[lbo-talk] Friends of the "Third World"???

[Kevin Robert Dean]

The Institute for Liberal Values is a right wing libertarian think tank 
in NZ, but I find this interesting nonetheless...krd

Who Are The Real Friends Of The Third World?
Monday, 29 September 2003, 1:59 pm
Column: Institute for Liberal Values

Who Are The Real Friends Of The Third World?

     by Akinyi June Arunga
     Nairobi, Kenya
     Column distributed by the Institute for Liberal Values

THE TWO WOMEN seated next to me in the cab claimed to be my advocates.

But as we travelled toward the World Trade Organisation ministerial 
meeting, in Cancun, I found myself frustrated by their statements and 
doubtful that the policies they promoted could do anything to solve my 
people's poverty.

They were scholars from a Canadian university, in Cancun with a 
women's-rights group to protest the WTO. In the past, I'd felt gratitude 
toward such people, who invested time, money and energy‹even risking 
jail, by turning violent‹to fight for the poor of the world, a class to 
which most of my family and friends belong.

The more I learned about economics and world trade, though, the less I 
believed these women's rhetoric. Nonetheless, I thought that the cab 
ride would help me under-stand why these educated people would so oppose 
free trade and the economic reforms promoted by the WTO.

I asked them why they saw free trade as a threat to the poor's chances 
at wealth creation. They pointed at the huge hotels of Cancun and one of 
them said, "Look‹look at all this. I was in Cancun in the '80s and this 
place was very indigenous; now, it looks just like the United States, no 
different. I can hardly recognise it at all! Look‹there's a McDonald's, 
and a Burger King. Oh, my goodness, even Gucci! Cancun has disappeared 
under the [North American] Free Trade Agreement that they signed with 
the U.S.!"

They were disgusted, but I looked around and saw opportunity. I wished 
that we had such hotels in Kenya, where we have wonderful beaches and 
many pleasant people who would benefit enormously if the tourism 
industry flourished, as it does in Cancun. I said, "I'm sure that the 
people of Cancun are happier, since they have jobs and hence money to 
buy food, clothing and shelter. They meet people from around the world, 
and can easily sell their goods and services to these visitors."

The women snapped back that Cancun workers were paid barely liveable 
wages. Puzzled, I asked, "So you would like to visit Cancun and see more 
indigenous people in their indigenous clothes, living in their 
indigenous huts, farming in their indigenous methods, and eating only 
their indigenous food?"

To my horror, they said, "It would be better for the environment and for 
cultural diversity!"
Full Story at:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0309/S00339.htm