WORLD BANK'S "NEO-COLONIALIST ATTITUDES"
British aid minister Clare Short denounced officials at the World Bank for their 'neo-colonialist attitudes' after protests were made at Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa's purchase of a £15m personal jet. With justice, Short argued that every other head of state has a jet, and that Tanzania's roads are in a poor condition, and she singled out Radio 4 editor Rod Liddle who had seized upon the purchase to denounce African leaders for 'cannibalism, infanticide, genocide, ethnic cleansing and what have you'.
But Short's case would be more compelling if it was not she, a governor of the World Bank, who had suspended British aid to Tanzania after the Bank objected to a Tanzanian contract for an air traffic control system from British Aerospace. Short polarised the British cabinet, most of whom were understandably keen to sell off surplus military hardware by brokering a soft loan from Barclays Bank to help meet the £28 million price tag. But then the World Bank objected that the system was not in Tanzania's interests.
Confused? Let's run that by again. A debate between the World Bank spilled over into the British cabinet, who debated whether the British air control system was good enough, so the aid minister suspended payments to Tanzania. The debate over what is best for Tanzania has happened everywhere but Tanzania itself, though all the participants, British ministers, World Bank officials and media commentators all purport to speak on behalf of the poor Tanzanians. "Clearly the British government has placed the interests of commercial exporters before the interests of ordinary Tanzanians, " said Oxfam's Kevin Wakins. "Clare Short is entirely right to withhold aid until she can be sure it is going to be used for the health and education projects which are so desperately needed in Tanzania", said Liberal Democrat spokeswoman Jenny Tonge.
Tanzanian foreign minister, Jakaya Kikwete, objected: "We are not a department of the World Bank - we are a country and it's a bit insulting to suggest that we need to wait for the World Bank to prescribe what's best for us." But that, according to the Guardian's Mark Tran, was "bit cheeky" (20March 2002)
GLOBALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Joseph Stiglitz's new book 'Globalization and Its Discontents' reads like a mainstream expression of the anti-globalization movement, writes Alex Gourevitch. Taking aim at the IMF, Stiglitz paints a picture of an institution that has used its economic power to compromise the sovereignty of poor nations with disastrous economic consequences. He blames these policies on covert financial interests and a self-serving market ideology.
But Stiglitz has to select the facts to fit the theory. Market fundamentalism cannot explain why the US Treasury and the IMF forced steel and aluminum cartels upon Russia post-liberalization. These controls look more like mercantilism than market fundamentalism. Washington Consensus indeed.
Stiglitz also imagines dynamism where there is none. Blaming unchecked capital flows overlooks the post-war trend towards stable financial markets and declining growth rates. Risk-averse investor behavior is out of all proportion to objective economic indicators, which is why IMF structural adjustment policies only inflame investor fears-as in East Asia-rather than restore confidence.
Stiglitz also fails to place the IMF's behavior in the context of the declining legitimacy of Bretton Woods institutions post-Cold War. The IMF's new role as global disciplinarian is part of a more general rehabilitation of paternalistic relations between the West and the Rest. And Stiglitz is noticeably silent about the World Bank's self-reinvention as the (equally patronizing) good cop to the IMF's bad cop.
Predictably, Stiglitz calls for a new set of rules and better governance. He presents these views as marginal when they are in fact ascendant. But calls for regulation will only reinforce a culture of restraint and breathe new life into illegitimate institutions.
BIG BROTHER 'GONE RIGHT DOWN HILL'
Critics of the Endemol/Channel 4 docusoap have complained that the third series, won by Kate Lawler on Friday night, was a sad departure from Big Brother's previously high standard of broadcasting. Apparently the challenging and provocative reality TV of the first two series has given way to a shabby game show only interested in getting ratings and premium phone-line calls from viewers voting. In place of such searching weekly tasks as cycling to Land's End on an exercise bicycle, housemates were reduced to putting on puppet shows. Plainly this experimental television investigation has given way to a shabby and exploitative game show since its viewing figures rose to ten million, leaving its former fans feeling excluded.
FAREWELL RICHARD TAIT
Editor-in-Chief at Independent Television News (ITN) took early retirement, after a bruising year in which the company lost out on investments in a 24-hour news channel, on ITV news bulletins, and cut back 75 full-time staff. Tait, who punished the small independent magazine Living Marxism for exposing ITN's manipulation of footage of the Trnopolje transit camp with a bankrupting libel action, did manage to secure a five year contract with Channel 4 before jumping ship.
-- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'