[stop-imf] Naiman - September 28: Clamoring for Global Justice Above the Din of the War Drums

[Robert Weissman]

"September 28: Clamoring for Global Justice Above
the Din of the War Drums"

          Robert Naiman
          Center for Economic and Policy Research,
Washington (www.cepr.net)
          Friday, September 20, 2002
          [This column may be freely distributed
without contacting the author.]

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the only thing worse
than having the major news media distort the truth
about global economic justice issues is when they
don't discuss these issues at all.

Not so long ago newspapers were filled with
stories documenting how years of reckless
deregulation of corporations had led to massive
accounting shenanigans and fraud.

Not so long ago it was possible to read in the
newspaper about the abject failure of the policies
pushed by the governments of the richer countries
to promote economic growth and reduce poverty in
the poorer countries.

But, quite predictably, this has all been pushed
aside in favor of war fever. And, it is generally
conceded, the Bush Administration has benefited
politically from pushing behind the curtain many
issues which are awkward for Republicans in the
November Congressional elections: corporate
scandals, unemployment, lack of health care
insurance, price gouging by the pharmaceutical
companies.

Now, of course, there is no question that the
threat of war deserves attention. Hopefully, the
United Nations will reject the Bush Administration
's insistence that immediate war is imperative,
and follow up on Iraq's offer for unconditional
access to U.N. weapons inspectors. As Senator
Byron Dorgan pointed out - how shameful is it that
his fellow Dakotan Democrat Mr. Daschle won't
acknowledge this! - even if we don't trust Iraq's
offer, doesn't it make sense to test it? Isn't it
worth waiting a few weeks if it might mean
avoiding a war that would cost so much blood?

We are obligated, of course, to closely follow
these events, since as long as the war is not yet,
it remains possible that a sharp shift in public
opinion could bring it to a halt, a shift each of
us could help bring about, if we educate ourselves
and try to educate others.

And yet: it is a cruel paradox of the world in
which we live, that far more people die - and
suffer - as a result of what some call economic or
structural violence than die and suffer as a
result of bombings and shooting. Indeed, the
failure to address other pressing issues of life
and death when a war fever is on should be counted
among the casualties of war.

Consider: folks advocating for the cancellation of
the international debts of impoverished countries
have claimed that 19,000 children die each day as
a result of the diversion of resources from basic
human needs in poor countries - education, health
care, clean drinking water - to servicing
international debt.

Now, of course, this is an estimate. But suppose
that it is at all roughly correct. What does that
mean in terms of scale? Nineteen thousand children
a day means seven million children a year. World
War II resulted in about sixty million military
and civilian deaths, including the millions of
Jews and others directly murdered by the Nazis. If
we compare this to the "official" length of the
war - six years - it seems that during World War
II about ten million people were killed a year.

And thus, the annual deaths due to World War II
and those due to the failure to cancel the debts
of poor countries are of the same order of
magnitude. But World War II, cruel and gruesome as
it was, had an end. The policies of the IMF and
the World Bank seem to go on and on.

Now, World War II is generally regarded as having
been far and away the nastiest war of all time.
The very phrase seems to evoke large-scale agony,
as if a cloud passed over the sun whenever anyone
mentioned it.

What, then, of the failure to cancel international
debt? Will there be a museum some day
commemorating the victims of debt on Raoul
Wallenberg Place? A monument on the Mall? Perhaps
a Tomb of the Unknown Debt Victim: "Here lies a
Mozambican child who gave his life so that
International Monetary Fund and World Bank
officials would not have to admit that their
policies had failed."

It seems a most unlikely prospect. Intellectually,
we are capable of grasping that the carnage as a
result of oppressive economic structures and
policies rivals that caused by war. And yet,
emotionally, we cannot bring ourselves to respond
in the same way. We repeat the sentence - nineteen
thousand children dying a day as a result of
uncancelled debt - but we usually don't act as if
we believe it to be true. Often we act resigned,
deadened, desensitized, validating by our actions
the cynical dictum that has been attributed to
Stalin: "The death of one person is a tragedy; the
death of a million people is a statistic."

But it isn't always so. Sometimes, we act as if
the death and suffering of the poor due to
economic and structural violence is truly an
emergency that commands our urgent attention.

And in this regard, many of us our blessed:
because we can, if we want, see to it that on
Saturday, September 28, 2002, we will find
ourselves in Washington, DC, protesting outside
the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank.

It is often the case, unfortunately, that in
deciding to try to bring down or ameliorate
oppressive structures of power, we have to make
our decision without being able to detect,
concretely, the result of our efforts. In such a
case we have to decide to act on the basis that
making the effort is the morally correct choice,
without any real grasp of what our impact will be.

Fortunately, this is not such a case. On April 16,
2000, thousands of conscientious people gathered
in Washington showed that the efficacy of protest
is not something only to be read about in history
books, but is very much within our power today.
The attention of the whole world was directed onto
the unjust policies of these institutions. And, in
part as a result of this scrutiny, these sclerotic
institutions moved a little: for example, they
abandoned their insistence that poor countries
should charge "user fees" for primary education, a
policy that kept millions of children out of
school, particularly in Africa and particularly
girls. As a result of this shift, millions of
children will now enjoy a basic human right: the
right to read.

To be blessed with the opportunity to participate
in such an emancipation: isn't that worth a little
schlepping? Visit www.globalizethis.org for
details.

See you on the 28th.