Looking Back at the South Commission

1

Looking Back at the South Commission

Ambedkar University, Delhi

February 11, 2015

Devaki Jain

Assisted by Smriti Sharma

I feel privileged to be invited by the Ambedkar University – I have been waiting to visit, learn and meet the folks here. I used to hear from friends like RomilaThapar that she had been invited! And my deep desire has been fulfilled thanks to Chirashree ….Thank you all.

I have two objectives in choosing this topic for a lecture at Ambedkar University:

1. Firstis to resonate on Dr Ambedkar’s concern with oppression, by diving into another domain of oppression, and the struggle to escape from it. This is in the field of economic oppression and the failed attempts at overthrowing it.
2. My second objective is to share the flavor of those times- the 1970s and 1980s and those personas. The anti imperialism, the freedom struggles. Looking back I feel privileged that I could participate in such a moment with such persons.

• I hope sharing those personal moments may enable encourage this new generation, those who could not experience the post-independence spirit, liberation from imperialism, to get a little bit of its flavor. May be even inspire them to create a new group to revive some of those political passions for sovereignty
• I am of the view that we are losing out on that, at this time, and always look to students to start revolutionary affirmations. The fires that were lit in our bellies at that time refuse to be put out.

In this lecture I hope not only to describe the genesis and journey of the South Commission (1987 – 90) but also in retrospect, critically examine, not only the Commission itself and its composition and its political economy framework but also the very notion of the South as a political economy configuration. My basic proposal or view, is to argue that there is no South today in the sense in which many of us worked for it in the decades of the 80’s and the 90’s.

As has been written in many other books and papers[1] the vision and affirmative stance of a South emerged, in my view due to two earlier processes which in turn came out of other events and processes: i) the Non-Alignment Movement and ii) The affirmation of the North as a united political economy by the Brandt Commission(1977-1980)and the Bruntland Commission (1983-1987).

Brandt Commission Independent Commission was set up by Willy Brandt (the former German Chancellor) in 1980 to review international development issues. The result of this is the Brandt Report, which tried to provide an understanding of the drastic differences in the economic development of the Northern and South hemispheres of the world

Bruntland Commission, formally known as the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), was set up by the UN to rally countries to work and pursue sustainable development together. The Chairman of the Commissionwas Gro Harlem the former Prime Minister of Norway.

Led as they were, by retired heads of state of powerful nations of the North, their ideas were taken as currency across the world especially by the international financial institutions. Julius Nyerere wanted to set up commissions led by southern persons, to look at the world, from their location and perspective – a countervailing force.

In fact,Mwalimu-the Swahili name for teacher, as Dr Julius Nyerere was called, - the Chairperson of the South Commissionclearly stated that Brandt was looking at how to unite the economies of the North.He wanted a countervailing power. Liberation from colonization could not bear fruit, he argued, unless we had liberation from economic exploitation and domination. Reminding us of Gandhi’s call or argument, for the second freedom, -that political freedom is not fruitful without economic freedom[2] Diane Elson and I had developed this further, to argue that political democracy is not complete without economic democracy.[3]

NAM, i.e. the Non Alignment Movement[4], was a political configuration, and gave the South Commission its political identity and fire. Its platform was built around anti imperialism, around liberation from colonization.Sovereignty and liberation were the key words-

While the phrase non-aligned suggests a political space of neutrality, - a definition by negation - between two powerful blocs, East & West; socialist and capitalist to put it starkly, the club’s purpose, domain and actions were far greater than the literal interpretation. The Key word was “movement”. Anti imperialism, liberation from political domination was the base. The club became a movement for claiming sovereignty for the newly liberated nations from super powers, as also the independence to design their future from their own history, culture and economic landscapes

What the South Commission hoped to do was to give an economic identity to the South .It is my argument that we failed in this effort.

Remember that this was the era of rebuilding the colonies, as free nations, and leaders were innovating ways for that reconstruction. Nyerere tried experiments Ujaama[5] drawn from the concept of the Kibbutz[6] in Israel... Even in India, the left recommended collective farms, not cooperatives. When Nyerere explained to us, his reason for the Ujaama which also failed, it was moving.He said Africa was so fractured by tribal identities, chiefs; that they could never become a modern state ...That the colonizers had capitalized on these tribal wars...So he thought if he could replace the tribal village by communities it might work …

The final report of the Commission was called Challenge to the South[7];The Challenge was whether wecan we build an economic south? What are the necessary conditions, processes, and goals? But Looking back it seems to me, it would have been better if the Report had been called, The economic south – in other words if we had defined, even as in imagination, a virtual economic south …described our economies and their strengths, our identities and then built a house over that - rather than seeing whether we can challenge the north.

To go back to the south commission itself.

- The Mandate of the South Commission (1987-90)

The South Commission was mandated during the 8th NAM summit in Zimbabwe(September 1-6, 1986).The South Commission became operational in August 1987 with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland

A crucial aspect of the south commission was the personality and politics of the Chairman Julius Nyerere. For those who may not know it, he was the president of Tanzania from 1964– 1985, as well as led the freedom movement of that country, with the Tanganyika African National Union (TANU)

Julius Nyerere

I am compelled to stop and describe his personality, as it is a crucial part of this story ... He was deeply into his culture, as also a devout Christian. He was full of folklore and kept up our ideological platform with parables and anecdotes in Swahili.

At the formal public inauguration,of the Commission which took place in Geneva on 20th October 1987 in the presence of the usual audience of ambassadors from various countries, he related this tale

Rabbit Rabbit where are you going?

I am going to fight the elephant …

But rabbit rabbit he is so big and strong?

Rabbit says“no harm in trying or I can try, can’t I?”

This was his constant refrain, let us try, let us build our strength through south-south co-operation…I can give several anecdotes on how he nudged us into such a belief … the meeting in Nairobi after the book was published, where he called the 4 heads of state from the African continent, [Daniel arapMoi (Kenya), Ali H. Mwinyi (Tanzania) andYoweri K. Museveni (Uganda)][8] and put a copy of the Report , just published, Challenge to the south , on the table in front of them, (I was sitting by his side,) and said Brothers this is the book, this is your bible , and kept tapping the book in front of them, exhorting them - read it, read it, read it …

Or when we went to China, in November 1989 prior to the publication and had an audience with Prime Minister Li Peng. Manmohan Singh, who was the Secretary General of the Commission, could not join us for this. Mwalimu called me earlier and said, tell the Premier, tell Li Peng, that if India and China combine they can defeat the North, tell him, tell him Devaki, he urged, and the miracle is that I DID!!

We travelled to about 7-8 countries and everywhere we had long sessions with the Heads of State and then with so called civil society. Wherever we went, whether to Cuba or China or Mexico; Nyerere was revered … a kind of gentle but clear headed leader of the ex-colonies. In the continent of Africa he was often seen as the Gandhi of Africa, because of his humility, his generosity of spirit. When we were in South Africa, in 1998-99,we heard so many stories of how Tanzania was unique in offering asylum to those who were struggling against apartheid or were being hunted.

In Cuba particularly, Fidel Castro was so fond of Mwalimu that we were invited to stay for nearly 8 days, travel all over from resorts to hospitals and laboratories ...At the end of the visit, Mwalimu said ...Friends what are we waiting for, we have here the design for the South, we have here the redefinition of economic progress, we have here the Model we were looking for …much to the dismay of many of the commissioners who were uncomfortable with Socialism and Communism. And alas, they dominated.

Nyerere was always supportive, in fact very excited by ideas that showed the strength and potential in our countries, unlike many of the others .For example during an expert group meeting on SOUTH-SOUTH cooperation, its potential, I offered a paper , called Women, Waste and Planet Safety – Proposal for the North South Alliance. I categorized countries, on the basis of waste, generation, waste re cycling, waste avoiding and so on. The point was to show that in our countries waste, - and I am not referring to current India, - material was all the time recycled, and further that larger waste generationis associated with a consumption oriented society etc …

In the end and what came out as a framework for the Commission’s report was an anemicdevelopment report, untetheredin any political economy framework, sanitized from politics

The Era

1980s onwards, the era of structural adjustment – Liberalization, Globalization and Privatization – euphemistically called ‘Reforms’What was this ‘reform’? SAP - Structural Adjustment,And who defined it? The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund

SAPs evolved as a result of three global crisis, namely; the oil crisis, the debt crisis, and the international recession from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Developing countries faced unprecedented pressure in their external accounts after these, consecutive, international economic crisis. SAPs were created to deal with the increasing economic instability in developing nations experiencing economic crisis[9].

Typically, by the time countries seek adjustment loans, they have suffered from high deficits, rapid inflation, and capital flight. The price paid by developing countries to gain access to foreign exchange in this situation was to agree to significant policy reform under SAPs[10]Many scholars have written how SAP drove out democracy from their countries, that the state and the private sector colluded, the beginning of the corporate state hand in glove that we see proliferating to day

While the commodities remained with the South, the Market for these commodities remained with the North

The process

The best side of the Commission was that we not only visited countries but also had two types of interactions – long interviews, sessions with the Heads of State and long meetings with a group of what can be called intellectuals and academics and some field visits. In certain countries like Cuba we spent may be a week visiting hospitals or studying achievements of Cuba like medical technology and machinery. Another place where we stayed for more than seven days was China. We went to see the dams, Shanghai and various so-called achievements.

Moving moments were a long interview with the President of Mozambique – who described to us the way the Portuguese had ripped apart Mozambique’s infrastructure before they left. Apparently when they left there was only one person in the whole of Mozambique who had passed the High School. It revealed to us the Portuguese character, their colonizing seemed worse than all the others…

Apart from that there was the terrible left over of armed conflict, within the country, where child soldiers were recruited by the counter revolutionaries…renamo[11].They chopped off hands, some time ears of children apart from recruiting large numbers into the child soldier army [Later on I was a member of the Eminent Persons Group that was set up by the UN with GracaMachel as its Chair to study the impact of armed conflict on children- a confrontation with cruelty in war, not very different from what is happening now with BokoHaram.

So now I come to analyse, or the analysis of the South Commission

The fault lines

The composition of the Commission- The objective of the South Commission was fine, the context was appropriate but the human element of the Commission was flawed.[12]

Selection of members as I mentioned was both for distribution geographically and also professional expertise. It was not only predominantly male but also elderly leaders and bureaucrats, who did not have any idea of the ground[13]Out of the 29 commissioners, 11 were retired from political or bureaucratic positions.

Fortunately we had a few academic economists such as Gamini Correa from Sri Lanka [Of course he was also known for having set up the UNCTAD],CelsoFurtado an economist from BrazilSolitaCollosMonsod from the Philippines and myself.

But persons like,ShridathRamphal,Secretary General of the Commonwealth Secretary-General, more Brit than the Brits, was brought in because he was also a member of the Brundtland, and he was as conventional and as stereotyped as any bureaucrat. Retired Bankers as e.g. from Mozambique, retired UN civil servants like …from Yugoslavia dominated the commission. Finally,it was believed even by Mwalimu that it was governments that had the power to change the system. This was an endemic flaw

I am giving three illustrations of that fault line

I have a story, an anecdote here which might look egotistical to you ...but it is a fact / the truth, if I might use that word. It illustrates how radical ideas were rejected

At the very first formal meeting of the commission, not the inauguration,in Mont Pèlerin, Switzerland in October 1987, I had proposed a methodology for such a construction of an economic south (see attach). It received immense support at the time, but later was overruled by others, and thereby hangs a tale ... the composition of the commission was flawed. I will come to this flaw later, but right here I want to give you a glimpse of the suggestion I had made, as, I think such a platform is still valuable for the REAL south, not the rich or powerful south, but the south as I will characterize it below. I had given 5 themes where we characterize ourselves, south, and then build a theory on that base.

Vijay Prashad in his book The Poorer Nations quotes me as I distinguished between the two kinds of people. Quote “There were the doves, who favored people-centered development and there were the hawks, who wanted growth-led development. The doves “propose a more dispersed form of growth, a growth which may not show itself in the trade statistics”. They “would emphasize the production of health and food, and provision of basic education as necessary preconditions of economic growth and the growth of human capabilities”. The hawks on the other hand, “push and pull the economies and societies of the poor countries towards high rates of growth accompanied by the manufacture of industrial products and their exports”[14] The god of the hawks was the market in the north Atlantic. The doves placed their faith in the voices and activity of the grassroots.

At the center of the dove’s vision was popular participation. Social movements had flooded the South, and the Third World networks of various kinds had tried to forge linkages among these movements, as well as between the movements and their less receptive governments.[15]

We were then asked, what does the South have? Ismail-SabriAbdalla, one of the Commissioners, who had founded a third world forum, answered: “The answer is obvious, but too often overlooked: the energy of the people. Hence, self-reliance is, before everything else, reliance on the people”[16], he said.

The 5 themes that I had proposed, where we characterize ourselves, south, and then build a theory on that base, were…

Theme 1: The Worker in the South or The Southern Worker.

Theme 2: Industry in the South

Theme 3: The “Markets of the South”

Theme 4: The Southern Child (especially Health)

Theme 5: Local development management institutions