Progressive Governance Summit

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Progressive Governance Summit

"Progressives Have to Put the People First"

The Progressive Governance Summit took place in South Africa on the weekend of February 11-12, 2006. According to the agenda released by the South African government, the summit was structured around two main themes: "Development and Africa – what progressives should do following the New York summit", and "Policy Challenges of the 21st Century" relating to the global economy, security and building "cohesive" or "inclusive" societies. The Summit had previously been trailed as having a third main theme: Political strategy – elections and new challenges from the new right and traditional left.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who participated in the Summit, called for a meeting between the G8 and the Group of Twenty (G-20), made up of underdeveloped countries, during the Summit. The Brazilian president's proposal to hold those talks at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, in late January had not been realised, and he refused to attend that event for the first time in his three-year mandate.

The Summit meeting itself was preceded by a small high-level round table discussion, bringing together heads of state and government attending the Summit with other politicians of the trend of "progressive governance" currently in opposition as well as a number of other international figures. Themes of "What progressives can do to ensure the success of global trade negotiations" and "Development" were discussed.

In preparation for the Summit and Dialogue, an Africa Regional Conference had been held in Johannesburg in July 2005. The theme of the July 2005 conference was: "Putting the people first: Towards a common progressive agenda", and its key themes were: "What progressives can do to ensure the success of WTO negotiations" and "What is happening to the centre-left across the World, and how to respond".

Attending the Summit were the leaders of Brazil, Britain, Ethiopia, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea (south Korea), Sweden and South Africa.

Since 1999, when the Network for Progressive Governance was set up, meetings have been held once a year. Membership of the network is by invitation only, and changes from time to time as government leadership changes. Its orientation has been aimed at "finding ways to make globalisation into a more stable and inclusive process and to further international co-operation", in the words of the United Nations Development Programme. But the balance of participants has changed considerably since the Berlin conference in 2000, or even the London conference of 2004 in which the Anglo-US optimism that "globalisation" would sweep the world had evaporated and the agenda of the "war on terror" had shattered illusions. New social actors such as Mbeki and Lula have come to the fore. Nevertheless, it can be seen from the contributions of Tony Blair that the aim of bringing the continents of Africa and Latin America within the orbit of neo-liberal globalisation and attempting to isolate those leaders who take a stand against Anglo-US hegemony has not been abandoned. In this sense, the Summit for Tony Blair represented an exercise in the doctrine of pre-emption by any means. For the Prime Minister, the goal of imposing the G8 "Plan for Africa", structuring a "centre-left" network against radicalism, and pushing for the values of "good governance", the "rule of law" and the "war on terrorism" is never very far away. In this respect, the attempt is to drive a wedge between leaders such as Lula and Thabo Mbeki and the leaders of countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, so that instead of the unity of developing countries of the G77, the dictate of the values of "progressive governance" is applied and the right of all peoples to choose their own path of social development is negated. These attempts must be condemned.

Brazilian President Lula, in respect of the developing nations opposing a unipolar world under US hegemony and the US and the EU setting the course of globalisation, said, "Failure of the Doha round would seriously impact the multilateral system of doing things and would undermine the reform of institutions like the United Nations ... because this would mean the minority and less influential, mostly poor, or developing, countries always get nothing." Lula had preceded attending the Summit with a four-nation tour of Africa. Commentators have placed this visit within the context of opposing "Western" and European domination.

Tony Blair, for his part, said that it was too early to finalise any plan for a summit of "Western" nations to push for a new global trade framework before an end-of April deadline. At the end of the Summit he said, "It is a shared perspective that we have reached a critical stage in world trade talks." According to Blair, "2006 is the year when the world decides whether it is going to be ambitious on world trade, which has huge implications for action on world poverty." He added that "there are sensitivities and there are issues we've got to discuss with other partners before we can come to a conclusion".

The path to progress and eradicating world poverty lies in ending the unjust and exploitative relations between the big powers and the developing countries, and recognising and acting on the principle that all countries have the sovereign right to determine their own path of social development, co-exist peacefully and conduct their trade on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. But while Blair’s reported contributions at the South Africa Summit may have been cautious, Britain’s actions and Blair’s statements elsewhere have shown that the British government, far from declaring a break with colonialism and neo-colonialism and putting an end to such relations, is more than ever determined to impose an official ideology on the world, and punish those that step out of line. The suspension of aid to Ethiopia is one recent example of just how fragile is Britain’s "friendship" with the African and Latin American nations.

The working class and people must aim their fire at Anglo-US imperialism, as well as at the European Union, and other big powers, and must demand that Britain end all its attempts at international coercion and attempting to justify the unjustifiable under the signboard of "progressive governance", which includes the attempts to outlaw communism and use the issue of "human rights" to violate countries’ sovereignty. The path to justice lies not in the big powers justifying how the benefits of "globalisation" must be "realised", but in upholding the sovereignty of all nations and building opposition and resistance to the imposition of reaction, war, annexation and the plundering of human and material resources of the world’s people. WDIE calls on the British working class and people to condemn the British government for its arrogant stands and to demand that it respects the rights of all countries and nations. We call on the British working class and people to intensify their struggles to bring into being a government which puts the rights of the people at the centre.

Speech of Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, at the Progressive Governance, Africa Conference, Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, 28 – 29 July, 2005

In welcoming all to the conference, the president noted that he was pleased that the progressive governance group chose to gather in Africa for the first time.  The global South faced many questions, including what defined the progressive agenda.  The progressive movement came to the African continent as it strove to address a number of issues.  One of this was the issue of peace and stability.  There was a lot of work going on in this area, because it was seen as a prerequisite for development.  Peace was critical because it was people who died in conflict.  In his view, conflict had to be ended in order to save the lives of people.  The issue was not only about peacekeeping, but structuring the tensions that exist in African societies, which was difficult.  This also included the struggle to establish stable democracies with the respect for human rights.  In his view, that had to be part of a progressive agenda.

South Africans were celebrating the freedom charter which said – the people shall govern.  The president noted the capacity of the people to govern had to be an important part of the progressive agenda in Africa.  The challenge of the reconstruction of African economies also needed to be included in the agenda – the promotion of equitable societies and the creation of a better life for all the people of Africa.

He asked what had to be done to achieve these objectives.

In his view, the progressive conference had to focus on these challenging issues.  As a result of all these interrelated interventions of the progressive movement the focus had to be on the matter of social cohesion.  He said he believed therefore the theme of the conference was correct: the agenda had to put the people first, in all areas, whether political rights, peace, culture, etc.

Mr Mbeki quoted a revolutionary poet who died at the hands of the Guatemalan junta in 1967, who said in a poem entitled apolitical intellectuals –
One day the apolitical intellectuals of my country will be interrogated by the simplest of our people. They will be asked what they did when the nation died slowly, small and alone. No one will ask them about their address, their long siestas after lunch…No one will care about their higher financial learning. They won't be questioned on Greek Mythology. They will be asked nothing about their absurd justifications, born in the shadow of their total lie. On that day the simple man will come. Those who had no place in the books and poems of the apolitical intellectuals, but daily delivered their bread and milk, their tortillas and eggs, those who drove their cars, who cared for their dogs and gardens and worked for them  and they'll ask, what did you do when the poor suffered, when tenderness and life burned out of them. Apolitical intellectuals of my sweet country, you will not be able to answer. A vulture of silence will eat your gut, your misery will pick at your soul, and you would be mute in your shame.

In his view this constituted a challenge to the conference.  Progressives did not have to be condemned to the "vulture of silence" because they refused to answer the important question of what constituted the progressive agenda of the African continent.  The president quoted Peter Anyan ‘Nyong ‘o who argued that Africa made a false start with development – a rollercoaster from one development model to another.  One of the starting points for progressives was that neo-liberal economics – the Washington consensus – drove the world (namely dependence on the free market to solve economic problems, and the notion of the minimalist state).   In his view, although progressives had to accept that as the dominant paradigm, they could not agree with its propositions.  Therefore, what was the alternative progressive development paradigm?  The answer to this question was urgent: for example, the Cotonou agreement and related economic partnership agreements were based precisely on the Washington Consensus, namely the leading role of capital, a minimal role of the state, and the creation of space for capital.  In the context of Africa, negotiating the Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU was underlined by these assumptions.  He asked whether African economies could be reconstructed based on the policies of the neo-liberal paradigm.  The president noted that one of his colleagues told him of the pressures they faced from the world:  the demand to privatise the telecommunications company in his country.  He said no because the government needed to extend the ICT infrastructure into the rural areas, something a privatised company would not do.  This refusal has created problems, including no access to foreign bank financing.  The construct that we had to rely on the free market to solve our socio-eco problems was problematic, and that the neo-liberal paradigm was not able to solve the problems of Africa.

The president again asked what defined the progressive development agenda.  He noted that some time ago he was surprised to discover there was poverty in Switzerland.  In Geneva, there were soup kitchens for citizens.  Switzerland could say that it subscribed for many years to the neo-liberal paradigm. But, there was income inequality in Switzerland, and if that paradigm could produce such results in a developed country, what could Africa expect?  It should be obvious to progressives that Africa’s development was going to require large resource transfers from the rich to the poor.  He noted that South Africa was trying to achieve that.  He pointed out that it had two societies – wealthy (as in Sandton) and dire poverty (as in Alexandra).  He argued that the development of the poor parts of South Africa required large transfers from the rich to the poor, and that the progressive movement had little choice but to take this position.  He noted that it might be difficult to find a way to do so without destroying the rich part, but he saw little choice.  He noted that a government delegation went to Brussels to say to the European Commission that the EU has taken precisely the same position with regards to itself – large resource transfers from the rich to the poor parts of the EU.  The EU said one needed a conscious decision to effect the transfer and not rely on market forces, and the president said he was taking a similar position.

For the president, the discussion of global poverty and fighting underdevelopment had to draw on this reality.  The developed world had to make a serious contribution to this transfer.  The development of Africa and the defeat of poverty meant talking about capital.  In his view there was a need to generate and mobilise domestic capital in Africa and he pointed out that a public sector pension funds investigation found that they managed $130 bn. – with the absurd situation that some of the money was invested abroad, because Africa could absorb such investments.  There had to be an additional capital transfer from elsewhere to bring about change – the market cannot do that.  In his view Malawi could not rely on the market to bring about such transfers.  The state had to intervene in order to assist people in meeting these challenges.  Given the dominance of the neo-liberal paradigm, he believed it might be very difficult to agree to this.  Even Soros has complained about "market fundamentalism" and the president said he suspected that has had an impact on progressives, "so the right thing to do becomes, how do we place ourselves in the market?"   It was clear to him that in Africa, continuing poverty will continue in the scramble for scarce resources that caused much of the conflict today (e.g. Ivory Coast – falling cocoa prices contributed to xenophobia).  It will also result in social stratification with elites at the top, which is not what the progressive agenda wanted.  He argued that structures of inequality would result in a minority monopoly with access to resources and would result in repression and conflict.  Instability made development impossible.  A progressive agenda must not allow progressives to become market fundamentalists.  He asked what could replace the latter.  For him, progressive change required a progressive movement.  He reflected on whether a progressive movement existed on the African continent, and whether it was able to elaborate such an agenda and mobilise for success.

He also asked whether it existed globally, where the need was to change the global paradigm, to change the poverty in Switzerland as it changed poverty in Africa.  With globalisation of the markets, he asked whether a progressive response was possible.  It would be difficult for individual countries to pursue a progressive agenda when the rest of the world was going in another direction.  He referred to Marx who saw it would not be possible for workers to mobilise separately but had to unite.  In the president’s view, to achieve that power balance, to depart from the dominant paradigm, progressives had to put the people first, throughout the world.