21st Century Vision

Democratic crusaders

The start of an enlightening journey?  On 25^th May, no doubt with accompanying media fanfare, a group of self-proclaimed “democrats and progressives” is to launch the Euston Manifesto.

In 2,500 words the authors put the political world to rights on subjects from international law (they favour reform to allow the promotion of “global democratization”) to feminism (on which, despite a noticeable shortage of women members, the group supports “progress in relations between the sexes”). At the core, though, these uncompromising interventionist democrats want to pick a fight with the left, or at least with the left of their imagination. But such is their enthusiasm for the cause that they seem to find it hard to engage with ongoing debates central to the very issues they raise.

The left of the Euston imagination is relativist to the point of condoning oppression within non-Western cultures, viscerally anti-American and frequently anti-semitic (this last normally disguised as criticism of Zionism).  So great is the leftist hatred of the pro-war party at home that "many left opponents of regime change in Iraq … have been unable to understand the considerations that led others on the left to support it”. Leftists tend to “observe a tactful silence or near silence about the ugly forces of the Iraqi ‘insurgency’”, while some among them have "actively spoken in support of the gangs of jihadist and Baathist thugs of the Iraqi so-called resistance” (using Euston standards against the manifesto’s authors, one would probably call this “thinly veiled Islamophobia”).

Deaf to the defects of the West's enemies, this largely caricatural left is also blind to the benevolence of US and Blairite foreign policy.  True, for the Eustonians themselves the US has “problems and failings”, but it is primarily “a great country and nation” and “the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it”. Its culture is “the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions”. (Where this leaves the American left critical of Bush's policies is unclear.)  Guantánamo Bay and “rendition” are apparently among the problems and failings, but the manifesto’s authors “reject the double standards by which too many on the Left today treat as the worst violations of human rights those perpetrated by the democracies”.

Is this the same "inconsistent" left that campaigned against Apartheid and the many murderous Latin American dictatorships supported and often installed by the US, or which denounced Saddam when (after Dujail) Donald Rumsfeld was shaking his hand?

The frequent slides and smears in the document (the unnamed “many” on the left passed off as a dominant tendency, the critics of current US foreign policy depicted as deep-dyed anti-Americans, those who insist on protesting against Israeli actions in the occupied territories portrayed as anti-semites) do give way to specifics at one point. Who then epitomizes the attitudes most upsetting to Euston sensibilities? Amnesty International. And what is their offence? To have made a “grotesque public comparison of Guantánamo and the Gulag” and to have glossed over decades of undemocratic tyranny to underline the egregious nature of the attacks on human rights perpetrated by the West in the name of the “war on terror”.

Political enfants, certainly, but not perhaps so terribles as they would like us to believe.  This is a manifesto for a new attitude to world order which manages to avoid any discussion of climate change or resource depletion, or to mention neoconservatism, neoliberalism, nuclear proliferation or the United Nations. And herein lies the nub. For some years now there has been a difficult debate within the UN on intervention where a state fails to protect its people or some of them, culminating in April 2006 in Security Council resolution 1674, recognizing a (still inadequate) “duty to protect”. You would not know it from the Eustonian crusaders, and in the end you doubt whether they know it themselves.

Read the Euston Manifesto in full

The left and anti-semitism: read Paul Oestreicher and David Clark

The UN and the "duty to protect"

Millions Will Die Because Of Climate Change

The Christian Aid charity has warned that 184 million people in Africa alone could die as a result of climate change before the end of the century.

Climate-induced floods, famine, drought and conflict could reverse recent gains in reducing poverty, it says.Its report says rich nations must aid poorer ones to adopt non-fossil-fuel energy sources such as solar power.

The report comes as almost 190 states gather in Bonn, Germany, to discuss climate change.

This warning came two months after US climate scientists had recorded a significant rise in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, pushing it to a new record level.

The latest data shows CO2 levels now stand at 381 parts per million (ppm) - 100ppm above the pre-industrial average. The research indicates that 2005 saw one of the largest increases on record - a rise of 2.6ppm.

The figures are seen as a benchmark for climate scientists around the globe.

Companies Are The Main Polluters

Five companies in Britain produce more carbon dioxide pollution together than all the motorists on UK roads combined, according to new figures which reveal heavy industry's contribution to climate change.

A league table compiled by the Guardian identifies EON UK, the electricity generator that owns Powergen, as Britain's biggest corporate emitter of greenhouse gases. It produced 26.4m tonnes of carbon dioxide last year - slightly more than Croatia did.

The figures, which have prompted new calls for tighter restrictions on corporate pollution, show that efforts by individuals and households to cut their carbon footprints will make little difference unless accompanied by greater action by industry

See Guardian Report ........

Taking On The Giant Corporations

Felicity Lawrence’s book “Not On The Label” has shown the power of the supermarkets in the Western world and particular on the food industry. Their power has put the quality of our food at risk; made infected food more likely, put farms and suppliers out of business and created a new slave labour force amongst migrant workers. Such is the power of the mighty global corporation.

In his latest documentary Wal-Mart: the high cost of low price, director Robert Greenwald doesn't explicitly state that Wal-Mart is "like some mystical evil force." But his portrayal of the awesome degree of power Wal-Mart wields is nevertheless devastating. The opening scene shows a packed shareholders' meeting applauding Wal-Mart CEO, Lee Scott, for minutes on end. Such is their zeal, they could be mistaken for a cult following. Scott tells them, "I promise you this: we're going to stay the course. And this company is going to continue to grow.

It is this conviction in Wal-Mart's own sense of purpose, and its desire for growth – at any cost – that Greenwald seeks to expose. However, this documentary is more than an exposé of bad business practices. It also explores, though interviews with grassroots campaigners and union workers, how the world's largest retailer and the largest private employer in the US, can be confronted.

As a result of the film and other campaigns including Wal-Mart Watch,

Wal-Mart has launched a massive PR campaign defending itself against various allegations and trying to promote the company image. As part of this, Wal-Mart has assembled "a war room" team of PR specialists, who have extensive experience of running political campaigns.

"They've attacked me pretty viciously, almost all of it wrong," says Greenwald. "They've put thousands of dollars into trying to discredit me, but it comes with the job. You take these things on."

However, Greenwald's message isn't anti-capitalist – a number of his subjects stress that they believe in capitalism – rather it's a warning of what can happen when power is unchecked and when "American values" are compromised. "This film focuses on greed, which Americans don't support, and on breaking the rules, because Wal-Mart doesn't play by the rules."

Human Right - a step forward?

New UN Human Rights Council elected

Some of the 'baddies' still there - but not so many

It's not just been election week here in the UK - the UN has been running one too, for 47 countries to form the new Human Rights Council.

You might have thought that the worst abusers would keep their heads down while that was going on, but in the wonderful world of diplomacy it pays to be brass-necked. Many of them had their names down as candidates, and not a few got in. Algeria, Cuba, Russia, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia all won seats on the Council. They may be able to avoid discussion of their own cases, or apply pressure on other council members when that fails ("You vote against us and we'll vote against you"!) - that's what happened far too much in the old, discredited, UN Commission for Human Rights.

Nevertheless, not all observers have been wholly negative. The number of serial abusers may be uncomfortably high, but there are still fewer of them than there used to be - and which country can claim a perfect record, anyway? Human Rights Watch called it 'a step in the right direction', and there was general relief that Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan and Sudan decided not to apply, while Iran and Iraq(!) were defeated.

Now it remains to be seen whether the countries with relatively clean records will assert their authority and vote to condemn at least the most flagrant abuses. That didn't always happen on the Human Rights Commission. Human rights have been just another playing piece in the great game of diplomacy, to be traded off for some imagined gain elsewhere, while the poor humans whose rights they should be continue to suffer and sometimes die. Will it be any different now? Probably not much, but progress in international affairs is rarely if ever in giant leaps, so maybe a 'step in the right direction' is all we can hope for. On the other hand, if yet another UN Council proves to be a toothless talking-shop, the dispossessed and unheard millions may continue to take matters into their own hands. If justice is forever denied, there remains the possibility of revenge through the bomb or the Kalashnikov.

Click here for the voting figures and the names of the winners and losers, or here for the UN's own take on the election. Or read the FT's story.

A positive FAIRTRADE Story

Nicaraguan small coffee producers benefit from fair trade

A report from id21, the online journal published by the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, makes positive reading in these depressing times. What can we, ordinary people of Enfield, do to make the world a better place?  Well, support the Fairtrade movement is one thing we can all do.

Fairtrade aims to make the global trading system work for disadvantaged producers in the developing world and there is evidence suggesting that it is contributing to poverty alleviation in coffee producing areas of Nicaragua.

Coffee is key for development in much of Nicaragua. Around 30,000 producers generate 30 percent of the country’s total export income. Production has been affected by market liberalisation and coffee industries elsewhere. For the first time in Nicaraguan history many coffee workers are experiencing hunger. Smallholders have had to sell their coffee beans for less than the cost of production, forcing them to take children out of school, go without essential medicines and reduce inputs needed for their farms.

Research from the University of Leeds, UK finds that coffee farmers in northern Nicaragua are better able to cope with the dramatic shifts in commodity prices in the conventional international market because of the stable prices offered by the fair trade market.

Fair trade organisations are helping cooperatives improve production and processing practices, using environmentally-friendly methods. Northern consumers buy fair trade coffee, both for reasons of social justice and because it tastes better. The fair trade movement has provided participating households with basic levels of nutrition, education, and healthcare.  Interviews show that:

• Producers are eager to learn new production methods, even though the transition often means to lower coffee yields and increase time on farming activities.
• Since entering the fair trade market incomes have doubled and producers are less at risk of losing their farms.
• While women’s involvement is still minimal the gender equity objective of the fair trade movement is giving women more confidence and management opportunities.

However, it is difficult for communities to benefit as long as extra profit from fair trade products remains very small. The long-term sustainability of fair trade depends on broader political and economic conditions in Nicaragua and trends in Northern markets. It will be important to:

• keep developed country consumers informed of the experiences, successes and setbacks of developing country producer organisations
• undertake research to assess the extent to which fair trade networks can continue to expand and the demand for fair trade coffee can increase
• enable producers to participate in fair trade processes and not just be passive suppliers of a product
• provide local leaders with management skills and technical knowledge to adjust to changing developed country demands.

The Fairtrade campaign in Enfield is gathering strength.  In June the Council will be voting whether to work towards being a Fairtrade borough.  To help you can do several things:

• Encourage your workplace to use Fairtrade coffee, tea and other products
• Ask your local retailers to stock Fairtrade products and buy them
• Contact your councillor and tell them you believe it would be good value for the council to spend a little more on its coffee and tea to support Fairtrade.

For more local information contact the Enfield Civil Society Forum Working Group

For National information look at the Fairtrade Foundation website

Vox populi?

The people spoke in Enfield on 4th May, but what did they say?

The headline story is that a Conservative council was re-elected. Against the national (and London) tide, Labour gained three seats, while a one-issue campaign to prevent the closure of a local hospital A&E department (Save Chase Farm, or SCF) broke the mould and gained two seats on the 63 member council. The Conservatives (34 seats) now have a majority over Labour (27) and SCF (2) of 5 seats: comfortable, but not overwhelming.

That however is not the whole story. Suppose we ask how well the electoral system expressed the preferences of local people. To do that we can first compare the Conservative and Labour performances directly, since each contested all three seats in every ward. The Conservatives polled 97,162 votes against Labour’s 69,413. On that basis the Conservatives should have received 1.4 times as many council seats as Labour; in fact they received only 1.26 times as many. The electoral arrangements favoured Labour, giving them three or four seats more than their support justified.

But other parties stood as well. Are we to conclude that those who won no seats enjoyed no significant support? None of the smaller parties contested all wards, so we cannot compare their aggregate votes with those of the major parties. We can however compare their performance with the major parties and with each other in terms of votes per candidate. These were as follows –

Conservatives, 1542
Labour, 1102
Liberal Democrats, 507
Green, 560
SCF, 1386
Others, 217

These figures may overstate support for the major parties, since many voters in wards where their preferred minor party had fewer than three candidates would have opted for the least-worst major party alternative. On the other hand it is possible that some normally major party electors deliberately decided to vote for one minor party candidate in their ward, and would not have voted for a second, had there been one.  However, if seats in the council chamber were distributed according to the actual support obtained per candidate it would look as follows –

Conservatives, 18
Labour, 13
Liberal Democrats, 6
Green, 7
SCF, 16
Others, 3

We must be cautious. No doubt the smaller parties fought wards where they thought they would do better, and avoided those where they expected little response, while ward sizes vary somewhat. Moreover, if the electoral system allocated seats on a strictly proportional basis the behaviour of voters and parties would change. Perhaps the system we have reflects an unspoken preference for strong single party local government, even at the cost of stifling wider debate.

But can anyone be confident that the outcome of the 4^th May elections in Enfield well represents the range of views of its electors?

Go to the full Enfield council election results

The Government Of Panic

Politics is getting a little hairy as Tony Blair by all accounts runs his Government like a religious cult and surrounds himself with a praetorian guard Cabinet as he faces a whirlwind all around him.

One of those gales of reality is Iraq. Four servicemen were shot down two days ago in a helicopter at a time when commentators are beginning to realise that the British have not won the hearts and minds of the Shia majority in the South and that the state of British forces is now as precarious as that of the Americans further north.

Iraq has dominated the Blair Premierships like a shadow that will not go away. It has with a stroke turned the celebration of a new age, heralded by the 1997 Election victory, into a long-term occupancy of despair. Iraq laid open questions of spin, trust, integrity and judgement. The Labour Administrations since the invasion of Iraq has been in terminal decline.

Today that is dangerous as the issue of Iran faces us and with reports that the US Administration against the better judgement of the US military are focussed on tackling the Iranian nuclear issue by any means including a possible nuclear strike on that country. Where does the British Government stand on this? Well Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary assured us that any attack on Iran was inconceivable. Now Jack Straw has now gone having paid the price of too close a liaison with Gordon Brown and his opposition to American madness in Iran. The ultra Blairite loyalist and highly competent Margaret Becket has now replaced him.

As Tony Blair is increasingly beleaguered within his Downing Street fortress as former Ministers, backbenchers and his Party bay at his heels, there is always the danger that he may kick out in panic and if Iran becomes that moment of panic then the world will have turned an irreversible corner and become a fragile and dangerous place that will never be the same in our lifetime.

Sad State Of Local Government

Local Elections are now over and we are being told that it is a judgement on the Labour Government and the Prime Minister. Gordon Brown tells us the electorate is telling us something and the Labour Government should listen. Of course he is right the electorate is telling us something but not what Gordon Brown thinks. They are telling us that Local Government is in such a sad state in the UK that they use local elections to caste judgement on national issues rather than to hold local government itself to account.

This really highlights the dependent state of the local government in the UK. In some other countries – particularly those in Scandinavia – local government is treated seriously. Local authorities often raise 80% of their own revenue from local sources and thus have a high degree of political autonomy. In the UK, the opposite is true and local government is largely dependent on national finance. As a result national government looks upon local authorities as an administrative arm of their own policies rather than autonomous units that can make decisions themselves and be held accountable.

Consequently in Scandinavian countries, the turn out for local elections can be 70% plus whilst in the UK it is below 40%. Electorates use local elections to therefore make judgement on national government and this is unhealthy for local democracy. At a time when local authorities need to forge policies within an interdependent global context, autonomous local government is important.

Of course electorates also use local elections to express their real feelings about central government. At General Elections, voters rarely stray away from the major parties because the first past the post system means that smaller parties do not stand a chance. But in local elections they do and because there is no deposit, almost anyone or any party can stand.

Increasingly local voters are using this to express the real diversity that is in British society. As a result, Parties like the Greens can score very well, one issue candidates (Like the Save Hospitals, Stop the Motorway campaigns) can also find themselves elected. Also significant fragments of the electorate like the white working class in East London can drift towards populist and right wing extremism to express their disenchantment with a Government that has left them behind in their panic to achieve an unsustainable and ephemeral form of modernity.

What we really need is substantial local government reform that has as its guiding principle respect for local communities, faith in local government and an understanding of the global context in which local government increasingly finds itself, but no major Party has shown willingness to modernise in such an imaginative and appropriate way. So we are left with the dregs of local democracy and who can blame the electorate when they use their votes to express feelings and ideas that have nothing to do with what the election is ostensibly about – local government itself.

Enfield decides

Who do you want in charge of your local services?

Along with the rest of London and sundry bits of the rest of the country, Enfield is today voting for a new council. There are 63 seats up for grabs, three each in 21 wards. The outgoing council comprises 39 Conservatives and 24 Labour. What will the new one look like?

It seems fairly clear that the Conservatives will retain control. Despite protests from some, particularly pensioners, at the scale of council tax rises, the Tory administration has avoided major blunders, and is facing a Labour Party struggling to distance itself from an ever more unpopular government which also appears bent on electoral suicide over the last few weeks. To their unenviable record of starting an unpopular and possibly illegal war, misleading the public and a series of illiberal measures which have horrified their own supporters, must now be added a succession of  'sleaze' stories surfacing at just the wrong moment. There is also the question - a burning one in Enfield - of their mishandling of the NHS. The current Labour adminstration looks to this commentator like the worst government in living memory - and no, I haven't forgotten the milk-snatcher. While Enfield Labour Party are more 'Old Labour' and thoroughly uncomfortable with all that, they have had an uphill struggle on the doorsteps - local elections are often more about giving the government of the day a good kicking than local issues anyway.

With the Labour vote likely to decline, the opportunity may be there for other parties to make progress. The Lib Dems, fairly moribund in Enfield of late, have woken up following their win in Hornsey & Wood Green at the General Election last year, and are putting in a strong challenge to the Tories in Southgate, and to Labour in Lower Edmonton. The Greens too are making serious headway in Bowes, which, even if they do not take the ward, could take enough of the Labour vote let the Tories through the middle. Labour are certainly afraid of that - and it would mean decapitation for them as leader Jeff Rodin is one of their defending councillors, while the other two are also senior figures.

What of the Save Chase Farm campaign? It is difficult to see why anyone should vote for them, given that all the other parties want to save Chase Farm too, and the absence of any direct council say in the matter anyway, but electorates do not always behave logically and 'Save Chase Farm' has a good ring to it. I suspect they will not get very far, but I could be quite wrong. If they do succeed, they are standing almost exclusively against Tories, in the hope of holding the balance of power. That looks beyond them even if they are all elected.

Don't forget to vote, if you haven't done so already, and we will all wait with bated breath for the outcome.

The Congolese tragedy continues

Up to 4 million people have died in ongoing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country in which annual GNI/capita fell from $110 in 1998 to $100 in 2003. Yet the UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Jan Egeland, recently wrote that the “immense suffering” of the DRC had gone “virtually unnoticed by the outside world.”

On 23^rd March, ahead of landmark elections scheduled for 18^th June, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan met officials in the east of the country, saying that he felt Congolese were excited at the prospect of electing their own leaders and ending the long, bloody civil conflict. It has now been reported that the elections have been again postponed to an indefinite date.

The UN has 14,000 MONUC peacekeepers in eastern Congo, where the brunt of the incursions from neighbouring Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi has been felt, with a further 1250 EU troops recently authorized by the UN to support the elections (800 of them to be held in reserve outside the country). The DRC is roughly the size of Western Europe.

Meanwhile on 26^th April, Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict published its second report on the DRC, Struggling to Survive: children in armed conflict in the DRC. It makes sobering reading, not only on the abduction of children to serve as fighters and for sexual exploitation, but also as regards the most extreme violence towards children and their mothers. It notes that –

“In 2006, the DRC continues to endure the world’s deadliest humanitarian crisis, with more than 38,000 people dying every month as direct and indirect consequences of the armed conflict … Approximately 45% of these deaths occur among children under 18. In addition, children are targets of human rights violations committed by armed forces and groups on a daily basis. The overwhelming majority of these crimes are committed in an environment of utter impunity”

The report requests the UN Security Council to –

“Call on all parties to conflict to immediately halt the recruitment and use of all children associated with regular and irregular armed forces and groups …”

And on all armed groups operating in the DRC to –

“Immediately stop the exploitation of children, including forced labour and forced involvement in mining, and end torture-killing and other violations taking place in the context of illegal exploitation of natural resources”

Read the Watchlist report in full