Season of Struggle: Another World Is Still Possible!

Vol. 6, No. 2

September, 2003

by Njoki Njoroge Njehu
50 Years Is Enough Network

There are many people around the world who must wonder if they have any friends in the U.S.,
or in the rest of the Global North for that matter: the people of India’s Narmada Valley, as the
monsoons approach and again they are threatened by a rising dam and floods; the peoples of
Afghanistan “liberated” from the Taliban, but now largely forgotten; the peoples of Colombia
being fumigated from the air in the grand plan that is Plan Colombia and the U.S. “war on drugs”;
the people being dragged out of their homes by gun-wielding U.S. soldiers in Iraq; the
peoples of Liberia, the peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the peoples of Haiti,
the peoples of Palestine, the peoples of Chechnya. The list is long.

We go to press a little over a month after U.S. President George W. Bush’s
five-countries-in-five-days tour of Africa. It has been said that he spent more time on Air Force
One than in the five countries combined. It was a missed and mixed opportunity for Bush and
his administration’s policy on Africa. In some instances it was a disaster and only served to
confirm perceived U.S. arrogance – starting with the tour’s first stop at the Slave House on
Goree Island in Senegal. Goree Island was the last stop for millions of captured Africans before
they were sold and shipped across the Atlantic; for Bush’s visit, the Island’s residents were
awakened and detained in a soccer field for the duration of Bush’s visit. “It’s slavery all over
again,” one man observed.

As Bush tries to cast himself as the "compassionate conservative," Africa, and in particular the
ravaging of the continent by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, has accorded him a nearly perfect
platform. Recall that less than three years ago then-candidate Bush asserted that Africa was of
no “strategic interest” to the U.S. It was before September 11, but after the August 1998
embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya (my home country) and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Recently, Bush has been singing a different tune, but the truth about the Administration’s
disregard for Africa seeps through. And although Africa’s oil, minerals, and other resources are
clearly of interest to the U.S., someone forgot to send Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the
new song-sheet. During a discussion about sending troops to Liberia – in the same week that
Bush left for his African tour – Rumsfeld talked about why the U.S. would not send troops to
Liberia – namely Africa’s lack of strategic importance. Indeed the announcement in early August
that the U.S. would literally be sending a handful (8-10) of soldiers to Liberia proves that the
rhetoric and the policy are two different things.

As always, the tragedy is that playing politics with peoples’ lives often means that people die.
On so many issues –

* insisting that starving African nations take genetically modified organisms as food aid or go
hungry;

* the so-called “free trade” policies of the U.S. and the Bush administration in particular, choking
off African farmers with subsidies to U.S. agribusiness to the tune of $100 billion dollars over 10
years;

* U.S. positions at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on intellectual property rights, which
limits and/or denies many African countries the means to procure HIV/AIDS anti-retroviral
medications at a reasonable price;

* detachment from the conflicts in Liberia and the Great Lakes Region (Congo/Rwanda) – the
Bush Administration has not ‘walked the talk’ of partnership laid out in the State of the Union
address, press statements and Rose Garden ceremonies. The rhetoric does not match the
reality: the U.S. government’s concern for Africa is limited to U.S. strategic needs and economic
appetite.

Nowhere is U.S. neglect more obvious than in regard to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. Faced
with a health crisis of unprecedented proportions in modern times, the Administration has chosen
to apply its unilateralist ideology – in particular a mania for undercutting the United Nations – to a
problem that more than most requires maximum cooperation. The President announced in
January that he would push for a $15 billion HIV/AIDS program for Africa and the Caribbean,
but made clear that only a small portion of the funds would go to the U.N. Global Fund to Fight
HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, & Malaria. The bulk would go to a new U.S. program, not yet defined,
that would duplicate the work of the Global Fund. And, in keeping with a pattern familiar to
observers of the Bush Administration, the President accepted the accolades in January, and
when the time came to push Congress for the money, was missing in action. As a result
Congress looks set to approve only a portion of the amount anticipated (though the House had
the good taste to shift a greater proportion to the Global Fund – a move that will probably be
reversed as it reconciles its version with the Senate’s). As the final straw, for this year at least,
Bush appointed a former top executive from the pharmaceutical industry – the major obstacle to
progress in the crisis – to head the U.S. program.

The Bush administration and other donor countries could learn a thing or two about generosity
from some Maasai villagers in Kenya. Hearing the full story of the September 11 attacks from a
son who attends medical school in the U.S., they decided in June 2002, to gather and donate
14 head of cattle – the most valued thing in Maasai society – to express their solidarity with the
people of New York City and to assist them in their recovery. Meanwhile, as donor countries
play politics with each other and “nickel and dime” debt cancellation, the fight against HIV/AIDS
in Africa, and then provide huge agricultural subsidies to their “farmers,” they ensure that people
in impoverished countries will never have a fighting chance.

But there is good news and hope in the thousands of people who are involved in campaigns to
win peace and conflict resolution, sustainability, environmental protection, debt cancellation,
money for Head Start, money for prescription drugs for seniors, money for HIV/AIDS treatment
programs, jobs and livelihoods with dignity, living wage, health care for all and not just those who
can pay, and more. In the words of our friends at the SouthWest Organizing Project in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, We fight for “Justice where we work; justice where we play, justice
where we live!”

Across the U.S., what has been dubbed as the “Season of Struggle” is about to start: multiple
events from September to December which affirm the continued and deep commitment to fight
for global justice which many people, working on different issues in different sectors, have made.
The events include great efforts and convergence among global justice campaigns:

* trade activists who are organizing and mobilizing ordinary people to raise their voices for
workers, environmental protection, farmers, and indigenous peoples during the September
WTO Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico and the November FTAA (Free Trade Area of the
Americas) Ministerial summit in Miami, Florida;

* IMF and World Bank campaigners are organizing educational events around the world to
coincide with the institutions’ September annual meetings in Dubai;

* immigrants and their allies in the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride scheduled to kick off from
nine major U.S. cities (September 20 - October 4) and stopping in dozens of cities on the way
to Washington, DC and New York City; and

* labor activists organizing the December 10th Day of Action to Support Collective Bargaining
Rights.

As part of the Season of Struggle activities, the 50 Years Is Enough Network, in conjunction with
the DC Labor FilmFest, Boston Jobs with Justice, SouthWest Organizing Project, Institute for
Policy Studies/Global Economy Project, Africa Action, Haiti Reborn, Maryknoll Office for Global
Concerns, Center for Economic Justice/World Bank Bonds Boycott, Food First, Global
Exchange, Jubilee USA Network, TransAfrica Forum, American Friends Service Committee
(AFSC) Chicago, Essential Action, Global Justice, and United Students Against Sweatshops
have been working on a Global Justice Film Project. The project is designed to help build
momentum and assist activists generate the analysis that will help them make the links between
global and local struggles for justice. The concept is simple and accessible, it offers organizers
and activists an Organizing Kit with resources to assist and support them in creating a “global
justice film festival” that meets their needs and capacity. The organizing kit will include media,
educational, and action resources to facilitate discussion and analysis of the films screened and
highlighted as part of the film festival.

The vision of hope and commitment to justice is best embodied by the theme of the World
Social Forum: Another World Is Possible! In January 2003, over 100,000 of us came together
from the world over to network, to strategize, and imagine a different reality and future for people
and the planet. The people who gathered in Porto Alegre, Brazil came together from
communities in over a hundred countries, to fight back, to resist the economic and development
models that put profit before people and the planet, to bind down the monster of corporate
globalization, to overcome military power, corporate greed, to demand action and justice from
governments, corporations, multilateral institutions, and to beat back the agendas that continually
attack our humanity and dignity.

Each campaign, each mobilization, each local “teach-in,” helps build, strengthen and define the
future and nature of international peoples’ movements on a broad range of issues. We are living
and working in the most exciting and frightening times for the struggles for peace and for social
and economic justice. The 50 Years Is Enough Network persists with an uncompromising vision
of a peaceful world with social and economic justice for all. We are in solidarity and partnership
with peoples’ movements around the world. We believe that this is the time we have been
preparing for with our quiet behind-the-scenes work, and we embrace it for the opportunities
and challenges it brings. The Network joins and is part of the community of ordinary and
extra-ordinary people who with great hope and tremendous commitment continue to rally and
display tremendous talents, skills, commitment, and determination.

The crisis of legitimacy facing the IFIs along with the failure of the “free market” economic model
that they have advocated for over five decades is an opportunity, as is the exposure of
corporate welfare and crimes. The economic crises, contradictions, scandals, and failure of the
economic model provide an enormous “teachable moment” that we must continue to take
advantage of in our public education and organizing efforts. At the same time we must put
forward a vision of the “other possible world” by highlighting alternatives, success stories, and
peoples’ struggles for justice, self determination, and dignity. It is these heartening examples
that affirm our commitment, lighten our hearts, and provide the strength to keep fighting because
not only is “another world possible,” but another world is necessary.

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