AMATEUR HOUR IN JO'BURG
Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma has been an activist in the African National Congress since the mid-seventies, when she left South Africa to lead the party's youth wing in Britain. Dlamini Zuma might not have been the obvious choice to chair a difficult international conference, where tensions between Europe and America were cranked up by environmental activists and Third World critics. But at their meeting in Washington this July US Secretary of State Colin Powell must have been assured that since becoming South Africa's Foreign Minister Dlamini Zuma was to be trusted. By agreement Powell was to address this session of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, where the US had already been reviled as polluter-in-chief, at 11.00, twenty minutes before an address by Palestinian Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi. But if years in the ANC can teach you anything it is how to manipulate a public meeting. Imagine the scene, Colin Powell on his feet only to hear Minister Kaddoumi called to heap shame on the US record in the Middle East. The crowd was cranked up and the US Secretary of State received a barracking and slow-handclaps from the delegates, in scenes that even the United Nations General Assembly never saw.
Earlier in the week, America's more loyal European ally, Tony Blair deliberately shifted his slot to avoid a haranguing from British hate-figure Robert Mugabe, only to be ambushed by Mugabe's close friend Sam Nujoma, President of Namibia.
The worst fears of the US leadership for the Summit, that it would be a showcase for hysterical anti-Americanism, were realised. But it was equally a disaster for the European powers that had hoped to use the Summit as an alternative pole of international activity to the American demands for a coalition to overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The vociferous lobby of non-governmental organisations that follows international summits has gradually been allowed inside the tent. Hoping that these groups of aid and environmental activists could be used to widen their appeal, Western leaders have found instead that they are unstable allies, with little sense of restraint. Powell, as one of the US administration's doves will not be grateful to his European allies for the opportunity to be jeered by Tony Juniper of the Friends of the Earth. The entire exercise will only convince the US that the drama of waging war is a more agreeable way to rally her allies.
One might think, then, that the environmentalists would count themselves the winners. But that would be to misunderstand the dynamic of this movement. Environmental groups were lining up to say that the conference had been a failure before it had even started. Evidence cited was the commercialisation of the conference, but in truth, whatever happened green activists would have condemned the outcome, because this is a movement that thrives on its sense of being slighted, but right, and not on compromising with others.
-- 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'