People’s Parliament in a New world

By Titus Alexander

First published in the Permaculture International Journal Issue No. 60 Sept ~ Nov 1996

Whenever global power-brokers meet nowadays, worldwide grassroots movements are growing nearby.

Ever since The Other Economic Summit (TOES) in London in 1984, annual meetings of the G7*, World Bank and IMF have been shadowed by alternative summits and stunts to highlight global inequality, debt, environmental degradation and other issues neglected by the powerful. While the centre of Lyon was paralysed by 5,000 police, riot barriers and a transport strike at the G7 this year (27-29 June), hundreds of people from all over the world joined in a festival of counter-events.

Les Autres Voix de la Planete had launched six weeks of debates across France from 1 May with a declaration by 167 organisations opposed to the G7 free market agenda that dominates government policy-making. This culminated in a three day conference and a demonstration by 40,000 people through the streets of Lyon. The New Economics Foundation joined Friends of the Earth International, Ecoropa and Greenpeace in two more days of debate about alternatives to the Bretton Woods institutions.

Out on the streets the Amsterdam based international environmental youth organisation ASEED entertained the public and television viewers with a spectacle of the gang of seven whipping the bare backs of the poor. In the evening over 400 people gathered in the town's trade union centre for a 'Summit of the Seven Resistances', chaired by nobelprize winner Wole Soyinka.

Speakers described the new global realities, from homelessness in France and Latin America, to industrial accidents in India, the suppression of human rights in China and war in Russia. Madi Guene of Senegal descritlfl the plight of black people in France without papers, who have no rights to education or health care, housing or work and can be deported without trial or appeal.

Media coverage of the alternative agenda is growing. Editorials in The Guardian and Independent said it was time to end the G7 to create a more inclusive forum for international economic co-operation.

A NEW CITIZENS' MOVEMENT

The real significance of the alternative summits is not the growing recognition by the press or even the debates themselves, but the maturing of a new political movement linking citizens' groups from North and South across national boundaries. Traditional political parties are conspicuously absent, apart from European Greens, but trade unionists, women, youth and a wide range of social movements are actively involved. Disparate and sometimes disorganised, this movement has an impact. The '50 years is Enough' links 170 groups across the US with southern groups in campaigns to reform or abolish the World Bank. As a result, the World Bank has become more sensitive to environmental and social issues. It also puts more effort into consulting community organisations affected by its policies.

Work on alternative indicators, pioneered by groups like the New Economics Foundation, is now being taken up by governments and mainstream institutions (See interview with Hazel Henderson this issue). Earth Action coordinates over 1,500 grassroots campaigns on issues such as toxic wastes and climate change in 138 countries. Representatives of a coalition of Haitian groups used the occasion to build support for European aid for Haiti which is not tied to the structural adjustment conditions currently imposed by the IMF, US, and World Bank.

Participants in these alternative summits represent few people in a formal sense and have no executive power, but by sharing ideas, information and above all inspiration, they are beginning to create a new global politics. They have an impact because they speak from the heart and from experience. They are developing practical alternatives which involve millions of people and they persist, often against formidable opposition. Apart from anything else, they are often a lot more fun.

The official event concluded with a bland communique that concealed more than it revealed. There was some words about reducing 'third world' debt and concern for 'developing countries', but little action. At the end of the week President Chirac used his position as host to repeat the Summit's theme that global free markets herald a new era of economic growth, but warned that globalisation also 'carries dangers of exclusion for nations and individuals. Certain safety barriers need to be introduced'. The very theme of the shadow summits. But while Chirac merely promised to send the GTs conclusions to every excluded head of state for consultation, the counter summits called for democracy in global governance and an end to the G7.

With just 12 percent of world population and 70 percent of global GDP the G7 have a lot to lose. Britain will host the G7 in 1998. Is it too much to hope that by then John Major will be drawing his pension and a new government will involve representatives of the whole world in negotiations for a fair and sustainable global settlement?

The above is an edited version of an article by Titus Alexander who was at the 'alternative summits' in Lyons and is author of 'Unravelling Global Apartheid', Polity Press. For more information on TOES, contact: The New Economics Foundation, First floor, Vine Court, 112-116 Whitechapel Rd, London E1 lJE, United Kingdom. Tel: 1nt +44 (0)1713775696,fax: 377 5720, email: neweconomics@gn.apc.org

* (the seven leading western economic powers)