[afro-nets] Food for a deceitful, non-sustainable thought

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Food for a deceitful, non-sustainable thought
---------------------------------------------

Human Rights Reader 130

HOW WE, HR ACTIVISTS, ARE DUPED: JUST A FEW EXAMPLES.

1. The official neoliberal paradigm has actually created its own
'counter-paradigm'; one that, for looks, embodies a highly
ethical (yet apolitical) discourse. Its name: "Sustainable
Development", Sustainable development is a discourse with a big
focus on the environment and an accompanying strategy of
'poverty alleviation'. It is here contended that sustainable
development mostly brushes-over policy issues pertaining to the
defense of human rights (HR) --including the right to health and
the social rights of women. It also does not look into the
structural measures needed for the eradication of poverty, of
ill-health and malnutrition and of other HR violations.

2. The beauty of this --for pro-status-quo ideologues-- is that
this 'counter-ideology' rarely challenges neoliberal policy
prescriptions; it develops alongside and in harmony, rather than
in opposition, to the official neoliberal dogma --perhaps only
giving the 'system' an occasional cold, but not a real
pneumonia.

3. Within this counter-ideology, development scholars find a
comfortable niche; their role is to generate a semblance of
critical debate without prominently addressing the negative
social aspects of the global market system. The ethical focus on
the environment and on the poor with their health and other
problems provides the sustainable development discourse with a
'human face' and with a semblance of commitment to some kind of
social change. Bottom line, it really does not constitute a
threat to the neoliberal economic agenda; so it is let be.

4. In the ethical outlook of alleviating poverty, figures are
being manipulated. Let us take a telling example: The
1U$/capita/day is actually a hoax. Through clever gross
manipulation of income statistics, mainly (but not only) the
World Bank presents us with figures that serve the useful
purpose of representing (and making us believe that) the poor in
developing countries are a minority group; groups with per
capita income above 1U$ a day, we are told, are somehow not-so-
poor. But the 1U$/day standard has no rational base; population
groups in developing countries with per capita incomes of 2, 3
or even U$5/day remain poverty stricken and suffer from
preventable deaths and diseases. The entire 1U$/day framework is
totally removed from an examination of real life situations
since it does not analyze expenditures on food, shelter and
social services (especially health and education), among other -
-all inalienable human rights. We all know poverty indicators
are computed in a mechanical fashion. The estimation of poverty
indicators has thus become a numerical exercise which usefully
serves to conceal the galloping globalization of poverty.

5. Moreover, double standards prevail in the measurement of
poverty. The 1U$/day criterion applies only to developing
countries. In the West, methods of measuring poverty have been
based on minimum levels of household spending required to meet
essential expenditures. In the US, the cost of a minimum
adequate diet is multiplied by 3 to allow for other expenses;
this comes up to around 11U$/cap/day. If this methodology would
be applied in developing countries, the overwhelming majority of
the population would be categorized as poor. In fact, with
deregulation and free trade, the cost of living in many Third
World countries is now higher than in the US.

6. Poverty assessments are largely office-based exercises
conducted in the capitals of the rich countries with
insufficient awareness of local realities; these realities --the
burden of ill-health of the poor, for example-- are often even
deliberately concealed. So, poverty indicators misrepresent
country-level situations, as well as the seriousness of
unrelenting global poverty; they serve the purpose of portraying
the poor as a minority group representing only some 20% of the
world's population. Future trends are forecast making poverty
appear declining.thus vindicating free market policies. The free
market system can then be presented as the most effective means
of achieving poverty alleviation. The benefits of the
technological revolution and the contributions foreign
investment and trade liberalization make are then quickly added
to the rosy picture (as a 'topping on the cake') without
identifying how these global trends foster increased poverty
levels.

7. Now briefly back to the social rights of women. In the
market-oriented approach, women's programs are framed in
relation to the opportunity costs and efficiency of focusing on
women's rights, i.e., investments in women's programs (including
those in reproductive health) are considered vital in achieving
the economic efficiency needed for development. The main
objective of such a justification is, therefore, not to enhance
women's rights, but --thru the economics of the free market-- to
make purportedly gender-centered investments that eventually end
up demobilizing the women's movement. The structural causes of
the poverty of women and of the way they are discriminated are
thus hidden or even denied.

Caveat:

8. We need to become more and more aware of these avenues of
deceit we are bombarded-with day-in-day-out. We need to debunk
these myths and communicate more effectively while doing so.

9. The globalization of the HR struggle is fundamental; it
requires solidarity and an internationalism of a degree with
little precedents in history. The current global economic system
feeds on the social divisiveness between and within countries.
Worldwide coordination among all social movements that support
the HR-based approach is crucial. This Reader has insisted on
this urgency before, but it reiterates it here.

--
Claudio Schuftan
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
mailto:claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn

Mostly adapted from the book "The Globalization of Poverty and
the New Order" by Michel Chossudovsky. Copies of this highly
recommended book can be obtained from mailto:chosso@uottawa.ca