Jubilee pre-Cologne Strategy: Notes for a Necessary Debate
Posted on June 1 1999 |
Success, Failures and Benchmarks
Popular pressure did succeed in placing debt on the G-7 agenda in 1998 and 1999 where it would not have appeared otherwise .It must also be recognised that, due to a lot of hard work and imagination, debt is also part of a people's agenda supported by agencies and different allies throughout the North.
Positive also is the impetus that campaigns in the North provided for the generation of Jubilee/debt initiatives in the South.
If we take the number of people on the streets, the level of press coverage and the willingness of some G7 governments to contemplate unilateral and 100 percent cancellation, there is reason for satisfaction.
Even if G7 responses where entirely inadequate, something positive emerges from the broader post-Cologne recognition in many circles of G7 hypocrisy and the legitimacy of the more structural analysis and demands defended by many sectors within the Jubilee movement, North and South.
The international Jubilee 2000 movements have not succeeded in their fundamental objectives. It would be self-deception to claim that the G-7 seriously tackled the debt issue, or that, from a structural perspective, they are moving forward.
We must ask what our benchmarks are? What where the fundamental objectives of most campaigns? Or better yet, what did the people on the street demand? How do we measure up against these criterions?
Our benchmarks are not the write-ups in the corporate newspapers, nor is it the human chains and celebrities in the rich countries .Indicators yes, but our "impact" means nothing if it does not manifest in the daily life of the poorest in the poor countries . We will be judged not by accountants but by people, by the real poverty alleviation not in the next generation but now .And not by the reduction in debt and debt servicing, let alone HIPC modifications, but in fundamental changes in the multifaceted system of international debt bondage.
We have the obligation of being forthright in analysing how some elements in the campaign may actually weaken popular struggles .Witness the purposeful confusion created by G-7 press spins selling the Cologne Initiative as an unprecedented act of generosity, of a will to insure debt relief and to respond to debt campaigns, Does the G-7 has reason to celebrate as conditionality remains sanctified and more power is provided to the IMF to set the terms of debt bondage? How many of our supporters may have even been taken in by G7 claims of having responded to Jubilee calls?
G-7 positions have undergone no qualitative shift nor, in our opinion, substantially departed from pre-Jubilee piecemeal adjustments.
We must review the educational basis of our mobilisation . In some of our countries we witnessed a growth in the belief that debt cancellation would bring instant relief, and all that was needed was an act of "forgiveness" by the rich governments . A much different framework from one situating debt cancellation calls in the framework of a rich history of resistance and longstanding social struggles against the colonialist neoliberal model.
The question is how much did campaign strategies contribute to this unfortunate scenario .Could it be that by deliberately sacrificing questions of principle and justice--the principle of morally unpayable debts--all in the name of political expediency, we have mortgaged our own strategic capacity to engage with the G-7 and our own governments .The engagement was already lopsided and by demanding too little we may have been undercutting the many demanding so much more, including constituencies North and South .In this way Jubilee may have alienated those it needed most, particularly in the South.
If not let us look at Cologne results .More conditionality and more power to the IMF .The seemingly huge amounts publicised (100 billion) fooled the press and people who earnestly mobilised but will not bother to look at the fineprint .Yet if the leaders of the Jubilee campaigns where not posing deeper questions, then why should they. How to explain that there will no significant change for the impoverished? To say that the amounts are inadequate is not an explanation--in fact misleading--when it is the nature of the package itself that is at fault .Thus the promise of "faster, deeper and broader" debt "relief" becomes meaningless .There is no Jubilee.
A public relations success for the G-7, the Cologne announcement undercuts Jubilee 2000 campaigns .The rulers of the earth claim to have responded to the "before" 2000 deadline set up by the Jubilee campaigns themselves .So now they are on their way to dropping not the debt, but the debt issue, expecting the Jubilee initiatives to similarly drop the debt campaigns.
As a result, the symbolic connection to the year 2000 now works against us and is a point of weakness, particularly as the next Summit will take place in politically and geographically remote Japan. If there is a new campaign phase, it becomes apparent that the scenario shifts to Washington IFIs. Pressuring the IMF and World Bank will not be as simple and potentially effective as pressuring G 7 governments on an individual basis.
By not squarely placing the debt issue squarely in the framework of global economic injustice and SAPS, the G-7 and IMF-WB were left much room for manoeuvre and to evade their moral responsibility .At the same time, the strategy obscured the complicity of client governments in the South.
Self-censorship and Turning the Other Cheek
In educational terms, campaigns that confined themselves to specifics do nothing for building awareness of historical premises and larger responsibilities, let alone social consciousness .As a result the IMF, WB and the G-7 came to dominate and even shape the debate defining sustainability and legitimacy in their own selfish and exploitative terms.
Not saying that all illegitimate debts should be cancelled and buying into the distinction between the poorest and middle-income countries simply signalled to the IFIs and G-7 that debt relief was negotiable .Many if not most Jubilee campaigns ceded on a question of principle--the non-negotiable character of debt cancellation--to engage in management issues of how little or how much to reach "sustainability: that is the politics of taking on new debt in order to pay old ones.
Yet trying to salvage some claim to success, some campaigns, churches and aid agencies join the G-7 in claiming some measure of "success" .The two questionable assumptions here are that a) we got something significant and b) it would not have happened had it not been for the lobbying . In our opinion, such analysis simply adds to the confusion and feeds dangerous illusions about the nature of the global contention.
Of course each campaign has the right to interpret the world in its own image. But people and press, mistakenly or not, interpret Jubilee 2000 and Jubilee South as speaking for all .This imposes on all of us an obligation to do our outmost to develop a common framework that is true to the aspirations of the global South.
Mistaken strategies and conservative campaign platforms in key countries set themselves up for limited engagement gearing themselves from the beginning for securing small concessions at little real cost to the creditors themselves, and at a substantial cost to those working for deep international transformation .Did we help the G-7 get off the hook and evade moral responsibility?
A beauty contest of the North, by the North, for the North--at the expense of popular demands North and South for deeper change and deeper consciousness .Whose needs were met at Cologne? Market economics is not a zero-sum game: if someone won, then some one else lost.
At some point numerical arguments took the place of moral ones .And that is when things went wrong .Numerical focuses on so-called debt sustainability targets sidelined discussions of illegitimate debt . Many Jubilee campaigns and debt advocacy networks--in both the North and south-- bought into HIPC and the unacceptable differentiation among the poor according to ethically meaningless country categorisations .So eager where some to "engage" with the Briton Woods institutions and their Social Democratic governments that they set aside the crucial consideration of Structural Adjustment Programs despite containers of evidence documenting their destructive effects.
Little wonder then that the International Financial Institutions were only too willing too willing to engage and entertain what they refer to as "informed" discussions devoid of extraneous notions of history, ethics and failed development models . And how convenient in public relations terms for governments to talk up debt while reneging on official aid commitments.
After deliberately sidestepping other components of global impoverishment and corporate domination, some important campaigns went on to negotiate what sort of conditionalities should be place on the South . Self-designated representatives of the poor in the South made huge concessions about terms of debt relief--terms that in the long run further modernise and legitimise old historical patterns of imposing "civilisation" --now termed 'good governance--on the savage people in the South.
How is it possible to term Cologne a "step forward" when its contents are geared toward defining and dictating what "good behaviour"? Thus mechanisms were created to lock in such behaviour, punishing democratic deviants or, at least, punishing people for the sins of creditor-dependent governments corrupted with and by the North .Regretfully important sectors in Northern societies are sold by the argument, in no small way the product of the way the campaigns were carried out.
Likewise insistence on better "debt management process" tend to overlook unequal power relations and creditor-dominance of all facets of the process .Calls for transparency are welcome and necessary, but not as a substitute for considerations historical restitution, odious debt, ecological debt, reparations, democracy and human rights . Calls for mediation mechanisms, for their part, presupposed the legitimacy of contesting claims and undermine the sovereign right of people not to pay any more, without being hauled into court.
Campaigns or Movements? Policy or Politics?
Gathering millions of signatures and mobilising thousands to converge on Cologne is no small show of strength and of great symbolic value .The question remains however how do symbols and signatures translate into improved conditions for the poor? And if not to better conditions, then to greater strength for genuine people's movements? Press, impressionable rock stars and human chains are not ends in themselves, as some believe, nor can they be the primary indicators of "success".
Unfortunately, campaigns as opposed to movements often do not have the time or inclination to become rooted .Simplicity and sharp focus entail the dangers of simplistic analysis and action .This can leave tens of thousands of petition signers wondering what happened and why.
By purposely avoiding the elaboration of a more comprehensive critique on the basis of economic justice and Jubilee considerations, many Campaigns gambled that they can crack the system and beat the official technocrats at their own numerical, immoral game .This may have worked for the land mine campaign, but debt is quite different.
Governments and the World Bank played the technocratic adjustment and media game, insisting on "informed discussions" (that is devoid of moral and historical considerations--their real weak point) .In doing so the G-7 not only escaped the pressure but even made it work for them, deflecting much needed public awareness on issues of financial arquitecture, WTO and MAI and instead provide a few safe self-serving and media-hyped concessions on debt .Media is a powerful instrument (if not ask the Kosovo Liberation Army) but it cuts both ways (ask NATO) .G-7 political attention is a function of media coverage--or lack thereof--and Jubilee cannot realistically generate the day by day pressure that would be necessary to effect major political change.
Yet for the sake of broadening the coalition and impacting something called public opinion in the North, the South/justice advocates were expected to censor its structural concerns for the sake of making the campaigns "viable" and to secure a hearing from creditors.
Many, in both the North and South, were told to subordinate the focus on illegitimacy and instead support the Northern "sustainability" focus denying there are profound incompatibilities between these two strategic approaches .Important sectors in the South were "lobbied" intensely by the Northern campaigns and development agencies to accept a modified neoliberal paradigm (i.e. looking toward the "new generation" or "reformed" structural adjustment programs as opposed to the "orthodox" ones: reformed slavery v. old fashioned ones).
Some G-7 and Nordic campaigns strategy of pushing their government to assume leadership positions, however commendable and positive in their national results, could not realistically expect to force the hand of the G-7 as a whole .To extend unilateral concessions is one thing; to challenge US positions quite another.
Jubilee campaigns who continue to attest to progress where there has been none, and have difficulty in shifting course notwithstanding the painfully evident limits of celebratory public relations campaigns, step-by-step incremental, media based tactics.
With the advent of the year 2000 the Jubilee/debt campaigns have trapped themselves into a phase out and defrauded expectations for those who mobilised around so narrowly presented issue .Mistaken tactics and strategies spelled a setback in many cases for debt repudiation campaigns .It may be that by legitimising "debt relief" we may have temporarily weakened for comprehensive global economic justice and social transformation.
Jubilee movements in the South must respect, but not imitate, lobbying tactics and media/celebrity chasing .Our contribution will come from our own grass roots efforts over and beyond the year 2000 .The important thing is to continue to keep alive the dream and aspiration of development and democracy without debt .All the debt expertise in the world can never substitute the instinctive and historic drive for economic emancipation .Impoverishment is not a technical challenge; it is a political one. We want nothing else than for our brothers and sisters in the North and South to really do what you pretend to do .Don't give up!
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