Making poverty history through the power of geniality and queuing
225,000 people marched to end poverty in Edinburgh yesterday, and I was one of them. As reported in The Scotsman, the event was distinguished by its warm friendly atmosphere.
The tidal wave of marchers which swept through the streets in a never-ending flow, whistled, drummed and chanted its way around the city, buoyed up by a seemingly endless supply of good humour. The trouble that broke out on the margins, when a few breakaway groups staged a confrontation with police, could not dent the general air of cheeriness. Rarely can poverty have been challenged so genially.
A number of things struck me about yesterday’s march, and the Live 8 concerts, and so in no particular order here they are:
- I was really struck by the diversity of the people involved. They were from all ages, including the very young and the very old, and from all social backgrounds, from the poor to the affluent, and clearly some people had travelled quite considerable distances to be there. With some exceptions which I’ll come to, it all had a very grass-roots feel to it: “normal people wanting to make a difference”. The BBC has some nice pictures. Certainly that was why I went. I just wanted to stand up and be counted.
- I really didn’t expect queuing to form such an integral part of the event! I queued in the Meadows for three hours before we finally managed to set off on the March, which lasted less than an hour.
- The one thing that really rubbed me up the wrong way was the presence of the The Socialist Worker Party and The Scottish Socialist Party. Ever since I was an undergraduate every single march and demonstration I have attended, without exception, has seen these parasites turn up and attempt to co-opt it to their own ends. And here they were again; whilst the march was to make povery history, and the colour to wear was white, they all sported red t-shirts with the slogan “Make Capitalism History”, and shouted out “White is the problem, red the solution”. They enfuriated me so much because for many of us, including myself, the most important thing on the agenda is fair trade for Africa, which of course can ony happen under a capitalist umbrella. By refusing to wear white and instead wearing red, and by demanding the end of capitalism when most of us were marching for free trade was like thumbing their noses at all the ordinary people who had made an effort to come here. Of course it is obvious why they have to try and bushwhack other people’s demonstrations like this; if they organised one themselves no one would turn up. They are complete leeches.
- The reason fair trade is the most important issue for me, and for many others, is that that would allow Africa to stand on its own feet. I know that I am wary of more aid, when so much of it in the past has gone directly into the pockets of corrupt regime leaders. Debt relief is important but it now seems like a foregone conclusion that it will happen. So fair trade is the issue most of us are concerned about, and also the least likely issue to receive a satisfactory outcome next week. I personally think that free trade would also help to remove corrupt regimes: when people can trade fairly they can earn a decent living; when they do that they own property and can afford to educate their children; money and education equals power, and only that will allow ordinary Africans to throw out their corrupt leaders and put their own houses in order. The creation of wealth brings with it a demand for the rule of law (that’s certainly what the Industrial Revolution did for Britain), and the rule of law is what removes corruption.
- Something I felt uncomfortable about was that the campsite for protestors was at Niddrie. That somehow struck me as being in incredibly poor taste. Most of the hippie activist types staying there are middle class drop outs who can afford to not have a job whilst travelling the world protesting about things. And here they are in Edinburgh, smack bang in the middle of one of Edinburgh’s (and probably the UK’s) poorest areas, in order to protest about poverty in Africa. I wonder how many of those people staying there even notice the poverty on their own doorstep?
- Am I the only one who thought that the concerts failed to deliver a political statement? With the orginal Live Aid concert twenty years ago, the political statement didn’t come from the number of people at the concerts or watching them on TV. It came from the enormous amount of money raised. Well, unless a hell of a lot of people come to Edinburgh this week as a result of watching or being at the concerts, Live 8 will have sent no such similar message, because there is no way of disentangling what was politically motivated about the attendance and what was simply motivated by wanting to see a really big music event. This just invites a cynical response (e.g. see Salaryman’s Make Hypocrisy History) and I’m betting that’s exactly what it will get from the G8.
Whilst the atmosphere was good—friendly and genial—I think I did detect a sense of hopelessness. Perhaps it was just me, but I got a distinct impression that people wanted to stand up and be counted precisely because they knew their leaders aren’t going to do what we want them to next week. That made me feel sad.
I completely failed to meet up with Hannu (sorry Hannu), mostly because I was recovering from the excesses of the night before with James, but I did manage to bump into my friend Maria who I haven’t seen for over three years, and it was really good to catch up with her.
Yesterday was also Chris’ birthday, during which he apparently got so disgracefully drunk that he’s going to have to spend all of today doing acts of atonement. Happy belated birthday Chris!
July 3rd, 2005 at 6:56 pm
Putting the hippies in Niddrie was a nice touch. I hope the locals had a good time with them,
July 3rd, 2005 at 8:08 pm
If it all went as swimmingly as it sounds, I bet gigs/protests like this one will become a regular feature of G8 and similar summits. Gordon, Nelson, Kofi and friends will do their best to make you feel that you have stood up and been counted. And listened to.
There were reports on the radio yesterday about brief clashes with black-outfitted anarchists. Did you see any of that? Presumably it was the same kind of thing as the SWP’s desperate attempts at rabble-rousing.
But what we really want to know is did you meet any nice babes!?
July 3rd, 2005 at 8:10 pm
I thought that might amuse you. Although apparently the campsite has slightly higher security than Guantanamo Bay (and looks almost identical) so I don’t think there’s been much interaction between the crusties and the neds.
I thought of you when I was bitching about the SWP as I know how much you hate that lot too.
So, no searing Marxist critique of the naivety of my idea that trade creates wealth, and wealth would help stamp out corruption?
July 3rd, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Ivan: re your second comment, no I didn’t see the Anarchists, or their pathetic scuffle with the police. I reckon there’s only about 50 if them in town in total. Compared to 225,000 people that’s pretty insignificant.
I think the march had a certain political validity to it; even though I don’t think it will achieve a thing. The concerts misfired in my opinion. I don’t think the G8 leaders can try and con us that we’ve been listened to unless they actually do what we want them to, and I think it will be pretty manifest when that doesn’t happen.
As for Babes—I saw a few I must admit but there wasn’t as much of a “let’s party!” atmosphere as I thought there would be. It was more like a very very big village fete! You know, there really were little old ladies handing out homemade shortbread and stuff!
July 4th, 2005 at 8:23 am
> So, no searing Marxist critique of the naivety of my idea that trade
> creates wealth, and wealth would help stamp out corruption?
I thought that would have been too predictable.
> I don’t think the G8 leaders can try and con us that we’ve been
> listened to unless they actually do what we want them to,
> and I think it will be pretty manifest when that doesn’t happen.
The Make Poverty History campaign is rather coy about its objectives. Their manifesto concentrates on means, but only mentions ‘internationally agreed targets’, etc. If the campaign’s aims are “to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals, officially endorsed by every member of the United Nations in 2000, are met” (which I read on Spiked), I certainly can’t support that [BTW, how do you do inline links?]. Tony et al. have been desperate to be seen to support this; I’m sure they’ll have a plan.
July 4th, 2005 at 11:21 am
Ivan: I’m assuming this is the article you’re referring to. (BTW you do hyperlinks with HTML — the comments allow inline elements.) I think it is perfectly reasonable to raise the issue that the goals of the Make Poverty History campaign are not particularly far-reaching. But is that a reason for doing nothing? Are you seriously saying that you can’t lend your support to a campaign that is at least attempting to do something because it is not trying to do enough, and therefore you’ll just do nothing instead? Besides which, fair trade for Africa has the potential to do much more than merely achieve the stated goals of the campaign, and would allow those countries to help themselves rather than rely on aid which may or may not be attached to dubious conditions (although I don’t buy the argument that because our interventions in the past in Africa have been disastrous all future intervention is nothing but imperialism, and if attaching help to conditions like “we want you to stop stoning women to death for being raped” is “to impose the mores of Islington on to the marshes of Africa” then let’s have three cheers for Islington).
I don’t suggest that the Make Poverty History campaign is beyond criticism, reproach, analysis. I applaud the Spiked article for raising important issues about it. I think it altogether something else to then say that you therefore aren’t going to support it. In fact one of the things that really bugs me about the left (Tony Benn is a perfect case in point) is its capacity to criticise every attempt to do something for the poor, the oppressed, and the dispossessed for stemming from some kind of imperialist urge coupled with either ignorance or amnesia about the historical roots of the problem whilst simultaneously remaining happily silent on what we should do instead, and content to sit smugly by and do absolutely nothing in the face of patent wrongs. Frankly that absolutely fucking sucks.
July 4th, 2005 at 7:57 pm
“I do think it’s dreadful that the police have cordoned us off in a street with no shops so that we’ve been unable to buy anything to TO EAT FOR AN HOUR OR TWO”.
Worthy m/c hippy caught up in some pointless street protest in Edinburgh today.
Bring back national service. Or the birch.
July 4th, 2005 at 10:01 pm
I think the UN’s Millenium Development Goals are insulting to the people of the developing world: half the people in extreme hunger can starve; a dollar a day is plenty of money. The goals are also insutling to the people of the developed world: we are being fed this crap and told we should get excited about it.
Doing nothing is certainly preferable to training ourselves to think in such narrow terms, in what must be a secular version of Pascal’s bet.
As for what the goals should be, that’s easy: instead of aiming to alleviate half of the people suffering from extreme hunger, aim to eradicate hunger. Instead of saying a dollar a day gets an African out of poverty, say everyone in the developed world should enjoy the same standard of living as people in the West.
The means can be up for debate (cancelling the debt and getting the West out would be top of my list), but the main point is not to be conned into putting your effort toward bogus ends. The ‘No’ votes in France and Holland were a far more progressive political development than the MakePovertyHistory campaign.
p.s. I agree with Chris, at least for hippies (also, anyone caught buying a book from the Mind, Body & Spirit section).
July 5th, 2005 at 2:08 am
Ivan: I agree with your goals, but then they aren’t that different after all to Make Poverty History. Yours are cancel the debt, so are theirs. As for getting the West out, well that’s all well and good, but how? Perhaps the easiest way is through free trade: allow Africa to be rich off its own back and it won’t have to sell its soul to the multinationals. Look, I’m open to suggestions, but I still think that a ground-swell of public opinion in favour of something defined in “such narrow terms” is better than holding out for the perfect solution, especially if once you have the public focused, you then go on and try and tell them what they’ve been missing. The trouble with you arch-lefties is that you like the smug advantage of telling everyone else who is muddling along how stupid we are, but then you don’t do anything yourselves. I’m just a middle-to-left softie, but I can see the failings of what I support and still think something is better than nothing. I just don’t see how you can be high-minded about children starving to death. Isn’t it a no-brainer?
July 5th, 2005 at 2:10 am
Chris: LMAO. I agree.
July 5th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
The purpose of the MakePovertyHistory campaign is to avoid the kind of riots that have been dogging the G8 & similar summits of late (I don’t support the riots either). That will be the only effect. The effect on the developing world will be negligible at best. Maybe worse, I can imagine a new round of imperialist adventure (like Clinton’s holiday in Somalia) on the back of a wave of popular support that ’something should be done’. Maybe we’ll have another scramble for Africa.
‘Something should be done’ is the common cry of the liberal when they’re getting into something and they know they should know better. I remember you telling me in 1991 that ’something should be done’ about Saddam Hussein. Liberals should beware what they wish for.
I promise I’m not telling people how stupid they are. I’d rather listen to a big argument about what to do, and sort something out, than tag along to the tune of the UN and the NGOs. Debates on this blog have changed my behaviour already this year.
July 6th, 2005 at 10:01 am
Have you checked out the BBC pictures of the demonstrations?
I particularly like picture 12 in contrast to the others, where it takes two policemen to help an attractive young girl, almsot stripping her naked in the process. Obviously they need to make sure that she’s not injured anywhere else eh?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4649497.stm