Ninety-Nine magazine - September 2017 by Global Justice Now

Challenging the power of the

Issue 09 - September 2017

Sick of corporate greed The fight for affordable medicine

Also in this issue The killer cost of drugs in Malaysia A new vision for aid Young people are rising up

ISSUE 09: September 2017 03 Campaign news 06 Global news 08 Billionaires and our health 10 The killer cost of drugs in Malaysia 13 Global Justice Now supporters 14 Reimagining aid 16 Art in the age of Black Power 18 Latin America’s turn on trade 19 Reviews 20 Corporate greed speaker tour

Ninety-Nine is published three times a year by Global Justice Now Global Justice Now campaigns for a world where resources are controlled by the many, not the few. We champion social movements and propose democratic alternatives to the rule of the 1%. Our activists and groups in towns and cities around the UK work in solidarity with those at the sharp end of poverty and injustice. Ninety-Nine magazine, Global Justice Now 66 Offley Road, London SW9 0LS 020 7820 4900 • offleyroad@globaljustice.org.uk • globaljustice.org.uk Editor: Jonathan Stevenson Design: Matt Bonner www.revoltdesign.org Cover image: Jacob V Joyce Printed on 100% recycled paper. Get Ninety-Nine delivered to your door three times a year when you become a member of Global Justice Now. Go to globaljustice.org.uk/join

@GlobalJusticeUK Global Justice Now

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Young people are ready for action Kahra Wayland-Larty Campaigner

The dust is settling on an explosive general election. But before we let ourselves bed back down to business as usual, let’s remember that the landscape around us has shifted dramatically. The free market narrative of ‘profit trumps all’ is crumbling. The centre ground has shifted, for the first time in years, back towards the left. Even many in the big business lobby recognise that the die-hard ‘business knows best’ approach is too much of a tough sell in a world scarred by the effects of that ideology. Another dying trope is the age-old adage that young people don’t vote. The EU referendum last year left a lot of young people demoralised. But from that spark of discontent, we fanned the flames of resistance. We took that desperation to be heard and changed the narrative. We got active on the streets, as well as on social media. This time around, more of us voted than at any point in the past 25 years, and we didn’t just vote – we organised and canvassed. We clicked and shared and made sure it wasn’t “the Sun wot won it”. We shaped new ways of campaigning. And we If we want our changed something. But really big change movements to succeed, doesn’t just come from we need young people electing one political party or another. It to feel involved, comes from below – from listened to, empowered organising and mobilising in movements – pushing and prepared. That’s politicians to carry out everybody’s job. their promises. So now we need to make sure that for those thousands of fresh-faced activists, the election was just the beginning. Party structures can be complex and daunting for young recruits. Social movements can be exclusive and inaccessible. There’s never been a more important time for groups like Global Justice Now: we have to use this moment to involve, empower and integrate young people into our work. There is a new dawn coming. It’s the next generation who’ll be there to usher it in. We need our young people to take the baton, to build on the work of generations gone by. If we want our movements to succeed and continue, we need our young people to feel involved, listened to, empowered and prepared. That’s everybody’s job, and what better time to start?

A vision for a better food system A People’s Food Policy is a ground-breaking manifesto based on the input of over 150 organisations, unions and community groups. Launched in June by Global Justice Now together with other groups from the UK food sovereignty movement, the manifesto presents a vision for a food system in England that works for people, communities and the environment. (There are already similar initiatives in Wales and Scotland.) Eschewing the corporate interests that dominate our food system, A People’s Food Policy presents a series of policies on all aspects of the food system such as land, labour, markets, health, trade

CAMPAIGN NEWS

and environment, based on the framework of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty, a movement based on the experiences of farmers from all over the world, sees food as a right and values the environment and the people who consume and produce food. It’s a radical and positive vision of what our food system could become, and is particularly relevant in the context of Brexit. The next step is to build a strong, co-ordinated movement to collectively push for a better food system from the bottom up. Read the manifesto at: www.peoplesfoodpolicy.org

Organiclea Food Sovereignty Gathering, London.

Trump visit postponed US president Donald Trump has postponed his visit to the UK, in a win for campaigners. Trump told Theresa May in June that he was postponing the visit to avoid large-scale protests. This is a great victory for the Stop Trump coalition, which Global Justice Now helped to found earlier in the year. The Stop Trump coalition was established to oppose May’s unprecedented offer of a state visit within Trump’s first month in office. We wanted to send a clear message to the prime minister that Trump’s racist, misogynistic and deeply anti-social values mean that Britain should be opposing his policies, not rolling out the red carpet to him. The coalition has held two energetic London protests and a national day of action.

For Global Justice Now, Trump represents one part of an international trend towards right-wing authoritarian politics which will make the world even less equal, sustainable and peaceful. Our aim is not simply to oppose Trump, but to undermine the deep social divisions which led to Trump’s victory. We need to build an economy and society which puts people first. Despite this win we haven’t put away our placards just yet – we’ll keep campaigning against everything Trump represents and the danger posed by his policies on climate change, on immigration, on the Middle East and on civil rights. Right: Campaigning to Stop Trump at Glastonbury in June.

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CAMPAIGN NEWS

60,000 voices against the Daily Mail Our campaign against the Daily Mail’s hate-filled, divisive reporting of migrants and refugees has been focusing on Marks & Spencer in recent months. Together, over 60,000 Global Justice Now and SumOfUs supporters have petitioned and emailed M&S boss Steve Rowe, calling on him to stop advertising with the newspaper. Meanwhile hundreds of us have sneaked ‘secret shopper’ campaign materials into M&S stores around the country. We made a splash at the M&S AGM at Wembley Stadium in July, dropping a giant banner outside the stadium and handing over the signatures along with a letter from over 70 migrant rights and anti-racist organisations. Not only did Steve Rowe directly address the campaign in his opening statement, we also got to address the full conference twice. Campaigner Kahra Wayland-Larty rebutted Steve Rowe’s defence of M&S’s advertising policy, while South East London group member Chris Brody read the campaign’s letter in full. After the meeting, Steve Rowe and chairman of the board Robert Swannell each came to speak to us one-to-one about our concerns. We found out that M&S bosses have been in contact with the Daily Mail over our campaign and conversations have been had with the paper’s editor Paul Dacre over M&S’s approach. Nevertheless, M&S has so far refused to withdraw its advertising. Watch the video of Kahra speaking inside the AGM at: globaljustice.org.uk/m&s-agm

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Outside the Marks and Spencer AGM at Wembley stadium in July.

Sainsbury’s ditches Fairtrade tea Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has sparked outrage by ditching the globally-known Fairtrade mark from its tea and replacing it with the words ‘Fairly-traded’. Sainsbury’s claims to be running its own socially responsible scheme, but at its heart the change means tea farmers will hand over control of how any extra money is spent to a UK-based Sainsbury’s Foundation. ‘This feels like colonialism’, one African producer said.

Global Justice Now has joined with the other organisations which set up the Fairtrade Foundation 25 years ago to tell Sainsbury’s: Don’t Ditch Fairtrade. Already, more than 100,000 people have supported the campaign, and people around the country have been buying and returning the new ‘Fairly-traded’ tea in protest. Sign the petition at: globaljustice.org.uk/ fairtrade-tea

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Chlorine chicken on the menu for trade with Trump After spending a couple of days in Washington in July, UK trade secretary Liam Fox was fighting off media stories about chlorine-washed chickens and it felt like the TTIP campaign again. A potential US-UK trade deal certainly gives us just as much to worry about as TTIP (the deal between the US and EU that was killed off last year). Like most modern trade deals, discussion with Trump’s administration won’t be focussed on reducing tariffs, but on deregulation. We know that big US agribusiness hates high food standards. As the price of any trade deal, they are demanding a lowering of standards to allow their food products into British markets – whether it’s chlorine chicken, hormone-pumped cows or genetically modified grain.

Protest in Parliament Square against the proposed state visit of Donald Trump.

We also know that US healthcare corporations want to open up NHS contracts, and the US is almost sure to push for a corporate court – giving big business the power to sue the British government for passing laws they don’t like. What’s particularly worrying is that all of these negotiations are happening behind closed doors. Parliament has no right to set guidelines for the negotiations, no right to scrutinise them, no right to amend final trade deals and no right to stop them. If they’re lucky, they might get a debate. This can’t be right. And it’s not just about our protections and standards – it’s about our government, backed by big business, pushing harsher patent laws on India, which would threaten access to affordable medicines. Or

doing trade deals with dictators in the Middle East. Or trying to push private healthcare in East Asia. We can’t give the British government a free hand over trade deals, because these deals make the difference between a dignified life and poverty for many people. Over the next two years we will build the biggest coalition possible to make trade democratic. We’ve already got a cross-party motion in parliament (EDM 128), which we need your MP to sign on to. And when the government introduces their trade bill, we’ll do everything we can to amend it – to ensure proper parliamentary control of trade. Ask your MP to sign EDM 128 at: globaljustice.org.uk/trade-edm

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GLOBAL NEWS MOVEMENT NEWS

On the front line against agribusiness © Umut Vedat/La Via Campesina

The closing ceremony of La Via Campesina’s international conference in Derio in July.

La Via Campesina is one of the world’s largest social movements, representing over 200 million smallscale food producers, agricultural workers and farmers from across the world. Every four years the global movement gathers together at its international conference. This year 500 representatives from 70 countries met near Bilbao, in the Basque Country, in July.

The members of La Via Campesina are on the front-line of the global struggle against agribusiness. Small food producers feed most of the world’s population, yet their livelihoods are increasingly under threat and they face escalating discrimination and criminalisation. Sessions at the conference identified the common threats faced by members in each region of the world,

such as the impacts of continued land-grabbing, worsening climate crisis and a surge in right-wing authoritarian regimes. In the face of these threats, the conference identified the importance of pushing for a UN declaration of rights for small-scale farmers. This is something the British government has opposed in the past, and we will stay engaged to change that position in future.

Ecuador rips up 16 toxic trade treaties Ecuador struck a blow against the power of big business in May, ripping up 16 trade deals. A key reason was the notorious ‘corporate court’ system, which allows foreign investors to sue governments for taking actions that the corporations believe will hit their profits. Ecuador has faced 26 such cases, and lost the majority, owing $21 billion.

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One case saw oil giant Chevron using corporate courts to try to evade responsibility for an oil project that dumped billions of gallons of toxic water into the Amazon, poisoning the land of thousands of residents. President Correa set up a commission to look into the damage done to Ecuador by trade and investment

deals. It found that such deals had undermined Ecuador’s development, preventing the state from regulating investment so that it could work in the interest of Ecuador’s people. South Africa and Indonesia are also in the process of terminating deals including corporate courts.

GLOBAL MOVEMENT GLOBAL NEWS

NEWS SHORTS Mass protests as Trump attends German G20 The G20 meeting in Hamburg in July was met with mass protests, disruption and a counterconference by activists who rejected the G20’s neoliberal agenda. The presence of hard right authoritarians including Donald Trump, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin was particularly controversial. Some of the protests turned to rioting after police violently repressed demonstrators.

Open revolt against Morocco’s repressive monarchy

Afro-Colombian communities celebrate civic strike victory A mass protest movement in Buenaventura declared victory in June after three weeks of a civic strike. The Colombian port city is a major centre for imports and exports, including natural resources destined for markets in the global north. However, the communities who live there, who are mainly Afro-Colombian, have suffered decades of neglect and structural racism. After the strike was called, the government declared a state of emergency and violently repressed the

protests, using rubber bullets and tear gas indiscriminately in neighbourhoods near the port. But after three solid weeks of mobilisations, strike organisers and government negotiators agreed a deal that included a £40 million investment in health and sanitation services. A proper investigation into human rights violations by state forces during the strike was also promised, along with a strategic plan to make Buenaventura a city for people, not just for profit.

Landless movement targets ‘corrupt elite’ in Brazil

Housing activists occupy land in Cape Town Hundreds of people have occupied a vacant piece of land in the Khayelitsha district of Cape Town and started to construct housing. The land had been earmarked for housing developments, but after a development agency had delivered nothing for over a decade, housing activists decided to take direct action. They are demanding an end to ‘spacial apartheid’ and a Right to the City for all of Cape Town’s people.

Major unrest is ongoing in Morocco. Protests started in the Rif region last October when a fisherman whose fish were confiscated by police was found crushed to death in a dumper truck. The incident was symptomatic of widespread police and state corruption and impunity. After protest leaders and bloggers were arrested, demonstrations spread around the country with political freedom and an end to militarisation now popular demands.

MST members occupy the farm of FIFA executive Ricardo Teixeira in Volta Redonda, Brazil, in July.

Around 2,000 families from Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) occupied farms owned by agribusiness barons in July, in a co-ordinated action across six states. The MST, Latin America’s biggest social movement, is best known for its successful record of occupying unused land to implement and practice inclusive, farmerled and sustainable agriculture. The latest wave of actions is targeted at the corrupt land-owning elite which played a key role in last year’s ‘constitutional coup’. The coup saw Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff impeached and replaced by Michel Temer.

One of the plantations occupied is run by the agriculture minister Blairo Maggi’s Amaggi Group. Maggi is currently under investigation for corruption. Another property, occupied by 300 MST families, is a cattle ranch owned by Ricardo Teixeira, a member of the FIFA executive committee who has been indicted for corruption in the US. The MST is demanding both a renewed programme of agrarian reform and the removal of Michel Temer from the presidency.

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PHARMACEUTICALS

Why we can’t trust billionaires with our health MORTEN THAYSEN introduces our new campaign against the corporate control of medicine Donald Trump spent his first press conference as US president-elect addressing high drug prices, even accusing the pharmaceutical industry of “getting away with murder”. Skyrocketing drug prices, a problem long championed by people like Senator Bernie Sanders, have taken centre stage in American politics as more and more people struggle to afford essential medicines. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s policies so far are only making the problem much worse, by cutting medical insurance coverage and reducing the regulation of drug firms. But though his statement about the pharmaceutical companies might not come from a real concern for struggling

patients, it’s indicative of the scale that the problem of drug prices has reached. A third of cancer patients in the US now go into debt during their treatment.

THE WORLD’S MOST PROFITABLE INDUSTRY As with food, energy and other resources, the problem is not availability, but distribution and control. The pharmaceutical industry has transformed into the world’s most profitable industry, leeching off £750 billion from the global health budget and using international intellectual property agreements to obtain 20 year patent monopolies on new drugs (usually translating into between 7-15 years of monopoly by the time the new drug makes it to market). We have to trace the lines of nationality, class, gender, sexuality and race to understand how the corporate control of health technology is affecting people in a way that particularly disadvantages those who already face discrimination. The fight to take back public control of medicines can be traced back to, for instance, the LGBT+ led ACT UP movement in the US and to HIVpositive activists in South Africa. In the late 1990s, as the first effective HIV treatments hit the market, millions of people were dying of Aids in the global south as the new medicines were priced far out of people’s reach. But led by South African activists, a global movement tackled big pharmaceutical companies head on

Illustration: Polyp, polyp.org.uk

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PHARMACEUTICALS

remain under public control, by carrying third largest funder of medical research out more public research directly and in the world (after the US and EU). by unwinding, rather than reinforcing, Corporations then take over successful research and develop it. Most drug firms intellectual property rules in medicine. Our health is too important to leave spend far more on marketing than they in the hands of greedy billionaires and do on research. profiteering That means companies. The that we’re paying We’re paying twice current system twice for our of corporate medicines – first for our medicines control costs in tax for research – first in tax for too many and then again lives and too when we buy the research and then much money, finished product and doesn’t – and that again when we buy benefit many people both here the finished product. of the people and worldwide are struggling As a result, people in who need medicines the to afford the the UK and worldwide most. It’s about medicines they time we follow need. are struggling to the lead of We can change TACKLING CORPORATE CONTROL afford the medicines activists and this. By attaching To tackle the issue of expensive campaigners conditions to they need. medicines, we have to go right to the from research we’re root of the problem. Corporate control funding with Malaysia to of health technology puts profits before our tax money, we can make sure it Argentina who are standing up to global health concerns. big pharmaceutical companies and will be affordable to people across The common counter-argument to demanding medicines for the benefit the globe. Or, even better, we can this is that the pharmaceutical firms of people, not corporate profits. change the way we fund research to fund drug research. In fact, however, make sure it remains public. This can be most early stage research is paid for by done by paying grants or prizes for the Morten Thaysen is campaigns and policy manager (corporates) at Global Justice Now. taxpayers. The UK government is the development of new medicines so they and secured better access to cheap generic medicines. Despite such historical victories, the problem of access to medicines is only getting worse as more than 10 million people die every year because they cannot afford the drugs they need, most of them in poor and middleincome countries. Even rich countries are increasingly struggling – as exemplified by the US. Here in the UK, the NHS has had to reject or ration important medicines because they’re too expensive. The increase in what the NHS pays for drugs over the last five years would be enough to cover the entire NHS deficit twice over. Increasingly, drug companies now make secret deals with health services so we can’t find out how much they’re being paid.

TAKE ACTION We’re living in a sick health system where big pharmaceutical companies are making killer profits. Meanwhile millions die because they are unable to access the medicines they need. But we can change this. Most innovative early-stage research and development into drugs is publicly funded. We need to make sure those drugs are affordable and accessible to people all over the world. Please send the enclosed Sick-Health Lottery scratchcard to your MP and ask them to demand public benefit conditions are added to all publicly funded bio-medical research and development.

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PHARMACEUTICALS

The killer cost of drugs in Malaysia Malaysians may have to sell their home just to pay for the medicines they need, thanks to Big Pharma and trade deals, writes CHARLES SANTIAGO Four years ago, Jennifer Selvaraj was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a personal struggle for me as she was my first cousin. We grew up together and, following her diagnosis, I was forced to watch her grow weak, incapacitated and finally die. Jennifer was a major contributor to her family’s income. Her aging parents depended on her. She was only 44 years old when she succumbed to her disease. We, as a family, chipped in for her treatment. But it was a financial strain nonetheless as, on top of treatment, Jennifer had to also go for surgery when her cancer spread to her spine. My cousin’s story isn’t unique in Malaysia. Pick 20 women randomly and one of them will develop breast cancer at some point in their lifetime. Around 5,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, mostly between 30 and 60 years of age. While breast cancer is the most common for women, colorectal cancer is the most common among men. The economic burden for colorectal cancer is also substantial and likely to increase over time owing to the trend of colorectal cancer incidence in the country. Here, most patients are diagnosed at a late stage, with the five-year relative survival rate

being lower than in developed Asian countries. And what doesn’t help is the fact that public awareness of the rising incidence of cancer and participation rates for screening remains low. It’s therefore not a stretch of the imagination to say that Malaysia, a nation of 37 million people, could be bracing itself for a major health crisis in the next years. Cancer is the third biggest killer in Malaysia, with 100,000 Malaysians living with it at any one time – one in four will develop cancer by the age of 75. But patients struggle with the high cost of medication, loss of income, loss of their life savings, rising cost of living, budget cuts for healthcare, weak management of the healthcare system and other commitments such as mortgage, rent and school fees. In Malaysia, a woman with breast cancer has to pay up to RM370,000 (over £70,000) for medicines, chemotherapy and surgery costs. Patients with colorectal cancer, the other most common type, have to pay up to £20,000.

COUNTING THE COST

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Two years ago I met another woman who had breast cancer. She was terminally ill. It was a poor family, where both her and her husband worked to support themselves and their two sons. Starting on chemotherapy and other treatment were her only chance at survival. But it also

L-R: Flashmob against the TransPacific Partnership Agreement ahead of Barack Obama’s visit, April 2014; Protest against free trade agreements in 2013; Rally in Kuala Lumpur, January 2016.

PHARMACEUTICALS

The Malaysian government is reluctant to take on Big Pharma for fear of being challenged in the ‘corporate courts’ that come with trade deals.

meant they would have to sell the flat they lived in, even though it was only a modest home. She made a tough choice to abandon treatment just to make sure her family had a roof over their heads. She died three months after her diagnosis. Hers isn’t an uncommon story either, as many are forced to abandon treatment due to staggering costs. A 2015 survey by the Sydney-based George Institute for Global Health showed that nearly half of Malaysian cancer patients had used up all their savings one year after their diagnosis, 39 percent couldn’t afford to pay for their medication and one in five ended up just stopping treatment altogether. These concerns also play into the lives of Hepatitis C patients in Malaysia. Hep C is a serious, life-threatening illness that attacks the liver and can result in fatty liver, cirrhotic liver and liver cancer. One

in five people carrying the virus will die of liver disease within 20 years. According to government estimates, some 500,000 Malaysians live with Hepatitis C, while the cost of medication for the disease in Malaysia can be up to RM300,000 (over £50,000) – a sum far beyond the capacity of many Malaysians. The pharmaceutical industry claims that it needs to charge such high prices in order to develop new medicines – but this is a myth. US-based company Gilead sparked outrage by introducing Hepatitis C medicine Sovaldi at $1,000 (£750) per pill. It has refused to release figures on the costs of developing the drug, but the company made £10.4 billion of net profit in 2016, and currently holds £26 billion in cash reserves. Yet it continues to charge prices that put the medicines out of reach of many, putting profits ahead of their lives.

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PHARMACEUTICALS

PATENTS VS PATIENTS

been asked to buy medicines in pharmacies. A consumption tax is levied on many medicines My colleagues and I fought the Transpacific and medical services, further hiking the already Partnership Agreement (TPP) because, through staggering prices of medicines. the US, Big Pharma had successfully strong-armed The Malaysian government replied that it smaller nations like Malaysia to agree to stricter recognises the financial and social problems intellectual property rights, faced by patients and their allowing them an easier Through the families but is reluctant to take passage to extend patents on Big Pharma for fear of being US, Big Pharma on medicines beyond the challenged in international current standard of 20 successfully arbitration tribunals through the years. Investor-State Dispute Settlement strong-armed While the TPP may have (ISDS), also known as corporate hit a brick wall in the smaller nations courts. form of Donald Trump, This is why I together with health like Malaysia to it is rearing its ugly head activists initiated a campaign again through another agree to stricter in Malaysia to tackle two areas: trade deal on this side of more access to affordable intellectual the Atlantic: the Regional medicines, and a people-centred Comprehensive Economic property rights. intellectual property system – one Partnership (RCEP), a trade that favours patients in times of deal involving 10 south-east Asian nations, China, suffering. India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Otherwise, more people will be forced to Korea. choose between treatment for terminal diseases Realising this, I raised this issue in Malaysia’s or the welfare of their family – just like the woman parliament after meeting with health groups I met. who have decided to campaign for access to Charles Santiago is an MP in Malaysia and a member of the affordable medicines as a right. Hospitals are Asia-Europe People’s Forum. Before joining parliament, he running out of medicines fast and patients have was a trade campaigner, including on access to medicines.

Below: Activists protest outside Roche Malaysia as part of a Roche Greed Kills global day of action, February 2017.

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ers rt o p p u s w o N e c ti s u J l a b Glo

Our campaigns – your say members to have We asked all Global Justice Now campaigns through your say on the direction of our e, and over 950 of our member consultation in Jun lts: you responded. Here are the resu nt objective for “What do you think is an importa Global Justice Now?” was the most To ‘challenge corporate power’ ed for. We will be popular objective members vot in our campaigns. strongly embedding this focus understand?” “How easy is this campaign to (Average out of 5)

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ration campaigns were Our pharmaceuticals and mig , with Brexit and trade voted the easiest to understand on making the trade the hardest. We’ll be focussing xit plainer, which is an campaign and our work on Bre our network. important part of broadening

Youth membership join Global Justice If you’re under 26, you can now per year (or £1 per Now at a reduced rate of £12 eting approved month). Our annual general me is to try and ensure the new rate in June. The idea ership for people there are no obstacles to memb youth net work. Our get ting involved with our new mbers of the youth council also co- opted two me council’s term of net work for the remainder of the er 26 who might office. If you know someone und like to join, direct them to:

mbership globaljustice.org.uk/youth-me

campaign?” “How much do you support this hear that our We were really encouraged to our campaigns. members strongly support all of ceuticals, “As a One member said about pharma us prices demanded retired GP I know of the ridiculo re were also lots for drugs under patent rules.” The the individual of useful comments on each of passed on to the campaigns – these have been relevant staff. prioritise?” “Which campaigns should we paigns came out While the climate and trade cam gested we prioritise top, our local groups strongly sug in focus in 2018, trade. Trade is likely to be our ma g out the climate but we will look at ways to brin As one member said, implications through this work. lity and human “Trade relates to poverty, inequa perpetrated by rights, with terrible things being corporations.” Membership

you did not define Finally, a significant number of though it was a yourselves as ‘members’, even doing more to make members survey. So, we will be er. sure everyone feels like a memb

ers and group A big thank you to all our memb have a say on the members for taking the time to future of Global Justice Now.

Election 2018? atic organisation, Global Justice Now is a democr ate say over what with members having the ultim ers elect a council, we do. Every three years, memb and direction of the which has oversight of the staff n year. If you’re a organisation – and 2018 is electio for council – we member you’re eligible to stand minority ethnic particularly encourage black and er-represented on members, who are currently und takes place in the council, to stand. The election ing out more, get spring. If you are interested in find 020 7820 4900 or: in touch with Steven Thomson on

rg.uk Steven.Thomson@globaljustice.o

AID

We need to talk about the aid budget After a year of scandal, it’s time to re-imagine aid as a form of global wealth redistribution, like tax, argues AISHA DODWELL Barely a week goes by without the UK’s aid spending finding itself at the centre of a controversial story splashed across the pages of the right-wing press. The Daily Mail leads the pack, commonly referring to the UK’s aid spending ‘madness’ and running sensational stories of taxpayers’ money being ‘squandered overseas’ with demands that the money be spent in the UK instead. This zealous anti-aid rhetoric is one side of a heavily polarised debate on international aid. While these media outlets, backed up by UKIP politicians, call for an end to the aid programme altogether, on the other side, development charities and mainstream

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politicians churn out messages celebrating the supposed marvels aid can achieve, and passionately defend the commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on aid. It is the absence of any serious critical dialogue on aid that has allowed the public debate to become dumbed down to being either for aid or against it. The truth is far more complex. While we do need to defend the principle of aid, we also can’t pretend that it is beyond criticism in practice. There are massive problems with UK aid spending, with money being invested in luxury shopping malls in Kenya, for example, or profit-making private consultants securing

XXX AID

lucrative multi-million pound contracts to implement projects of questionable benefit to poverty reduction. Such stories understandably leave a bitter taste at a time when the austerity agenda has severely strained the UK’s public services. But the answer is not for the UK to turn its back on the world and end its aid programme. Instead it needs to be overhauled so that it not only meets its primary purpose of alleviating poverty, but also goes further and strives to reduce inequality. This can only happen once aid spending is re-focused on principles of social justice and the need to redistribute economic and political power. This is the premise of our new report, Re-imagining UK aid: What a progressive strategy could look like. The current aid programme is too focused on promoting ‘free market’ models of development. As a result, it looks to big business to provide solutions to the world’s problems. At the same time, aid spending is increasingly justified in terms of the UK’s national interest. We hear all too often from international development secretary Priti Patel how aid should play a key part in securing trading partners and opening new African markets for British businesses. This is the wrong approach. Spending aid this way might be good for big business, but it denies southern countries the ability to regulate investment in a way which could really allow them to build a more equal society. We urgently need a new strategy for our aid spending, and that must start with re-conceptualising aid. We need to start seeing it as a form of global wealth redistribution – more like a tax – that can help tackle the root causes of inequality and challenge the precariousness of people’s lives. Of course, aid cannot solve all the world’s problems or rectify historical injustices. But it can play an important role. It can help strengthen democratic public services, or promote alternative economic models that deliver for the majority of people. The focus cannot be purely on short-term results that can be measured by accountants, but instead on challenging the structures that keep people impoverished and disempowered in the first place, and achieving change that builds democracy from the bottom up. As our report finds, this is not a utopian dream. There are already numerous aid-funded programmes across the world that can be learned from.

Priti Patel speaks at a World Bank event on catalysing private fi nance.

In water provision, for example, successful publicpublic partnership schemes have increased water supplies in developing countries. Other lessons can be drawn from the DFID-backed programme in Nepal that funded civil society groups and local government programmes to bring about more inclusive political processes, and many more projects from across the globe. If we fail to transform our aid spending it will become an ever more despised segment of the government’s budget, rather than something to be proud of. Anyone who thinks aid can play a positive role in social change needs to urgently get involved in rethinking what it looks like. Aisha Dodwell is campaigns and policy manager at Global Justice Now. A version of this article fi rst appeared on politics.co.uk

Download the full Re-imagining UK aid report at globaljustice. org.uk/reimagining-aid

Left: Sureya Bagum dries seeds at the seed centre in Babupur, Bangladesh, where farmers save and exchange local varieties.

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Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power As Charlottesville reminds us, the struggle for Black liberation is more urgent than ever. KAHRA WAYLAND-LARTY takes inspiration from an earlier period.

As a woman of Black heritage, it’s not often I see myself, my history and my experience of the world reflected in art. Black and brown skin is seldom front and centre in pop culture or art, and very rarely is Black history depicted through the eyes of Black people in artistic institutions. Tate Modern’s Soul of a Nation is as much a vital panacea as a sad reminder of this persistent state of affairs. Twelve rooms featuring primarily Black artists depict social, cultural and artistic movements over 30 years of the struggle for Black liberation in America. It’s an enriching, enlightening and empowering exhibition, but also a sharp reminder of how Black history, and the art, culture and sentiment that comes with it, is so often boxed off, sidelined and sub-categorised. “No other field is as closed to those who are not white and male as is the visual arts,” says Elizabeth Catlett, whose ‘Black Unity’ sculpture shows the clenched fist of Black power on one side, with two Black women’s faces on the other. “The first thing I had to believe was that I, a black woman, could penetrate the art scene, and that, further, I could do so without sacrificing one iota of my blackness or my femaleness or my humanity.” The name of the exhibition rings true: the pillars upon which a society is built – the soul of a nation – are made up of the actions and experiences of every person in that nation’s story. Here, as much as in the USA – nations built on the importation and exploitation of black bodies – Black history is not a sub-category, Black art is not a subculture, and the Black struggle is not a side plot. Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power is at Tate Modern in London until 22 October.

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1. Barkley L. Hendricks, Icon for My Man Superman (Superman Never Saved any Black People – Bobby Seale), 1969. Oil, acrylic and aluminium leaf on linen canvas, 1511 x 1219 mm. Collection of Liz and Eric Lefkofsky. 2. Andy Warhol, Muhammad Ali, 1978. Synthetic polymer and silkscreen inks on canvas, 1016 x 1016 mm. Private collection.

3. Elizabeth Catlett, Black Unity, 1968. Mahogony wood. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. 4. Wadsworth Jarrell, Revolutionary, 1972. Screenprint on paper, 864 x 673 mm. Courtesy Lusenhop Fine Art 5. Roy DeCarava, Couple Walking, 1979. Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, 356 x 279 mm. 6. Faith Ringgold, America People Series #20: Die, 1967. Oil on canvas, 1828 x 3657 mm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase; and gift of the Modern Women’s Fund. 7. Lorraine O’Grady, Art Is (Girlfriends Times Two), 983/2009. Photograph, C-print. Courtesy of the artist and Alexander Gray Associates, New York.

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TRADE

Is Latin America turning back to free trade? As Argentina prepares to host the WTO, LUCIANA GHIOTTO says recent gains are under threat from a new set of neoliberal governments During the past decade, Latin America has been defined by, broadly speaking, two types of government. On the one hand are those governments that attempted to create a new type of regional integration, and which rejected the idea that developing the ‘free market’ – helping big business – should be their core objective. Fortunately for these governments, the high price of commodities, such as oil, allowed them to fund a different type of politics. Although there were many contradictions and inconsistencies, these governments did massively reduce poverty and inequality. These governments, such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia, formed a regional system called the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (known as ALBA in Spanish). They strongly criticised the corrupt trade system, most especially the ‘corporate courts’ that are at the heart of so many trade and investment deals today. In Ecuador, President Correa established a groundbreaking commission to examine investment treaties. The results of these audit commissions meant Ecuador

Take Back Our Luciana speaking at Globa l Justice Now’s conference in 2015.

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World

was able to cancel 16 deals earlier this year, freeing the country from the rule of the corporate courts. On the other hand, Latin America is also home to a set of countries that persisted with the neoliberal agenda, signing trade agreements with the EU, US and Asian countries. Countries such as Mexico and Chile have pioneered deregulation, with some disastrous effects for their people. After agriculture was deregulated under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico started to import corn from the US, despite being a country where, for hundreds of years, indigenous communities have created dozens of corn varieties and maintained food security for these communities. Over the last two years, with the arrival of new right wing governments in Argentina and Brazil – two countries that had previously tended to align with ALBA – we are witnessing the return of the free trade ideology across most of the region. The Argentinian government in particular, which swung to the right with the election of Mauricio Macri in 2015, is desperate to show that the country offers ‘legal certainty’ for foreign investors. He has committed Argentina to hosting two of the major world forums: the WTO ministerial meeting this December, and the G20 summit in 2018. These events pose a big challenge for organisations here. First, because there is a need to translate the ongoing international trade debates into simple language so we can explain the effects of liberalisation on everyday life. Second, because there is a need to discuss what an alternative could look like that really benefits the people of Latin America. Our People’s Summit in December will not just oppose the WTO’s presence in Buenos Aires but also debate alternatives which can re-energise and reorient the work done in ALBA, and devise an economic system that works for people and planet. Luciana Ghiotto from ATTAC Argentina was a member of the Ecuador trade audit commission.

REVIEWS

Reviews NO IS NOT ENOUGH: DEFEATING THE NEW SHOCK POLITICS Naomi Klein Penguin, 2017 This is Naomi Klein’s rough guide to the US president for activists, written during the infancy of the Trump administration. The president plays politics using the rules of branding, she argues; we must find ways to burst his brand bubble. His collusion with the fossil fuel lobby is blatant, as is his attack on climate protections – campaigners must challenge the extreme capitalism central to Trump’s administration. Her biggest warning focuses on the ‘shock doctrine’ this president will use: conflict and catastrophe are a disaster capitalist’s life-blood. Trump will use shock events to push through ferocious neoliberal policies: we must be ready. Above all, Klein argues, defensive tactics are not enough. We need something to say ‘yes’ to. Small tweaks to business-as-usual politics won’t ignite a popular movement. Resistance must be broad, diverse and, where possible, led from the margins. At its heart must be a radical vision, offering a tangibly better life for those feeling the worst impacts of this neoliberal era. Jane Herbstritt

THREADS FROM THE REFUGEE CRISIS Kate Evans Verso, 2017 Over the course of 2015 and 2016, many hundreds of people responded to the humanitarian refugee crisis in Calais by going there to volunteer. Kate Evans was one of them. Ever since groundbreaking works such as Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis started to be published around 15 years ago, the graphic novel format has become a popular way of writing about serious issues. Here, Evans is the protagonist, with her journey providing a relatable way into the camp for the reader. Through her eyes we see demonised migrants humanised.

The situation for the people in the camps is desperate, but this isn’t a book of unremitting misery. There’s humour, friendship and small acts of kindness. There’s also violence, from both police and vigilantes, egged on by politicians and hatred from social media. Threads is an engaging and poignant book, a great example of what ‘comics journalism’ can add to understanding the dynamics of injustice. James O’Nions

THE PRODUCTION OF MONEY: HOW TO BREAK THE POWER OF BANKERS Ann Pettifor Verso, 2017 Ten years since the financial crisis, almost nothing has changed. Worse, it feels like yesterday’s problem after Trump and Brexit. Yet as Ann Pettifor argues in this short but wide-ranging book, democratising finance is essential for halting the authoritarian nationalist turn, not to mention dealing with climate change. This is not, she argues, an era of ‘no money’. Both private banks and central banks can ‘produce’ money without raising it all from savers or taxpayers – over $200 billion is still created globally every month through quantitative easing, though it just inflates the assets of the already-wealthy. Governments

could turn off this tap, which gives the people leverage over the banks – if only we knew how to use it. There’s plenty here for the seasoned post-crash reader, including a chapter dealing with the NGO Positive Money’s flawed proposals. But her central point – that we will not break the bankers’ power until many more of us understand how money works – is a challenge to everyone. Jonathan Stevenson

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