Brown’s "Global Society" Is Unconscionable

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Brown’s "Global Society" Is Unconscionable

Reflections by Fidel Castro Headed "Peace and Prosperity"

On April 18, during his trip to the US, Gordon Brown delivered a keynote speech on foreign policy at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. The speech was billed in some quarters as an attempt to lay to rest Tony Blair’s spurious justifications for military intervention expressed in a speech in Chicago in 1999, as the big powers of NATO bombed and invaded Yugoslavia. But it could not be said that Brown turned his back on intervention, military or otherwise in Boston, quite the contrary, his speech was a demand for increased global intervention, "hard-headed internationalism" (an echo of "hard power"!) in order that Britain and the other big powers might manage the consequences of neo-liberal globalisation in the conditions of the 21st century.

At one level Brown’s speech was merely the latest in a long line delivered by British prime ministers, urging the US government to act in concert with Britain and the other big powers, rather than unilaterally, to fashion the world in the interests of the big monopolies. In this respect, the current Prime Minister said nothing new. His argument is that neo-liberal globalisation has created such global inter-dependence and global problems that the big powers, and even some emerging powers, cannot act alone but must cooperate. For Gordon Brown, global problems require global solutions, cooperation and reforms.

But although Gordon Brown is able to identify some of the problems of the modern world: poverty, environmental decay, instability, economic crisis, but for him these are merely unfortunate side effects of neo-liberal globalisation, challenges which can be met and overcome by the big powers acting in concert. Thus the unequal economic development of the big powers, the emergence of new powers in Asia, the growing global polarisation between rich and poor, the huge cross-continental flows of capital are all phenomena that can allegedly be managed, in order to "create a globalisation that is inclusive for all". The means to achieve this feat, Brown asserts, is to "agree new global rules and create new global institutions so that not some but all can benefit from change".

But the fact is that it is the global capitalist system itself and the domination of the world by the monopolies and the governments that represent them that is producing economic and environmental disasters, instability and wards and cultural devastation. It is this system and this situation which is also producing growing international opposition, a global movement and demand for an alternative. In actual fact, Gordon Brown is as subservient to the demands of the US as Tony Blair was. He is also an ideologue for Anglo-US imperialism, part of the empire that wages war with impunity and give itself the right to interfere with people's lives everywhere.

Brown specifically refers to the significance of "people power" and its ability to create a "new world order". It is in order to head off and crush such a movement and demand, to suppress the new and defend the old that Brown proposes new rules and institutions. These rules and institutions will be based on what Brown and others refer to as "shared" or "universal" values, that is on the defence the values and institutions of neo-liberal globalisation, the so-called fee market and political system of representative democracy and a narrow conception of human rights based on the preservation of the status quo. In short, Brown envisages new global institutions that will act against the world’s peoples while claiming to act in their name.

In his battle for hearts and minds Brown claims that his "shared values" of liberty and justice incorporate the philosophies of all major religions and a variety of politicians. He even quotes Gerrard Winstanley, the famous publicist of the principles of the True Levellers or Diggers, the early communist organisation formed during the English Revolution in the 17th century. Brown wishes only to mention Winstanley’s moral reference to the "light in man" perhaps not realising that Winstanley not only said that "the spirit of light in man loves freedom and hates bondage" but also argued amongst other things that "oppression was always the occasion why the spirit of freedom in the people desired change of government". The point here is that Brown is at pains to coerce and co-opt Winstanley into what the Prime Minister has referred to as liberty as a "British heritage" and is obliged to spread disinformation in order to do so.

Brown’s proposed global rules and institutions are more about strengthening and widening the powers of the UN, including is use of sanctions and military force. He proposes a new UN "crisis recovery fund" and a new global peace and reconstructions corps that can be used to rebuild "failed states", as well as a new IMF for economic crisis prevention and a new World Bank "for development and the environment". The emphasis here is on managing the consequences of globalisation, and in particular increased intervention under the guise of preventing "failed states", averting future genocide and "ensuring a global response to terrorism". He even proposes a "new cultural effort on the scale of the cultural Cold War in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s…to make the case for democracy and human rights", in order to prove that "violent extremism is unnecessary and wrong". But this is not the only idea that Brown borrows from that period, since he also calls for "a new deal as bold as the Marshall Plan" based on economic and political agreements between rich and poor countries, which would demand that the poor followed the diktat of the rich in return for aid for education and health.

For Gordon Brown "renewal and reform", despite all his fine words about embracing the future, means delving into the past to maintain the present arrangements. He seeks to stem the tide of history and manage something unmanageable, the anarchy and devastation that are the fellow traveller of global capitalism. The working class and people must reject this rhetoric which in reality attempts to embroil them in the empire-building agenda of Anglo-US imperialism. The creation of a truly global society can only be established by building the alternative and the new, creating the conditions for the world’s peoples to empower themselves and take centre stage so as to end once and for all the era of monopoly dictate.

Pope Benedict XVI outsmarted Brown, the British Prime Minister, who replaced Blair, whom I met and spoke with for a few minutes during a recess at the WTO Second Conference in Geneva 10 years ago; it was following his speech and I was expressing my disagreement on the matter of an incorrect sentence he used about the social situation of British children. Brown’s voice, positions and tone at his press conference in the presence of Bush, gave me the impression that he is self-assuming as his predecessor in the leadership of the Labour Party. The activities of the new British Prime Minister, coinciding with the Pope's visit, were just like those of a leader of the government of a banana republic.

Benedict XVI paid special attention to April 13th when, 65 years ago, over one thousand prisoners were incinerated in the town of Gardelegen; this became a day remembered in the martyrology suffered by the Jewish people in Nazi Germany, a human tragedy that lasted years.

Bush welcomed him at Andrews Air Force Base in the US, an unusual gesture. Benedict XVI, as a German bishop was a conservative who disliked changes in social policies and in the internal norms governing his Church. Initially, the US mainstream press was relentless, due to the irregularities committed contrary to the norms guiding the faithful. They even described the Roman Catholic Church as a decadent religion.

His visit also coincided with his 81st birthday. Bush, thoughtful and indulgent, sang Happy Birthday to him, right on the 16th.

The Pope was, undoubtedly, smart as he started to counterattack from the beginning of his visit. In spite of his 81 years that he would be celebrating a few hours later, he descended from the plane, barely touching the handrails of the steep steps, and by the time he reached the last treads, he was not even doing that. He is a short man who appears to weigh about half of what Bush weighs. He has a light step. He never, for one single minute, abandoned his smile and the sparkle in his eyes, and he immediately set out to follow a schedule that would have exhausted any 18-year-old visitor. Television coverage went wild.

The Pope visited universities, a Catholic cultural centre built just for the occasion; he met with representatives from hundreds of Catholic schools and universities across the huge country. The leader of the empire did not dare ask the Vatican State for "a new constitution and free elections" like he has dreamed up for Cuba.

As the leader of a Church, at a time when a war has been unleashed by the United States against the Muslims, his message was ecumenical and favourable to peace.

He met with representatives of religions whose churches hold influence over billions of people. Jewish leaders received him warmly. Of course, they idealised the capitalist system of the United States. One of the rabbis from Miami said that 90 percent of Jews in Cuba had moved to that city; he should have made it clear that it didn’t happen because we were persecuting them or because they were granted US visas, but because they opted for the right to travel legally as offered by the Revolution and, just like many Cubans from other ethnic groups, they were in search of material advantages which they had not been able to attain in colonial Cuba.

Jewish synagogues remained opened and respected here, and their representatives, together with the rest of the churches, have meetings with leaders of the Party and the Revolutionary Government, even at the highest levels.

In the United States, the Pope’s visit to a synagogue was greatly praised. It is the third time that a Pope visits those Jewish religious centres. The first time was when John Paul II visited a synagogue in Poland; then, Benedict XVI visited another in Germany; and this one, in New York City, was the first time in this country.

It is particularly important to claim for the right to life in the name of freedom of creed. Benedict XVI addressed the United Nations Organisation in his capacity as the religious leader of a powerful church deeply rooted among many peoples of the world:

" the desire for peace, the quest for justice, respect for the dignity of the person, humanitarian cooperation and assistance – express the just aspirations of the human spirit..."

" development goals, reduction of local and global inequalities, protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate, require all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law, and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet "

"Here our thoughts turn also to the way the results of scientific research and technological advances have sometimes been applied."

"[these rights] are based on the natural law inscribed on human hearts and present in different cultures and civilisations."

" the saying: Do not do to others what you would not want done to you ‘cannot in any way vary according to the different understandings that have arisen in the world’ "

"My presence at this Assembly is a sign of esteem for the United Nations, and it is intended to express the hope that the Organisation will increasingly serve as a sign of unity between States and an instrument of service to the entire human family."

When he concluded, he exclaimed in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian: "Peace and prosperity with God’s help!"

Even though it is not easy to decipher the Vatican’s thinking on the thorny issues that are being dealt with in a world where the President of the United States and his rich and developed allies have imposed a bloody war against the culture and religion of more than a billion persons in the name of the fight against terrorism, and where torture, pillage and conquest by force of hydrocarbons and raw materials reigns supreme, what the Pope stated is the antithesis of the policy of brutality and force applied by the singer of Happy Birthday.

In the next few days, the peoples of Latin America shall be on the verge of confronting two tragedies: that of Paraguay and that of Bolivia. One of them, through the elections that are being held today, on Sunday April 20, where a former Catholic bishop carries an overwhelming majority of popular support, according to serious surveys, and the rejection of electoral fraud is certain; the other, through the threat of real disintegration of its territory which shall lead to fratricidal struggles in the long-suffering country.

Today, Benedict XIV returns to Rome. The lovely, impressive hymns have ceased in the temples. Now we shall continue to hear the odious and never-ending explosions of weapons.

Fidel Castro Ruz

April 20, 2008

7:42 p.m.