Campaigning for justice for the world's poor in Oxfordshire
The sign ‘#refugeeswelcome” was projected across the white cliffs of Dover recently in response to far right protests in the town.
Photo from https://www.flickr.com/photos/wdm/26101046571/in/album-72157664349481463/ – more photos at the source
Read more at Global Justice Now
Climate change, capitalism and citizen power were just a few of the things discussed at last night’s Global Justice Oxford relaunch. Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, travelled from London to help us celebrate.
Why the relaunch? We used to be known as WDM (World Development Movement) but in recent years it’s become clear that the meaning of the word “development” has changed to the point where it actually describes the kind of approach we’re fighting against.
So WDM polled members around the country, consulted all the local groups (like ours) which form such an important part of the organisation, then took a democratic decision to change the organisation’s name to Global Justice Now in January 2015. Local groups have renamed themselves on the same pattern and have been holding relaunch events up and down the country to celebrate the change.
It was cheering to see a healthy turnout for our event – surely they weren’t all motivated by the delicious cake on offer! – and so much engagement with the issues. We talked about corporate takeover of global resources, alternative models for energy generation, higher education, the Greek economy and more.
We showed three films to give some context about our campaigns. If you missed the event, you can watch the (short) fims on YouTube..
How our banks finance climate change (4mins)
The story we’re told is that there’s no money to fight climate change… but apparently there’s plenty of money spare for causing climate change?
Naomi Klein Says Climate Activists Need to Get Comfortable Attacking Capitalism (8 mins)
Interview with the author and activist, whose Oxford book launch sold out the Sheldonian Theatre last autumn.
IBEKA, micro hydro power in Indonesia
Energy doesn’t have to be corporate-owned, environmentally damaging and expensive. The IBEKA story presents a positive alternative to the “Big Energy” model.
A consistent theme in everything we talked about was the idea of challenging the narrative: not accepting the stories we’re told about how the world does and should work, but coming up with our own stories. One great example is the dreaded Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (better known as TTIP) which might have been accepted as a broadly positive trade deal if there hadn’t been such a well-orchestrated campaign against it. Global Justice Now has been working in collaboration with other organisations to expose the truth of TTIP at national and European level; meanwhile, at a local level, several of the campaigners from Global Justice Oxford have been working with Oxfordshire campaigners from other groups such as 38 Degrees.
We had to bring the fruitful discussion to an end when time ran out, but we hope to see some of the people who came last night at our next “regular” meeting on Tuesday 14th April.
The Oxford WDM summer social was a chance for the group to spend some time together without discussing too many serious issues – and sample the delicious pies available at the Victoria Arms on Walton Street. Members from all over Oxfordshire came to share a drink and a chat, and we even had two visitors from Australia.
If you have any ideas about where our next social should happen, or what it should involve, please get in touch on oxfordwdm@gmail.com.
The speaker at our July meeting was Helen Magombo, who advises Oxfam on development policy. She spoke chiefly about the impact of policy decisions on her home country of Malawi. Her view? “We need to get more sassy, more radical” on aid. We need to push harder to ensure that aid money goes to the right places.
Right now, said Helen, there are huge transparency issues around aid. A lot of money actually goes to UK-based companies, which means it never reaches the Malawian economy because it never leaves the UK economy. She is fighting for the proposed 0.7 % target, which would mean that 0.7% of the UK’s national income is spent in aid. But just as important as the amount itself is how much of it goes to the country being aided.
The 2010-2012 UK aid withdrawal had a huge negative impact on Malawi, said Helen. It happened because of a diplomatic spat, but the effects were devastating. (The UK is Malawi’s largest direct aid donor.)
One of the questions from the floor was “What do we [as Westerners trying to help] get wrong?” Helen suggested that groups like WDM in the UK need to connect more with similar groups in Africa and other countries. We shouldn’t assume that a poor country doesn’t have a thriving voluntary sector.
She also busted the myth that an aid-dependent country equals a country where people don’t work: “In Malawi, people are getting up from 3am trying to make a living.”
Helen now plans to return to Malawi and stand for election to parliament.
The May meeting was the Oxford group’s Annual General Meeting, which meant it was time to elect the new committee for 2013-2014.
We said a big thank-you and goodbye to Chris Manley, who stepped down as secretary after several years’ excellent work. We’re hoping he will continue to be involved with the group.
Mike Dee offered to become the new secretary and was elected unopposed (with warm thanks from the group for volunteering). He will now be the main point of contact for the group at oxfordwdm@gmail.com.
Other committee members were re-elected to their posts for another year. The new committee is as follows:
Chair: Sam Partington
Secretary: Mike Dee
Treasurer: Tina Everett
Communications Officer: Kate Griffin
Writer/editor of the Oxspur newsletter: Andrew Hodgson
Some tasks still don’t have a regular person allotted to them, such as:
We will also be looking for a new treasurer soon. If you’re interested in helping the group, in however small a way, please do get in touch on oxfordwdm@gmail.com.
What’s happening with the global economy? How can we turn change in the direction of greater social justice? At our May meeting we welcomed Dr Peter Dwyer, tutor in Radical Economics at Ruskin College, for a chat about global politics.
Dr Dwyer is clear that the free-market model isn’t working; even arch-capitalists like Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, acknowledge that people are losing faith in the market model. We discussed the relationship between the state and the free market and he pointed out that George Bush, despite being ideologically opposed to nationalisation, presided over “the greatest piece of nationalisation in modern history”: the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac.
The obvious failures of the current system give us an opportunity to talk about alternative models, but so far there isn’t much political appetite for this. For example, nobody in mainstream politics is questioning the desirability of growth for growth’s sake; the Green Party is working on a zero-growth model but it isn’t being publicised.
We also talked about global superpowers such as China, with the surprising revelation that many items labelled as “made in China” are actually made in other countries and assembled in China; the origin of goods isn’t as clear-cut as we might think.
One of the questions from the group was about Dr Dwyer’s job title: why “radical” economics? The answer involved an interesting digression on the nature of our attitude to economics. Many universities see “economics” as a subject comparable to maths; there are right and wrong answers. Ruskin’s decision to put “Radical” in front of “Economics” is a way of signifying that the college sees the subject as more politically inflected and open to interpretation. It was interesting to hear that Ruskin students cover subject matter that many mainstream universities don’t touch.
We ran out of time before we’d finished discussing all the interesting issues raised by Dr Dwyer’s talk, but the group is hoping to get him to come and talk again before long, perhaps on his specialist subject of South Africa. He believes that the global South doesn’t get enough attention and it is “time to talk about the South/South dynamic”.
We finished on a hopeful note: the seismic changes – “Europe is being massively and violently structurally adjusted” – offer an opportunity to challenge old certainties such as the idea that markets are inherently more efficient. Dr Dwyer believes that “a space is opening up” for new and alternative ideas that might have been unthinkable before.
