Red Pepper » Kai Grachy

What’s the problem with the If campaign?

admin — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 19:09:02 +0000

An ad produced by NGO World Vision after George Osborne’s budget
You could be forgiven for not having heard of the If campaign – even its biggest supporters would have to admit it’s been somewhat lacklustre to date. However, the campaign has caused controversy. Several anti-poverty groups have refused to join and it has no trade union members – exposing deeper problems in the state of mainstream NGO campaigning.
The If campaign’s main action to date took place on budget day. It was an unedifying spectacle to see anti-poverty groups lauding one of the harshest post-war austerity budgets as a victory for the world’s poor. As announcements were made of policies that will thrust thousands of people into poverty in the UK, World Vision produced a postcard of happy African children running out of school with the slogan ‘Thank you George’ written above them (see above).
A vicar from the north of England was asked by a Radio 4 presenter, ‘What impact will this budget have on poverty?’ He rushed, in an embarrassed manner, through the first part of the answer – ‘in the UK probably not a positive one’ – before getting to his main point: ‘but it’s a historic moment for global poverty.’
It wasn’t. In reality, anti-poverty NGOs were applauding the government for finally (40 years late) fulfilling the pledge to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on overseas aid. That pledge was already a standing commitment of the government, and of all parties. The chancellor had announced he would fulfil this commitment in the autumn statement last year.
So it was an empty campaign victory that provided the chancellor with a little relief amidst the overwhelmingly hostile reaction to his budget. The NGOs looked effective to their supporters, most of whom will doubtless continue to support these organisations in the belief that they are ‘making a difference’. Win-win.
The If coalition
The If campaign is concerned with hunger; its proposition is that ‘there is enough food in the world to feed everyone, if only politicians gave more overseas aid/tax justice/stopped land grabs/[add one of eight policy demands]’.
It treads a well worn path. One Direction, Orlando Bloom, Bill Nighy and Bill Gates have joined together to tell us how important it is that everyone has enough to eat. There are a series of simple actions (email your MP, share a film, talk to your friends) you can take, getting David Cameron to understand he has a ‘once in a generation’ opportunity to make poverty disappear. And there’s a mish-mash of policy aims, some of which are genuinely positive and some of which sound wholly unconvincing. Is a World Bank review of land grabbing really going to end the takeover of vast swathes of land in Africa by corporations and investment funds? No, but the British government is believed to be keen on it.
The If coalition is smaller than its predecessors, such as Make Poverty History, with trade unions and more radical campaign groups not taking part. Its relationship with the government seems closer. There are no local groups or forums around the UK to allow for autonomous networks to develop. Groups from the global South seem completely sidelined – one NGO insider told me there had been no consultation with Southern groups on the basis that ‘this is a British campaign’. Campaign images suggest that the role of Africans is to look grateful.
The opposition
Inside the If coalition there have been disagreements between those favouring a more pro-government, aid-focused line, such as Save the Children and Oxfam, and those who want to talk more about the structural causes of poverty, notably tax avoidance, such as Christian Aid and Action Aid.
On the radical NGO side, War on Want and the World Development Movement (WDM) both issued public statements explaining why they wouldn’t join. WDM believes the If campaign ‘will not be challenging the power and impact of the financial system on food prices, nor is it grounded in the principles of food sovereignty [a model for control over, not simply access to, food]’. War on Want similarly believes that If’s policy recommendations ‘leave unaddressed the central issues at the heart of the global food system’.
War on Want has even unearthed documents suggesting that ‘the government has for two years been planning with the aid agencies to use the If campaign to promote the prime minister as a leader on the global stage‘. In other words, from the government’s point of view, the campaign will make David Cameron appear a champion on poverty – no mean feat.
Such a strategy might be excusable if the policies promoted would genuinely redress some of the world’s power imbalances. In reality, the call for more spending on agriculture will reinforce efforts to pour aid money into the corporate takeover of agriculture in Africa.
At the last G8, Barack Obama launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. The New Alliance promises to ‘mobilise private capital’ for investment in food production in Africa. What does that mean? Essentially, using public funds to support the likes of SAB Miller, Monsanto, Diageo and Unilever to get a greater foothold in the food production system of some of the world’s most impoverished countries. As an example of what this ‘partnership’ means in practice, African countries will guarantee more secure property rights for companies, and companies will ‘invest’ in those countries – which often simply means expanding their operations.
The If campaign says that the G8, which came up with this cynical scheme, ‘shares the ambition’ of ending hunger ‘and accepts its share of responsibility’ even if it falls ‘far short of what is required’. The campaign says nothing about the corporate control of food being one of the major causes of hunger, nor the enforced entry of free market mechanisms to agriculture at the hands of Britain being a major cause of famine for centuries. Initiatives like the New Alliance don’t ‘fall far short of what is required’, they go much too far in the wrong direction.
That goes to the heart of the problem with this sort of campaigning. In buying into the ‘political reality’ of neoliberal politics, NGOs are forced to see things from the perspective of those who believe unregulated private capital is the solution rather than the problem. Within such a world the one thing worse than having private capital, is not having private capital. There is no other option. The G8 only exists as a reassertion of the power of rich countries in the face of the challenge of the non-aligned movement in the 1970s. Asking them to do something is akin to petitioning the monarch.
Some of the If campaign’s demands are worthwhile and necessary, even if they ‘fall far short of what is required’. This reflects the tensions within the campaign. But even when positive, they don’t fit into a coherent framework for changing the global economy.
The genesis of If
To understand how this came about, we need to look back to a time before Bono and Geldof had even heard of Africa. The British development NGO has its precedent in both the missionary organisations tending to (and converting) the victims of British imperialism, and in some of the early organisations challenging the practices, and even very existence, of empire.
In the 1970s and 1980s some – but by no means all – of these organisations took a radical turn, inspired by national liberation movements and liberation theology. Support for the Bangladesh liberation war and the Nicaraguan Sandinistas struggle, and opposition to South African apartheid and the Chilean and Argentinean military juntas, formed the bread and butter of these campaigning organisations. ‘Development’ was clearly understood by many NGO staffers as a battle against neo-imperialism, and notions of class, race and gender politics were vigorously debated.
As the 1980s wore on, the international ecosystem of national liberation in which these ideas had grown disappeared. At home, the Thatcher government used charity law to crack down on troublesome NGOs. But there was one event where NGOs proved they could thrive. In 1984 Bob Geldof saw a BBC news report on a famine in Ethiopia. The attention he went on to bring to that famine was literally record breaking. He didn’t do it by educating people about the causes of Africa’s food shortages, however, but by ignoring the political explanations for the famine and getting people to donate. The image of ‘Africa’ created by LiveAid has never been overcome, partly because many NGOs have played up this image ever since – shocking pictures of dying children brought in the money after all, even if it was detrimental to building the sort of solidarity necessary to change the world. This model was combined with a sense of post-1980s defeat that radical change was not possible and a new ‘professional’ mentality, whereby NGO staffers substituted themselves for any sort of genuine grassroots movement.
With a few notable exemptions, under New Labour NGOs played the role allotted to them by the government. Dependent on government money, given high levels of access, told they were ‘making a difference’, NGOs spent huge amounts of time speaking to governments, businesses, the World Trade Organisation, the International Monetary Fund – telling them to adopt standards of behaviour, grant debt relief and always, always ‘give more aid’. It was a cosy world.
The poverty of thinking
The result is that campaigns are now not about progressive social change. Campaigns often reinforce the idea that neoliberal capitalism is good – it just needs to be expanded to the masses of the world at a faster rate. The term ‘development’ is now used to denote extending capital into new areas of society. Development aid now routinely facilitates private accumulation, from privatisation and ‘freer’ trade to microcredit.
Increasingly, development spending is bundled up with private flows of money and channelled through private equity funds – making fortunes for ‘investors’. In response, most NGOs are silent. Like any industry they judge success by their bottom line – increased revenue and expansion of their operations. Their ability to generate income and maintain credibility comes from a constituency of campaigners. That’s why it’s okay for them to take the unpopular position of trumpeting this government’s anti-poverty credentials. They have no need to engage the wider public in a real debate about poverty, which could be harmful to their position – they simply need a compliant constituency big enough for the government to consider them important.
Critiquing how we got here is important in changing the situation. There are some NGOs engaged in real empowerment and mobilisation work, recognising they don’t have all the answers to the world’s problems, but they do have a vital role to play. The Progressive Development Forum was recently formed to question where NGOs went wrong, and to embrace an agenda that critiques and challenges wealth and power. Recent posts on its blog have criticised NGOs’ focus on aid, the re-emergence of pictures of starving African children to raise money and the love-in the sector appears to enjoy with Bill Gates. War on Want and WDM have taken explicit positions on austerity in the UK. Smaller groups such as People & Planet and the Jubilee Debt Campaign have begun to work on projects to engage anti-austerity activists in the UK in global anti-austerity work, while Platform uses experimental techniques to expose and challenge corporate power.
Ultimately we get the NGOs we deserve. NGOs are created by their social context and, as we saw in the war against Iraq, can move to the left if there’s space and it feels safe. NGOs used to speak truth to power – it’s time for us to speak truth to NGOs.

Who are the real strikers?

James O'Nions — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:37:34 +0000

‘As a minister, I experienced the power of industrialists and bankers to get their way by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government. Compared to this, the pressure brought to bear in industrial disputes is minuscule.’

Tony Benn, Diaries, 1988

The smallest rumour of a worker downing tools in response to an injustice is enough to provoke hysteria in the British media, so little wonder that what is billed as the biggest wave of strikes in 85 years (albeit by a union not yet taking action) means our airwaves are full of questions as to the legitimacy of strike action.

Let’s skip over the ludicrous argument that one day’s less schooling on 30 June does more damage to the development of a school pupil than Michael Gove’s onslaught on the education system. And the one that the average teacher’s principal concern is their annual salary rather than the thankless job they have chosen to do – presumably in sharp distinction to our selfless banking class.

The vast majority of workers in the UK will only take strike action in the most extreme of circumstances, even when their wages, pensions and working conditions are under attack. Society is worse off as a result of this reluctance. Since the 1970s, workers’ share of the economy has been severely eroded. Our economy has turned into a giant casino for the super rich, with asset bubbles placing basics like housing out of the reach of ordinary people. Massive mortgages, credit card bills, privatised pension funds, public-private partnerships and a hundred other means of transferring money from the pockets of the majority into the investment portfolios of the elite have been created. Workers’ quiescence has been deafening.

Another section of society is much more active when it comes to protecting their own very narrow interests. Those in control of our society, most particularly the financial sector, are not afraid of using economic power to ensure governments of whatever shade serve their interests, no matter what the impact on millions of ordinary people.

The term ‘capital strike’ refers to the practice of business elites, in particular banks, withholding capital in an economy in order to pressure or undermine a government. Roosevelt first accused big business of capital strike in order to undermine his progressive ‘New Deal’ reforms in the 1930s.

But you don’t have to go back that far to see corporations ‘downing tools’. At every stage of the financial crisis, business elites have gobbled up their bail-out subsidies and piles of ‘quantitative easing’ while withholding those funds from small business. For all their posturing, Vince Cable and George Osborne have done nothing to ensure banks assist recovery, allowing them to raise rates for borrowers, keep them down for savers, and pocket the difference. Meanwhile, even a hint that the banks might be taxed a little more to pay for their behaviour provokes howls of protest and threats to move abroad.

Where threats fail to work (they usually don’t), finance indeed brings the economy to a halt. In April, Portuguese banks stopped buying government bonds, forcing the government within a matter of days to go to the European Central Bank for a bailout. It really makes no difference whether that bailout was sustainable, the point is to get those funds flowing into the banks’ coffers once again. Society will pay the price for many decades to come.

On a wider scale, a small group of unaccountable companies called Credit Ratings Agencies issue verdicts which effectively dry up a country’s access to finance, often sending economies into a tail spin.

None of this is limited to our own part of the world. Just to take a very recent example, the election of Ollanta Humala to president of Peru earlier this month, on the mildest of social democratic platforms, led to a stock market plunge after he dared raise the prospect of windfall taxes on the mining transnationals which are looting his country.

All of this has a deeply corrosive impact on democracy of course. Back in 2001/03 Lula da Silva faced an even tougher ride than Humala at the beginning of Latin America’s left turn. During his campaign, the Brazilian currency fell very quickly as it became increasingly clear Lula would win. Financiers attempted to subvert the democratic process, and indeed won a fair bit of influence over his government.

So again and again financiers use their power to change society to suit their own interests. It’s in the interests of everyone else that workers use strike action to shift power back in the direction of the rest of us.

Student demo: solidarity, not violence, is the issue for the left

Andy — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:07:23 +0000

At last Thursday’s anti-tuition fees protests, students culminated their two-month campaign against savage tuition fee hikes, shaking the coalition government to its core. Such a protest has not been seen in London for 10 years. We’ve had bigger numbers, but the vibrancy, clear political analysis, and anger-mixed-with-party atmosphere, have all been absent for a long time.

Students could not have given a clearer lead to the rest of society. The protest was a culmination of a wave of occupations, marches, local days’ of action, and more. Although organised, it was not top-down – the National Union of Students resigned their leadership role early on. It came about through organising by local, national and, vitally, online centres – with many decisions being taken on radically democratic lines.

Self-interest was never a primary motivation for current students who are organising in solidarity with the next generation which will actually pay the price of fees. Indeed in occupations around the country students have gone well beyond fee rises, questioning the very structures of education.

But Thursday’s demonstration was far from dominated by white middle-class kids. I was taken aback by the amount of working-class, Black and Asian school and university students – no one taken in for a second by the idea that the Government’s proposals were ‘necessary’ or ‘fair’. The government has declared war on them, their communities and their class – pure and simple.

The immediate result of this mobilisation: a government majority of 84 slashed to 21. But the faces of Ministers – in particular Lib Dems– told of greater fears for their future. Outside, protestors were angry but unsurprised. After all when a party tells you it opposes tuition fees in May and in December agrees to triple them, clearly the political model isn’t working (anymore than it did when the Labour Government first introduced them).

That anger was compounded by a set of brutal police tactics which have not received nearly enough attention. Scores of riot police on horses, with visors, shields and more padding than the Michelin man, charged at unarmed protestors, many of them legally children. I have never seen so many bloodied protestors. One student required three-hour brain surgery so severe were his wounds. Hundreds more were repeatedly beaten and finally, at 9.30, marched onto Westminster bridge with no facilities, no information, where the cold was guaranteed to be worst. David Cameron got it right about “violent, thuggish behaviour”, but it was the police acting on clear instructions.

What does this mean long-term? First the Left must take the issue of violence head-on. The policies being inflicted on this country – without electoral mandate – are truly violent. The – at worst – vandalism carried out by protestors in the face these policies has been surprisingly moderate. No progressive change in society has ever come about without much worse scenes. The Left has to lose its fear about this issue.

Second, and even more worrying, was the lack of trade union presence. The RMT made a good show on the protest, as have UCU at previous protests. Otherwise just a handful of local, mostly university-based, flags peppered the march. This will come to haunt us. The students cannot carry the can for the failure of others forever. The unions want to reinvent themselves, to appeal to new activists, to get young people to understand the importance of solidarity. This was – hopefully still is – the opportunity. Local organising is vital. Student organising is vital. But trade unions remain the only bodies which can truly mobilise on the scale needed. If they fail, we all fail.