February 15, 2003
Awakened Woman's Circle is working for peace
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In Porto Alegre, She is on her way
Part two:The Ghost of Lugano
by Stephanie Hiller
The conference itself was as wildly disorganized as the river was strong. The indispensable program of events, which last year was 250 pages long, was not even made available until the second day of the conference and then came out in installments that were not easy to obtain. Last minute room changes, upsetting schedules set in place months before by delegations like the substantial group from Z magazine. Only the most seasoned journalist could cope with the fluctuations of schedule and insufficient announcements of important events, amid the constant press of the crowds, the distances between events, and the hot weather. We all complained that we had missed too many meetings. People we had hoped to meet or interview could not be located. Far easier to let oneself be pulled along by the tide. If it was a choice between making phone calls or taking a shower, the shower took priority. One had to keep the body functioning. Brazilian women, I noticed, lithe and thin, moved through the heat, in pressed slacks, their skins as cool and dry as eggplant.
Possibly the city was not prepared for the size of the forum, which had doubled since last year, but the more likely cause was that the newly elected governor of the state of Rio do Sul had, as was reported in local papers, spurned the forum and made free use of its funds. And if that was indeed the case, it was a triumph that the forum took place at all, with its dozens upon dozens of conferences, panels, talks and workshops.
But that is Brazil, a place where people make a habit of overcoming obstacles by moving on and through regardless of inconvenience and personal preference. Letting go -- that high ideal of American new age philosophies -- is second nature in Brazil. Or so it seemed to me, as I quickly surrendered attachment to anything beyond ticket and passport, struggling against the mental confusion that threatened to pursue me through foreign streets and a language I did not know. Agonizing over the details would simply make life impossible, and Brazilians are not about to let the effort kill the joy. Somehow, despite crushing problems of poverty, colonialization and corruption, Brazilians seem to make their lives a celebration, much as if every success is a little miracle. Which, given the obstacles, it is.
The opening remarks of Susan George, independent journalist, assistant director of the Transnational Institute (TNI) in Amsterdam, and vice president of ATTAC-France, reflected that spirit. "It is a miracle that we should be here at all," she began. "Five years ago, no one, not even the most optimistic among us, could have imagined the size and scope of this movement. In historical terms, the four years since Seattle, the three gatherings here in Porto Alegre are nothing, a mere blink of the eye."
Independent journalist, assistant director of TNI in Amsterdam, and Vice President of ATTAC-France, Susan George is not well known in America. In fact, her books, such as How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for World Hunger (1977) and A Fate Worse Than Debt (1990), were not available in our excellent county library nor even through the distributor for the local bookstore. Yet she is one of the pioneering economic analysts of our time, and respected figure at the Forum.
Conceived by Oded Grajew, Brazilian businessman turned social pioneer, the Forum represents a unique coalition of leading thinkers, businessmen, and the city itself to provide a setting for discussion and reflection on the problems of globalization with the intent of building consensus toward a sustainable and just alternative. (More about the forum's founder may be found on the World Bank webpage. ) Involvement by political parties is specifically prohibited by the Charter of Principles written after the first forum in 2000, as is the construction of policy documents authored in the name of the WSF. Rather, this is designed to be a meeting of civil society for the purpose of exchanging ideas and sharing information. NGOs and grassroots organizations are invited to bring delegates and offer workshops on the central problems of food safety, third world debt, agriculture, equality, inclusion, and so on in a kind of intellectual potluck, offering a feast of inspiration and analysis on which participants may graze, taking from the experience their own conclusions.
This year, the third WSF, "we are supposed to be thinking about strategies for bringing about the changes we all hope for," explained George, though the intensity of the moment may have precluded that kind of calm reflection. Everywhere, the threat posed by the American empire dominated the discussion, and for most of the speakers, strategy-making consisted primarily of How to Stop It. George has for years promulgated a sophisticated strategy for redirecting money out of the financial markets and back to the people. With ATTAC, she supports the idea of the Tobin Tax on financial speculation and strict international regulation of global markets.
But the impact of her talk, intended or not, was the picture it conveyed of the merciless behavior of transnational corporations (TNC's):
"The top TNC's produce almost a quarter of measured world production or GNP but they employ fewer and fewer people… All together, the 60,000 or so transnationals employ less than one percent of the world's available workforce, so don't count on them to provide significant employment."
George referred to a scenario described in her book, The Lugano Report, in which she imagined that "people very much like the ones now meeting in Davos [at the World Economic Forum] commission a group of experts to write a report. The question the commissioners ask is 'How can we preserve capitalism in the 21st century?'" Their conclusion is that "it will be altogether impossible to preserve capitalism in the year 2020 when there will be approximately eight billion people on earth. For that reason, a great many of those people, particularly the poorest ones, those who are not and cannot be integrated into the system must be eliminated as quietly as possible and by whatever means necessary."
She then delivered her view of the challenge we face: "Can we or can we not change the present system, because if we cannot, then I am convinced that the Lugano scenario is the one we shall be faced with and this scenario is horrible indeed.
"If you believe I'm exaggerating, look around. One symptom is the refusal to do anything serious about the ever-increasing AIDS crisis...
"Another Lugano-type symptom is the degeneration of one conflict after another, with no efforts towards peaceful, negotiated solutions. We all think first of Israel and Palestine; but there are in fact at least 80 wars going on in the world right now."
Despite lots of lofty talk by the US president and the WTO about how globalization will reduce poverty in the third world, there are now more starving people than ever before.
And the water privatization schemes of a handful of TNC's, as Canadian activist and author Maude Barlow described in detail in her talk, represents a merciless move to deprive poor people of access to any water at all.
George continued: "All this and much more gives me the feeling that the Lugano scenario is already being implemented. The rich and powerful have apparently concluded, like the authors of my false report, that hundreds of millions of people in the world today are superfluous. They do not hold salaried jobs and they contribute nothing to capitalist production. They have little or no money and contribute nothing to capitalist consumption. They are not profitable, they are a drag on the economy and they are redundant. There will be no Hitler Auschwitz model because it's too visible and creates resistance and eventually universal rejection… Horrible things just happen and life goes on, at least for some.
"Our struggle therefore is deadly serious. . . In one word, we cannot fail."
Cautioning us to resist "at all costs" all "provocations trying to incite us to violence," she urged us to learn to understand "how the institutions that oppress us function" and continue to build our "network of networks" without bosses, pressing for policies of international taxation to redistribute wealth, and becoming ever more colorful and creative in our protests.
"Let me affirm here my deep conviction that the future of the global justice movement is bright. It has taken on a life of its own; it has become healthy, self sustaining and it is developing like a living organism.
"Another world is possible. Now let's make it."
Despite her encouraging words, the shadow of the Lugano report trailed us out of the stadium. "I've often wondered whether that was their intention," my friend Karrina Kalo said. Kaarina, a professor of women's studies from Finland, was another member of the gifting group. We felt that George had confirmed what we had long suspected, that the men in power had decided, with Paul Ehrlich, that overpopulation is the problem, and that they know how to solve it. . .
We followed the stream of people into the food court to suck cool coconut milk from its big green shell.
Read the full
text of George's talk
MORE: Part 3 - Tears of the Virgin