worldwide.

    Live 8 creates an aura of optimism. It conveys the impression that poverty can be vanquished with the stroke of the pen. All we need is good will. The message is that G8 leaders, together with the World Bank and the IMF, are ultimately committed to poverty alleviation.

    In this regard, the concerts are part of the broader process of media disinformation. They are used as a timely public relations stunt for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is hosting the G-8 Summit at Gleneagles, Scotland. Tony Blair is presented as stepping up his campaign to convince other G8 nations “to take action on poverty“.

    The G8’s Debt Forgiveness Proposal

    Live 8 fails to challenge or comprehend the G8 policy agenda which directly contributes to creating poverty, nor does it question the role of the World Bank, now under the helm of Paul Wolfowitz, the neo-conservative architect of the invasion of Iraq,

    In addressing the issue of debt forgiveness, Live 8 does not even acknowledge the impacts of IMF-World Bank “economic medicine” imposed on the World’s poorest countries on behalf of Western creditors.

    These deadly macro-economic reforms have contributed to the impoverishment of miillions of people. They oblige countries to close down their schools and hospitals, privatize their public services and sell off the most profitable sectors of their national economy to foreign capital. In return, the G8 promises to increase foreign aid and provide token debt relief. These reforms kill and the G8 is not the solution but the cause. Actor Will Smith addressed the crowds at the concert venues “to snap their fingers” as a reminder that every three seconds a child dies in Africa. What he failed to mention is that the main cause of child mortality in Africa are the deadly macroeconomic reforms.

    Bob Geldof sees an increase in foreign aid completely out of context, as a “unique opportunity” to eradicating poverty, when in fact the proposed increase in aid flows by the rich G8 countries will lead to exactly the opposite results.

    A large percentage of the debt of these countries is owed to the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Bank

    To address this issue, G8 finance ministers had indeed put forth a proposal which consisted in “foregiving” the outstanding debt owed to these three international financial institutions by the 18 highly indebted countries. The debt forgiveness figure mentioned was of the order of 40 billion dollars. Concurrently, there was a vague commitment to eventually increasing foreign aid flows to the 0.7% of GDP target. (http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/finance/fm050611_dev.htm)

    Where is the hitch behind this seemingly reasonable “debt forgiveness” proposal?

    The IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank, never cancel or forgive outstanding debts.

    Because they do not forgive debts, the G8 has committed itself to reimbursing the multilateral creditors acting on behalf of the World’s poorest countries.

    Where will they get the money?

    For each dollar of “debt cancellation” to the international financial institutions, the G8 will reduce the flow of foreign aid to these countries. In other words, the foreign aid earmarked to finance much needed social programs will now go directly into the coffers of the IMF and the World Bank.

    There is nothing new in this financial mechanism. It has been used time and again since the onslaught of the debt crisis.

    “Social Safety Net” for the IMF and the World Bank

    What we are dealing with is not a debt forgiveness program, but a “reimbursement” process which directly serves the interests of the creditors.

    The deal constitutes a much needed “social safety net” for the multilateral creditors. It ensures a cash flow towards these institutions, while maintaining the World’s poorest countries in the stranglehold of the IMF and the World Bank. It also prevents these countries from declaring default on their external debt.

    President Bush has made it very clear. The money paid to the World Bank on behalf of the countries, will be “taken out of existing aid budgets.”

    The “debt forgiveness” program, even if it is accompanied by an increase in foreign aid commitments, will result in a significant compression of real foreign aid flows to the highly indebted countries.

    The proposed increases in foreign aid commitments are ficticious since the money is intended for the multilateral creditors. And the deal will only be implemented if the indebted countries promise to carry out the usual gamut of “free market” reforms, under IMF/World Bank supervision.

    An added condition emanating directly from the Bush administration pertains to “governance”. It requires these countries to “democratize” on the US model under Western supervision, as well as carry out “free elections” on the example of Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Concluding Remarks

    The concerts serve to usefully distract public attention from the US-UK led war on Iraq and the broader relationship between war and global poverty. Not a word is mentioned in the concerts on the fact that George W. Bush and Tony Blair are considered “war criminals” under international law.

    Moreover, Live 8 tends to undermine all forms of meaningful and articulate dissent to the G8 policy agenda. With the exception of the South African venue, which included the appearance of Nelson Mandela, the concerts are devoid of a broader understanding and commitment.

    Live 8 undermines both the anti-globalization and anti-war movements. It diverts public opinion and distracts media attention from the G8 protest movement. It also serves to undermine the articulation of more radical voices against the New World Order.

    More generally, the event instills an atmosphere of ignorance among the millions who listen to the music and who have the feeling of doing something positive and constructive. But none of the core elements needed to understand the causes of global poverty are presented.

    To the Live 8 corporate sponsors, including Bob Geldof, the EMI Group, AOL Time Warner, The Ford Motor Company, Nokia, MTV, the Walt Disney Company, etc. “Put your money where you mouth is.”

    If you are really committed to poverty alleviation, give the entire proceeds of this multimillion dollar media operation, including the revenues generated by the corporate sponsors, TV networks, advertising firms, royalties accruing to celebrities and performers, to the people of Africa. Let them use this money as they see fit, without interference from donors and creditors.

    To the people of Africa. Do not let yourself be deceived by a giant corporate media stunt where poverty is used as a logo, to attract consumers and make money. Default on your debt to the IMF and the World Bank.

    Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and the New World, Second Edition, Global Research, 2003.