23 May 2000
Thank you very much, Mr. President, Jack, leaders of Georgetown University, students, friends.
For the title of this lecture, I've borrowed the words used by Cain when the Lord asked him, "Where is Abel, thy brother?"
As you will remember, Cain answered, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?" It would seem to me that the tragedies that confront us every day in all parts of the world, and especially in Oliver Tambo's own African continent, every day present us with the challenge to answer the question, am I my brother's and my sister's keeper?
Oliver Tambo was a wonderful human being. I'm certain that the thought would never have occurred to him that he could be anything except his brother's and his sister's keeper. For decades a loyal activist of the African National Congress, he rose to the high position of president of the organization.
He was elected to this position because his colleagues recognized the priceless contribution he brought to our struggle to end racism, to end the system of apartheid and transform our country into a non- racial and a non-sexist democracy.
What we can say of him without fear of contradiction is that he was a scholar, an intellectual, a teacher, an immensely cultured person with no trace whatsoever of arrogance, of self-importance, a rare leader of people.
He brought to the struggle waged for the liberation of his people a passionate opposition to racism, to sexism and all forms of discrimination, honesty, a fearless devotion to principle, respect for all human beings regardless of their station in life, and a deep- seated instinct to protect all life, including the life of the smallest of insects.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Georgetown University for the honor you have accorded him, his family and our people by instituting this series of lectures named after him. I feel especially privileged and honored that you have given me the opportunity, which should have gone to others more deserving than I, to deliver the first of the Oliver Tambo lectures.
In a tribute to the late prime minister of Sweden, Olaf Palme, delivered at the Riverside Church in New York in 1987, the same year, Mr. President, that we were here, Oliver Tambo said: "Nothing could ever persuade Olaf Palme that he must reconcile himself to the inevitability of world war, the permanence of want among millions of human beings, and the oppression of people on any grounds, such as those of race or color or sex or religion or nationality."
Earlier still, in 1955, Oliver Tambo had said that, "The colonial peoples need liberation, freedom and independence, but we who fight for freedom fight also for peace, so that our children may grow up in a world of prosperity and international friendship."
The burden of our message today, Mr. President, is that as Oliver Tambo said, nations and governments must refuse to reconcile themselves to the inevitability of war, the permanence of want among billions of people, and the oppression of people on any grounds.
Let our children grow up in a world of prosperity and international friendship. The immediate past managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus, spoke at this university of February 2 this year. Among other things, he made the important observation that, "The post-World War generations are the first in history to find themselves in the position of being called upon to influence global affairs, not from a position of military conquest or imperial power, but through voluntary international cooperation.
"The challenge is to find mechanisms for managing the international economy that do not compromise the sovereignty of national governments, that help the smooth and effective working of markets, that ensure international financial stability, but that offer solutions to problems which now transcend the boundaries of the nation-state."
There are many in the modern world, Mr. President, who are using their particular skills and technical capacities to search for the mechanisms for managing the international economy of which Michel Camdessus spoke.
Correctly, he himself recognized the fact that technical constructions are a necessary but not a sufficient condition on which to base our common response to the possibility we have to influence global affairs.
For his part, therefore, Michel Camdessus therefore called --recalled what he had learned in his youth from the writings of Pierre Tielhard de Chadrin. Accordingly, he spoke of, "the wonderful words of Tielhard in 'the Divine Milieu' on the Christian perfection of the human effort, of the effort of all people striving to improve the human condition and to advance together the unity of the world."
And going on to talk about the process of globalization in this context, he said that, "Globalization should be seen as the best chance we have of improving the human condition throughout the world. This view of globalization is one that goes beyond trade, beyond capital mobility and the wonders of instantaneous electronic communication and business, beyond even the freedom of people and ideas to move around the world.
"It is a concept that can be embraced, of course, from the perspective," he said, "of enlightened self-interest by individuals and nations.
"But in this university" -- Georgetown University -- "I know that I will be understood clearly when I say that it must be seen also as an invitation to enhance our sense of international responsibility and solidarity, our sense of world citizenship to make the best for humankind out of this unifying process of the universe.
"The basis for action then," he said, "would be for you to identify those universal values on which all the people of the world could coincide and join forces to face together the challenges of our time."
I've quoted Mr. Camdessus at some length, Mr. President, because I'm convinced that his observations are important to what I mentioned at the beginning, namely, the challenge to answer the question thrown up by the human tragedies that confront us every day: Am I my brother's and my sister's keeper?
Surely such a process as we may engage in "to identify those universal values on which all the people of the world could coincide and join forces together to face the challenges of our time," could not but lead to the answer, Yes, I am my brother's and my sister's keeper.
It must therefore be correct and go without saying that together we have an obligation "to enhance our sense of international responsibility and solidarity, our sense of world citizenship, to make the best for humankind out of this unifying process of the universe."
I believe that we're all called upon to adopt and advance these positions precisely because of the reality that, for the first time ever in human history, we have the possibility to influence global affairs through voluntary international cooperation.
I believe that President Clinton was responding to these imperatives when he spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in September of 1998. And on that occasion, he said that, "The human cost of Asia's collapse is only now being fully felt." And he said that, "Recent press reports that described an entire generation working its way into the middle class over 25 years then being plummeted into poverty within a matter of months. The stories are heartbreaking: doctors and nurses forced to live in the lobby of a closed hospital; middle-class families run their home, send their children to college, traveled abroad, now living by selling their possessions.
"It is in our interest," he said, "to help these nations and these people to recover. They will become once more again our great markets and our great partners. It is also," he said, "the right thing to do."
Indeed, I believe it is the right thing to do.
For us who live within an ocean of entrenched poverty and the most disturbing human degradation, no words could be more inspiring than these, especially as they are said by the head of state of the most powerful country in the world.
Having heard them, we believed that we're entitled to conclude that this nation was beginning to reply, We are our brother's and our sister's keepers.
The scale and extent of poverty on our own continent of Africa, Mr. President, and other developing countries has been extensively documented. Such is its enormity that last year, at their meeting in our country, the Commonwealth heads of government characterized global poverty as a structure of fault in the world economy.
According to the United Nations Development Program Human Development Report of 1999, more than 80 countries have per capita incomes that are lower than they were a decade ago. Since 1990, 55 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe, have had declining per capita incomes. And they say that the income gap between the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 74 to 1 in 1997; 60 to 1 in 1990; and up from 30 to 1 in 1960. And the richest fifth account for 86 percent of the world's GDP while the bottom fifth shared 1 percent.
This report, Mr. President, as I'm sure you know, contains such startling information as that the assets of the top three billionaires are more than -- the assets of the top three billionaires are more than the combined GDP of all least developed countries and their 600 million people.
In his millennium report, Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan makes a point that, "Nearly half the world's population still has to make do on less than $2 a day," and he says, "Approximately 1.2 billion people -- 500 million in South Asia and 300 million in Africa --struggle on less than $1 a day. People living in Africa south of the Sahara are almost as poor today as they were 20 years ago.
"And with that kind of deprivation," says Mr. Annan, "comes pain, powerlessness, despair and lack of fundamental freedom, all of which in turn perpetuate poverty."
I know, Mr. President, that none of us present here need to be educated about the actual human meaning of the pain, the powerlessness and despair of which Kofi Annan speaks.
I do not know this capital, Washington, D.C., at all. However, I'm convinced that you will find here also the broken human beings who are our brothers and sisters, whose lives have been devastated by poverty. As with many of the poorer of the world, they have to live with malnutrition, with poor habitats, exposure to disease, loss of self-esteem, leading to substance abuse; interpersonal violence, especially against women and children; the destruction of families; and crime.
In our case, Mr. President, add also the frightening incidence of AIDS and hopelessness imposed on us by the absence of such basic infrastructure as would provide for water, education and health delivery, as well as the inability, dictated by underdevelopment, to generate the capital required for growth and development.
The UNDP report we've already cited makes the additional important observation that, "Fiscal pressures are cutting back on the supply of state-provided care services." And therefore, "the public services have deteriorated markedly, the result of economic stagnation, structural adjustment programs, or the dismantling of state services."
The enormity of the problem of poverty of which we are speaking is difficult to convey in words, especially to those who have had the good fortune not to experience its pain or in other ways to touch, to feel, or to smell it.
The English poet, John Donne, wrote in one of his Elegies:
"Language thou art too narrow and too weak
To ease us now, great sorrows cannot speak.
If we could sigh out accents, and weep words...
Sad hearts, the less they seem, the more they are...
Not that they know not, feel not their estate,
But extreme sense hath made them desperate."
I think when he spoke at the Council of Foreign Relations, President Clinton reflected on this extreme sense that hath made them desperate. And he pointed out that, "If citizens tire of waiting for democracy and free markets to deliver a better life for them, there is a real risk that democracy and free markets, instead of continuing to thrive together, will begin to shrivel together.
"We see around the world the international aggressors," he said, "the harborers of terrorists, the drug lords. Nations that give people freedom are good neighbors. When nations turn away from freedom, they turn inward toward tension, hatred and hostility."
This country, Mr. President, has enjoyed and is enjoying unprecedented levels of economic growth and prosperity, thanks among other things to your enterprise, inventiveness and hard work. We rejoice with the American people in this achievement. We're very conscious of the fact that this has also had a positive effect on the global economy.
In the circumstances, it must be easy for many in this country to adopt the slogan, I'm all right, Jack. But I believe that it is important that the United States should take to heart the changes that have occurred as a result of which United States is more integrated with the rest of the world economy.
The Independent Task Force on the Future International Financial Architecture had this to say, that, "The U.S. economy is connected much more closely to the rest of the world than it was 20 or 30 years ago. The average share of exports and imports in the U.S. national output now stands at about 15 percent; twice as high as in 1980 and three times as high as in 1960.
"Two-fifth of U.S. exports go to developing countries. U.S. firms active in global markets are more productive and more profitable than those that only serve domestic consumers. Exporting firms in the U.S. pay their workers better and have expanded jobs faster than firms that do not export.
"Borrowing costs, including the monthly payments U.S. households make for their home mortgages, are lower because of the U.S. participation in international capital markets."
And having noted that in the face of the Asian crisis, U.S. overall economic activity remained robust, the task force nevertheless warned that, "Our defense against crises should not be predicated on the assumption that crises will occur abroad only when the U.S. economy is well-positioned to absorb them." I believe therefore we would make bold to say that the realities indicated by that task force should convey the message to the United States that, apart from this being the right thing to do, it's enlightened self-interest, of which Michel Camdessus spoke, dictates that it should indeed be its brother's and its sister's keeper.
In his correct observations about the historic new possibilities to influence global affairs through voluntary international cooperation, Camdessus did not, of course, mention the gross inequalities that exist among the nations of the world with respect to the capacity to exercise such influence.
I believe, Mr. President, that it would not be a matter of dispute or a cause of acrimonious disputation among ourselves, that in this regard, the United States is obviously more equal than others.
But I know of no other period in human history where one country has had as much direct and indirect global influence as the United States today does, reaching even into the most remote villages on our continent.
Necessarily, such a situation that is without precedent must throw up many new questions for which there are no ready answers. I'd also venture to say that the very recognition of the fact that we are dealing with a situation without precedent will emerge slowly, creeping into the general public consciousness with deliberate speed.
Perhaps it would therefore be too early to expect that this nation would as a whole be able to answer the question: What should the United States do with respect to the rest of the world, given the historically unique position it occupies in the global village?
Nevertheless, I have no doubt whatsoever that this question has to be posed and that answers will have to be provided by all of us. I believe we would have made a good start if, having recognized that the process of globalization constitutes an irreversible unifying process of the universe, we recognize also that this imposes on us and this country the obligation to enhance our sense of international responsibility and solidarity.
I will not pretend, Mr. President, and none of us should, that it will be easy to come by and to cultivate that sense of international solidarity and responsibility, to find ways of expressing them and thus actually to make the best for humankind out of the unifying process of the universe.
After all, many of the people who have an obligation to make all this happen, being democratically elected, owe their very possibility to make it happen to specific constituencies that are troubled by immediate problems of their own. To these constituents, the universe is a little-understood entity, at times seen as being nothing more than a nuisance that is best ignored. And yet the reality is that as the unifying process of the universe advances, which it will continue to do at an accelerating pace, they will cause themselves a nuisance who decide to jump off. Much advice, Mr. President, consistent with what has been described as Washington consensus, has been given to us an Africans and the rest of the developing world as to what we should do to ensure that we become part of the unifying process of the universe.
Many African countries have tried and are trying to live up to those prescriptions and naturally with varying degrees of success. We, too, having assessed what we inherited from the apartheid system, determined what we needed to do to bring about growth and development, having embarked on our own process of reform, which addresses many of these injunctions.
In an article at the end of the year, in Foreign Policy magazine, the editor, Moises Naim, says that, "The adoption of the Washington consensus, it was promised and expected, would bring tons of foreign money. The IMF and the World Bank would open their coffers, foreign investors eager to benefit from the prosperity that the new policies would bring to reforming countries would also contribute to the financial bonanza."
And he comments, ruefully, "Not many emerging markets are ending the decade with foreign money, hot, warm or cold, overflowing into their economies. On the contrary, the decade is ending with a boom in Wall Street that makes investors wary of sending their hard money abroad. Internet stocks are providing high risk and high rewards once supplied by the allure of emerging markets, only they do it with a higher credit rating. Moreover, investor's appetites for emerging markets have at least temporarily abated as a result of the many crashes that have affected these countries."
As far as our own continent is concerned, add also the fact that wars, military coups and instability within countries cannot but contribute to the dampening of investor's appetites. The end result of all of this is a further entrenchment of both Afro-pessimism and poverty, the very things that the implementation of the prescriptions of the Washington consensus was in our case intended to address.
And that pessimism, Mr. President, occurs despite the many heroic efforts the governments and peoples of Africa have made and are making to correct past wrongs, encompassing the introduction of democratic systems in many countries, the struggle to rebuild an important country such as Nigeria after many years of military rule and despoilation, the battle to create a new non-racial and non-sexist society in South Africa, and the sustained efforts in many countries to introduce new economic and social policies consistent with many of the elements of the so-called Washington consensus.
Some of the participants in the task force to which we have referred on the global financial architecture have said that, "The crises of the 1990s provide a crucial test of the consistency of free and open global capital markets with the interests of individual nations, particularly small, emerging economies. The globalization of markets means that the autonomy for domestic monetary policy or for domestic macro-policy generally is fading, certainly for smaller, inherently more internationally exposed nations." And yet another participant, an important banker in this country, further expanding on these observations, made the following -- makes the following interesting comments about the report of the task force. And he says, "I feel obliged to point out the bias that permeates the report. The people who participated in the task force, myself included, occupy positions at the center of the global capitalist system. This colors their views and interests, and the report reflects it. The system is tilted in favor of the center, namely, the owners and providers of capital, and the economies at the periphery are at a disadvantage. The global financial crisis has exacerbated the difference, and the report does not give sufficient weight to the need to create a more level playing field."
Undoubtedly, the countries at that periphery to which the banker refers include many on our own continent.
I think from everything that we know, Mr. President, there's some conclusions that we can draw. And the first of these is that many of our countries, including those on our continent, do not have and are unlikely to have in the foreseeable future, the strength themselves to determine on their own what should happen to their economies. And the more they get integrated in the world economy, the further will this capacity be reduced, making them more dependent on the rest of the world economy with regard to meeting the challenge of ending poverty within their countries.
The second conclusion is that, relative to the needs of these countries, including our own, the world economy disposes of sufficient capital resources whose injection into our countries as long-term investment would succeed to take us to the takeoff stage once spoken of in textbooks on development economies.
The achievement of that takeoff stage would, in principle at least, create the material base for each of these countries, probably organized into regional associations, themselves to address the urgent challenge of the elimination of poverty on a sustainable basis.
I believe that it is one of the great ironies of the modern age that modern technology has a possibility to produce the most beneficial results, especially in the poor countries which are worst positioned --positioned to attract this technology on their own.
None among us, I believe, would doubt that the revolution in education and health can be brought about by the use of modern communication and information technology, for instance, enabling the provision of distance education and telemedicine in poor countries. The capacity also exists, as well as the practical experience, that would enable the development of the people and institutions that would be required for the accelerated growth and development of the developing world on the basis of enhanced resource and technology transfers from the rich to the poor.
Like Michel Camdessus, I'm trying to communicate the message that, for the first time in human history, humanity has the means, driven by a common sense of world citizenship, to make the best for human kind out of the unifying process of the universe. Like him, I'm of the view that we have a responsibility to endow public opinion with a global consciousness.
Camdessus has said, "A new kind of citizenship must be created, not simply a vague cosmopolitanism, but a genuine citizenship at all levels, local, regional, national, international. How can it be achieved?" And he says, "By making global solidarity more than just an adjunct of national policies.
"The global solidarity required does not simply mean offering something superfluous. It means dealing with vested interests, certain lifestyles and models of consumption, and the entrenched power structures in countries."
President Clinton made the same point last December when he addressed a luncheon held in honor of the ministers attending the meeting of the WTO in Seattle.
MBEKI: And he said that, "I think we have to acknowledge a responsibility, particularly those of us in the wealthier countries, to make sure that we're working harder to see that the benefits of the global economy are more widely shared among and within countries, that it truly works for ordinary people who are doing the work for the rest of us."
If we do not know this already, Mr. President, which I'm sure we do, we can see even from "Hard Times," by Charles Dickens, how difficult it is to deal with a vested interest of which Michel Camdessus speaks.
In writing of the captains of industry of his day, the millers based at Coketown, Dickens says:
"Surely there were never such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. They were ruined when they were required to send laboring children to school. They were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works. They were ruined when such inspectors considered the doubtful way that they were justified in chopping up people with their machinery. They were utterly undone when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke. Whenever Coketowner felt he was ill-used, that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts, he was sure to come out with an awful menace that he would 'sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.' This had terrified the home secretary within an inch of his life on several occasions.
"However, the Coketowners were so patriotic after all, that they never had pitched their property into the Atlantic yet, but on the contrary had been kind enough to take mighty good care of it."
And writing in the Financial Times of the weekend of the 8th and 9th of April this year, Michael Prowse says that, "Vigorous market competition helps create human individuals of a particular sort, homo economicus or egoistic, maximizing man. Thus, although sold as politically neutral, markets in fact encourage the spread of Western materialistic values.
"Various costs may be worth paying in order to reap the many benefits of faster economy growth. But the protesters in Seattle and elsewhere are surely justified in complaining that those charged with making global economic decisions often fail to take into account the many adverse effects -- side effects of market capitalism. "By default, the world is now opting for a version of capitalism in which the profit motive is largely unrestrained. To be blunt, it is choosing an American flavor of capitalism.
And it continues to say, "This evolved in an individualistic climate that is unique to the United States for which they are neither historical nor geographic parallels. We should not stigmatize as Luddite or reactionary those who query the universal validity of the social model. They have a case that deserves a reasoned reply."
The story has been told, Mr. President, of the fall of the British garrison in Singapore during the Second World War, at that time, the strongest British fortification in the East. Expecting a seaward attack, the British had their guns pointed towards the sea. When they attacked, the Japanese came over land by bicycle and on foot, and the Singapore garrison collapsed, its heavy defenses useless against a lightly armed infantry.
Will it happen again that we, who deserve a reasoned reply, meet a stone silence because those who man the garrisons of wealthy societies are confident that they have pointed their guns in the right direction?
Shortly, the lesson has to be relearned and taken to heart that once more, if the cries of the poor of the world are not heard, they will come by bicycle and on foot, the poor, leading to the disaster of which President Clinton spoke, that if instead of continuing to thrive together, we begin to shrivel together.
In his poem "Ode to the West Wind," Shelley writes:
"O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enhancer fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence driven multitudes: ...
But through my lips to unwakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
It may be, Mr. President, that the protesters who besieged the negotiators at Seattle were, in their way, our own West Wind. What they said, if the spoke for the pestilence-stricken multitudes -- yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red -- was indeed that since Winter was already upon these multitudes, Spring was not far behind.
Oliver Tambo rejoiced in his place -- would rejoice in his place of everlasting rest if the cries of his brothers and sisters, the people he loved, yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, the voices of the children he wanted to grow up in a world of prosperity and international friendship, if these are being heard at last.
Thank you very much, Mr. President.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Mr. President. We could not have had a more substantive or distinguished lecture to begin this wonderful series. And we're deeply proud that you have presented it.
I just said to the president that I think Professor Michael knows the topic for her next course: it will be explicating this marvelous speech.
We are honored to present this plaque to you, Mr. President. Georgetown University and the Afri can Studies program and the School of Foreign Service extend their gratitude to His Excellency Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki, president of Republic of South Africa, for the inauguration of the Oliver Tambo Lecture, May 23, 2000.
Quote: "We seek to create a united Democratic and non-racial society. We have a vision of South Africa in which black and white shall live and work together as equals in conditions of peace and prosperity. Using the power you derive from the discovery of the truth about racism in South Africa, you will help us to remake our part of the world into a corner of the globe on which all -- of which all of humanity can be proud." A quote from Oliver Tambo speaking at Georgetown University on January 27, 1987.