MEANWHILE : If the Protesters Meant It, Here's What They'd Do 
International Herald Tribune
April 21, 2000
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray 

The recent demonstrations against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund raise some intriguing questions. Once upon a time, the Soviet Union directed many such campaigns. Indians lapped them up, not necessarily to irritate the United States but because we are suckers for lofty idealistic causes.

But who organized the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle last December? Who provided the inspiration and support for Mobilization for Global Justice, which took to the streets of Washington in recent days to demand the abolition of multilateral financial institutions?

Do they really represent the interests of the poor and the developing world?

This is not to say that some criticism of the World Bank, the IMF, the free market and global capitalism is not justified. Like the United Nations Security Council, the Bretton Woods system reflects the balance of power at the end of World War II.

The increased movement of information, goods, capital and people — globalization, in short — benefits most those who already have the funds and expertise to take advantage of opportunity.

For instance, the migration of Indian software engineers helps the United States more than it helps India. But talented Indians who emigrate do so because it helps them first and foremost. To cite America's gain to prevent them from going would be like cutting off India's nose to spite its face.

We also see now that in the longer term India profits from a large pool of successful ethnic Indians in the United States. Globalization is not, therefore, a one-way street.

If the Washington protesters had really represented Third World interests, they would have acknowledged this and demanded the removal of restrictions on human movement.

They would have called for equal wages, expanded debt relief and more private sector participation in rescue packages.

They might have supported Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad, in seeking curbs on speculative money.

They might also have asked the rich countries to live up to the aid target of 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product, and they might have insisted on increased access to Western markets for Third World goods.

All this would have challenged the developed nations, perhaps forcing a positive response. Instead, the protesters damaged the case for reform by echoing the clever-sounding but facile charge that trickle-down economics is like feeding horses oatmeal so that sparrows can feed on their dung. Does piety prefer that the sparrows starve?

The present economic system is like democracy, which is the worst form of government until you consider the alternatives. If the World Bank and the IMF do not lend money, who will? If exports are not to be encouraged, how will poorer countries ever earn their keep?

The dramatic success in East Asia of the export-oriented model of growth is in marked contrast to countries that rejected the free market.

India, which made an indigenous car in the 1940s, 20 years before South Korea, now has a per capita gross national product of $310 compared with South Korea's $6,489. Such statistics are heartbreaking for an Indian.

But the Seattle and Washington militants did not seem to want a free market at all. What then did they want?

A newspaper photograph of a protester, a long-haired semi-nude Caucasian youth of sturdy physique (doubtless the result of good food and healthy upbringing) who was wearing only a designer skirt of palm leaves, mocked the reality of a village in Bangladesh or Fiji.

Are these champions of the Third World then the peacenik cohorts of the white mercenaries who fought for "justice" and "freedom" in Africa not so many years ago?

The writer, a former editor of The Statesman in India, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.

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