> There's a line of argument in the World
> Systems school (Chase-Dunn, Wagar) that you've got to have a world
> party if you want world socialism, and that has to come via a world
> state. Sorry, the balance of forces is so dreadful that we can't even
> begin to contemplate how to democratise those embryos of the world
> state, and to the degree we succeed -- with the World Bank on gender,
> environment, transparency and community participation, for instance
> -- we simply give them more credibility to do really nasty economic
> things to us.
What about playing the EU card? Isn't South Africa's foreign debt owed mostly to EU banks of one sort or another? I can't imagine that the Swiss would play ball, at least not right away, but how about putting pressure on specific German/French banks? If the survivors of the Holocaust could lobby and win $1 billion from the Zurich gnomes, mightn't a media-savvy strategy of turning the spotlight on the creditors -- with a little insider assistance from the EU Left Governments, of course -- be one way of fighting back? What capital has done to Africa surely qualifies as a holocaust in its own right.
-- Dennis