Saturday, August 23, 2008

NATIONALISM ISN'T EVERYTHING




NATIONALISM IS NOT EVERYTHING


by Dedy N. Hidayat


Retrieved from "apakabar" database, Ohio University Library


From: apakabar@access.digex.net
Date: Tue Jan 16 1996 - 16:37:00 EST


Nationalism is not everything
It is nationalism that functions as the driving force of the Third World leaders' demand for equality among nations within a "New World Order." Yet, equality among nations is not necessarily equality among people. Some nationalism have been framed within regressive traditional or primordial values that tend to undermine universal humanism values on social justice, democracy, human rights, etc. Thus, while calling for external equality (among nations) some expressions of nationalism in the Third World neglect the issues of internal justice, equality, and human rights.

Various expressions of nationalism also take the form as a response to the globalizing processes, or a desire to eliminate all otherness. They produce tendencies that reject values perceived as superfluos, fake, others, or Westernized. They therefore can easily be exploited by xenophobic, chauvinistic, and anti-Western sentiments.

As national cultural and political unity is the goal of nationalism, we observe conflicts resulted from the centripetal push toward national unity and the centrifugal pull of local cultures or subcultures, especially in heterogeneous nation states. These conflicts have led to "cultural death" of various subcultures, or to the subordination of subcultures by particular hegemonic cultures.

Nationalism is something, yes. Yet, nationalism is not everything. There are values higher than those underlying a political consensus to unite under a nation state; there are values higher than nationalism and patriotism. Warning: failure to recognize these higher universal humanism values in the development of our nationalism, may result in the blurring of demarcation line between nationalism and chauvinism, fascism, primordialism, and racialism. Ask Hitler for valuable experiences. Thus, ignore what those Westerners said about your country; pay no attention to how they portrayed your country's human rights records. Just look around with your own hearts, and make your nationalism as a driving spirit in placing your country on the same ground as other countries in terms of the implementation of globally accepted human rights values.

Nationalism, in Soedjatmoko's words, should be part of "the general search among people all over the world for new moral foundations on which a viable international order can rest." (dedy n. hidayat, madison WI, Winter 1994).



. . and what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?

If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.



And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyrany in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?


And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared . . . (Kahlil Gibran)

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

WTO and Neoliberalism


Dear friends and colleagues, the TIME magazine in its August 11 edition wrote that after the latest breakdown of WTO global trade talks, most observers found it hard to escape the conclusion that, this time Doha really was dead. The breakdown may lead into something decisive for the future of resistance against neoliberalism.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008


The World Trade Organization, (WTO), is one of the built-in mechanism for promoting and enforcing global free trade. It helps to draw the rules of international trade. However, it has been mired in controversy and seen to be hijacked by rich country interests, thus worsening the lot of the poor, and accordingly inviting protest and intense criticism.

The following is a posting from Global Issues: http://www.globalissues.org/print/article/42

WTO principles

Founded in 1995 after the 8-year “Uruguay Round” of talks, it succeeded the General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade (GATT), which was created in 1948 to lower trade barriers. The scope of the WTO is greater, however, including services, agriculture, and intellectual property, not just trade in goods.

The main principles of the WTO boil down to the following:


· Non discrimination

National treatment implies both foreign and national companies are treated the same, and it is unfair to favor domestic companies over foreign ones. Some countries have a most favored nation treatment, but under WTO the policy is that all nations should be treated equally in terms of trade. Any trade concessions etc offered to a nation must be offered to others.

· Reciprocity

Nations try to provide similar concessions for each other.

· Transparency

Negotiations and process must be fair and open with rules equal for all.

· Special and differential treatment

A recognition that developing countries may require “positive discrimination” because of historic unequal trade.

Reality different from the principles

However, in reality, power politics has meant that the WTO has received criticized by various groups and third world countries for numerous things, including

  • Being very opaque and not allowing enough public participation, while being very welcoming to large corporations1. (That doesn’t help the claims of free, open and democratic!)

  • That while importing nations cannot distinguish how something is made when trading, though it sounds good at first along the lines of equality and non-discrimination, the reality is that some national laws and decisions for safety and protection of people’s health, environment and national economies have been deemed as barriers to free trade. Take the following as a very small set of examples:

  • Countries cannot say no2 to genetically engineered food or milk that contains genetically engineered growth hormones known to cause health problem or trees that have been felled from pristine forests and so on.

  • Guatemala took efforts to help reduce infant mortality, in accordance with the World Health Organization’s guidelines, and to counter aggressive marketing by baby food companies aimed at convincing mothers their products are superior to the more nutritious and disease-protecting breast milk for their babies. The result? The affected corporations managed to take this to GATT (the predecessor to the WTO) and get a reversal of the law amidst the threat of sanctions3. Profits prevailed.

  • Canada complained to the WTO about France’s ban on asbestos4. (The previous link also makes the point of how the victim’s views are not heard in WTO proceedings, nor ar they part of the debate, even though there may be thousands of them.)

  • The United States’ attempt to ban shrimp caught using apparatus that were harmful to endangered sea turtles has been ruled as WTO-illegal, forcing the US to reverse its decision.

  • That instead of respecting the reasons why there has been special and differential treatment for developing countries, rich countries instead want to push poor countries to reciprocate equally, in what would therefore actually be an unequal result (as it would maintain the unequal terms of trade.)


A number of countries have also spoken out8 against the WTO saying that there needs to be more co-operation between the North and South (a general term to refer to the Rich and Developing countries, respectively) with regards to international trade.

  • During the week of May 20, 1998, celebrations marked 50 years of multilateral trade. However, as the following link mentions, the African nations did not feel that there was much to rejoice at and said that it was a party where only the rich nations has something to celebrate9.

  • Most people in the world have not benefited from the current form of “multilateral” trading systems.

  • At a Mercosur10 (South America’s Southern Common Market) summit, then South African President, Nelson Mandela, had spoken of the need to ensure that there is more fairness11 in the globalization process. Mercosur is the world’s fourth largest economic power, after the United States, European Union and Japan.

  • There have been so many examples, it is impossible to list here. For more, see other parts of this site’s section on Trade, Economy, & Related Issues12.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Neoliberalism and Corruption

Friends and colleagues, from their origins in the 1940s, the IMF and World Bank have functioned as built-in systemic mechanism of neoliberalism; both are -- in the words of Woods, 1989 -- opposing not only socialism but national capitalism as well, in favor of the progressive extension of international market forces. Both institutions play significant roles in the social construction of global market economies. However, in doing so, they produce policies that encourage corruption in various economies. Well, nonetheless World Bank battles corruption -- but only in some countries. The following are articles that highlighted the issue .

IMF and World Bank Policies that Encourage Corruption
by Anup Shah
http://www.globalissues.org/article/590/corruption#IMFandWorldBankPoliciesthatEncourageCorruption
23 September 2007
. . . At a deeper level are the policies that form the backbone to globalization. These policies are often prescribed by international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF. For years, they have received sharp criticism for exacerbating poverty through policies such as Structural Adjustment, rapid deregulation and opening barriers to trade before poorer countries are economic ready to do so. This has also created situations ripe for corruption to flourish:
As Western governments and the World Bank and IMF shout ever more loudly about corruption, their own policies are making it worse in both North and South. Particularly at fault are deregulation, privatization, and structural adjustment policies requiring civil service reform and economic liberalization. In 1997, the World Bank asserted that: any reform that increases the competitiveness of the economy will reduce incentives for corrupt behavior. Thus policies that lower controls on foreign trade, remove entry barriers to private industry, and privatize state firms in a way that ensure competition will all support the fight.
The Bank has so far shown no signs of taking back this view. It continues to claim that corruption can be battled through deregulation of the economy; public sector reform in areas such as customs, tax administration and civil service; strengthening of anti-corruption and audit bodies; and decentralization.
Yet the empirical evidence, much of it from the World Bank itself, suggests that, far from reducing corruption, such policies, and the manner in which they have been implemented, have in some circumstances increased it. — Dr Susan Hawley, Exporting Corruption; Privatization, Multinationals and Bribery, The Corner House, June 2000 Jubilee Research (formerly the prominent Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign organization) has similar criticisms, and is also worth quoting at length:
Rich country politicians and bank officials argue that because dictators like Marcos, Suharto, and Mobutu were kept in power with western arms and were given loans to squander on ill-judged and repressive schemes, that the people of those countries—who often fought valiantly against those dictators—cannot be trusted not to waste the money released by debt cancellation. This may seem confusing to people not familiar with the logic of the IMF and World Bank.
In summary:
Creditors colluded with, and gave loans to dictators they knew were corrupt and who would squander the money.
Creditors gave military and political aid to those dictators—knowing arms might be used to suppress popular opposition
Therefore, successor democratic governments and their supporters, who may have been victims of corruption and oppression, cannot be trusted.
To many people in the South, this seems irrational and illogical—the logic of blaming the victim. It is the logic of power rather than of integrity, and is used to benefit the rich rather than the poor in developing countries.
A similar logic argues that if the World Bank and government export credit agencies promoted inappropriate and unprofitable projects, then southern governments proved their inability to control money because they accepted the ill-advised projects in the first place. Thus, if money is released by debt cancellation, it must be controlled by agencies which promoted those failed projects.
This is the logic that says if people were stupid enough to believe cigarette advertising, then they are too stupid to take care of themselves and the “reformed” cigarette companies should be put in charge of their health care.
The same institutions who made the corrupt loans to Zaire and lent for projects in Africa that failed repeatedly are still in charge, but their role has been enhanced because of their success in pushing loans. Can we trust these institutions to suddenly only lend wisely; to not give loans when the money might be wasted?
Preventing new wasted loans and new debt crises, and ensuring that there is not another debt crisis, means that the people who pushed the loans and caused this crisis cannot be left in charge.
The creditors or loan pushers cannot be left in charge, no matter how heartfelt their protestations that they have changed. Pushers and addicts need to work together, to bring to an end the entire reckless and corrupt lending and borrowing habit. — Joseph Hanlon and Ann Pettifor, Kicking the Habit; Finding a lasting solution to addictive lending and borrowing—and its corrupting side-effects, Jubilee Research, March 2000
And in terms of how lack of transparency by the international institutions contributes to so much corruption structured into the system, Hanlon and Pettifor continue in the same report as cited above:
Structural adjustment programs cover most of a country’s economic governance.
… The most striking aspect of IMF/World Bank conditionality [for aid, debt relief, etc] is that the civil servants of these institutions, the staff members, have virtual dictatorial powers to impose their whims on recipient countries. This comes about because poor countries must have IMF and World Bank programs, but staff can decline to submit programs to the boards of those institutions until the poor country accepts conditions demanded by IMF civil servants.
There is much talk of transparency and participation, but the crunch comes in final negotiations between ministers and World Bank and IMF civil servants The country manager can say to the Prime Minister, “unless you accept condition X, I will not submit this program to the board”. No agreed program means a sudden halt to essential aid and no debt relief, so few ministers are prepared to hold out. Instead Prime Ministers and presidents bow to the diktat of foreign civil servants. Joseph Stiglitz also notes that “reforms often bring advantages to some groups while disadvantaging others,” and one of the problems with policies agreed in secret is that a governing elite may accept an imposed policy which does not harm the elite but harms others. An example is the elimination of food subsidies.
— Joseph Hanlon and Ann Pettifor, Kicking the Habit; Finding a lasting solution to addictive lending and borrowing—and its corrupting side-effects, Jubilee Research, March 2000
As further detailed by Hanlon and Pettifor, Christian Aid partners (a coalition of development organizations), argued that top-down “conditionality has undermined democracy by making elected governments accountable to Washington-based institutions instead of to their own people.” The potential for unaccountability and corruption therefore increases as well. http://www.thestreetspirit.org/June2006/bank.htm



World Bank battles corruption -- but only in some countries.



Observing the struggles of its sister organization (the IMF), the World Bank has taken a proactive approach to its own crisis of legitimacy by considering extending invitations to Mexico, Turkey, South Korea and China to become full voting members. The World Bank is also investing $30 million in a public relations campaign in an effort to position itself as the premiere lending institution for global efforts to end poverty, protect the environment and address the global AIDS pandemic, as well as to reiterate that it is the world's largest "development" research organization. At the heart of this new media campaign is World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz's new anti-corruption campaign. Given Wolfowitz's recent history as the architect of the Iraq war and occupation -- an undertaking literally drowning under allegations of mismanagement and nepotism -- many see this anti-corruption campaign as grossly hypocritical. Many African leaders have long said that they need Western institutions to aid them in rooting out corruption and ensure transparent governance, since international institutions based in the Global North are complicit in corruption. Recently, European countries have pressured Wolfowitz to put greater emphasis on building institutions to fight corruption in the developing world, rather than simply suspending loans where corruption is suspected. As a result, he began working with shareholders to develop a framework to fight and monitor corruption. The framework will be considered at the next IMF/WB meetings in the Fall of 2006 in Singapore. While welcoming this needed reform, many argue that the World Bank is not applying the same scrutiny to Iraq and Indonesia (where Wolfowitz worked prior to his work in the Bush administration) that is being applied to Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In January, the World Bank cut off $124 million in loans after Chad changed its laws to siphon oil pipeline revenues away from anti-poverty programs; and in March, the Bank imposed rigid conditions on Congo's oil-exporting capacity. The World Bank maintains that Chad, Congo and Sudan may all be eligible for debt relief in the coming months, provided they show proof of economic stability and government reform. Civil society reactions Addressing corruption and the need for basic standards applied to loans and disbursements has been one of the main campaign points of civil society in the Global South for the last 30 years. Campaigners are pleased to see the financial institutions that are the source of so much corruption taking this life-threatening issue seriously. However, ensuring that debt-servicing funds are properly reallocated to address human needs (education, health, etc.) is a process that must involve partnerships between civil society and governments in indebted countries. This process cannot be achieved solely vis-a-vis international institutions. At present, there are seven international bodies that address accountability and transparency in international fund management. If the World Bank wants to add itself to this list, there must first be a proper analysis of why these existing institutions and bodies have not been wholly effective.