Martin Khor
Civil Society + Government Can = Global Justice

By Kalinga Seneviratne

Martin Khor, the Director of the Malaysia-based Third World Network has been actively engaged in the international civil society movement for more than a decade. He has attended both the World Social Forum (WSF) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos in 1999 and 2000. In the latter instance even taking part in one of the panel discussions there. He argues that civil society needs to work closely with governments in the South to make the necessary changes to the world economic system which would favour the weak over the strong. He spoke to TerraViva in Porto Alegre this year.

You have attended both the WSF and the WEF in Davos in previous years. How do you compare the two?

Davos provides a forum for the elites to discuss a whole range of things. It is an interesting gathering to attend, to observe and to take part in. The participation there is by invitation only and there are about 2000 people attending. Of course the paradigm there is within the existing national and international order. The presumptions are that the present system is predominantly okay although there are things here and there that needs to be modified.

In Porto Alegre, in terms of substance, the same burning social, political and economic issues of the day are discussed. But the paradigm is different. It does not assume that the existing order is inevitable and is positively good. It questions everything and it does try to provide alternatives.

When you were at Davos as a 'Third World' NGO representative, did you get an opportunity to talk to influential people and to be heard?

In 2000 I was invited to speak on a panel on the WTO which included high profile speakers from government and business in Europe and Africa. In that sense I was able to get my voice heard. But, here in Porto Alegre the intellectual level (of discussions) and planning is much more diverse than in Davos.

Some say the WSF is a regrouping of the left without the old communist party baggage and symbols such as the hammer and sickle, Lenin and Karl Marx. Do you see it that way?

I don't think so. It depends on how you define the left. If you define the left as the old traditional communist party and the communist ideology, I don't see much present here. Of course there will be people who belong to leftist parties. The Workers Party in Brazil is labelled a leftist party.

What we see here is a diversity of views of all kinds. Like people who are interested in the environment and feel that the present economic system damages the environment and therefore you must change the way the economy is behaving and the way people are behaving. I don't think that kind of view is of the traditional left.

We do see here a lot of people who are disillusioned with the way the free-market system operates, and they are asking, not for the old socialist kind of system where the state commands the whole economy, but the government to play their proper political role of regulating the market, so that the market can be used for social good.

That this regulation be done both at the national and international level. Issues that include accountability at the corporate level so that we don't have a repeat of Enron and Bhopal. Regulation of financial markets so that you don't have a repeat of Argentina or the East Asian financial crisis. Also reforms of the IMF and WTO so that these organisations serve not just the interests of the rich countries, but are fair to the developing countries and poor communities.

Here at the WSF we have a critique of all these issues, but we are also into alternatives. This is the essence of the WSF movement. I would say that this whole range of very creative and innovative thinking combined with action cannot be labelled as something to do with the left.

NGOs are very often presented by the media as in opposition to government, especially in countries of the South. But, Third World Network has worked very closely with some governments of the South. So how do you see your role as an NGO with respect to governments in the South?

If a government has been democratically elected, I would consider they have their own role to play as elected representatives to formulate policy. On the other hand, NGOs being the voices and representatives of civil society have every legitimate right to input into government. To tell the government that we have a position and you need to take into account our position, we are formulating here our views and our proposals and we would like you to consider them seriously, just as governments listen to companies and take their views into account.

Do you think the civil society is making much progress in influencing the way the world is run? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?

I think compared to 10 or 15 years ago, there is tremendous progress in the impact civil society is making. Fifteen years ago most NGOs were working at the local level and some at the national level, very few, particularly from developing countries, were active at the international level. This has changed because we in the NGO community have realised that many decisions are now taken at the international level rather than by our national governments at the national level.

Decisions are made by the IMF, or by the commodity markets or by the financial markets or the WTO. Some of these organisations, our own governments are members of, but, they have been unable to play any effective role either by the way the constitution is structured, for example in the IMF, or the way decisions are made at the WTO, a process which is still skewed or manipulated by the big powers.

So NGOs in the South have decided to allocate some of their resources and manpower to following these international activities and making our views known, both to our governments and civil society worldwide. Civil society is well organised and we are able to cooperate with each other, both in the South and in the North, and secondly, our views are making an impact simply because the old orthodox policies are not working.

Movements like the WSF are sometimes described as anti-globalisation movements, but what you have been talking about is globalisation of the NGO movement. So what would you call this movement?

The label anti-globalisation was created by the media. I think most groups don't see themselves as anti-globalisation. We are not against international cooperation. In fact, we are championing international cooperation. We are not against countries trading with each other or helping each other in terms of financial flows. What we are against is a particular kind of international economic relations where the strong countries and big companies dominate, and create rules to perpetuate their domination.

So many of us are calling ourselves the movement for global justice. That is a new global relationship between countries that promote the weak rather than the strong, and that favour local communities whether they are farmers, consumers or workers, rather than that favour the narrow commercial interests of a few corporations and banks, which are now ruining the world.