Globalisation and Trade: Interview

firstperson
John Samuel
The alternate globe

WTO is offering no level playing field. Unequal economies are being forced to compete under a system in which the United States, European Union and Japan are primarily calling the shots.

By Muhammad Badar Alam
John Samuel is Bangkok-based international director of Actionaid International, an organisation working on development and human rights issues in more than 45 countries. He leads the organisation's work on the issues of governance and democracy, besides running its affairs in the Asia-Pacific region. He brings to Actionaid a vast experience spanning more than twenty years in the fields like social mobilisation, human rights and social justice advocacy, public policy research and institution building.
Before taking up his current assignment, John played a major role in setting up National Centre for Advocacy Studies in India and served as its chief executive till 2003. He is also the founder and co-editor of internet-based Infochange News and Features, one of the most frequented websites in South Asia.
John, also an adviser to the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals Campaign and a member of the civil society advisory board of the Commonwealth Foundation, served a stint as a member of Planning Commission of India's working group on governance. He is one of the co-founders and co-chairperson of Global Call to Action Against Poverty, a conglomerate of 15,000 organisations from across the world.
John, who has a multi-disciplinary academic background, has been a fellow at Washington-based the Advocacy Institute and a visiting fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.


He talked to The News on Sunday last month on the sidelines of World Trade Organization's biennial ministerial conference in Hong Kong. Excerpts of his interview follow:

The News on Sunday: If you believe WTO (World Trade Organization) is not good for people in the developing and least developed countries, then what do you think can be an alternative?

John Samuel: WTO in its present form and mode needs to be challenged. Of course the world needs a multilateral trading system to ensure just and fair trade but the rules of the game in the present WTO negotiations -- Agreement on Agriculture, General Agreement on Trade in Services, Non-Agriculture Market Access, Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights -- are all being manipulated to suit the needs of the rich countries. Though WTO is supposed to be based on a one-nation-one-vote system, in practice poor countries are being pushed to open their markets and eliminate their subsidies while the rich countries have kept their markets protected. They still provide annual subsidies worth $ 300 billion to the exporters of their agriculture produce.
So, the crux of the matter lies in the fact the WTO is offering no level playing field. Unequal economies are being forced to compete under a system in which the United States, European Union and Japan are primarily calling the shots. The only counterweight to these powerful countries available under the current WTO negotiation process is a group of around 20 developing countries called G-20 which is led by advanced developing countries like India and Brazil. Even this group does not adequately address the issues facing the least developed countries.
We are not talking about creating alternatives to WTO per se. We are rather seeking an alternative to the current WTO process. If WTO needs to survive, the present unjust rules and practices need to be redefined in a manner that enables the poor countries to nurture their agriculture and industry. What is needed is a much more just and fair trade than now to alleviate poverty and induce the respect and observance of human rights.


TNS: But such revolutions as you are talking about seem no longer possible. Even if they are, don't you think that the opposition to WTO ends up supporting the national industry and business of individual countries?


JS: I don't think that revolutions are no longer possible. Only the character and nature of the revolution has changed. The information and communication revolution that swept the world in 1990s, has changed the rules of the game. Today millions of people across the world get mobilised through the internet. It is one step forward in the direction of a revolution when, courtesy the internet-induced change, thousands of poor women, HIV affected people and farmers, who have otherwise never stepped out of their houses, end up protesting in front of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (the venue of WTO meeting). When more than 500,000 people walked across all countries of South Asia to challenge the unjust trade regime, they are all creating a revolution by other means. Revolution is all about challenging the unequal and unjust power relations which are a threat to justice everywhere. The fact that millions of people marched against the war in Iraq in an unprecedented way in the developed and the developing countries, the fact that people from 150 countries came together in World Social Forum in Bombay, the fact that more than 15,000 organisations -- including trade unions, faith-based groups, human rights groups -- have decided to work under the umbrella of Global Call to Action Against Poverty show that there is an unprecedented discontent and antagonism to the present unilateral and unjust world order. So, it is not that there is no action taking place. In fact there is plenty of it and most of it unprecedented. Only the media pretends not to have seen it.
On the second part of the question, the opposition to WTO does not necessarily mean support for national industry and business. Most of the people protesting belong to civil society organisations which are fighting for justice. For instance, many of the Indians who have come to Hong Kong are Dalits. They are the poorest of the poor.
But it is also important to develop national industry and business for self-reliant and vibrant economies so that they are not poached by huge multinational corporations. Don't forget that at the end of 19th century, Asia accounted for 60 per cent of world trade. Look at its share today: Compared to what it was in the 19th century, it is negligible. Also don't forget that the rich countries have protected their industries for 300 years until their markets got completely saturated. Without the markets in Asia and the global south, many of the transnational companies will be closed down. So, supporting and protecting the national industry and business is nothing new. South Korea is a classical example of how protection and development go hand in hand. For long, the country has protected their industry before opening up their market recently. If it hadn't done so, it wouldn't have been able to develop, for instance, their own car. They would have rather become a market for the Japanese car. Also, emerging economies like China and India are on the bargaining table for global trade because they have a robust industrial base.
Regulation is another important factor. National companies can be regulated much more easily than multinational ones. The former are more accountable to their people and the government than the latter which are too illusory and amorphous to allow effective regulation.
Industry and business should be accountable to people, both as consumers and communities. For instance, in India Tatas are one of the biggest corporation and their major market is India itself. They provide millions of direct and indirect jobs as well as invest in the social and academic development of the country. Toyota and Ford would never have done that for India.
National industry is not necessarily another word for everything bad. It is the free trade missionaries of the multinational corporations who project it as inefficient, incapable and incompetitive. Facts from India, China and South Korea belie these projections.


TNS: Critics claim that the opponents of WTO are the opponents of development and growth. They want to take the world back to the pre-industrial age. What's your reaction?


JS: This is one of the biggest myths propounded by the neo-liberal free trade missionaries. Anybody who challenges the unjust policies of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and WTO will be dumped as anti-globalist, anti-development and often anti-nationalist. Any dissidence is suppressed or challenged in the name of globalisation, development and national interest. This is totally against the facts. The people who challenge WTO are not just human rights and social justice activists. In fact, poor countries' blocs like G-20 and G-33 also challenge the current trading regime. At least on this one point most of the poor countries and their civil societies have a convergence of ideas. Civil society and governments, for instance, all ask for the elimination of agriculture subsidies being provided by the developed countries to their farmers. How can you say that all G-20 countries are anti-development?
Before trade liberalisation, Indian economy grew by an average of 5.6 per cent between 1980-1900. Even in the 1990-2000, the average growth has been 5.6 per cent. So, where is the miracle growth that liberalisation will bring?
There are only two per cent people in the developing and the least developed countries, primarily in the services sector, who are the beneficiaries of north-centric neo-liberal globalisation. These people are elites who run media and governments and increasingly they run academic institutions. In a sense, they tend to become public opinion-makers. So, anyone who questions the hegemony of these national and international elites will be dubbed as anti-development, anti-globalisation and anti-nationalism.
I am not against a fair and just globalisation. If there had been no globalisation of people, communities and communications, both of us would not have been sitting in Hong Kong, talking about issues that affect the poor people of both Pakistan and India. I don't mind globalisation as far as it brings about a unity against the compartmentalisation in the name of the nation state.

TNS: The critics also say that you are using the tools of globalisation, like information
technology, internet and cheap international travel, to mobilise against WTO. What's your view?


JS: Yes, of course. Information technology, internet and cheap travel is nobody's favour to the world. These tools are not developed by one country but by the people across the world. There is nothing like an American or European technology. In research and development, there are hundreds of thousands of Asians who are doing commendable work. So, we will certainly use these tools. It's like using language.
Tools are as good or bad as the ones who use them. Each of these tools can be used both for peace and war. We are not against globalisation. We are against an unjust, unequal globalisation pushed by a few rich countries. We strongly support globalisation which leads to peace, solidarity, justice and inter-faith and inter-culture dialogue. We don't support globalisation which induces war, economic plunder and discrimination.


TNS: These are very ambitious political ideals. Do you think organisations like Actionaid have the ideological and organisational paraphernalia to achieve them?


JS: Action Aid international is a global platform as well as an international development organisation. We are, however, just another ripple in the waves of change. We derive inspiration and strength from the poor and ordinary people across the world and we work with compatible civil society alliances that stands for peace, justice, human development and human rights. We have learnt through Global Call Against Poverty that millions of citizens across the world can be mobilised if you have a just cause to advocate. More than 250,000 people marched in Edinburgh in 2006, asking G-8 countries for trade justice, for debt cancellation and for a better and more accountable mechanism for giving aid.
It's in this togetherness of people and communities across the world that we have a hope for a just and equitable world where everyone goes to bed with dinner, where every woman enjoys dignity and where the last person on the earth can elaborate his or her own sense of freedom. People in India and Pakistan need to work together in the realisation of this dream. South Asia has the capacity to eradicate poverty among its people. We have the largest number of educated people in the world as well as the largest number of the poor. We have the largest number of millionaires as well as the largest number of slum dwellers. Last year, growth in South Asia's military expenditure was the largest in the world. Whose freedom this expenditure is supposed to protect if hundreds of millions of our people are forced to sleep on empty stomachs. If we cut our military expenditure, if we support each other to nurture our industry and market, we will be one of the most prosperous regions in the world, with a huge market and competitive technological base. Only, our leaders need to be imaginative to think about a South Asian community that can nurture a just globalisation, eradicating our own poverty and the poverty across the world.