David's World

July 5, 2005

Anarchists' riots here in Edinburgh: naive and nationalist

The windows at the supermarket that I went to the other day were barricaded. "Dark in here today," I go. "What's it like outside," asks the cashier, "how bad are the riots?"

Not much of a riot, what's going on there, I believe. Anarchists have managed to stage a little protest around the city of Edinburgh. The general public has probably never believed that vandalizing cities where G8 summits are held won't help at all. Did the poor get fed after some idiots went haywire in Geneva? Probably not.

Globalization is the reason I can lead a somewhat international life - living here and there, getting work in another country without problems. It's the single biggest reason why I speak a not-so-broken English, and why they have more and more English words are turning French into Franglais. Courri-el for e-mail, I love it.

Some of my friends say it's the reason why children in Africa die of hunger - because we abuse our market power and steal their goods. It's the reason why people in Germany are losing their jobs to newly built factories and software companies in India.

But I'm wondering what's bad about me being able to afford a bunch of nice shirts that are made in Turkey and not from Scottish wool? What's so bad about it when a factory employing hundreds of Germans is closed, as long as the Opel (Vauxhall / GM) cars they used to manufacture are now made by dedicated Polish people?

People in Bangladesh need their jobs too, and they're probably pretty happy to sew my shoes together. It's nationalist to just pity the local jobs lost. And don't tell me the entire textile industry there is only a sweatshop business, driven by exploiting young children.

The social standards we developed over the last 100 years in the western world will find their way to these countries, which can now produce things for cheap because of their low wages. Hasn't this already happened in the South-East-Asian "Tiger" states?

We're also exporting freedom. Freedom to trade is an essential right: It's my freedom to go buy things in one country and bring them home with me. Free markets come to their logical end where monopolies create an imbalance, where big trusts blackmail and pressure small traders. That's what fair trade is about.

One of the points on Tony Blair's agenda: promote economic dependencies and relationships between African countries, because they bring stability. I don't invade my neighbor if I can make good deals with him. Wars like the one in Rwanda, on the other hand, guarantee continued poverty. Corruption and dictatorship maintain the misery even in resource-rich countries. Africa needs to do its part and end bad governance, now.

We, the western world, have a responsibility to not let corrupt African military dictators take away the money that Shell pays to exploit their oil fields. I don't believe Shell has monitored responsibly where its funds go. At the same time, bad governance is why it's so important for governments to not give unconditional funding: we need to make sure that aid is sustainable. We need to drop debts only where it actually helps the poor. Any demands from protesters for unconditional aid are just naive.

It probably doesn't pay to cultivate a differentiated view of reality. But the world is a muddy pond with all sorts of fish. Truth is not black or white, and the solutions we need are like the problems: multi-faced.