Pictures (C) Peter Marshall, 2008. All rights reserved.
Kumi Naidoo of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty
Kumi Naidoo and the Dhol Blasters led the rally out to demonstrate
Lidy Nacpil of Jubilee South in the final demonstration
1500 people in a human pie chart - 80% of debt still to be dropped
Ten years later, a rather smaller number of us made the 'Journey to Justice' back to Birmingham. Our actions in May 1998 had set the ball rolling, but as yet it has only gone one fifth of the way, and 80% of debts remain. All governments, including our own, have been guilty of making many promises that they have not kept on debt relief and aid.
Over those last ten years there has also been a growing recognition that much aid, including that which incurred much of the debt was in fact not aid at all, but its reverse. This unjust aid was often used to support of corrupt regimes (and bolster the overseas bank accounts of ruling elites through bribes) at the same time deliviering most of the 'aid' as subsidies to companies in the donor countries who were providing projects at best irrelevant to the problems of the countries receiving them, and often worsening the conditions and expectations of the majority population, and environmentally disastrous.
Over the history of colonisation and continued post-colonial exploitation of physical resources and people, the real debt - in moral, social, economic and ecological terms - is owed by the wealthy nations to the majority world. We used their labour to dig up their minerals, set up plantations to grow our crops on their lands, imported their people as cheap labour and continue to cream off many of their most talented peple to work for us. Put simply, we built and continue to have the wealth we enjoy on their backs.
More about the event and more pictures on My London Diary at
http://mylondondiary.co.uk/#justice
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Hide the following 4 comments
Nice one lets make this happen!
21.05.2008 07:13
Cooperator
10 years ago we went to Birmingham to smash global capitalism
21.05.2008 10:18
So the liberal approach of getting on your knees and begging for justice hasn't got us very far has it?
anti-capitalist
Let's link arms and save the world
21.05.2008 14:11
"We made so much noise (literally too) that the Prime Ministers adjourned their meeting to come out and listen, and that event put debt relief decisively on the world agenda."
Peter,
I find the self-congratulating tone of your article nauseating. Well linking arms didn't help, if those same 70,000 people had successfully threatened to cause more damage to our economy than would ever be gained from debt repayments, we might be somewhere today. Our government's only understand one language. But being the liberal you are, I am not convinced you would be willing to damage the same system which you benefit from at the cost of the poorest.
There has not been a "growing recognition..over the past ten years", it was more like a big bang. 1998 was followed by the 1999 Seattle protests which brought international headlines. It has been pretty blatant to most activists since then what our government's aims are. 2004 brought the Gleneagles G8 protests, and popular dissent was diverted and stage managed by the government itself into the Live8 and Make Poverty History campaigns which publicised third world debt without highlighting the institutions and systems which were responsible for and benefiting from trade injustice and debt. Since Gleneagles, the feeble pledges made have been ignored by all of the 8 states. They tricked the masses into believing that they had "solved" this "problem" and everyone can go back home to sleep, and all that is needed for individuals to "do their bit" is to buy a ticket for a concert, i.e. participate in capitalism, the same system which creates wealth disparity and injustice.
Please stop being so naive and realise that those in power in the G8 have far more in common with the corrupt officials benefiting from the "aid" than yourself, or those suffering as a result of their actions. If you believe you can "persuade" them you are out of your mind, they did it on purpose.
Samuel Nickleby-Smith
global capitalism - yet to be smashed
21.05.2008 20:28
or, let's be constructive: plenty of people went to both the drop the debt march and the reclaim the streets street party ten years ago, as they didn't see the two as incompatible. and they're not.
we can demand politicians do things while still wanting (and trying) to get rid of their system, and if they drop $88 billion of debt in the process, or we radicalise some liberals in the process, then that's no bad thing.
no?
casaldaliga