By Roberto Savio and - -
BRASILIA, Jan 1 2005 (IPS)

The new geopolitics of human existence demonstrates an unprecedented capacity to fight for large collective interests and to demand solutions that are coordinated and solidary, writes Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil. In this article, Lula writes that while debts must be honored, payment must not mean the euthanasia of the debtor. The holders of the surplus of financial wealth must consider the social deficit afflicting three-quarters of humanity. This cannot be done simply by applying some automatic accounting formula. Rather, it is a matter of bringing about the transformation of social justice into the new border of sovereignty. The author calls for the reform of the hierarchy of the multilateral institutions. If poor countries are to be able to make the fight for development a priority of the global agenda, democracy must be deepened at the center of power. The reform of the UN and particularly the Security Council is part of this agenda. But the line of inequality will not shift as long as political power remains locked in place by a financial system that perpetuates current relationships: 45 percent of the decision-making of the World Bank is assigned to the seven richest countries. Five central economies hold 40 percent of the votes in the International Monetary Fund, while 23 African nations prostrated by hunger have one percent. This column is part of the series on Globalisation and Human Rights, a joint project of Dignity International and IPS Columnist Service (http://www.dignityinternational.org).

The metaphor of the century took on devastating proportions in the massive waves that swept south Asia at the end of 2004. The violent tsunami reminded us that in history as in geography isolation is impossible, and all borders are common. The new geopolitics of human existence demonstrates an unprecedented capacity to fight for large collective interests and to demand solutions that are coordinated and solidary.

It is no longer a question of opposing the inevitable overrunning of borders by globalisation with calls for autarky or isolationism but rather of reinforcing borders with a convergence of wealth and rights and reaffirming the human component of economy and progress. From this renewed perspective we should examine another area of devastation evident in the statistics of our time: a silent earthquake reverberating from the ravines of global inequality which raises again the great challenge of winning the world’s people to the project of mass cooperation in the 21st century.

Abundance and injustice were the major features of the 20th century. In the last 40 years, world GDP doubled while economic inequality between the centre and the periphery of the planet tripled. The richest 25 percent of the planet consume 80 percent of available resources, while almost two billion people live beneath the poverty line, on less than two dollars per day. The industrialised economies spend 900 billion dollars to protect their borders but dedicate less than 60 billion to poor countries, where hunger is the primary weapon of mass destruction, killing 11 children each minute, 24,000 people each day — the equivalent of one tsunami per week.

The idea of a civilisation that rains death upon its own children is terrifying. If we do not manage to stop the growth in inequality, if the millennium Development Goals are not met, it will be the greatest human defeat of this century. To conquer injustice, indifference must be conquered as well. The meeting against hunger and poverty attended by a hundred countries and dozens of heads of state at the United Nations in September 2003 is a part of this collective undertaking. The 0rganisation of the poor countries into regional blocs is another effort to channel the energy of world trade into the fight against inequality.

Above all else, it is essential to reform the hierarchy of the multilateral institutions. If poor countries are to be able to make the fight for development a priority of the global agenda, democracy must be deepened at the center of power. The reform of the United Nations and particularly the Security Council is part of this agenda. But the line of inequality will not shift as long as political power remains locked in place by a financial system that perpetuates current relationships. Forty-five percent of the decision-making of the World Bank is assigned to the seven richest countries. Five central economies hold 40 percent of the votes in the International Monetary Fund, while 23 African nations prostrated by hunger have one percent.

Solidarity with life must always overcome the mechanisms of death. Debts must be honored, but payment must not mean the euthanasia of the debtor. The holders of the surplus of financial wealth must consider the social deficit afflicting three-quarters of humanity. This cannot be done simply by applying some automatic accounting formula. Rather, it is a matter of bringing about the major renewal expected of democracy in this century: the transformation of social justice into the new border of sovereignty in the global arena.

Efficiency without values strips human rights out of the language of economics. The tragic illusion of the 1990s, with the unrestrained gamble on technology and the free movement of capital, decreed the irrelevance of the debate on development. To reverse this error, we must now affirm the appropriateness of using public funds for the rebuilding of society and solidarity and the promotion of growth. It is in many cases a matter of reviving the foundations of community life, like the right to food, childhood, and old age, which are forms of affirmative action in today’s globalised world.

The international fight against hunger and the Zero Hunger programme in Brazil are the result of this strategic conviction. The Family Scholarship programme already assures a minimum income to 60 percent of poor families. It is the largest programme of income assistance in Latin America, reaching 6,571,830 homes. The 20 million people who benefit from this programme include 15 million children who attend school as a condition for receiving the funds. By the end of 2006, the Family Scholarships will cover more than 11 million families, reaching all of Brazil’s poor and extremely poor.

The same concern guides other initiatives of my government, like the promulgation of the Statute on the Elderly, the strengthening of family agriculture, productive land reform, the broadening of microcredit, and affirmative policies that open university to poor and black youth.

The path that is needed is not the existin one, but the one we are building: we must broaden and deepen it. We live in an age of unparalleled human possibilities. None of the excuses given in the past for the failure to realise great hopes has any technological or financial justification. And wherever an obstacle emerges, dialogue can be started to restore the human condition to the course of history.

Included in this approach is the task of discussing of possible common areas between the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which is taking place at the same time. It is not a matter of asking people to stop being who they are but of establishing links between communities united by an indivisible human destiny. No one should fear having the right word or the right interlocutor. More than ever before, another world is possible, and any form of isolation and autarky will be overcome in this time in which the anxiety about justice is as strong as the power of democracy to realise it. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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