 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 4 -10 February 1999 Issue No. 415 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
 |
 |
|
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 4 -10 February 1999 Issue No. 415
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
|
|
|
Egypt Region International Book Fair Economy Opinion Culture Features Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Alternative globalism
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
For the first time this year, a counter-forum to the world Economic Forum held in Davos every year was organised in Switzerland a few days ago. Calling itself the Other Davos, the meeting aimed at putting forward alternative proposals regarding global problems viewed from a different perspective than the one adopted by the original Davos Forum.
Every year top world figures in the fields of politics, business and finance gather in Davos, a small ski resort in the mountains of Switzerland, to exchange views on matters touching on the mechanisms that operate the entire world order. This informal think tank is regarded as reflecting the concerns of a privileged elite at the summit of the global establishment. It was the Davos forum which launched the idea of a Middle East market that was to have been systematically promoted by a series of annual conferences bringing together the business communities of Israel and the Arab world in the hope that this would boost the Middle East peace process. But although a number of conferences were held in various Arab capitals, the plan fizzled out after Netanyahu came to power and wrecked the entire peace process.
The idea of an alternative to the Davos gathering came up when many of the foundations on which the present world order rests appeared to have crumbled beyond repair. An obvious example is the crisis of the Asian 'tigers', which had, thanks to the mechanisms of financial globalism, attracted huge amounts of floating monies. But instead of contributing to the development of these countries, the inflow of money triggered all-out inflation, especially in the field of real estate investment. Even Japan was affected by the crisis, which then extended to Russia, even if the problem in Russia is different in nature.
The main reason for the breakdown of the Russian economy is the plundering of its industrial assets by a new caste of entrepreneurs who have shifted considerable amounts of its capital abroad. Russia's exports are gradually being reduced to raw materials and crude oil -- and the only field in which traces of a developed national economy still remain is the export of arms -- occasionally illegal -- and the continued excellence in the manufacture of sophisticated spacecraft. The breakdown of financial globalism has driven the G7 to question the current economic thinking concerning neo-liberal globalisation.
It is no accident that at the very time such questions are being raised the prestigious American quarterly, Foreign Affairs, should devote an entire issue to a series of articles that are all critical of the globalisation process, at least in its present form. An interesting contribution is an article by George Soros, the famous Hungarian-born billionaire financier, entitled: "Capitalism's Last Chance?" Soros writes that "today's crisis cannot be attributed simply to macroeconomic errors or specifically Asian characteristics", and "that what makes this crisis so politically unsettling and so dangerous for the global capitalist system is that the system itself is its main cause." The issue is to "salvage capitalism from itself!"
Davos became famous after the fall of the Berlin Wall in the late eighties, which ushered in a new era defined by the collapse of bipolarity, the breakdown Communism and the demise of the Soviet Union. A new rationale emerged described by the American scholar, Francis Fukuyama, as "the end of history". Obviously, he did not mean that events would cease to unfold, but that conflict over ideology had ended, that the socialist dream was over and that movements of national liberation had received a shattering blow. Economic neo-liberalism, the school of thought championed by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, was triumphant everywhere. Capitalism appeared to be here to stay.
However, unbridled liberalism soon proved to be accompanied by setbacks in a variety of fields, including the field of democracy, where pluralism appeared to be respected in form rather than in content. With a growing lack of social content and a tendency to 'commodify' everything , even politics, democracy lost much of its pertinence and credibility.
Indeed, a market economy, in the context of a philosophy of unbridled liberalism, is bound to enter into conflict with democracy, to deprive democratic rule of any social content and encourage express manifestations of double standards. Some states are regarded as deserving the label of 'democracy', while others are not, on the basis of purely arbitrary criteria. Post-communist Russia has so far been considered as part of the first group, even though its designation as a democracy is hard to reconcile with the bombing of its parliament building in a brute show of strength, an act that is surely the antithesis of democracy. The United States claims to be acting in a democratic manner when it strikes at a sovereign state without the approval of the Security Council and against the will of three of its five permanent members. Where is the United Nations in all this? Is the informal Davos Forum a more genuine representative of the new 'world order' than the international organisation? Is the UN condemned to suffer the same fate as its predecessor, the League of Nations, which collapsed before World War II? Is world order itself gradually sinking into chaos?
The double standard rule applies even in the field of terrorism. Not all terrorists are looked upon as enemies. As long as they fought communism, the mujahedin were treated with sympathy and supported by the CIA. They were dealt with harshly only when, after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, they turned against the united States. Similarly, armed resistance in south Lebanon is variously described as 'sabotage', 'subversion' and 'terrorism' even when directed against Israeli raids emanating from bases inside Lebanese territory, in total disregard for Security Council Resolution 425.
Even the advocates of the policies of neoliberalism are now warning against its threats. The World Bank is waging a campaign against the dangers of the propagation of poverty. Conflicts are intensifying in an extended number of hot spots: Korea, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent.
No one can guarantee that these conflict situations will be resolved peacefully, within the rules of democratic conduct. In Asia, a bloc made up of the United States, Japan and Australia is emerging in opposition to another revolving around China and extending to other Asian countries. The hostile reception accorded to US Vice-President Al Gore during a recent visit to Indonesia was very revealing in this respect. A few weeks ago, Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov proposed the formation of a triangular structure between Russia, India and China.
All those developments point to the need for an alternative globalism that will not be built on unbridled liberalism on the one hand, fragmentation and dismemberment on the other -- a globalisation process operating from within the United Nations, not in opposition to it. A first step in this direction was the Other Davos, a meeting which brought together NGOs and other democratic organisations fighting for an alternative globalism based on approaches and proposals that will be presented in some detail in the next article.
