Global Week Of Action Against the Current International Structure: Njorki Njehu, of the 50 Years is Enough Network, Gives Her Views on Necessary Changes

Pazambuka News

The dates April 10-16 mark a Global Week of Action where organizations, networks and movements take part in a worldwide mobilization aimed at challenging the free trade myth. In Washington DC protestors will take to the streets to mark meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund on April 16 and 17. Pambazuka News interviewed Njorki Njehu, one of the organizers of the protests and director of 50 Years Is Enough Network, about the key demands the    protestors are making, building links in the struggle against neo-liberalism and what the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank means for global civil society. Njehu concludes: "We must absolutely recognize every day as the first day of the rest of our lives in struggle."

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What will the people gathered in Washington DC be protesting about on April 16 and 17? What are their key demands? How many are expected?

NJOKI NJEHU : The people that will be gathering this weekend are part of long-standing movements that have demanded accountability, democratic practice, and transparency from the institutions. The four key demands articulated by the Mobilization for Global Justice are:

  1) Open all World Bank and IMF meetings to the media and the public.

  2) Cancel all impoverished country debt to the World Bank and IMF, using the institutions' own resources.

  3) End all World Bank and IMF policies that hinder people's access to food, clean water, shelter, health care, education, and right to organize. (Such "structural adjustment" policies include user fees, privatization, and so-called economic austerity programs).

  4) Stop all World Bank support for socially and environmentally destructive projects such as oil, gas, and mining activities, and all support for projects such as dams that include forced relocation of people.

In addition, the 50 Years Is Enough Network has broader demands that include reparations for the impact of structural adjustment and loans associated with environmental and social destruction; an end to 

assistance to the private sector; accountability for those in the 

institutions who abet corruption; and a process for democratically 

assessing the need for institutions like the IFIs.

  In the U.S., global justice activists and IMF/World Bank campaigners 

have been energized by the nomination and appointment of Paul Wolfowitz 

to be the next President of the World Bank. We expect several hundred 

activists who will demonstrate in the streets, participate in teach-ins 

and strategy sessions, and as part of the Global Week of Action, call 

their members of Congress to denounce free trade as embodied by the 

Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which is currently 

pending in Congress.

  PAMBAZUKA NEWS: For many people in Africa these protests may seem like 

a million miles away - even if they sympathise with the objectives and 

the message. What are the issues facing protestors in the US that you 

believe are similar to those facing communities around the world?

  NJOKI NJEHU: I hope that African activists and observers do not view 

the activities this weekend as a million miles away and not related to 

them. People in the U.S. used to think this way about human rights 

violations, worker rights violations, and environmental disasters. But 

that has changed. The emergence of global civil society and 

globalization from below that allows for people-to-people exchanges and 

campaigning has taught us what we had forgotten. As has been said before, no one is free when others are oppressed, and so local struggles are global and they link and help people make common cause across countries, cultures, and the globe.

It is also the case that the ravages of corporate-led globalization and neo-liberal economics have not spared people in the U.S., especially people in communities of color, rural areas, indigenous communities, and immigrants. The tenets of neo-liberalism are being applied in the U.S. and other developed countries, not because governments are forced by the IMF and World Bank, as is the case in Africa, but because many policy- and decision- makers believe in this economic ideology.

The work of the 50 Years Is Enough Network focuses on the World Bank and the IMF, but the key intention is to educate people in the U.S. about what is being done by their government in their name and using their tax dollars. When we talk about water privatization in South Africa and Bolivia, user fees for health and education in Kenya and Tanzania, corporate exploitation in the Niger Delta, or dams in India, Lesotho, and Uganda we find that communities in the U.S. are also 

fighting the same kinds of things. Furthermore, the lessons learned in this era of economic globalization include the lesson that we cannot win by fighting corporate excesses, environmental devastation, or worker rights violations in one country when those same problems are being faced by communities in another country.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What needs to be done to build a greater sense of global solidarity against the policies of the World Bank and the IMF?

NJOKI NJEHU: We need to build people to people connections and to really understand what Samora Machel meant when he said: "International solidarity is not an act of charity: It is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the development of humanity to the highest level possible."   We also need to understand that these institutions are public institutions. They are funded by you and me, the taxpayers of the world and therefore we are the ones who can and must demand accountability and service for the common good, not 

corporate profits.

Malcolm X talked about the chickens coming home to roost, people in the U.S. and other developed countries have experienced World Bank and IMF-like austerity measures. If we do not drive these institutions out of Africa and defeat their policies around the world, our work will never be done and justice will just be a far-away unattainable dream.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How deep is the understanding of the effects of neo-liberalism on communities worldwide amongst the kind of audience that will be protesting on April 16 and 17 and the American population at large?

NJOKI NJEHU: They get it. They see the effects of neo-liberalism in their communities and they fight against it. Here in Washington, D.C., otherwise known as the capital of the free world, privatization, corporate welfare, cuts in social programs for the elderly and children and lack of voting representation are everyday realities. In the last three years, we saw the closure of the last public hospital in the city. We see tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, and just in the last year a huge tax break to bring a baseball team to D.C. while programs for the homeless, youth summer employment programs and health 

services for the elderly are decimated. These are the experiences of one city, but they are repeated in cities and communities across the U.S. every day. People in the U.S. are experiencing hardship similar to what people in developing countries deal with on a deeper and more frequent basis. Granted that in the U.S. there are provisions and programs to ameliorate the hardships, it is a new phase and new experience for many.

The tragedy is that many do not seem to translate these experiences into activism or political action. Given the results of the last elections, it is also clear that many people do not vote in their economic or class interests. There is much work to be done.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: It really does seem sometimes that every time these meetings come around there is a flurry of press releases, sign-on letters, petitions and protests. Then the meeting takes place following which nothing more is heard. Without being overly cynical, has anything changed over the last few years? Has there been any progress and are these institutions really fixable?

NJOKI NJEHU: I share the cynicism and the despair that grips us all from time to 

time. But there is also hope. There are many reasons to be encouraged. I think that the flurry of press releases, sign-on letters, petitions and protests that you refer to is a reason to be hopeful and encouraged. People still believe that there is something that they can do, that they can make a difference. What is not evident is the work and organizing that takes place in the "in-between times".

Yes, much has changed. We saw victory, albeit short-lived, in Cancun. We see the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement stalled. And even once in a while we see politicians with some backbone. We come to this semi-annual meetings with the G7 discussing "up to 100%" multilateral debt cancellation. Much has changed in the way the U.S. environmental movement and the labor movement deal with environmental and labor rights issues. It is not just about the U.S. environment or U.S. workers anymore; it is about the global environment, and about all workers, union and non-union, documented and un-documented. Small steps, but huge political shifts.

On whether the institutions can really be fixed, it is a different matter altogether. I believe we need to apply our best thinking, strategies and tactics to this question. "Abolish the Bank and the Fund" is a fine slogan, but not much in the way of a policy approach. I think we've been limited and have forgotten the age-old African American saying: "the masters' tools can never destroy the masters' house". If our goal is to abolish these institutions, I believe it has 

to happen in processes outside of the institutions. Self-preservation and perpetuation demand that they do everything they can to thwart an abolitionist agenda.

One of the challenges that we face is that in the post-Iraq war era, multilateralism for multilateralism's sake is a very attractive policy. 

The specter of unilateralism ala the George W. Bush style stops many people in their tracks as they begin to contemplate reform of the multilateral system including the United Nations. I am of the view that we need multilateralism but the current version isn't working from a democratic practice view or from a justice view, but perhaps I'm expecting too much of multilateralism.

We also need to be clear that reform or changes in the voting system of the UN or the IFIs does not mean UN Security Council seats for Germany, Brazil, India, Japan, etc. Nor does it mean a few more voting percentages for Japan, South Africa, etc. in the World Bank and IMF. We do not need to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water, but we do need to acknowledge the fatally flawed foundation of the current multilateral system. For instance, 140 current members of the World Bank and the IMF were not at the table in 1944 when these institutions were formed. In fact, many of the current member countries did not even exist. As visionary as the founders might have been, they could never 

have imagined our world today.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The global response from the social justice community over the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank president has been one of despair. The appointment has also raised a number of questions: Will the appointment reinvigorate protests against the WB and IMF by creating links with the anti-war movement? Or could it also mean that people will be less informed about the impact of WB/IMF policies as this is overlooked in favour of a form of character assassination protest?

NJOKI NJEHU: The things you suggest are all possible, but not if we do our education, mobilizing, and organizing work. Wolfowitz's nomination and appointment were a disaster on many scores. However, he is part of an entrenched system and that is the real problem. If Wolfensohn could not make progress in the opposite direction, as he professed to want to do, perhaps Wolfowitz will have the same kind of experience and the status quo will remain. And the world, especially the poor, will still be in peril.

We must hold Wolfowitz's feet to the fire and keep the campaigns to delegitimize the World Bank and the IMF going. I was just listening to a nationally syndicated radio program called "Talk of the Nation" which featured Joseph Stiglitz and Washington Post op-ed page columnist Sebastian Mallaby. Mallaby made the argument that the U.S. is the right country to choose the leader of the World Bank, and elsewhere he has argued, as he alluded to today, that the world runs better with the U.S. in charge. What we have to fear about Wolfowitz is that he has these tendencies that assert U.S. exceptionalism, which is not only 

paternalistic, it is insulting, especially to the large number of countries who are always non-members of the right "G-grouping" of countries.

Wolfowitz is on record supporting the doctrine of odious debt in the context of Iraq. Here we agree with him. Our task will be to continue to push for the logic of odious debt to be extended beyond Iraq. Yes, cancellation of Iraq's odious debt, but also cancellation of apartheid debt, Somoza's debt in Nicaragua, Marcos's debt in the Philippines, Suharto's debt in Indonesia, Mobutu's debt in Zaire/DRC, Abacha's debt in Nigeria, and the debts of military dictatorships in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and elsewhere. Our work as global justice activists 

perhaps became more obvious but not narrower.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In the past the annual protests have made effective use of communication tools and the internet to get their message across through email lists, blogs, SMS, video streaming etc etc. How much of a factor is this in the preparation work, are there any innovations planned for this year and what websites would you recommend for people to monitor over the course of the next week?

NJOKI NJEHU: Any activist worth her/his salt must be willing to employ diverse tactics and have a fully-stocked toolkit. When we say that we are not anti-globalization, it is because we recognize that globalization has brought with it technology such as SMS, websites, listservs, etc. that have been invaluable in our struggles. I believe that the most effective way to campaign, mobilize, and educate the public as well as policy- and decision- makers is to use all the tools at our disposal. The list of things that are mentioned are all tools 

that we will employ this week and into future.

I believe that for every audience we need to speak to, there are different tactics/tools that we must employ. Sometimes a raucous protest gets the message across, sometimes a prayer vigil, sometimes civil disobedience, and sometimes thousands of people. We must learn all the tools in our activist toolkits. But we must also, most importantly, learn to recognize which tools are needed for each job.

However, we need to remember that there is no substitute for people telling their own stories, and for people articulating their desire and processes for change. International institutions have failed the people; governments have failed the people; elected officials have failed the people; and even the would-be people's representatives and spokespersons have failed the people. It is time for the ordinary and extra-ordinary people fighting for justice to come into their own, particularly their struggles, and take their rightful place for the 

challenges ahead.

This week is just one week in a continuum of struggles that stretch back further than recorded history and will stretch forward into the future as long as exploitation and oppression exist. This week is not important. What is important is what each of us does tomorrow, the day after, the week after, and every other day. We must absolutely recognize every day as the first day of the rest of our lives in struggle.

  Some websites to watch this week: www.50years.org, www.ifiwatchnet.org, www.africaaction.org, www.jubileeusa.org,  www.april2005.org

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