INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE on COLONIALISM and GLOBALIZATION
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STATEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, COLONIALISM TO GLOBALIZA
TION: FIVE CENTURIES AFTER VASCO DA GAMA, HELD AT INDIAN SOCIAL INSTI
TUTE, NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 2-6, 1898
This International Conference was planned on the occasion of the
fifth centenary of the arrival of Vasco da Gama in Calicut in Hay
and in the golden jubilee year of independence of India, Paki1498,
stan and Sri Lanka. While the arrival of Vasco da Gama symbolises t he
beginning of the colonial intervention in Africa and Asia, the independence of the South Asian countries is a symbol of the victory of
the 90 participants from 26 countries,
popular resistance to it. So
mainly of Asia and Africa, have come together for five days, to refleet on the linkages between colonialism and the impact of the current policies of globalisation.
During these five days, a number of scholarly papers analysed the
present form of globalisation and examined its consequences on the
global South in general and the poor and the underprivileged in these
countries in particular. In thus studying the policies linked to colo
nialism and globalisation, some scholars brought out their connonalities as well as differences in various regions and others d iscussed
alternative strategies of development aimed at avoiding7the negative
socio-economic and cultural impacts associated with globalisation. All
through the Conference, it was stressed that globalisation is not a
viable alternative to earlier State-centred development strategies.
Most writers also concluded that the globalisation policies are unsus
tainable and inequitous. In fact, it was pointed out that far from
being a uniting factor, globalisation is intensely polarising.
Most participants also felt that the globalisation, while being a
new form of colonialism, is qualitatively different from that of the
last 500 years. We, therefore, tried to find ways of defining the
present phase. Such a definition is essential if one is to find alter
natives relevant to our times. In the discussion that followed the
presentations, the major issues identified were:
1.
If directed properly, elements such as technology and cosinurt ications linked to globalisation can solve many modern problems,
including poverty and ignorance. In reality, however, the means of production are in the hands of a few who have a vested interest in the
poverty of many. With profit the sole motive, the good of the majority
has been ignored. The economic policies of most developing countries
are determined by the rich countries known as G-7 and by the interna
tional organisations such as the IMF, the World Bank and WTO that they
control. The move, under pressure from these bodies, to liberalise
imports and capital flow and privatise productive resources according
to the profit motive alone, has an adverse impact on the poor. Credit
made available by international financiers for such consumption and
investment at times causes the type of financial crisis seen in Asia
recently. Because of these reasons, the euphoria linked to globalisa
tion has weakened even among many of th/ose who had hoped that global
isation would be instrumental in poverty alleviation.
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2. Integral to this process is poverty and inequity. Much of Asia and
Africa have been bypassed and the benefits have reached only a few.
Unenployuent has increased even as GNP has grown, both because of
avoidable mechanisation and the closure of several small local employ
ment intensive industries. Reduction in subsidies as a result of the
Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), affects the poor more than the
rest of the population. It reduces their human right to life,
health
care, employment and education. The liberalisation of communications.
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creates in the people, demands for goods that they cannot af ford.
Unemployment affects the youth, particularly women, more than others.
Authoritarian measures to control the growing frustration and unrest
among them, were reported from several countries.
3. Closely linked to the international forces is the role of the local
elite that gets most benefits. The poor are ignored. These powerful
classes willingly accept the measures like an end to or reduction in
subsidies in the social sector. As a result, poverty has increased
within the Asian and African countries. Hence, what is called globali
sation, results in polarisation both among rich and poor nations and
within each country. The role of the elite seems to be the main reason
why despite these problems, very few national governments are able to
change their socio-economic policies in favour of the poor. Host
political parties are reconciled to the IMF and WTO imperatives.
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4. Because of this alliance, while power at the international level is
concentrated in the hands of G-7 and the organisations they control,
globalisation
there is a lack of mechanisms to monitor the ongoing c'
In
order
to
counteract
this
situation,
we
believe
that
process.
A.
International bodies like IMF, the World Bank and WTO havet to be
the developing
invoIving the
reformed and made more representative by involving
c_
countries in their decision-making process.
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B. The world trade system has to be made more equitable.
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C. There is a need to revivej the North-South and South South dialogue
systems of the past. In
1.. the
-- South-South dialogue, the developing counto
be
convinced
that there is no contradiction between
tries have
1.^.
.
multilateral
interests.
The main objective
of such a
bilateral and
of
interest
and
formulate
a mutualdialogue is to evolve comon areas
ly beneficiial agenda.
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ishnent within each country. So alternatives to the present forn
globalisation have to be found within each country and region.
of
5. These changes can be achieved only if there is adequate pressure? on
civil
the national governnents and international bodies, from the c_
society such °as
and others
bs NGOs, hunan rights and religious groups
_ x---- \
and
reconnitted to the poor and the narginalised. Local, national
presbe
one
such
gional networking anong HGOs, researchers etc. can
...sure nechanisn aimed at reversing the process of impoverishment and
marginalisation within each country and creating regional uni.y as an
alternative to today's inequitous internatlonal organisations. Constant information sharing on these issues is essential if one 1s to
work towards viable alternatives.In order to achievexwe undertake to.
1. Join
countries.
processes
sively the poor, aware of the factors that are marginalising them.
oni our countries is
2.
Knowing the! the neo-liberal model imposed
; and networking to halt its
dysf unctional,, we shall use these studies i-- ---find
locally viable alternatives.
further imposition and to 1— ---discussion is foreign debt.
3. A major concern that energed during the
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In several countries it is equal to or more than their annual GDP. The
combination of imports for local middle class consumption and the low
price of raw materials they export, keeps intensifying the problem.
We,
the participants, undertake to make a serious assessment of the
present state of the foreign debt and the processes that continue it.
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4. Already the existing studies point to the social and economic
impact on the poor and the colonial background of the debt trap. We,
therefore, join all the existing freedom from debt alliances and human
rights to groups to demand an end to all foreign debt as compensation
for centuries of colonial expansion of the countries of the South.
5. The discussion on the intellectual property rights and the forestry
programmes showed us the damage done to the environment because of
these policies. An effort is being made to deprive the communities of
the poor in the biodiversity owning countries of the South, of their
traditional systems in the name of IPRs. We undertake to form our own
network and join other existing networks, to evolve a regime accept
able to the communities of the poor in our countries.
6. We shall keep exchanging information on the consequences of global
isation in our regions and on the middle class consumption patterns in
our countries. Knowing the crucial role of people's movements, we
shall/all those grouping that are searching for local alternatives to
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the present consumption pattern, and shall keep sharing informat ion
among ourselves in order to make our search more effective.
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International Conference
COLONIALISM TO GLOBALIZATION
to
WELOME SPEECH
Sebasti L. Raj, S.J.
Chairperson: Organizing Committee
' and
Executive Director: Indian Social Institute
Resoected Chief Guest, Mr. Sulieman Najjab, Executive Committee Member, Palestine
r
tinn Organization the Chairperson of the Inaugural Session, Dr. Samir Amin,
DakZ Senegal .be Keyno.e Speaker, Dr Ganran. Corea
s
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Former Secretary General, UNCTAD, Your Excellencies the Ambassadors of different
countries and S representatives of the Diplomatic Corps, media persons, scholars and
friends who have come from different countries of the world and diiferent parts of India
to participate in this International Conference on “Colonialism to Globalization and dear
friends who have taken the trouble to attend the Inaugural session of this important
Conference,
nn hphnlf of the sponsoring Institutions of this International Conference, namely
1. 1 ■ 1 11 Nehru University Delhi University, Jamia Milia Islamia, Council for Social
Development Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Indian Social Institute, it
is my great privilege to extend a warm welcome to all of you to participate in and
contribute to this historic conference that is being inaugurated today.
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After preparing for this great event for more than one year, we have reached this crucial
momern During the nex^five days of our deliberations, we will be touching upon various
sensitive and vital issues that have affected millions of our people in the past and
continue to affect them at present and are likely to affect them in the years to come.
These issues and concerns are not of recent origin. Many of them go back to 500 years
when colonialism came into existence. The process of exploitation that began five
centuries ago has taken several shapes and modes during the past centuries. Today
manifesting itself in the forms of globalization, liberalization and free market.
might have8 been the forms and modes of this process, one fact has been consistent al
through namely, the exploitation of different sections of human society by more
powerful ones. In short, the past 500 years have, by and large, been a period of continued
exploitation.
determination brought these six different Institutions of repute, located in the Capital of
India, to put their heads together and to chalk out a plan of action which will create a
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.
In our efforts to ereo* s„h a pfatfonn
“XTSen. SXXXS.
o tkaf nrp related to this historic and
and Mends hefped us in our efforts.
Those who have given Hn^ai sup^rt in souse fo™
SBoSitXeDs» -T"s^^
S Bnut,h?oXh1gen™«nIntemaiional Conference could not
have taken place.
n^s to the support from
people from the sponsoring tosUtotrnns we
search that will hopefully give us some u eful
g
meaningfui response to this
tQ be
of this important
K ceX^X - P—
lh'
third millennium.
assembled here for this Conference, some: of: the^^ow^he
As we are
minds are: Should we allow the same_Process
£
er countries continue
in
our
uuxu
also?
Should
the milhons’ of P^°P*
n d developed nations? How do
third millennium
to be under the death trap and the debt trap ° ^basCnecessarily meant the conscious
we understand “development”
of the people of this
efforts by the dominant groups and natio
m(Jre humane social, political
world “under-developed ? Are there are
in
mote
and economic systems thariwhat are bein^
s£Ction ofPthe people?
ensure the development of aH, wrthout ^cl
These are pertinent questions for all of
g
hP
and finally discover ways and means to emancipate
colonialism that has taken the shape of globalization.
ovei. debate> discuss
ld from the evils of
once again,’wish
in the participants from other
Let me, therefore, welcome
welcome all
all of
of you
y°u
Committee, to this collectst search. U me a> °
let me welCome all
countries, a happy, healthy and enjoyable toy *n
the cause of the
of you to Indian Social Institute, w
f a century. We have tried our best to
downdrodden sections of our society for.a!
as possibie. The facilities we
hat^reddermaynot'be comparable to
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a de"
powerful message to the world. •
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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
“COLONIALISM TO GLOBALIZATION:
FIVE CENTURIES AFTER VASCO DA GAMA
u
FEBRUARY 2-6, 1998:
SOME IMPORTANT POINTS THAT EMERGED
ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE CONFERENCE
1.
A new look at history to prevent appropriation of the past for colonial purposes and to redefine
our identity.
2.
In recent years the euphoria of globalisation has been weakened because much of Asia and Africa
have been bypassed and the benefits have reached only a few. There is polarisation rather than
globalisation. Policies are similar to those of the colonial days. To couteract it one needs:
A.
Mechanisms to prevent instability in a region that can be exploited by the rich countries to
their own advantage.
3.
B.
Reform of international bodies particularly IMF and world trade.
C.
Reopening the North-South Dialogue.
Find a way of defining the present qualitatively new phase of globalisation that is not identical to
that of the last 500 years. It is needed in order to find alternatives relevant to our limes.
4.
t
fit
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Regional networking among NGOs, researchers etc and put pressure on our governments to
solve regional problems create regional unity.
5.
Internal forces too have to be taken into consideration. The present processes strengthen the
already strong within the countries of the South and strengtherns the forces of polarisation.
Alternatives to the present form of globalisation have to be found within each country and
region.
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SOME IMPORTANT POINTS THAT EMERGED
DURING THE DIALOGUE WITH GAMANI COREA
The developing countries are weak in the multilateral fora. Thus a need to initiate a
process of benefit maximisation instead of damage control. In order to achieve this goal
the following issues have to considered:
1. There is a lack of mechanisms to control and monitor the ongoing globalisation
process, especially that of speculative financial capitalism.
2. There is a need to make the international bodies, such as the IMF and the WTO, more
representative by involving the developing countries in the decision making process.
3. The World Trade system needs to be reformed.
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Each developing country must formulate its own domestic policies, to respond to
both the international needs and develop the indigenous capacity to the fullest extent.
5. There is a need to revive the dialogue systems of the past, such as the North-South and
the South-South.
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6. In the North-South dialogue the developing world has to assert its very own agenda. The
developed world has to be convinced that ultimately their future will also be affected by
the negative aftereffects of the globalisation process in the developing world.
7. The process of removing internal economic disparities has to go hand in hand with the
external policy of a more participatory dialogue with the North.
KB
8. In the South-South dialogue the developing countries have to be convinced that there is
no contradiction between bilateral and multilateral interests.
9. Through the South-South dialogue developing countries can evolve common areas of
interests and formulate a common agenda. We can make a beginning in this direction by
networking with each other.
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10. In this process of evolving a common agenda the role of the NGOs has to be
strengthened. The internet and e-mail can be used to continue the dialogue initiated in
this conference and also be a step towards the South-South dialogue.
11. The emerging Mega blocs, such as NAFTA, APEC, ECU, are creating a fragmented
trading system leading to a patron-client relationship. This needs to be reformed.
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THE OSLO
FJORD
DECLARATION
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FORUM FOR UTVIKLING OG MILJ0
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New Development
Options
TOWARDS THE 21 ST
Century:
Democracy,
Equity and
Sustainability
OSLO 1-3 FEBRUARY 1995
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THE OSLOFJORD DECLARATION
The Oslo Conference brought together representatives of governments whose struggles for
national liberation and for the right to determine their own destiny have been an inspiration.
Prominent Norwegians and citizens of twenty other northern and Southern countries joined
with them to seek new options for democratic, equitable and sustainable development. We have
jointly reached the following conclusions and have formulated the following requirements for
genuine development to occur.
The predominant neo-liberal market system as a universal model for development has failed .
The evidence, both spectacular and systemic, shows that it does not work. The unregulated
market system, defended by many governments, transnational corporations, abd the Bretton
Woods institutions, among others, creates massive inequalities and unemployment.
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No sooner have these advocates of the unregulated market proclaimed a "miracle" than it
explodes; they are unable to prevent anarchy and chaos in this system which threatens not
only the currency reserves of nations but the planning of transnational corporations
themselves.
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A system which places growth above all other goals, including human values and
wellbeing, wrecks economies rather than regenerating them. It creates incentives tor capital
to seek the lowest wages and the fewest regulations. It causes huge inequalities both
between and within nations. It generates poverty, mass unrest and upheaval. It devastates
the environment and renders true democracy impossible.
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From inequality, poverty and environmental destruction, violent conflict grows. Many
slates now lack the capacity to resolve conflicts that arise under these pressures. The result
is that almost seventy developing countries are experiencing political and social violence, up
to and including civil war. The human result includes a growing death toll, 47 million
refugees and displaced people, and intolerable insecurity for ordinary citizens.
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The debt burden has for many years been unsustainable, draining countries of the resources
they need to promote economic and social development. As a consequence ot debt,
structural adjustment programmes arc now enforced in some ninety countries; far from
improving conditions these programmes have deepened inequalities and contributed to
environmental destruction.
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The advocates of this system demand a diminution of government but offer no alternative
means of protecting the human rights of citizens and their ecology, or of improving the
international environment for sustainable development.
Those who stand behind this hollow and incompetent system seek to convince us that "there is
no alternative". This constitutes nothing less than intimidation: turthermore, the crisis ot this
model provides great opportunity. Its very failures and inadequacies allow space to restore the
natural environment, to renew democracy, and to implement the United Nations Charter's goal
of "the economic and social advancement of all peoples".
It is not a question of seeking some new universal model, but of innovating indigenously and
devising local answers to community needs, drawing on the skills and energy of women in full
equality with men, benefiting from valuable traditions as well as ne w technologies. The day of
low-cost renewable energy from the sun and the wind is already here. The increasingly
threatened natural environment, including bio-diversity, forests and other natural resources,
constitutes natural capital which is real, and has a value that must be identified in new economic
accounting.
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Above all. "Economics" means managing the household in such a way as to encourage
enterprise but not exploitation, and co-operation far more than competition. Without political
regulation, however, the global market system will continue to reward irresponsible behaviour
which cares nothing for the indivisible household of family, community, nation and
humankind. Thus, the role of the slate becomes crucial: some of its functions should be
developed to the local level to support people-centered development; others sould be delegated
to the international community and a strengthened United Nations.
In particular, the legitimacy of the Bretton Woods institutions and the new World Trade
Organization depends on their becoming fully accountable and democratically governed
specialized agencies of the United Nations. So far, their structural adjustment programmes have
all loo frequently undermined social progress, particularly in health and education.
In the light of the foregoing conclusions, we consider that the following conditions must be
fulfilled if greater economic and political choice is to be achieved:
AT THE COMMl NITY LEVEL
to
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Governmental decisions affecting communities should be taken as closely as possible to
to, and after full consultation with the communities themselves.
No impoverished community can protect its environment. The community's capacity to
protect its own natural base must be restored. Greater equality is also the key to
ecological health.
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The keys to effective community development are equity, democracy, the practice oi the
holism that is inherent in community life, and the sharing of knowlegde through
building new communication networks among citizens.
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The role of women in civil society and decision-making is essential to the realization of
the values of human development. Their full participation requires the transformation of
gender relations.
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AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL
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Governments must make land reform the basis for healthy rural economies, and ensure
credit for the poor so that people can create their own employment and build their own
communities.
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Il is legitimate for individual governments to protect their people, especially their
farmers and nascent industries, from the effects of deregulated trade.
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It is, further, legitimate for governments to regulate the market and to pass any
legislation necessary to prevent the generation of inequalities among their peoples.
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A new partnership in North-South relations requires placing the cultures, development
options and strategies of developing countries first, not those of the experts, the
consultants, and the entrepeneurs of the North. Governments should devise their own
development strategies and priorities to which the Bretton Woods institutions and all
other external agencies should adapt themselves, not the other way around.
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Governments should institute environmental accounting systems in order to measure the
status of their natural capital and monitor its use.
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AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL
It must be recognised that cultural diversity is a universal good, and the principal source
of new strength, new actors, and sustainable development models.
The Bretton Woods institutions must be made fully transparent and accountable for their
policies through supranational mechanisms for monitoring and controlling these
agencies.
"We, the Peoples of the United Nations" should elect our representatives to a UN
Parliamentary Assembly alongside the present organs of executive government.
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Effective international machinery' to promote renewable energy should be installed in the
UN system.
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Work to complete the Code of Conduct for Transnational Corporations should be
urgently resumed.
Existing international power relations do not permit the realization ot these goals. That is why
we call upon citizens, non-governmental organizations and political leaders to recognise that
the existing system has opened the most dangerous chasm in human history, between an
affluent over-consuming minority and an impoverished majority ot humankind in the South but
also, increasinslv. in the North. No nationso divided has ever remained stable, no trontiei 01
force can withstand the despair and resentment which a failed system is now actively
generating.
We do not have much time. We are on the point of leaving to our children a world we would
not wish to live in ourselves. But we have found inspiration in the resilience of the peoples ot
the countries whose presence among us has made this meeting so memorable. With shared
responsibility we cm draw from the present crisis the creativity needed to make a world
community that really works. Nothing less will do.
This Declaration was presented to the participants in the last session of the Seminar. All the
participants, governmental and non-governmental, express their agreement w ith the set ot
conditions elaborated to achieve greater economic and political development. The majority
express their agreement with the content of the first, analytical section. Two non-governmental
members express specific reservations about the whole Declaration.
Oslo, 3 February 1995
I
NEW DEVELOPMENT OPTIONS
TOWARDS THE 21ST CENTURY
supported
Representatives
w h o>
Go ve r nment
Declaration
i
text):
last
paragraph
of
the
Declaration
Rosa Elena Simeon (Minister of Science. Tecnology and En\ironmenii:
Cuba.
Haile Woldense (Minister of. Finance and 'Development):
Eritrea.
Francois Severin (Minister of Agriculture. Natural Resources and Rural Development);
Haiti.
Dr. Mohamad Basheer (Minister of Education);
Kerala.
Eugene Makhlouf (PLO representali'-e. Stockholm):
Palestine.
Sibusiso Bengu (Minister of Education);
South
Africa.
Nguyen Xuan Oanh (Political Advisor);
Vietnam
Reservations about the analytial part of the Declaration
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List
of
Signatories:
Ruben Zamora
Ex -Presidential
(signed)
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Susan George
Author and
(signed) '
Candidate,
Associate
Adebayo Adedeji
Director, ACDESS,
Nigeria
(signed)
Peggy Antrobus:
Leader of DAWN,
(signed)
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Salvador
El
Director
of
Ex-Di rector.
UN
Development
with
the
T ransnational
Institute
Economic
Commision
Women
a
for
New
For
Era,
Africa,
Barbados
(see
st
ht
Claes Brundenius
Professor,
Research
(y/gnedI
Erskine Childers:
Senior Adviser to
(s i g n e d)
SI
the
UN,
Xabier Gorostiaga:
Rector at the
(signed)
University
Mak Makalima
Professor,
Fort
(signed)
Hare
of
Dan Smith
Director,
(.s’ i g n e d)
Peace
Research
C.R. Soman
Professor
(signed )
of
nutrition,
and
Vegard Bye
Executive
(signed)
Director,
of
Lu nd.
S weden
Nicaragua
Managua,
University,
of
Yash Tandon
Researcher
(5i tied)
University
Ireland
Manfred Max-Neef:
Rector at the University
(sig tied)
South
Africa
Valdivia,
Chile
Institute
of
Oslo
Kerala,
India
Consultant.
Halle Jorn .Hansscn
General Secretary,
(signed)
I
Institute,
Policy
ForUM,
Norwegian
(PRIO)
Zi mba bwe
Norway
people's
aid,
Nor wa y
(GB/Norway)
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THE COPENHAGEN ALTERNATIVE DECLARATION
(final draft. 8 March 1995)
This Declaration builds upon effons emanating from the NGO Development
Caucus during the Social Summit preparatory meetings, the Oslo Fjord
Declaration, and other national and international citizens' initiatives.
We, representatives of social movements, NGOs and citizens’ groups participating
in the NGO Forum during the World Summit for Social Development (WSSD),
share a common vision of a world which recognizes its essential oneness and
interdependence while wholly embracing human diversity in all its racial, ethnic,
cultural and religious manifestations, where justice and equity for all its inhabitants
is the first priority in all endeavours and enterprises and in which the principles of
democracy and popular participation are universally upheld, so that the longdreamed creation of a peaceful, cooperative and sustainable civilization can at long
last be made possible.
In this context, we expected that the Social Summit would address the structural causes ot
poverty, unemployment and social disintegration, as well as environmental degradation,
and would place people at the center of the development process. These include not only
economic, political and social causes, but also the cultural structures of gender inequity.
While some progress was achieved in placing critical issues on the table during the Summit
negotiation process, we believe that the economic framework adopted in the draft
documents is in basic contradiction with the objectives of equitable and sustainable social
development. The over-reliance that the documents place on unaccountable "open, freemarket forces" as a basis for organizing national and international economies aggravates,
rather than alleviates, the current global social crises. This false premise threatens the
realization of the stated goals of the Social Summit.
The dominant neo-liberal system as a universal model for development has failed. The
current debt burden of dozens of countries is unsustainable, as it is draining them of the
resources they need to generate economic and social development. Structural adjustment
proizrammes imposed bv the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have
consistently undermined economic and social progress by suppressing wages, undermining
the contributions and livelihoods of small producers, and placing social services,
particularly health care and education, out of reach of the poor. In dismantling basic state
services, these programmes have shifted an even greater burden onto women, who care for
the nutrition, health, well-being and harmony of the family, as well as community
relations. In promoting the rapid exportation of natural resources, deregulating the
economy, and pushing increasing numbers of poor people onto marginal lands, adjustment
has contributed to the process of ecological degradation.
This system has also resulted in an even greater concentration of economic, political.
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technological and institutional power and control over food and other critical resources in
the hands of a relatively few transnational corporations and financial institutions. A system
that places growth above all other goals, including human well-being, wrecks economies
rather than regenerates them, exploiting women's time, labour and sexuality. It creates
incentives for capital to externalize social and environmental costs. It generates jobless
growth, derogates the rights of workers, and undermines the role of trade unions. In the
process, the system places a disproporuonate burden on women and jeopardizes their
health and well-being and consequently that of those in their care. Finally, it leads to an
unequal distribution in the use of resources between and within countnes and generates
social apartheid, encourages racism, civil strife and war, and undermines the rights of
women and indigenous peoples.
It is for these reasons that we also cannot accept the official documents' endorsement of
the new trade order as defined in the Final Act of the Uruguay Round and Articles of
Agreement on the establishment of the World Trade Orgamzation. The documents do not
consider that trade liberalization through the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs
(GATT) and the WTO creates more losers than winners and that the negative impacts will
be disastrous for poor countries, and poor and working people within all countnes. The
interests of local producers, in particular, are undermined in the areas of foreign
investment, biodiversity and intellectual property rights.
We reject the notion of reducing social policy in developing countries to a "social safety
net ', presented as the human face' of structural adjustment policies in the WSSD
documents. This proposal is predicated on the withdrawal of the State from one of its
fundamental responsibilities. The slashing of social expenditures in the North as a means
of reducing the budget deficit has also undermined many of the achievements of the
welfare state.
Social development can only be achieved if all human rights - civil, political, economic,
social and cultural -- of all individuals and peoples are fulfilled. We believe that the
Summit documents fail to recognize adequately the primacy of human rights as a
prerequisite for a participatory and meaningful social development for all sectors of
society, especially for children and such marginalized groups as people with disabilities,
indigenous peoples, people in occupied temtories. refugees and the displaced. It also fails
to note how the undemocratic nature of structural adjustment programmes undermine the
rights of citizens and often leads to their repression. In addition, efforts made at the
Social Summit to reverse agreements reached in Vienna and Cairo in relation to women's
rights represent a further undemuning of the possibilities for the kind of fundamental
changes required for the creation of just societies.
Finally, we note that militarization creates enormous waste of human, natural and financial
resources. It causes further inequality and pauperization, political and social violence,
including violations against women, and violent conflict that adds to the rising global death
toll and the growing number of refugees and displaced people.
1
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In rejecting the prevailing global economic model, we do not suggest the imposition
of another universal model. Rather, it is a question of innovating and devising
local answers to community needs, promoting the skills and energy of women in
full equality with men, and benefitting from valuable traditions, as well as new
technologies.
In the light of the foregoing, we consider that the following conditions must be fulfilled at
the household, community, national and international levels to realize this alternative
vision of development:
AT THE HOUSEHOLD LEVEL:
* The new vision of development requires the transformation of gender relations, in which
women are equal participants in the decision-making process.
♦ Women and men must share responsibility for the care of children, the elderly and
people with disabilities.
Domestic violence in all its forms must not be tolerated.
* Women must be guaranteed sexual and reproductive choice and health.
* Children’s rights should be respected and enhanced.
AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL:
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* The keys to effective development are equity, participation, self-reliance, sustainability
and a holistic approach to community lite.
*
* The capacity of communities to protect their own resource base must be restored.
* Govemmentaj and intergovernmental decisions must be built upon the full
participation of social movements, citizens' organizations and communities
at all stages in the development process, paying special attention to the equal participation
of women.
-
* Communities must gain control over the activities of all enterprises that affect their well
being, including transnational corporations.
The political, social and economical empowerment of youth, especially young women,
should be fostered.
3
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AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL:
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* All forms of oppression based on gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, disability and
religion must be eliminated.
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* Governments must ensure the full and equal paracipauon of civil society in the processes
of economic policy-making and other development decision-making, implementation and
monitoring.
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Education must be granted as the main instrument to empower youth to take their rightful
place in society, enabling them to take control of their lives. Non-tormal education should
be promoted, drawing on the experiences and skills of non-specialized people.
* Governments must ensure the full and equal parucipauon of women in power structures
and decision-making at all levels.
* National accounting systems should be revised to incorporate women s unpaid work.
* Governments must commit themselves to developing national strategies and
implementation plans in order to fulfill their responsibilities under the Human Rights cove
nants. They must regularly report on their progress, in particular their efforts regarding
marcmalized groups' access to legal procedures. Governments which have not ratified the
Convention on the Eliminauon of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
should do so. Governments should work for the approval of the Draft Declaration on the
. Universal Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations.
* Recoenition of and respect for ancestral territonai rights of indigenous peoples and
their right to self-determination is an imperauve in order to ensure their existence as
peoples and cultures. Temtones that are suit colonized should likewise be accorded their
rishi io sovereignty and self-determination.
* Governments must make agrarian reform the basis of sustainable rural economies
and ensure access.to affordable credit for the poor without discriminating on the basis of
gender, race and ethnicity so that people can create their own employment and build their
own communities.
* Governments should develop sustainable employment programmes, in full consultation
with trade unions and employers organizations.
* Governments of industrialized countries should reduce their countnes’ disproportionately
large claim on available natural resources by implemenung the appropnate mix of
incentives, ecological tax reforms, regulations, and environmental accounung systems to
achieve sustainable production and consumption patterns.
* Southern eovemments
governments have the right to protect their people from the effects of
deregulated and liberalized trade, especially in areas of food security and domestic
4
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production. Moreover, they should be able to regulate the market and take fiscal or legal
measures for the purpose of combatting inequalities among their peoples. Africa should be
given preferential treatment in this respect.
* Governments should commit themselves to reducing military expenditure so that it does
not exceed spending on health care and education and increase the conversion of military
resources to peaceful purposes. This "peace dividend" should be distributed equally
between a national and a global demilitarization fund for social development. There
should be a conversion of the military economy to a civilian economy.
AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL:
* A new partnership in South-North relations requires placing the cultures, development
options and long-term strategies of developing countries first, and not those of the North.
* It must be recognized that cultural diversity is the principal source of new strength, new
actors, new social systems and sustainable development, creating an alternative
globalization from below.
* There should be an immediate cance ition of bilateral, multilateral and commercial
debts of developing countries without Lie imposition of structural adjustment
conditionality. In the longer term, the international community should institutionalize
equitable terms of trade.
* Policy-based lending and the interterence of the World Bank and IMF in the internal
affairs of sovereign states should be disconunued.
* The Brenon Woods institutions must be made transparent and accountable to civil society
in both the South and North: their policies and programmes should be made people
centered: and participation of social movements and citizens' organizations at ail stages in
the negotiation of agreements, project implementation and monitoring should be ensured.
* Global macro-economic policy should address the structure of povertv and stimulate the
levels of real purchasing power. An alternative macro-economic policy will have to
meaningfully address the distribution of income and wealth, both between and within
countries, leading to a democratization of consumption. This policy would require curbing
lavish luxury-goods economies and redirecting resources towards the production of
essential consumer goods and social services.
* Global production and consumption must stay within the limits of the carrying capacity
of the earth. Political regulation is mandatory in order to prevent the global market
system from continuing to reward irresponsible behaviour that cares nothing for the house
hold. community, nation and humankind.
* Regulatory institutions and instruments of governance and law that are truly democratic
and enforceable must be established to prohibit monopolistic structures and behaviour and
5
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to ensure
rights of
all peoples.
Work
ro complete
the Code of Conduct for TNCs should be urgently resumed.
.
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recognize that the cx"nn| Sy^C® suming minority and an impoverished majonty
history between an affluent, overc°ns“ J
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h time We are at the point of leaving to our children a world
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coniinunity uking part in the
inspiration and hope m the fact that th g
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Social Summit in such a massive wayco ^gea «
with shared
strategy for the lasting improve
nresent crisis the creativity needed to make a
responsibility, we can draw from the_pres
commitment as we leave
world community that truly works. This is our comm
the Copenhagen Summit.
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Asiki.kioii F.cologica P.iquer.ilrpanloCohana (6(X)
members)
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Asociatia Romana de Mar
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Dczvoli.irr Durabila t l<xi mem
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Sssiki.k.io Ag-.-ncia Tcn.i lM) nK'mbrrs)
Asmki.k.io ProFundac.io Universilalia do Vale do
Jcqiiiliiihonlia
Assixi.h.io Prol uinliK ao (Inivcrsiialia do Vale do
Jei|iiiiinlioiil)a tl-UNIVAl Ij. Brasil, i I.MX) membrevi
S-.MKi.iiuxi Hi li'ique Vietnam <MX) members)
Asmki.iiii>ii lor I»cvelopmcii( Policy. Germany (IM)
members i
\ssiki.iiion of Women * Clubs. Zimbabwe. <4().(XM)
memhcisi
Assih.t.iiion Ribai el Falh (MM) members
Backward Smirly IdiKation Base i UMHXMl nx-nihcrsi
H.ihraini lliiniaii Rights Organization < 15 members)
Haladre
Baluchistan National Movement (6 affiliates)
Bin.ui Center lor Research and llcvclopmcnl. Israel.
«l<) members)
llondcd Labour I ibcration Front
Buiki 185 (XMl members)
( alahash Dancers 829 members)
I arilas Nepal (25 affiliates)
< armcle Basil (individual)
CKO TRI T (2000 members)
CF'DI <20.(XM) members)
Cend.it hiloet hilc.Chile 120 members)
CENIDH (KX) members)
Center (or Trade (Inion and Workers' Services (200
members)
Centre Amadou Amp.iihe
Centre for Citizens’ Initiatives ( M) members)
Centre for Development and Innovation in Health (^0
members)
Centre lor Socioleg.il Research and Documentation
Service (100 affiliaii-M
Centre Tnconlinrni..i i s members)
Centro Amazomco tie Antropoligia y Aphcacion Practica
Centro de Invcstigucion Para la Paz i KMX) members)
Centro Memorial Dr Martin Luther King. Jr" |3O
members)
CF5TA t KX) memhcisi
CESTIMt ENTRO STUDI IMMIGRAZIONE (120
members)
Children Nonlormal Fduc.Mion (KX) members)
Easi European Children Aid. (h'timark. (120 memhers)
I hcnezer '■First Ha|Xisi (Jhurch" (350 members)
I cuneus Africa. Kenya
l i umcmi al Peace Forum < KM) members)
I KI < I .tXN) members!
I nd.i Inter Arabe. Tunisia
I Nl )A I M. Senegal I I '<> (MX) members i
English International ul Lund. Sweden < I0.7IM) mem
hers)
Enhedslisten. Denmark i l.5(M) memlx-rs)
Environment and Poflutwwi Rcseari h Group. South
Korea. (300 members)
Found.iiion (I I INAM).
Environmental
Defence
Atgentina. (5(M) members)
Fnvironnemcni ct I x-veloppcnK-iil Allcrnatd. France.
(3(M) members)
|-.ropcan Network ol the t 'nemploveil. International
ESK/CUISl.KXXtnK-mNis)
Ecwela Nalionalc Siafkal. Colombia (5,(XX) mem
bers)
Fair Trade Organizatnm ol Finland. Finland. (10.000
members)
Faltighuset. Norway. < xx» member-.)
Femmes el Changemcnis. France/Africa. (50 mem
bers)
EMU (50 members)
FimoiaSol.l |(M) mcmbrisi
FonolaSolCinuSur 120 members)
Forum Rruxelloi. de l .urte Centre la Pauvrete. Belgi
um
Foundation for Contempnary Research. South Afri
ca. (15 members)
Fratemidad de Iglesias Bautistas de Cuba (1^ chur
ches)
Freeworld Humanitarian Services Organisation. Inter
national. (257 members i
Friends’ Association for Rural Rcconsl riKlion
(FARR), India
Friends of the Earth. International (2 million mem
bers)
Friends of the Earth. Sweden. (1.500 members)
Fundacion Centroamencana por la iniegrixxin (FCT).
Central Amcncad J08 members)
I undiK ton Para Estudio e InveMigHcion de la Mujer
i KM) members)
Fundal ion Progrf
I’rogresar. Gdumbia < 2.0CX) members)
Fundation
Fundation Sol y Tierra. Colombia.!200 members)
liencral Confederation •»! Trade Unions (GTCU).
Russia . 1107 million members)
Group de listudios para cl Uesarrolo
Giou
Harriet Tubnan Jannie I ihi Hansen Women's Collci live
Heads oi Denominations <4 affiliates)
Health Rights 115 members)
H()MI>. inc. ( MM) nu mbersi
HWIDtlOOO membcrsi
It IM'S. Britain. (25 members)
Indian Social Institute. India. (5.(MM) members)
(minute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (20 nKmhers)
Institute for Environment and Development Studies
(0000 members)
Institute lor Planetary Synthesis. International
Institute for Social Education and Development (5(XX)
members)
Institute of Social Sciences (120 members)
Institute of Social Sciences (25 affiliates)
Institute de Ecologic PiMmca. Chile. (27 members)
IN1T.RED (80 members!
Internationa Allicncc of Women <80 affiliates)
International Centre for Development and Environ
mental Studies (4 affiliates)
International Coalition for Development (32 mem
bers)
International Council
Voluntary Agencies (KM)
members)
International Movement Against all Forms of Discri
mination und Racism t5<M) members)
International People s Health Council (9 members)
International South Group Network (700 members)
International Union of Students (2(>m members)
International Wons'ns AIDS Caucus (KMX) mem
hers)
IPIK Europe
ISIS International Manila
ISIS International Samiago (15 affiliates)
membeis)
Organisation of Rural Awtociarions for Progres 11.5m
members)
OSPAAAI
OXI AM UK/I
Pacific Asia Resource Center
Pakistan Mvastliciiic Welfare Organisation
PanAtrn an Coorrfmaiion Forum 15().(XX) members)
I*.mat tie an Youth Mmemcin
Parents and < Itililbinh <4(MX) members)
Peace ami < iHipcration ( H).(MX) members)
PI-.Nl TH) <MM> memhen)
People s Alliance for Social Development (4(XM)
members)
People s Health Network
Permanent People s I riburud (120 members)
Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (102
dlfillHtCS)
Pirkko Kuoic Iii.ikIi Thailand
Plataloniia 0 /‘i PIB (6000 members)
PM DS
PROCI IT A < MM) affiliates)
Prodis Yanapakuiiu
Project Assessment Forum. Japan (10 affilalcs)
Proutisi Nivcrsal (180.000 members)
REAS ( (IMM) memhen)
Regional ( ommitlee fur the Promotion of Communi
ty Health (250 members)
Religious Society of Friends (Quakeo.) (3t membenI
Research Foundation for Technology and Natural
Ressource Policy ( KM) 000 memben)
Reseau Quebecois de Sensibilisation snir le Dcveloppement Social ('0 affiliates)
EMIT (150 members)
Rural Reconstruction Nepal (500 memhen)
SADA AHMD Foundation (I affiliate)
SAHRAWI National Women Union (I5.<MM) mem
ben)
SAHSSO t KMX) members)
Sara Stinus. Ik-nmark
Seoul* Algerian
Senterungdommens E-mdsfmbiind (4000 members i
SHIRK AT GAH (12 affiliates)
SIDDHI (22 members)
SMA
SOBREVIVENCIA (100 memben)
Society for Human Integrety and Prosperity (40.000
members)
Sohdamy for pnrticipaiion und Human Right* r400
members)
Solidarity Si-nice International (500 memben)
Soudancsi- Women Unity Action
South Indi.i N( it) (’tMirdinalion Forum ( KX) .illdi.itcs)
Student ( lirtstian Movement tn Norway
SU (6X members)
Sudan I amdy Planning (400 members)
SUR. (68 members)
Swedisht 'uban Association (15(X) memben >
Tanzania Media Women’s Associuiion < 37 affiliates)
Technology lor I de < 2(X) memben)
The SyiK-rgos Insiiiutc (40 affiliates)
The Egypii.m Sociciv lor Ikvelopmcnt of local Com
mumiics (170 affiliates)
The PeopIcCcnterecI Development Forum
Third World Forum /Forum du Tiers Monde < I (MM>
members)
Third World Network Malaysia
Tibetan Women s Association (9 (XX) mcmhcni
Tibetan Youth Congress (12 000 memben)
UN Association of Cuba (250 affiliates)
U N Association of New Zealand
UNICEF NGO COMMITEE
Uganda Association of Women lawyers ( KX) mem
ben)
Uganda community Reflief Association t’8 (XM))
members)
UJSARIO
UK Child Poverty Action Group and UK Disability
Alliance (S().(XX) memben)
(Inion de ( oopcralivas Madnddenas de Transajo &
Socuxlo
(Inion of Young Communists (5(X) (MX) members)
Unity Cooperation for Development <»f Peoples (70
affiliates)
UniversiiQ Bordeaux III
VolnaMalaga (I <0 memben)
VSOP i I s0 memben)
AsM*ci.ition de ( onducicurs de ('hanstes de Zaire
(5500 members)
Association Democratique des Irninics du Maroc
AxscKia'ion Nationale des Maisons Famili.ilcs Rura
les (820 (MX) members)
Association of Claimants and Unpaid Workers (SIM)
members)
A<csociazione Interetmci Shat
lanprilla iliXi members)
Assix'iaz.ione Papa Giovannin XXIII (‘XMi members)
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a
I
■
2-4 r
i
3
New Times, New Role
For Universities of the South
G iven the challenges we are facing at the end of this
century, defining the role of the university is difficult and
perplexing. This is especially true in Central America as a
whole and even truer here in Nicaragua, with its profound
economic crisis and acute political polarization.
We want to provoke, convoke and evoke the best his- |
tory and experiences of Latin America’s universities, with
a creative, self-critical vision. To do that, we must begin
by evaluating the history of our own Central American
Universities (UCAs) and the lessons that this difficult and
conflictive, yet testimonial, history teaches us. Using that
memory, yet not closing ourselves up in it, we then want
to program the future of the UCA 2000.
The 1960s:
Adapted to the Model
The Jesuits established the UCAs in El Salvador,
Guatemala and Nicaragua more than 30 years ago, hoping
to create . xeg^ ^sha Ion that could contribute to the
integration of the isthmus. The legal differences in each
country combined with coordination problems to break
the regional nature of the project, leaving simply three
universities, only two of which even used the name UCA.
(Guatemala’s took the name Rafael Landivar University.)
They were bom as private universities, with less than
2,000 students in each, and, compared to the national
universities, were elite. Their student bodies came from
wealthy families that lacked either the possibility or the
desire to send their children to study in the United States
or Europe.
The UCAs achieved their central goal of training pro
fessionals and political leaders for the Central American
Common Market’s integration scheme. At least an im
plicit coherence existed between the university’s role and
the project of the elites in charge of this agroexport and
import substitution model.
The model produced spectacular economic growth
(6% annually) in the region’s countries for almost 20
years but it was a dependent and unsustainable growth,
which economically and socially excluded the majority of
the people. Export profits were not reinvested m develo
ping either a national market or a platform for industrial
exports. This exclusionary growth was controUed by re
pressive and structurally anti-democratic oligarchic gov-
enunents.
The 1970s:
Tension, Transition, Evolution
In the mid-1970s, a decline in the rhythm of growth
and a lack of alternatives to the model, together with the
unjust and anti-grassroots character of the political order,
caused the regional crisis to explode. The UCAs were
partly responsible for this crisis since they prepared pro•••’■* the model and lacked the
creative capacity to adapt or transform it One of the
is was thus a breakdown of
the UCAs’ own university model.
In Guatemala, the Landivar University yielded to the
limited spaces in the culture of terror imposed by the milltarv. causing serious conflicts even among the Jesutts
themselves. Some, among them C6sar Jerez, were ex_________________ —------- -------------- -—""
24
L
July 1903
i
’
■%
________ AnaAmii
thus prolonging people’s suffering. The magazine Estu- ?
pelled from Landivar for questioning the meaning of a
dios Centroamericanos (ECA) conuins invaluable testi- J
university in the midst of the repression and impoverish
mony of this colossal peace effort over the decade, which
ment of the majorities.
fundamentally questioned the anti-democratic government
The Jose Simedn Canas UCA in El Salvador evolved
and military structures.
differently. The university leadership, especially the
The assassination of the six UCA Jesuits in late 1990,
Jesuits, began to denounce the political system’s injus
ordered by the army’s high command, was a desperate at
tices. Ignacio Ellacuria and his team turned the UCA into
tempt to truncate any negotiated solution to the conflict
El Salvador’s "critical consciousness," directly contribut
But the international solidarity these murders provoked
ing to the agrarian transformation of the mid-70s and the
element in attaining the negotiated <|1
was a determining
c
creation of the government of young officers at the.end of
peace and the verification of the whole process by the «
the decade. Various secular UCA leaders joined that gov
United Nations.
ernment, including its rector, RomSn Mayorga, who be
Thus the UCA-E1 Salvador went from being a plat
came president of the civilian-miliUry junta.
form for criticism and the search for democratic transfer- f I
That transitional government, caulyzed by a negotia
mation through negotiation among elites in the 1970s, to J
tion of elites with significant participation by the UCA
being one for negotiation between the government and the
j
leadership, lasted less than a year. It was truncated by the
grassroots interests represented by the FMLN in the <
14-familv oligarchy and the armed forces at their service.
1980s. Nonetheless, it still did not make major internal
Massive repression, cruel tortures and killings followed, in
changes in its own model and curriculum, alter the social
which we lost thousands of brothers, among them Bishop
origin of its student body or change its administrative
Romero. The country was thrown into the worst crisis of
structures. It should be stressed, however, that its "pasto
its history. For its part, the UCA Uansformed itself to
ral of accompaniment" to peasant and refugee com- <
serve as a platform of democratization from above, but
munities served as a social base for creating two towns
made no substantial changes in its student body, its cur
that became symbols of the newly emerging democratic
riculum or even the institution per sc.
power even in the midst of war. We refer to "Segundo «
In the UCA-Managua, the winds of change came
Montes" in Morazdn and "Ignacio Ellacuria" in Chalaten- (j
from the laitv, not the Jesuits. The Somoza dynasty had
"^In Guatemala, the Landfvar University continued re- ®
submitted the UCA to its direct influence through a
relative of the dictator. A broad sector of students, radi
striding itself to the space permitted by the military, with- Wl
calized since high school, joined the struggle against Soout ever becoming a voice critical of the persistent tenor
mocismo, and a number of professors and some Jesuits
that was expressed in the massive massacres of indigenous J
who gave active solidarity to that student movement were
and peasant communities and in the disappearance of J
expelled from the UCA along with the students them
those who dared denounce them. Not even was any^
selves Despite this, the decade-long open conflict with
sphere of the university’s own model questioned.
f
the dictatorship imprinted a tradition of strong participa
In that decade, the UCA-Managua ’s model went h
tion bv both the teaching staff and the student body in the
through the greatest changes. The Sandinista revolution^
universitv life of the UCA. Nor did the various waves of
opened the way for criticism by professors and student
expulsions prevent the UCA from contributing to the in
who had fought against the UCA’s original model. The.
surrection and its legitimacy. During all this, the: UCA s
new redor, Armando Upez, opted to mtegrate the UCA I
unriersitv model was challenged but not changed. Only
into the National Council of Higher Education (CNE-T
the fail of Somocismo produced a university
and provide free tuition, financed by the national budgelf
tion, and even then with serious limitations m the UCA
That decision broke with the elitist nature of a pnvatd
academic level and with respect to 1 autonomy.
university and opened new perspectives .or even greater
social commitment than the UCA-E1 Salvador had shown!
. .............
3
*1
The 1980s:
Conflict, Negotiation, Democratization
During the 1980s, the UCA-E1 Salvador became vir
tually the only public platform for discussing the negouation of the armed conflict in that country
As tire
stagnated war dragged on, civil society’s demand to find a
negotiated solution grew. The UCA responded by entteteing the FMLN as well as the Duarte and Cnsua"' 8°
Juts for wanting to resolve the conflict on the battlefield.
July 1903
Students from the middle classes and grassroots majonUeu
Who entered the UCA gave it a new viteiity and character.
The UCA-Managua formulated its mission as ex
Dressing a preferential option for the poor through "allied,
support" of the country’s new process of revolutionary 5<j|
cial change. In reality, there was more support than en j
chm. Se the other universities, the UCA backed irf
new revolutionary state and suffered an exodus of
professors to the government ministries.
b |
<
(I
■
I
fe.: >
N *.
I
^Analyst*
b
The university’s new model and curriculum centered
on training officials for the new stele, and the expanding
public sector offered a stable supply of jobs for those
Lias
»
I
»
»
»
»
I
>
»
>
I
»
>
)
>
»
)
)
r
4
I
I
I
.r
E,“ b‘r°"
“
course work, a significant percentage of UCA students
were already state employees. The UCA also adjusted to
the political and ideological needs of the Sand™^ stele^
the majority of those graduating from the UCA thus had
an affinitv with the revolutionary project
But the university did not really respond to the new
state’s technical, scientific and professional needs or to the
country’s needs. It could not do so because it suffered
leadership role in the slow and ambiguous national peace
process and is contributing little to the valiant efforts of
the Bishops Conference in favor of human rights. Nor is
it yet questioning its traditional university model, although
tiny bursts of new initiatives have occuned in its Institute
of Indigenous Studies and in the reconccptualization of
the role of Landivar’s seven branch campuses in the de-
partmental capitals.
The UCAs in El Salvador and Nicaragua, on the other
hand, arc trying to fundamentally reformulate their role in
the face of new national and international realities. In El
Salvador, the UCA is trying to reconsolidate following the
____—— decapitation of its
limited teaching ca
-------------------leadership
team.
Since the newly op
pabilities and a clear
academic deteriora
ened road to demo
IV/iat kind of university will the UCA be?
cratization
offers
tion due to the "brain
How
will
it
insert
itself
in
Nicaragua?
Salvador
’
s
civil
so
drain" of its profes
ciety
more
possibility
sors toward the gov
For what labor markets will its
of confronting the
ernment Although
students be prepared?
armed forces’ im
this was compen
punity and winning
sated for by the stu
the country’s demili
dent-teacher move
tarization, the UCA’s
ment, it combined
voice as "critical conscience" has now become but one of
with the minimal
academic standards that CNES and the state demanded of
many. This allows it to turn more attention to its role as
the new professionals-as well as with the university’s use
an institution in a more democratic country.
as a source of volunuers for cotton and coffee picking, the
The other side of the coin is that the avalanche of
military, social service and the like-to lower university
foreign financing accompanying democratization as
qualitv and the UCA’s very relevance in national life.
meant a certain "brain drain" from the UCA to the recon
CNES seriously clipped the possibilities for university au
struction programs of international agencies, grassroots
tonomy and thus for laying out its own academic goals,
organizations and national nongovernmental organiza
even within the revolutionary process. As in the 1960s,
tions. In this novel peacetime, the UCA-El Salvador
when the UCA trained uncritical professionals for the
seeking to project iteelf academically through its new and
agroexport model, UCA graduates of the 1980s were un
ambitious public health program (which links it directly
prepared to contribute creaUvely or critically to a national
with the mpst basic needs of the country’s poor)i and its
project in a decade traumatized by political polarization,
School of Engineering (by contributing to the rebuilding
war, US aggression and the ever more evident crisis of
of the destroyed infrastructure), as well as to mamtam its
hard amed role as - piattorm of debate about the nauonal
■■tete socialism
.
Both the destruction caused by the wai
ths inetticaev of public administration forced the Sandinistas to in
The crisis of the university model is greater in the
troduce the beginnings of an economic structural
UCA-Managua than in the UCA-El Salvador. But the
adjustment program in 1988. The following year the
higher level of the Nicaraguan student body’s social conUCA sought more autonomy from CNES in order to ra
sciousness and the incorporation into the UCA of an array
tionalize 'its own administration, but did not question
of research institutes with social projection into the rural
either its model or the acquiescent role that it and the
zones (Nillapan, the Center for Research and Documenta
country’s other universities maintained in the face of
tion of the Atlantic Coast, the Institute for Popular Educa
growing national exhaustion caused by the war and the
tion, the Central American Historical Institute an
e
Sandinista project’s own limitations.
Juan XXIII Institution), together with the mitiation of live
masters programs and agreements with universiti
over the world that are looking into (he new role of the
The 1990s:
New Model, New Professionals
university, open possibilities for it to respond creatively to
if
In Guatemala, the Landivar University is playing no
the crisis.
July 199'
26
»
-r—".-
...........
■...», -«- =w>w9»itlwx-M-
Analy tit
The Context of
UCA-Nicaragua’s Crisis
Such intellectual and political retreat is irresponsible.
Without defining a new university model, we would be
deceiving not only the students, but ourselves and the
country. "University endogamy" is a university’s greatest
danger, the cancer that eats away at university transforma
tion and the crucial contribution the university can and
must make to the crisis of civilization our world is now
living through.
f
«
<
The crisis of our university model is not defined, as
some erroneously believe, by the serious financial crunch
<
in which tensions emerge around how to obtain new re
sources. It is defined by a far more fundamental set of is
<■
sues. What kind of university will the UCA be? How will
it insert itself into Nicaragua? For what labor markets will
Latin America’s Lost Decade
it prepare its students? What national project does Nica
ragua need to consolidate peace and democracy and begin
In the 1980s, all of Latin America experienced demo
a new phase of development?
cratization
processes and the emergence of their civil so
These questions were put on the table for discussion
cieties.
Tn
no other region did these changes have the
J
following the Sandinistas’ electoral defeat. With the rapid
force
that
they
had
in
Central
America.
In
Nicaragua
and
shrinking of the public sector, training for the stale bur
El Salvador, after years
eaucracy will no longer
of war, the principle of
be the university’s main
negotiation and agree < 1
task. A drastic and dog
ment finally won out <
The challenges of the future
matic neoliberal policy
over the logic of arms.
<
has merchandized our
are increasingly technical,
But if today Latin
society and provoked
America,
particularly
scientific
higher levels of unem
Central America, is
ployment and poverty
and economic.
more democratic than al
than those of the worst
the end of the 1970s, it
period of the war. The
is also much poorer. 14
reduction of the univerThe modernization of <>■
sitv budget sparked the
our economies has not accompanied the modernization of
"6% strike" in July 1992, in which UCA students pulled
our civil societies. According to the United Nation’s
the whole university community behind them in demand
Economic Commission on Latin America (ECLA), the
ing the full governmental budget allocation and achieving
Latin American economies’ lack of international competia victory at the end that few had thought possible. But
tiveness could undermine the advances attained in the polwhile the protest questioned the government’s neoliberal
itical sphere.
There is growing agreement among ]
policies-which condemn the majorities, as well as a
economists that the 1980s were a "lost decade" for Ulin <
voung generation of students, to a future without hopeAmerica’s peoples in terms of economic and social develthis questioning did not define the university model that
opmenL
#
Nicaragua needs. In 1993, the university reform has not
In the UCAs, the harvest of political democracy and
yet gone beyond the limitations of the past or creatively
the desire to defend it could distract us from
the fun- 4
L-------faced the profound international changes and the challen
damental challenges of the future, which are increasingly f
ges of the national crisis.
technical, scientific and economic. We are going through
Absorbed by the grave problems of personal and
a particularly difficult, even dangerous, period due to in- ’
economic survival, authorities, students, profes
sufficient clarity about either the challenges of the ? .st <
sors and administrators run the danger of giving in to ex
century or what university model will be required to rchaustion and withdrawing intellectually and politically
spond to them. One overriding principle, however, should
from the university dilemma. It is easier to blame the ad
propel our responsibility as a university: our transforma-“
ministration than propose alternatives, to wait for the re
' tion can only come in response to the challenges that exist
turn of a progressive and subsidizing state than create
outside of the university classroom.
from within the university proposals that can serve civil
society and win its support It is easier to rely on the
The Abyss Between Us and Them
power of criticism, as if this were sufficient, and wield
short-term emergency demands than face the medium-and
The "structural photography of the planet" that ap
long-term problems, and easier to demonize the market
pears in the United Nations Development Progranfl
than confront it creatively, seeking within it the factors
(UNDP) report called "Human Development 1992 is <
that can guide the university’s own transformation.
------------------------------------------- ----------------------------«
J
1
July 1993
<
fl
^7
•MB Analysis________ _______ _ ___________________ ___________________
&
»*'
f "
1 -
the 20% that could be called the worl
middle classes
stylized champagne glass, in which 83% of the world’s
only
receives
11.7%
of
its
wealth.
The
cunent
interna
wealth is concentrated in the shallow but ample cup of the
tional
"order"
only
functions
by
maintaining
a
growing
in
North to the benefit of the 20% of the population living
equality, thus provoking a structural instability and
there, while 60% of the planet’s human beings is crammed
ungovernability that endangers even its own growth.
into the slender stem and base of the South, which sustains
In July 1992, Latin America’s ministers of finance
this wealth yet benefits from only 6% of it
met in Washington
wealthiest
The
’
with then-Secretary of
20% of humanity
the US Treasury Ni
81%
of
controls
All
cholas Brady,
world trade, 95% of
The increasing poverty
agreed that the in
its loans and 81% of
is
a
threat
to
growth.
creasing poverty is a
its domestic savings
threat
to
growth,
It is a virus that is eating away at and
and its investment In
democracy
and
peace
addition, the 20% of
deiegitimating
in
the
world.
In
the
humanity living in the
same vein, the Interacontemporary civilization.
wealthy
countries
merican Dialogue, the
consumes 70% of the
Interamerican Devel
world’s energy, 75%
opment Bank’s Social
of its metals, 85% of
Forum
and
even
the
World
Bank
have issued alerts re
its wood and 60% of its food supply. The middle classes
garding
the
need
to
address
poverty
as a virus that is eaare tending to disappear or at least shrink drastically, since
World’s population
classified by income
£
a
o
Distribution of world income
The wealthiest 20%
receives 82.7%
of the world’s total income
Each horizontal band
represents one-fifth of the
world population
o
o
o
0.
The poorest 20%
receives 1.4% of the
world's total income
July it
28
t
______________ _________________
%
15 years, the differences in university enrollment levels
ting away at and delegitimating contemporary civilization.
doubled
in favor of the developed world.
Worse yet, the gap between the industrialized coun
Investment
in research and development ("R&D"
tries and the underdeveloped ones is becoming an abyss.
the
argot
of
the
transnational
companies) is a key indicator
I
In 1960, the wealthiest 20% of the world’s nations was 30
for
predicting
the
spectacular
development
of
the
central
times richer than the poorest 20%. Thirty years later, in
economies of the North, but it is also a key to predicting
J
1990, it was 60 times richer. An analysis of individual in
greater poverty for our peoples. Between 1980 and 1990,
come—not that of a country as a whole—reveals even more
the gap in research and development spending widened a Ok
profound inequalities. In 1990, the poorest 20% of the
breathtaking 170%.
planet’s population was 150 times poorer than the weal
Both of these indicators show that the "champagne
thiest 20%.
glass"
of education, and of the preparation of human capi
Between 1980 and 1990, not only did the gap spread
i
tal
in
general,
is becoming even more top-heavy than that
between the living standard of the 24 most developed
of per-capita income.
economies of the North and the economies of Latin
It was once possible to believe that entrepreneurial
America, but the per-capita Gross Domestic Product
development
could get us out of poverty through the conS
(GDP) of Latin America as a whole also dropped 10% in
cept
known
as
"tricklei
absolute terms. Coun
i^= down." While practice
tries like El Salvador
belied theory even in its
and Nicaragua lost three
Can
universities
be
called
successful
heyday during the Al
and even four decades of
liance for Progress.^
if they produce professionals
development, precisely
today we can no longer
due to the force of politi
incapable of contributing
even believe in the the
cal change. Nicaragua is
ory. New spaces were
''i
to
the
creation
of
appropriate
the only country in the
created for private busi-<
world whose per-capita
and necessary science and
ness initiative in all the^^jj
income in 1993 is less
Latin American coun-^M
technology
for
our
countries?
than it was in 1960.
tries in the 1980s, and iiflRo
Poverty levels in Latin
Nicaragua at the end
America, following mild
the decade. Nonetheless, our continent’s participation
improvement in the 1970s, increased from 35% in 1980 to
international trade fell 41% in that neoliberal decade whii“
41% in 1991. Indigence and malnutrition levels rose from
that of the countries of the North—including Japan-a
15% to 19% in the same period, while urban minimum
well as India, China and the four "tigers" of the Pacific in
wages fell 40%.
creased. With the exception of Chile and perhaps two or
What, then, does it mean to train "successful" profes
three other countries, both Latin America and Africa haVv -t|]'
sionals in this sea of poverty, in a civilization and a so
lost their competitive place in the world market
M
ciety that is ever more exclusionary and unstable and less
Sub-Saharan Africa’s exclusion from the intemationa’ 1
governable? Does an institution that does not confront the
market was almost double Latin America’s, but subre v
injustice sunounding it, that does not question the crisis of
gions such as Central America-with the exception c.
a civilization that is ever less universalizable to the great
Costa Rica—come doser to Africa’s situation. This excli j
majorities of the world, merit the name "university"?
sion—particularly, but not only, of the continent’s smalle^j
Would not such an institution be simply one more element
coudtries—is deepening our societies’ backwardness, as re- ]
that reproduces this unequal system? What changes can a
fleeted in the growing use of the term "Africanization i
university make to be able to respond to these dominant
E
Latin America." Even Brazil’s President Ttamar Franc
problems with vision, hope and proposals?
called attention to the "Somaiizationr of seveial nonh^Jj
JJ
The Technological Revolution:
Concentrated and Exclusive
As the UNDP report also indicates, the inequalities
between the North and the South increased even more in
the indicators of scientific capacity and technological de
velopment than in those of income distribution. In less
than 10 vears, the North’s advantage in the number of
scientists and technicians expanded by 60%, and in only
July 1993
eastern regions in his own country.
' Sr
This "Africanization" is basically due to our educ r
tional, scientific/technical and organizational backward’ness compared to Asia and the countries of the North. J
The majority of our populations are excluded from U. |
market because this backwardness takes place in an clit I
culture of increasingly materialist and selfish minoritig^
dependent on the developed world’s models, which thc^g
aim to imitate only in its consumerist lifestyle.
•J
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7 I
Anntyt*---------------------- ---------------------------------------------------
it
b
b
I
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»
5
»
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I
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I
I
i
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i
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i
ability to deal with the problem of grov .g poverty and
All of this is a great challenge to our universities,
unemployment cannot be blamed only on interference by
which must accept a large share of responsibility for the
the transnational economic powers and the globalization
fact that the underdevelopment of our scientists with re
of the economy. There is also a break between our coun
spect to the North and of our professionals in the techno
tries’ political, economic and cultural technocracies and
logical and administrative spheres has contributed greatly
the problems and alter
to our increasing pov
natives that arise lo
erty. Can a university
cally. The disconnec
be called successful if
tion
between
the
it chums out profes
An enormous gap exists between
"know-how* of most
sionals unable to con
micro-businesses, small
the know-how of the peasants
tribute to creating the
factories, peasants and
and that of those coming
appropriate science
small and medium
and technology that
out of the university system.
sized farmers of the na
are needed so that our
tion and that of those
countries do not re
coming out of the
treat even further
university system-who
from
international
are
precisely
the
ones
who
feed
the technocracies that
competition? A university transformation that does not
govern
that
nation
—
is
enormous.
The
local definition of
deal with the challenge of our growing scientific and tech
problems,
needs
and
solutions
is
almost
always very dif
nological distance from the North will be a project that
ferent
from
that
imposed
by
the
national-level
technocrats.
condemns an ever greater percentage of our population to
There are professors of business administration who
poverty.
cannot research small businesses of 20 workers because
The university and its professionals must take on the
such businesses do not use the sophisticated accounting
creation of a new international economic, legal and eco
systems that they studied in the texts, and which are used
logical order that can overcome assymetric international
by only a small minority of our factories. In a country in
relations in a world technologically converted into a "glo
which the immense majority of farms belong to small and
bal village." One of the tasks of a university facing the
medium-sized growers, some professors of agricultural
challenge of a civilization that is truly universal-albeit in
administration arc only comfortable with the business and
such exclusionary forms—for the first time in history is to
state administration schemes that they know from the Har
create interdependent links with other universities of the
vard manuals. Examples of this missing link between
world.
local know-how and university know-how can be found in
all our departments.
The Lost Link
Professors interested in local work and political can
didates
involved in trying to solve local problems at a na
This internationalization of the planet is producing
tional level do exist, but they are the exceptions. Given
vacuums at national levels. The credibility of national al
this, local initiatives end
ternatives and the le
_______
up isolated not only
gitimacy of the na
from the national agenda
tional state are in
but also trom each other.
frank decline while
A Hnk has been
FurtLuiaorc,
with
political insubility, a
today’s accelerated con
lost
between
national
wide array of fun
traction of the state and,
alternatives and local
damentalisms,
and
above all, with the ab
people’s
boredom
experiences.
sence of any national
with and apathy to
plans or perspectives, no
wards
political
; broader
framework
rhetoric are sprouting
exists in which to try to
up everywhere. Nor
insert local experiences. Local projects remain reduced to
are the localisms and nationalisms so rampant at this cen
islands of assistance, floating in a rising sea of idealistic
tury’s end a solution, since they are racist and violent, and
economic theory and very real misery.
are leading to polarizing chauvinisms.
This delegitimation of the state and of political parties
themselves—both on the right and on the left-for their in
natives) and the micro (local experiences). There is a lack
-------------------------------------------------------------------- -
□o
-
lu
July L9£
i
*• ’
«• % j
fierce wolves toward their brothers, sick with ambition to W
of "people-bridges" capable of creating communication
links among different local experiences, of promoting ex
perimentation among them or of pushing viable national
programs based on their successes.
More than any other factor, this vacuum between the
macro and the micro subverts our efforts to find an alter
native national development model. We lack the necess
ary methods to evaluate, interlink and accumulate an
overall project based
1------ on the enormous and valuable
of
local
experiences. "Lyrical leaps"—the facile
reserve c----extrapolation from local needs and experiences to national
altematives-are a very characteristic feature of our now
faileZpolitical rhetoric. There can be no communication
l noand
knowledge without the experiwithout knowledge
thal
link
micro
projects
up with each other and with
cnees Im—.
—
...
.
macro/national
cro/national proposals. There is no substitute for the
university’s role in this task, above all in the face of a
shrinking state that is privatizing everything and losing its
normative and implementation capacity. The new gener
ation of professionals must learn how to do this in all
areas: the state, businesses, parties and nongovernmental
organizations.
Without a genuine university transformation, the majoritv of students from the UCA and Nicaragua’s other
universities will fall into this vacuum between local and
national realities (which lacks alternatives) and between
the national and the international (which abounds in unpositions).
Some few will get jobs outside of the country or tn
the privileged enclaves of our economic structure and will
not have even one creative word to say in the cunent
scientific technological and administrative revolution that
is making over the face of the planet How many of them
will end up being obedient sheep toward their bosses, but
take home salaries and enjoy life styles that are light years
from those of the majority of their own people?
But the majority of our students will not even get the
kind of plum job in modem enterprises or public posts to
which they aspire. And without a university transforma- g||
tion, the UCA curriculum will not prepare them to face
our economic and social structure’s most common problems, which can only be understood by analyzing local experiences and our economy’s typical busmesses,
Unprepared either for the increasingly scarce privileged
jobs, or to be professionals who can accompany the poor
majority of producers in their search to generate more income, our students will join the army of unemployed or
feed the 'economy of froth' that consumes our scarce —
foreign exchange in the luxury goods that the North sells
us.
The Challenge:
Develop Human Capital
.
While there is consensus regarding the main factor^
. the South contributes to our growing poverty (lack of J
human capital and scientific/technical underdevelopment^
there is also apparent consensus among the multilateral
agencies (UNDP, ECLA, the World Bank) about bow
solve the poverty problem.
Wealthy and poor countries are unequal competitor^"
in the international market If the 'developing' countri«
are to compete on equal footing, there will have to b«j
massive investments in human capital and technologicalj
development According to ECLA estimates, spending off
public and private education would have to increase to «
much as 10% of the GDP, which in some cases ts mojjj
Three Strategies for Forming Human
Capital in Latin America
*
1, AID: Concentrate on primary education and leave technological development in the
North’s hands.
education.
3. UCA/Hew Generation: Smullamoudy^^J^^wanddXe^Semt-
X“r™.:“^”X™nt o<
nation’s producers.
July 1993
3-d analog, to. a» sttntn ot t>»
£’
Analysia_______________________________________________________
&
*•
I*
I
It
it
»
i)
In*
li
an underestimation of the technology that the popular
than twice what is now dedicated to human training.
classes have used and developed for many years, and
According to ECLA, the roots of Latin America’s
which would increase the country’s competitiveness in the
"Africanization" can be found in a "spurious competitive
international market if they could evolve appropriately.
ness." This means that in place of an authentic interna
In many Latin American countries, the businesses of
tional competitiveness, based on incorporating technical
progress and raising productivity and the remunerations to
the poor—those that ECLA sees as non-viable-represent
jobs for as much as 40% of the economically active popu
human capital, Latin America’s insertion into the .world
lation and contribute a substantial percentage to the GDP.
market is accompanied by a reduction in remunerations
and social services for the more modest sectors.
In Nicaragua they produce a third of the GDP and have
the capacity to employ more than 50% of the working
This "spurious competitiveness" is contrasted to
"systemic competitiveness," in which the country’s social
population.
fabric as a whole must be competitive, not just a specific
Statistics distort and falsify this reality. In fact, a very
company, product or economic enclave. As Lester Thularge difference often exists between the producer’s net
income and the net benefit for the country. Although in
row, one of the Clinton administration’s main economic
advisers, noted, the comparative advantages of Japan’s or
come per day of work may be higher in large enterprises
Germany’s "communitarian capitalism" over the Anglowith a high coefficient of imported inputs, for this same
reason they consume the country’s scarcest economic re
Saxon "individualistic capitalism" of the United States lie
source: foreign exchange. Our peasants thus generate
precisely in the "systemic competitiveness" of the former.
more net foreign exchange than agribusiness.
But, while the international development institutions
and their advisers recognize the "human factor," they limit
it strictly to its productive facet They leave aside the
The Invisible Producers
building of human character and ethical values, so necess
ary in the search for "productive transformation with
It is often impossible to find any serious analysis or
research—with economic calculus and technological behaequity." Furthermore, equity is a technical as well as ethi
vior-of urban micro
cal requisite of devel
■■■■■■ ——
— businesses or of peas
opment. But how can
ant and small farmer
equitable policies be
enterprises in our uni
implemented if people
The universities do not prepare
versities, even though
do not choose them, if
their students to face
they are fundamental
they reject them in the
the most common problems
components of our
name of consumption
countries’ GDP. All
and market competi
of our economic
we find are social or
tiveness?
and social structure.
anthropological
de
Official organiza
scriptions.
In
the
fa
tions with much more
culties
of
business
power than ECLA,
administration the only things taught arc the business
such as the World Bank, have recently appropriated the
strategics, technology and economic calculus of big busi
term "human capital," but continue to leave policies of
ness. The problerrs suffered by the majority of the
equity tc cne side. For its part, the US Agency for Inter
country’s busin-sses appra? nnwhc—., which shows a kind
national Development (AID) is pushing another policy: it
of economic, social and technological "apartheid." What
gives priority to primary education and rejects Latin
flattens the poor most is not being "exploited," but being
American higher education, which it sees as ineffective
excluded,
going unseen, being "nobodied" by a system
and costly.
that does not take them into account, that ends up convert
ECLA itself tends to project the image that techno
ing them into a leftover element, a "throw-away."
logical development is destined only for "viable" busi
In a truly equitable strategy the producing majorities
nesses, while peasants, micro-business owners and
must be conceived of not only as potential beneficiaries of
informal sector workers should only receive a good pri
the "miracle of technological growth" that may occur in
mary education so they can participate as an adaptable
some uncertain future, but as essential contributors,
labor force in the new businesses with modem technology.
through their own human and productive potential, to our
This proposition reflects an ignorance of Latin America’s
economies and to an integrated development, both nation
structures, in which technological advances remain iso
ally and internationally.
lated within the enclaves of the privileged classes with no
Although their potential to successfully contribute is
trickle-down effect toward the majorities. It also reflects
32
July 1993
_________ ____________________________________ ’
in which professionals make the knowledge of national re
ality and its equitable and democratic transformation into
the center of their own human fulfillment
tel
Ethical Human Capital. The problem is not only
one of new techniques and methodologies, but of values
and options, of a new vision and profile of the profes
sional in society. We need an ethical human capital w.th
lion programs.
the capacity to provoke an option of alternative service in
A minimum of respect for the concept and reality of
the face of the totalitarianism of values imposed by the
equitv urges us to include all strata of producers in our
market and the productive model of technological society.
strategy of training human capital and democratizing edu
The crisis is not merely economic, social, technical and
cation and knowledge. We should make our dedication to
geo-political; it is a crisis of civilization itself.
preparing professionals for the business sectors com
Regional Human Capital. The solution to the cnsis
patible with serious programs and sufficient human an
of our countries is regional, and demands regional subjects
financial resources for small produceis. This could be the
and actors, who begin with
national proposals and in
best way to communicate
tegrate them into a re
to all our professors and
gional and Latin American
students the value of
The most permanent component
vision and future. The
cquitv and respect for the
preparation of these re =
potential of all those who
of our crisis is refiected
gional cadres, whether
should be taken into ac
in
the
crisis
of
cadres
professionals or political
count in a free market
and grassroots leaders, re
with a symmetry of op
and of human capital.
quires a new kind of
portunities, which would
university institution and
democratize the market
intersectoral and interdisand society. This is the
profound meaning of the
ciplinary regional education projects.
option not only
wit/t the poor and their cause, die
inly for but with
In a world of great blocs and megamarkets, purely na- M
only wav to build genuine democracy and sustamab e etional solutions are impossible, above all in a strategically,
geo-politically and geo-economically open area like Cenvelopment
ttai America, which is a bridge between North and South
,
America and between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Our
Five Kinds of Human Capital
area requires vision and regional negotiating power, wnh
The most permanent component of our crisis is reregional human capital able to build a common project.
Grassroots Human Capital. The creation of human "J
' nected in the crisis of cadres and of human capital, which
in turn is reproduced in the crisis of institutions, parties
capital in grassroots leaders-incorporating both women
the state and the universities themselves. The neoliberal
and men-with a capacity for alternative, up-to-date and
technical thinking, and linked to the new generation of
proposals and the conditions set by the wealthy nations
professionals in their country and region, will be a demo- J
encounter neither our own negotiating capacity nor our
abilitv to efficiently absorb the foreign aid and creatively
cratizing and integrating factor for our societies. Thts
desisnt and execute projects, which in large part ends up
human capital will be able to create regional institutions of
being done by foreign consultants or "technicians from
the grassroots sectors that can compete with greater sym- J
met? and negotiate more effectively with the big guns. «
outside of the community.
,
Lumationai Human Capital. By linking thts new
We need to train new cadres in the various levels and
territories of society who can digest and assimilate the ex
Central American generation with simUar movc™cnts ‘"rf
periences accumulated during the regional crisis and con-Latin America, the rest of the South and even the North . -J
Uont the challenges of the future. We need human cap.ul
self we would have the international human capital tha
that is professional, ethical, regional, grassroots and ml
Central America needs to overcome its own crisu; an
contribute from its rich experience to the design of a really
new international order. International links wuh ecologlj
"""‘professional Human Capital. These professionals
must overcome the isolation between teaching and re
cal movements, with producers from diverse sectors, w
search and between both of these academic tasks and the
grassroots subjects and entities of civil society. This pre
supposes an alternative social insertion by the umversit.es.
not guaranteed, these majorities would not continue mak
ing heroic efforts to survive if they did not believe in
themselves. And that faith has greater value because they
have historically been excluded, as if they were a pariah
caste, from training and organization programs and, for
the most part, still are today from the "social compensa-
j
July 1993
I
35 i.
IK
Analysis
to move beyond the "transnationalized, subordinated and
but innovative and not tied to rules." This principle em
assymetric insertion" that the North’s international organ
phasizes the importance of a university curriculum and
izations impose.
educational process that seeks to create men and women
The international
capable of preparing
link-ups with univer
others.
sities and research cen
The scarcity of
It is about training professionals
ters that such insertion
this kind of profes
is increasingly making
sional can be felt at
who are men and women
necessary would allow
the moment of doing
"for others," professionals
a break with the in
any economic or so
duced fatalism that
cial project in Cenwho are "trainers of others."
there are no alternatives
trai America, The
other than the ones they
professionals
with
offer us, or conditions
totally
knowledge
other than those the market and the agents of the dominant
lack the capacity to put together a team that could proceed
economic, technological and political powers offer us.
without them. They turn in documents, advice and ideasThe new critical role and awareness emerging in the glo
which may be brilliant-but leave no installed human ca
bal centers of thought and education should be used from
pacity to implement such proposals. To advance, the
a perspective that democratizes knowledge and the resour
grassroots sectors require one outside consultancy after
ces dedicated to producing it
another, which eat up the majority of the available resour
ces, without leaving any human capital from and perma
nently in the communities. On the one hand, the
Professionals Who
grassroots sectors lack the necessary knowledge, and on
Professionalize Others
the other, the professionals cannot communicate their
The issue is to train professional men and women
knowledge pedagogically and effectively or form self-sus
who are "for others," professionals who professionalize
taining local teams that could initiate an effective decen
others. The core of Ignatius of Loyola’s educational pro
tralization and broaden the focal points of productive
posal was to give priority to forming character and human
accumulation.
values, so as to have human capital capable of transfor
ming the worid-not only of filling existing posts within it,
Practical Dilemmas,
but of creating new perspectives and institutions that can
Not Theoretical Ones
change reality. It is the well-known Ignatian "magis" and
his obsession to overcome mediocrity, above all in mo
We are living through a kind of post-modern renaiss
ments of profound crisis.
ance. Our times require the preparation of professionals
The first key characteristic of the new professionals is
capable of facing not only theoretical dilemmas but practinot their capacity to "do
cal/a dmin is tra tiv e
something for others"
ones within the spe
or to "lead others," but
cialization that the
tc ",Tain others so they
Our professors should be able
world requires today.
can lead themselves."
The young "stars"
to deal not only with theoretical
Perhaps the main cause
currently
climbing
dilemmas but with
of the failure of many
the executive ladder
movements and institu
in the transnational
practical ones.
tions whose projects
corporations
are
have equity and justice
characterized more
as ideals has been the
by practical/ admin
inability to train human capital that could implement
istrative genius than by technical/theoretical training.
them.
A common feature of the failures of both our com
Ignacio Ellacuria, the martyred rector of the UCA-E1
panies’ productive/technological transformation and the
Salvador, argued that the "essential element of education
social change initiatives for justice is not so much in the
resides in individuals, not in ideas; the great man is not he
"what to do" or the "why do it" as in the "how to do it."
who has great intellectual capacity but he who knows and
We Jesuits have an historic slant that inclines us to
teaches in an integrated, convinced fashion, not abstract
ward theoretical dilemmas. Theoretical debate was a very
L
I
1.1
i'1 <
Ik
j
1
34
July 1993
II
I.
_____ _______ AvadyjuW
J-
valued characteristic from the 16th century on-although
when the Jesuits were faced with Latin America’s prob
lems, the practical dilemma imposed itself on their Para
guayan settlements of converted Indians.
Today’s needs and challenges are how to apply theorv/technique to the practical dilemma. Theory and vi
sion-more important than ever in this crisis of paradigms
and ethical values-must confront the practical dilemmas
with ways to formulate, proceed with and implement prag
matic and real alternatives.
Inside and Outside
The University Classroom
If the universities opt to begin transforming their
model, a gradual process of interaction between the differ
ent strata of human capital within and outside of the
university can be initiated.
,
The first step, absolutely necessary both to begm and
to progress in transforming the university model that we
seek is to emphasize building a catalyzing institution en
dowed with enough autonomy and professors who can
dedicate themselves full time to creating nuclei for ex
perimentation, research, grassroots education and devel pment projects. On this basis, it will be possible to np.dly
increase the quality of university research and the ex
perimentation necessary to simultaneously pernut univer
of
sity instruction and the formation of a new generation
j
professionals as well as the promotion of new leaders out-
the experimentation nuclei. Although the catalyzing in
stitute would continue supporting these initiatives, it
would dedicate more time to research, experimentation
and systematizing the already obuined experiences with
macro/micro counterparts who would begin to distribute
what the university had collected to government ministries, banks and businesses, NGOs and international or-
8 We believe that this interdisciplinary, intersectoral
work of macro/micro relations, of researcWteaching/offcampus grassroots education is the heart of the university
reform in Latin America and in the South as a whole. It is
the heart of the transformation required to prepare the new
generation of human capital that will be dealing with the
21st century.
S'dC In a'first phase, the catalyzing institution would invest
two or three years in consolidating these experimental nu
clei and training the local bases in grassroots education
workshops This would produce technical and economic
:X««pa,,d ,ocai
H is also necessary to train local development Pr°^on,1s bom in the communities, who would take off-campus
education courses and progressively replace
professors
from the catalvzing institute, so the latter can extend their
work according to the new teaching and apply the peda
gogy thev learned outside to the university c™laDuring this period, the experimentation nuclei would
provide feedback to the university through new texfc cre
ated on the basis of their experiences, with which they
would also support the curricular transformation acco
ing to the national reality and, even more importantly,^n
corporate other professors and their students into th new
research and experimentation spaces tn the loca nuclei
(such as ecological, agricultural, anthropological econ
omic and technical ones, others on women and children,
'“"^In a second phase, the different majors-busin^ ad
ministration, sociology, social work, economy, agncultu
July 10^3
The Strategic Element:
Democratizing Knowledge
University talent is and is measured by its. aademi=
excellence. But a university ’mind-sef also «tsu, wluc
refers to the way in which the professional s intel
&S51
capacity and technical abfiities are inserted into human rE-<BrfH
alUy In a true university, academic talent is
bv diis mind-set, this wisdom that judges and knows hov«i|
m situate knowledge within the mosaic of life and apply
ethically to human well-being. It is bom from connecuni^l]
with peoples’cultural and histone identity.
Among its recipes and models, the dominant ncolibe^
ml model brings a project for society and for the unwei«llj|
sity the latter should serve -market demands witho^Jffi
state -academic or ethical- interference. The market de^gl
manis- determine a marketability of the umversity pr^,J
duct so as to put it at the service of the large cnterPn WjB
and a privatization of the university so that it can serve
most pZdeged classes. In such a project, that untvemjg|
mindset disappears, and the university becomes a branl^||
of the wealthy businesses, which it feeds with professi
ah
sity should icspoad to market deman#^^
but not by selling itself to the highest bidder. It shoukl
so by contributing technical and scientific pr po
H
fertilize the development of aU of society, mcludm^il
can
but not exclusively, the wealthiest enterpnses. Bu
make that contribution, the university needs to mamHg^
The autonomy that allows it to exercise its particular nu^ffl
SCL In the transformation of the UCA-Managua we^gg
sue the academic excellence of both university talent
.
its mind-set ’We can be tolerant of many lunitauo gS&
W
Analysi*_________________________ ________________________________
b even defects in our Jesuit universities, but what cannot be
b
»
b
b
at
b
at
o
b
w
tolerated is mediocrity," asserted Father General PeterHans Kolvenbach in a meeting of the Jesuit universities in
Mexico.
To democratize knowledge, the UCA must leave its
classroom, break down the wall that separates it from so
ciety and come down from its ivory tower. We still have a
long way to travel to reach academic excellence arid we
will do everything to speed up the trip. But even that
search for academic excellence will be mediocre if it is
not accompanied by a fine-tuning of the university mind
set Academic excellence isolated from our national re
ality will also be mediocre.
If the contents of our curriculum are not of high
quality, they will be of no use in training a new generation
of professionals. This truth is clearly and directly seen in
the experimentation nuclei: the lack of academic excel
lence will only lead to the failure of the experiments. Re
solving the problem of poverty and unemployment
requires more technical quality than working in the gov
ernment apparatus or in a big private company. The poor
cannot continue being fooled by second-quality profes
sionals.
The main university mind-set that we want to stand
out in the UCA is not its political belligerence, but its bel
ligerence as an educational institution. Ils impact on so
ciety should be made through knowledge and wisdom,
through the "ethical and cultural sapience" that incorpor
ates the new creating force of the South’s ethnic, gender,
ecology and theological movements. Nothing can be
more relevant in a world where development and poverty
are defined in terms of knowledge and human capital.
To protect itself from neoliberai tendencies and from
repeating the errors of the 1960s and 1980s, the UCA’s
option is to define its university mind-set around the
democratization of knowledge. We want to do it by in
serting university training into the core of society.
Ignacio Ellacuria once said: "The excellence of our
university is not in equaling the specialized fields of Har
vard University or Oxford. It is in dominating our own
national reality, in forming an awareness of transforma
tion and in contributing effectively with this awareness to
the process of change. The excellence of a distinct univer
sity should be in the knowledge of reality, in knowing
what one is doing and what should be done."
Nuclei of Research,
Experimentation and Development
Since 1990, UCA-Managua has defined four basic ac-
at
University
I*
Local and tenitorial
experimentation nuclei
University classroom
Macro/micro counterparts
Masters/Graduate studies
Local professionals in offcainpus education programs
I.
2000
Grassroots trainers
—technical
Mutual Feedback
Off-campus education
Bachelors, professors and
students
-economic/organizational
I.
Peasant or micro-business bases
Catalyzing institute
it
July 1993
36
Ifc
k
r
___________________________________________ AruJyilo
jects that directly benefit civil society and to extend teach- <
tivities: teaching, research, masters programs and graduate
ing to Nicaraguans excluded from access to secondary and
I
studies, and social projection. Each of these activities has
university education. One objective of these nuclei is the
its own logic and requires a high degree of autonomy to be
simultaneous preparation of a new generation of profes
able to evolve successfully-an organic autonomy that in
sionals and leaders of civil society. In that way, our pro
tegrates these diverse components into the "universiUs."
fessors and students arc getting skills and training in the
Nonetheless, experimenUtion nuclei that combine
same process in which they train others. The university
and integrate research, social projection and teaching for
campus is also getting valuable feedback through these
university professors are necessary for the democratiza
experimental nuclei with new texts and with new prob
tion of knowledge. In these experimental nuclei, the UCA
lems and ideas about Nicaragua’s reality. In fact, the ma
seeks to work jointly with associations of civil society to
jority of the research being undertaken today in the UCA
solve its most heartfelt problems.
The UCA currently has several of these research, ex
school’s own research and education.
perimenUtion and development nuclei. Social Work
began using this model of socieul conuct years ago. The
Upgrading the Nuclei
School of Agricultural Sciences has an experimenul nu
cleus for ecological protection and self-susUinable devel
For the UCA to democratize knowledge and respond
opment in Rio San Juan and San Andres de la Palanca.
to the country’s most urgent needs, these experimentation
The Department of Ecology has another nucleus among
nuclei must be ex
the shrimp coopera
panded
and em
tives in Puerto Mopowered. On the one
razan and in Rio San
hand, the number of
Juan. Nillapan has ex
This work of
these new experien
perimenul nuclei of
ces must be multi
research/teaching/Iong-distance
peasant development
plied
and
more
a
grassroots education is the heart of
in Masaya, Carazo,
students—and, above
Maugalpa and Jinoteall, more professorsuniversity reform in Latin America and
ga and three ex
must be connected to
the South as a whole.
perimenUtion nuclei of
them. On the other,
small industrial devel
there is an urgent
opment with micro en
the
need to increase
i—
terprises of Monimbd
academic excellence
and Masaya.
More
with which research, teaching and social projection is carthan 150 of our students participate in Nitlapan’s ex
ried out in them. Increasing excellence obliges us to train
perimenul nuclei. Nillapan has also developed an ex
new well-prepared professionals so that the nuclei can <£
perimenul nucleus in land titling and the legalization of
produce experiences and development models that are recooperatives with students in the Law School.
producible at the national level by the government and by
CIDCA has been and continues to be a pioneer in
the diverse organizations of civil society.
work on and in the Atlantic Coast, and will broaden out in
We should multiply the research, experimenUtion and
the future to studv coasUl ecology and its economic prob
development nuclei that the UCA already has to respond
lems. The Juan XXIII Institute works in rural develop
to the challenge of the growing concentration of science ,
ment with some 40,000 peasant families. The Central
and technology, characteristic of developed countncs. As
American Historical Institute, an autonomous institution
mentioned above. Research and. Development programs
direc J by the Society of Jesus, has a collaboration agree
are key indicators for predicting development in the amment with the UCA through which it joins forces with our
tral economies
The-------------------businesses that invest _
OIIUCO of
UL the North.
work, mainuining Qve social projects, including envio,
more in their R&D units begin to nudge the others out <
among which is distinguished the most imporunt project
National economies with more R&D spending end up
with war disabled in the country, with more than 3,500 in
being the more competitive economies. What today disdividuals (those with disabilities and their families) or
tinguishes research and development is the integration at
ganized into rehabiliutive production and education
tained by the company between pure research, the £
workshops.
re-skilling of the labor force and experimentation with
All of these experimenul nuclei offer an ideal place
new products and technologies. Research isolated from
for our professors and students to bring their theoretical
the up-grading of the labor force and that is not applied rcknowledge down to earth, to participate in research pro-
2
5
5
3/
July 1993
*
«
!?
..
r.:■
Analytic__________________________________
!
is
«
R>
»
»
E
»
!!
I
1
If
»
perimcntal nuclei will contribute new and useful elements
search is not only backward in today’s world, but is a bad
for our social projection units, for the Juan XXIII Institute,
investment
for the Grassroots Law Office and for teacher and student
In the UCA’s transformation, we aim to create a re
practice as part of their academic curriculum.
search and development environment that is alternative to
that of the transnational corporations. Our research and
development nuclei should be differentiated from those of
The University:
the transnationals by seeking to democratize knowledge
A Platform for Proposals
instead of concentrating it even more. And although they
should not differentiate themselves in either their aca
The redefinition of the idea of the University of the
demic and technical excellence or their applicability and
South gives priority to the role that it can play in mitigat
viability in the practical world, they indeed should be dif
ing the growing conferent in their ethical
centration of science
option and in the se
and technology.
A
lection of their
third-worldist univer
priority social sub
sity such as the UCA
The university should serve
ject.
can be an effective en
as a platform for debate,
With the evol
vironment
for the
ution and upgrading
analysis and improving the proposals
scientific-technologic'
of our experimental
al
generation
and
arising from civil society.
nuclei, the UCA will
transference necessary
have the ability to
for our country’s econ
initiate off-campus
omic development.
education programs,
The UCA’s goal
which have been one of the most effective mechanisms to
should not be to replace the dynamics of the producers’
democratize knowledge in other countries of the world.
associations or to substitute for the specialized research on
These programs could be even more effective if they have
international market possibilities already done by the
a real tie to the experimentation nuclei, which would func
transnationals and specialized research centers of the
tion as curriculum creators for the off-campus education
North.
programs. Nitlapan, CIDCA and the Department of Ag
The UCA’s central activity should be in the field of
rarian Development are currently preparing the founda
generating analysis and applied technologies that are ap
tions for an off-campus education program that should
propriate and committed to the majority economic and so
cial subjects. And this should happen in all fields: law,
link up with University Radio and prepare for Educational
humanities, and the social and communication sciences.
Television in the future. Although experimental nuclei are
an optimal place for training professors and students in re
The university’s role is not to be the author of propo
sals
or alternatives in the experimental nuclei, but to serve
search for transmitting knowledge to civil society and for
by offering itself as a
social projection, they
platform for debate,
are not enough to
analysis and improv
make the leaps that
the UCA and the ex
ing the proposals that
A common feature of our failures
emerge from civil so
perimental
nuclei
fs not so much in "what to do"
themselves require.
ciety and government
The recycling and
premia ms. Its rcls is
or in "why to do it" but in
permanent training of
to be a platform that
"how to do it."
teachers
and
re
catalyzes knowledge
searchers and a peri
for new proposals
odic and continual
that include the inter
curricular transforma
ests of big business,
tion from and at the
small pcasant/arlisan
service of national reality itself are needed. In a society
production and the poor of the city and the countryside, in
without perspectives, university creativity should rum it
a process of accumulating knowledge from below and
self into an element of hope.
from within national reality itself.
University transformation and the advances in demo
The experimental nuclei should not be platforms of
cratizing knowledge and in academic excellence in the exthe University or its professionals but of civil society,
38
July 199
_
search integrated into teaching, incorporating the re&J^
institutes; 5) social projection and insertion in natiomi
life; 6) genera1 studies ?nd ~ed;ts
The aim is not to imiute the theoretical excellence of
the North’s best universities, but to seek an excellence that
s
has an applied and practical character and, above all, an *■
ethical insertion of service to the large majorities. This
ethical commitment is what defines the UCA’s identity.
Academic excellence cannot be separated from ethical
commitment To attain this academic excellence, the
UCA should initiate a selection and evaluation policy for
new students entering from secondary school.
The selection should be dominated by this ethical vision. The UCA proposes that 60% of its students come*i
from economically underprivileged sectors, who will be^j
guaranteed free education. It also proposes a scholarship
University Transformation
complement for those students who, despite free tuition,
Is a Process
do not have the economic means to attend the univcrsity^^|
without this survival aid. This implies and requires that^^a
A good diagnostic is not in itself university transfor
the state maintain a re?.l and stable budget and that the
mation. The transformation could fail if we do not find a
UCA generate complementary financing. We also aim
realistic process through which to carry it out This pro
give the selection a regional character, with priority to stu4H|
cess implies some subjects of university transformation,
dents from the Atlantit^^H
some priorities, some
Coast and the other de-^JB
institutional mechan
partments, for whon'R^S
isms and a timeline
30% of the
with defined periods
At the end of this century
spaces would be abso
in a chronogram that
lutcly guaranteed.
and millennium, there are no longer
allows us to constant
For this process
national solutions. The solution will be
ly
evaluate
the
be stable and so th
t*'quality, equity and ef
the fear of losing one’^yB
Central American or there will be no
ficacy of the transfor
job not impede thi
solution.
mation.
commitment and ded"
<
The process fur
cation of all membe
ther requires some
of the university conv
consensual principles
munity, the UCA has maintained a policy of labor s “
that can guide the university community in its behavioral
bility, which implies a profound solidarity among
benchmarks and collective commitments. In the UCA and
members of the community and also a clear commitmc^
in the National Council of Universities, the following
to work and productivity.
.
.
1
principles have been defined: autonomy, participation,
The lack of this-together with the violation of
openness, consensus and solidarity.
principles of university transformation and the UCJ
There should be no bosses and employees in the
-I
statutes—would be the only elements that would detj|
UCA, but rather a community whose priority is preparing
mine job loss at the UCA. This labor stability policy
the new generation.
tense and diffWt due to our profound financial criJlF
The search for academic excellence and for its
But we start from the principle that the university projtBK
quality, efficiency and equity has caused confusion and
its quality and contribution to the country, can guaran|jy
accusations of intellectual elitism. We in the UCA understable financing for the university transformation, cvenlT
stand academic excellence as the result of a process car
the short run. Financing is a means, not an end in itsOE
ried out through: 1) curricular transformation; 2) a
If there were clear objectives and university consenr
teaching roster and an evaluation that promotes quality,
the financial crisis, as serious as it may be, would not^Mgi
status and adequate remuneration; 3) graduate studies and
the most difficult to resolve.
new masters programs and a practice of permanent teacher
We maintain that the university is useful and mak®
upgrading, which in 1993 includes scholarships for more
social contribution, which benefits the country, and th ;
than 20% of the instructors in higher education; 4) re
from which the university and reality itself are trans
formed. They should be catalyzing platforms, with
multiple expressions within and outside of the university
campus and with a formative character rather than one of
a rhetorical or political tribune.
To be intermediaries for the generation of applied and
appropriate technology is not a utopian dream, because
the resources necessary for exchanging and transferring
knowledge and technology are much less than those
needed for merchandising raw materials or end products.
Evoking another phrase of Ignacio Ellacuria: "No one
should have more competence than our university in one
thing: the knowledge of our reality and what we need in
order to get out of underdevelopment."
il
J
July 1993
.3,7
___________________________________—----- -------------------fore society as a whole should take responsibility for
maintaining the material base to guarantee the university’s
objectives and goals. As an entity of social utility, the
university should basically be financed by the state and be
free, especially in these times, when investment in human
capital has become the most effective way to overcome
underdevelopment But the depth and character of the
current economic crisis and the "straight jacket" the finan
cial organizations have imposed with the reduction of the
state (and thus of the state budget) means that even ge
nuine compliance with the state’s constitutional mandate
of guaranteeing 6% of its budget to higher education will
not maintain a university that fulfills its goals and is free
for all. Therefore, to the state’s obligatory contribution to
maintain free tuition should be added contributions from
society (businesses, foundations, NGOs) and from those
beneficiaries of university education who have the ability
to contribute. The university institution itself should also
seek forms of additional self-financing.
Regional and International
>•
I
»
>
>
At the end of Ibis century and this millennium, na
tional solutions no longer exist, least of all for the small
countries of the periphery. The solution will be Central
American or there will be no solution. Although we
necessarily have to start from a national project, the future
is regional.
The regional project in which the UCAs were bom
over 30 years ago has a profound Latin American charac
ter and inspiration. The Central American Higher Council
of Universities (CSUCA), founded in 1948, was the first
regional institution of Central American integration. The
origin and propulsion of a great part of integrationist
thinking came from those university professors, who later
enriched regional institutions such as the Central Ameri
can Economic Integration Bank and the regional ECLA,
among others. Nonetheless, the regional crisis absorbed
CSUCA’s energies, and our national universities became
victims of repression and financial crisis. To recover the
original intuition of the regional university and transform
it to deal with the demands of the 21st century is part of
the task of university transformation.
In a world transnationalized by the internationaliza
tion of capital, technology, the "management" revolution
and informatics, the universities, if they are to survive and
be relevant in the future, must cooperate among them
selves in a project that makes the "universitas" not only a
community of local educational associations but of inter
national ones. An inter-university cooperation project
could be the most determining factor for overcoming the
North-South gap, establishing a new and unused element
to achieve genuine development. The proposals of ECLA
and the other United Nations bodies are short-sighted in
visualizing a development potential that closes off the
democratization of knowledge. The lost link that can
catalyze the new dynamic of investment in human capital
and permit the transfer of appropriate technology and its
adequate assimilation and utilization is precisely in the
democratization of knowledge.
The current crisis of civilization and the crisis of hope
for modem society needs a new generation, a new vision,
a new perspective and bold proposals. It requires a project
of great scope, capable of challenging the universities,
getting them out of their stupor and mediocrity, provoking
their transformation and making them recover their his
toric role in culture and society. In this way their auton
omy can have new meaning, as it had in previous crises,
when the university was so often the promoter and mid
wife of new and vitalizing proposals for society. It is a
question of life, of life for all. Of signing the university
up with the party of life. •
a
1
I
I
I
>
b
p
b
July 1993
40
I
MERCANTILE COLONIALISM:
DESTRUCTION OF THE ECONOMY AND SUBSERVIENCE
Walter Fernandes
Arundhuti Roy Choudhury
Colonialism can be defined as a form of political, economic, cultural and discursive control by an
outsider subjugating the local population, by instituting legal, economic and ideological mechanisms.
This system distorts the past of the colonised peoples in order to get them to internalise the colonial
ideology, reproduce their leaders into its value system, and hold them in its grip thus producing consent
for the foreign power. These coercive ideological apparatuses are mediated also by the powerful
structure of patriarchy or institutionalised sexism. Here we understand patriarchy as a sex and gender
system of authoritarianism, male dominance and reinforcement of female dependency. So, on one hand
the colonialist uses brute force and on the other smoothens out the resulting social contradictions and
ten sions through a strategic production of specific ideas of the self, which the colonised internalise
(Worsley 1973: 29-30).
In stating that colonialism institutionalised a system of subju gation, one does not claim that it was a
one way street, with the dominant partner founding a new social order. It was a two way process that
can be defined as a foreign nation ruling other peoples through the collaboration of their upper classes
(de Boschere 1967: 24-25). Thus it is an ambiguous process of the colonialist using the local social
and cultural systems to his benefit and simultaneously reject ing them as inferior. In that sense it built
on local divisions and inequalities and further intensified them. Many contemporary develop ments
like fundamentalism can be understood in the context of the resultant ambiguity in which the local
elite lived.
Most importantly, colonialism is an integral part of capitalist development. The economies of the
colonising countries of the North have developed through the brutal exploitation of their own
workers and consumers and much more so those of the South. In this development the South and the
North have never been equal partners because coloni alism exists not to develop but to exploit the
colony. This is true particularly about its mercantile age. By its very nature it had first to underdevelop
the colony in order to support the European Industrial Revolution that depended on their capital and
raw material and on captive markets for its finished products (Worsley 1973: 44-49).
t
II
Thus the domestic development of Europe and the United States, depended on the conquest of
foreign lands and stimulation of demands for western goods within them. So the underdevelopment of
the colonies was intrinsic to the institutionalisation of the hegemony of capital ism as a world system
with the European Industrial Revolution as its basis. The forms of colonialism varied from country to
country. But in all cases western type of political organisations so also economic systems were
established, to suit colonial needs, and were imposed on the native economy. That resulted in a dual
economy.
I
i
Though the legal, political and cultural factors played an important role in this process, we shall
refer to them only in passing since another paper deals with them. Our focus will be on economic
changes. Using case studies mainly from Asia, we shall attempt to analyse the process
1
through which the colonial economies were adapted to the needs of the European Industrial
Revolution. In order to understand the mercantile age, we shall also take a look at the processes
that resulted in the colonial occupation of much of Asia. We shall end the paper with an analytical
conclusion.
Capitalism, Colonialism and Underdevelopment
Though based on the concept of frontierism that presented coloni alism as a mode of civilising
barbarians, in reality the "Civilising Education" ideology was a mode of legitimising the economic
exploita tion of the colonies for captive markets and cheap raw materials. Thus an understanding of
the development of the North and the underdevelopment of the South begins with the question
raised by economists like Harry Magdoff and others: where would the original accumulation of
capital used in Industry in the West have come from if not from the extraction of wealth from the
colonies, piracy and the slave trade? Where would the reproduction and growth of the capital needed
for investment have come from if not from the sufficiently large profits arising in the operation of
enterprises in the non-west em world?
Hence the ascent of the West since the 15th century can be viewed as a concerted drive to control the
human and material resources of the world's peoples and a process of capital accumulation. But one
cannot make a sweeping statement about the whole period being uniform ly geared to this end. A clear
distinction exists between the feudal age that began in the late 15th century, the manufacturing age of
the 18th, and the Industrial Revolution of the 19th (Rothermund 1981). While one led to the other,
each stage has its specific features.
Modem colonialism was initially a commercial enterprise that began in the feudal age as a
continuation of the Crusades by the Portuguese and the Spaniards. Then followed the Dutch and
British and later French East India Companies. Being purely commercial enter prises, like their
feudal age predecessors, they too began with the objective of exporting primary produce, initially
spices and later indigo. They then passed through the second stage of exporting high profit
manufactured goods like textiles. Already in the 17th century this stage initiated the process of
changing the local economy through indigenous middlemen (Rothermund 1992: 7-9), and laid the
foundation of the third phase of direct colonialism. It was done by adapting the European commercial
on • isations to the Asian environment through Joint Stock Companies. By putting trade relations
with the local middlemen on a more profitable basis, these changes retained the commercial
character of the companies (Brenning 1979: 78-90). With the expansion of the Europe-centered world
economy from the mid-18th century and the Industrial Revolution that followed, regions as far apart
as West Africa, the Ottoman Empire, South Asia and the Indone sian Archipelago were integrated into
it (Wallerstein 1986: PE-30).
These regions had different economic systems, all of them fairly well developed. Some like South
Asia had a somewhat well developed manufacturing base/ Others like much of South-east Asia had
a good trading system in agricultural and other natural produce (Braudel 1982: 115-118). In other
words, the local powers that emerged into prominence in these regions during the period of the
gradual collapse of the local empires, represented a picture of buoyant economies with both internal
and external active trade being carried out. For example the private English ship owners who had
become very active in the Indian Ocean by the mid-17th century, were offering themselves as
2
alternative carriers or suppliers between different Asian trade centres. However, the ports at which
private English shipping became established were those which already had a highly developed
overseas trading network and vigorous merchant communities with their own fleets (Arasaratanam
1986).
The East India Companies had formed a valuable partnership with some of the fleet owners and
mercantile forces dealing in the commodi ties. Many of these local entrepreneurs later became
collaborators of the colonialists, when the foreign traders became rulers. Also the local society began
to be destabilised already from the manufacturing age, since the middlemen tried to adapt the economy
to the export needs of the companies that required locally manufactured goods (Sarkar 1983: 85).
For example, there are signs that with the commer cialisation of items like textiles, the producers who
had practiced it as a part time occupation, had to abandon their agricultural activi ties and devote
themselves fully to it. So they required money to buy food which they used to produce till then. But on
one hand returns were low, on the other, this system made them dependent on the middle men who
had by then introduced the ’system of advances' that ensured their indebtedness (Wallerstein 1986: PE
-31). Their impoverishment was the consequence. The bonded labour system would follow later.
Thus the establishment of colonial control predated the mercan tile age. So there is a need to
conceptualise this phenomenon to not only understand the colonial process in its totality but also to
indicate the inter-related complex of naval, economic and other types of domination. They have nascent
colonial overtones but ante-dated direct political control. In short, this initial phase of proto-colo
nialism paralleled the later stage of full fledged foreign rule (Kosambi 1993:207).
The Decline of Trade and Colonial Takeover
Specific to the mercantile age is a transition from trade in finished products to supply of capital
and raw material to support the European Industrial Revolution. That system has continued to our days,
in different forms, though the colonies have attained political free dom. A major change that
symbolised the beginning of the mercantile age is that by the end of the 18th century the number of
Asian ships engaged in trade fell below the high totals seen at its beginning. Complaints of poor
returns abounded from most Asian fleet owners.
So the reasons for these changes have to be identified. The crucial questions that need to be
answered in order to understand these changes are: Why did Asian shipping lose out during that
period? Was pre-colonial Asia generating or capable of generating a public culture of rational, goal
oriented procedures, methods and regulations which could bring together its capitalists, intellectuals
and rulers into a single dynamic political economy, as it happened in Japan and in the Europe of the
Industrial Revolution? Did their socio-economic order contain within itself the seeds of growth? Did
the developments indicate the birth and growth of indigenous capitalism at least in an embryonic form
within the shell of the old order? Were there forces operating to cause dissolution and disintegration of
Asiatic society? These questions are crucial because in answers to them depends an understanding of
the developments in the mercantile age.
Scholars have put forth different explanations. Some view the changes exclusively as a result of
internecine wars within Asia while some others put the responsibility on the external forces alone. P.J.
Marshal (1993) with much of the Cambridge School discards any simple picture of the Europeans
3
I
sweeping their Asian competitors off the seas, by fire power or technological sophistication.
According to him, the European traders had rarely penetrated into the internal economy of the region
where they operated. As such they were no threat to the Asian merchants who produced goods for
export or who handled them on their way to the port. Linked to it is the popular explanation that the
decline is a direct resultant of the collapse of different Asian empires, the Mughals in India and others
elsewhere, and of the chaos that ensued. Colonialism would then amount to establishment of order in
this chaos.
In his search for an explanation elsewhere, Marshall seems to be equating colonialism with its
industrial phase, thus restricting its scope unjustifiably. This amounts to ignoring two centuries of
Euro pean presence, gradual commercial and political domination and urban activity, before the
Industrial Revolution. The Cambridge School also ignores important questions about the relationship
between the commer cial expansion and the political expansion which was to take place later on.
Thus the role of the colonialist in the changeover cannot be excluded as Marshall would have us
believe. But that alone does not explain all the events. Also internal pressure's have to be studied.
That the checks and balances built in some of the traditional systems suffered and as a result the
economy and society were destabilised, is beyond doubt (Alam 1986: 31-34). But that it amounted to
chaos or that colonialism brought order needs to be questioned.
Some scholars of the Cambridge School tendency also opine that most Asian countries lacked the
type of tension experienced in Europe and Japan, between the actual state of economic activities and
the obstacles to industrial development, on one hand, and the great prom ise inherent in such a
development on the other. The scholars holding this view seem to state that the situation in much of
Asia was not conducive to a transition to a higher stage of development, by which they mean
capitalism. Some attribute this lacuna to social systems like the Chinese materialist outlook (Tenant
quoted in Bayly 1993: 5) and the Indian caste system that made it difficult for the elite to move out of
their land and have a concept of the mastery over the seas which was basic to colonialism (Moreland
1962:189-192).
While one cannot discard these statements as totally untrue, one should also remember that the path
to capitalist development differed from region to region. For example the path followed by England
and France was different from that of Germany, Japan, Russia and Italy. So one sees no reason why at
least some Asian countries could not have followed their own path and dynamics. In fact, Bayly
(1983: 7-8) is of the opinion that the Hindu-Muslim interaction in India had prepared the ground for
such a development. Why, then, did they lose out?
We hold that this destabilisation and the subjugation of Asia resulted from a combination of the
two, viz. external pressure and internal destabilisation. While rejecting the view of the Cambridge
School that the end of the local empires led to chaos and the coloni alist brought law and order to these
nations, we believe that the colonialist was able to exploit the wars and destabilisation during these
decades, that were a part of the process of State formation.,This political turmoil was accompanied by
economic uncertainty.
By the late 1 Sth century’, the traditional systems had been weak ened considerably. The breakdown
of the political system is evident in South Asia. For example, though the Mughals overthrew the
Sultanate of Golconda at the end of the 17th century, the Coromandal coast was only superficially
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incorporated into the empire (Richard 1975; 508). Similarly, by the 1740s the stability that Bengal
enjoyed began to crack. The Maratha invasions and Alivardi Khan’s pressing financial needs began to
push its economy to the brink of collapse (Choudhury 1975: 308). Conditions turned against the Indian
ship owners in the early 18th century as the Marathas cut off their markets and sources of supply
inland and Iran and Yemen got ravaged and finally both property and life became increasingly
insecure in the cities which hampered trade (Choudhury 1978: 99-111). As political authority became
fragmented and conditions were often unstable, Indian merchants were drawn into closer relations with
Europeans in search of the relative security of the towns they controlled.
Similar situations existed elsewhere in Asia. In Vietnam the French sided with one or the other of
the feudal lords at war with each other, and got them to sign one sided treaties in their favour
(Gheddo 1970: 6-7). In the late 19th century, many Filipino merchants became agents of the Americans
since the Spanish regime did not re spond to their profit demands (Yu and Bolasco 1981: 4-5). Even
coun tries that were legally independent had to join the colonial scheme. The king of Thailand, for
example, came to an accommodation with the foreign powers as a mode of protecting his country from
direct inva sion by them. He had to sign unfavourable treaties with them in the early 1800s, when his
powerful neighbour Burma which was till then a threat to Thailand, was defeated by Britain. The
treaties were later modified in favour of the foreigner under King Mongkut Rama IV. Before he
ascended the throne in 1851, use of naval power had forced China to open its borders to the West. He,
therefore, decided to live with western nations and signed the Bowring Treaty with Britain in 1855,
and with other countries during the subsequent years (Ingram 1971: 128-129).
Only Japan escaped this subjugation by responding to the western challenge through reforms and a
national upsurge. Till the abolition of Takugawa Shogun in 1868, Japan had remained isolated though
some what prosperous, with a big educated class of daimyo and samurai whom the peasants maintained.
When the system was reaching the breaking point, USA forced on Japan a treaty of extra-territorial
rights and restrictions on its fiscal, legal and commercial autonomy. These concessions were then
extended to other European powers (Kirby 1967: 25-27). The emperor who resented them, refused to
ratify the treaties. A crisis ensued. Takugawa Shogun was overthrown and a modem centra lised State
was formed. It also introduced land reforms to encourage tenants to be productive and utilised its
educated aristocracy to build an industry on the western model (Maddison 1969:6-16). Since Japan
already had a big educated class and its society was used to absorbing Chinese culture, these reforms
enabled it to absorb western technology without losing its autonomy. It followed also the western
expansionist policy and colonised its neighbours like Korea and later conquered China (Kirby 1967. 2627).
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It is possible that like Japan some other Asian countries too had the potential of developing an
autonomous polity and economy. But they were in an age of transition and internecine wars. In
opposition to the Cambridge School interpretation of these events as chaos and the colonialist as the
harbinger of law and order, other scholars view them as a process of State formation analogous to
what was happening in Europe around the same period. For example, had the external force not
intervened, today's India would probably have been divided into four or five viable States. But coming
as it did at a time of external pressure, this process played into colonial hands who used the social
destabilisation that set in, to occupy the land (Aloysius 1997:10-11).
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It is clear then that European influence grew when the Asian States were drastically weakened by
their catalogue of disasters. Scholars like Athar Ali (quoted in Wallerstein 1986: PE-29) think that the
simultaneous decline of the Mughals, the Safavids, the Uzbek Khanates and the Ottoman Empire
was not a coincidence, but
fl
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that the European demand for Asian goods, given the non-expansion of production, served to fl
increase the real prices of those products on Asian markets, thereby causing a serious disturb fl
ance’in their economies, and intensifying the 'financial diffi cullies'of the ruling classes.
fl
These difficulties seem to be among the reasons why the tradi tional administrative, martial and
.
mercantile forces of these coun tries collaborated with the outsider and formed the backbone of colo
nial rule (Misra 1961: 49-52). Such collaboration between the foreigner and the local elite made the fl
exploitation and subservience of the colonies easier. In general, the colonial powers had two major 0
ideas in formulating their long term policies in the colonised countries. Firstly, to create, in a
systematic manner, a class of local col laborators, and secondly to see to it that the newly emerging
proper ty/landowning class had no
resemblance
whatsoever
to
the
European feudal
,
property/landowming classes, and therefore was in no position to make a quantum leap needed to
transform the pre-capitalist mode of production in agriculture to a capitalist one (Sathyamurthy 1990:
98). One of its consequences is that while the Industrial Revolution re suited in capitalist <
development in Europe, in order to support the industrialisation of the metropolitan country the 4
coloniser ensured the strengthening of feudal/conservative forces in the colony (Sarkar 1983. 39- I), g
Its consequences continue to be felt even today.
|
The Main Stages of Mercantilism
Two other inter-related developments led to the next stage i.e. Industrial Revolution in Europe and
mercantilism in the colonies. The first was the growth of the financial enterprises that lent money to
the owners of industry' in Europe. By the late 18th century, the East India Companies, particularly the
British were indebted to the finan cial institutions that in practice became their masters through joint
stock companies in India and other forms of control elsewhere. With this development, complaint
arose that the Companies did not utilise their profit properly, and pressure grew on them to invest it
differently. For example, in the late 18th century, the French consul at Genoa c°iyP^ine^lheir
mode of utilising their capital and demanded better ways of investing it (Braudel 1982: 398-399).
The second was the end of the monopoly of the East India Compa nies, as> a result of the role of
British
in 1833
and other countries during- subsequent years,
the financial institutions. The
--------------------------. abolished,
the monopoly of the Companies over the economy of the countries they traded with initially, and
occupied later. Their Governments decreed that private companies be allowed entry into the
integral part of the Industrial Revolution. As such they needed not
colonies. These companies were an i
manufactured goods but capital and raw material. Their objective was not trade but to turn the colonies
into suppliers of raw material and ca]ipital for industry in Europe and creation of captive markets for its
finished products (Kling 1962: 7-9).
So thev changed the politico-legal systems to suit these needs. Besides, three main methods were
employed to transform their economy to suit the objectives of the Industrial Revolution I he first is
deindustrialising or otherwise destroying the economies of the subjugated nations. The second was
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to make the colonised countries interdependent to the benefit of the coloniser. The third was to
change the legal and political systems to suit these needs. Besides, since the financial institutions also
lent capital to the industrial entrepreneurs in Europe, the East India Companies had to change their
policies and supply bullion to them. That became a major factor in their abandoning the partnership
with the agents of manufactured goods (Rothermund 1981: 83-86). To fall in line with the objectives of
the Industrial Revolution, the Companies had to change also their trading pattern.
To begin with, the colonialist needed bullion to finance the new
Capital Transfer and Subservience
was
brought into the coun tries of Asia. But the need oi the
type of trade. Till the 18th century, it
Industrial Revolution and of the new trading pattern for more capital resulted in it being exported
(Kling 1962: 10-13). The additional capital required was generated through taxation and by
commercialising commodities till then produced for only sustenance (Rothermund 1981: 41-45). So the
pattern of pro duction was changed to suit these needs (Worsley 1973: 47-49).
The change is visible in the trading records. For example, in 1777 alone, Rs. 2.4 million in bullion
were ordered to be supplied from Bengal only for the trade in China (Sinha 1970: 31). By the end of
the 19th century, fear of unrest among the peasants made further increase in land taxes non-feasible.
So focus shifted to the forests where more vulnerable populations lived (Sarkar 1983). In Indonesia
the Dutch had introduced the corvee labour system in the place of the traditional princely system, in
order to turn the colony into a supplier of coffee and spices. During the short British rule, the
governor Raffles replaced both these systems with land tax which "varied according to the value of
the land and its production, from one quarter to one half of the main crop, which was rice" (Michael
and Taylor 1956: 282). The Dutch modified the system further. As a result "in the years between 1831
and 1877. a total of 823,000,000 guilders was earned for the Motherland, a fantastically large amount
for that time, providing nearly one third of the Netherlands budget" (ibid: 285).
The taxes often crippled the economy. Referring to the land taxes in India, the Anglican Bishop
Huber (quoted in Sarkar 1986) reported "neither the native nor European agriculturist can thrive at
the present rate of taxation. Half the gross produce of the soil is de manded by the Government."
b
Deindustrialisation and Subservience
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The second step in adapting the economy to the needs of the Industrial Revolution was
deindustrialising the colony and creating a captive market for its products. Only 'extractive industries'
like mines and plantations that provided raw material to the factories were permitted (Sarkar 1983: 2830). It also required the control of the trading systems in order to change their function from suppliers
of manufactured goods to that of raw material. Thus it required the reorganisation of productive
structures in such a way that they participate responsively in the social division of labour and the
reorganisation of the political structures in a manner that they facilitated this economic
participation (Wallerstein 1986: PE-30).
This was a new mode of integrating the local economy with that of the colonialising countries. The
nature of the integration depended on the resources available in a colony and the specific needs of
the European industrial entrepreneurs. An indication of this shift is given by the trading pattern in
South Asia. In 1814, the early years of the Industrial Revolution, 81.23% of its exports of Rs. 58.6
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million were indigo and piece goods. By 1857, when it had attained maturity, these goods accounted
for only 21.83% of the exports. The rest were raw materials like cotton and raw silk (Sarkar 1986: 66).
Similarly, since mineral resources, the main need of Europe, were abundant in South-Central Africa,
"the modem political history of South-Central Africa, in large measure, is shaped by its early and
continued dependence on mining" (Worsley 1973: 47). Also the Filipino economy was changed after
the ten year grace period agreed to with the Spanish after the American takeover of the country in 1898.
Beginning from 1909, because of the tax free entry of Filipino raw materials into USA, large areas
were converted from staple food to crops like sugarcane, tobacco, copra, hemp and flax (Michael and
Taylor 1956: 298). In Indonesia, after the Dutch occupied the country a second time, the farmers
were required to set aside one-fifth of their land for the production of export crops determined by the
colonial powers and to spend at least one-fifth of their labour on its cultivation, for which the
government paid a very low price that it called fair. The commodities produced by this system, such
as coffee, indigo, sugar, tea, tobacco and cinnamon, brought high prices in Europe (Ibid: 284-286). In
Malaysia and Singapore, focus was on tin mining and rubber plantations (Arasaratnam 1979: 162164). With the growth in the automobile industry, the export of rubber from Singapore grew from
about 10,000 tons in 1909 to a million tons 25 years later (Croft and Buchanan 1958: 216-217).
This transformation was achieved only partially through the cost efficiency of the European
manufacturers due to new machinery. The main tool used was the quota system and later, imposition
of a duty on all manufactured goods from the colonies. For example, from 1788 British
manufacturers began to demand a stop to Indian textile im ports, to protect their nascent industry.
Eventually duties were placed on Indian textiles, but no corresponding duties were permitted on
British textile imports to India (Wallerstein 1986: PE-30). In other words, the trading pattern was
altered by arbitrarily fixing low prices of raw materials and high export duty on the
manufactured
goods.
The prices became
non renumerative and discouraged their
manufacturing within the country. Contrary to it. the export of raw materials, though there also
the prices were fixed arbitrarily to provide them at cheap rate to the British factories, was more
profitable (Sarkar 1986: 66).
Il is equally visible in the imports into the colony. For example, after the American takeover,
USA became the principal trading partner of the Philippines. As a result, imports of finished goods
from USA rose from $1.15 million in 1899 to $5 million a decade later and to $50 million after World
War I. They formed 60% of all Filipino imports (Michael and Taylor 1956: 298).
As a result of these processes, the State and a small upper class coterie got additional income, and
imported finished products from Europe while domestic industries declined. The elite that benefited
from it. collaborated with the colonialist in its commercial enter prise. For example, in India the
Brahminic administrators, princes and other upper classes transferred their allegiance to the British
(Misra 1961: 49-50). Similar was the case in Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries that were either
colonised or with whom treaties favourable to the colonialist were signed (Ingram 1971). These treaties
and the collaboration of the local elite, ensured the subservience of the colonial economies to
western needs. An administration and a legal system were introduced to protect the interests of the
European Indus trial Revolution.
8
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Interdependence and Subservience
Another feature of mercantile colonialism is that the economic policy of the colonising countries
dealt with the totality of colo nies. They made the colonial economies interdependent in their own
favour. For example, the Dutch tried to turn Malaysia into a producer of pepper and tin in order to
finance their trade with China (Arasaratnam 1979: 161-173). When the American War ot
Independence cut off cotton supplies from that continent to Britain, a policy decision was taken to turn
India into the main supplier of cotton to British textiles. Thailand together with Burma, became the
main supplier of rice (Ingram 1971) It was sold mainly to India and Southeast Asia. We have already
mentioned above, how the South-central African region was turned into a supplier of minerals to
Europe.
i>
Through this process many colonies were turned into single product suppliers in accordance with
the need of the metropolitan counties. For example, Malaysia was turned into a largely rubber pro
ducing country and as a result it had to import rice in large quanti ties from Thailand and Burma even
to meet its basic requirements (Croft and Buchannan 1958: 217). Similarly, Indonesia became the
near monopoly holder of Quinine and thereby, other countries were made dependent on it for its
supply. Even countries that were legally independent had to form part of this scheme. But this
interdependence was only in raw materials and related commodities whose main destination was
the colonising country that exported finished products to the colonies. The latter had thus to remain
undeveloped in order to develop Europe.
it
Change in Land Use and Laws
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Closely linked to the raw material requirements was the need to make land available for the
plantations and mines and ensure supply of labour for these plantations and mines. These changes
were considerably different from those of the feudal age, particularly in the Americas, Australia and
New Zealand, where land was required for direct colonisation by the White settlers. In North America
it was done through what has come to be known as the principle of eminent domain according to
which the State appropriated to itself all land that did not have individual title holders (Fernandes
1995). Legal changes were introduced by the settlers to suit their objective, and the Amerindians were
forced to sign treaties favourable to the Whites. Force was used in other cases. Till today the
Ameriandians have not succeeded in freeing themselves from their alienation (Brunelli 1993). In
Australia, Aborigene land was occupied by the Whites under the principle of terra nullius or nobody's
land. Any land that did not have an individual title was considered nobody's property, as such could
be occupied by anyone. Only in 1993, the Australian judiciary declared this principle null and void
and reasserted Aborigine rights over their land (Brennan 1995).
In the mercantile age, the main purpose of changes in land use and ownership was not occupation
by individual settlers, but revenue for the State and changeover to uses such as plantations and mines
for the production of raw material. To begin with India, changes began already in the 18th century.
When the British acquired control over Bengal, they inherited a system of sharecropping in which
the ryot (peasant) paid a fixed portion of his harvest to the State. Initially the East India Company
continued this system and appointed district collectors to collect taxes. Later they were replaced by
provincial councils. After taking over the administration in 1772, Warren Hast ings fanned out the
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the highest bidding zamindar (landlord) on a permanent basis. It was hoped in this manner both o
eokXes and ,0 create a class of prosperous fanners who would benefit from th.s colon.al system
J
and would collaborate with the foreign ruler (Sarkar 1986: 47-48).
and not the second because
the
However, only the first objective was iachieved
------------------. tax .collection became
.
main goal of the zamindari svstem. Land was sub-let to other peasants who in their turn gave it out to
others on a tenants at will basis. The share of the tax ranged from half to two thirds of the harvest. It
onlv meant that the farmers were hard pressed by taxes that were drained way from India. So unlike in
Japan where the combination of a literate peasantry and land reforms functioned as motivation
higher production, in Bengal the insecurity of tenure and the high taxes were^disincentives^ A
result agricultural production declined (Sen 1975: 20-22). Munro the Governor of Madras (1819-1827)
modified this svstem for the Madras Presidency, to get the peasant to pay the rent directly to
State instead of through the zamindars. But that too was not successful in achieving higher production
(Stein 1989).
However, when it became difficult to get adequate land for the companies that came in after the
Company was deprived of its monopoly, other means were used, particularly taxation. Beginning from
18MPnew law's were added to it. Force was combined with them to force the peasants to part wi
their land at throwawav prices (Bhadra 1991). From the 1860s. new legislation was introduced, to tarn
forests till then the sustenance of the forest dwellers, into State property to provide revenue^and
Sr’tn build the railways in India and ships for British trade and colonial wars elsewhere (Gadg.l
198V 116-119). Eventually, draconian laws like the Land Acquisition Act. 1894 were mtroduced to
enable the State to acquire land for a "public purpose" that was not defined (Fernandes 1995).
The
Indonesian land holding pattern changed with each transfer of power, i.e the Dutch to the British and
then to the Dutch. The Dutch adopted the policy of transferring the economic resources from
government to private enterprise. By the time of World War 1. Dutch capitahsts were >n cont °l of
production of all of its important raw materials. Similarly, the British during their short stmt, between
?811 and 1818, deprived the sultans and the princes of all their authority and revenue. Raffle
retraced the princely right of tribute and labour with individual tax on each farmer. 1 he new tax
svstem mighffliave freed the Indonesian farmers from the oppressive rule of the princes. But once they
reacquired power the Dutch managed the administrative system themselves and derived their income
fromq direct*taxation In fact, the Sultans, as well as the regents, were but figureheads - useful tools
who enabled the Dutch to impose their administration without havmg to interfere with the cultural
tradition emd customs of the Indonesians. They made the villagers responsible for tax m kind a d
labour service - a system which combined the worst features of the princely privileges of the past with
exploitation by a colonial bureaucracy.
The problem of land oememhip. and the eultnre system, in fact, remained an important one in
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ormers and eommereial en.er prises, bul did nothrng
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standard of the Indonesian farmers (Michael and Taylor 1956: 284 -286).
In the Philippines,
to suit the needs of the American market, a substantial acreage oi land under rice cultivation was
converted to the production of sugar, copra, tobacco, hemp and flex. This made the P0S>tl0« of
tenant farmers in the estates producing cash crops worse as they began to depend for their food on the
landowners. Again, the tenancy contracts were shortened which gave less ProteJIon t0 the Peasan S
and gave little incentive for them to improve his holding by investing his labour and capita .
Similarly, in Burma, a western legal system was introduced, in the framework of which this
economy fuctioned. For example, the property laws, which legalised mortgages on and and the
right of foreclosure, were introduced, which, were totally contrary to the Burmese tradition. The
land rules were changed in order to privatise land investment which was then protected with a Western
legal system which made it possible for outsiders like Indian merchants and businessmen to take
over much of the country's modem economy. Much of this investment was in the lower Irrawaddy delta
where rice production increased substantially in the last decade of the 19th century and the beginning
of the twentieth. Similarly teakwood production was regulated by a system ot licensing
introduced by the colonial government (Ibid: 305).
Destabilisation and Human Labour
i
A direct result of the policies of colonial powers, was the creation of new classes and class
relations both in the urban and the rural setting. These shifts and transformations led to much social
destabilisations. An army of traditional agricultural and manufactur ing workers were set tree with no
alternatives. It fitted in with the need of the plantations and mines for cheap labour.
i
i
A deliberate effort was made to transform the victims of this transformation into such labour for
the estates and mines. At first the British tried to get the Chinese to take up most of these jobs but
succeeded only partially (Arasaratnam 1979: 164-165). Later an effort was made^to recrui the
peasants in Assam from whom land was alienated, to became plantation workers (Bhadra 1991. 2124) Finally the poor who were displaced by deindustrialisation and the new land laws were recruited
for this purpose (Sen 1979: 12). For example, in Malaya, the British encouraged Chinese and Indian
immigration which provided cheap labour and the commercial enterprise which, they claimed, the
Malays lacked. By doing so the Chinese came to outnumber the Malays, and incurred their enmity
by becoming the dominant economic group (Michael and Taylor 1958: 284-285).
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In countries like India the destabilisation of the socio-economic structures arising from these
changes freed a big labour force from land. This was done mainly through changes in land and forest
laws They had worked till then in an exploitative relationship with the land owners. This system of
exchange of labour had provided them material security but their working conditions and social
status were exploitative. The new land laws weakened this system. But no alterna tive was provided to
them while freeing them from this relationship. They were thus deprived of the material security
provided by their pre-colonial state without making avenues of upward social mobility or of escape
from their economic exploitation available to them. Their only choice was to become indentured
labourers for British companies under slave like conditions. Labourers were thus supplied from this
class to mines and plantations in India as well as in other colonies in Asia, Africa and in far away
holdings such as Fiji and the West Indies (Jayaraman 1975: 26-30). According to one estimate, abou
Gi- io©
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35 million persons were displaced from their land or their jobs in the towns and villages, because of
the destabilisation set in by deindus trilisation and changes in the land tenure system (Naoroji 1988).
31
Such destabilisation was basic to the process of creating the type of workforce that could be used
in the most exploitative manner.
<a9l
An
Men had to be induced to work in new ways for new people and new ends. The exploitation
entailed in colonialism, therefore, was not an exploitation of things fetishistically conceived, but
an exploitation between classes of men. Geographers may speak of the exploitation of resources. But
to utilize or valorize resources, colonialism has to exploit men (Worsley 1973: 47).
For example, in Indonesia, the laws that forced the peasants to produce coffee, indigo, sugar, tea,
tobacco, left them with little time or land to raise food for themselves, and the soil became
exhausted when it had to produce crop after crop without enough care. As the price paid for these
export crops was extraordinarily low, the farmers did not have enough income to buy the food they
lacked. Besides, groups of villages were sent to work out their quota in the factories where sugar,
indigo, and other produce wrere processed and prepared for export. The working contracts of the
villagers were in theory free and their labour was to be paid. In practice they had to work at very low
wages, under conditions which amounted to compulsory labour (Michael and Taylor 1956: 286).
Conclusion
We have studied in this paper, the processes of colonialism and the manner in which the colonial
economies were made subservient to the needs of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. As is clear
from above, the colonial powers instituted a developmental regime that was a child of capitalism. In
that sense, we may agree with Andre-Gunder Frank (1978: 238-239) that the process of capital
accumulation is a. if not the. principal motor of modern history. Structural inequalities and temporal
unevenness of capital accumulation are inherent to capitalism. Of greater relevance to us is the fact
that the world capitalist development occurred because of the exploitation of the workers and
consumers of the South that related to the North in an unequal relationship.
Io achieve the
objective of subjugating the colonial economy for the needs the European Industrial Revolution, the
colonial powers provided an ideology of progress and scientific measurement in which the colonising
State became the enlightened representative of progressive forces and morally responsible for their
propagation. When capitalist States acquired new territory, they exerted power in
i the name of
Thus right from the beginning a developmental
progress which they termed civilising education,
a
language of legitimacy for the imperialist
discourse informed policy debate and provided
State's rule. The colonial powers pursued a development mission that imperialism posed as
philanthropy and moral and imaterial ,progress. In other words, the colonial powers instituted a
developmen tai regime, which is a child of capitalism.
To achieve the colonial purpose, past systems had to be, replaced by rational policy and social order
designated by enlightened rulers to benefit people victimized by their past. So the colonialist rewrote
history for this purpose. As the Cambridge historian Taylor stated, the role of history is to show what
barbarians the past rulers of India were and what civilisation the colonialist has brought. The
colonial West thus construed the East as the "other" on the frontiers of European expansion (Ludden
1995: 254). For Example, the disorder and anarchy "out there" in the world of Indian politics and
12
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tradition became an "other" to be vanquished by conquest and by analysing the coiony emptncahy to
bring it into the history of the new regime, U-----------past.
Progress
Progress meant
meant standardisation
standardisation and centralisation; efficiency required a chain of command to
subordinate knowledge about India to the scientific intellect. Thus after 1790, under Cornwallis,
new attention was p!id to native intermediaries in the information system. They stood between the
Court of Directors and its Indian Subjects (Stein 1989). In this understanding the vast masses
became the subjects of the colonial State who had the responsibility to rule them and may be rule
justly.
Such considerations indicate why the colonial __.L1
social and sometimes economic policy wavered
To create a domain for progress, the colonial regime separated
between reform and conservation.
of liberalism. It presented society as a complex of traditions
’’economy” and society in the name
whose reformation had to be balanced with con servation to maintain its social hierarchy and stability
■ : same time it initiated a centralising trend which was much more operative than
(Bayly 1981). At the
even tthat of the Mughal empire which was more patrimonial than bureaucratic.
such common ality. In this context, wherever a globalised theory of colonialism might lead us w
must remember tlJ also resistance to colonial power always finds material presence at the level of the
local. But the manner in which it found this presence differed from country to coun try. That ha
i
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influenced the post-in dependence systems.
I
References
I
Alam, Muzaffar. 1986. The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India, Awadh and the Punjab.
1707-48. Delhi: Oxford Univerisity Press.
Aloysius, G. 1997. Nationalism Without a Nation in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
i
Before Dominion. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii.
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V
Arasaratam, Sinnappah. 1986. Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromondel Coast
1650-1740. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bayly, C.A. 1993. Pre Colonial Indian Merchants and Rationality in (eds.) Mushrul Hasan and
’ Narayani Gupta, India's Colonial Encounter .New Delhi: Sage.
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Bayly, C.A. 1983. Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British
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13
Bayly, C.A. \9%%.lndian Society and the Making of the British Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge
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1
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
on
COLONIALISM and GLOBALIZATION
Five Centuries after Vasco da Gama
February 2-6, 1998
New Delhi, India
THE “FREE LUNCH”
TRANSFERS FROM TROPICAL COLONIES AND THEIR
CONTRIBUTION TO CAPITAL FORMATION IN BRITAIN
DURING INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
I
by
Prof. Utsa Patnaik
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Centre for Economic Studies and Planning
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi
I
£
THE FREE LUNCH:
COLONIES AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO CAPITAL
;S™SN ™KEVOLVnON
There is a -bespread idea among
of
countries that under coloniai syst
tan countries, and these
surplus too*
rial transformation in the latter while
transfers helped to fuel industrial
ttern of development. Attempts
condemning the colonies o a
estimates of the " drain
to quantify this idee.in India took t
to Britain.
Of wealth" in the form of ^-^^^^“^maTned, of the actual
However many unresoiyed c°^®p
? colonies and the way the mechanism
mechanism of the exploitation of the investment relations between colony
worked with respect to the »
and -vestmen^
rejecting the
and metropolis. Owing to thi
,rs to sav that it was a question of
idea of substantial colonial transfers to
which4the third
i
interpretation, and the sam®
Uorld
I
o£
r
sunoort of their contention, could
a
:«.pr=. - - —
«
It
XPh.r.nt
uhlch pCeVailed
the macro-economic relat
uhich is quite different from normal
between colony and metropolis ^^en sovereign nations, the latter
trade and investment relation
received theories of trade.
b=1„, the only type which 1=
« te^ty --^theet
The purpose el this P»P'' ‘
al=o f„„ the w„t mdl..) end
^“"tUhuu” t”^British capital ior-tieu during th. Industrial
k
i
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h
Revolution.
normal trade and give rise to
How does colonial trade differ from
transfer?
In the course of tra^^etweehrtwo^ao^e^ig^natio^s^^n^^ich
■
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s
feithepon°therother'Cit may be assumed that trade is the outcome of
mutualPperception of gain from engaging^ trade ^fo^if -^the^
other country was actually
9
theory of comparative advantage,
T10? °tinatpoint ol all Sequent ^inst^L trad^theory (including
basically assumes such a scenario
the starting point or ai
b
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Portugal. ..eh country ..sun»d to be (.redueUgt-e «°
;
wine, , Meed. .»d
i^ht
lower in on. country
COBt ped to the o?her it would make economic sense for each country to
compared
the other^ i
uce at relatively lower cost,
specialise In that good
trading , for the other good. Through
and exchange P
trade both countries would be better off by
such specialisation and tra ,
other good, in the post-trade
having more of one good for no less of
' portugai%ould
situation compared to
t> Jowet cost than England, if the ratio
produce both c o
lower in Portugal compared to England,
bot^countrie^would"be better off with
with Portugal
Portugal specialising
specialising in
in wine
wine
1
($1
1
and England in cloth, and exchanging^through trade. Given the
assumptions, the argument cannot be faulted.
The Ricardian theory appeared to provided a powerful justificati o>
for viewing even the trade relations between a colony and metropolj*'
that
a typical tropics I
Everyone knew
-«. i padinacountry
to mutual
advantage.
]---and
- produced
colonel
had much
lower labour cost
everyjood more
cheaply thani aa typical
typical Nortnern
Northern metropolitan country; but relative, not
cost is what mattered as Ricardo had argued, and surely the
absolute
metropolitan country had relative or comparative advantage in some 9°°ds
(like machine-made textiles) so that tropical colonies specialising in
primary products and exchanging them for their needs of machine ^de
products through trade, would be better off in the post-trade situation
compared to the pre-trade one. So ran the argument, and„even th°^J
people might say critically that "comparative advantage was a static
concept, etc. this was not a powerful enough criticism to prevent most
people from feeling that colonial trade, everything said and done,
qood for the colonised no less than for the coloniser.
In fact the above Ricardian argument applied to tropical coloni
trade is logically quite wrong and contains a gross fallacy.
e
fallacy arises because the Ricardian assumption is not satisfied, of
both countries ( in this case, backward colony and advanced Metropol
producing both goods (cotton textiles, say, and a tropical crop like
sugarcane or jute) . The tropical colony like India could P^oduc® both
goods, but the Northern country like England could not
Jhat
qoods in the pre-trade situation. Given this,
comparative cost , that
is cost ratio, simply cannot be defined for the advanced temperate
country whenever /tropical crop is one of the two goods A statement
like "India had a comparative advantage in sugarcane- or jute, or tea,
or whatever- while England had a comparative advantage in cJotJ
becomes a non sequitur, an undefinable and hence meaningless, logically
wrong propositio/. ( We have developed this argument at ^eater J^Jh
•
and it will not be further belaboured here). This is the
ZlrSXXt
vhy th. tt.d. o« th. ttoplc.1 .010.1..
qutt^
different from the trade assumed in mainstream theory: it involved good,
which the coloni.ing countries could never them»elve. produce.
Comparative cost therefore could not even be defined.
This also gives the clue to why trade did take place in which a
colony like India exported a variety of tropical ctoP’ to
countries and imported manufactures. The reason that the temperate
region colonising country wanted the trade was precisely because it
wHhed to consuml, but could not itself produce a range of goods which
the tropical country could
could (valuable
crops useful «^her for
(valuable tropical
tropical crops
final consumption or productive
productive consumption,
consumption, viz. as raw material^
because it had inadequate or zero isupplies
itself of mineral .
.. ’*
reason the colonised country entered into trade however was b=cause it
had no choice in the matter. The important point Lis that
--- the Ricar
• ’ * once
-- -j it is
conclusion of mutual benefit from trade no longer,holds
an
and
natural
resources
recoanised that tropical bio-diversity i-- ------,, gives
endowment advantage to tropical lands and makes it i“P°s’*ble> to
conceptualise or define relative cost ratios whenever a specifically
.
tr°piC*ha?r^de benefited the colonising power cannot be in doubt since
it made available a much larger range of raw materials, minerals and
1
the question.
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from benefiting the tropical colony however trade becomes positively
harmful. It certainly made no economic sense for India to grow and
export commercial crops for the benefit of metropoles when thereby her
output of foodgrains for her own population from the limited land area,
ceased to increase. Nor did it make sense for India to displace large
numbers of artisan producers by importing cloth which she could produce
herself. The first led to falling food output per capita and laid the
basis for famine; the second led to de-industrialisation and falling
value-added per worker.
The second and very important reason why colonial trade ditters
from the trade between equal'partners assumed in trade theory, is
because exports from a colonised country like India were paid for to the
•xport-goods producers, out of the local tax revenues those same
producers had themselves contributed; while the foreign exchange
earnings those exports earned abroad, was used by the colonising country
to offset its trade deficits and ease its own balance of payments
problems. This is a very big and significant difference between the
pattern of revenue expenditures and trade earnings, of a colonised
exporting country compared to a sovereign exporting country. No
sovereign country sets aside a part of budgetary revenues for purchasing
export goods and sending them out of the country, and treats that part
of revenues as no longer available for domestic spending under other
heads. Nor does a sovereign country earning vast sums in foreign
exchange from merchandise exports, have no control over those sums and
J
Both were
allows their use to pay for another country's trade deficits,
happening throughout the period of colonial rule in India, to Britain's
benefit.
The reason for treating colonial goods exports as transfer and
not as normal "exports" under normal trade, lies in the second factor,
the tax-financed nature of the exports from the colony, and the use made
by the metropolis of the exchange earnings to pay its own trade
deficits. If an average Indian paid Rs. 100 in taxes to the colonial
government and then got back Rs. 30 out of that as payment for
tea/jute/opium he sold, this is equivalent to his giving a total tax of
Rs.100, divided up into Rs.70 cash and RS.30 worth of exportable goods,
comprising tea/jute/opium. To the colonising, importing country, the
imported tea/jute/opium becomes completely costless, for it is the
commodity equivalent of a part of the tax the Indian has paid. It does
not have to be paid for to Indians in equivalent goods, nor does it
create any claims by the Indians on Britain. Therefore the import is not
an "import" as in normal trade, but is a transfer. ( The foreign exchange
earned by selling the tea/jute/ opium for dollars, francs etc. on nonBritish markets, accrues in London and is used for settling trade
deficits Britain might have vis-a-vis USA, France etc).
We find that a colonised country typically builds up a large
merchandise export surplus (which was sustained decade after decade in
the Indian case), but never has a current account surplus, and may even
incur current account deficit. No matter how large the merchandise
export surplus might be (and by the end of the 19th century India had
the second largest trade surplus in the world, second only to the USA's)
sufficiently large invisible political charges are imposed on the
colony, to wipe out and even more than wipe out, the trade surplus and
produce a deficit on the current account. Borrowing from abroad then
becomes necessary to balance overall payments, which adds to future
interest burdens. Colonial trade and investment represents topsy-turvy
world where the country with the large and growing trade surplus (India)
has its earnings siphoned off via invisible burdens and has to borrow,
while the country with the large and growing trade deficits (Britain)is
able through politically imposed and manipulated, growing invisible
3
deficits
earnings to more than offset these
and therefore exports
interest in this paper iies in looking at the. role, of colonial
transfer in the very early, crucial period of the 18
century
Industrial Revolution from 1770 to 1820, a period which starts
whel,
after Britain has acquired tax-collecting powers in Bengal and ends when
tJe Company's trade monopoly in India is ending. At the beginning of
period India was arguably the world's largest producer and exporte,
of cotton textiles; at the end of it her trade pattern started to be
r ver d as machine-made cotton yarn and cloth started pouring in from
the newly emergent factory system in Britain, entirely dependent on
imported raw material. What role if any did colonial transfer play n
'“’J
on a subiect people, not
goods the Indian population wished to
of «»■’.nd ....pt th. export .nxplu. .. th.
. .. pr.e on.
estimators have done. It will bear repeating that thi. export su^p?ls
institutes analytically speaking a measure of transfer, because it was
7 from export surplus fromi aa sovereign
a quite different economic category
nation. Unlike in the latter case export surplus ffl m British India
ind used the
created no claims by Indians on Britons, who appropt^t
nted the
goods which were costless for them, for these goods
d Indians.
commodity-equivalent of taxes collected from the coloi
Was the transfer from India and other tropica
h
imnortant relative to the British GDP and capital formation at that
Se* This Is the question to which we seek an answer. The source of
J
mainlv the Abstract of British Historical Statistics edited by B
R^tthe™ and P Deane, supplemented with data from British Economig
Crowth 1688-1959 by P ^eane and W A Cole; we also use some of the data
^IKblFTTT^-volume edited by Floud and Me Closkey, The Economic
History of Britain since 1700. While the merchandise trade figures for
XilF^d^he W. indies are ^adily available for the period other
tropical trade areas cannot readily be separated in the statistics.
Iccordiigly the estimate relates to Asia and the West Indian colonies
All that has been said about transfer from India applies in a
midllie^fo™ to the W Indies - modified, because of the institution of
sllietv created there by the colonisers differed from free petty rural
Ziodlction in India, so taxes on independent producers played a smaller
-It whit wls being transferred via a merchandise export surplus was
P . .
.lav- rent Otherwise, the argument remains the same : no claims
™crued to the native West Indians on account of the ^rchan^’®^^0^
surplus, which in its entirety represented the commodity equi
slave rent.
1 These mandatory imports included such items as glass bottles, grand pianos and chandeliers.
4
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Magnitude of the colonial transfer relative to British GDP and capital
formation, 1770-1820
Once the East India Company acquired the Diwani of Bengal in 1765
or the right of revenue collection, it no longer had to make any outlays
out of its own funds for purchasing the goods it traded in. It used a
Pa^t of the land revenue collections; during the last quarter of the
18
century, the proportion of net ( i.e. net of collection costs) tax
revenues which was used for purchasing exported goods , averaged onethird. England and Wales at that date had a tiny population of 8 million
persons, increasing to 10 million by the turn of the century; the
British East India Company had acquired control over the agriculturally
rich area of Bengal with a population totalling about 30 million. Even
*’surn%the real Per capita income in Bengal to have been only onefifth that of England (possibly the income gap was smaller than this),
this implies that the Company had parasitically latched on to the tax
paying capacity of an economy of 6 million English-equivalent Indians in
income terms, almost as large as was the home country even as early as
1765;, and was using part of the tax revenues for further extending its
areas of control by financing wars of conquest against local rulers.
t.Urn_Of, the century it had added large territories in South
India and in the Bombay Deccan,/
and had set in place tax collection
systems in all these regions by the decade 1810-1820. Not only did the
geographical spread and numbers of taxable population grow: each
colonised native could be pushed down to a lower subsistence level and
taxed much more heavily than an Englishman. Progressively larger volumes
of goods were purchased for export out of the increasing tax revenues.
The impact on the British economy of such increasing costless transfer
a priori can be assumed therefore to be significant and worth
estimating.
In a pioneering estimate for the year 1801, Sayera Habib had
looked at the separate and combined transfer in 1801 from Asia and the
West Indies to England, and obtained the combined transfer in 1801 as
5.0 percent of British GDP and as 4.0 percent of it. GNP, while relative
to British domestic savings the transfer amounted to 71.4 percent.3 This
is certainly very high; we use the same data and basically the same
method as she does, but to keep our estimate a conservative one, do not
adjust data upwards for smuggling. Nevertheless owing to our use of
different and more accurate price inflators to adjust the constant value
figures of import surplus, we obtain an even higher percentage of
transfer to British GDP for 1801, at 6.05 percent. Our estimate of
combined transfer to domestic savings in Britain in 1801 is also
correspondingly higher at 86.4 percent compared to 71.4 percent in
Habib. In this short paper we do not go into the detailed estimation
procedure except to mention that we have derived implicit price
inflators from the series by Imlah on current and constant values of
mports and exports, and adjust the import surplus figures to 1801 using
this, a more accurate method than Habib's adjustment using a price index
available upto 1897 only. Apart from the year 1801, we also extend our
estimation procedure backwards to the year 1770, and forwards to
include 1811 and 1821.
The pioneering estimate by Sayera Habib (1975) has unfortunately,
attracted less attention than it deserves. The author rightly says.
Saycra Habib 1975 '‘Colonial Exploitation and Capital Fomation in England in the early stages of
Industrial Revolution" in Pro^inp5 pf th; Indian History Congn^ss . Section 4, pp. 12-24
For those interested the detailed estimation procedure is set out in my forthcoming book on agricultural
transformation in Britain and Japan, tentatively tided The Peasantry and Industrialisation^
1
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regarding the role of colonial transfers in British industrial
revolution, that
.
"What the British economy gained from colonial wealth was . . . .
not landed estates nor even luxuries for aristocratic consumption, but
an immense supply of raw materials and wage-goods - a supply
Inconceivable if Britain did not have colonial tribute to finance it.
While retaining Habib's basic methodology, which is analytically
correct, in our own estimate for the years 1770, 1801,1811 and 1821, we
have made certain changes in the interests of underestimation rather
than accurate estimation of the transfer : for instance as earlier
mentioned we make no upward adjustment in the tropical import surplus
into Britain on account of smuggling. This is on the principle that
since we argue the actual transfer was large, it strengthens our case it
even with a minimalist estimate, we obtain a substantial transfer
relative to British GDP and capital formation out of domestic savings.
The estimate for 1770 is to provide a rough benchmark to which the
years 1801 to 1821 might be compared.1770 to 1801 was a period of large
fluctuations in revenue collections within Bengal; soon after acquiring
the Diwani of Bengal in 1765, the Company jacked up the demand compared
to that under the Muslim rulers and farmed out revenue collecting to tax
farmers; their rapacity compounded the effect of bad harvests and led to
a devastating famine in 1770, which is estimated to have carried off a
third of the rural population, leading to fall in production. After some
experiments and dithering the Permanent Settlement of the revenues was
Taking the average annual import surplus for the five year period
centred on 1770, and expressing it relative to L.._
the estimated
1770 GDP in
-----Britain, we obtain the txan.fer as 2.88 percent of the GDP in 1770,
while assuming the savings rate out of GDP was 5%, compared to total
domestic saving, the transfer work, out to 57.6 percent (see Table 1).
At this date the Indian transfer was still less than that from the
.
Indies, but by the turn of the century, the importance of the Caribbean
region had not increased while that of Asia did increase, primarily
owing to the expanding territories and revenues of British India.
Because there is no direct estimate of GDP for 1770, we have been
obliged to estimate it.5 From 1801 inclusive onwards however, GDP
estimate are directly available for Britain at decadal interva s.
By 1801 the combined transfer relative to British GDP had rxsen o
a rem.rkable high of 6.05 percent, and assuming, as Deane suggests, that
the domestic savings rate rose to 7%, this transfer amounted to 86.4
percent of domestic savings. Both in 1811 and 1821 th. respective
proportions remain remarkably similar, the transfer being 6.01 percent
and 5.22 percent of GDP in 1811 and 1821; and assuming, again on the
basis of Deane's estimates, that the savings rate still hovered around
7% by 1811 and rose to 9% only in the next decade, this combined
transfer works out to 85.9 percent and 74.6 percent of domestic savings
in 1811 and 1821. Our estimates thus suggest that the colonial transfer
was indeed of great importance and nearly doubled the resources
available from domestic savings, during the crucial period of transition
to the factory system in Britain (See Table 1) .
5 The estimate of GDP for 1770 at constant prices has been arrived at by accepting Deane and Cole’s
evidence of a one-third rise in real output per head between 1770 and 1801, and multiplying this
estimated real output per head for 1770 by the known population at that date. The constant value is then
adjusted for price change to obtain the current value. Sec P Deane and W A Cole 1969 British Economic
Growth 1688-1959 (Cambridge University Press)
6
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While the transfer as proportion of GDP is a fairly firm
statistic, the same transfer as a proportion of domestic savings may
appear to be less firm since the low estimate of domestic savings
itself, put forward by Deane and Cole, has been challenged. However the
challenge itself emanates not from access to any better estimation
methods or data, but from the difficulty of accounting for the large
order of physical capital formation that actually occurred, if it is
assumed that domestic savings was the sole source of domestic
investment- as the British economic historians have routinely -and
incorrectly — assumed. Given oup argument that substantial transfer into
Britain from the tropical colonies took place (of which our estimate is
actually an underestimate ) the analytical problem is easily resolved. A
much larger order of actual capital formation could take place in
Britain, than would have occurred if Britain had been restricted to her
domestic savings capacity alone, for the transfer was nothing but a huge
costless inflow augmenting working capital in the economy by providing a
supply of tropical raw materials and wage goods, exchanged in part also
against temperate land goods. This inflow was costless to the macro
economy because it created no external liabilities at all on Britain by
the producers of those goods. The supply indeed was so large that the
British economy was unable to absorb all of it, and on average in this
period two-fifths of tropical colonial inports were re-exported, 80%
going to the European Continent alone, to pay for Britain's imports of a
vital wage-good, corn and for strategic naval materials viz. bar iron,
timber, pitch and tar. Without the colonial goods which were in elastic
demand on the Continent which readily absorbed them, P Deane points out
that Britain would have had considerable external payments problems as
her own products were in low and inelastic demand (Deane 1967).
The physical, commodity form of the transfer from the tropical
colonies was in the form of raw materials like cane sugar (refined in
Bristol), raw cotton, hardwood timbers, saltpetre, indigo, hides, and a
variety of other products; while final consumption goods comprised above
all wage goods like manufactured cotton textiles, tobacco, rum, and corn
for bread obtained from the Continent, the last part-financed by re
exports. We are justified therefore in adding on the estimated transfer
to the estimated domestic savings, to get an idea of the actual total
gross capital formation which could be and was financed by this
combination of domestic savings and external inflow. In Table 2 this
exercise is carried out, and the percent of GDP formed by capital
formation domestically financed and capital formation financed by
transfer, set out. The sum of the two gives our estimated total capital
b
formation.
>
ftie remarkable thing is that this set of figures agrees reasonably
closely with C Feinstein's estimates of capital formation arrived at by
following a totally different method, the method of product flows.
According to our own estimate, the total gross capital formation
financed by domestic savings plus external transfers from tropical
colonies, registered a rise from 7.8 percent of GDP in 1770 to 14.22
percent of GDP by 1821. Relying on domestic savings alone the proportion
would have remained absolutely low at 9 percent of GDP as late as 1821.
The magnitude of the transfer to total capital formation was thus very
substantial : it ranged between at least 36% in 1770 to 46% in 1801 and
1811, dropping back to 36% in 1821 (See Table 2) .
b
>
b
b
b
»
4 P Deane, 1967 The First Industrial Revolution (Cambridge University Press). See also P Deane, Vol.4
Ch.4 of The Fontana Economic History The Industrial Revolution in England 1700-1914 (Collins,
London)
[»•
4
Comparing our estimates with C Feinstein's estimate of capital
formation which uses the independent product-flow method, we find a
close correspondence. Thus Feinstein obtains a rise from 8.1 percent
GDP in the decade ending in 1770, to 13.5 percent of GDP in the decade
ending in 1820. Given the problems with historical data so far back in
time, the
the correspondence is close indeed. Unless we integrate our
estimates of transfer into the analysis of what was happening during
this period, the estimated savings and investment variables are not
consistent with each other. One economic historian after a detailed
study of consumption, output growth, investment, technical.change and
productivity growth, even reaches the following conclusion:
indubitably Britain from 1780 to 1860 ate a maaBive free
inveBtment wbb 10 or 15 percent a year,.
. or so
the investments with no corresponding costs" . ( D McCloskey 1981)
Yet the obvious answer
hasnot
notstruck
struckany
anyeconomic
economic historian of Britain,
---7 has
that the source af
af the
the "free
"free lunch"
lunch" imust
--- be sought in the c°lon1^
transfer, the mechanism whereby taxes and slave-rent wrung from th
colonised people were transmitted in commodity-form as a
'
costless injection of working capital and wage-goods into the Briti
economy (for the transfer continued long beyond the period we have
studied After 1820 however it can no longer be estimated using the
transfers
it is doubtful whether the transformation
I’ tJ: Bnuih “on-y in th!, pl[i.d TlY» 5~e..ded
At a fast enough pace to merit the term "Industrial Revolution . A
gradual evolution is a far more likely counter-factual scenario, gather
than the actual rapid growth of factory production which transformed
British economic and social life in the course of a generation.
dSppeartd and taxes had to be transmitted via third countries. For the later meehamsm sv my article
TributeUanrfer and the balance of Payments in the Cambridge Econom.c H^tory ofIndia M
S^ntist 1986 also included in V Patnaik The I^>nK Transition : Essays m Political Economy
forthcoming 1998 , Tulika , Delhi
I*
k
h
h
b
b
b
b
British GDP, GNP, and
Table 11 Estimated value of combined transfer.
( in million pounds,
Dome
stic
Capital
Formation
from
all
S
ources
Gross L
current values )
h
b
b
b
b
II
b
fl
l'>
lit
II
II
la
YEAR
TRANSFER
GDP
G N P
G D C F
1770
1801
1811
1821
2.645
14.037
18.109
15.186
91.84
232.00
301.10
291.00
94.485
246.037
319.209
316.186
4.59
16.24
21.07
26.19
1770
1801
1811
1821
(PER CENT OF
TRANSFER TO )
2.88
6.05
6.01
5.22
2.79
5.71
5.67
4.96
57.63
86.43
85.86
74.57
NOTE : Transfer estimated by taking the combined import surplus into
Britain from Asia and the West Indies, basic time series in Mitchell and
Deane Abstract of British Historical Statistics 1962 Cambridge ; GDP
figure for 1770 estimated as discussed in text; GDP figures for other
years from Mitchell and Deane, ibidem. GNP figures obtained by adding on
transfer to GDP; gross domestic capital formation or GDCF attributable
to domestic savings, obtained by taking estimated domestic savings
figures (accepting assessment of savings ratios in Deane 1967 and Deane
and Cole 1969). The lower half of the table gives the transfer as
percentage of GDP, GNP and GDCF.
Table 2 Contribution of domestic savings and of transfer from the
tropical colonies to total capital formation in Britain, 1770-1821
PERIOD
la
>
l»
b
I®
»
I®.
r1
Percent of Total Capital
Formation to GDP by source
Savings
Transfer
Total
Percent of Total Capital
Formation from
Savings
Transfer
36.55
63.45
7.88
2.88
1770
;5.00
46.36
53.64
13.05
6.05
7.00
1801
46.20
53.80
13.01
6.01
7.00
1811
36.71_______
63.29
14.22
5.22
9.00
1821________ !
Table
1;
savings
ratios
from
discussion
in
Deane
and Cole,
Source; From
British Economic Growth 1688- 1959
>
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
on
COLONIALISM and GLOBALIZATION
*
1
Five Centuries after Vasco da Gama
February 2-6,1998
New Delhi, India
FOR A PROGRESSIVE AND DEMOCRATIC
NEW WORLD ORDER
I
4
I
I
J
)
by
Dr Samir Amin
Third World Forum,
Dakar, Senegal
FOR A PROGRESSIVE AND DEMOCRATIC
NEW WORLD ORDER
By
Dr Samir Amin
We m a» IM, » a^ee on .he lac.
Wes., Soviet.
peojecs of
A -re.um- .» .heso mode.s is impossible, and .he des.... fors^h a m<um.s 1^ mom
Use eapressm
for soeiehes tamehom lhe world and
JXSm X Xhanged profoundly and are no. wha. drey used .0 be.
years
,
tkot thp development we have experienced over the past fifteen
eeono’my men. be made .o serve ^e p^e, and no. me
other way round.
These devempmems can be summarized in
“ "XZ.
social dis.or.ions as drey urke a ^“'XmplZe"^ X“ed widdn me Trade, me wedare
bloc and the South. Massive and permanent unemployme
become a permanent feature
state has been eroded a new Phen0^“nf
b|ogc
the South, the situation is even more
of the landscape. In the countries of th
countries with dynamic economies deserve further
ta'onX XpX XS in any case, me same phenomena am observed in mese coundies,
but they are-as yet?-more subdued).
■ i are "the price we have to pay
’ _.i argument that these developments
We do not accept the dominant
allegedly healthier and more
that
for a period of transition■' C
— will eventually lead to a new,
dynamic economy from wlhich
----- all will benefit.
thct thpce social distortions are really a new phenomenon in the history of
However, can we say that these soc
exceDtion in this history- an exception that can be
I
-7 „"ssX.X
I
I
XXXo^XVreX “noS (i.e, a remm m dre i.w of aceumula.ion and paupenzadon,
ir
marginalised and excluded countnes. Specifically.
according to Marx's theses).
i
I
1
)
f
(i) The capitalist countries of eastern Asia (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore), but also,
behind them, other South-East Asia countries (Malaysia and Thailand first and foremost), along
with China, are registering accelerated growth rates, while these rates are collapsing almost
everywhere’else in the world. These countries are now actively competing to provide industrial
products in world markets. In addition to being economically dynamic, they are less affected by
aggravated social distortions (this point needs to be qualified and discussed on a case-by-case
basis), less vulnerable (because of an intensification of intraregional relationships that is specific
to East Asia, and similar in degree to what has happened within the European Community), and
characterized by effective intervention by the state, which plays a key part in carrying out
national development strategies, even when these national strategies are turned outward.
(ii) The industrial capacity of Latin American countries and India is equally significant.
However, regional integration is less advanced in their case (20% for Latin America versus 60%
for Eastern Asia or the European Community), and state intervention is less coherent. Because
growth rates remain modest in these regions, the aggravation of already huge inequalities is even
more dramatic.
(iii) Overall the countries of Africa and the Arab and Islamic world are still trapped in an obsolete
international division of labour. They remain exporters of primary products, either because they
have not entered the industrial age or because their industries are fragile, vulnerable,
uncompetitive Here social distortions mainly appear in the form of swelling masses of pauperized
and excluded people. There is absolutely no sign of progress towards regional integration (intraAfrican or intra-Arab). Growth is practically nil. Although this group includes both rich
countries (oil-exporting countries with small populations) and countries that are poor or extremely
poor, it does not include any country that behaves as an active agent in contributing to shape the
world system. In this sense it is well and truly marginalized.
Active and marginalized peripheries are not distinguished solely by the competitiveness of their
industrial production. There is also a political difference. Dominant powers in the active peripheries, and
behind them society as a whole (whatever the social contradictions within that society), have a project
and a strategy to carry it out. This is obviously true of China, Korea and, to a lesser extent, certain
countries in South-East Asia, India, and some Latin American countries.
These national projects are confronting the projects of imperialism, which currently dominate the
world, and the result of this confrontation will shape the world of tomorrow. Marginalized penphenes,
on the other hand, have neither project (despite the claims of rhetoric such as the discourse of political
Islam) nor strategy of their own. As a consequence, their thinking is done for them by imperialist circles
which retain the exclusive power to initiate "projects" for these regions (e.g. the ACP-EEC association,
the "Middle- East" project of the United States and Israel, Europe's vague Mediterranean projects) projects which are not opposed, in fact, by any local project. These countries are therefore passive
subjects of globalization.
The growing differentiation between these groups of countries has shattered the concept of the
"Third World" and ended the common front strategies of the Bandung era )1955-1975).
2
»
' However as we shall see, there is no general agreement on how to assess the nature and prospects
of capitalist expansion in the countries of the former Third World. For some people, the most dynamic
emerging countries are in the process of "catching up" and are no longer periphenes even if they are
still at an intermediate level within the world hierarchy. For others, including myself, these countnes
represent the true periphery of tomorrow. The centres/peripheries contrast, wluch from 1800 to
1950/1980 coincided with the opposition between industrialized and non-industnalized economies is
based today on new and different criteria that can be defined through analysis of the five monopolies
exercised by the Triad (globalized finance, technological innovation, access to planetary resources,
means of communication and information, y/eapons of mass destruction).
What of marginalized regions? Is this a phenomenon without historical precedent? Or does it
embody on the contrary a permanent tendency of capitalist expansion, one that was momentarily
checked, in the aftermath of World War II, by power relationships that were less unfavourable to
peripheries as a whole? The argument states that this exceptional situation was the basis of the Third
World's "solidarity" - despite the variety of countries of which it was composed - in its anticolonial
struggles its demand with regard to primary products and its political will to impose its own
modernization and industrialization, which Western powers attempted to prevent. It is precisely because
the successes achieved on these fronts have been uneven that the coherence and solidarity of the Third
World have been eroded.
The dominant ideology proclaims that "there is no alternative" and that the peoples of the world
must "adjust" to the so- called rationality and efficiency requirements of the ("market") "economy",
according to us, capital (i.e. "markets") must be forced to adjust to the requirements of the people's
social progress.
What is new in the world Capitalist System?
A number of major features of today's general economic situation have defined and seriously
studied. At this point, it will be sufficient if we outline the most important of these features:
I!
(i) The same fundamental options, known as neoliberalism, inspire the economic policies of
almost every government on the face of the earth. In the countries of the Triad and within the
European Community, these options are associated with recognized goals deregulation, more
flexible labour markets, unlimited privatization (including the privatization of traditionally
public services), cuts to social spending, emphasis on the fight against inflation (supported by
tight money policies and high positive real interest rates), uncontrolled openness to international
capital transfers, etc. In many Southern and Eastern countries these options are reinforced by
the implementation of draconian "structural adjustment" programs (SAPs), and in some cases by
what is known as "shock therapy". However, this general description must be qualified by
important distinctions concerning the countries of East Asia (Korea, China, Taiwan and, to a
lesser extent, South-East Asia), which are not really playing the neoliberal game.
These
countries implement the kind of coherent industrialization policies that other countries have
given up, and that are practically "planned" in that government interventions are designed to
provide energetic support for their requirements.
3
It
I)
(ii) A crisis is being experienced by almost every country on the face of the earth, with the
exception, once again, of eastern Asia. Symptoms include weak economic growth (nil
or
negative for many Eastern European countries and for marginalized areas of the Third World),
weak investments in productive activity, the rise of unemployment and precarious employment
along with the growth of ’’informal’' activities, etc. We have already mentioned the aggravation
of distribution inequalities that accompanies all this. Stagnation persists, even though official
rhetoric still focuses on "recessions" and "upturns".
(iii) Financialization is taking place, i.e., the domination of short-term, speculative concerns,
imposing themselves at the expense of long-term choices favouring productive investments.
(iv) As globalization advances, so does the subordination of national policies to the hazards of
this unbridled globalization, made uncontrollable through fundamental neoliberal choices
(flexible exchange rates, freedom of financial transfers, etc).
Together, these factors lead almost everywhere to economies running at several speeds:
certain sectors, regions and companies (especially among the giant multinationals) record strong
growth rates and large profits, while others stagnate, regress or disintegrated. Labour markets are
segmented to adjust to this situation.
Once again, is this a genuinely new phenomenon? Or is a multi speed system in fact the norm
throughout the history of capitalism? The phenomenon would merely have been attenuated for
exceptional reasons during the postwar period (1945-1980), when social relations had imposed
systematic government interventions (on the part of the welfare state, the Soviet state and the national
state in Third World countries of the Bandung era) that made it easier to generalize the growth and
modernization of productive forces by organizing the regional and sectional transfers that shaped this
growth.
On at least two levels, these transformations bring decisive long-term effects:
(i) Giant corporations are certainly not a new development in the history of capitalism. However, it has
been rightly pointed out that some aspects of their evolution are new. Up until now, large corporations even the ones known as multinationals - have been in the first place (and particularly in terms of who
owned their capital) national firms whose activity had extended beyond the frontiers of their country of
origin. In order to deploy themselves, they needed the active and positive support of their
government. Today, they have become powerful enough to develop their own strategies of expansion
outside (and sometimes against) the assumptions of government, policies. Therefore, they want to
subordinate these policies to their own strategies. Anti-government neoliberal discourse conceals this
objective to legitimize the exclusive purpose of defending the private interests represented by these
corporations. The "freedom" being demanded is not freedom for all; it is freedom for corporations to
pursue their interests at others' expense. Form this point of view the neoliberal discourse is perfectly
ideological and dishonest.
(ii) On another level more directly related to current technological revolutions, work processes are now
being radically modified. Assembly-line production (the Taylorist model) is being replaced by new
forms that are profoundly affecting the structure of social classes and their perception of the problems
4
1
i
md challenges faced by workers. Here (oo we find important elements of the problems related to the
I
segmentation of labour markets.
)
flnancializatton can be analyzed as a
structures cannot find an outlet in the exP“s'°" P of capital Management of the crisis therefore
the dominant class - the danger of a massive devaluation of capiat
demands that financial outlets be pr°vl e m or
Eastern European
interest rates, flexible exchange rates, the foreign debt of he 1 find Wo
countries, the American deficit, privatization and l°Ut °f
end. However, the flight forward into in“cl
jb
it worsens distributional inequality
contrary, it leads to imp—financialization is not merely
domination of financial institutions (banks, insurance companies, pension funds);
it also means that financial assumptions dominate the management of all corporations.
The new East-West split, visible in all the areas we
we have discussed above, certainly challenges
theories of the global expansion of capitalism.
The "Asian miracle" has caused much ink to flow. Asia (or the Asia-Pacific region) as a centre
of the emerging future, taking over the role of Europe/North America in dominating the planet,
the superpower of tomorrow - what has not been made of these themes.
In a more sober vein, the Asian phenomenon has given rise to assertions which, although they
strike me as hasty deserve serious attention. These assertions question both the theory of the
nolarization inherent in worldwide capitalist expansion (a theory that is unfortunately often confused
with vulgar versions of "dependency"), and the strategies of disconnexion suggested as ways of meeting
challengroTpolarizatiom There is supposed to be evidence that catching up is poss.ble, and that t
more likely to be achieved by active integration into globalization (in the vulgar versio
argument, this can ultimately mean an export-oriented strategy) that by an illusory disconnexion (which
is deemed to have caused the Soviet catastrophe).
Internal factors, including the "cultural" factor, would therefore explain why some have
succeeded in imposing themselves as agents actively shaping the world, while others have failed and
become marginalized and disconnected against their will.
I
I
I
I
I
If we are to make genuine progress in discussing these complex issues we need clearly to
distinguish the various levels of analysis dealing with internal social structures and forces acting at the
level of the world system. These fit together in a way that it is preferable to make explicit if we ward
go beyond facile, but pointless, polemics. In my view the Soviet evolution, for example, chiefly
explained by the nature of the system's social options (the "capitalism without capitalists project) An
active and controlled integration into globalization is very different from an economic strategy based on
giving priority to exports; each is founded on a different internal hegemonic, social bloc East Asian
countries have been successful precisely to the extent that they have subjected their external
relationships to the requirements of their internal development - have refused in other words to adjust
to dominant tendencies at the world level. This is in fact the definition of delinking, which some too .
hasty readers have confused with autarky.
5
some
eS^“
centre itself to adjust to transformations brought about by the industrialization (however uneven) of the
in ----------the process
of "catching up" «*
with
peripheries. Can this fact justiiy Ute assertion that East Asia is - "f
Triad centres? The conclusion seems overhasty. The thesis I am presenting here leads to a very
different conclusion: though the action of the Triad's five monopolies, the globalized law of value
produces polarization in new forms, subordinating the industry of dynamic peripheries.
penphenes. China, if it
chooses further integration into international division of labour, will not escape this evolutio .
The evolution of China's development will weigh heavily in the global balance, simply because
of the weight of this continent/country. The various possibilities in this regard should therefore be
thoroughly discussed.
I will attempt to make explicit the conditions, internal and external, that govern various scenarios
all of which are equally possible and which can be classified as follows.
(i) The country; breaks up (this is the objective of U.S. and Japanese strategies); China's North
and West are "marginalized", and the South-East becomes a compradonzed region within the
South-East Asian constellation, which is industrialized, but nonetheless dominated by the Um e
States and Japan.
(ii) The Chinese national project is pursued on the basis of the success of the "three positives"
(social redistribution of income is sufficient to maintain solidarity throughout the region
regional redistribution reinforces the interdependence of China's regional internal markets and
control over external relations continues to be subordinated to the requirements of the national
project).
(iii) This last scenario deteriorates under the influence of what I have called the "fourth and
major negative" i e„ the attempt to pursue the national project withoutmodifying the framework
of Jhe exiling power system (the Party State described as Leninist). This deterioration
could
lead either tothe break-up of the country (first scenario) or to the crystallization of a more ove ,
and probably not very democratic, form of national capitalism.
(iv) The current projects shifts towards the left as popular social forces reinforce their power, and
the country moves forward in the long transition to socialism.
The problems of the construction of Europe mustt also be reassessed within this global
the European left is too often confined to
framework. I am sorry that the debate on these issues within
’
continental horizons, or, at best, to those of the Triad. Beyond this, one hears little more than pious
hopes (especially on the topic of North-South relations).
m The construction of Europe began as a common market project. Having scored easy triumphs during
!he exp«sio“e of the wo,Id economy (trnfi around 1975). the project has become increastngly
<
6
*
I
I
difficult now that capitalism has entered into its structural crisis phase. In my view, going beyond a
ZpZic^ltteg^of^^
“P ainS<the P^^ °f
national realities8 and furthermore the left (along with the right) is divided on this issue in all countries
within the Community. Under these conditions, is the priority given to the common currency (the euro,
Masstricht) likely to activate the necessary political integration, or will it rather cause the contradictions
between European states to explode? This question itself is a topic of discussion and disagreement
01
>
>
I
within the European left.
(ii) In Europe, the neoliberal programe is endorsed by dominant powers (not only right-wing forces but
also electorally dominant socialists, even though their endorsement is sometimes qualified). Under
these conditions, the establishment of a social alternative (a new, progressive social compromise
throughout the Community) does not seem to be on the agenda. However, a debate has begun on what
a new European social pact might be like, and it is important to pursue this debate and define its
strategic options and perspectives. Beyond "magical" terms of uncertain meaning ( neo
Keynesianism"?), what in fact is wanted? Is it a) a social "Fortress Europe', or b) an open social
Europe, and in that case, how should it manage its relations with the United States, Japan and the
peripheries?
(iii) Dominant interests in Europe (large corporations), like those of Japan and the United States, are
defining their strategies in a context of unbridled globalization. It follows that they are not active agents
capable of challenging American hegemony at the global level, or of developing another vision of
North-South relations.
(iv) It also follows that new East-West relations within Europe spontaneously fit into the framework of
the "Latin- Americanization" of Eastern Europe, rather than its integration on an equal footing. Will
European left-wing forces, in the West and East, be able to join forces in defining a different strategy one that meets the requirements of a progressive, pan-European social pact?
(v) Liberal options and the Latin-Americanization of Eastern Europe are tilting the imbalance within the
Community in Germany's favour. Will "German Europe" be acceptable, in the long run, to Great Britain,
France and Russia? In the meantime, endorsement of this project perpetuates America's global
hegemony, since Germany, like Japan, plays the part of a regional power aligned with the
United
States on world issues.
I
»
I
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r
The Global Management of the Crisis
The requirements of the economic management of the crisis are expressed in the economic
policies described above. However, this dimension of the management of the system cannot work on its
own without the support of appropriate political forms, for neoliberalism engenders nothing but chaos
and leads to the multiplication of seemingly insoluble conflicts. This is why I have argued that it is not a
viable alternative, but merely a method for managing the crisis (this point has given rise to
disagreements whose meaning should be clarified).
We would probably all agree that the structure of political life was profoundly modified when
the page of the postwar era was turned.
7
)
Political life and struggles traditionally took place within the framework of pohhcal states.whose
legitimacy was not questioned (a government might be challenged, but not the state itseU). Bth,n^
in the state political parties, trade unions, a few major institutions (i.e. business leaders) and the sphere
defined by'the media as "the political class" formed the basis structure of the system in which political
movements, social struggles and ideological currents found expression.
It is apparent that almost everywhere in the world, all of these institutions have lost part or all
their legitimacy
people "don't
believe in them anymore". In their place a variety of movements
their
legitimacy. The
The people
"dont believe
have take centre stage focusing on the demands of environmentalists or women or the struggle fo
have
take centre
stage,
focusing
on
demoX
or social
Utice,
or asserting
community
identities (ethnic or religious). The status of these
democracy or social justice, or i
movements their patterns of organization or non-orgamzation, their methods of expression (in some
cases purely declinatory, in others acting through the channels of political life such as parties an
efectionT ^d sorXe^esorting to violence terrorist or other) vary from one country to the next and
pr^ect of dominant powers; others, on the contrary, are not interested in fighting this project.
Dominant powers know how to make this distinction and do in fact make it. Manipulation or
“ ^^alyse^d6 Xiberlhem in
defining its strategies for mobilization and action.
One of the major themes of the neoliberal offensive out by dominant powers is an allencompassing anti state ideology.
the private interests of large corporations
We have already noted that this offensive serves
intervention, because the government might be
seeking to free themselves from possible government
responsive to interests other than theirs.
J
vary according to the situation.
J
L
Wing the -transition-.
The era of dictatorships and authoritarian reg.mes, whether nohtary.
theocratic or other, is far from ended.
<1
8
1
L
In developed capitalist countries the conflict between the aspirations ot popular majorities and
the results produced by current policies, the helplessness of states to deal with the forces unleashed by
globalization (a helplessness that is accepted and even willed by the classes that dominate the
frighteningly effective forms of media manipulation have produced a genuine crisis affecting the idea
and practice of democracy.
I
>
Generally speaking, then, actually existing contemporary capitalism works within a system of
"low intensity democracy". Postmodernist ideology seeks to justify this situation by denigrating m
struggles over fundamental choices and choosing instead to laud the management of daily life at gro
level The proliferation of NGOs is to a large extent an answer to this strategy of depoliticization ot the
peoples of the world. Far from constituting the basic structure of a powerful civil society emerging to
facePthe state, these reorganizations accompany the management of society by the dominant forces of
capital A strong civil society goes hand in had with extensive politicization living and active class
organizations (parties, trade unions and others), and a state that is strong because it is genuinely
democratic. A weak state is the best vehicle for the weakening of democracy and civil society.
This management system cannot do without police officers capable of acting at the global level
In this respect, all dominant forces accept that the United States (i.e. American military forces equipped
with remote-controlled weapons of mass destruction) shall fulfill this function There is no conflict
between globalization as it is proposed by these dominant forces of capital and American hegemony.
Neither Japan, the European Community nor any of the countries that make up the Community have any
real ambition to reduce this power, even if at times, in some European countries, there is a feeling that
"it would be nice if things were otherwise". The anti-state discourse is aimed at all states, except the
United States in its hegemonic political and military functions.
There is an overall political strategy of global management. This strategy is carried out by the
United States and supported by the Triad. This point is certainly the object of controversies and
contradictory analyses that need to be discussed. The debate should not be avoided under die pretext
that the idea that our opponent has a coherent strategy is a return to some kind of stale "conspiracy
theory". There is no conspiracy, but the adversary does have a general strategy.
»
»
In my opinion, the global of this strategy is to maximize the fragmentation of potential
antisystemic forces by supporting the break-up of state forms of social organization. Let us have as
many Slovenias and Chechenyas as possible! The use or indeed the manipulation of identitary demands
»
is highly appreciated in this context.
»
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l>
B
The issue of community identity and specificity-ethnic, religious or other - is therefore one of the
central issues that must be debated with the greatest possible seriousness and sense of responsibility,
especially given the fact that in this area, situations as well as ideological and political positions are
highly variable. Generalization is a major pitfall that we must try to avoid.
The basis democratic principle implying genuine respect for diversity, whether national, ethnic,
religious, cultural or ideological, must be fully respected. Diversity cannot be managed in any other
way than’ through the sincere practice of democracy. Otherwise, it is doomed to become a weapon that
the adversary can use or even manipulate for his own purposes.
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•inl this area - though not always, of
Historically, left-wing, forces have often been deficient
’is"often asserted today. One example among others is Tito's
course, and not to the extent than is
model of coexistence of nationalities on a genuinely equal footing.
Yugoslavia, which was practically a
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, the other hand, is a different story! In the Third World of the Bandnne era, nat.on.
Romania, on t.._ -----
R£ehzrxre^ r
nroduced "results^s regrettable as their management of the other problems faced by their societies.
Powerless to deal wit^the crisis when it came, the ruling classes resorted to desperate expedients and
Xn Sd a key part in encouraging retreat into community as a way of prolong.ng then control
over the masses.
However even in many authentic bourgeois democracies (and even if there are no others, that is
SLy other example might be invokei
cannot neglect these very real problems or ignore
f0r diVerSi,y WhiCh aC“Uy “iain8 SyS,emS
honour.
A serious debate on the issue of specificity and the culturalist ideology is therefore necessary. In
my opinion (which
am
democratic managemen f d
ty^ By
for example).
sometimes
ePv”rXS tr^sblsSn^l-. iZ founded on historical invariants (this is often the case of rel.gt.os
culturalisms, which they easily slide towards obscurantism and fanaticism).
In order to see more clearly in the jungle of identitary claims, I submit for discussion a criterion
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democratic management, support to authontanan
g
’ j
rtant) or"not hostile to
movements that claim to be "without a socia 1 prog
X a i ng S democracy (accused of
globalization" (equally-important^o™^
Fascist moyvements that
being "Western") is foreign to them - are fnmkly reac
ary P( moreover) is aware of this and
S™“s X'mXX'cven aX media take advantage of theft barbaric content to denounce the
pXesX"are'their victims. These movements are used and in some eases even mampulated.
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In conclusion, I will revert here to the scenarios for the future that follow from the basic
assumptions of the deployment of capital's project for globalized domination.
On the basis of what has been said above, multiple variations of the one big scenario are possible, e.g.:
■
(i) European variations: German Europe? with or without the euro? Latin-Americanization of
Eastern Europe? Break-up (or downplaying) of the European Community? etc.
(ii) East Asian variations: Regional Asia-Pacific integration around Japan and the United States?
Regional integration of Eastern Asia, minus Japan around China? Break-up of China? etc.
1
'The "big" project, in any case, is already formulated in terms of neo-imperialist regionalizations (along
the lines of "shading the burden"), defining geostrategic Southern spaces behind each of the powers
constituting the Triad:
i) USA/Canada/Latin America (definition of this space has begun with the integration of Mexico
through NAFTA).
ii) USA/lsrael/oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf/Arab Mashrek.
iii) European Community/Maghreb/sub-Saharan Africa.
iv) European Community (or Germany)/Eastem Europe, or, alternatively, Germany/USA/Eastem
Europe/former USSR.
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v) Japan/ASEAN or Japan/USA/Asia-Pacific.
Here also, two observations proba’-ly deserve further discussion:
(i) Is the neo-imperialist project compatible with the emergence of about fifteen regional and
subregional poles enjoying "privileges" in their region, but continuing to act as faithful relays
under "open" gloablisation? Germany and Japan, America's brilliant seconds in command,
immediately spring to mind. Others include Brazil in South America, Israel in the Middle East,
South Africa in southern Africa, Turkey (and/or Iran) in western central Asia and Korea in
eastern Asia; they are supported by second-rank regional powers such as Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya,
Pakistan and Malaysia.
(ii) Is it possible for some of the subregional poles to "rebel" and extend their autonomy in
conflict with globalisation/American hegemony? On what conditions? Brazil and the Mercosur
initiative, for instance, might provide an example if Mercosur were to increase its distance from
liberal dogmas.
In this general context, it is easy to imagine a new stage of capitalist expansion, based on the
accelerated growth of active peripheries (China, East Asia, India, Latin America) and a renewal of
growth in Eastern Europe, the former USSR and the European Community, while the marginalized
11
African and Islamic world is left to its convulsions. Intensified exchanges between the world's various
dynamic regions would certainly support this project. However, in my view (which is not necessarily
share by all), the further we go in this direction, the more exchanges between the regions in question will
intensify and the more the new polarization founded on the Triad’s five monopolies will increase. In this
perspective the disparities between regional levels of development would not decrease; on the contrary,
the distance between the centres and the new periphery would widen.
There will be no lack of spoilsports to disrupt the deployment of the scenario in its diverse forms.
For example:
(i) A renewal of class struggles is foreseeable and already visible (France, 1995, Korea, January
19997...). The movement will spread and progressively erode the power of dominant capital’s
offensive. It may thus prepare the conditions for the emergence of the alternative that we will be
considering in the fourth section of this document.
(ii) The ruling classes and hegemonic blocs of certain countries may also act to inflect the model
in a direction more favourable to them, thus enlarging their margin of autonomy. I am thinking
firstly of China - especially if the social solidarity which endows its project with a marked
national character should be reinforced by the intervention of currently excluded popular forces but also of Korea, India and Brazil. There are probably other countries where this kind of
evolution is possible.
Outline of an alternative: An Economy Serving the People
Any alternative that is going to embody respect for the interests of workers and peoples must
inevitably start with the reinforcement, through their struggles, of their power in their national societies.
In the absence of such developments, discourse on alternatives remain pious hopes, academic
exercises and wishes entertained by intellectuals. "Pleas” based on "reason" or general interest,
addressed to existing powers, will never have any effect, because the policies carried out by these
powers are sufficiently rational and efficient from the point of view of the social interests they defend.
The results they produce (unemployment, inequalities, exclusion) are their true objectives, while the
rhetoric of politicians who deplore them are pure hypocrisy. Nor can we rely on the spontaneity of
struggles in hopes that they will invent a coherent alternative of themselves.
A profoundly responsible discussion of the lineaments of an alternative is therefore, and will
remain, indispensable for all analysts and actors of social change. Fortunately, debates of this type are
numerous and often rich. However, they usually take place within a country or a region (Europe, Latin
America, Arab world, Africa, etc.), and for this reason the global dimension of problems and solutions if
often missing. Other debates often present the opposite flaw: world problems are not related to national
problems, which are ignored or simplified.
We must reject the idea, which there is currently an attempt to impose on public opinion, that
globalization is a take-it-or leave-it proposition - take it as it is, in its unbridled form designed to answer
the needs of large corporations, or leave it and choose confinement in some autarkic absurdity.
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alternatives defined by the
Globalization like everything else, can be
be embodied
embodied in
in many
many possible
possime auernauv^
balance (or lack of balance) in the relationships between nations at any given moment, and, behind
them, the specific internal social relations of these nations.
Just as the reinforcement of the popular classes is an absolutely necessary condition for the
emergence of alternatives at the national level, the reinforcement of peoples at the penphenes (active
and marginalized) is essential within the world system. How can this be achieved. Certainly not throug
"humanitarian" rhetoric (or interventions), nor through "cooperation” as it is developed even in the
well-intentioned circles.
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In this case, as in internal matters, we are dealing with power relationships thatL can be modified
I am
only by the parties involved, i.e. the countries of the peripheries, whether active or marginalized.
i
suggesting that emphasis should be put on giving priority to the construction of large regional groups.
However these zones must not be defined as they are in the neoimpenahst project (as zones of specific
responsibility for each member of the Triad, i.e., as vehicles for unbridled globalization) but on the
contrary as blocs of resistance to globalization, capable of forcing the renegotiation of North/South
relationships. Obviously, we are all thinking of the Latin American, African, Arab, South-East As.an
blocs for no single country in these regions has enough weight to modify the heavy constraints imposed
it by’unbridled globalization. The only exceptions are continent/countnes: China, India, and perhaps
Brazil or Russia. The regionalization I am suggesting seems to me the only reasonable and effective
way of opposing the polarizing effects of the Triad's five monopolies. Specifically on the basis of these
five monopolies, it would be possible to define the essential orientations of the regionalization projects
am suggesting, i.e. the priorities that the projects ought to serve.
Of course, the transformations of the international order I am advocating will become feasible
only if, and to the extent that, the nature of power is itself transformed in the countries of the periphery
as popular, national and democratic hegemonic blocs replace dominant comprador blocs.
At that point, it will be possible to look again at the major issues related to the world order in
order to propose orientations and objectives for major negotiations that could organize a controlled
interdependence, designed to serve the peoples of the world, on the following major issues at least.
(i) Renegotiation of "market shares" and the rules of access to them. This project of course,
challenges the rules of the WTO, which, behind the rhetoric of "fair competition", is exclusively
occupied with defending the privileges of oligopolies active at the world level.
(ii) Renegotiation of the systems of capital markets, in order to end the domination of financial
speculation operations and channel investment towards productive activities in the North and
South. This project challenges the functions, and perhaps even the existence, of the so-called
World Bank (it is actually the Northern, and specifically the American Bank for the South).
(iii) Renegotiation of monetary systems in order to set up regional arrangements and system
ensuring the relative stability of exchange rates and organizing their interdependence. This
project challenges the IMF, the dollar standard and the principle of free and floating exchange
rates.
13
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(iv) The beginning of a worldwide taxation system, involving, for instance, the taxation of rents
derived from the exploitation of natural resources and their redistribution throughout the world
according to appropriate criteria and for appropriate purposes.
(v) The demilitarization of the planet, beginning with the reduction of the most powerful forces
of mass destruction.
(vi) The democratization of the UN through the creation of a second Assembly more
representative of popular social forces within member countries.
4u
Considered as a whole, the proposals outlined in the previous paragraphs embody a kind of
program for building economies that serve the peoples of the world.
Would this be a capitalist or a socialist economy? It is important to debate this point. My
perception is that it would associate elements of both in an undeniably conflictual relationship, imposing
a compromise at this stage between the assumptions of capitalism and those that are independent of
capitalism (and that one may, if one so desires, describe as antisystemic). This is a stage in the long
transition from world capitalism to world socialism.
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The early Asian reactions to the European colonial advances
Teotonio R. de Souza
Felloe, Portuguese Academy of History
Professor ofSocial and Economic History, Universidade Lusofona, Lisboa.
The reactions of the Asians, or rather, of different Asian population groups or
individuals to the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean regions reflected the
social, economic and political realities of the times, regions and particular societies or
individuals. Hence, it is not easy to draw a still picture of these reactions as valid for
changing times and circumstances. Considering the fact that my research has been
mostly on the Portuguese in India, it is but obvious that 1 can speak with greater
confidence of the early Indian response to the Portuguese. References to the rest of
Asia or to the native responses to the other European colonial powers will not be
entirely ignored, but I would prefer to leave it to others better qualified to handle
them.
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Incidentally, the Portuguese enterprise in Asia included numerous individuals and
groups of other European nationalities, particularly Italians, Flemish and Germans.
While the former groups were more commercially motivated, the Germans like
Fuggers acted as big financiers of the Portuguese trade, but many less celebrated
figures were the mainstay of the Portuguese defence needs in Asia as gunners of their
fleets and fortifications.1 The Portuguese missionary enterprise in Asia was equally a
multinational effort. To take the case of the Jesuits who were in the forefront till the
suppression of the Society of Jesus in the mid 18th century, nearly half of their
membership in Asia came from the non-Portuguese nations of Europe, and included
Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Belgians, Austrians, Poles, Englishmen, Frenchmen,
and even Croats.2 In reality, Francis Xavier, Alessandro Valignano, Matteo Ricci, De
Nobili, are the better-known Jesuit celebrities of the Portuguese Padroado in Asia,
and they were not Portuguese. The native response to the Europeans and to the
Western brand of Christianity was a prime concern to each of them, and they
1 Lufs de Albuquerque & Jos6 Pereira da Costa, “Cartas de ‘Servifos’ da India (1500-1550), Mare
Liberum. Vol. 1, Lisboa, CNCDP, 1990, pp. 365-366: In a letter dated 21-11-1545, the ‘condestabre
mor’ of Portuguese India was reporting to the home government that he faced a crisis situation in
finding gunners for the fleets and fortifications. While the fleet requirement was of 200 gunners, he
could hardly find 130. He manifests the need of having at least 40 to 50 German gunners with good
experience and trusted service, and asks for gunners to be sent from Portugal. Laments that from
Portugal have been arriving only tailors and cobblers.
2 Dauril Alden The Making of an Elite Enterprise: The Jesuits in the Portuguese Assistancy, 16th to
18th Centuries Univ, of Minnesota, 1992; Nikica Talan, “A Note on Croatia in Portuguese Indies”,
Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies, Vol. II, 1995, pp. 204-212. Refers to Croatian mercenaries. I was
informed that some years ago the Croatian Academy of Letters has published letters written by a
Croatian Jesuit in Goa to his family members.
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contributed significantly to mitigate the cultural one-sidedness of the
missionaries?
European
The reactions of the Asians to the Portuguese appear to have had a marked distinction
due to their systematic tendency to interfere in the culture of the local people by
means of conversion and miscegenation drives. In places where the Portuguese
military presence was strong, as was the case of Goa and various other settlements
along the west coast of India, the natives could hardly remain indifferent to the
Portuguese. While a large section of the population had to fall in line, willingly or
with varying degrees of resignation, with the Portuguese colonial and cultural
impositions that were enforced through European religious structures and Inquisition
procedures, there were also significant migrations of the more unbending types. A
Jesuit visitor who travelled through Kanara in the 17th century, calculated in 30,000
the Goans, chiefly Hindus, who migrated thither to escape the religious and other
pressures. It was among these communities of Goans that appeared the proverbial
Konkani saying “Goeant firangi na mhunno hhoim? ” (Who dare say that the
Portuguese are not in Goa?), a rhetorical way of asserting the futility of resistance of
those who had stayed behind. 4 However, despite such lamentations of futility by
those who migrated to distant places, expressions of resistance within Goa was never
fully absent, and the Hindu community utilized its economic clout to vindicate and
1
safeguard its heritage and traditional interests.
Even among the converted, the colonial hopes of winning over the new converts for
the cause of the colonialists were not always realized. The colonial superiority
complex and the ethnic conflicts held often the upper hand and contributed to brewing
discontent among the converted native correligionaries. The cases of Matheus de
Castro in the seventeenth century, and the Pinto Conspiracy in the mid-nineteenth
century are the better known illustrations of this, but an on-going resentment of the
natives who felt themselves taken for granted for being Christians can be detected in
the existing Portuguese documentation from the sixteenth century onwards, containing
protests of the natives against their exploitation and ill-treatment, not only at the hands
of the lay Portuguese or half-breeds, but even by their European parish priests and
their few privileged native collaborators.6 Curiously, the native priests were the most
disenchanted and led the protest and revolutionary movements against the Europeans,
3 Teotonio R. de Souza, “The Christian Missions in the aftermath of Discoveries: Tools for shaping the
colonial other”, Discoveries. Missionary Expansion and Asian Cultures, ed. Teotonio R. de Souza,
New Delhi (Concept Publ. Co ), 1994, p. 40-41.
.
* Teotonio R. de Souza, “ The Portuguese in Goan Folklore”, Goa and Portugal: Their Cultural Links,
ed. Charles J. Borges & Helmut Feldmann, New Delhi (Concept Publ. Co.), 1997, p. 187.
5 Teotonio R. de Souza, Medieval Goa, New Delhi (Concept Publ. Co.), 1979, pp. 116-118.
6 Ibid., p. 119. National Archives of Lisbon: Monroes 56: fls. 285 ff.
This is a very lengthy transcription of the complaints of the sworn villagers in Jafhapatam against the
various types of oppression they suffered at the hands of the Jesuit and Franciscan parish-priests. Some
of the grievances are about their children being forced to water and manure the gardens of the parish
house under pretext of attending catechism classes, about the adults pressed into keeping night-watch
over the parish plantations, about private detention cells of the parish priests and the physical
punishments to which the natives were subjected there. The inquiry was conducted by the Captain o e
Fort of Jafhapatam on the instructions of the viceroy D. Filipe Mascarenhas in 1645.
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not only in Goa, but also in Philippines, and in Japan, where several nat>ve members
of the Society of Jesus left the order for not being promoted to priesthood. One of
them Fabian Fukansai, published an anti-Jesuit tract in 1620, denouncing the pride
and arrogance of the European missionaries and their contempt for the Jap
colleagues It may have helped to enhance the ill-teehngs that led to the decisive
persecution and expulsion of the Jesuits and the Portuguese from Japan in the wake
of Shimabara rebellion..
phenomena may be untrue or misrepresentations from the native point of view. There
are plentiful references in the missionary accounts to the devil at work , meaning
native resistance to the missionary efforts. A deeper analysis of the socio-economic
context often reveals that the native resistance is to the new social and economic
interests that they saw lurking behind the missionary front. Sanjay Subrahmanyam s
treatment of Vasco da Gama has analyzed the reported instances of collaboration of
Abraham Zacuto and Ibn Majid as appropriations of symbols of Asian wisdom and
science as a way of gaining legitimization for the national venture in the eyes of tie
other peoples, somewhat along the lines of the Magi from the East tracing the star of
Bethlehem of the Christian messianism .
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But certainly not all cases of resistance and collaboration were only imagined. Should
I say that at times even the nature seemed to be cooperating with the new European
colonialists? This too can have its legendary aspect and be put to serve partisan
politics but we need to look for the scientific credentials, if any. I wish to cite the fact
of Vasco da Gama’s first arrival on Malabar coast at a time of the year when staying
in the Indian Ocean during the three months of the monsoons could only be a dare
devil performance. Was it the superior Portuguese navigational knowledge or had
monsoons failed that year? If we add nine days to convert the calendar of diarist of
Vasco da Gama’s first voyage from Julian into Gregorian, Vasco da Gama could not
have escaped the fury of the monsoons almost from the start.
I am given to understand that according to recent investigations of a Goa-based
scientist of the Indian Institute of Oceanography there exist three pockets of the
Kerala coast, unique in the whole world, and which house much muck in suspension
during the monsoons, reducing the turbulent impact of the seasonal winds on the sea.
It was not without reason that he was advised by the local people to put his ships into
Pantalayini, or Pandarane of the Arabs and the Chinese navigating in the Indian
waters. They had discovered this phenomenon centuries before the arrival of Vasco
7 Sr Mary John Mananzan, “The Spanish expansion and Christianity in Asia”, Western Colonialism in
Asia and Christianity, ed. M.D.David, Bombay, 1988, pp. 30-36; John N. Schumacher, Revolutionary
Clergy. Quezon City, Ateneo de Manila Univ. Press, 1981.
8 Charles Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, Manchester, Carcanet Press, 1994 pp. 337'338.
’ Teotonio R. de Souza, “Why Cuncolim Martyrs? An historical re-assessment Jesm/s in Ind.a: In
historical perspective, ed. Teotonio R. de Souza & Charles J. Borges Macau (1CM), 1992 pp. 37-47.
10 S.Subrahmanyam, The career and legend of Vasco da Gama, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987, pp. 62,
"2E. G. Ravenstein, A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama. New Delhi, AES Reprint, 1995,
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da Gama. What matters for our purpose here, is the fact that Vasco da Gama did not
fail to receive local advice and he did not fail entirely to accept it. I say entirely,
because the diarist of his voyage reveals that with their customary suspicion of the
local advice, the Portuguese anchored only near that place at first. 12
If King Manuel of Portugal was seeking allies among the St. Thomas Christians of
India, his expectations were not entirely unfounded, and the fact that the relations
soured with the Jesuit heavy handed functioning and the politics of Portugal under
John III, which led to the crisis of the Synod of Diamper at the close of the sixteenth
century and its troubled aftermath, there are enough indications that the initial
response of the St. Thomas Christians to the arrival of the Portuguese was one of hope
to recover their own dwindling economic and political importance in Malabar. The
earliest written testimony is a letter in Syrian language sent by the local church
authorities to their Catholicos in East Mesopotamia. 13 On the occasion of the second
“bloody” visit of Vasco da Gama to India, when he threatened all and sundry, friends
and foes, he was approached by a delegation of St. Thomas Christians, willing to pay
obeisance to the King of Portugal.14
The scenario in Goa was not very different. We have the figure of Timmayya, to
whom is attributed the initiative of suggesting to Afonso de Albuquerque the conquest
of Goa with his military assistance. He may have had his own personal scores to
settle and political ambitions that the cherished. According to Tome Pires Goa had a
large hindu population, and many among them were of a high social and economic
status. 15 There are suggestions in the Portuguese documentation that Timmayya
belonged to a lower caste, and that his collaboration could be motivated by intention
of rising socially. He became inconvenient to the Portuguese at a later stage, but
initially, as described by the Portuguese chronicler Joao de Barros, when “Afonso de
12 S. Subrahmanyam, Op. cit.„ p. 130. Ravenstein, op. cit.,p. 50.
13 Luis Filipe F. R. Tomaz, A Carta que mandaram os padres da India, da China e da Magna China Um relato siriaco da chegada dos Portugueses ao Maabar e sen primeiro encontro com a hierarquia
crista local. Offpint of the Centro de Estudos de Histdria e de Cartografia Antiga, No. 224, Lisboa,
1992. Povides very useful and detailed explanatory notes. My translation is based on his Portuguese
translation of the Syrian and Latin versions. Here is a summarised translation: The letter dated 15031504 informs among other news: “We are pleased to inform our Fathers that a king from the Western
Christians, our Frangi brethren, have sent powerful ships to these parts of India, and they reached after
crossing the seas during a whole year... After acquring peper and other goods they returned to their
land. They opened a new route and learnt it well. Six months later the same king - may God keep him-sent another batch of six ships to Calicut. This city is full of Ismahili muslims, who were ftirious at
this interference of Christians. Instigated by them the pagan ruler of Calicut ordered the Frangis in the
city to be killed. There were seventy of them, and five priests. The others aboard their ships escaped
and sought refuge with our Christians at Cochin. Also the king of Chochin provided them comfort and
vowed to protect them with steadfastness. In the meantime arrived more ships of the Frangis and they
dealt fiercely with the ruler of Calicut and killed many of his supporters. The Frangis have established a
fort at Cochin and placed three hundred men in it with weapons to launch stones and fire balls. In
further encounters with the men of Calicut, the Frangis destroyed three thousand of them. The Frangis
sought also alliance of Cananore, and here too they were welcomed and given place to set up a base....
Their country is known as Portugal, and their king Emanuel.”
14 A. M. Mundadan, History of Ch cthnity in India, I, Bangalore: CHAI, 1989, pp. 269 ff.; Sanjay
Subrahmanyam, The career and legend oj Vasco da Gama, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997, pp. 218-219.
15 Armando CortesSo, ed. A Suma Oriental de Tomd Pires e o Livro de Francisco Rodrigues, Coimbra,
1978, p. 216.
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Albuquerque heard Tim^a. he «as all ear. and could, ^beheve he
hear.„g a
gentile, but took him rather as a messenger of the Holy Spin. .
the face of the Bqapun reside
l>
o^XSTht
the card of protecting the mterests of the d^ffceted
pan in ,he
same Portuguese chronicler narrates how
Albu„ueraue j„ his naval sorties. There
defense of the .erritory and even accompanied
Portuguese tunes in
were o.bers who .evented the "ejo=
fcl, for
Albuquerque s military ban l
satisfied their biological
Portuguese men and married them, wMe others^ me
a detaiW mll„ual
needs.1 A contemporary Portugues
Cllstoms and commerce of the Indian
of strategic information about the places,^ ^p
Qeean region does3.01^1
of
payments sanctio„ed by
and danced well.
include references to rewards issued to the Goan
received compensation from the Portuguese.
If, HteraHy, thousands of Puruvus of the fishery
protection »d accepted the "IZ d«Tth“a° they sa^ in .he
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support of Cabcut 1 he
ot
the area
»
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de B™ Dlcada, da Add Bd. I™
17 A B de Braganija Pereira, Arquivo Portugues Oriental, 1 .1 ,
f Sri (Go.), 1937. pp.
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ft
ft
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Alb„... ed. A.
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KTo^Pta. ASuddOne^. p. 217: Mo/Wo. de Goo«
volteam ofazem com melhor maneira que todas as destas partes.
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Naik.
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century. The island is now part of the harbour.
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Ceylon and elsewhere in the East also saw opportunities and threats with this
evolution.22
The complexity of the issues was not limited to Portuguese vis-a-vis the natives.
The European religious orders, like the Jesuits and the Franciscans in South India (
and it happened with other religious groups elsewhere in the East, including China
and Japan) were quite often at loggerheads. The Jesuits were accusing the Franciscan
Bishop of Cochin of seeking to place his subjects as vicars in the churches of the
Fishery coast. The Franciscan Bishop of Cochin was reluctant to recognize the Jesuit
Francis Ros as bishop of Cranganor in 1607. The two reached almost a war situation
with threats of a violent conflict over the control of the Fishery coast. The
Franciscans had a more friendly and accommodating approach in their dealings with
the local Christianity, while the Jesuit mood is reflected by Gaspar Fernandes, a
Jesuit writing from India in 1618: “The archdeacon is a terrible Keralite (malabar)
by nature, very discreet, and knows how to do get his way, with little fear of God and
less scruples of conscience”. 23 The Jesuits denounced the Franciscan Bishop of
wanting to appoint “a black priest” (um clerigo preto) as Father of Christians” (Pai
dos Cristaos). 4
The Jesuits as usual got the better of the situation by representing to the Portuguese
authorities in Lisbon that divisions among Christian Paravas were harming the
strategic State interests. The Jesuits had congregated several thousands of them in an
island called the island of the Kings (today part of Tuticorin port?) to protect them
against the persecutions moved by the ruler of Tuticorin and the Muslim
entrepreneurs. The protection and unity of the Paravas was considered essential for
the Portuguese trade and presence in the region. They were potential allies in war, just
as D. Manuel had envisaged in the case of St. Thomas Christians when he sent Vasco
da Gama in search of Christians and spices. The Paravas did actually contribute
substantially with cash and services for the construction of the Mannar fort and
supplied regularly foodstuffs to Malacca.25 The Portuguese control of the Kanara
ports, specially Bhatkal and Mangalore, on which Calicut depended for rice supplies,
had further weakened Calicut’s resistance. And the progressive squeezing of Calicut
22 Jorge Manuel Flores, “The Straits of Ceylon, 1524-1539: The Portuguese-Mapilla Struggle over a
Strategic Area”, Santa Barbara Portuguese StudiesyvV II, 1995, pp. 57-74. It was not so much the
pearl fishery that was important for the Portuguese, but the control of the Gulf of Mannar and safe
access to the cinnamon of Ceylon, breaking the Mappilla monopoly over it. In Ceylon the Portuguese
had gained the cooperation of the ruler of Kotte, Bhuvaneka Bahu, but had to face the hostility of
Mayadune, the ruler of Sitawaka. Control of the Gulf of Mannar permitted the Portuguese to control the
supply of rice from the Choromandel coast to Ceylon as a strategic weapon and guarantee of cinnamon
in exchange. The Portuguese trade between Malacca and Malabar also required control of the Fishery
coast. The Porruguese casados of Cochin had their own interest in the trade between Kerala and
Choromandel. The Mappilla Marakkars of Calicut had been playing havoc with their padaus in the
Choromandel waters in the first half of the sixteenth century.
23 “O arcediago 6 terribilissimo Malavar por natureza, mui dissimulado, e que sabe fazer suas coisas,
como pouco temor a Deus e menos escrupulos de consciencia” (ARSJ: Goa 17, fl. 235).
24 ARSJ: Goa 64, fl. 185. Cf. J. Wicki, O livro do Pai dos Cristdos, Lisboa, 1969: This was a State
functionary, generally chosen among the Religious Orders, to look after the spiritual and temporal
interests of the new converts.
25 ARSJ: Goa 64, Jis. 48-56, 141, 146-147. Goa Historical Archives: Monroes 26 B, fls. 468-469'. Jesuit
stand and control vindicated by the State authorities as important for the State interests on the Fishery
coast.
6
and its Moplah trade by the end of
massive conversions of the Paravas.
1530s could enable Francis Xavier’s feat of
The friendly relations of the ruler of Cochin (Kochi) with the Portuguese at a time
when these were direly in need of them, is another histone example of politics of
convenience. Cochin had discovered the political advantages that would accrue to it
by diverting the Portuguese away from Calicut. Later, following the collapse of
Vijayanagar the pretensions of the ruler of Travancor (Venad) to assume the title of
“Penunal” and its interest in wresting the control of Quilon from the Portuguese also
served Cochin to make a common cause with the Portuguese. It is important to know
however that the politics of convenience was always more complex than it appeared,
and the Portuguese settlers in Cochin were often in collusion with the raja of Cochin,
to the detriment of the State interests of the Portuguese.
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An important factor that called for concessions and reluctant accommodation of the
Muslim rulers of India and the Indian Ocean region, was the need of safeguarding the
hajj pilgrims to Mecca. The Portuguese chronicler JoSo de Banos described the
general Muslim reaction to the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean: “These
kings and princes, as the merchants through whose hands ran the commerce of spices
and oriental riches, seeing that with our arrival in India, in the brief space of five years
, we had taken control of the navigation of those seas, and they had lost the commerce
which they had dominated for so many years, and especially we were an insult to their
House of Mecca, since already we had reached the gates of tlie Red Sea, seizing their
pilgrims, all of these things were so serious for them and so sorrowful, that not only
those directly offended, but all of them in general so hated us that they each in their
own way sought our destruction”.27 A brother of Zain-ud-din, author of the famous
Tohfut-ul-Mujahideen, wrote a long poem from Malabar in the early sixteenth century
which noted how the “Portuguese forbade ships to set sail for Mecca, and this was the
worst calamity” and they “restricted vessels from sailing on the sea, especially the
vessels of the greater and lesser pilgrimage”.
The second voyage of Vasco da Gama to India provides a classic example of the
Portuguese intransigence: He captured a vessel returning from Mecca with many
hajjis and some rich merchants of Calicut and their families. Vasco da Gama paid no
heed to their plea for a fair deal, and burnt and sunk the vessel. It seemed to be Vasco
da Gama’s way of avenging the killing of the Portuguese of earlier Cabral’s fleet, or
even the humiliations to which he had been subjected during his first visit. Sanjay
Subrahmanyam has reported this event with much flavour, and without missing an
opportunity of launching yet another provocative broadside, in his recent study of
Vasco da Gama, to the “third world” moralists of a distinction between the eastern
26 Joao Alberto Rodrigues da Silva Tavim, O rei quefoi em peregrinatfo a Varanasi. Cartas de Rama
Varma Rajd de Cochim. Lisboa, GT-CDP, 1997. Sanjay Subrhamanyam, “Cochin in Decline: Myth
and Manipulation in the Estado da India”, Portuguese Asia: Aspects in History and Economic History
(16th and 17th centuries), ed. Rothermund & Ptak, Stuttgart, 1987, pp. 58-95.
27 Barros, Decadas da Asia, 1, viii,l. Text translation taken from M.N. Pearson, Pilgrimage to Mecca:
The Indian Experience.PTincetow. Markus Wiener Publications, p. 83.
28 M.N. Pearson, op. cit., p. 83. Quotes from M.A.Muid Khan, “Indo-Portuguese Struggle for Maritime
Supremacy (As gleaned from an unpublished Arabic Urjuza / Frhul Mubyiny\ in P.M. Joshi & M.A.
Nayeem, eds. Foreign Relations of India (From Earliest Times to 1947) - Prof. H.K. Shenvam
Felicitation Volume, Hyderabad, 1976, pp. 172, 176.
7
and western ways of reacting to evil. Saradindu Bandhopadhyaya’s Rakta Sandhya
serves his purpose to bring this home to his readers.29
The Mughal - Portuguese relations were punctuated by frequent tensions, chiefly in
Gujerat due to Portuguese threats to hajj shipping from Surat and other ports. We
have in the Summa Oriental of Tome Pires a short and clear definition of the
Portuguese strategy: “Kingdom without ports is like a house without doors”, rhyming
“portos” and “portas” in his Portuguese text (Reino sem portos casa 6 sem portas).
When Akbar’s aunt Gulbadan Begam and some other important ladies of the imperial
family left for Mecca in 1576 some serious concessions were made to the Portuguese,
but later put in doubt, after the ladies were safely back. The Portuguese had begun
seeing the Mughals as their “hidden enemy” behind most threats to their presence in
western India.31
We need however to balance the above picture of the Portuguese treatment of the
Muslim pilgrims and trade. A Jesuit account of the mid-sixteenth century Malacca
conveys the impression that the interest in spiritual matters was minimal, and that
illicit trade was flourishing: “ The Muslims, and even kazis, utilize ships owned by
the Portuguese, and on the pretext of being merchants and carrying goods they reside
in places where they have converted many to their religion and customs. They are so
zealous in this mission, that many arrive from Mecca, Cairo and Constantinople and
fan out to most remote regions to expand their creed. In the same boat by which Fr.
Baltazar Dias embarked in Bhatkal, 20 leagues away from Goa, also embarked a
Muslim with many others in his company, and carrying arms. He was going to Borneo
where his companion had converted a large section of the local population, and even
the local ruler had become his convert. These Muslims are a terrible pest, and in
Siam, a very important kingdom of this region, when these kazis preach, many listen
to them with open mouths and shaking their hands, claiming that the breath of those
words sanctifies their hearts.”32 This critical and negative report confirms indirectly
that in reality, with obvious exceptions and periods of tension, there was
accommodation and compromise on either side. The private trade conducted by the
Portuguese merchants (clerics not excluded) did not recommend any wanton State
action that would disrupt the trade network to the extent of blocking all chances of
profitable evasion. The State too would not wish to lose the considerable yield the
Portuguese customs derived from the Mecca or Jeddah-bound trade. Occasional rich
seizures were generally a way of reminding and enforcing the licensing regulations,
and not were not intended to kill the goose that lay golden eggs.
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29 S. Subrahmanyam, op. cit., pp. 208-209.
30 A Summa Oriental, p. 215.
31 S. Subrahmanyam, “ O ‘inimigo encuberto’: a expansSo mogot no Dec2o e o Estado da India”, Povos
e Culturas, Vol. 5, Lisboa, 1996, pp. 115-168. Cf. Also S.Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “The viceroy
assassin: The Portuguese, the Mughals, and the Deccan Poltics”, Santa Barbara Portuguese Studies,
Vol. II, 1995, pp. 162-203.Discusses on the basis of some corrrespondence of the Portuguese viceroy
Conde de Vidigueira, his hidden hand in the death of Prince Murad in Adhmadnagar at the close of the
16th century. Despite only suggestive evidence, considers it possible on the grounds of this viceroy’s
earlier performance in getting rid of a Portuguese renegade who was manufacturing guns for Bijapur.
32 Documenta Indica, Vol. Ill, ed. J. Wicki, Roma, 1954, pp. 537-38.
33 M.N. Pearson, op.cit., pp. 163-164; M. N. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat, New Delhi:
Munshiram Manoharlal, 1976, p. 43.
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Once in direct contact with the reality of the Asian trade and politics Afonso de
Albuquerque had tried to ensure the Portuguese control of the straits of Hurmuz and
Singapore as a way of forcing their way in the Asian trade network on either side of
the Indian subcontinent. The immensity of the task and the allurements of quick
profits went soon beyond the capacity of Albuquerque to check, and „he himself
became a political victim of what has been described as “grande soltura , a largescale Portuguese privateering alongside official efforts, leading at times to un n e
and high-handed behaviour of the adventurer elements. It had become difficult to
identify and distinguish the official and the private interests in the Portuguese
“shadow empire” to the east of the Bay of Bengal. Possibly, this feature permitted the
Portuguese to make the best of either status, but they also paid dearly for this
ambiguity through native reactions that did not always care to distinguish the private
from the official initiatives.34
The Portuguese free-lancers or renegades could be found in most unexpected regions
of South East Asia. Several had entered the services of the local rulers as mercenaries
in large numbers, as was the case of Siam,35 Pegu, and Martaban, where their number
ran into hundreds. Femao Mendes Pinto, the author of Peregrinaqao, narrates how he
met 700 Portuguese mercenaries in Martaban, where he was sent to allure them back
to Malacca at the request of its Portuguese captain tin order to assist in defence against
impending Achinese threats. Just then Martaban was besieged by the forces of
Burma, and the Portuguese mercenaries had belied tire expectations of the ruler of
Martaban to fight for him in his desperate plight. Disappointed, he could only lament.
“Ah, Portuguese! Portuguese! How badly they have repaid everything I did for them
on so many occasions! I thought I had earned the treasure of their friendship and had
them as loyal subjects to help me in just an extremity as this!”. He still let his
Portuguese captain leave Martaban in safety and gave him two bracelets off his own
arm , but not without reminding him: “ Do not forget to tell all your Portuguese
friends how hurt I am by their ingratitude, which I am determined to denounce before
God on the day of reckoning and accuse them of criminal behaviour”! But his shock
was greater when he saw his Portuguese captain and soldiers in the victory parade of
the ruler of Burma. The victorious enemy too was equally shocked and on request of
the defeated king drove the Portuguese away, insulting them for their cowardly
behaviour and calling on them to shave off their beards to avoid fooling people that
they were gentlemen, while they were no better than prostitutes. The author of
Peregrinafao claims to have been there, and confesses that he never felt so ashamed
all his life of being Portuguese as he did then.
We could in this context recall briefly the early Chinese reactions to the Portuguese.
Describing China, Tome Pires reports a view of some Portuguese captains who had
34 L F. Thomaz, De Ceuta a Timor. Lisboa: Difel, 1994, p. 354; Roderich Ptak, “Piracy along the coasts
of Southern India and Ming-China”, As relafoes entre a India Portuguesa, a Asia do sueste, e o
Extremo Oriente, ed. A. T. de Matos & L. F. Thomaz, Macau-Lisboa, 1993, pp. 255-273.
35 Maria da Concei^So Flores, Os Portugueses e o Sido no SeculoXVI, Lisboa, Imp. Nac.,1994, 104'^Fernao Mendes Pinto, The Peregrination, trans. Michael Lowery, and Introd, by Dr. Luis Sousa
Rebelo, Manchester: Carcanet Press Ltd., 1992, p. 204. There were Portuguese mercenaries fighting for
the either side. Cf. Maria Ana Marques Guedes, Interferencia e Integrafdo dos Portugueses na
Birmdnia, ca. 1580-1630, Lisboa, Fundaijao Oriente, 1994, p. 52, n. 15.
37 Ibid, p.p.211-12.
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been to the region that the Chinese were weaklings, who greatly feared foreign pirate
merchants, and that the governor of Portuguese India who had conquered Malacca,
could have taken control of the entire coastal China with ten additional s ips.
However, it did not take long for Tom6 Pires himself to have a first hand taste of the
Chinese power and politics. He was chosen to lead the first Portuguese embassy o
China in 1516 The embassy faced immense bureaucratic delays and when it reached
Peking nearly three years later, the emperor refused to receive it. The Portuguese were
given to understand that they had done wrong in conquering Malacca and wanted
Them to restore it to its legitimate ruler. The Chinese were also unhappy wrth he
violent and arrogant behaviour of the Portuguese who attempted to build a fort in the
island of Taman or Lin Tin, hanging of a sailor, and alleged purchase of Chinese
children. 3
The Portuguese embassy on its way out of Peking suffered humiliations, ill-treatment
and condemnation to death. Another Portuguese embassy met a similar fate in 152
and the survivors had to desist. Two letters that are attributed to two members of the
first embassy, CristovSo Vieira and -Vasco CalvoJ seem to repeat the idea ot Chinese
military weakness in the same terms as <did
’ Tome Pires in the Summa Oriental, and
: hard pressed by hunger and oppression of
they add that the Chinese in Canton are
only waiting for a signal of the Portuguese to revolt,
their Chinese rulers, and are
more of a wishful thinking of the Portuguese captives who wished
Apparently, it was
‘their ow'"liberation and were obviously suggesting; some military operation for their
release40 We
We may
recall that
Francis Xavier
Xavier had
had convinced
himself that Japan could
may recall
that Francis
con'
be converted only by reaching its cultural
;
1suzerains
’ ; in China first. But the dtfficull.es
Canton, off the Chinese coast, before a Chinese merchants
of entry left him dead near
-u a large sum of money could take him secretly to the
who had been promised
It was only in 1582 that the Jesuits could officially enter Chinese imperial
mainland.41
Board of Mathematics and Board of Rites. But not unlike the
court and in its
of the Jesuits at the Mughal Court, the long term impact of these
contemporary case
high visibility performances need a more careful assessment as Asian responses to
th! cultural offers of Europe, and more than mere political-strategic gimmicks.
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38 A Summa Oriental, p. 364.
39 A Summa Oriental, Introduction, p. 33.
40 Antdnio de Gouvea, Asia Extrema, 11
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41 M. Joseph Costelloe (Trans.), The Lett<
Pmkash, 1993, p. xxiii.
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Francis Xmier, Anand; Gujarat Sahitya
GEOCULTURAL
DEVELOPMENT
Alternative development has begun rooted in labour, gender, nature, culture
identity and the new generations conforming a citizens ethic
and a new global consensus
Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
Central American Univerity (UCA)
Managua, Nicaragua
It is a privilege to have the opportunity to share accumulated experiences, tragedies and
lessons with such an exceptional group, commemorating the 50th anniversary of India Independece
and five centuries from India and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) “discovery”. I would like
to contribute the perspective from Central America, a region that held strategic attention on the
international agenda in the 80s but today is not on any agenda, even though die causes of its crisis
remain unresolved.
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The time allowed only permits a telegraphic presentation of three points: l)the ten
fundamental facts or linked phenomena that urgently require evaluation and a plan of action to
avoid the explosion of a crisis of civilization that could jeopardize the peace, democracy and the
development of humanity we all desire; 2) the dialectics of hope and "inevitability" that define the
last years of this century; and 3) the emerging consensus around the alternative development that
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I. A CHANGE OF EPOCHS MORE THAN AN EPOCH OF CHANGES.
The character, the extent and the velocity of the transformations in the past two decades
imply a change of epoch dominated by a worldwide conservative revolution which attempts to
present the "inevitability" of a homogenous globalization of the world market, based on
privatization, competition and liberalization of the economies, under the "clearing house" of die
Bretton Woods institutions.
The dominant paradigm has triggered a top-down, elitist globalization that concentrates and
centralizes wealth, technology and military and political power as never before in the history of
Humanity. Parallel to this, poverty and unemployment have grown, excluding huge numbers of
people now viewed as superfluous population, with greater fragmentation and polarization of
societies, both the societies of the 2/3s in the North and those of the 1/3 in the South.
In lock-step with all of this has been the simultaneous world ecological crisis, a product of
this development style and this technological revolution. At the same time, the population
explosion over the past 30 years in the South has hastened the rhythm of the environmental
catastrophe due to the sheer fight for survival of increasingly excluded and impoverished masses.
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The development model has forced even indigenous peoples and peasants, who preserved their
environment for centuries, to become predators of mother nature so they can survive.
Ten determining facts exemplify and verify the aggravating tendencies of the situation
described above, which we call a crisis of civilization, not just a crisis of the model of growth.
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1) A Champagne Glass Civilization (Graphic I), reflecting the antagonistic and
asymmetric distribution of income between the top 20% of humanity, which controls 83% of the
world’s income, and the bottom 20%, which survives on only 1.4%. In other words, more than one
billion human beings survive on just $1.00 per day and three billion people on little more than $2.00
per day. This unjust distribution of wealth has tended to grow. The United Nations report on
Human Development for 1994 indicates that the gap in the distribution is growing, with the income
of the richest 20% increasing from 30 times greater than that of the poorest 20% in 1960 to 61 times
greater in 1993 (Graphic II).
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2) The concentration of knowledge is even greater. The disparity of investment on
Research and Development means that it tends to be concentrated more and more in the nations of
the North, at a time when the intensity of knowledge is the key to accumulating wealth. This is an
era in which flexible capital-* product of the revolution in technology, management and
electronics-allows power to be centralized and concentrated as never before in history. The
metropolises and empires of the past, which were founded on the basis of colonial exploitation,
never achieved this level of concentration and centralization of power. Nor did they achieve the
abysmal difference between the living standards of the metropolis and the colonies that exists today
between a small group of privileged countries in the North and the great majority of nations of the
South.
3) The accelerated growth of super-millionaires, or billionaires (Table IH), those who
have more than one thousand million dollars, is also a phenomenon of this change of epoch. The
July 1994 issue of Forbes Magazine, which analyzes great world fortunes, provides some statistics
that are an aberration from an economic perspective and truly scandalous from a Christian one.
According to Forbes, 358 individuals-we are not speaking of transnational corporations-have
accumulated personal capital worth about US$762 billion. In other words, they possess the
equivalent of the per-capita income of 45% of the world’s population—2.5 billion poor people. The
number of billionaires has increased by 140% between 1987 and 1994. The nation with the highest
growth rate of billionaires is Mexico—* country the IMF and World Bank have portrayed as a good
example of what neoliberal structural adjustment policies can achieve. It is thus not surprising that
the Chiapas indigenous uprising coincides with the explosion of billionaires and also the January
1995 financial crisis, which shows the vulnerability of this kind of structural adjustment and the
fragility of growth based on financial speculation. The recent crisis of what has been presented as
the “Asian miracle and model” for LAC may be an interesting point for evaluation). Similarly, Law
187 in California against Latin immigrants makes it perfectly clear that NAFTA is only a free
market for capital and its products, for the rich but not for normal working people.
4) No dividends have been reaped from the end of the cold war. Annual military spending in
1993 equaled 49% of humanity’s per-capita income, a surprising US$815 billion (Graphic IV),
despite the end of the Cold War and a reduction in the world's military budget. Who are these
weapons to be used against? Who is the enemy? Somalia? Rwanda? Haiti? We have gone from
the Cold War to a war of social and individual insecurity. Private security is also booming both in
the north and the in the south, and probably surpassed the 200 billion dollars of reduction in public
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military spending. The 200 million weapons in the hands of US citizens indicates that the end of the
Cold War has not brought the peace expected to follow the demise of the threat from the "evil
empire." We have a planet armed to defend itself from the poor.
5) Jobless growth (Graphic V, Va and Vb). Even if we could recover the growth rates of
the past, the perspective at a world level is of growth without jobs, in which the GDP and the
population grow faster than the generation of new employment. The Champagne Cup Civilization
will tend to concentrate more and the gap will expand in both the society of 2/3s and that of 1/3.
The concentration of power and wealth is even reproduced in the United States and the
leading transnational corporations, as Chart VI reveals. Job slots are reduced while the
managers(CEOs) who work out how to eliminate them increased their average 1.2 milion dollar
salaries in 1992 to nearly 2 million in 1993.
6) The new poverty in the North (Chart VII) reveals that the giowing assymetry,
marginalization and exclusion of a good part of the population is a global phenomenon that is on the
rise. The North and the South are now not geographic concepts but rather socio-economic-political
and, above all, ethical concepts. In the South, we have a "North" that belongs among the wealthiest
20% of civilization in the champagne glass civilization. And in the North, the immigrants,
indigenous peoples and workers marginalized by unemployment live in conditions increasingly
similar to those of the population of the South or by what is euphemistically dubbed "virtual
employment"(temporal, non unionized work without social benefits).
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7) Drug trafficking accounts for US$400 billion annually, of which US$100 billion is
laundered by transnational banks, according to IN lERPOL's May 1994 report. The UN-sponsored
"Naples Declaration," supported by 138 nations, made the commitment to curb international crime,
which generates some US$750 billion annually from drug trafficking, illegal arms sales and
prostitution. The absence of security for citizens and the rise in crime are due to a lack of meaning
in life, and tire search for escape through the use of drugs, sex or religious or political
fundamentalism.
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8) The environmental crisis of our times has been produced both by the overconsumption of a small number of nations and people in the North and by the growing
impoverishment of the South. This poverty, and the consequent need to survive at any cost, has
become a new threat to fauna, flora and the world's oceans. The South's growing megalopolisesproduced by irrational development and the massive internal migration of
peasants in Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Calcutta, Shanghai and other such areas-reveal the lack of
direction, rationality or sensibleness of today’s world of technological revolution.
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9) The "export-led growth moder* is ambiguous and contradictory, as Graphic VIII
shows. What is known as Latin America's lost decade had the potential of being a decade of
accumulation since exports grew 60% and imports shrank almost 15% in proportion to the GNP.
Despite this, however, the structural conditions of the debt, the terms of exchange and capital flight
sparked Latin America's decapitalization through the transfer of approximately US$500 billion.
Mexico's current crisis indicates to us that the structural adjustments have not corrected this
situation over the past 10 years. How much time is required?
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10) Nicaragua's case is even more paradigmatic. Nicaragua is the only country in the
world whose per-capita income is more than 50% lower in 1994 than it was in 1960, equivalent to
3
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the per capita income of fifty years ago in 1945. Together with Guyana it had in 1996 the highest
debt in economic history—six times greater than its GDP (a US$11 billion debt and a US$1.8 billion
GDP). On the other hand, Nicaragua has received the second largest amount of foreign aid per
capita in the past five years, obviously after Israel. Nonetheless, it still has negative per-capital
growth, which after five years of peace is still 40% lower than 1985, in the middle of a war. It has
60% unemployment, more than 70% of the population living in poverty in a potentially wealthy
country.1
This situation forces us to ask ourselves where we are and where we are going. Can we do
nothing? This situation is stretching out under strict ESAF agreements and under the meticulous
control of the IMF and the World Bank, which periodically monitor the level of international
reserves and how the monetary supply is fimetioning? But, who is monitoring the increasing
poverty, unemployment and ungovernability in third world countries?
At the beginning of the 90s, Mexico and Nicaragua were considered hopeful experiences of
a new economic and political order. In 1997, both countries, are two question marks to which there
is still no answer. For this we must look on the other side of the coin: the contradictions and
reactions to this style of development.
IL THE DIALECT IC BETWEEN HOPE AND INEVITABILITY
Civil society is emerging onto the world stage with a new set of common values, attitudes
and interests in response to common threats on all the continents. An "open globalization from
below and from within" has been gaining force over the last decade. The failing prophecies of
"market inevitability" have been met with alternative proposals incarnated in endogenous,
I HII II. Ip.ll.il | .HI. I .1...............
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. |uu|... In «l <1 l.o .it II.1II..II.1I |..|.l..ll.d ...... I «..>!. I Io vol ( l> l.l, < rtlm,
Mmliid mid ( openlmgcn me ictlri thins ol the emeigenic ol these new l>>< ul global subjects at all
levels and in all sectors). They bring a vision, proposals and transforming hope that stands out in
stark contrast to the fear and uncertainty of those who know their formulas for stabilization and
adjustment are not working.
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The rebellion of the cultures in response to the homogenization that threatens their identity
and unique characteristics makes the new subjects of civil society hard to incorporate into the
paradigm of top-down globalization, in which their only participation is as passive consumers, and,
even then, only those who have some degree of purchasing power.
This veritable eruption of voices and worldwide alternative networks, protesting and
proposing solutions to the Wahington Consensus and to the worsening situation, have found neither
space nor a response in the opaque power structures that dominate the New Order. The incapacity,
fragility, and lack of legitimacy and credibility of the Group of Seven (G7), the Bretton Woods
institutions and the paradigm they present as inevitable is becoming increasingly manifest. The
Copenhagen consensus at World Social Summit is encountering strong opposition because it
is being held at a moment of weakness and depletion of the dominant development model, and
at the beginning of a period of coalescence of social forces around alternative proposals
accumulating at a global level.
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1 See notes on “The political economy of Nicaragua” 1979-1997
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It is important to point out the growing public criticism by governments of the structural
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pubt criticisms of the Btetton Woods institutions by th.tr ow former
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Given the WSS, it is important to perceive this model's weakness and erosion. The^new
rhetoric of the international financial institutions (IFIs), which uses the language of die NGOs-the
alternative "buzz words"-and even the language of Liberation Theology itself, reveals its defensive
aXe LTneed for legitimacy and credibility. It is an opportune moment to move from
"protest without proposals to proposals with protest," as Peru's women's movement announced..
The "new space" opened up by the crisis is revealed more profoundly at the IFIs’ top
hierarchical levels. It would be difficult to classify some of the plans being lald
C
"rhetoric " The fiank introduction by IDB president Enrique Iglesias, accompanied by IMF director
Michael Camdesuss at the inauguration of the "reflection encounter" with bishops and theologians
the headqimrters of the IDB. and repeated in November «h btahops,
theologians, educators and Christian socM scientists ’) raises new questions about the perception
that high-level EFI officials have of the crisis. The "simplistic vision," "economistic reductionism
"marxist and populist reductionism," "ideological reductionism" and the strongest of all, ethical
reductionism " were the first self-critical commentaries for this reflection, in which the President of
the IDB invited the churches to offer their ethical contribution given that "the basic aspects of the
value ethic of a society have hardly found entry into our considerations".
For his part, Michael Camdesuss said in a speech that was very surprising for an IMF
director- "We, who are responsible for the economy, are administrators for this grace of God -- for
a part of it in any case. We are the relief of the suffering of our brothers and the procurers of the
' expansion of their freedom." "...We know that God is with us in the task of making fraternity
8r°W" On the other hand, Camdesuss maintained that "the market is the most effective
organizational form for increasing individual and collective wealth...." "If the market is totally left
to its mechanisms there is a great danger...that the poor will be smashed. In pure logic, pace fixing
could be their death sentence." "...The market should be monitored, framed m such a way that it
can continue being free and also continue being just. That's why the substitution of marxist
2. Bruce Rich, "Mortgaging the Earth: The World Bank, Environmental Impoverishment and the Crisis
of Development," Earth Can (London), 1994.
3 IDB "Hacia un enfoque integrado del desarrollo: la 6tica, la economia y la cuestidn social/*
Encuentro de Reflexion, January 13-14,1994, Washington, D C.
4 Camdesuss Michael, "Marche Royanne: La double appartenance," Bulletin of the Secretariat of the
I
I
Ip
»ft
Hinkelammert, "La Teologla de Uberacibn en el contexto econbm.c^social de America Latina. Economia
y teologia o la irracionalidad de Io racional," DEI (Costa Rica), 1995.
5
1
fundamentalism by a market fundamentalism cannot be accepted. The market cannot be left to its
logic, because the economy is not reduced to techniques but has human beings as its point of
reference." "...a market overburdened with the forces of death and life. This reality, over which
each one of us, one way or another, has a function, a responsibility." "...where economic rationality
and the construction of the Kingdom of God converge."
F. Hinkelammert analyzes these theological declarations as "the attempt by the theology of
the empire to recover the theology of liberation...thus transforming the option for the poor into an
option for the IMF" Hinkelammert maintains that "Camdesuss needs a market ethic" because "the
logic of the market could destroy the market itself."
Is this a "new rhetoric" or a revision of the simplicism and reductionism of the past? Is it an
attempt to "co-opt" liberation theology or an attempt to fashion a "theology of the market" for the
renewal and permanence of capitalism"?
This is not the moment for such an important debate. The only thing I want to underscore
here is that the security and inevitability of the neoliberal model is showing signs of weakness and
its efficiency and credibility are being questioned.5 A new space and a new time have been opened
to redefine the concept of development to link the alternative subjects and initiate a plan of action
with national and international solidarity for a political strategy of change.
III. ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT HAS BEGUN
This is not an attempt at a new theory or a new model, much less a universal utopia. The
aim is simply to call attention and make a call for reflection on the multiple concrete experiences in
all the continents that have endogenously arrived at a joint set of visions, proposals and
alternatives growing out of their own roots. This enormous whole of separate micro and meso
experiences has a strong commonality of values, interests and attitudes with respect to the common
threats that share a high degree of similarity. A bottom-up civilization exists today that puts a
priority on the quality of life, sustainability, equity and particularly shared happiness, the only form
of human happiness. In diverse forms, from diverse cultures and from peoples on the five
continents a set of shared priorities is emerging that could be conceptualized as the search for a
Civilization Based on Simplicity. 6 Simplicity, as we will see, is richer and more complex and
sophisticated than total market simplism and reductionism.
Alternative development is possible today. In fact, it has already begun. 7 Fragility and
depletion, as well as the growing contradictions of the current model, both permit and require it.
<1
I
I
I .
6 SAPRI ’’Structural Adjustent Participatory Review Iniciative”. World Bank. Wahisngton D.C. July
1997
6 Innumerable such similar proposals are coming from all over the world, in the 1992 Earth Summit In
Rio, in Madrid in 1994 and in the preparation for the Copenhagen Summit It is recommended that
working groups be created to analyze and articulate a common proposal and a plan of action at the
global and regional levels based on the main proposals presented in the March summit (For example,
those of ICVA, UNRISD, ECtA, La Comisidn Sudamericana de Paz, Seguridad y Democracia, the African
Forum, The People’s Plan 21 of the Pacific [PP21], NGO coordinating bodies, etc.)
7 See the Pakistan’s ex-Minister of Planning, Dr. Ul Haq, speech in honor of Barbara Ward in the la?t
conference of the International Society for Development (SID), Mexico, April 1994. Ul Haq even said that
"the new development paradigm has already been won. I detect white smoke coming from the chimney
of the citadels of economic growth. The political battle, however, is only just begun.”
6
5
I
to
opportunity and a challenge to achieve a dynamic of implementation, a plan of action and
•mechanisms of independent follow-up and evaluation. The conferenc® fatlJue 11131 was
experienced after Rio cannot be permitted to dominate. The solutions should be endogenous, from
within and below, but those solutions need the framework, spaces and rules of the game that can
permit the appearance of a New Economic and Juridical World Order.
Based on these accumulated endogenous experiences, there are eight basic theses that are
shared by the emerging geoculture:
1) Getting past the culture of confrontation and going beyond our "antagonistic
civilization," which pits North against South, men against women, whites against people of color,
growth against nature, the present against the future, consumption against happmess.
The struggle for a culture of tolerance and complementarity are crucial for overcoming die
culture of confrontation. The inevitable explosions created by intolerance and oppression
(Tchechenia, Bosnia, Chiapas, etc.) do nothing more than reinforce the need for the hegemony of
the culture of tolerance and respect for shared diversity.
i)
The new sense of tolerance in combined with an increasing lack of credibility in the political
parties even in the politicians who mobilized popular movement in the past. A growing mistrust
and abstention with respect to the state and the electoral processes can be perceived on the part of
civil society, a situation that we consider transitory due to the manipulation of ambiguous
democracy," which has not permitted the new subjects to genuinely participate in either the parties
or the state.
2) the predominance of geoculturej over geopolitics and geoeconomy. Not only does
the
traditional sources of power, but there is a clash between two types
culture take precedence over L
----------of geoculture.
I
I
The dominant geoculture aims at a top-down homogenization of culture, from die Global
Dreams and global images" 8) of a canned culture on cable TV, films and global music. Michael
Jackson (man-woman?, white-black?, young-mature?) is an example of the culture of global images
imposed by the total market, as is the Big Mac hamburger (the same taste, size and price for
everyone everywhere), Nike tennis shoes, T-shirts, videos, discos, etc.
Faced with this top-down global homogenization, endogenous cultural diversity is sought,
with its complementary identity and autonomy capable of creating the equilibrium and harmony
that biodiversity creates in the environment.
8 Barnet, Richard J. and Cavenagh, John, Global Dreamg: Imperial Corporations and the New Worjd
Order, Simon and Schuster (NY), 1994.
7
I
•a
To that effect, the diverse experiences go beyond the politicization and economism of the
past and attempt to incorporate the subjects that correspond to the world of labour, of nature, of
gender, of culture and of the new generation (children and adolescents), in other words the future
(over 90% of today's birth are in the South). These are the roots of a radical geoculture, which
seeks its root in the profound simplicity of life, convinced of the incapacity of the current system to
integrate these fundamental roots into its accumulation path based on profit maximization.
3) Democratizing the market and the State. The new geoculture no longer demonizes the
market nor accepts "market democracies as it is". Rather, the stress is on the need to democratize
die markets, transforming them into an instrument of participation, overcoming their current monooligopolization. In the same vein,
there is consensus concerning the democratization, openness and accountability of the state to civil
society, together with greater participation, decentralization and participation by the municipalities,
local governments and NGOs. In this way the "principle of subsidiarity" is recovered; what can be
done locally and sectorally should not be done centrally, neither in the state and the parties, nor in
the organizations of civil society itself.
The state in question is not necessarily or even primarily the national state, but the
increasing power of transnational influence and international agencies that are displacing the
national state. There is a sensed need for endogenous development to overcome the controlling
tendencies of the state and the new, but similar tendencies of the international agencies. This
is even emphasized by the World Bank itself, in an excellent participatory evaluation of structural
adjustment in Africa (May 1994). The World Bank evaluation mentions that this foreign
cooperation has failed because it lacked a project that was properly African and was consumed by
the "vampire state" in the past and the "vampire elite" in the present.
ti
Economic aid does not help and frequently becomes a barrier to growth. Development
cannot be imported. Aid and technological transfer can only complement an endogenous project.
As we have learned from the best experiences in Asia and LAC, state and market are
complementary, not contradictory. The need to reform and democratize the state, a non-substitutible
element of development and complementarity to the market. We need a small, effective, normative
and open state that both responds to and generates the endogenous development project through
participation.
4) Reaffirm the capacity and potential of medium and small producers and of local
and municipal organizations as priority actors of development at a national and mtemational level,
now that feasible integration of these endogenous forces is possible. Without overcoming their
exclusion of the productive potential from the market, permanent growth and political stability are
4
impossible.
5) The macro-micro linkage in each society is one of the tasks that is both most deficient
and most necessary in the new experiences.
The macro-micro linkage
the nation-state level requires creating the "missing link" or
It.missing middle" implied by the formation of human capital of professionals and technical experts
I.
8
H
respond .o ta vines and inurests of eivil sodetys small and medium producers more thrm to
the forces of the monopoly market.
part of the problem of
Xlvelopment more than they are a constructive element for getting out of .t, *)
alternative element at the end of the 20th century.
The linkage of Universities and Research and Technology Institutes in the North and the
Soulh 10“.! wilh ore ooncenlmtion of ^.ed^co=ew
deremmm.g fadorm
the linkage of the micro-macro and meso-mega o g
knowledge apartheid is as pervasive as racial aparth
.
Nonetheless racial or technological
paging than apartheid
!•
mmker. Culrme is lhe rock base for bmmomo devdopmen, in
which women and ecology are the most determinant factors.
I
71 Promote selective insertion in the world market, overcoming the desperate temptation
l>
,own
0 -dJ;
p—8
development pa '
X"'-" —-
± Association of Pacific Countries). Nor can it be incorporated
thorniest problems to analyze.
8) The reform and restructuring of Bretton Woods institutions. The WSSD ought to
I
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I
IFIs and the development agencies of the United Nations system.
(Colorado), 1994.
9
J
TV
The only permanent thing in an epoch of changes, and even more in a change of epochs, is
change The most profound revolution of modem times, therefore, is the cultural revolution and the
ethical revolution, in which development is the equitable, sustainable and harmonic relations among
human beings. Today, this relationship is not only within the Nation-State but within the planetary
citizenry of the Global Village.
The technological revolution at the end of the 20th century has permitted this
communication of experiences, and has opened a new space for the first time in history for
interdependent solidarity of a global citizenry. The emerging consensus we have desenbed is a
greater challenge for "savage capitalism" (John Paul H) than state socialism was.
There is, however, no perception or belief in a universal and globalizable utopia in these
experiences. The experience of real socialism and of the neoliberal paradigm have demonstrated
their failure through the imposition or cooptation from above and from outside of the experience
itself. The new vision that undergirds alternative development^ is that of intregrating multiple,
cumulative, and partial utopias based on local endogenous projects.
The triumphalism of the top 20% of the Champagne Glass has begun to change, as has the
prostration of the dispossessed and the victims. Five years ago, to was not the case. I reca
concluding a distressing analysis I did with little hope and perspective quoUng the unforgettable
Pnblo Neruda: "They can cut all the flowers, but they cannot stop the spring. Then we lived on a
blind hope. Today Pablo, there’s a smell of spring, although we still cannot see all the flowers.
,'?l
'I<
i!
I
I
I
J
■i
I
1
!1
I
’■ G«res»ag.. Xabier, -C.menzb .!
Boston, 1993.
10
XXt E! Norte o.nb. «
B?.«o, «d. .ad d. Cutter. Seud. End Pr„..
1
Graphic I
Income distribution
World population, classified
according to income
*
18
,
The richest 20% receives 82.7%
of the world's total income
HL.
■
Each horizontal segment
represents a fifth of the
world's population
4
The poorest 20% receives 1.4%
of the world's total income
i
The cover design shows the income distribution.
20% of the world's richest receives 82.7% of the
world 's total income while 20% of the world 's
poorest only receive 1.4%. The world's economic
growth hardly ever filters toward the bottom. The
following table shows the word's income for each
segmet of population.
*
World
population
World
Richest 20%
Second 20%
Third 20%
Fourth 20%
Poorest 20%
82.7%
11.7%
2.3%
1.9%
1.4%
luvU.dC
05182
Y
) ♦
I
J
7
3o
" —r
L
11
Graphic II
The widening gap between the rich and poor
ji
70
60
<
50
1
?
40
30
20
«
i
10
0
‘I
Poorest
1960
Richest
Poorest
Richest
I
Ratio of income shares - richest 20%: poorest 20% of the world’s population
Source: Human Development Report 1994 (UNDP)
12
i
Table III
Billonaires in the world in 1994
(according to July 18, 1994 Forbes Magazine)
I
I
J'
13
6
5
4
3
4
6
36
3
3
1
83
41.9
14.1
6.2
lb.0
4.9
7.5
15.9
82.5
3.2
10.3
2.3
198.8
24
6
3
4
2
3
5
47
44.1
11.0
3.5
6.7
2.5
4.7
13.5
86.0
Italy
Germany
Great Britain
Greece
France
Spain
Netherlands
Switzerland
Scandinavia
5
42
5
5
11
3
3
8
3
85
10.0
107.5
10.5
10.0
21.1
4.1
7.1
19.7
12.5
202.5
Israel
Saudi Arabia
Lebanon
Kuwait
Turkey
South Africa
2
6
2
1
2
1
14
2.9
10.1
3.8
1.5
3.9
1.5
23.7
United States
129
250.9
_____
358
76L9
'Hong Kong
.4 Thailand
Philippines
Indonesia
Singapore
J Malasya
» ASIA •
I
’
■
. JaPan
■
I“dia
Korea
>■..
Australia
>
rowX
Mexico
AMEMcfe^^
AMFKICA . 3 > ■'
Brazil
Colombia
Argentina
Venezuela
Chile
Canada
■ "'a,
..
8)
I
I
I III
I
I [
total
)
iS&
In 1994, 358
billionaires had
accumulated the per
capita income of 2.6
billion people, or 45%
of the world's
population:
Number of Billionaires:
1994
358
1987
145
>146%
13
Table III a
Country
Latin America
Africa_________
Asia___________
China ________
Countries recently
industrialized
All developing
countries
Distribution of income by regions12
I960
|
1970
| 1980
|
1990
b'come per inhabitant in relation to the average of the industrialized countries
0.41
0.17
0.25
0.14
0.31
0.38
0.14
0.26
0.12
0.40
0.40
0.14
0.31
0.13
0.59
0.29
0.11
0.35
0.20
0.83
0.25
0.24
0.24
0.20
| Average income growth per inhabitant in 10 years corresponds to.
-0.8
3.1
_____ _____________3.0
Latin America
-0.3
2.0
_____
_______ 2.2
Africa__________
2.7
3.4
_____
_______ 3.5
Asia___________
6.9
3.5
_____
_______ 2.2
China_________ _
5.6
6.7
_____
6.3
Countries recently
industrialized
All developing
countries
2.9
2.4
<1
-0.1
<1
J
'i
...
Tables; IMF International Financial Statistics.
!
14
i
I
Where to find them and where their ranks are surging
United States
Asia Pacific
Latin America - Canada
Europe
Middle East-Africa
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1987
1994
Source: Forbes Magazine, July 18, 1994
15
4^ jb e H
» e •
w
Graphic IV
Military spending is equal to the income of almost half
the world's population
World military
spending 1n
1992=$815
billon
800
800
Combined
income of
49% of the
world's
population=
$815 billion
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Source: Human Development Report 1994
16
Weighted average of regional GDP and employment growth
220
205
200
GDP
180
45
160
147
140
128
Employment
1990
2000
120
100
1975
The cover design reflects the
disturbing phenomenon of jobless
growth in the world. The upper curve
represents GDP growth (1975-1990)
and it's projected trend (1990-2000)
weighted for major regions (OECD
countries, Latin America, SubSaharan Africa, South Asia and East
Asia). The lower curve represents
employment growth, weighted by
region. Since 1975, employment
growth has consistently lagged
behind output growth, and this gap is
likely to widen during the 1990s.
17
>
>
i
»
[2]
CONTINUATION OF THE COLONIAL, POLITICAL,
ECONOMIC, LEGAL AND OTHER SYSTEMS
DR. RASHID AHMAD KHAN
Professor of Political Science
University of the Punjab, Lahore (Pakistan)
♦
»
»
I®
The arrival of Vasco da Gama on the west coast of India in 1498
ushered in a revolutionary era in the history of South Asia. It ended for
ever the isolation of the region from other parts of the world,
ii
»
particularly the West, that had been in force for centuries due to the
peculiar geographical features of the Indian Ocean. For the first time in
Ito
the history of the Indian Ocean region, a direct link was established
with the West and the course of events in this part of the world was to
be determined by the developments in the Atlantic.
»
The arrival of the Portuguese also paved the way for the
*
•
establishment of British colonial rule in India which lasted for about
two hundred years till the emergences of Pakistan and India as two
1
independent countries in 1947. Between 1757 when the British won the
•
Battle of Plassy to gain the control of Bengal and 1947 when the last
British Viceroy left, the British colonialists laid the foundation of a rule
*
in India which was basically based on ruthless exploitation of human
*
and material resources of India. For the sustenance of such a rule the
British structured a political system whose economic, legal and other
»
Lk
components strengthened its oligarchic character.
:?
[3]
For example, despite a shift towards decentralization and
devolution of powers after 1857 the British preferred to maintain a
highly centralized political system under a federal arrangement which
allowed
only
marginal
authority
to
the
constituent units.
The
Government of India Act 1935 symbolized this system which although
provided for a scheme for the financial, administrative and legislative
relations between the Centre and the provinces; yet, arming the
Governor-General with vast discretionary powers and a clear priority
•s'
of the former over the latter in legislative sphere. The purpose behind
establishing such an order was to assure the protection of interests of
the British colonialism to the exclusion of interests of the vast majority
of the Indian people.
oh
a"
W
<t|l
The same theme underlay the economic and legal systems
developed in India under the impact of British colonialism. Before the
arrival of the British, there was no concept of private property in land.
c
Rural life in ancient India was organized around village communities
4
who had a common ownership of land under cultivation or use for
’1
other purposes. During the Moghul period the land belonged to the
4
«i
crown and the state recognized no hereditary right to the jagirs granted
by the kings to their subjects for their services to the court. The
British, true to the spirit of mercantile imperialism, introduced private
I
ownership in land, leading to the creation of hereditary feudal lords
1
who still exercise a dominant influence in the political system of
Pakistan. The British colonial rule also brought about a radical
transformation of socio-economic life in India. Through a network of
i
f
i
I
[4]
rail-road communication system and building of seaports connected
with hinterland, the British destroyed the self-sufficient economy of the
village communities and made the countryside completely dependent
upon the cities. Through their industrial and agricultural policies, the
British also created a rural-urban divide which still permeates politics
in Pakistan and India. Moreover, the external trade pattern, established
by the British, made India a complete appendage of metropolitan
economy of England. We all know that before the arrival of the
European colonial powers, there was a flourishing regional trade in the
Indian Ocean area. The Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea were great
commercial highways through which India's trade with countries of
Southeast Asia and, as far as, China in the east; and with the Persian
Gulf and, beyond it, with the ports on the Mediterranean coast in the
west; and Eastern African coast in the southwest, was carried on. The
colonial powers, especially the British, destroyed this regional trade
pattern and linked India with the West for trade and commercial
purposes. This pattern has largely continued to-date, to the extent that
intra-regional trade of South Asian countries is not more than 3 percent
of their total trade. In case of Pakistan, for example, imports and
exports to SAARC countries constitute 2.5 percent of its total trade
during 1996-97 period; whereas, during the same period, country's
exports to and imports from developed countries have been 60.3 and
49.5 percent respectively.1 The economic system developed in India
during the colonial period impoverished the countryside, created wide
gap between the rich and the poor and led to heavy dependence of India
on the European and developed countries' markets. These features with
t
[5]
all their implications for the independence and sovereignty of the South
Asian countries, continue to play an important role in determining the
5
•I
e
nature and direction of national development policies of these
countries.
Similarly, in order to perpetuate the interests of the colonial rule
and those of the native groups coopted by the colonial administration
for their collaborative role, the British designed a legal system which
heavily relied upon the use of coercive force for the maintenance of
ii
«
a
«!
socio-economic status quo. Like other systems, the legal system
4
developed by the British has also become outmoded and has proven its
utter futility to cope with modern problem related to terrorism. Despite
II
the fact that there are widespread demands for change in the old legal
d
system and a number of attempts have also been made to bring about
radical changes in this system, the colonial legal system still exists with
all its ramifications. Rule of law and independence of judiciary are two
concepts which are counted among positive contributions made by the
<
British colonialism in India. But it is a matter of common knowledge
<1
the both in India and Pakistan, law favours the mighty and rich. So far
as the ordinary people are concerned, they have no trust in the legal
5
system because it seldom comes to their rescue. The “judicial
activism” about which we have read and heard so much recently in
Pakistan turned out to be nothing but an attempt to blunt the increasing
assertiveness of political forces released after long spells of suppressive
Martial Law periods.
J
[6]
In this paper an attempt is being made to argue a case that while
more than 50 years have passed since Pakistan achieved independence.
Colonial legacy on the political, legal, economic and other system still
persists. This legacy is the principal obstacle in the way of full
realization of democratic rights and freedom of the people of Pakistan.
>
Time and again, political forces representing the democratic aspirations
!
I
of the people have clashed with the forces who represent this legacy,
I
i.e. the establishment which groups civilian and military bureaucracy,
)
judiciary and feudal lords. While arguing this case only those features
of economic and legal systems would be briefly mentioned which are
il
relevant to the nature and direction of change in the political process of
Pakistan. The aim of the paper is also to arrive at the conclusion, after
»
l»
)
examining the political and constitutional process in Pakistan, that after
the end of the Cold War and growing trends towards globalization, the
colonial legacy is losing ground while the democratic forces bearing
the banner of political supremacy of the people are advancing in a slow
but sure way.
>
When Pakistan started its independent national life in 1947, it
>
adopted 1935 Act with certain modifications as an Interim Constitution.
J
Among many features of the 1935 Act retained in the Interim
r
i
I
Constitution of Pakistan was the federal structure. The federal structure
of 1935 Act was based on provincial autonomy which was the product
of a long constitutional development extending from 1860 to 1919. The
process of decentralization and devolution of powers started after 1857
I
>
>
1/
i
in response to the needs for efficiency and discipline. It received
[7]
greater impetus with the start of twentieth century. With the
intensification of nationalist struggle in India and demands for greater
1
<1
public participation, the area of provincial autonomy was further
enlarged. Although 1935 Act invested the provinces for the first time
with a separate legal authority, there was little change in the scope of
their legislative authority. The Act distributed powers between the
Centre and the provinces on the basis of three legislative lists — the
federal, the provincial and the concurrent. The subjects contained in
<
L
federal list fell under the jurisdiction of the Federal Legislature, while
the provincial legislatures were competent to legislate on the subjects
<1
included in the provincial list; however, both were competent to deal
with matters covered by the Concurrent List. The residuary powers
!i
were vested in the Governor-General. According to Section 104 of the
I
Act, the Governor-General might, by public notification, empower
<1
either the federal legislature or a provincial legislature to enact a law
with respect to any matter not enumerated in any of the lists in the
<
Seventh Schedule to the Act, including a law imposing a tax not
mentioned in any such act.
Although the number of items in the Provincial List was
increased under the 1935 Act, all the important matters like military
forces, defence, external affairs, currency, ports, banks, insurance,
import and export, customs duties, income tax, capital levies and
corporation tax were kept outside the reach of the provinces. The Act
also provided for the priority of the law passed by the Federal
Legislature over the law passed by a provincial legislature on an item
I
1
I
I
I
[8]
contained in the Concurrent List. The Federal Legislature had also the
power to make laws for a province even in respect of matters in the
Provincial List under a state of emergency which the Governor-General
had the authority to proclaim under Section 102, in case, in his
opinion, a grave emergency existed “whereby the security of India was
threatened whether by war or internal disturbances.” This clause, as
G. W. Chaudhary observes, was a limitation on provincial autonomy.2
I
After independence, Section 102 of the original Act was
successively amended by the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in
1947, 1948 and 1950, leading to an enlargement of its scope. Thus,
instead of increasing the quantum of provincial autonomy as compared
to provided in the original 1935 Act, the Muslim League Government
r
II
in Pakistan further restricted the area of provincial autonomy. This
looked very strange and perplexing in view of the fact that the Muslim
League before 1947 was all along championing the cause of the
provinces by demanding greater powers for them as compared to the
All India National Congress which stood for a stronger centre.
In the area of financial relations, the extent of provincial
autonomy was also further limited after 1947. The original Act of 1935
had allowed the centre to retain all the major sources of revenue; but
there were certain taxes the net proceeds of which were to be shared
with the provinces. These taxes were; (z) income tax (50 percent); (zz)
jute export duty (bZ'/z percent); central excise, salt duty and a few
I
other items. After 1947, this arrangement was changed further in
favour of the Centre, by suspending the policy of sharing the proceeds
L
[9]
of some taxes with the provinces and abandoning the sharing of net
proceeds of the income tax. Sales tax which was in the provincial list
was taken away by the central government. This situation continued till
I
1952. When the financial position of the country improved, Pakistan
began to conform more closely in respect of division of revenues
I
between the Centre and the provinces to the general scheme imposed in
II
the Government of India Act, 1935. But Centre's control over all the
major sources of revenue and suspension of sharing the net proceeds of
some of the taxes, like income tax and sales tax, led to dissatisfaction
in the provinces. In East Pakistan, this dissatisfaction took the form of
a
province-wide agitation for extreme
autonomy
in
legislative,
administrative and financial spheres. It was largely this agitation which
forced the central government to revert back to the policy of sharing
the net proceeds of income tax and handing over the sales tax to the
provinces.
The centralized character of the political system developed in
India by the British was symbolized by almost unlimited powers of the
Governor-General. This is why both Congress and the Muslim League
I.
targeted
the
Governor-General
as
a
symbol
of
colonial
authoritarianism. Under the original 1935 Act, the Governor-General,
as the representative of British Crown in India, was invested with the
final political authority, armed with discretionary powers and special
responsibilities. The British had given vast powers to the Governor-
General because they believed that a strong executive was necessary
for (be protection of their colonial interests in India. However, those
&
[ 10]
ft
I
t
»
discretionary powers and the special responsibilities were amended in
the Indian Independence Act of 1947. Under Section 8(c) ot the
Independence Act of 1947, the powers of the Governor-General or any
£
governor to act in his discretion or to exercise his individual judgement
lapsed from August 15, 1947. The Governor-General was presumed to
act on the advice of his Ministers. But yet under the Government of
»
India Act,
a
1935, as adopted in Pakistan, the Governor-General
continued to enjoy wide and substantial powers. According to Section 7
»
*
of the Act, as adopted by the Pakistan (Provisional Constitution) Order,
1947, as amended upto April 1955, the executive authority of the
»
i
Federation of Pakistan was to be exercised by the Governor-General,
ft
ft
either directly or through officers subordinate to him. The Governor-
»
ift
ft
ft
I
»
General was to choose his own ministers and they were to hold their
office during his pleasure (Section 10). The Council of Ministers was
to aid and advise the Governor-General in the exercise of his functions,
but such an advice was not binding on the Governor-General (Section
9).
ft
>
b
p
)
Since the Governor-General was not bound by the advice of the
Council of Ministers and the ministers were to hold office during the
pleasure of the Governor-General, the role of the Governor-General
>
9
was, as G. W. Chaudhary observes, “unlike that of a constitutional
f
head”. Pakistan, thus, even after attaining independence continued to
be run under a vice-regal system. In addition to the powers relating to
n
the appointment ot Prime Minister and ministers, the Governor-
I
General also retained the emergency powers provided in the original
!
L
[ 11 ]
Government of India Act, 1935. Under these emergency powers, the
Centre could take up the functions of the provincial governments
(Section 102). Similarly Section 92-A which was inserted by the
Governor-General Order in 1947, empowered the Governor-General to
suspend a provincial government and direct the “Governor of a
province to assume on behalf of the Governor-General all or any of the
powers vested in or exercisable by any provincial body or authority.”
Thus, even after the removal of discretionary powers of the
Governor-General and omission of the Ninth Schedule, the position of
the Governor-General under the Provisional Constitution of Pakistan
remained powerful.4 Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah became the
first Governor-General and, as G. W. Chaudhary has remarked, his
acceptance of this position had great impact on the relationship between
I
the Governor-General and the cabinet as well as with the legislature in
the first year of Pakistan's political career.5 During this period Jinnah
dominated the decision making and policy formulation process of the
government — a function which is normally the responsibility of prime
minister under parliamentary form of government. In view of Jinnah's
11
I
I
I
contribution for the success of movement for Pakistan and his
personality, neither the cabinet, nor the legislature nor the people of
Pakistan challenged Jinnah's conception of the Governor-Generalship;
on the contrary it was greatly hailed and welcomed. Pakistan, as Allen
MacGrath writes, had a political Governor-General who controlled the
Executive, the Cabinet and the Assembly.6
[ 12]
Although Jinnah was justified in exercising such an authority due
to the exceptional circumstances in whichw Pakistan was placed
immediately after independence, the expansion of political and
I
I
constitutional role of the Govprnor-General had serious implications for
the development of parliamentary democracy in Pakistan. Ambitious
persons like Ghulam Mohammad were tempted to occupy the office ot
I
the Governor-General to wield almost unlimited powers. When Liaqat
)
Ali Khan who served as prime minister under Jinnah and Khawaja
I
Nazamuddin, was assassinated in October 1951, Ghulam Mohammad
became the Governor-General after persuading Khawaja Nazamuddin
to vacate the office, because he (Ghulam Mohammad) realized that it
i
I'
was an office which could fulfil his ambition. The game did nui stop at
Ghulam Mohammad who used the powerful office of the Governor-
General to dismiss prime minister Khawaja Nazamuddin in 1953 and
dissolved unconstitutionally the Constituent Assembly in the following
year, it has been carried on through Iskinder Mirza, Zia-ul-Haque,
Ghulam Ishaq Khan to Farooq Leghari who used his discretionary
powers and dismissed an elected prime minister Benazir Bhutto in
November 1996 under Article 58-2(Z?) inserted by Zia-ul-Haque in the
present (1973) Constitution of Pakistan.
The Constitution of 1956 had deprived the Head of the State —
President, many of the powers he enjoyed as Governor-General under
the Provisional Constitution. The Constitution required the President to
act in accordance with the advice of the Cabinet. But still the President
r
i
had a number of discretionary powers, the most important of which
i
I
[ 13]
was to appoint from among the members of National Assembly a Prime
Minister who in his opinion was most likely to command the
confidence of the majority of the members of Assembly. In a situation
where political parties are weak such discretionary power assumes
great significance and becomes liable to be misused. During the
debates on the draft constitution in the Second Constituent Assembly a
suggestion was made that Prime Minister should be elected by the
1
National Assembly so that the discretionary power assigned to the
President was not misused. While making this suggestion an allusion
I
was made to the fact that under Interim Constitution a Head of the State
appointed somebody as Prime Minister who was not even a member of
Parliament and who was flown Washington without having any footing
1
on th** soil and planted “as our prime minister”.7 The suggestion,
however was not accepted. However, President Iskinder Mirza who
enjnved strong support from the army and bureaucracy was strongly
criticized for misusing this discretionary power in choosing and
sending home at his will the prime ministers of Pakistan during the
period from March 1956 to October 1958. It was largely in view of the
misuse of this discretionary power that the original 1973 Constitution
provided for the election of the Prime Minister by the National
Assembly. In yet another attempt to make the office of the Head of
more powerful once again, Pakistan's last Chief Martial Law
Administrator (1977-1985) reverted to the 1956 constitutional position
and assigned to himself, on lifting Martial Law in 1985, the power to
appoint
Prime Minister
from among the members of National
Assembly till March 1990. It was under this provision that Benazir
I
ls»
[ 14]
»
Bhutto during her first term (1988-90) was nominated as Prime
«»
Minister by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan (1988-1993). However, after
«»
1990 all the Prime Ministers, including Benazir Bhutto who became
»
Prime Minister for the second time (1993-1996), were elected by the
»
»
National Assembly.
10
I)
The concentration of powers in the office of the Head of State
*)
reached maximum level under the Presidential Government of Ayub
Khan (1958-1969). Ayub Khan abrogated the 1956 Constitution and
ft>
to
te»
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
imposed Martial I.aw in October 1958. He continued to exercise
dictatorial powers as Chief Martial Law Administrator till June 1962
when he enforced a constitution based on the presidential form of
government. The unique feature of this constitution was that it vested
the executive authority of the Republic in the President who was
indirectly elected by a limited electorate of 80,000 members of Basic
Democracies (Local Council Bodies). The provision of investing
executive authority in President according to Article 31 of the 1962
Constitution clothed the President, as observed by Mr. Munir, a former
Chief Justice of Pakistan, with a legally absolute power.8 Although
1962 Constitution, like the previous constitutions, declared Pakistan a
»
federation, all the powers were concentrated in the centre. In Part VI
of the Constitution, powers between the Centre and the provinces were
TJ
r
distributed. Unlike the 1935 Act and the Constitution of 1956, the
distribution of legislative powers between the Central Legislature and
>
>
the Provincial Legislatures was based on the principle of only one, i.e.
b
Federal List enumerating the items over which the Central Legislature
»
I
»
»
Il .
[ 15]
had the exclusive authority to enact laws, while Provincial Legislatures
had the authority to legislate in respect of all other matters. But the
distribution of powers, remarks Justice Munir, was qualified in favour
i
<1
of the Centre in so many respects that as a matter of constitutional law
and political science it was impossible to describe the Constitution (of
1962) as federal.9
The popular mass movement which started in 1968 against Ayub
Khan's autocratic system rejected his Presidential Constitution and put
forward demands for restoring parliamentary form of government and
enlarged
area
of provincial
autonomy.
These
demands
were
incorporated in the 1973 Constitution which made the Prime Minister
the Chief Executive of the Federation (Article 90). Under clause (3) of
I
the same Article, the Prime Minister and the Federal Ministers were
made collectively responsible to
the National
Assembly, thus,
establishing political supremacy of the people through a directly elected
Assembly. The Constitution also enlarged the area of provincial
autonomy by inserting Special Provisions on Council of Common
Interests and Article 161 which entitled the provinces to receive net
proceeds of the federal duty of Excise and royalty on natural gas
(clause 1) and net profits earned by the Federal Government from the
I
I
bulk generation of power at a hydro-electric station situated in that
province (clause 2). This svstem based on the supremacy of the people
and genuine federalism was subverted by the authoritarian forces of
Martial Law in 1977. The Martial Law period (1977-85) not only
ended parliamentary democracy, it also set up, practically, a Unitarian
11
I
fr
II
i»
[ 16]
l>
II
»
I
i
'I
I
I
system in which Chief Martial Law Administrator wielded all the
powers.
A survey of the last 50 years of Pakistan's political history would
reveal that there has been a constant struggle between the forces
representing colonial legacy and popular forces championing the cause
of democracy and decentralization. The forces representing the colonial
li
legacy, i.e. bureaucracy have always tried to concentrate all the powers
in the hands of the Centre, particularly head of the state be he a
Governor-General or President, and curtail the limits of provincial
>1
autonomy. A centralized political system best serves the inteiests of
bureaucracy and negates the principles of democracy. This is why the
[>
bureaucratic elements have always been comfortable with authoritarian
»
regimes like that of Ayub Khan and General Zia-ul-Haque.
i»
i
»
The centralized political system has not only caused a setback to
>
democracy in Pakistan, it has also damaged federation and was,
>
therefore, ultimately responsible for the break up of the country in
I-
1971. The political history of Pakistan shows that the parliamentary
F
democracy and genuine federalism are inextricably linked with each
other. During the debates on the future constitution of Pakistan in the
h
b
>
First Constituent Assembly a few members belonging to the ruling
Muslim League party had recommended unitary form of the state and a
presidential (Khilafat) form of government for Pakistan, on the plea
I
that these systems were nearer to Islam. Their views were opposed by
I
those elements who believed that only parliamentary democracy could
»
guarantee genuine federalism and liberal democratic culture. Thus, the
I
I
i
>
i
i
[ 17]
1956 Constitution which provided more provincial autonomy as
compared to the Government of India Act,
1935, was also a
J
parliamentary Constitution. Despite the fact that Objectives Resolution
•I
ci
was made a preamble, the 1956 Constitution guaranteed the supremacy
of the Parliament and rejected Ulema's demand for establishing the
i
I
supremacy of the Shariat.
4<L
«■
Under the 1962 Constitution, Pakistan ceased to be a federal
state because it replaced parliamentary form of government with a
presidential form of government.
Ayub Khan set up a highly
<
centralized political system which made the provinces completely
dependent upon the Centre. The control of the centre over the
provinces could only be ensured through a system based on a
had supported the sister of the Quaid-i-Azam, Mohtrama Fatima
Jc
Jinnah, had originally demanded the restoration of 1956 Constitution
1
presidential form of government. The opposition political parties who
which provided for parliamentary form of government. They had also
opposed Ayub Khan's system of Basic Democracies and indirect
elections. But they had not included the enlargement of provincial
autonomy as one of their demands while launching movement against
Ayub Khan under Combined Opposition Parties (COP) and Democratic
Action Committee (DAC). But the mass movement of 1969-70 which
was joined by industrial workers, students, professional groups like
lawyers, teachers, other government employees and shopkeepers made
'■
1 5it
Ii
’i
f
the increase in the quantum of provincial autonomy as the principal
e
demand of their protest movement. It clearly shows that whenever
i
J1
-3
U
Is)
[»
Id
Id
»
»
»
[18]
1
masses had a chance to express their feelings, they have given their
verdict in favour of parliamentary democracy and greater provincial
autonomy. Similar were the demands of Movement for Restoration of
Democracy (MRD) which was launched in 1981 against the Martial
Law of General Zia-ul-Haque. The MRD grouped all the major
»
political parties of Pakistan including Pakistan Peoples Party who
demanded restoration of 1973 Constitution, end to Martial Law and
»
election within 90 days. It also issued a charter of demands for greater
provincial autonomy, suggesting that the Centre should retain only four
)
subjects, namely defence, foreign affairs, currency and communication,
while other subjects should be handed over to the provinces.
I
J
l>
l»
MRD could not mount a country-wide agitation against General
Zia-ul-Haque, but in Sind the Movement created quite an important
impact. It could not force General Zia to accede to its demands, but it
definitely contributed towards finally ending the Martial Law and
>
civilization of Zia regime in 1985.
»
>
I
)
I
1
)
I*
I
A combination of domestic and external factors forced General
Zia to lift Martial Law in 1985 and allow elections on non-party basis
for the National Assembly. But before formally ending the Martial
Law, General Zia got the Assembly approve a package of amendments,
popularly known as Eighth Amendment which put serious limitations
on Assembly's ability to function as a sovereign body. The most
important of the provisions added to the original Constitution through
Eighth Amendment was Article 58-2(6) which gave the President
power to dissolve the assemblies in his own discretion. There were
4
,1
4K
[ 19]
other matters as well in respect of which President s discretionary
powers were increased. Zia-ul-Haque, thus, revived the concept of a
powerful head of the state to act, in continuation of the colonial
tradition, as bulwark against popular political forces, Behind this
bulwark the entrenched powers of civil and military bureaucracy
further consolidated their position to prevent the democratic process
from reaching its logical conclusion, the political supremacy of the
people.
It is not only in the political arena that colonial legacy vie with
democratic forces for supremacy, in the economic realm the struggle is
even more intense and visible. The British had kept India as a source of
cheap raw materials and paid scant attention to industrialization; but
<;
Pakistan was even less industrialized than India. The post-independence
political leadership did not pay sufficient attention to the tasks of
economic development. The First Five Year Plan was commissioned in
1955. The Plan did not receive formal approval of the Government till
1957. The country which enjoyed surplus in food as late as 1952,
moved to suffer a continuous and critical food shortage in almost every
subsequent year. 10 Writing about Pakistan's economic performance in
early years, Gunar Myrdal observes.
“Towards the end of first decade of independence there
was an all round decline in food production. The rate of
growth of industrial production was slowing down, not
1
1
1
least because of inadequate supplies of spare parts or raw
materials. At about the same time, Pakistan experienced its
<1
.1
[20]
largest balance of payments deficit. These symptoms of
creeping economic paralysis, together with disaffection in
the east wing, failure to initiate any effective land reforms
in the west wing, pressure of inflation, distrust of the new
industrial class, and rampant corruption, produced a
>
I
general demoralization in public affairs, and an even
deeper mistrust of the professional politicians. It was in
these conditions that the army and General Ayub Khan
took over in October 1958 and imposed Martial Law.”11
The situation has not changed much after four decades. Despite
impressive achievements in the industrial and agricultural sectors, the
economy of Pakistan is still in precarious condition. Pakistan's
economy is still heavily dependent upon agriculture which, according
to Pakistan Economic Survey: 1996-97, constitutes 24 percent of Gross
Domestic Product, accounts for half of employed labour force and is
>
I
the largest source of foreign exchange earnings.12 In spite of the larger
sphere of the agriculture, gross disparities in income and social
»
»
►
indicators exist between the rural and urban areas, Pakistan's
Economic Survey admits lower standard of living for rural population
compared to its urban counterpart. This fact is attributed to its poor
possession of productive assets, high under-employment and lack of
I
I
!
socio-physical infrastructure.13 In education, especially in female
education, with literacy rate of 38.9 percent (50 percent male and 27
percent female), Pakistan still lags behind many countries of the world.
l
(•
[21 ]
In the area of trade Pakistan has been suffering from an
imbalance for most of the years. We have been having a trade deficit in
almost all years except for the three years, i.e. 1947-48, 1950-51 and
1972-73.
The most serious problem is presented by external debt liability.
According to Pakistan Economic Survey. 1996-97, the disbursed and
H
I
1
outstanding debts (medium and long-term) in the year (1956-97) was
estimated at $ 23,016 million compared with $ 22,275 million of 1995-
I
96 which indicated a growth of 3.3 percent. As a percent of GDP it
rose from 34.44 percent in 1995-96 to 35.85 percent in 1996-97.
Likewise the debt service payments in 1996-97 were projected to
increase by 8.10 percent to $ 2,309 million against $ 2,136 million in
!.l
1995-96. It may be around 3.60 percent of GDP in 1996-97 against
3.30 percent in 1995-96. Liability to disbursed and outstanding debt
during 1990-91 to 1996-97 grew at an average annual rate of 6.28
I
percent and payments on debt servicing at an average annual rate of
9.47 percent.14
From growing trade deficit and mounting debt burden it can very
easily be inferred that Pakistan like other developing countries is still a
vicum of old system of colonial relationships. Colonialism in the old
form has been replaced by a new set of relationships which bind the
poor with the rich countries based on loans with high interest rates and
trade with extremely unfavourable terms for the former. On national
level, the vast majority of the people continue to be without basic needs
like health, education, sanitation and clean drinking water. Despite the
[22]
substantial economic growth that has taken place during the last four
decades, poverty remains widespread. According to Dr. Mahbub-ul-
t
I
Haque, this is the result of “powerful inter-locking of feudal-industrial
interests, which pre-empt most of the gains of development.”15 Take,
I
for example, the countries of South Asia. The region has 22 percent of
world's population yet its share of global real income is meagre 6
percent. The region has a massive share of the world's total illiterate
population (46%) — over twice as high as its share of the world's total
population. Pakistan's position in terms of gap between economic
performance and human development is one of the most unfavourable
among a large number of countries. As Dr. Mahbub-ul-Haque
observes:
I
!
“There are few countries in the world which show a larger
gap between their performance on economic growth and
human development than does Pakistan. In economic
terms, Pakistan's real per capita income is about 75
percent higher than India's. Yet Pakistan lags behind India
in adult literacy and most other social indicators. The
comparison is even more stark with Sri Lanka wnich is
h
comparable to Pakistan in terms of per capita income.
Pakistan's adult literacy rate is 36 percent compared to 90
i
percent in Sri Lanka, and its average life expectancy is ten
years lower than Sri Lanka on the Human Development
Index (according to the ranking in the Human Development
Report 1996), even though the difference in their per
I
[23]
capita income ranks in only 22. In other words, the
difference between the human development ranks of
Pakistan and Sri Lanka is twice as high as the difference in
their income ranks, showing how poorly Pakistan has
translated its income into an improvement in the lives of
its peop’^
Overall, Pakistan's real income per capita
increased by 231 percent during the period 1970 to 1993,
which was by far the highest rate of growth in South Asia.
Unfortunately, Pakistan's social progress during this
period does not correspond to such an increase in
economic prosperity."16
Dr. Mahbub-ul-Haque attributes this state of affairs to a number
of factors: prominent among them, according to him, are: a very
skewed income distribution; the absence of any meaningful land
reforms; non-existence of income tax on agricultural incomes; an
overwhelming reliance of fiscal policy on indirect rather than direct
taxes; the heavy burden of defence and debt servicing on limited
budgetary resources, political domination by a rentier class that pre
empts the patronage of the state in its own favour and a very corrupt
ruling elite.17 All these factors are the product of the pattern of socio
economic relations which colonialism during its long rule fostered to
serve its own interests and those of few who were coopted for their
collaborationist role in keeping the people of their region suppressed.
The leading group in this regard is that of feudal lords who even
after 50 years and a series of half-hearted, land reforms in 1959, 1972
1
■II
[24]
and 1977, continue to dominate political process to the detriment of
I
interests of the vast majority of the people. The successive land
reforms have failed to break big land-holdings. According to the
Federal Land Commission of Pakistan, only 1.8 million hectares (or
less than 8 percent of the country's cultivated area) has been resumed
so far, of which 1.4 million hectares have been distributed to 288,000
beneficiaries. Many large land-owners managed to keep their holdings
within an extended joint family framework and have given up only
some marginal, least productive and swampy lands. The fatal flaw in
these land reforms has been that the ruling class itself owned most of
the land and it was not prepared to commit hara kiri by implementing
I
any effective land reforms. Land ownerships still remain highly
concentrated; over half of the total farm land is in the form of 50 acres
or more.
The owners of these large land farms wield considerable
influence in politics and dominate Pakistan's political culture. Their
influence in electoral politics is especially decisive. For example, when
during the first term (1990-1993) the government of Prime Minioter
I*
Mian Nawaz Sharif made an attempt to impose an agricultural income
tax through legislation in the provincial assemblies, he was frustrated
by strong opposition from the provincial legislators, particularly Punjab
where MPAs from feudal dominated southern part constituted the
majority. In 1993 elections which were held after Nawaz Sharif was
forced to quit over a row with President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, southern
Punjab's swing to Pakistan Peoples Party enabled Benazir Bhutto to
r,
[25]
become prime minister for the second time (1993-96) and capture
Punjab — the largest province of the country — in alliance with a
break-away faction of Pakistan Muslim League. After regaining power
in February 1997 elections, the government of Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif imposed Agricultural Income Tax, but its rate has been kept so
low that it constitutes a very small portion of revenue collection.
CONCLUSION
Even after 50 years of its independent political life Pakistan's
political, economic, legal, social and other systems are overshadowed
by colonial legacy. The main reason responsible for lingering colonial
I
legacy are: weak political forces and institutional instability caused by
frequent breakdowns of the democratic political process and imposition
of Martial Laws. Under the impact of colonial legacy, Pakistan's
political system exhibits a strong tendency towards centralization and
concentration of authority in few hands. Despite the fact that there has
been a progressive enlargement of the area of provincial autonomy
from 1947 to 1973, legislative, administrative and financial relations
between the Centre and the provinces show heavy bias in favour of the
former. The frequent Martial Laws have led to the strengthening of
those forces whose interests are linked with strong Centre and limited
area of provincial autonomy. These forces have not allowed a fair
distribution of resources among all the four federating units and even
prevent implementation of the provisions on provincial autonomy. This
is evident from the persistent complaints from the smaller provinces
that Centre has not released their share of funds, causing financial
I
j
»
[26]
crisis in these provinces. Under the Constitution, the Province of
Balochistan has been given a share in the proceeds from income from
gas; while NWFP is entitled to get income from hydro-electric
generation. Both these provinces, however, have serious complaints
against the Centre for denying them their share of income from gas and
electricity. The arbitrary and repeated dismissal of assemblies under
»
(now omitted) Article 58-2(£>) of the constitution also demonstrated the
►
authoritarian trends of the political system of Pakistan. This lethal
)*
provision of the constitution was used four times (1988, 1990, 1993
>
and 1996) in eight years against the elected representative institutions.
<
Each
time,
not only the National
Assembly and
the Federal
Government but all the four provincial legislatures and provincial
governments
were
also
dismissed.
These
undemocratic
actions
seriously undermined provincial autonomy and weakened federal
structure.
0
However, democratic transition and growing trends towards
globalization hold bright prospects for greater decentralization and
I;
devolution of power which will ultimately dismantle the vestiges of
I
the main thrust of democratization process has been in the direction of
colonialism.. Pakistan's political history of the last 50 years shows that
I
decentralization and greater provincial autonomy. In fact democracy in
Pakistan has been suppressed through frequent military interventions
li
also to thwart the movement towards decentralization and provincial
autonomy. This is why whenever there has been a movement for the
restoralion of democracy, il has invariably and inevitably been linked
L.
I
[27]
i
with demands for decentralization and greater provincial autonomy. As
<1
the process of democratization surges ahead, the political system of
Pakistan will become more decentralized and the area of provincial
autonomy would be further enlarged.
The growing trends towards globalization is also bringing about
a radical transformation in the outlook of power elite on all the major
domestic and foreign policy issues, and causing re-adjustment of
I
relationship between various components of Pakistan's political system.
The end of the Cold War, disintegration of the former Soviet Union
I
and globalization has forced the nations to re-define their national
priorities and put greater emphasis on economic development and trade
expansion than on the military build up. These changes have
strengthened the process of democratic transition, which though may be
faced with many hurdles and in some cases has suffered setbacks, has
become irreversible. In Pakistan's case, the success of parliamentary
democracy against the onslaught of authoritarian forces who wanted to
re-assert the primacy of head of the state over an elected and
representative parliament, is a clear illustration of strength and
confidence of popular democratic forces in the back drop of
democratization and globalization.
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NOTES
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Government of Pakistan, Finance Division, Economic Adviser's Wing, Pakistan
Economic Survey 1996-97 Islamabad, 1997) p. 179.
Chaudhary, G. W., Constitutional Development in Pakistan (London, Longman) p. 26.
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In November, 1950, all the major political parties held a Convention in Dacca (Dhaka).
The Convention was held to protest against the constitutional proposals contained in the
First Report of the Basic Principles Committee of Pakistan's Constituent Assembly. The
proposals had drastically curtailed the area of provincial autonomy. While rejecting these
proposals, the Convention had demanded that only foreign affairs, currency and defence
should be given to the centre. (G. W. Chaudhary, Ibid) p. 72.
4The Government of India Act, 1935 (with Indian Independence Act, 1947, as adopted in
Pakistan by Constitutional Order, 1947, and amended upto April 1955 (Lahore, The All
Pakistan Legal Decisions, 1955).
5Chaudhary, op. cit., p. 31.
6MacGrath, Allen, The Destruction of Pakistan's Democracy (New York, Oxford
University Press, 1996) p. 41.
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Chaudhary, op. cit., p. 119.
Munir, M., Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Lahore, All Pakistan Legal
Decisions, 1965) p. 250.
^Ibid, p. 448. Commenting on the federal character of the 1962 Constitution, Justice
Munir opines that the system set up under the 1962 Constitution “was not a form of
Federation but a decentralized Unitarian Government.” Ibid, p. 70.
I0Myrdal, Gunar, Asian Drama-. An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, Volume I
(Penguin Books, 1968) p. 322.
nIbid, p. 323.
1
"Pakistan Economic Survey, op. cit., p. 9.
13Ibid, p. 7.
14Ibid, p. 87.
l5Mahbiib-ul-Haqiie, Human Development in South Asia (Karachi, Oxford University
Press, 1997) p. 37.
l6lbid. pp. 37, 38.
17Ibid, p. 38.
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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
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COLONIALISM and GLOBALIZATION
Five Centuries after Vasco da Gama
February 2-6, 1998
New Delhi, India
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GLOBALIZATION: THE THIRD WORLD
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Roberto Verzola
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President, Asia Pacific Communications
Manila
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Globalization: The Third Wave
By
Roberto Verzola
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Roberto Verzola is the coordinator of Interdoc, a loose international network of non-government
organizations (NGOs) which is tracking the impact of the emerging global information economy on
developing countries and on social movements. He is also the secretary-general of the Philippine
Greens, a political formation dedicated towards building self-sufficient communities guided by the
principles of ecology, social justice and self-determination. He makes a living operating an
electronic mail service for NGOs, and is an electrical engineer by training. This paper will be
presented at the international conference "Colonialism To Globalization: Five Centuries After
Vasco da Gama", sponsored by the Indian Social Institute (ISI) on February 2-7, 1998, in New
Delhi, India ]
Our common colonial experience
We are all familiar with colonialism. The dates may have varied; the colonizing country
may have been different; but the main features of our common colonial experience were basically
the same:
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Using superior military technology, the colonizing power forcibly imposed its rule oxer our
peoples, at great cost to us in terms of human lives and suffering and in terms of human and
natural ecology.
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Military conquest was very often preceded — and most certainly followed — by the imposition
of new religions and cultures, which facilitated subjugation by dulling the impulse to resist or
diluting the desire to free ourselves from colonial clutches. The effects of such cultural
implantation on our minds have lingered and continued to do their damage, keeping us in
mental bondage long after the last colonizing soldier has left our soil. Soon, the colonial mind
started to take for real the masks worn by the colonizers and the words they used to deceive
their victims, such as "we bring you Christianity"; "we bring you civilization"; "we will teach
you democracy"; etc. - As soon as resistance was quelled, the colonizing power set up a
colonial administration, run at lower levels by people culled from local elites, many of whom
decided to work hand-in-hand with their colonial masters to preserve their wealth and
privileges.
•
As the colonial bureaucracy was put in place, the process of drawing out our wealth then began.
Over the centuries, the colonizing powers enriched themselves immeasurably by drawing
human and natural resources from our lands - human slaves, indentured labor, tributes,
precious metals and other minerals, logs and lumber, colonial crops cultivated on seized
indigenous lands, and so on. At the very foundations of the richest countries of today, are the
broken remains of our own ancestors and the wealth plundered from their communities.
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The colonizers brought with them the practices of plantation agriculture, large-scale logging,
large-seal'* mining, and other unsustainable technologies, which were meant for plunder and for
maximizing exploitation and profits. These unsustainable practices replaced the sustainable
indigenous practices our pre-colonial peoples had relied on for centuries.
•
The impact on the people and their communities was grievous. We lost our right to selfdetermination and our freedoms. We lost our wealth through colonial plunder. Our best lands
were seized for colonial tillage. Indigenous communities lost their rights to their lands. The
impact on nature was equally disastrous. Colonial occupation was invariably marked with
plunder of our natural resources and the introduction of monoculture in direct contrast to the
much more sustainable and ecological practices of our pre-colonial past.
•
During this period, the colonial powers that took over the globe were mercantilist and, later,
early industrial powers. Often operating their own State monopoly corporations, they scoured
the globe in search of slaves, tradeable goods or raw materials, and bases for their colonial
operations.
This period of colonialism may be called the first wave of globalization.
A range of anti-colonial responses
The independence struggles waged by our peoples in response to this wave of globalization.
are also familiar to all students of history. Many of these independence struggles were eventually
resolved through successful armed revolutions. We in the Philippines, for instance, commemorated
in 1W the centennial of our own revolution against Spain - one of the first of the national
independence movements that eventually emerged in this part of the globe.
In other countries, a peaceful withdrawal of occupation forces and turnover of formal
political power to the local elites was effected, very often retaining the same colonial set of laws,
bureaucracv and armed forces that had served the foreign masters. Again recalling our own
experience.' the newly-born Philippine republic that emerged out of our 1896 revolution was
aborted, and our painful colonial experience extended for another half a century, as the United
States (U S ) used superior military power to wage a genocidal war against the newly-independent
Filipinos, imposing an equally plunderous colonial regime on our lands and peoples. In 1946 the
Americans peacefully turned over formal political rule to the local elites, after first making sure that
the 'newly-independent' Republic of the Philippines was bound by economic and military treaties
that belied claims of genuine sovereignty.
Where independence was won by arms - in China, for example - the colonial economic
and political interests had to beat a full retreat. They lost their territorial rights and their businesses,
their properties confiscated and nationalized. Where independence was 'granted' to a local e ite
which had been trained by their colonial masters, the latter still had to put up with some nationalist
efforts bv locals to regain control of their economy. These took the form of foreign ownership
limits profit remittances restrictions, local content requirements, export quotas, and other attempts
to regulate foreign businesses. In the Philippines, for instance, foreigners were allowed a maximum
of 40% ownership in corporations, and were excluded from specific areas like media an
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communications, natural resources exploitation, the professions, and retail trade. The latter
restriction, by the way, exempted Americans by virtue of a post-war agreement the Philippines was
forced to enter into, under threat by the U.S. to withhold any post-war aid if several treaties it
wanted were not ratified.
The corporate counter-response
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During this post-colonial period, the role of global capital expanded, partly due to internal
developments in their home countries; and partly as a counter-response to independence
movements and economic nationalism. Having lost direct control over their colonies, global capital
sought and became better at indirect control; military aggression was replaced by culture
aggression and economic control. By this time, internal developments within the colonizing powers
themselves had prepared their economies for this shift: many of them had reached the late industrial
stage of development. Huge private corporations in partnership with governments had accumulated
vast amounts of financial wealth, turning money itself into a major commodity. These corporations
needed new markets and investment areas, rather than colonial territories that were becoming more
and more difficult and costly to retain politically and militarily.
We are also familiar with these post-colonial developments.
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Again, they masked their real intention of drawing wealth from our lands and communities with
such pretexts as: "we bring jobs"; "we bring technology"; "we will lend you money for
development"; "we will protect you from communism"; and so on.
•
Instead of relying on military conquest, these global corporations worked closely with elite- led
governments, particularly those local classes whose economic interests coincided closely with
their former masters. Often, the local police and armed forces were flooded with aid, to win
their loyalty and service.
•
The post-colonial bottom line was no different: the extraction of wealth. This occurred through:
unequal trade (depressed prices for our agricultural commodities, monopolistic prices for their
industrial manufactures); high interest rates on foreign loans; using loan conditionalities to
exact further concessions; quick and massive profit repatriation; and low wages. By retaining
post-colonial dominance and control in the economic and cultural spheres, post-colonial wealth
extraction could proceed unabated.
•
Chemical agriculture was introduced to intensify the production of export crops, causing
widespread poisoning and damage in the countryside. Exploitation of our natural resources
intensified, and energy generation projects such as huge dams, coal and oil plants, and nuclear
plants in some cases ravaged the country side.
•
The development of a natiowide mass media infrastructure served to further strengthen the
colonial hold on local minds, to create and expand markets, and to ensure a friendly
environment for foreign investments and foreign products.
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The second wave of globalization
This post-colonial wave may be called the second wave of globalization, where industrial
countries and global corporations would range across the globe for investment areas, industrial
markets, trading partners, and sources of cheap labor and raw materials.
This wave has gone through several phases, reflecting the progress of an unequal contest
between powerful countries strengthened by the immense wealth they had drawn from colonial
\ ictims on the one hand, and the new ly-independent nations weakened by centuries of plunder and
exploitation on the other hand.
The early-independence phase was often marked by intense economic nationalism, as local
economic interests tried to mobilize their government to enhance their economic sovereignty while
global corporate interests fought to retain their colonial privileges.This phase saw the adoption of
economic protectionist measures meant to strengthen local capital vis-a-vis foreign capital.
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The second phase saw a succession of crises that included the oil shocks of the 70's, the debt
crises of the 80's, the socialist crisis of the early 90’s, and the financial crisis of the late 90's, which
is still going on. Socialism had earlier provided a counter-balance to global corporations and their
governments, as well as a possible alternative path for independence movements. These crises
weakened the capacity, the will, and the overall position of the former colonies and enabled global
corporations to launch major counterattacks in order to regain much of the colonial power and
privileges they had lost during the economic-nationalist phase.
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The post-colonial counterattacks by global corporations mark the third phase of this second
wave. Many countries, despite having freed themselves from centuries of colonial rule, then lost
much of their economic sovereignty to corporate-controlled international institutions such as the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organization
(WTO). Through loan conditionalities, structural adjustment programs, and other means, many
nationalist laws and provisions gained by earlier anti-colonial independence movements were
undermined and dismantled. Some authors - Chakravarty Raghavan, for example - have called
this phase a process of "recolonization”, a return of colonial privileges for global corporations.
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The impacts of this wave of globalization are no less destructive than the colonialism that
preceded it. Our agricultural products consistently suffer from low prices; our workers from low
wages. We are losing much of our capital due to profit repatriation and the debt crisis; chemical
farming is taking away our food security and putting it in the hands of global chemical and seed
conglomerates. We enjoy national sovereignty in name only. We are suffering from widespread
ecological disasters, triggered by intensive resource extraction, disruptive energy projects, and toxic
pollution. Our forests, mines and quarries are being quickly depleted; our air, water and soil heavily
contaminated; and pervasive monoculture is seriously threatening our biodiversity.
This part of our history and current events should also be familiar to most of us.
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Alert: the third wave is coming
We are still in the midst of the second wave of globalizaation, yet a third one has already
emerged. The third wave of globalization began to be felt worldwide in the last half of the 1990's
and will probably express its Overwhelming presence in full force at the dawn of the 21st century.
This looming third wave is the global information economy.
Like the first two waves, the third globalization wave arose from internal developments
within the hearts of the global powers. It is important to look at these internal developments,
because they will, as in the past, eventually impinge on the rest of the world - including our own —
often shaping our destinies and steering our development in directions we never wanted to take.
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The colonial powers were mercantilist and, later, industrial countries in their early
expansionist stages. The post-colonial powers were industrial countries in their late stages, when
capitalism had developed further, combining industrial and finance capital into huge monopolistic
conglomerates in continual search for new acquisitions, sources of cheap raw materials and labor,
and markets. The third wave of globalization is marked by the emergence and eventual dominance,
within the most advanced industrial countries, of the information sector -- the sector that produces,
manipulates, processes, distributes and markets information products.
There is enough literature that describes the dominance of the information sector in the U.S.
One of the earliest is a landmark study by Marc Porat, who analyzed some 201 industries in the
United States in 1967. Here's an account of Porat's study (Megatrends bv John Naisbitt, 1982):
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"Porat sorted through some 440 occupations in 201 industries, identified the information
jobs, and compiled their contribution to the GNP. Questionable jobs were excluded so that the
study's conclusions err on the conservative side. "Porat's study is incredibly detailed. He begins
with the obvious sorting-out and tallying-up of the economic value of easily identifiable
information jobs such as clerks, librarians,
systems analysts, calling this first group the Primary
Information Sector. According to Porat's calculations for the year 1967, 25.1 percent of the U.S.
GNP was produced in the Primary Information Sector, that is, the part of the economy that
produces, processes, and distributes information goods and services. Included here are computer
manufacturing, telecommunications, printing, mass media, advertising, accounting and education,
as well as risk-management industries, including parts of the finance and insurance businesses.
"But Porat's study goes on to deal with the more difficult questions that have overwhelmed other
researchers. How does one categorize those individuals holding information jobs with
manufacturers and other noninformation firms? To answer this question required 'tearing firms
apart in an accounting sense into information and non-information parts. "Porat creates a new
information grouping called the Secondary Information Sector. It quantifies the economic
contribution of information workers employed in noninformation firms. "These workers produce
information goods and services for internal consumption within goods-producing and ohter
companies. In effect their information products are sold on a fictitious account to the goodsproducing side of the company. The Secondary Information Sector generated an additional 21.1
percent of the GNP. "Porat's study concludes, then, that the information economy accounted for
some 46 percent of the GNP and more than 53 percent of the income earned. This was in 1967."
This was also before the widespread use of satellite communications, fax machines, cell phones.
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cable television, personal computers and, of course, the Internet. Today, there is no doubt that the
information sector is the dominant sector of the U.S. economy, making the U.S. the leading
information economy in the world.
A global information economy
The increasing dominance of the information sector in what had been industrial economies
is turning them into information economies. These emerging information economies — principally
the U.S. and to a lesser extent some countries of Europe - are at the core of the third wave of
globalization. Because of the way these economies are so closely interconnected, they are better
seen as a single emerging global infonnation economy. 7'he Internet is perhaps the most visible
portion of this economy - and certainly the one which has received the most media attention. This
emerging global information economy includes the global infrastructure for telecommunications,
data exchange, media and entertainment; the knowledge industries; the publishing industries; the
computer hardware and software industries; the emerging financial systems that will support online
transactions; the emerging global legal infrastructure based on the WTO. including the GATT and
the agreements in information technology, telecommunications and financial services; and the
biotechnology and genetic engineering industries.
Unlike the first two waves, the implications and consequences of the global information
economy are an unfamiliar phenomenon to most of us. There are so many new things, so many new
possibilities, that it is quite difficult to separate the chaff from the grain, the hype from the
substance.
1 his is what this final portion of my paper will try to do.
Information: a closer look
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Let us look closely at the archetypal information product: information stored in a magnetic
medium. It can be software on a diskette, databases on hard disks, an audio casette, or a video
casette. Remember that the product is not the medium but the message; it is neither the disk nor the
tape, but their contents. The same medium with a different message is a different product; the same
message on a different medium is the same product. Other forms of information, like books and
other printed publication, live audio and video information, drawings and designs, and genetic
information may now be easily transformed into their archetypal equivalent.
The distinctive feature of an information product is that it can be copied at little cost. The
cost of copying books is still on the high side, but the cost of copying electronic data is nearly zero.
Furthermore, we can give copies away without losing our own copy. This is true of software,
databases, songs, videos, designs, and most other information goods — including genetic
information.
In short, the cost of reproducing information — what the economist calls its marginal cost —
is ven- low and oftentimes approaches zero.
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In the last analysis, this feature is due to the very essence of information itself. Information
is non-material in its essence - a numeric measure of the uncertainty which it resolves. The non
materiality of information is the basis of its low reproduction cost, which may be driven lower and
lower by adopting representations that can be manipulated at lower cost. With today's digital
representations, the costs of reproducing and distributing information have reached historic lows as low as the cost of copying a diskette or downloading a file from an online server.
Low marginal cost leads to sharing
The low marginal cost of information has two major implications: one for those who use it,
and another for those who sell it.
For users, it encourages sharing. Many cultures, in fact, see knowledge as cial wealth - a
collective asset that is meant to be shared. These cultures -- including most Third World and
indigenous cultures - are therefore in close harmony with the very nature of information. When we
share software, for example, we are only being true to the nature of information and to our own
cultures.
But there are other cultures, where private property concepts have become more absolute
and where almost everything may be commodified. In these cultures -- often with capitalism at
their core - information has become an object of commodification and privatization. Culture itself
has become commodified, together with knowledge and life. They have become vehicles for profitmaking.
Profit-making mechanism: the monopoly
Let us look more closely at the mechanism of profit-making through information. First, the
seller turns information from a collective asset into private property. Then, copies are sold on the
market, at prices set by the ”owner'7seller. The near-zero marginal cost of reproducing information
now makes its selling price nearly pure profit. A diskette of software that may be copied for cents is
sold for fifty dollars. A CDROM that may be reproduced for three dollars is sold for three hundred.
To realize these extremely high profit margins made possible by the low maifilial cost of
information products, however, the seller must create an artifical scarcity of the product. We have
seen that information can now be easily copied by users themselves at practically no cost, creating
a natural abundance.which drives prices down. To keep prices and profit margins high, this natural
abundance that proceeds from the essence of information itself must be prevented. The seller does
it by essentially prohibiting sharing among users and acquiring from the State a monopoly in using
and making copies of the information product. This creates the artificial scarcity that drives prices
up and realizes for the seller the potential profits from high margins.
It is monopoly that creates the scarcity. Such monopolies are euphemistically known as
"intellectual property rights (IPR), the main form of ownership in an information economy. Ihey
are the mechanism for maintaining the high profit margins of those who control and sell
information products. IPRs have two major forms: copyrights (historically, limited monopolies
covering literary materials), and patents (historically, limited monopolies covering inventions). In
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recent years, as the information sector gained dominance and the propertied classes of this sector
increased their political and economic power, IPRs have been strengthened and extended to new
areas.
IPRs are, in reality, statutory monopolies. They are monopolies over information granted
through statutes, by the State. Those who control information through IPR are basically rentiers:
they make money by charging monopoly rents from users, who are threatened by State action
should they continue to practice information sharing. In the Philippines, monopolies represented by
the Business Software Alliance (BSA), in collaboration with the Philippine government, have
actually raided educational institutions and commercial shops to enforce their information
monopolies.
Conflicts within the information economy
Still, enforcing information monopolies is not simple. After all, information monopolies are
incompatible with the social nature of information. The deeply-ingrained cultural habits of
infonnation sharing and exchange continue to assert themselves, regardless of the will of
monopolists and their State protectors.
This is the dilemma within the emerging global information economy. On the one hand,
information itself is a highly social good; on the other hand, the forms of ownership are highly
monopolistic. On the one hand, users tend to share information goods; on the other hand, 1PR
holders insist on their monopolies. On the one hand, developing countries need the widest access to
various technology options at the least cost; on the other hand, rich and powerful information
economies control almost 90% of all the IPRs in the world today, and want to increase their control
further.
The basic conflict within the information sector is the incompatibility between the highly
monopolistic forms of infonnation ownership and the social nature of information. This conflict is
also expressed between users who want to share information freely and monopoly claimants who
want to prevent free sharing of information. It is further reflected in the conflict between
developing countries who need low-cost access to major bodies of information and information
economics which have established virtual monopolies over information. Historically, these
information economies are basically the same colonial powers that have exploited developing
countries over the centuries.
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The socializing tendency emanates from the nature of information itself, and can therefore
never he suppr sed. The monopolizing tendency emanates from the potentially high profit margins
in selling information and the economic and political power concentrated in infonnation
monopolies. The conflicts arising from these two opposing tendencies will drive the historical
development of the third wave of globalization.
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The richest man in the world, as well as several others among the ten richest, is a c> berlord.
The economic powers of cyberlords are immense, and these powers are increasingly being fell in
the political and diplomatic arena. Among U.S. negotiators, for instance, IPR - the mechanism
which gives software cyberlords their power -- is invariably a non-negotiable item in then agenda.
It is the partnership between information cyberlords, industrial cyberlords, and finance capitalists
which is the al the core of the third wave of globalization.
To sum up: an information economy i$ one whose infonnation sector has become the main
source of wealth, eclipsing its industrial and agricultural sectors. The products of industrial and
agricultural economies are material goods; the products of an information economy, however, are
non-material goods. The reproduction cost of information goods is very low'. This has led to the
widespread social practice of freely sharing and exchanging information. On the other hand, it also
promises extremely high profit margins, if the seller can monopolize information. Information
monopolies have become the main form of ownership in the information sector. The high profit
margins that they realize have led to a continuous movement of investment capital towards the
information sector, eventually making it the dominant sector of the economy and transioimmg die
economy into an information economy. The products of this information economy spread
worldwide, as people freely share and exchange information goods. Thus an infuimatiun economy
needs a global system for enforcing its monopolies as well as for gathering information materials,
tapping intellectuals and of course collecting payments worldwide. This leads to the globalization
of the infonnation economy and is the engine of the third wave of globalization. The main
propertied classes within the information economy are information cyberlords, who control
information content, industrial cyberlords, who control information infrastructures, and fmonce
capitalists, who control investment funds.
First to third waves: a comparison
Let us compare the emergence of the global information economy with the two previous
waves of globalization:
•
The first wave was after slaves, previous metals and lands for raising export crops; the second
wave w'as after new investment acquisitions, sources of rawr materials and labor, and industrial
markets. The third wave is after sources of mental labor, sources of information raw' materials,
and markets for information products. This is why the WTO pushed very hard to conclude as
soon as possible the agreements on information technology, telecommunications and financial
services.
•
The third wave requires freer movement of information across national boundaries. 1 ms has
helped erode further the power of the State. While the Slate itself operated corporate
monopolies during the first wave, and continued to be dominant over corporations during the
second wave, it is finding itself less powerful during the third w'ave. Global corporations are
now assuming the dominant role in the State-corporate partnership, in close collaboration with
supra-national institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB)
and the WTO.
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Snternal engine
Within the U.S., the high profit margins in the information sector is attracting more
investment capital towards this sector, away from the agricultural and industrial sectors. This is the
internal engine that is slowly transforming the U.S. economy into an information economy.
Within the emerging global information economy itself, monopoly concepts are already
well-established and are even expanding their coverage. One item, for instance, is always nonn^otUNe in the U.S. diplomatic agenda: intellectual property rights (IPR). These concepts are
increasingly dominating international legal systems through bilateral negotiations with the U.S. and
through the World Trade Organization (WTO). Thus, worldwide, pressure is increasing on
countries with non-monopolistic attitudes towards information to adopt the same U.S. legal system
that strictly protects IPRs.
However, the social nature of information continually asserts itself. Information abundance
created through user sharing and exchange keeps breaking through the artificial scarcity created by
information monopolies. The latest releases of popular software, songs or video immediately find
themselves being copied in every comer of the globe. In effect, information automatically
globalizes itself regardless of the will of those who insist in monopolizing them. Ironically,
information monopolists find their products better distributed in those parts of the globe where they
could not enforce their monopoly. They therefore insist on imposing monopolistic legal systems
upon the rest of the globe, so they can realize the same profit margins they enjoy in their monopoly
areas. Even one country that refuses to be part of this global legal system will pose a threat to their
global monopoly, thus they will exert every effort to bring it in. These monopolists will never leave
anv countrv — or any community - alone.
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the real engines of globalization's third wave.
This is also wlmt makes the information sector qualitatively different from the industrial and
aericulmrnl sectors. It justifies why the emergence of the global information economy must be
- - *instead• of~ simply a part of the second
------ d wave of globalization.
considered a distinct wave in itself,
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Information monopolies may be established not only by staking monopoly claims over
information content through IPR, but also by controlling the hardware infrastructure for
manip’dating ot distributing information. This infrastructure includes computer centers, voice and
data switching centers, communication lines, television and radio stations, satellite networks, cable
networi-s. cellular networks, printing presses, moviehouses, etc. Like their software counterparts,
the owners of the hardware infrastructure make money through monopoly rents, in the form of
subscription fees or per-use charges.
Because they earn their incomes from monopoly rents, the propertied classes of the
information sectors are rentier classes. They are the landlords of cyberspace, or cyberlords. The
content monopolies are owned by information cyberlords, and the infrastructure monopolies are
o^rcd by industrial cyberlords.
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As in the first two waves, the extraction of wealth from the rest of the world is likewise done
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. The third wave hides behind such phrases as
under a mask that hides real ;intentions,
"information at your finger tips",, "world without borders", "global village", instant access to the
world's libraries", "free ____________________
flow of information", or "TV with a million channels." - In reality, the
Global information economy imposes its own global rule to facilitate the wealth transfer. The
role of the nation-state shrinks, many of its functions taken over by private corporation.
National sovereignty is curtailed by supra-national institutions. Global corporations continue to
strengthen their'political voice and clout, and directly enter into partnerships with local elites
and local governments, often bypassing the host government as well as their own government.
Corporate control of information, communications, and media infrastructures is strengthened
through privatization and deregulation.
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In addition to the earlier forms of wealth extraction practised during the first and second waves,
new forms emerge or old forms acquire new importance. Monopoly rents become the main
form of wealth extraction. Because of the huge disparity in costs, trade between information
economies and other economies become even more unequal. Compare, for instance, a CDROM
which might sell for three hundred dollars, but whose production cost is around three dollars, to
a typical Philippine product like sugar, which, might sell for fifteen cents per pound. Much of
the three hundred dollars in the price of 2,000 pounds of sugar would barely cover the cost of
production, while much of the three hundred dollars in the. price of a CDROM would be profit.
Royalties from intellectual property rights (IPRs) and other income from information rents
assume major significance; technology makes possible high-speed, finely-tuned financial
speculation. As the importance of the nation-state recedes, corporations are able to purchase
State assets and public properties at bargain prices.
.
New technologies of exploitation are introduced. First wave technologies were designed for the
immediate plunder of our natural resources and human communities. Second wave technologies
were based on material exploitation and intensive energy utilization. Third wave technologies
are invariably information-based, centered on extracting the highest monopoly rents from the
control of information infrastructure or information content. The best example of a technology
that is at the leading edge of the third wave of globalization is the Internet. Advanced
information and communications technologies make possible the convergence of media,
entertainment, data, and communications. The application of information technology to genetic
engineering and biotechnologies has transformed these fields and made them fertile areas for
information monopolies, best illustrated by the patenting of life forms.
•
We are already starting to feel the impact of the third wave., Strengthening information
monopoly mechanisms will increase the cost and make more difficult access to new
technologies. As the global information infrastructure now being constructed reach the remotest
comers of our countries, we will be further flooded with all kinds of junk culture, easily
accessible with a few keystrokes, and the homogeneization of our cultures will reach new
levels. The reckless .experimentation with new life forms in the race to introduce new
commercial biotechnology products and services will lead to biological pollution from
genetically-modified organisms. Their potential for damage will be infinitely greater than
chemical pollutants because these organisms can reproduce by themselves, mutate and evolve.
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Driven by the logic of profit-making and rent-seeking, biotechnology will pose the greatest
threat to human health and survival.
Super-exploitation
The global information economy will also enable those with vast resources to concentrate
wealth further into their hands. To illustrate this capacity for super-exploitation unleashed by third
wave technologies: imagine a corporation which-can afford to automate its Internationa financ.a
transactions so that its computers could do a round-the-clock, unattended scan of the globa
financial markets for opportunities, make decisions automatically, and conclude a financia
transaction within three seconds or a buy-then-sell transaction pa.r within six seconds Such
facility backed up by vast financial resources, executing financial transactions and profitting from
them 'every 6 seconds. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, would be able to double its owners
investment funds, based on the following table:
Profit Margin for every
buy-then-sell transaction
Period it takes for
investment to double
1%
7 minutes________
69 minutes
o.i°o
0.01%
0.001%
0.0001%
0.00001%
—
T 1.6 hours________
4.8 days______
1.6 months_____
1.3 years________
WTro but the largest financial conglomerates would have the resources to set up and
maintain Tuch automatedfround-the-clock facilities with a global reach- We had better thinkaga.m
those among us who believe that the Third World can leap-frog second wave economies and r de
the third wave bv surfing the Web or by selling our agricultural and manufacturing commodit.es
and our cheaper labor over the Internet. What we face here is really a new personification of greed
one that has freed itself of distracting human feelings like love, compassion, chanty, guild fear
ot e emotions leaving only pure greed, unencumbered and free to pursue singlemmdedly the one
and onh thing that motivates it: profit. It is the search for profit by global corporations that is
powering the whole process.
These corporations have even acquired'their own rights, which are often more favorably
recognized than the rights of real persons. They have learned to nourish themselves and to grow by
feeding on nature people, and information. They have become increasingly aggressive in asserti g
theb freedoms ("liberalization"), overcoming government controls ("deregulation ) and in taking
over government activities ("privatization ).
Corporations had earlier shared global rule
themselves ("globalization").
with governments. Now, they want to rule it by
The colonization of our countries that began in the 16th century hasn't really stopped. It has
their unwanted rule, and squeeze
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improvement in technology, with each transformation of capital, a new way ot extracting wealth
from our shores is employed, continually enriching those who control the technology and our
economy while impoverishing us, destroying local livelihoods, ravaging our natural resources, and
poisoning our environment. The first wave has ebbed, but we are still deep within the second wave,
and the third wave has already started lapping our shores.
Responding to the third globalization wave
How do we respond to globalization? To the first wave, we responded with independence
struggles ranging from armed revolutions to peaceful lobbies for independence. Economically, our
responses ranged from outright confiscation and nationalization of foreign property, to negotiated
purchases of foreign corporations at full commercial prices. Thus, historically, vve can identify a
period of economic nationalism worldwide, when newly-iridependent countries in Asia, Africa and
Latin America tried to regain control of their economies through a range of policies favoring local
economic interests and institutions.
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Then came the post-colonial second wave of globalization, both in response to our
independence struggles and as a consequence of internal developments within the economies of
powerful countries themselves. Responses to this second wave have ranged from communist-led
armed struggles, to elite-led protectionist regimes. Many of these responses have floundered as
crises upon crises beset our countries, enabling former colonial masters to, recover much ot their
early privileges. In general, the second wave of globalization remains dominant over our national
and community life, having managed so far to counter all the various responses that have
confronted it.
We're still under the second wave, and now comes the third wave. How do we respond to
this new wave, and how should our response be related to our continuing efforts to confront the
second wave of globalization?
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A Green response
We can learn from some of the responses of social movements which have confronted
specific issues involving the information economy. An illustrative set of responses can be seen in
the program of the Philippine Greens for a non-monopolistic information sector. The following are
the major elements of this program (Society, Ecology and Transformation by the Philippine
Greens, 1997):
"1. The right to know. It is the government's duty to inform its citizens about matters that
directly affect them, their families or their communities. Citizens have the right to access these
information. The State may not use 'national security', ’confidentiality of commercial transactions',
or 'trade secret' reasons to curtail this right.
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"2. The right to privacy. The government will'refrain from probing the private life of its
citizens. Citizens have the right to access information about themselves which have been collected
by government agencies. The government may not centralize these separate databases by building
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a central database or by adopting a unified access key to the separate databases. Nobody will be
forced against their will to reveal any’infonnation they do not want to make public.
"3. No patenting of life forms. The following, whether or not modified by human
intervention, may not be patented: life forms, biological and microbiological materials, biological
and microbiological processes." Life form patenting has become a major global issue, as
biotechnology corporations move towards the direct manipulation and commercialization of human
genetic material. Biotech firms are engaged in a frantic race to patent DNA sequences,
microorganisms, plants, animal, human genetic matter and all other kinds of biological material, as
well as in all kinds of genetic modification experiments to explore commercial possibilities. We
much launch strong national and international movements to block these monopolistic moves and
experiments, and to exclude life forms and other biological material from our patent systems.
"4. The moral rights of intellectuals. Those who actually created an intellectual work or
originated an,idea have the right to be recognized that they did so. Nobody may claim authorship of
works or ideas they did not originate. No one can be forced to release or modify a work or idea if
he/she is not willing to do so. These and other moral rights of intellectuals will be respected and
protected.
"5. The freedom to share. The freedom to share and exchange information and knowledge
will be recognized and protected.. This freedom will take precedence over the information
monopolies such as intellectual property rights (IPR) that the State grants to intellectuals."
A specific expression of the freedom to share is the "fair-use" policy. This policy reflects a
historical struggle waged by librarians who see themselves as guardians of the world's storehouse
of knowledge, which they want to be freely accessible to the public. Librarians and educators have
fought long battles and firmly held their ground on the issue of fair-use, which allows students and
researchers access to copyrighted or patented materials without paying IPR rents. They have
recently been losing ground due to the increasing political power of cyberlords.
"6. Universal access. The government will facilitate universal access by its citizens to the
world's storehouse of knowledge. Every community will be enabled to have access to books, ■
cassettes, videos, tapes, software, radio and TV programs, etc. The government will set up a wide
range of training and educational facilities to enable community members to continually
expand
their knowhow and knowledge.
"7. Compulsory licensing. Universal access to information content is best implemented
through compulsory licensing. Under this internationally-practiced mechanism, the government
itself licenses others to copy patented or copyrighted material for sale to the public, but compels
the licensees to pay the patent or copyright holder a government-set royalty fee. This mechanism is
a transition step towards non-monopolistic payments for intellectual activity." Many countries in
the world have used and continue to use this mechanism for important products like
pharmaceuticals and books. Compulsory licensing is an internationally-recognized mechanism
specifically meant to benefit poorer countries who want to access technologies but cannot afford
the price set by IPR holders, but even the U.S. and many European countries use it.
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"8. Public stations. Universal access to information infrastructure is best implemented
through public access stations, charging at subsidized rates. These can include well-stocked public
libraries; public telephone booths; community facilities for listening to or viewing training videos,
documentaries, and the classics; public facilities for telegraph and electronic mail; educational
radio and TV programs; and public access stations to computer networks." Information
infrastructures are very expensive. Building national networks from scratch may take several
billion dollars. Providing a personal computer to each family may take a few more billion dollars.
Yet, much of these hardware will become obsolete within a few years of use, after w hich we will
again be forced to update the entire hardware infrastructure for several billion dollars more. The act
of participation seems to entrap us at once into becoming captive markets of infonnation
economies. How do we ensure access at a much lower cost? The answer is in universally-accessible
public facilities. In the same way that the problem of Third World transport is solved by public
transportation and not by a "one-family/one-car" policy, the problem of universal access in the
information sector can be solved by public work/access stations and not by a "one-family/onecomputer" policy.
Another approach in building public domain information’ tools is to support nonmonopolistic mechanisms for rewarding intellectual creativity. Various concepts in software
development and/or distribution have recently emerged, less monopolistic than IPRs. These include
shareware, freeware, "copyleft” and the GNU General Public License (GPL). The latter is the most
developed concept so far, and has managed to bridge the transition from monopoly to freedom in
the information sector. In the personal computer arena, for example.the most significant challenger
to the absolute monopoly of Microsoft Windows is the freely-available Linux operating system,
which is covered by the GPL.
The first step in breaking up monopolies may be competition. But competition eventually
leads to domination by the strong and those who can compete best, leading us back to monopolies.
Isn't it better to transcend competition and move further towards cooperation? This means a
stronger public sector and sharing meager resources to be able to afford expensive but necessary'
facilities. In the information sector, this means building information infrastructures, tools and
contents which are in the public domain.
"9. The best lessons of our era. While all knowledge and culture should be preserved and
stored for posterity, we need to distill the best lessons of our era, to be taught - not sold -to the
next generations. This should be a conscious, socially-guided selection process, undertaken with
the greatest sensitivity and wisdom. It is not something that can be left to profit-oriented
educational system, circulation-driven media, or consumption-pushing advertising”. These
responses must also be linked with ongoing struggles against the second wave of globalization. By
doing so, we can bring together the w'idest range of people, whose unity and joint action can bring
about a political structure that can comprehensively address the challenges of globalization.
As the Philippine Green program indicates, one of the tasks of such struggles is to develop a
non-monopolistic information sector, where intellectual activity is rewarded through nonmonopolistic mechanisms which are more consistent with the social nature of information. This
will involve a radical rethinking of property concepts in the information sector, reinforcing similar
demands for property restructuring in the industrial and agriculture sectors.
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Eventually, enough social forces should be mustered to confront squarely the powerful
forces of globalization. We can expect this historic confrontation to demand from us the same kind
of courage, sacrifice and heroism which the earlier anti-colonial struggles demanded from our
national heroes.
fcr|
‘ * ■ our children and grandchildren
How we rise up to this challenge will determine whether
neo-slaves
under a global system as cruel and heartless as the colonial system of old. or
will live as l
.
as free citizens living in communities where knowledge and culture are again freely-shared social
and not to enslave human
assets, where industrial machinery is appropriately designed to serve
:
labor, and where ecology is the organizing principle in agriculture.
Final lesson
There is one final lesson, among so many, that our own colonial past teaches us. The first
Spanish colony was set up in the Philippines in 1565. Over the next three centuries, colonization
would encroach on most of the archipelago, except the Muslims of Mindanao and the upland
indigenous tribes. Isolated rebellions would occur but could not shake Spanish rule. In 1864. a
public manifesto bv a Filipino priest'began a Propaganda Movement, which eventually awakened
our people's anti-colonial consciousness. In 1896, a full-scale revolution broke out. By 1898. the
revolution had for all intents and purposes defeated Spanish colonialism.
It took some three hundred years before we Filipinos shook off the colonial mentality that
immobilized most of our people and made them vulnerable to Spanish rule. The canipaign for the
Filipino mind took another thirty years to wdn. Within three years of anti-colomal armed struggle
against Spain, victory' was in sight.
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The struggle to unmask the colonial monster was ten to a hundred times more difficult than
the struggle to bring it down.
Let us keep this lesson in mind today, when we are yet at the early stages of unmasking the
monster of globalization. Let not the seeming immensity of this task cloud our vision of the futurewhen our communities and nations shall at last be free to chart their own destinies guided by the
principles of ecology, social justice and self-determination.
5 February 1998. Roberto Verzola
108 V.Luna Road Extension Sikatuna Village 1101 Quezon City, Philippines
Tel.: (63-2) 921-5165 Email: rverzola@phil.gn.apc.org
******
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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND COMMUNITY
RIGHTS
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Dr. Suman Sahai
Gene Campaign
J- 235/A Sainik Farms
Khanpur
New Delhi 1 10062
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In order to understand the frame work within which the new demand for IPRs on biological
materials has arisen, one will have to understand the recent developments and global trends
in the newest, most dominant technology of our times, biotechnology. Biotechnology
which was till now confined to the laboratory, has entered the market. Its handlers are not
the universities and scientific institutions anymore but increasingly the corporate sector.
The raw materials of biotechnology are genes and cells and living organisms like bacteria,
plants and animals, its tools are genetic engineering. That is the reason why genetic
resources like genes and cells are now on the centre stage oi international trade.
In today's market language, biotechnology spells mega- bucks. It is the most dominant
technolocy of this time. According to the projections of several reputed institutions,
biotechnology is slated to account for almost 60 to 70 percent of the global economy tor
atleast the next two to three decades. What is of special relevance is that biotechnology
covers a span of economic sectors which is unprecedented. It will play a role in fields as
diverse as mining, feedstock chemicals, energy, pharmaceuticals, enzyme mediate
processes and of course, agriculture which is the best developed branch of biotechnology
and also its most lucrative prize.
Although biotechnology has been used by human civilisations since long its impact on the
global economy is more recent. In agriculture, biotechnology has made possible that genes
conferring advantageous traits can be brought into food and cash crqps from any source. In
conventional plant breeding, genes (trails) could only be transferred within related species.
It was not possible for example, to take the disease resistance gene from tomato and put it
into wheat. With biotechnology this is possible, and being done. This approach can be
used with effect in breeding new varieties. This new technology is used to great advantage
in the pharmaceutical industry where drug production has been revolutionised for those
drugs that were originally obtained from animal and human tissues dike insulin. So is the
case with drugs like antibiotics derived from micro organisms.
The latest in this area of biotechnology is the news that vaccines can be produced in plants
because it is possible to introduce antibody producing genes into potatoes and peaches. It
seems entirely likely that soon it will be possible to harvest antibodies for vaccines from a
field. The implications are enormous for lowering the price of vaccines and opening new
vistas in medical care. The profits to be earned are mind boggling.The growing influence
of biotechnology can be seen in almost all sectors that relied on chemical processes to
produce products. Instead of a chemical reaction that brings molecules together from two
sources to “synthesise” a new product, in biotechnology, the gene synthesises the product
directly. The result is there are no toxic chemical wastes and biotechnology is much kinder
on the environment than the chemical industry.
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stronelv polluting industry creating acid lakes that are hard to clean
In the field of mining, a
~ being discovered for BIO-MINING. Bacterial strams are
up. new bacterial strains are
and iron, and they are being discovered for other
already being tried for gold, copper
ore to release the metal by ’’feeding” on the ore. In
metals. These bacteria break down the
’ i in a culture solution are simply poured over the orc.
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Rinched
.be digested m.Uri.l .ashed
the released metal can be
a»av Suddenly mih biotechnology il has become possible to exploit lose grade ores eshiuh
"Zmiuslh fctsible .id, existing methods. This is o spue,.un^ta,, u
mineral rich developing countries like India. These countries do no haxc t He nt state ot
the art technologies to exploit
grade orcs
ores and
and are therefore unable to exploit then .
ploit low
low grade
Unconventional applVilions in various economic sectors have made biotechnology a
S monevhpinner. 1. is the control over this technology that is bemg sought by
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■cene sinwlv because the battle for the political and economic control of the me
resources of the world has begun. This battle cannot be fought in laboratories, between
scientists Therefore it has been brought out onto trade fora where coiporate gladnmois t
seX rules Where trade sanctions can be used to force nations to grant access W he e a
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country's exports can be blocked till it agrees to the conditions demanded by western
nations with respect to its biological wealth.
This battle has been joined between the dexeloped and developing countries quite simply
because the genetic wealth of the world is concentrated almost exclusively in the tropical
muZs. thJ is in today’s developing countries. The biodiversity of this p anet is found m
the tropic il rain fore-ts. in the thousands of crop varieties in the liulds ol fa.me s ot all
tropical countries and in regions as disparate as the Andean mountains of South Aiiienm
the juneles of Borneo and Costa Rica and the fields and forests ol India and Nepal. 11
developed world has the technological tools needed to convert genes to produc s and then
to monev. It does not have the raw materials . Its forests are large monocultural tracts and
the diversitv in its fields and forests is limited. Its agriculture is based on the germp asm
the South. 'So conscious is the North of the limitations of its access to genet.c resources,
that it has been a subject of strategy planning for a long time.
ip Kendrick of the univerfitv of California at Davis which is the Mecca of agricultural
resX in the CSA. had warned many years ago that al 1 II we had only to rely on t e
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ecnetic resources now available in the US for the genes and recombinants needed to
minimise uenetic vulnerability of all crops into the future, we would soon exponents
losses equal to or greater than those caused by the Southern Leaf Blight several years
aoo atarapidlv accelerating tale across the entire crop speclrum.” In order to overcome
its limitations of raw material and to emerge as leaders of the commercial exploitation of
cenetic material, the corporate interests of the North need guaranteed and continued access
m the eenetic wealth located in the countries of the South. In order to ach.eve this he
governments of the developed countries have dreamed up stratagems ike GAI 1/ 1 Rl S
and the Biodiversity Convention. Undoubtedly others are being thought up to coerce the
countries of the South b\ using their economic vulnerability as a lever against t icm.
I
The position then is -hat on the one hand there are the developed countries which have the
cutting edge technology in the field of genetics and genetic engineering but have httle or no
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- -other -handI
the developing countries which are the repositories of
germplasm.
On the
the genetic wealth of this world. In addition to this they are also the repositories of
indigenous knowledge about how to use this wealth. In almost all cases the technological
strength of germplasm owning countries is weak but there are a few exceptions of which
India is perhaps the most outstanding. India .is one of those germplasm owning countries
that also have a good indigenous technology stand. This is because the enormous
investments made in agricultural research specially during the days of the Green
Revolution created a strong scientific cadre from scientist to technical assistant. The
combination of technology with germplasm, both its own, puts India in a unique position to
take advantage of the field of biotechnology and emerge as a global player in this field.
There are obvious reasons for this.
i.
India is a germplasm owning country and' iin South -South collaborations with other'
germplasm owning countries, it has access to
I a large range of genetic resources.
ii.
It has a high technology stand available within the country.
iii. Most of all it has a large repertoire of skilled manpower which makes available
comparative skills at half the cost. A technician in India getting Rs. 4000 per month is
about 15 times cheaper than a technician in Germany who would get at DM 2500 per
month, the equivalent of 62,500 rupees.
iv. The great thing about biotechnology from India s point of view is the cost of the
technology itself. Biotechnology unlike every other major technology to have developed in
recent times, is not capital but labour intensive. This is a tailor-made situation for a
country strapped for cash but rich in manpower.
This combination of fortuitous circumstances is the reason why GENE CAMPAIGN fights
for the protection of the country’s genetic resources. The Campaign’s sustained position
continues to be against patents and privatisation in this field. This is one modem
technology where we can be highly competitive and should not allow ourselves to be tied
up fry patent laws that are not of our own chosing. For the first time since independence,
India is in a position to be not just the consumer of a new technology but one of its
important producers.
AREAS OF CONCERN IN GATT/ TRIPS. WHAT POSITION SHOULD INDIA TAKE.
There are 3 areas of concern pertaining to the section on Intellectual Property Rights as is
relevant to biological materials, which is the crux of the IPR question for India.
1. Geographical indication.
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The protection based on Geographical Indication is to be found in Section 3 of TRIPS .
Article 22 as also 23 and 14 deal with the protection of goods that are geographically
indicated.
Basmati rice which is one of our specially export products needs to be protected in the
international market both for its “brand name”, as also for its genes. It is possible to do this
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under one of the clauses of the Intellectual Property Bights section that has so far not
received any attention in the public debates on GA 117 WTO.
‘ ‘ *”’ is of almost as much importance to our
This clause called “Geographical Indication
agriculture as patents
its ramifications
should be understood clearly by our
.3 on
on seeds,
seeds. Its
.—
government as also
also by
They should
should exploit this clause and use
by our
our rice
rice exporters.
exporters. They
monopolise select sections of the agriculture commodities market.
The need to protect the Basmati name and the Basmati germplasm is highlighted by the
fact that this specially rice variety has been hijacked by the Americans. The American
have recently begun to market a new product called Texbasmati or Texmati. This long
grain, fragrant rice is the basmati rice that is grown in Texas and other Americani s a .
TexBasmati is an infringement of the geographically indicated rights of India and Pakistan,
the two traditional Basmati growers and owners of Basmati germplasm.
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Basmati rice is associated with India and Pakistan as a product special to that region. It s
the same kind of association that France has with Champagne wine and Scotland with
Scotch whisky. The Intellectual Property regime in GATT/ WTO acknowledges the claim
of a region over products that are associated in a special and specific way only with th
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region.
The TRIPs chapter in a clause named “Geographical Indication” offers proprietary rights to
I specie geographical area over the products associated with it. Americans growing and
selling Basmati violate the Geographical Indication of Basmati, just as t ey wou vio a
ft"Silted rights of France and Sco.land if they were ft sell Amenean w.ne and whtsky
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as “Champagne” and “Scotch”.
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Actually there are two important points that arise with respect to the Americans growing
Basmati rice and marketing it as such. The first is the fact that by growing and sell ng
Basmati rice without an agreement with India and Pakistan, the Amencans arr, wolatmg the
Convention on Biological Diversity which grants countries ownership nghts over the
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germplasm found in their territories.
The other matter with respect to TexBasmati is that of Geographical Indication. We should
be vigilant on this score since we grow and market specially products which are associat
with our region like basmati rice and Darjeeling tea. Other products could be Alfonso and
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Dasheri mangoes or the Shahi Leechi.
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What to do
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i India and Pakistan must join together and take the Basmati case to the Dispute
Settlement body constituted in GATT/ WTO. This is the body where Mexico took its
I
Dolphin-Tuna case against the. Americans.
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ii In addition to the WTO,. India and Pakistan must also approach the Convention on
Biological Diversity. Here they must establish their ownership rights oyer Basmati
g3a- -d clafm compensation for the unauthorised use of Basmati variet.es by the
Americans.
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3. Sui generis system for plant varieties
The GATT/ WTO requires every member country- to provide either a patent or an effective
sui generis system to protect newly developed plant varieties. Nowhere does it state that
WTO members have to follow the UPOV model. The UPOV model is not in India s
interest for the following reasons.
The UPOV system is far too expensive. Calculating at today’s exchange rates, the costs of
testing, approval and acquiring an UPOV authorised Breeders Right certificate will amount
to something like Rs. 2 to 3 lakhs atleast. This could go upto 8 to 10 lakhs. These rates
will effectively preclude the participation of all but the largest seed companies. There
certainly will be no space in such a system for small companies, farmers co-operatives or
farmcr/brecdcrs.
Farmers play a significant role as breeders of new varieties. They often release very
successful varieties by crossing and selection from their fields. These varieties are released
for use as such. In addition, in almost all cases, these varieties are taken up by agriculture
universities as breeding material for producing other varieties. Such farmer/breeders
would not be able to participate in an expensive system like UPOV.
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Their material along with their labour and innovation would be misappropriated by those
with the money to translate such valuable germplasm into money-spinning varieties
registered in UPOV. Poor farmers unable to pay the costs of getting an UPOV certificate,
would tend to sell their varieties for small sums to larger seed companies. This will be the
ultimate irony, creating an institution that will snatch away from the farmer his material
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ii. once we are in the system, we shall be forced to go in the direction that UPOV goes. If
not today, then tomorrow. The writing on the wall in UPOV is clear. It is a system headed
towards outright patents. Starting with its first amendment in 1978 when limited
restrictions were placed on protected seed, the 1991 amendment brought in very strong
protection for the plant breeder. In this version, breeders are not exempt from royalty
payments for breeding work and the exemption for farmers to save seed has become
provisional.
UPOV now also permits dual protection of varieties, that means in the UPOV system, the
same variety can be protected by Plant Breeders Right (PBR) and patents. It would seem
obvious that UPOV is ultimately headed towards patent protection for plant varieties. It
would be wise for India to stay out of a system which has plant patents as its goal since that
is neither our goal nor our interest.
iii. The UPOV system is wrong for us because it embodies the philosophy of the
industrialised nations where it was developed and where the primary goal is to protect the
interests of powerful seed companies who are the breeders. In the UPOV system, rights are
granted only to the breeder, there is nothing for the farmer. In India the position is very
different. We do not have big seed companies in essential seed sectors and our major seed
producers are farmers and farmers cooperatives. Logically, our law will have to
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2.
Patents on micro organisms
Patents on microrganisms like bacteria, algae, fungus and virus will have far reaching
consequences for us. Agriculture will be affected if our ability to develop biofertilisers and
biopesticides, both based on micro organisms, are hindered by foreign patents.
Bacterial strains like those which act on soil phosphates can make a tremendous difference
to our agriculture. These bacteria break down inert soil phosphates to a form that plants
can use as nutrients. Such bacterial use could potentially slash our phosphate fertiliser
imports dramatically. We need to keep our avenues of research open.
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Similarly strains of nitrogen fixing bacteria could significantly improve nitrogen uptake of
plants and improve the protein content of our foods. This can be of immense significance
in enhancing the quality of nutrition for poorer sections of society.
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The role of micro organisms in other areas like pharmaceuticals, mining, energy etc. is ■
already explained above.
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government by invoking the clauses of ODRE PUBLIC and offence to prevailing norms of
MORALITY. The GATT/ TRIPs section which details the requirements of IPRs for
member nations has a section on exclusions from patentability. In this section, among
other exclusions it is also mentioned that nations may exclude from patentability those
products or categories, the patenting of which would offend the sense of morality of the
people or society
militate against the public order prevailing in those
society and
and that
that 1would
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societies.
India should take the position that when the government attempted to obtain a consensus in
Parliament (or wherever else) on legislating for patents on micro organisms as accepted by
the earlier regime, a storm of protest broke out over the possibility of granting ownership
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over life.
This point should elaborate that according to the religions being practised in India and the
sensibilities of the Indian people, it would be considered a moral affront to grant even the
limited ownership of life as required by a patent, to individuals or corporations. According
to the multitude of Indian beliefs , such a right is vested only in God. Any departure would
outrage the sense of morality of the Indian people.
1 his clause has been successfully used by the Green Party and other conscience objectors
in Europe to oppose the patents granted by the European patent Office. The use of the
Odre Public clause led to the striking down of patents on living organisms like the famed
Oncomouse. A detailed study of the European cases invoking the odre public/ morality
clauses against patents on life forms would provide our government with the technical
details of how to use this clause.
In addition to our own case, we should refer to the European cases as precedence and case
law' examples where such conditions have been accepted against life form patents.
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concentrate on protecting the interests of the fanner in his role as producer as well as
consumer of seed.
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UPOV laws are formulated by countries which are industrial, not agricultural
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economies. In these countries the farming community is by and large rich and constitutes
from 2 to 7% of the population. These countries do not have the large numbers of small
and marginal farmers like we do.
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V. UPOV laws are framed in countries with a completely different agriculture profile to
ours. These are countries where subsidy to agriculture is of a very high order unlike India.
Because they produce a massive food surplus, farmers in industrialised countries get paid
for leaving their fields fallow. The UPOV system does not have to protect the farming
community of Europe in the way that our seed law will have to protect ours.
vi. In Europe agriculture is a purely commercial activity. For the majority of Indian
farmers however, it is a livelihood. These farmers are the very people who have nurtured
and conserved genetic resources. The same genetic resources that breeders want to comer
under Breeders Rights. We must protect the rights of our farmers and these rights must be
stated unambiguously in our sui generis legislation.
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vii. Almost all agricultural research and plant breeding in India is financed with the
taxpayers money. It is conducted in public institutions like agricultural universities and
institutions of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). This research belongs
to the public.
The laws of UPOV on the other hand are formulated by societies where seed research is
conducted more in the private domain than in public institutions; where big money is put
into breeding using recombinant DNA technology which is expensive. Because they invest
in expensive breeding methods and need to secure returns on their investments, seed
companies in Europe seek market control through strong IPRS. These conditions do not
apply in India.
What to do
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1. We should devise our own sui generis system . It is possible to build in greater
flexibility into what is defined as “sui generis” ip TRIPs than there would be in accepting a
precast UPOV model. As a matter of strategy, it makes sense for us to draft a wide bodied
law now without accepting the restrictions of UPOV. In this way, when the TRIPs comes
up for review in 1999 and the pressure increases to tighten our Intellectual Property regime
further, we will have more space to negotiate.
2.
India’s seed law must emphasise that it is a germplasm owning country. Its position
should be that seed companies wanting protection for plant varieties through 4 Plant
Breeders Right will first have to pay for the genetic material used by them. Genetic
resources like other natural resources are a source of revenue and must be paid for. The
economic value of genes can be assessed by case studies in order to help fix a price for
their use.
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Our law should require use of germplasm and indigenous knowledge about that germplasm
to be paid for. The farmers must continue to have complete freedom to use, reuse, sell and
modify seed. Scientists and breeders should have unrestricted access to germplasm for
breeding new varieties.
3. India's sui generis system must recognise the Farmers Right, which is absolutely
different to the farmers exemption to save and sell seed under the older UPOV rules. Even
now, there is confusion among officials on this score. Farmers Rights refers to the rights of
the farming community of the Third World in creating and maintaining the genetic
resources of the world. It is in acknowledgement of this stupendous contribution that the
FAp Passed the Farmers Rights bill in 1988. This bill acknowledges that the contribution
of farmers is on par with those of the breeder and if one iis to be rewarded by a Breeders
Right, the other must be rewarded by a Farmers Right.
In June 1996, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) held a meeting in Leipzig in
which the principle of Farmers Rights was strengthened. There is also a commitment that
new and additional funding will have to be found to honour Farmers Rights. India should
build on this progress by being the first country to incorporate Farmers Rights into its Plant
Variety Act.
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4. Our law should be distinctly supportive of sustainable agriculture and conservation of
genetic resources. It should encourage genetic diversity in the field by promoting release
of several varieties.Instead of a few large seed companies pushing their few successful
varieties, a decentralised seed industry should be established in rural areas. Such regional
seed producing units will be able to produce region specific seeds far more effectively.
Our sui generis system will finally have to ensure the country's food security and the
livelihood of fanners.
5. India should sieze this initiative to do some creative thinking and craft a creative and
sensitive sui generis legislation to present the viewpoint of the South, emphasising the
strengths of the South. If India succeeds in doing this, it will provide an alternative sui
generis model for all developing countries to follow. In time, with successful lobbying,
such a legislation should succeed in ending the era of gene-exploitation by demanding the
true rights of countries that have been the developers and custodians of the genetic
resources of the world.
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INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND BENEFIT SHARING
Local communities own the bioresourccs in their region since it is they who maintain them
and it is they who possess the knowledge of their properties and their use. In other words,
they possess the technology about bioresources. This indigenous knowledge automatically
confers on them certain rights including the right to share the benefits derived from the
commercial exploitation of bioresources.
The importance of indigenous knowledge can be understood when one realises that there
are no rice or wheat plants nor cotton or mustard found lying around in the forest. What
are found in the forest are wild plants out of which communities of men and women over
generations have bred races of several food and cash crops. These communities have bred
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out of the wild plants of the forests, the thousands of land races which are the basis of the
world’s agriculture . The land races bred by farming communities are the foundation
material of modem plant breeding and global food security. These land races are the self
same varieties that plant breeders use to breed other varieties and for which they seek
special and exclusive privileges like Plant Breeders Rights.
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It needs to be remembered that farm women and men have not only created several
thousand races of food and cash crops, they have also identified valuable genes and traits in
these crops and maintained them over generations through a highly sophisticated system of
crossing and selection. Communities have not only developed complex systems of pest
management and biological control, they have identified and managed a series of genes
conferring valuable traits for commercial and domestic needs. So it is that genes for traits
as diverse as disease resistance, high salt tolerance, resistance to water logging and
drought tolerance have been maintained in the repertoire of communities. Along with these
commercial traits, characteristics like cooking time , taste, digestibility, milling and
husking characteristics like how much grain breaks during milling operations are
recognised and maintained. Women who have been the traditional custodians of the seed
and responsible for its selection, are the repositories of this knowledge and in the true sense
owners of this complex seed technology and know-how .
This work of genetic selection, maintenance and cross breeding is the result of innovative
and creative scientific experimentation in the field. This work is in no. way less than the
scientific experimentation conducted by scientists in the experimental plots of agricultural
research stations. We need to overcome the bias that most of us suffer from, that of
acknowledging the research conducted by scientists in white coals working in laboratories
of universities as ‘Science' and dismissing the complex knowledge systems contained in
rustic ,rural communities as something infinitely less and not worthy of acknowledgement.
The fact is that there would be no plant breeders in long white coats working on
experimental farms if it were not for the prior knowledge gained from rural communities.
Indigenous knowledge is not only the foundation of modern science in this and many other
fields, it is also what could be described as the reference and referral centre for modem
plant breeding.
Today, faced with the threat of global warming and climate changes across agricultural
zones, scientists are on the look out for crop varieties that are more heat tolerant. The
scientists do not acquire information about the location of heat resistant wheat or millet
varieties by sitting in their expensively appointed laboratories and meditating for guidance.
They acquire this information by going to deserts and hot regions and asking local
farming communities about the varieties that grow in that region and that can withstand
extreme heat. Armed with the benefit of indigenous knowledge, these scientists return to
there labs and their experimental farms and engage in a breeding and selection program
that will result in the combination of traits that they seek to achieve in the new variety that
is to be designed for post global warming agriculture.
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If credit had to be apportioned for the breeding of a new crop variety, then it could be
shared perhaps as 80:20 or at least 70:30 between the farming and scientific communities.
One could say quite easily that if the breeding of a crop variety entailed 100 steps, then
indigenous knowledge contributed the first 80 or 70 steps and laboratory science
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contributed the next 20 or 30 steps. It stands to reason therefore that credit , reward and
recognition for a new variety should be similarly shared. That is the reason why the claim
to place Farmers Rights on par with Breeders Rights is such a natural claim. Farmers have
a greater and more innovative share in the creation of new plant varieties than scientists.
Their contribution must be recognised with atleast the same degree of enthusiasm, if not
more than that accorded to scientists.
lhe role of indigenous knowledge in the realm of medicinal plants is even more obvious
than in the case of crop varieties. Knowledge about the characteristics of a particular plant
and its properties as a healing substance ,or stated differently, the technology of its use ,
is what gives medicinal plants their social and economic value. This technology of use has
been acquired through a few thousand years of experience, trial and error and incremental
refinement . As a result of this , communities have developed the knowledge of the plant,
animal and mineral world to a mature and scientifically sound technology which exists in
several forms, the best known of which is perhaps Ayurveda and Siddha. Apart from
these, knowledge of the healing properties of plants is found in communities that live
around the forest or close to nature. Tribal communities, island communities and others
have developed their own knowledge base about the flora, fauna and mineral wealth of
their region and use this knowledge to their socio-economic advantage.
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It stands to reason that the technology pertaining to the medicinal uses of plants and
animals belongs to indigenous communities and must be considered their property. It must
be considered to be their property in the same way that a technology for making high grade
chrome steel is considered the property of the Japanese company that developed it. It
stands equally to reason that when someone wants to use indigenous technology to
produce medicines from medicinal plants, they must first ask for permission and then agree
on tenns of payment for the use of this technology. When a company like Dabur or
Baidyanath commercialises community knowledge and benefits financially from it, it
should certainly pay royalty or make an arrangement for profit sharing. This would be even
more the case if foreign companies wanted the use of this technology.
If a pharmaceutical giant like Merck were to show interest in the production of medicines
based on Ayurvedic or tribal knowledge, it would explore the forest wealth of regions like
India and Costa Rica via the local vaids or shamams. The scientist from Merck cannot
make head or tail of medicinal flora when he is bioprospecting, if he does not have
infonnation from .the vaid or the tribal ojha. Merck will begin to look for a cure for
stomach ulcers in plants that local vaids use for stomach ailments., and not in plants that
they use for ailments of the eye. The scientist from Merck could not enter a tropical forest
on his own and choose random plants, saying for example, the creeper with blue flowers
could yield drugs against cancer or the shrub with yellow flowers could contain ingredients
effective against diabetes. The plants in the forest or in the field, or for that matter along
the banks of rivers or on the roadside, have value only because people have the special
knowledge about their characteristics and the range of their utility. It is clear that Merck
must pay for this technological know-how.
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It stands unequivocally established that biological resources have a value only when
accompanied by the technology of their use . It is equally clear that bioprospecting as an
activity is only possible when indigenous technology is made available to those seeking
access to biological resources for commercial use. Now that bioresources are becoming a
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highly sought after raw material in the era of biotechnology. We must create a framework
for the just and proper use and appropriate payment for indigenous technology. At present
the awareness and acceptance in India is inadequate with respect to the recognition of
indigenous knowledge as valuable technology with a high price.
We need to address ourselves to a few important aspects in order to lay down a
comprehensive national poh y in this regard. These can be listed as follows.
Documentation of the location of biological resources at the regional and national
level. If we want to use bioresources as the foundation for national growth , we must at
least know where we have what and whether previously recorded populations of plants ,
animals and insects are healthy, threatened , on the verge of extinction or already extinct.
Along with the documentation of the bioresources, we must document the local/
community knowledge that exists about the various uses of these resources. This
documentation which should be compiled as a National Bioresource Register will serve
several functions.
a. The first is that of a data bank for people seeking access to information. This access
should be made available for a fee accompanied by the conditions governing the use of this
information. This is the normal practice with data banks every where. The fee for
bioprospecting must be levied and be paid into a Community Gene / Technology Fund
in the dispensation of which, representatives of communities will have a say. It would be
advisable to have a basic fee for the right to prospect irrespective of whether a viable
product emerges from this exploration. A profit sharing formula should be worked out in
addition, if a commercial product is developed, to pay for the use of Indian raw material
and Indian / Indigenous technology.
b. The documentation can be used to stake the claim of communities or individuals for
royalty payments for the transfer of indigenous technology . This data base can also be
used to identify communities which should be included in the National Authority that will
govern the use of bioresources and implement conditions of the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) like Prior Informed Consent and Material/ Information Transfer
Agreements.
c. Finally, this data bank will serve the important function of establishing community
knowledge firmly in the public domain .This will provide the technical basis for rejecting
patent claims that derive from indigenous knowledge. The recent furore over the American
patent granted on the wound healing properties of Haldi is a case in point . As is also the
patent granted to WR Grace for a Neem based pesticide . Phyllanthus nirurii, called
Bhoomi Amla in India is known in several Asian countries for its efficacy in treating liver
ailments. A liver medication extracted from Phyllanthus has been patented by Bloomberg
(USA) , obviously derived from the traditional knowledge of Indian/ Asian communities.
All these patents should have been challenged on the grounds that they derived from
knowledge/ technology owned by indigenous communities. Furthermore, this knowledge
was used unlawfully without either Prior Informed Consent or Material / Information
Transfer Agreements , therefore a strong case exists for annulling these patents.
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If India is to protect its interests , and the interests of its indigenous communities, it will
have to be aggressive and proactive in laying down the guidelines governing the use of
bioresources . It will then have to act resolutely to challenge any infringements. Apart from
challenging the grant of patents in other countries, it would be advisable for Indian
legislation to include clauses barring the grant of patents on any products or processes
derived from indigenous knowledge. The knowledge of communities must remain in
communities and not be privatised.
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d. We must ensure that the information that is documented is banked in a government
owned repositor}7 and is legally admissible in a court of law as evidence for prior
knowledge. In order to strengthen the claim of indigenous communities over their
knowledge base, our laws must admit Oral Tradition as documentation of use. This will be
of importance when dealing with knowledge other than that documented in Ayurveda,
like tribal knowledge or the knowledge existing in far flung island or hill populations.
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2. Drafting of national legislation. New laws should be drafted quickly to deal with all
aspects of bioresouces and policy governing their use. These laws are to be drafted
primarily in the context of two international treaties, the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) signed in Rio in 1992 and the GATT/ TRIPs which was finalised in
1994 and led to the formation of its successor the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The new law to be formulated regarding the conditions of the CBD will have to take into
account three principal areas. These are (i) to establish ownership rights over the
biological resources found in the sovereign territory of India. This is necessary to overturn
the earlier principle of Common Heritage of Mankind according to which all genetic
resources were considered to be the property of everybody, with no particular ownership.
(ii) To formulate the guidelines and structures for Prior Informed Consent according to
which user parties will have to seek the permission of some kind of National Authority
authorised to grant or refuse access to genetic resources. Representatives of communities
that have been responsible for maintaining genetic resources over generations and are the
repositories of indigenous knowledge, should be members of such a National Authority.
(iii) The conditions for Material and Information Transfer Agreements will have to be laid
down so that the use of biological resources is just, equitable and sustainable . This law
would seek to ensure that indigenous communities are not denied their share of the profits
that accrue from the commercial exploitation of the genetic resources that they have
conserved.
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The question of Intellectual Property Rights will have to be addressed in the CBD,
although indirectly. Our position should be that India will not grant IPR protection over
products and processes derived from indigenous knowledge. The rationale for this is that
knowledge that belongs to communities should not be privatised . Whereas this knowledge
can and should be used for commercial exploitation and the betterment of communities ,it
should not be monopolised.
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With respect to GATT/ TRIPs or now WTO/ TRIPs, a sui generis legislation will have to
be brought in to determine the use of genetic resources in the breeding of new crop
varieties and the kind of Intellectual Property Rights that would be granted for the
development of new varieties. Our sui generis legislation should place Farmers Rights on
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and reward the contribution of farm men and
par with Breeders Rights and acknowledge
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of new varieties.
women to the development of land races a.—therefore
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The indigenous knowledge involved in the location of favourable genes neededIf
successful breeding work should be paid for. The recipient can be the Community Gene
Technology Fund mentioned earlier.
Another prospective legislation emanating from the WTO/ TRIPs will have to decide on
an IPR regime for micro organisms. Micro organisms do not feature as much in the
mainstream of community knowledge as plants and animals. Even then, there are pockets
Specialised knowledge regarding their use in cases like human and ve« care and
the processing and preservation of many foods. Care will have to be taken that any
regime that India finally accepts, will have provisions for acknowledging
compensating the rights accruing from indigenous knowledge.
BIORESOURCE AND BIOTECHNOLOGY POLICY FOR THE ASIAN REGION :
RECOMMENDA TIONS FROM an INTERNA TIONAL SEMINAR
Gene Campaign had organised a Seminar on Bioresource and Biotechnology Policy for the
Asian Region in New Delhi on May 10 and 11, 1997.
5
The ournose of the meeting was to try and reach a consensus position on bioresource use and to
devise a regional approach to deal with the important new issues like patents, community rights,
farmers rights etc. These issues have become important ,nteri;"tl0"a'2^“^
the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights section of the GATT/ WTO as also
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Convention on Biological Diversity.
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This meeting brought together experts and policy makers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sn
Lanka. Malaysia, and the Philippines .
At the seminar, the participants recognised
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1 Since most of the world’s biological resources are located in the developing countries
and it is their communities that have protected these resources over generations these
countries have a major stake in how the bioresource base of the world is used and how
benefits of this use are shared . These biodiversity rich countries should formulate
articulate views on the rights of communities so that justice is done to the custodians of
the world’s bioresources. It is equally important that these countries reflect carefully
about what kind of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR ) regimes they accept .
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2 That the South and South East Asian region is gene rich and has three major centres of
diversity of important crops including cereals , pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, fruits and flowers
This region has contributed in a very significant way to the germplasm pool of the international
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centres and the countries of the North.
3 That Agriculture which is the mainstay of the economy and the livelihood base of this region,
is suppoilcd by icscmch and development Ihimigh public funding ('onveisely. in the
of the North, where the percentage of people working on farms does not exceed 5 /o of the
population, the private sector plays the most crucial role in agriculture. Ihcrefore what is useful
and acceptable in the North, may not be good for the South.
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4. For the countries of the Asian region where agriculture is the backbone of the economy and
where bioresources still form the socio -economic foundation of tribal and rural communities,
retaining control over these resources is a compulsion of survival. As the foundation material of
one of the world’s most dominant technologies, biotechnology, bioresources also offer the
promise of a vehicle for self reliant growth to the countries in our region.
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5. I hat biotechnology has emerged as a powerful tool for enhanced and improved productivity
in various areas such as food, medicine and industrial products. Crops with better nutritional
quality, increased resistance to biotic and abiotic stress, as also improved capacity for post
harvest processing, can be produced through biotechnology.
Given its crucial role, biotechnology should become an integral
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development. This technology should be taken to the village to increase food and agricultural
production, conserve genetic diversity, and enhance rural incomes
6. Genetic resources recognise natural, not political boundaries so similar biological resources
are found in more than one country. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the countries of
the region work together to formulate a regional policy. This is needed to strengthen their
position as a gene rich centre and derive the maximum possible benefits from their biological
wealth, as also to ensure that no one country is able to undermine the larger interests of the
region
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7. That these issues are complex and need to be handled by technical experts. Bureaucrats,
because of their poor knowledge base should not be allowed to be the principal negotiators in
this highly technical field. It is important to maintain continuity and coherence in the teams that
negotiate at international treaties and follow ups. This should be done by keeping a core
negotiating group of technically strong people assisted by the bureaucrats of the day.
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8. The participants felt strongly that nations in the region should set up autonomous Bioresource '
and Biotechnology Authorities to deal with all aspects of biological resources.Members of this
high level authority should have a strong representation from bioresource stakeholders and
experts.
9. That NGOs have a special role to play since they are more flexible and can move where
governments can not. The NGO community must take the lead in formulating and changing
policy and execute policies without waiting for governments to do so .
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10. That the IPR regime on bioresources which is being demanded by the North is not
desirable for the countries of the Asian region . They should devise IPR regimes appropriate for
their particular situation.
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The Recommendations of the Seminar were as follows :
1. IPR awareness and patent literacy must be improved at all levels. Patent offices, industry, the
scientific community and those in government departments need to be trained and made
discerning and competent in the field of Intellectual Property Rights for biological materials.
In addition, appropriate steps must be taken to encourage social and political awareness
amongst scientists, and scientific literacy amongst social scientists and politicians.
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2. The Region should move quickly to enact legislation pertaining to the Convention on
Biological Diversity to protect its bioresources and indigenous knowledge base. GATT derived
legislation on IPRs must be made subservient to the CBD. It is possible to do this following
Article 22 of the CBD which places the obligation to protect biological diversity above the
requirements of all other international conventions.
3, A comprehensive, mutually accessible database should be built up by accessing data from
diverse sources. This should be extended to small and difficult to access publications in the
various countries . This database should be used for making benefit sharing claims. Data on
available germplasm for breeding and cultivation should be made available to researchers and
farmers of the region.
Appropriate steps must be taken to prepare computerised and easily accessible inventories
based on reliable data in the following areas :
a) Traditional conservation techniques
b) Indigenous drugs and medical prescriptions
c) Traditional agricultural practices
Technical jargon should be converted to easily comprehensible information in regional
languages. This information should be made widely available to enable participatory decision
making in this important area.
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4. In the laws of the countries of the region, oral documentation should be treated on par with
coded documentation for all purposes. This should be admissible as evidence of knowledge
existing in the public domain and grounds for challenging unauthorised use. Austrian law has
already established a working precedence in this regard.
5. Capacity building should be a priority exercise with easy transfer of technology , exchange
of materials, experiences and skills specially in fields like conservation .There should be
exchange of expertise in taxonomy and the different ways countries manage and utilise their
biological resources. The region should identify priority technologies for itself and either
acquire or develop them jointly.
A state-of-the-art institute in the area of biological taxonomy should be set up by a
multination consortium in the Asian region.
Certain facilities such as the DNA fingerprinting facilities for animals and plants in
Hyderabad and Delhi, should be open to all the countries of the Asian region at the same
cost and with the same conditions as would be valid for the host country itself.
6. The countries of the region should have an exchange program of resource people with
special skills in various areas, specially Intellectual Property Rights, Farmers and Community
Rights and Benefit sharing mechanisms. These people should be available for educational and
campaign activities .
7. fhe Region should set up a common forum to challenge infringements and violations
pertaining to use of biological resources and indigenous knowledge.
■ 15
8. The Region should have a mechanism like an Inter-regional Standing Committee for early
warning, containment and emergency responses to accidents like unintended release of
Genetically Modified Organisms.
9. The Region should have a common position in international negotiations and intervene
strongly in follow -up negotiations like the Conference of Parties ( COP ) of the Biodiversity
Convention and similar meetings of the WTO. The heads of national delegations should
interact frequently and develop a joint strategy so that one mutually agreed Asia level position
is represented by all the nations, as is already happening in ASEAN.
10. The indigenous technology of the area should be collected and ownership established
over this and over the resource itself. Appropriate laws should be passed that ensure
and honour the rights of a community over its traditional practices, for example in
medicine and agriculture. Any patenting or extensive use of these practices (including the
materials that they may involve) by anyone else must be prohibited unless there is
appropriate and adequate compensation to the community for such use.
I
11. Countries should exercise control over export of their biological resources on the same
level as export controls over “ dual -use “ technology for national security and foreign policy
reasons.
i'i
12. The Voluntary sector must be strengthened . Governments should be persuaded to fund
NGOs to build partnerships , attend meetings, develop joint strategies and forward planning for
the Region. Regional activist groups should exchange information and hold campaign
workshops in each others countries.
tSr!
t
gES: ■ i
d
s*•>1
13. Constitutionally guaranteed rights over resources should be given to all communities
that have been living for, say a hundred years, in forest and other reserved areas,
sanctuaries and national parks. The management of these areas must involve these
communities in a way that these residents have a major voice in the management of the
area.
J
1
There must be a concerted social, political and legal action against all encroachments
in the above-mentioned areas by non-resident outsiders, unless such ‘encroachment’ is
done openly, after an appropriate debate, in the larger interest of the people resident in the
area and the people of the country, and after obtaining the concurrence of the people
resident in the area and providing them with appropriate compensation; thus, prior
approval of the people as well as of the government must be obligatory for any such
encroachment in the larger public interest. The responsibility for implementing the abovementioned sanctions would lie equally with the government and with the people
represented by NGOs.
14. Every organisation - governmental or non-governmental - funded wholly or partially
by public money, must be transparent and accountable for its statements and actions, and
must be taken to task if any information that it presents is shown to be substantially
wrong.
16
3
':-i
-
Si1
£
iW
15. The patent laws should be revised, where necessary, to prohibit the patenting of any
living form (micro organism, plant or animal) or of any product made directly by or from
the living form. (This provision would thus prohibit the patenting of any genetically
engineered life-form, or a product such as azadirachtin derived form neem.)
5r
I
h1
Js
■a
I1
16. Asian countries including India should devise and design their own sui generis
systems for protection of plant varieties, farmers rights and breeders rights. They should
not accept the provisions of UPOV in totality but adopt IPR regimes thatreflect the
strengths and compulsions of gene rich nations.
17. Appropriate steps should be taken, both by the government and the NGOs to make the
people of the Asian region aware of their bioresources and of biotechnology; of the legal,
social, moral, ethical, political and economic implications of modem biotechnology; and
of the role that biotechnology can play today in both conservation of bioresources and
their utilisation for development.
An appropriate policy in regard the above-mentioned use of biotechnology must be
evolved and reviewed continuously in real time. It should be recognised hat many new
biotechnologies have the potential of, on the one hand, improving agricultural productivity
per individual and per unit time and money spent, and on the other, providing additional
employment to those who, today, spend all their time in agriculture-related activities
because of low productivity per unit time, money and labour spent.
18. As a rule, no foreign aid should be accepted for work in sensitive areas that relate to
biodiversity and/or conservation unless it is ensured with full transparency that the aid
being given has no conditions attached that would not be in national interest. This would
obviously not apply to genuine bilateral or multilateral collaboration that
permits free use and publication of the results of the research.
■■
w
fi
19.Asian countries must come out with viable and sensible science policy, technology
policy and agricultural policy. A mechanism should be set up to periodically examine
these policies of the Asian countries taken together, to ensure maximal benefit to all the
countries from each others experience.
20. Organisations such as parliamentary scientific committees can and should play an
important role in the evolution of the above -mentioned policies, by providing an interface
between professional scientists and parliamentarians.
17
r
L--
S
p
r
E
L
E
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
on
COLONIALISM and GLOBALIZATION
Five Centuries after Vasco da Gama
February 2-6,1998
New Delhi, India
Who’s Afraid of Vasco Da Gama ?
Some Afterthoughts.
by
Prof. Sanjay Subramaniam
ft
a
Professor of History, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales, Paris, France
Basavangudi, Bangalore - 560 004
e-mail: vinod@praxis.dabang.emet.in
1
WHO’S AFRAID OF VASCO DA GAMA ?:
SOME AFTERTHOUGHTS*
Sanjay SUBRAHMANYAM
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Pans)
If that Americo Vespusio who discovered those western Indies, which
the Geographers deem to be a fourth part of the world, became so
famous in the doing that all that land is called America after him,
preserving in itself the name of its discoverer, with how much more
reason could this part of Asia which this valiant captain of ours
discovered be called Gama in order to preserve by such an illustrious
feat
has been since God
name the memory of the greatest i.
— that
-- there
--- —
created the world until now.
- Diogo do Couto, Public Oration at Goa ( 1597)1
I.
The year 1997, which marked the fifth centenary of the
departure of the fleet of Vasco da Gama from Lisbon bound for
India,
saw the publication of three books on the Great
Argonaut, as many books as there were vessels on the fleet that
arrived at Calicut. At the year's end, there appeared Genevieve
Bouchon's Vasco de Gama (Paris: Faya rd) , a very lightly foot
given by the sage
noted popular history whose tone is
declaration in its preface that "men of the sea are men of
mystery". Prior to that, in early July, on the date that Gama's
fleet set out from the banks of the Tagus, a Portuguese
with
the
historian
formerly closely
associated
medieval
Discoveries Commission, Luis Adcto da Fonseca, published a
Gama: O Homem, A Viagemf A
richly-illustrated work, Vasco da Gama:
Epoca (Lisbon, Expo ’98). And earlier still, in the beginning
of March 1997, I published my own monograph, The Career and
Legend of Vasco da Gama (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), which both Fonseca and Bouchon read and even cited in
their works, Fonseca with some care and attention, and Bouchon
rather more casually (even misspelling the title on each of the
two occasions the book is cited). Three books, three authors,
three languages. 2 But are there also three visions in these
works ? Is there are a real historians' debate in 1997 about
Vasco da Gama in these books, or is there a purely political
debate that uses Vasco da Gama as a convenient symbol to talk
1
2
of relations between Asia and Africa and the West today ? And
can we really separate these two debates ?
I f one is to read the columns of certain newspapers ;and
the answer is that there most certainly is a
magaz ines,
cont rovery even about the historical Vasco da Gama. The
exchanges apparently began in Europe with a long art icle
entitled "Os Caminhos do Gama" ("The Ways of Gama") in the
glossy Portuguese magazine Grande Reportagem, dated July 1997.
The journalist Monica Bello, after a long article (pp. 96-104)
largely summarising the arguments of The Career and Legend of
ideas, then went on to
Vasco da Gama as if they were her own ideas,
write a review of the same book at the article's end in which
she noted that i t was ” a sort of unauthorised biography, which
if our country were not so passive, open to dialogue, and
politically correct, would have already spilt much ink in the
newspapers".
She
also
dramatised
the
existence
of
a
The Career and Legend portrayed Vasco da Gama
distrustful,
i1
I
B
<5
■
single
error in the text, on the number of cantos in the Lusiadas (in
fact there are a few more errors that I hope to correct), and
went on to present the whole matter in a distant tone that
belied her own dependence on this work. The newspaper Publico
(8 July 1997), continued the polemic in Lisbon by noting in a
long review that
as "cruel, greedy,
n
but J:hen
went on to add that despite this ’’the book was not a diatribe
but rather a study in context". Its reporter did however
Antonio Manuel
1Hespanha,
interview with
an
in
wonder,
Commissioner of the Discoveries Commission, on the same day,
paranoid and ugly”,
why historians such as the author of the book were invited to
Portugal to present their views before ostensibly important
fora like the Geographical Society of Lisbon.
It turned out in the months of July and early August 1997
that many Portuguese journalists and historians were not quite
as "passive, open to dialogue, and politically correct as some
f
'51
IE
I
4
k
1
Kl
had portrayed it. Several articles appeared in which The Career
and Legend as well as its author were singled out for attack,
by journalists and historians at various locations on the
Portuguese political spectrum, Some of these articles clearly
violated all recognisable forms of democratic journalistic
c
k-a
3
‘tat
iaa
pae
£
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£
£
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31
in
this respect was a piece
the worst offender in
little-known in
ethics, and
however
are
i
of scurrilous
the magazine: Visao. Libel cases
inL respect
ombudsman
exists
respond in the
Portugal, and no
realistic option was to
The
only
i
journal ism.
through an
an interview in the
;
instance
press itself, in this
Expresso in September 1997.
of
the
newspaper
Sunday review
real meaning o f
content and the
larger
the
Portuguese
Yet what was
in these
all,
there
was
? First of
the attacks
a sense of outrage. that
and ’’right"
both
from
’
’
left
”
writings
da Gama, especially when it
n
about
Vasco
declared
an Indian had written
Indian government had officially
__ , known that the
in the commeiumuia^^
1the
was
commemmorat ions
to participate in the
its reluctance
Gama's voyage. 11
It was hence
fifth centenary of Vasco da
and Legend was motivated,
assumed
that
The
Career
automatically
the hero of a rival
history, in which
Indian nationalist,
Second, a particular problem
down
to
size.
nation was being cut
with recounting the
the book did not content itself
was that
sixteenth century,
about Gama's life
life and times in the
’’ facts”
it present him
da Fonseca purportedly did; nor does
as Adao
aura
of
ln
a
romantic
nineteenth-century
romantic
enveloped
Bouchon's most recent biography.
swashbuckling prose, as does
not only to
whatever degree of success,
does
try,
with
It
to ask how
its immediate context, but
in
career
present Gama’s
he did
for posterity. This
the
figure
he
did
and why Gama became
received by some Portuguese
been badly
attempt has admittedly
though - significantly
historians and would-be historians,
Irony and humour are not
enough - not by other readers.3
writing in Portuguese
registers that are much used in academic
particularly disliked this
(it is in Brazil)
Brazil),, and many have
of Meyerbeer's opera,
aspect of the work, centering on the use
of Vasco da Gama.-’ Third, and
L'Africaine, to approach the myth
general issue of the identity
more generally, there is the more
twentieth century, hemmed in by
the late t
crisis of Portugal in at once wicked
stepmother and
fairy
the EEC (which is
threatened by Brazilian production at
godmother), culturally soap-opera, literature and music, and
the level of cinema, role
in
the 'Iberian
peninsula.
The
its
role
in
anxious
about
to much Portuguese nationali sm,
Discoveries are still crucial
4
and it is no coincidence that so many of the important
litterateurs in Portugal even today continue to ruminate on the
Emp i re and its meaning. The Discoveries and the empire are
essential to permit Portugal to be at once specific and
universal, at the cutting edge of Europe for "one brief shining
moment ”
and for the Portuguese to claim that he (not she)
immersed himself in all sorts of other cultures, thus becoming
more universal than any other European. The PeregrinaczTo of
Fernao Mendes Pinto is as emblematic in this exercise as the
Lusiadas, even if the latter is better known than the former.
Ki*
I F’
Ci
N
Indian nationalism (or indeed Third World nationalism) may be a
’’derivative discourse”, as Partha Chatterjee would have it, but
this does no t mean that other nationalisms are not "reactive
discourses” .5
II .
almost goes without saying that few figures in world
history are at once so well-known and so obscure as Vasco da
Gama. Even Columbus, his contemporary, who has been portrayed
El]
as everything from the bastard son of the Portuguese prince Dorn
Fernando (and hence the half-brother of Dorn Manuel I), to a
I
crypto-Jew, is easier to obtain a grasp on than the Portuguese
Il
It
discoverer - of whom very little, including the place and year
Indeed, one of the few
of his birth, is known with certainty.6 Indeed,
things we do know is that despite a semi-obscene Indian
children's doggerel to the effect, he neither went to the New
World nor was fined there for indecent conduct.
It seems likely but by no means certain that he was born
at Sines, a port in southern Portugal facing the Atlantic, and
we do know that he was the child of Estev^o da Gama and Isabel
Sodre, as well as that he was a younger son - thus establishing
an early precedent for the export of such offspring overseas to
IW
..
I
JS
II
a fortune. We are aware too that besides his first
expedition of 1497-9 to India, he returned there twice more,
once in 1502-03 as Admiral of the Seas of Arabia, Persia and
India, and then again in 1524 as viceroy and titled nobleman,
the Count of Vidigueira. So much the reader of any dictionary
make
of biography or encyclopaedia can gather'with the greatest of
ease.7
I
5
Af ter his death at Cochin on 24th December 1524 (barely
three months into his viceroyalty), Vasco da Gama was buried
with honours in that town in the church of Santo Antonio; his
remains were subsequently exhumed and taken back to Vidigueira
in 1538 by one of his sons, Dorn Pedro da Silva Gama. There they
remained, for three centuries, in a resting place (the Jazigo
dos Gama) constructed in the 1590s, with the epitaph (probably
from the late seventeenth century):
Here lies the Great
Argonaut Dorn Vasco da Gama, First Count of Vidigueira, Admiral
of the East Indies, and their Famous Discoverer. In June 1880,
at the end of nearly half a century of nationalist public
campaigns, the remains were moved with great circumstance to
the monastery of Jeronimos in Lisbon, together with the ashes
of the Portuguese national poet Luis Vaz de CamSes, whose third
III
death centenary was celebrated that year.8 Camoes, in his great
epic poem Os Lusiadas, had more than any one else contributed
to the mythification of Vasco da Gama, who he boasted had even
put Aeneas in the shade.9 The hero and his panegyrist were
monastery,
Manueline
the
great
within
reinterred
hence
constructed
in
the
early
sixteenth
century
partly
wealth generated by Portuguese overseas expansion;
Portugal, Dorn Luis,
&*■
l&F
isC,
h'iT
|K
r
' 'ft—
Ml
hiSil
II
with
the
the King of
the Queen and others participated in this
impressive ceremony.
However, matters soon took an odd turn, for a controversy
ensued within a few years on the identity of the transferred
bones. 11 was shown more or less conclusively by 1887 that the
remains that had been moved from Vidigueira were not those of
Vasco da Gama, but of his great-grandson, Dorn Francisco da Gama
(1565-1632), ironically enough twice viceroy of India at a time
when Portugal was under Spanish Habsburg rule. Dorn Francisco
was patently no Portuguese nationalist hero, and it appeared
that the remains of the two had been exchanged, probably in the
course of repairs and restoration, after vandals damaged the
Jazigo dos Gama in 1840. i o Even in death, then, no one seems to
have quite known who Vasco da Gama really was.
What more can we gather, however, from the researches of
recent years ? Since the writings of that great Gamaphile A.C.
Teixeira de Aragao late in the nineteenth century, relatively
r
6
few new documents have been found with a direct bearing on
Vasco da Gama’s career.11 Some of those which have been found,
such as a few Italian letters from Florence, with reports of
his first expedition, do provide new details but do not answer
key questions.12 Why was this obscure petty nobleman chosen by
the ruler Dorn Manuel to captain the expedition ? Why was the
expedition itself so small, even in comparison to the one that
followed it, captained by Pedro Alvares Cabral (who discovered
IE-.,
er:
r1
I'
Brazil en route to India) ? Why was there such a long interval
between Bartolomeu
Dias's
arrival
at
the Cape
of Good
Hope
(1487), and the expedition to the Indian Ocean ?
One recent hypothesis by a historian that has sought to
is that of Armando
provide solutions to these problems,
the
Cortescfo.
This
author,
following
and
extending
interpretation offered by his brother, the celebrated historian
:l
Jaime Cortesao, argued that Portuguese maritime activity under
Dorn Joao II (r. 1481-95) was characterised by much secrecy,
particularly in view of the rivalry with the Catholic rulers of
■j
Castile and Aragon, Ferdinand and Isabel.13 Extrapolating from
odd and obscure phrases in chronicles and letters, and making
arguments
from
documents)
Armando
silence
(ie.
Cortesao
the
"significant"
absence
of
the
"mystery
of
suggested
that
Vasco da Gama 1! could be solved if one posited that between 1487
and the death of Dorn Joao II in October 1495, there had been
some Portuguese expeditions to the east coast of Africa, round
the Cape of Good Hope.14 Further, he proposed that one of
these, in 1494-95, was led by Vasco da Gama himself, but that
by the time of its return, Dorn Joao II was already dead, Dorn
Jo2o's successor Dorn Manuel, not wishing to give the dead king
Ocean,
suppressed
into the Indian Ocean,
the entry
credit for
information of the expedition’s success, and himself then
mounted another (commanded by the same Vasco da Gama) two years
later in 1497.
Cortesao's hypothesis has met with a rather cool reception
from historians, who have been unconvinced by the fragments of
evidence that he presented. It is of course true that many
II
educated Portuguese even today believe that their compatriots
had "secretly" anticipated most of the Spanish discoveries, and
4
I •' I
E
7
even
that
of
Australia
by
the
Dutch.15
In
point
of
fact,
Cortesao’s evidence can be interpreted in an entirely different
manner than that proposed by him. In recent years, there has
been a quiet revolution in the interpretation of the Iberian
roots of early Portuguese expansion in Asia. Due in large
measure to historians such as Jean Aubin and Luis Filipe F.R.
Thomaz,
it has now oecome clear that the
early phase of the
Portuguese presence in Asia cannot be understood save by seeing
r
L
F
If*
r*
r
the country’s elite as highly divided on the issue of overseas
expans i on, in terms both of ideology and practice.16 Fol lowing
Aubin’s researches, we can thus trace the origins of Vasco da
Gama’s selection to the last five years of Dom Joao Il’s reign,
in particular the period from July 1491, when the heir-apparent
Dom Afonso died as a result of an accident. Dom Joao was left
with neither legitimate sons to inherit, nor daughters to
marry, and the closest legitimate blood-relation left to him
was his cousin, Dom Manuel, the Duke of Beja, who also happened
to be his brother-in-law.17 Dorn Manuel had survived the purges
of the 1480s, when his close relation the powerful Duke of
Braganca had been executed, and the Duke of Viseu (Dorn Manuel’s
own
brother)
xae
'w
|r
a*
^9
lUa
by
Dorn
the
Joclo
himself
on
not
suspicion
of
great
did
repose
confidence in Dom Manuel, and moved instead to promote his
illegitimate son, Dom Jorge, who had been born in August 1481
at Abrantes to the king’s mistress, Dona Ana de Mendonca. I n
April 1492, Dom Jorge was named Master of the Orders of Avis
and Santiago, and from that time on, the partisans of Dom
Manuel (including his sister. Dona Leonor, the Queen) began to
fear that the king would manipulate the succession. The
conspiracy.
c
killed
Nevertheless,
ruler
nobility thus divided itself, loosely speaking, into groups on
the basis of the succession - with Dom Jorge being supported
above all by the Almeida clan.
Now the Almeidas, and their extended eJan (which included
✓
their nephews by marriage, Dorn Alvaro de Castro and Dorn Diogo
Lobo, the Baron of Alvito) were not merely resolute opponents
of Dom
Manuel
before
his succession;
they
remained so
afterwards as well. As Thomaz has argued, the Baron of Alvito
was in the second decade of the sixtt.uuitli
cenInry I he main
I
8
adversary in Portugal of the designs of Dom Manuel and Afonso
in
erH
factional terms; it also had an ideological dimension. Having
come as far as the Cape of Good Hope, we can see in the last
years of Dom Joao's reign a certain hesitation in respect of
Asia. Some of this hesitation centred around information, and
this explains the sending of agents overland to ascertain the
political, religious and commercial situation on the shores of
3
de
Albuquerque.18
The
opposition
was
defined
not
merely
k'i
Indian Ocean. In May 1487, even before Bartolomeu Dias's
return from the Cape, Dom Joao II sent out two junior members
of his household, Pero da Covilham and Afonso de Paiva,
overland to Asia and the lands of Prester John (or Preste
Joao), the legendary Christian king of Ethiopia. Paiva reached
Ji
and Aden, but died on his way
back from Hurmuz; Covilham, on a more elaborate mission, made
his way as f ar as Cannanore and Calicut, and even touched on
I
the
Gujarat via Alexandria,
Cairo
Mozambique, before making his way back to Cairo from where he
sent word of what he had found. Finally arriving in Ethiopia,
he was held back there and died in the fabled lands of the
some
back
bring
exploits
helped
Their
John.19
Prester
information, but not nearly enough - as we see f rom the
documents of Gama’s eventual voyage,
Information aside, there was also a genuine diffidence
about making use of the Cape route, partly because of the
ambiguity concerning its economic advantages compared to the
traditional
overland
routes
via
the
Levant
(with
the
perilousness and uncertainity of navigating the all-water route
being a standard theme in the period), and partly in terms of
the defence of the route when faced with Castilian competition.
The explosive potential of the maritime rivalry between
Portugal and Castile had already been shown in respect of the
Guinea trade, and once the news of Columbus's discovery was
brought back in April 1493 by one of his companions, Martin
Alonso Pinzon,, tensions between the Catholic monarchs and Dom
Joao II mounted. Later, in the 1520s, the expectations of those
who had foreseen difficulties in defending Asia from Castile
were fulfilled, after Magellan's expedition caused Charles V to
lay claims to the Moluccas.
In this rivalry too, Vasco da Gama
e
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9
resolute opponent to Castilian
was to play a minor role, as a
claims.
consensus in
building
It should be stressed that building a
society on the issue of overseas expansion was no
Portuguese
as the frequent shifts in geographical emphasis
easy matter,
of the fifteenth century show. The beginnings
over the course
of expansion, with the capture of Ceuta in North Africa (1415),
had aa logic that was less commercial than military and
the
soon enough,
enougn,
rue
religious. However,
soon
the expansion into
no
Atlantic islands brought the commercial aspect to the fore;
found in Madeira and the Azores,
’’Moors ” (Muslims) were to be
find little to interest them
and the military nobility could
of
there. To the nobility, with
with its
its largely land-based set
values, Castile represented a pole of attraction, and the Holy
feeble remnants of Islam in Iberia was
War even against the
as
more appealing than the waters of the Atlantic.20 As long
was under the charge of the
overseas expansion to the west
Infante Dorn Henrique (the misnamed and much mythified Prince
Henry, "the Navigator"), matters were sufficiently centralised
and on a sufficiently small scale to contain discontent, In the
second half of the fifteenth century, and especially after the
death of Dorn Henrique, a compromise of sorts had to be reached.
To Lisbon merchants, whether Portuguese Christians, Jews, or
the Atlantic
resident Italians, was given the main charge of
coast of
explorations, which soon extended down the west
in
Africa. A small section of the nobility interested itself
these affairs, largely to the extent that they coincided with
possibilities of corsair raiding, For the most part, however,
the nobility remained burdened with a mentality that was
resolutely Iberian in its horizons, with North Africa entering
into the ken because it was seen as a frontier of Iberian
military expansion.
The structure had a simplicity which the realities of Asia
did not permit; Asia thus was simply too complex to be
accomodated within the existing regime of compromises. Many
elements in the Portuguese nobility saw sense in the North
not
African campaigns, which after all brought glory if
fortunes. The Atlantic too seemed to make sense as a relatively
nt1’
^1
10
low-cos t ,
high-return
affair,
underwritten
Lisbon’s
by
mercant ile class. But Asia seemed at once too vast,
too
distant, and too risky a venture. This opposition,
taken
together with Dom Joao Il’s other preoccupations - with regard
to Castile and the rest of his European policy, to his own
succession, and with regard to Columbus’s discovery - goes a
long way towards explaining why between 1487 and 1495, no
•T
•E-
Hi
er: I
further expeditions were sent out to the Cape, let alone beyond
it .2 i
Reading the great chronicle Da Asia of Joao de Barros, the
implications are clear: in the early years of his reign, Dom
Manuel too encountered great opposition to the idea of the
expedition
to
Asia,
which
he
himself
had
somewhat
autocratically to suppress. What motivated him, among other
things, was a factor that Barros does not mention: namely his
own Middle Eastern strategy.
Dom Manuel had over a period of
time developed a rather strong Messianic streak, which made the
te-
e*’
%
<3
want. - g
capture of Jerusalem a quite important objective in his policy
decisions. That Portuguese expansion in general had a religious
side to it is a commonplace in writings on the subject, which
o f the "Crusading spirit" of the Lusitanians,
speak of
the
residual momentum left by the uneasy cohabitation with Islam in
Iberia, and the reconquista, and the Christian cult around even
the Infante D. Henrique which one finds in such writers as
Zurara. Support for this view can be found in the writings of
Joao de Barros once more, who on being charged by his sovereign
to write "of the deeds that the Portuguese did in the discovery
and conquest of the seas and lands of the Orient", nevertheless
began his Da Asia in the following manner:
"There having risen in the land of Arabia that great antiMuhammad, more or less in the year 593 of our
Christ Muhammad,
Redemption, he so worked the fury of his steel, and the
inf ernal sect by means of his captains and
fire of his infernal
caliphs, that in the space of a hundred years,
they
conquered all of Arabia, part of Syria, and Persia, in
Asia, and in Africa all of Egypt beyond and before the
Nile" 22.
For Barros then, it is the birth and spread of Islam that
provides the logical point of departure for an understanding of
how the Portuguese came to be in Asia. In his first D6cada da
<2^
Jl1
e:l
r
6: J
I ;
*
I
a
«
ch
r‘
I 1
11
Asia, he looks at the Muslim conquest of Iberia, the Christian
reconquest, and then moves on to the Atlantic explorations and
the charting of the west coast of Africa, only arriving at
Vasco da Gama’s expedition to the Indian Ocean in the fourth
book of this work. Even if the Messianist streak is more
evident in the writings of some other courtiers of Dorn Manuel
than those of Barros who wrote in the reign of Dorn Joao III, we
can nevertheless catch a distant echo of it even in passages
such as the one cited above.
This Messianism meant in turn that Dorn Manuel had a
substantial preoccupation with the recapture of Jerusalem,
logical
which under his. reign came to be seen as the
culmination of overseas expansion, and the crowning achievement
that would enable him to claim the title of Emperor of the East
or perhaps
even
Universal Emperor).
The Jerusalem
enterprise
was one that 1 ived and died with Dorn Manuel, for neither his
predecessors nor his successors seem to have been particularly
enamoured of the idea, which was quite clearly a relic of
medieval times. Dorn Manuel’s plan was to simultaneously open
two fronts against the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt (which his
Messianist supporters identified with the Biblical Babylonia),
with one force attacking via North Africa, and the other via
the Red Sea.
This
policy,
however,
required reactivating
the
North African front, after a lull under Dorn Joao 11, and hence
a diversion of resources from mercantile activity. On the other
hand, the. Red Sea strategy was truly one of killing two birds
K
with one stone: a blockade of the entry to the Red Sea would
not only give the Portuguese <a decisive advantage in the
European market for pepper and spices over their Venetian
rivals (who were supplied through Cairo and Alexandria), but
also cut into the revenue-base of the Mamluks, who were after
all the central target of the Jerusalem project.
In order to do this, however. the support of other Asian
powers
pi
was
deemed
necessary,
and
here
Dorn
Manuel
and
his
supporters were badly misinformed: they believed the number of
Christian kingdoms in Asia to be far larger than was in fact
the case. Eventually, this meant a strategy centred around an
alliance with Ethiopia,
the
state
ruled
over
by
the
fabled
4*
12
deeply opposed by
Prester John. 11
It was this alliance that was
Asia. At the
other parties, both
both in Portugal and in Portuguese
a
time, Crown trade and royal mercantilism was in part
same
necessary condition for the putting Into effect of Messiantst
that was
plans: making war required resources, especially a “’i
/aq the Jerusalem campaign is
: ~u“
t
r
of maintaining a larger standing army -Uh infantry OUclp ue
in the Swiss style (a suipa). that
that became popular in thrg
of pom Manuel, was a natural outcome of this logic: it was also
was a
step in the
the development
development of
of a sort of royal absolutism,
a
step that was never
never wholly put into effect.
a
III.
of Vasco da Gama then in all this ? We
What was the role
nothing is known of the
may note once more that practically
idea which is
first quarter-century of his life, and that the
1460 is based on no more
sometimes defended that he was born in
(including compilers of
than vague inference , with many authors
nobility) proposing a more likely
standard genealogies of the
the confusion, at least four or
date as late as 1469. To add to
can be found in southern
five other persons of the same name
Our Vasco da
da Gama, it has been
Portugal in the 1480s. 2 3
conclusively, was the grandson of
established more or less
in Olivenfja and was married to
another Vasco da Gama, who lived
From this union were born four
a certain Dona Teresa da Silva,
■; Estevao da Gama served the Infante
children, of whom the oldest
rewarded with the post of alcaide-mor of
Dorn Fernando, and was i--as wen as a small revenue from soap monopolies in
Sines, as well
Souzel and Fronteira. Very much a member of the petty
Estremoz
de service then, EstevS’o da Gama accumulated a series
noblesse
in Sines, where he seems by the 1460s to have been
of rights
Estevao da Gama’s marriage with Dona Isabel Sodre,
based .
a certain Jo£o de Resende, produced at least six
daughter of
The oldest, Paulo da Gama, we
we shall encounter below;
children,
Jo£o Sodre. Vasco da Gama, Pedro da Gama. Aires
the others were
who served in India on two occasions, and the youngest
da Gama
tradition suggests that Vasco da Gama
child a daughter, Oral
in a house near the church of Nossa
was born in Sines itself,
cr
c_ . ’
a
11
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f
r,
r
r-1
r
c.
c
5
r*9
13
ti
that
Senhora das Salas, but that he received the greater part of his
education in Iivora. It has even been claimed that he had a good
grasp of astronomy, partaking of the wisdom of no less a master
than the celebrated Jewish savant, Abraham Zacuto.24 Such
myths,
created already by near-contemporaries like Gaspar
Correia, must be treated with caution. Nor is it clear, as
claimed by some, that from 1478 on Vasco da Gama was engaged in
numerous services on behalf of Dorn Joao II.
II. Indeed, the only
explicit evidence of this is a Spanish document from 1478,
issued by Ferdinand and Isabel, which is a safe-conduct
allowing a certain Vasco da Gama and a certain Lemos to pass to
Tangiers via Spain. Since, as we have seen, persons with the
same name abound, we can by no means be certain that this Vasco
da Gama who went to Tangiers was the son of Estevao da Gama.
And curiously, much hangs on this question, for the rejection
of the date 1469 for his birth by some historians revolves
precisely on admitting that he was engaged in royal service in
1478 .
Whatever be the case,
the’ question of where and how Vasco
da Gama engaged himself in the 1480s remains unresolved, It is
possible, though once more by no means certain,
that he served
in campaigns in North Africa in the latter part of this decade,
since
this
was
a
pattern
common
enough
among
his
contemporaries, and especially younger sons of the petty
nobility; however, the researches of scholars :in the documents
pertaining to Morocco have thrown up no concrete evidence thus
far. The first clear reference to him occurs quite late, in
c
r*
'r*
'It
t
1492; a gold-laden Portuguese caravel on its return from Mina
in west Africa was captured by the French, and Dorn Jo£o II
retaliated by having French vessels captured at Setubal, the
ports of the Algarve, Aveiro and Oporto. The charge of the
expedition to Setubal and the Algarve was given to Vasco da
Gama, who carried out his instructions successfully, according
to the chronicler Garcia de Resende.25
Whether Resende, writing with the benefit of hindsight,
attributed a closer link between Gama and Dorn Joao II,
ii, as also
greater experience in maritime affairs to the future Admiral
than was in fact the case, may be debated. We cannot, at any
Fl
Jr
14
hang a great deal on this testimony, let alone argue that Vasco da Gama had already
like Armando Cortesao
commanded numerous long-distance maritime ventures on which no
other documents exist. If we do take Resende at his word, we
may surmise that Gama had served earlier on fleets sent to the
Atlantic islands, to Guinea, or even to Flanders, where the
Portuguese king maintained an active commercial interest.
however
is
1492,
same year,
f rom
the
Another document
rate,
2^
3-?
i
Ji
for it also relates to Setubal, where we know
noteworthy
Vasco da Gama was in that year. Issued in the name.of Dorn Joao
II , from Lisbon on 22 December 1492, it relates how a certain
Diogo Vaz, an escudeiro (squire) and resident of Setubal, and
Vasco da Gama were walking one night on the streets of the
town, when they ran into the alcaide of the place Joao
Carvalho,
and
were
challenged
by
as Vasco
mistaken for
him,
da Gama was
an evildoer
by a cape and hence
other
various
and
ensued,
altercation
An
(mallfeitor) .
officials came to the aid of the alcaide, who subsequently
lodged a complaint against Vaz and Gama. In his letter of
December 1492, Dorn Joao "wishing to do him grace and mercy",
pardoned Vaz for his violent resistance, made him pay a small
fine and also revoked an order for his arrest.26 The small
incident underlines much of wha t we later come to know of
Gama's psychological makeup; violent of temper, and quick to
concealed
react to perceived insults, he seems scarcely the man to send
to make contact with new continents and cultures. The same
characteristically
is amusing to note,
it
incident was,
exaggerated and distorted by Gaspar Correia subsequently: in
Correia’s version, the attack was on a judge in Setubal who was
gravely wounded (perhaps even killed), and carried out not by
Vasco but his elder brother Paulo da Gama. He even claims that
fl
I
’-I
ea'
•i-|
on the eve of his departure for India, Vasco da Gama asked for
and received from Dorn Manuel a pardon for his brother.27
No more is heard of Vasco da Gama for a few years, but he
then surfaces in 1495 in quite significant circumstances. Two
grant-letters to him by Dorn Jorge, son of Dorn Joao II, and
dating some months after the
published. In these letters,
e:
e-
death of' the latter have been
there is mention of services
V
15
rendered
by Vasco da Gama in earlier years, which Armando
interpreted as further evidence of the mysterious
Cortesao
expeditions around the Cape of Good Hope. The precise reference
in one of these letters is to "the many services that Vasco da
Gama fidalgo of the household of the King my lord and father,
whose soul is with God, has rendered and I hope will render in
future to the King my Lord, and to me’’.28 From our perspective,
we may see these letters quite differently. They may suggest
that Vasco da Gama was attached to Dorn Jorge, and thus probably
r*
i>
r*
ir*
IC
a member of a political grouping hostile to Dorn Manuel.
this interpretation seems only to confound the
confusion. Why, after all, should Dorn Manuel choose a member of
At
the opposing party, as it were, to lead the expedition into the
Indian Ocean ? A little reflection shows the plausibility of
the idea. First, if
on Barros’s evidence - the decision to
send the expedition was against the majority of the king's
council, a measure of compromise might have been struck on the
choice of captain. Second, there was the issue of risx, and the
fact that only a small fleet (with a minimal crew) was
eventually sent out.
Far better to have a man chosen from the
opposition lead such an expedition than one of Dorn Manuel’s
hand-picked nobles; at least in this way, the burden of failure
(if failure was indeed the outcome) could in part be passed on.
Third, we have the fact that none of the chroniclers provides
us a convincing explanation of Gama’s selection. Barros and
Castanheda suggest that Dorn Joao II had already chosen Vasco's
father,
ie
iC
r*
Cw
E
C
first
Estevao
da Gama,
for
the
post,
and on
the
latter's
death the honour passed on to his sons. Castanheda adds further
that by rights the older son, Paulo da Gama, should have led
the expedition, but that he yielded the post to his younger
brother for reasons of health, and instead agreed to captain
one of the vessels.29 Despite some
<
supporting circumstantial
evidence - Paulo da Gama died on the return voyage from India,
i 1 1 -hea1 th - the last version is not
suggesting ill-health
free of
no t
problems. Had Paulo da Gama refused entirely to go> the matter
would have been somewhat different. Further, if it was a matter
of an inherited right, why was Vasco chosen over h i s other
brollnru ? The suspicion is I bus that Vasco da (iama was no I
16
r
chosen as his father's son, but as himself. It is also quite
clear that there was no love lost between Dorn Manuel and the
discoverer. On the latter’s return to Portugal in 1499, he was
feted to be sure, but he did not receive the honours for which
he had hoped. He was given no title of nobility besides that of
Doni, and was probably given a second command in 1502 only
because his successor (and rival) Pedro Alvares Cabral refused
to command the f leet - for reasons supposedly of pride, but
more probably of politics.
The hypothesis that I have proposed here (and which first
emerged in oral discussions with Luis Filipe Thomaz in the
early 1990s) had been set out in rather greater detail in The
Career and Legend. How has it been received, in view of the
fact that it does present Gama in a rather curious light, as an
opponent of Portuguese expansion as conceived by Dorn Manuel ?
Genevieve Bouchon
in her work is
cautious:
r|
r
el
e
r
r
^1
r
*■
"One may equally
the result of a
think that the choice of Dorn Manuel was
political calculation. In choosing a captain, whose friendships
linked him with the opposing party, he thought to disarm them
and to force them into silence in case he succeeded". She does
not attribute this hypothesis to an earlier author, but then
her work rarely cites other secondary literature.30 Adao da
Fonseca is rather more direct. He first considers my hypothesis
that Gama was chosen because he was obscure, and that D. Manuel
was hence
This
he
risking
considers
little of his own prestige by sending him.
unlikely.
He
then
continues
however:
t*
J
"It
therefore seems to me that the alternative hypothesis proposed
by the same author [Subrahmanyam] is more probable" -- namely
that Gama was imposed on D. Manuel by those opposed to his
plans.31 He goes on to state that this might not have been the
only reason for the choice of Gama, but that it "has the
advantage of rendering the profile of the man who was chosen
comprehensible". Thus, what I would myself consider to be the
most daring hypothesis from a historian’s viewpoint in The
Career and Legend, has ironically subsequently fomented a broad
consensus (partly explicit, partly implicit).
1
i
J
1
,1
I
II
f
EP
17
IV.
To resume our story, let us return therefore to 1497, when
Gama prepared to leave
for India. He was
given command of a
fleet initially comprising four vessels, Sao Gabriel (which he
c
himself captained), Sao Rafael (captained by Paulo da Gama, his
brother), Berrio (commanded by Nicolau Coelho), and a fourth
supply-vessel which did not go to India; the 1fleet was
des t i ned for Sao Jorge da
accompanied by a caravel which was destined
Mina on the African west coast, and which was captained by
I
Bartolomeu Dias
with respect to
i
'll
the discoverer of 1487; Dias's experience
the Atlantic was supposed to aid Gama in
planning the first leg of his voyage; it is equally significant
that despite his experience, and availability, Dias himself was
not chosen to perform Gama's role.
Gama's fleet eventually left the estuary of the Tejo on
8th July 1497, <and sighted the Cape of Good Hope on 18th/19th
November of the same year, after a complex and controversial
voyage through the Atlantic.32 But the fleet finally arrived in
Calicut, its true destination, only on 20th/21st May 1498. The
reason for this long delay between touching the southern tip of
Africa and the attainment of the final destination, which meant
a total Lisbon-Calicut voyaging time of some three hundred and
was a four-month stay on the east coast of
Africa. Now, with a few exceptions, historians have been
focusing
somewhat neglectful of this part of the voyage,
sixteen
days,
instead almost exclusively on the Calicut visit; in fact, at
least some of what occurred in Calicut can only be understood
lif
it
I?
■ <31
by examining the East African experience of Gama, The fleet's
first major encounter with the East African trading network
March, on Mozambique Island. In early
took place in early March,
April, Gama moved on to Mombasa, then to Malindi, whence he
Calicut, In this period,
eventually set sail on 24th April for Calicut.
several important incidents took place.
place, Let us note, to begin
with, that the fleet had on board several "specialists" of one
or the other sort: some men had spent time earlier on the
African west coast, and were hence regarded as expert in
dealing with the negros; one other, FernSo Martins, had been a
captive
in
North
Africa
and
could
speak
some
Arabic.
The
18
account of a member of the crew, who maintained an account on
board one of the ships, comprises a compendium of their views.
Here is how they saw Mozambique,
fc a
er
in their first real encounter
with the Indian Ocean trading network:
"The men of this land are dark and well-built, and of the
sect of Mafamede and speak like Moors ; and their clothes
are made of cotton and linen, very fine and multi
coloured. and striped, and they are rich and embroidered.
And all of them have caps on their head, with silk tassels
(vivos) embroidered with gold thread.
And
they are
—
>
(mouros
brancos)
, of
merchants, and trade with white Moors
four
in
this
place,
which
brought
whose ships there were
gold, silver and cloth, and cloves, and pepper and ginger
”
3 3
the rapid
is
one
stand out:
Here,
two statements
identification of the settlement as Muslim, but on the other
from
hand we note the will to distinguish the "native" Muslims
those of
t he Middle East. In fact, when relations with the
o f the
local ruler soured, as they rapidly did, there is once again a
clear attempt to point to the culpability of the mouros brancos
(or "white Moors") in
in the matter. The origins of the conflict
are not wholly clear. The anonymous contemporary account has it
that the Portuguese were at first mistaken for Turks, and that
ruler
when their identity as Christians became clear, the
secretly ordered them killed, This is possible but by no means
certain; after all, the fact that Christian Italians t raded
with Muslims in the Levant could not have been unknown to the
er
er
er
er
nF
er.
i
•J
*1
er:
rd
Arabs trading in Kilwa and Mozambique, At any rate, by the 24th
of March, the situation had reached a state in which a three-
K
hour engagement was fought between the Portuguese and those on
the strand ; the Portuguese also forced a ship belonging to a
local sharif to run aground, and then departed for Kilwa and
r:
Mombasa. On failing to reach the former port due to contrary
winds , they arrived at Mombasa on 7 th April, but once again
some
there were host i1i ties here: the Portuguese by now had
a
Muslims captive on board, who confessed under torture to
now
conspiracy against them by the Mombasa ruler. The fleet
proceeded down the coast, took another vessel belonging to an
ri
r
’’honoured Moor", and arrived in Malindi on 16th April.
4
By this stage of the voyage, ' the language of the
contemporary Journal begins to coarsen
coarsen:: the author now refers,
r
c
r:(
<r
'r
nt:
19
bB
h
V
for example, to the natives of the coast as "dogs" (perros) ,
flee t' s
and much suspicion is evident in the Portuguese
dealings at Malindi. But in fact, during the nine days they
spent in this port, they were wel1-received, and succeeded in
encountering four ships from the Malabar port of Cranganore,
with St. Thomas Christians on board. They also took on board a
Gujarati pilot (often incorrectly identified as the celebrated
Arab navigator Ahmad ibn-Majid),
sent them by the local ruler
in exchange for his ambassador, whom the Portuguese had taken
Gama refused,
refused, however, to set foot on land, feeling
that he m ight be ambushed - and the journal's author for his
part is clear that the Captain-Major was right in distrusting
such men "who did not speak from their hearts, nor of their
hostage.
r"
1^
will” .
It would seem in retrospect that this East African sojourn
r
was crucial in defining Portuguese conduct in Malabar. We note
extreme suspicion in Gama's attitude in Calicut; he waited for
boats from the land to approach his ships, rather than making
contact himself, and then sent on land an expendable member of
£
i-
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£
yi
I!
[P!
ill
I
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his fleet
a convict-exile sometimes identified as Joao Nunes
or Joao Martins
rather than someone of authority. This man,
on encountering two Tunisian traders in the port,
celebrated,
protagonist
of
the
following
is the real
but
often
misunderstood, scene:
"And he was taken to a place where there were two Moors
from Tunis, who knew how to speak Castilian and Genoese.
And the first greeting that they gave him was the
following :
- The Devil take you ! What brought you here ?
And they asked him what he had come to seek from so f ar;
and he replied:
- We came to seek Christians and spices.
And they said to him :
- Why do the King of Castile and the King of France and
the Seignory of Venice not send men here ?
And he replied that the King of Portugal did not pe rm i t
them to do so. And they said that he did well".34
What Nunes sought to establish then was the power of the
Portuguese King in Europe. As for the Muslim traders, their
was far from negative,
response
as can be seen above - ..was
Indeed, one of them is reported by the anonymous journal to
have told the PoitugUcse :
"You should give many thanks to God
;;
ISah"'
Wl
11
20
for having brought you to a land where there are such riches"!
historians
to what
is
often stated
by modern
Contrary
therefore, Islam and Christianity did not confront each other
directly at the moment of Vasco da Gama’s arrival in Calicut.
Such a total confrontation,
despite the rhetoric of both later
writers
Arabic
like
Zain
al-Din
Ma^bari
and
some
in
contemporary Portuguese writers, never actually took place in
■
IP
in
3-1
3t
Wi
Calicut. It was however necessary for Zain al-Din, writing his
Tuhfat al-mujahidin ("Gift to the Holy Warriors") in the 1570s
- when the conflict between Ottomans and Habsburgs in the
Medi terranean, on the one hand, and Bijapur, Calicut and Aceh,
and the Portuguese, on the other hand, had reached a fever
to pose matters in this
pitch in the aftermath of Lepanto
light.
What took place during the three months of Gama’s stay (he
left Calicut on 29th August) was far more complex: information
with their rather
was certainly gained, but the Portuguese
paltry gift of cloth, hats, coral and agricultural products -
Bl
l-fc'
failed to create a favourable impression. Moreover, there was a
fair deal of hostility in some of the dealings; the mutual
d is t rus t is evident in the fact that hostages and counter-
hostages were taken. The journal's own account thus concludes:
"One Wednesday, which was the twenty-ninth of the said
month of August, seeing that we had found and discovered
what we had come to seek out, both spices and precious
stones, and that we could not manage to leave the land in
peace and as friends of the people, the Captain-Major
decided, on consulting the other captains, to leave
”35
There could scarcely be a more frank admission that the
Portuguese did no
nott leave Calicut with altogether pleasant
thoughts in 1498.
1498 . But by certain standards, the expedition
could be deemed a success
success,, and it certainly strengthened the
hand of Dorn Manuel,
•I
iS
among other reasons because Gama brought
back word of the purported existence of many Christian kingdoms
(including Calicut itself).
With this new-found
in Asia
confidence, the next fleet, commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral,
was a full-fledged affair, far larger than Gama's rather paltry
trio of vessels. It comprised thirteen ships, carried over a
thousand men on board, and not only discovered Brazil en route
? I
.. I "
21
to a head where
to India, but also brought matters
with Calicut were concerned.
relations
V.
da Gama did not return to Lisbon post-haste.
bury his brother Paulo on
Instead, he tarried in the Azores to
the island of Terceira, and allowed the captain of the Berrio
Vasco
back to Dorn Manuel, who
the news
India to his European
announced the discovery of the true
the Catholic monarchs
neighbours in July 1499 (the letter to
the 10th of the same
being dated the 12th of that month).36 On
his native town with
month, a Florentine merchant wrote back to
the same news.
', sent
King of Portugal,
’’The Most Illustrious Lord Manuel,
lands,
"that
is
two
vessels
£ d(Se/e"ae“h ^’one
tonelli each and one of fifty I-- -and besides a navette of one hundred and ten tonelli
filled with supplies who carried 118 men in all; and they
* ’ i on the 9th of July Anno
departed from the city of- -Lisbon
auu of
Ml this
uoxo fleet there
there vwent as captain Vasco da
1497, and
On
the
10th
of
July
1499 there returned to this city
Gama.
-- da
of Lisbon the vessel of 50 tonelli; the Captain Vasco
of the
islands
of
Cape
Verde
with
one
Gama remained in the
there a
vessels of 90 tonelli in order to set on land
. And
Paolo
da
Gama,
who
was
extremely
ill.
brother of his, 1--- -there
the other vessel of 90 tonelli they burnt because t
and
not enough people to man it and navigate, t--they
were
also burnt the navette ... »» 3 7
abandoned and
The reference is to the ship Sao Rafael,
burnt near Mombasa in early 1499, for lack of an adequate crew
to man it. The same writer goes on to describe how fifty-five
voyage of a sickness that
of the men died on the return
attacked them first in the mouth., then caused bodily pains,
Nicolau
I
Coelho
to
carry
apparently a form of scurvy. The report goes on then to
describe Malindi, a city populated by Moors, and waxes ecstatic
about Calicut, "which is larger than Lisbon, and populated by
Christians". A second letter to Florence, written a few days
for
later, corrects some errors in the first, now noting
and
example that Paulo da Gama had been buried in the Azores
two
Also mentioned in this letter are
not Cape Verde.
characters of some significance: the first a Jew of Polish
origin
(from Poznan)
Islands
(off the Kanara coast)
whom Gama had
captured
in the Anjedive
despite his being under safe
conduct, who was baptised with his captor as godfather. later
!
22
being known to the Portuguese as Gaspar da India (or Gaspar da
Gama), and the second the Muslim (almost certainly Gujarati)
pilot who had guided Gama from Malindi to Calicut, and who is
described in some accounts as Italian-speaking. Both were sent
by Gama to Lisbon from the Azores even before his arrival in
the Portuguese capital, and the Italian writer had apparently
had occasion to gather information from them.
A third letter of 1499, this one written by a certain
Guido di Messer Tomaso Detti on 10th August, surveys the
implications of the new discoveries. Vasco da Gama,
Gama, we may
note, had still not returned from the Azores, and Signore Guido
thus still found only ship from out of the original four at
Lisbon. He concludes his letter as follows.
"As has been seen, this is an excellent finding (un bel
trovato) and this King merits great commendation from all
Christians, and certainly all the Kings and great and
powerful lords (signori potenti e massime) who are seapowers should always send out to find and give news of
unknown
things
because
it
brings honour and
fame,
reputation and riches, and in fine, because of it they are
praised by all men. And to such men it is well that
Lordship and State (signoria e stato) is given and they
are [assured that ?] when every year they send out to
discover
lands
and
places
that
are
unknown
and
uninhabited, they will be commended and news will be
brought of many new things which are not yet in the
knowledge of men in the world. /And' thus we may say : this
King of Portugal should be praised by all men”.38
But what of the "discoverer” himself, lingering on in the
Azores while all this was being written ? Gama returned to
Lisbon only in late August or early September, with different
sources giving us variant dates for his return.39 On 24th
December 1499, he received his first formal honour, namely a
royal grant (alvara) for the possession of the vila of Sines
with all its revenues, as a heritable property.4'0 But the right
over Sines was also hedged in with all sorts of hesitancies since the town pertained to the Order of Santiago, and the post
of alcaide-mor therein to a certain Dorn Luis de Noronha. A
royal letter dated nearly two years later, in September 1501,
notes that ”at present for certain reasons we cannot comply
with and satisfy the obligation we have to give the said Dorn
Vasco as free and unencumbered the said Villa de Sines as his
Jurisdiction”. Instead, Vasco da Gama was given a pension
II
II
4
I
I
<
l<
23
f rom the
( tenca) of a thousand cruzados in gold, payable
revenues of Guinea, to add to his entry into the Royal Council;
’ he was also given the pre-emptive right to be the Captain-Major
of any fleet being sent to India, whether for trade or for war,
which probably stemmed in turn from his title as Admiral of
finds used
India, or Admiral of the Ocean-Sea, which one
cash
intermittently from January 1500.41 Other grants of
revenue followed in a dribble. But Gama was given no major
title in the years 1500-1501, which - when taken together with
must have i rked the
his frustrations in regard to Sines
short-tempered discoverer. Whatever the strategic reasons for
delaying his return in the Azores, Gama did not f ind his
welcome greatly improved as a consequence.
years, in either 1500 or 1501, Vasco da Gama
I n these years,
moved to consolidate his line, the first step being his
marriage - a strategic one to Dona Catarina de Ataide, daughter
kj
of Alvaro de Ataide, alcaide-mor of Vila de Alvor, and Maria da
Silva.4 2 The Ataides as a clan were to be linked later again
with the Gamas; Vasco da Gama's grandson, Dorn Vasco Luis da
Gama, third Count of Vidigueira, married Dona Ana de Ataide,
the adviser and close
daughter of the Count of Castanheira
confidant of the King Dorn Joao III. It seemed time to force Dorn
Manuel's hand, and the opportunity came in early 1502. A fleet
- the third to be sent after Gama's initial expedition - was to
leave for India early that year, and the command of it had, so
report,, been given to Ped ro Alvares Cabral,
the chroniclers report
recently returned from Malabar, where he had been between
August 1500 and January 1501.43 However, Co r reasons that have
been much discussed and disputed, Cabral eventually did not
command this fleet, and it fell to Vasco da Gama to do so. What
were the reasons for this sudden change of command? The
chroniclers have suggested that deteriorating relations with
Calicut, and the violent conflict there at the time of Cabral's
first visit (in which the Portuguese factor Aires Correia and
several others were killed) led Dorn Manuel to send back Vasco
uncompromis ing
and
strict
for his
well known
da Gama,
temperament. But there is also another factor mentioned at
the fact
times, including by the chronicler Damiao de Gois
P-
24
that Cabral could not get along with Vicente Sodre, one of the
captains in the fleet, who had a more or less free hand with
five vessels under his command. Sodre, according to Joao de
Barros, was given instructions separate from those for Cabral,
which required him to "guard the mouth of the Strait of the Red
Sea, to ensure that there neither entered nor left by it the
naos of the Moors of Meca, for it was they who had the greatest
hatred for us, and who most impeded our entry into India, as
they had in their hands the control of the spices which came to
of
way
of
and Alexandria".'14
Cabral, for his part, was to concentrate on the Malabar coast,
where tie was to set up factories at Cochin and Cannanore (ports
from which he had brought back emissaries on the return from
his last voyage). Cabral was to take a much larger fleet than
parts
these
Europe
by
Cairo
Sodre, of fifteen ships, but the latter
as we have stressed
was partly independent of the former on account of his separate
instructions (regimento) from the ruler Dorn Manuel.
The quarrel between Cabral and Sodre, which Barros claims
resulted from Cabral's hypersensitivity in matters of protocol,
from devoid of
o f larger significance, for Vicente Sodre
was none other than Vasco da Gama's maternal uncle, and the
quarrel was convenient enough reason for the nephew to step in
and relieve Cabral of the charge. This was especially since the
earlier grant of 1500 explicitly gave Gama the right to assume
is
far
the Captain-Majorship whenever he wished. Gama thus
transformed the fleet of 1502 into a family affair.
quickly
Besides
there was among the captains another of Gama's
Vicente Sodre,
uncles, Bras Sodre, and the three left together (as part of a
fleet of fifteen vessels) in early February. Vicente Sodre was
named to succeed, in the event some mishap befell the Captain
Major. Later, in early April, the remaining five ships left for
India, to make up the total of twenty that had always been the
target; this fleet was commanded by Vasco da Gama's first
cousin, Estevao da Gama on the powerful nau, Flor de la Mar.
Still another captain was a certain Alvaro de Ataide, from the
Algarve, who was one of Gama's relatives by his recent
marriage. The Gama-Sodre combine thus* dominated the fleet
entirely.
25
■
k
k
L
|L
the eve of his second departure
on
time
,
at
this
11 was
obliged to give his ambitious
Manuel was
for India, that Dom
well as to
to confirm concessions
as
further
recognition,
subject
letter dated 10th January 1500.
already set out in a long grant the Infante Dom Henrique, uncle
This letter had recounted how
of the land
lan-1 of
nf Guinea in
began "the discovery
Dom
Manuel,
to
that along the
of 1433 with the intention and desire
the year
India would be discovered and
said
land
of
Guinea
coast of the
under Dom
speak of further events
had
gone
on
to
found"; it
1482 . Events after the
II
,
until
Afonso V and Dom Joao
however
Infante in that year were
of
the
Rio
do
discovery
conspicuously
Bartolomeu Dias was
of
passed over, mention
then waxed eloquent on Vasco da Gama
excluded, and the letter
the peril of his person and the risk of
and his expedition, "at t
if this letter is dated 1500, the
even
his life".45 However,
used with a
we have already noted
title of Admiral was
r intermittently) for Vasco da Gama
certain hesitation (and only
second expedition, matters changed
with
the
to
1502.
But
up
a; solemn ceremony was held
On
30th
January,
once and for all.
where Gama was publicly
in Lisbon at the Cathedral Church,
and handed the King's banner to
of
Admiral
given the title
was only now, with this visible
carry on his voyage, 4 6 it
Vasco da Gama, Admiral of the
that
Dom
symbol of his status,
February 1502.
Indies, made his way back there in
VI .
in Asia for a second time, Dom Vasco -as he now^was
comported himself with vigour - indeed even
ru a i
the chroniclers, who
who naturally seek largely
testified to by
actions in terms of
of the treachery of local
explain Gama's
to accept the payment of tribute
rulers, and their reluctance
king of Portugal. These accounts can be checked
(pareas) to the
immediate ones, written by persons on board
against other more
the relation of Matteo da Bergamo, or the
the fleet, such as
account of Tome Lopes, scrivener on board
particularly valuable
in early April-47 Still another
one of the vessels which left
Fleming on board the
of these itineraries, that of an anonymous
fleet of Gama himself, states that the ships arrived at Sofala
on the 14th of June, encountered some
resistance, and then went
26
on via Mozambique to Kilwa, which they reached in mid-July. The
ruler there, Mir Ibrahim, was obliged to give Dorn Manuel
1,500
misqals of gold, and obliged to fly a flag as a sign of
subordination.48 Gama's itinerary on this occasion was rather
d i f ferent f rom what it had been in 1498. F rom KiIwa, he
proceeded to Malindi, but was blown off course and eventually
f ound his way, skirting the south coast of Arabia, to the
Indian west coast. Here, in a f ew accounts such as that of
Gaspar Correia, it is stated that he put in at the Kanara ports
of Honawar and Bhatkal, from which he demanded and received
tribute. In any event, it certain that in early September, Gama
appeared before Cannanore, having determined that he would
await ships from the Red Sea at their normal point of landfall
- Mount Deli. The anonymous Fleming explains the motives simply
enough:
"On the sixth day of September we came from there
[Anjedive] to a kingdom named Cannaer which lies by a
mountain called Montebyl and there we awaited the ships
from Mecha and these are the ships which bring over the
spices to our lands and which we wished to prevent for
thus the King of Portugal alone would bring the spices
there, but we could not do this. But at the same time, we
took a ship from Mecha in which there were three hundred
and eighty men and many women and children. And we took
from it some twelve thousand ducats and another ten
thousand in goods and we burnt that ship and all those
people with gunpowder ((pulver)
pul ver)
on the first day of
October".
the affair of the ship Miri,
re ference
is to
The
purportedly belonging to the Mamluk Sultan Qansawh al-Ghawri, a
ship that carried many hajis on board besides gold and goods. 4 9
Gama's action on the occasion is often cited as a particularly
conspicuous act of early Portuguese violence in Asia, and has
even inspired the rather curious modern Bengali novella by
Saradindu Bandhopadhyay, titled Rakta sandhya. Joao de Barros
himself is at a loss to explain it wholly, beyond pointing out
that the Admiral was aggrieved at the accidental death of one
of his entourage, who was crushed between Gama's vessel and the
Miri. Gama's own reasoning appears to have been of an eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth; the killing of the Portuguese
at Calicut from the time of Cabral's voyage was mentioned by
him as a cause for his actions in a letter to the Samudri raja
I 1 I
27
from Cannanore, sent through the hunchbacked pilot of the Miri.
In Barros's inimitable style:
___ that of the two hundred and
"He let him [the Samudri] ;know
in'her [the Miri], he only granted that
sixty men who came
one [the pilot] his life, as well as twenty or so
children. The men were killed on account of the forty or
so Portuguese, who had been killed in Calecut; and the
children baptised on account of a [Portuguese] boy, whom
the Moors had taken to Meca to make a Moor. That this was
a demonstration of the manner that the Portuguese had in
____ *
’, and the rest
’ : they had2 received,
amending the damage that
itself,
where
he hoped to
city of Calecut
would be in
L.. the
-be very soon". 5 0
The Admiral was even more suspicious of native intentions
than on his earlier visit. On entering the friendly port of
(or
Cannanore on 18th October to parley with the King
Kolathiri), he insisted on remaining on the poop of his caravel
throughout the negotiations over fixing the price of spices,
considerable
grounds
for
be
There
soon
appeared
to
misunderstanding, for local merchants insisted that the ruler
had no right to fix prices, while Gama for his part saw this as
no more than Indian chicanery. Against the advice of a
Portuguese factor Paio Rodrigues, left there by an earlier
expedition, he is reported to have written a strong letter to
h
the Kolathiri, calling him an agent of the Moors of Cannanore,
and left in a huff for Cochin, hoping to find better terms
there.
But he was not done with Calicut yet.
En route to Cochin,
Gama was met by a light vessel with with four emissaries from
the Samudri, offering a compromise - including the handing over
of those who had attacked Cabral’s expedition in 1500. Gama
wanted far more, indeed nothing less than the expulsion of the
entire Middle Eastern Muslim settlement at Calicut.
The
uncompromising nature of his stand is once more brought out by
none other than Barros himself, who reproduces in his chronicle
the following paraphrase of a letter to Gama from the Samudri:
"As for paying for the goods that I he
ho Por I ugiicse lost in
the uprising (alvuro^o) of the people of Calecut, on
account of the affronts committed by the Portuguese
themselves,
that he the Captain-Major should content
himself with the taking of the ship from Meca, which
amounted to more in
of goods and people killed than
i n terms
1
ten times what Pedralvares had lost. That if the one side
mil
Zji
28
and the other had to add up the losses, the damages and
the deaths, that he the £amorij was the more offended of
the two: and as he did not ask recompense for these
things, though his people had requested with great clamour
that he make amends for the wrongs that had been done by
the Portuguese; he ignored this clamour from a desire for
' . That he
peace, and friendship with the King of Portugal,
and
the Admiral should not repeat past affairs, <-- -should be
content by putting in at his city of Calecut, where he
would find the spices that he needed. And as for what he
from his Kingdom all the Moors
said, that he should expel
<
this
he did not respond, as it
of Cairo, and of Meca, to
out
more
than four thousand
was impossible to root
lived
in
that city not as
households of theirs, who
from
whom
his
Kingdom received
foreigners, but natives,
much profit" .51
this reply to be an insult
Gama for his part declared mis
(afronta). He detained the messengers, and when the Samudri
sent another message, saying that he should not hold them
a term
hostage, Gama became even more indignant (indignado)
He
frequently used by the chroniclers in connection with him.
lighter
now transferred the bulk of the artillery to the
vessels which could approach the shore more easily, declared
of Calicut the next day,
his intention to begin the bombardment
with orders that he
and sent back the Samudri’s emissary
"should not return with any other message save with the price
of the goods that had been taken from the Portuguese; and after
and the spice
this was handed over, then the matter of peace.
trade could be dealt with".
The Samudri having already been bombarded two years before
by Cabral, had arranged for a stockade of palm-trees to be put
up along the sea-front, both to prevent a landing and to hold
off artillery fire. Gama now sent an ultimatum till mid-day;
after this he began capturing vessels, and had each ship of his
aa "Moor" on the mast, from a stock of earlier
captives whom he distributed amongst them for this purpose. The
bombardment of Calicut lasted the whole day, writes Barros:
fleet
hang
of
[There was] "a continuous storm ( torvao) and a rain
iron and stone projectiles, which caused very great
des t rue t ion in which many people died as well. When night
things up (por espedida) , and for greater
fell, tto hespeed
had
the
heads, hands and feet of the hanged men
terror,
, and put on a boat with a letter, in which he said
cut off
that if those men, though they were not the same who had
beent Responsible for the death of the Portuguese, and only
on account of being relatives of the residents, had
51
I II
29
■ , the authors of that treachery
received that punishment,
of death that was even more cruel".52
could await a manner c.
This boat was sent ashore with a certain Andre Dias, and
the rest of the bodies were thrown into the sea with the tide,
so that they could be washed up on the beach. This matter cast
a pall on the city, and the next morning no one appeared on the
Things were so deserted, writes Barros,
could well have sacked the city. But he desisted:
sea-face.
that
Gama
"For since the deaths of these people had been worked more
for the King in terror to desist from hearing the counsels
of the Moors than as a vengeance for the past, he did not
wish to do as much damage as he could have, to give the
King time to repent, and not to become indignant on
account of the so great loss it would be were his city to
be wholly destroyed".
It would seem then that Gama still held out hope of a
settlement, and this was why a vessel with supplies captured
some days before was not looted. Two days after the "fury of
fire" described above, however,
however, he ordered it to be unloaded;
the goods on board were distributed in the fleet. and the ship
burnt in sight of the city, It was only now that Gama left with
some satisfaction for Cochin, where he arrived on 7th November
1502.
Here,
rejoicing.
mat ters
The
seemed
Portuguese
advised Gama of
to
give
factor
him
little reason
Cochin,
Gongalo
in
that Calicut,
for
Gil
Cannanore and
Cochin were all preparing a joint front against the Portuguese,
leading him to grow suspicious in turn of the Cochin ruler.
Finally, the latter had to allay his suspicions by coming on
board Gama's caravel to parley with him, while at the same time
emissaries arrived from Cannanore to reopen negotiations. More
surprising, a Brahmin ambassador came to Gama from Calicut,
leading the Admiral ito return to that port in early January
1503 with two vessels - characteristically enough his own, and
that
of
his
cousin
Estevao
da
Gama.
Not
altogether
unexpectedly, the invitation turned ou t to be a trap, from
which they were saved by the fortuitous arrival of another of
the clan, Vicente Sodre; this gave Gama a further opportunity
to have three hostages hanged on the masts of his caravel Sao
Barbosa,
rumours
Jeronimo, and to sail up and down the seafront of Calicut with
them visible,
visible,
finally
placing
the
bodies
in
a
boat
with
a
30
letter for the Samudri, in what was becoming a habit for him.
He now returned definitively to Cochin, to supervise the lading
of the vessels, and then went on to Cannanore in mid-January
1503. Here, as in Cochin, .he left behind a factor, and also
took on a minor cargo, before setting sail for Portugal, where
he arrived, probably in October 1503. Once in Lisbon, with
great pomp and circumstance, he carried the gold tribute of the
ruler of Kilwa to the palace,
in a procession with drums and
trumpets. Once more the glory of the Admiral, and his dramatic
re-entry, led him to jostle for centre-stage with Dorn Manuel
himself.
But can the expedition really be counted a success f rom
the Portuguese point of view ? The return cargo, according to
reports sent from Lisbon by the Cremonese merchant Juan
Francesco Affaitato, may have been as high as 26,000 quintals
of pepper and 6-7,000 quintals assorted spices, The same writer
also declared to his Venetian correspondents that Vasco da Gama
of
captains brought
back pearls
the other
h imse 1 f and
considerable value on private account; the Admiral himself is
40,000 ducats worth of
the
then,
By these measures
diverse high-value goods.53
expedition was indeed a success. But, as we have seen, Gama’s
reported
to
have
carried
35,000
to
own actions very nearly led to a rupture not only with Cochin
bu t also (in particular) with Cannanore, two kingdoms which
were considered by Dorn Manuel as allies, and which had gone to
the extent of sending ambassadors to Lisbon. Further, the point
of no return was passed in terms of relations with Calicut, and
Gama's departure left the Cochin ruler highly vulnerable to
retaliation
from
that
quarter,
as
we
know
from
hindsight,
Unfortunately, since we do not possess his regimento, we do not
know what precisely the Admiral was charged by his sovereign to
implement, but it is hard to believe that the desultory and
rather purposeless violence he inflicted was part of any
master-plan from Lisbon.54 It seems clear, overall, that by his
actions on a number of occasions (in particular the treatment
of hostages), Gama exacerbated matters with respect to Calicut,
ensuring that negotiations could not be pursued. It was only
the timely arrival of the next
fleet,
commanded by Afonso de
r
I
31
[
L
Albuquerque and his cousin Francisco, which turned this chaos
into some form of order by fortifying Cochin, and making it the
main Portuguese base on the Malabar coast.55
1
I
In this second expedition too, then,
then, it can be speculated
that Gama's intentions were somewhat at odds with those of Dorn
Manuel. His style of warfare appears very much based on the
Portuguese experience of North Africa and the Medi terranean
dependent on the support of his own close
clansmen, and leaving the Portuguese in the position of raiders
corsair tradition,
rather than stable traders. The emphasis for Gama, as later for
Dorn Francisco de Almeida, was probably far more on corsa i r
activity than on t rade as such, and the economics of the Red
Sea commerce per se did not seem to have interested him too
much. The same was equally true of his uncle, Vicente Sodre,
whom Gama left behind in the Indian Ocean on his return, with
royal orders to patrol the Malabar coast, and impede trade with
the Red Sea. Sodre, interpreting these orders in the spirit of
a corsair, set off on al rather ill-conceived expedition to the
mouth of the Red Sea, and he and the bulk of his fleet were
lost in a storm at the Khurian-Murian islands off south Arabia
in mid-1503. This loss was once more a blow to Dorn Manuel ' s
plans,
even
though
in
this
instance
clearly
the
resu 11
of
incompetence rather than sabotage.
No wonder then, that on his return f rom his second
expedition, Gama still found no major royal reward forthcoming,
It remained for him to consolidate his claim over his homebase, the vila of Sines, which he had been given with such
evident reluctance. Between late 1503 and 1507, it would seem
that Gama was at Sines, where he had sumptuous houses built for
himself, and also patronised the construction of the hermitage
of Sao Goncalo and Nossa Senhora das Salas.
Then, for reasons that are not altogether clear, he fell
out with one of his erstwhile patrons, Dorn Jorge, now Duke of
Coimbra. Dorn Jorge, we have seen, had made grants to Gama i n
1495; but in 1507, quite in contrast to his earlier actions, he
petitioned Doni Manuel to have Gama, his wife and family
expelled from Sines. The order (alvara), issued at Tomar on
21st March 1507, and made public by Dorn Jorge at Santiago de
32
Cacem on 26th June of that year, gave Gama a mere thirty days
to leave Sines. 11 runs :
"We, the King make it known to you Dorn Vasco da Gama,
Admiral of the Indies and of Our Council, that we consider
it well and to our service that for certain reasons which
move us, within thirty days of the making of this order,
you take your wife, and all your household from the Villa
of Sines where you at present maintain them. And neither
you nor your wife and household may return to or enter the
said Villa or its limits save with the permission of my
well-beloved and prized nephew the Master [Dorn Jorge]. And
if either of you does enter without his permission, either
with or without your household,
household, we consider it well that
you pay 500 cruzados in fine for the captives (ie. as
ransom for hostages on the Barbary coast], and besides it
will remain for us to give you the castigation due to
those who do not obey the orders of their King and Lord
”56
Explici t
mention
is
made in
a postscript,
the
to
construction works" (obra das casas) that Gama has had done in
the
town.
which should
Older
stop at
once.
Portuguese
his torians have often seen the matter as motivated by the
malevolent Dorn Jorge, who is portrayed as the worst sort of
libertine and wastrel.
The possible political significance of
this falling out escaped his attention; what we see here is Dorn
Manuel using a convenient complaint from a rather unexpected
quarter to put Gama in his place. Exiled from his erstwhile
z
the Admiral seems to have moved to Evora, where he
attempted without success in 1508 to buy himself another minor
landed position
that of alcaide-mor of Vila Franca de Xira.
residence,
The conflict between Dorn Manuel and Vasco da Gama, we are
aware from other sources, had been further exacerbated by the
expedition of 1502-03. The excellent and detailed account of
the Venetian Lunardo da Ca Masser,
resident at Lisbon in these
years, is particularly illuminating, not so much for its
description of the first nine Portuguese voyages to the Indian
Ocean, but for its analysis of the political s i tuat ion in
Portugal in about 1506. After noting the importance of the
corregedores and the veadores in politics (stressing the
positions
of
the
Baron
of
Alvi to,
Branco and Dorn Pedro de Castro),
Dorn
Martinho
de
Castelo
he goes on to write of the
position that was next in prestige, namely:
if
II
33
"An Admiral, which 1S
® y th oPne who discovered India;
who is Don Vascoi da
da Gamba
Gamba,, t
which office was
this is a most highly honorable
Vasco,
1
giien by this
this Most
^rysarateful t0 His
Most Serene Kin^
grateful
making him Admiral;
Admiral, even
intemperate man, without any
Highness, because he 1
spnza aicuna ragione); he has
■
>
destemperado,
senza
vnvase which have not
reason (homo
done many
endeared him to His
g
’
illuminated this route to Ind^a’
Most Serene King made him
,
f
anjuca^
and also he has
rrom mhreb
-hleb be
he has an
income
has
presen
that he can employ 200
this atprivilege
from oic
His Highness
H^ncss.^
invest in any
ducats on the route
I
without paying any duties
that J6 nxe
sort of spi«s that
great income.
income, even if he
^:S^^v^;
h:th^:Shfis of
ogf a
low condition (bassa
that
a low
which
has been made a Fidalgo,
1 -honorably
,
be^Uema"u"ntiiU___
o»«».
‘ , and 1ives
of
that
greatest grandees
and is considered among the
Kingdom”.57
evidently Sines, of which he
The "castle" in question was
wrote his account. In eclipse
was deprived soon after Ca Masser
in 1515, Vasco da Gama may be found resident at
in these years,
the King to add to his cash-pensions, from
Niza, petitioning
at Lisbon and various other sources, such as the
the salt-tax
to brine back a certain quantity of goods free not on y
right
Of freight-charges from Asia. Now, we should
of duties but
of eclipse for Gama, from 1507 to 1515,
in mind that the years
domestic political position
also
those
when
Dorn
Manuel's
were
His projected alliance with Ethiopia
was at its strongest. fruit; the spice trade brought rich
the spice trade
to bear
seemed about
; Portugal's prestige in
In Europe
Europe was
was high,
high, as
as Don. Manuel
revenues
veritable propaganda campaign to project himself
prosecuted a
,
o
______________ Christiana.
nh r i .<? 113D3 . But
respublica
cutting
edge
of
the
i
.
as being at the
Ethiopian
began to deteriorate, as the
from 1515, affairs
of Aden remained
alliance failed to materialise, the capture
, a major naval
unattained despite Albuquerque' s best efforts,
fleet to Morocco
disaster saw half the Portuguese? expeditionary 1
opposition came
lost in 1515 at Mamora, and domestic political
The Baron of
to regroup around the heir-apparent Dorn Joao.
Afonso de Albuquerque, the chosen
Alvito succeeded in replacing
instrument of Dorn Manuel's Asian policy, with his own cousin
I.opo Soares de Albergaria. The major Manuel me ideologue Duarte
K1„e
Galvao was sent out
r^^’duc^r'be
to Asia with Lopo Soares.
and ended his
34
1 i fe obscurely and ignominously t he re 1 n June 1517 , still
chasing the spectre of the alliance with Prester John. To
malcontents like Vasco da Gama, the opportunity seemed ripe; it
is probably in these years that he signalled his willingness to
join the group around the heir-apparent. An extraordinary
namely a letter addressed to Gama by Dorn
Manuel, shows how far things had gone. It runs as follows:
document from
f rom 1518,
’’Admiral, friend. It seems to us that this petition that
you present to us for the title of Count, which you say
that we had promised you, you have presented it as you saw
fit, and we on account of the services that you have
rendered do not wish to grant you the permission that you
ask from us for you to leave our Kingdoms, but by this
[letter] we order you that you remain in our Kingdoms
until the end of the month of December, this next one that
comes in the present year, and we hope that in this time,
you will see the error that you are committing and will
wish to serve us as is due, and not go to such an extreme,
and as soon as the said period is finished if you wish to
remain unmoved in your intention to leave our kingdoms,
even though we would feel this heavily, we would not
prevent you from going or from taking your wife and
children and your moveable goods. Written in Lisbon on the
27th of August by the Secretary 1518. The King”. 5 8
What Vasco da Gama threatened, in what was to remain a
standard tac tic of the epoch, was to go over to Castile and
there - rather like another Portuguese,
Fernao de Magalhcfes, or Ferdinand Magellan. What is more, in an
astonishing display of 1ese-majeste, he assumed, of his own
accord, the title of Count, and seized hold of some o f the
offer
his
servtices
to that position, Dorn Manuel was caught
in a quandary. To suppress this rebellious subject with force
was dangerous, when so many other sources of opposition
privileges pertaining
existed; besides,
the myth of Vasco da Gama already existed in
embryonic form, and he could not be treated as just another
noble. A compromise was reached; Gama was allowed to keep the
title. and the Duke of Bragan^a agreed to grant him some lands
from out of his own holdings, thus inaugurating a long-lasting
alliance between the Bragan^as and the Vidigueiras.
The
official grant of the title of Count of Vidigueira was made to
Gama only in late
December 1519
(more than a year after
the
earlier letter); Dorn Jaime, Duke of Bragan^a, had already ceded
the
necessary
rights
over
Vidigueira and Vila
de
Frades
in
4
I
35
November 1519.59 Royal weakness, and the shrewd exploitation of
a particular political situation, had transformed Gama from
fidalgo to landed noble, what he had been aiming for ever since
his return from his second voyage.
VII .
-
A last act remained to be played out. In the final years
re-consolidate
of his reign, it seemed that Dorn Manuel might
his political position, to the perdition of his foes. But this
did not happen. and in 1521, Dorn Manuel died, little mourned by
relations
had
steadily
with
whom his
successor
his
deteriorated. In turn, his son, Dom Joao III, found discontent
rife against himself, as he attempted to press through his own
being
the
creator
of
a
loose
policies.
Rather
than
1
dispensation, favourable to the nobility and its ambitions both
in Europe and in Asia, the new monarch turned out initially at
own. The Castilian
least to have centralising ambitions of his own.
ambassador Juan de Zuniga, in Lisbon in these years and in
close touch with a number of leading political figures,
a
declared that he had rarely seen so much discontent in
kingdom, and much of it was directed at Vasco da Gama, who had
emerged as the eminence grise of the new regime.60 In power,
the Count of Vidigueira finally made it clear what his
intentions and notions of statecraft really were, Rivals f rom
in
the old regime, like Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, were forced
a twist of irony - to seek refuge in Castile, while others like
Duarte Pacheco Pereira were jailed.61 Castile, not so long ago
b
a potential place of exile for Gama, became his central target,
and he declared his determination to put a stop to Charles V s
plans in the Moluccas, to which the Castilians laid claim after
the return of one of the vessels of Magellan’s fleet.62 Closer
to home, the Count proved an authoritarian in some respects,
probably advising the King Dom JoSto III to push through
military centralisation; the other great exponent of this was,
ironically enough, the infantry captain and sometime mercenary,
Cristdvao Leitao, who in his letters to Juan de Zuniga made his
hatred for Gama plain enough.63
But where Asia was concerned, there was a great difference
between (iama
r-is
u nd
Afonso <lc AI biiqiierque, uul hor 11 ar hin I hough
36
both were. Albuquerque had defended with vigour his conception
o f the western Indian Ocean as a chain of fortresses, from
Kollam to East Africa, with Cochin, Cannanore, Goa and Hurmuz
as key points. Gama when he returned as viceroy in 1524 did so
with the explicit intention of doing away with many of these
re-focusing
attention on Cochin. The state was to disengage from trade to a
large extent, and the viceroy was to be potentate rather than
trader. Both the monarch and Gama intended moreover that the
Governor in off ice, Dom Duarte de Meneses, a great private
centres
(as
well
as
Colombo
further
south),
and
firmly in his place. To achieve this.
Gama left Lisbon with a sizeable fleet of fifteen ships, and
in the opinion of Gaspar Correia - which
powers and pomp
rivalled that of the King himself; on board were some three
thousand men, including a sizeable contingent of the upper and
t rader,
should be put
middling nobility as well as Gama’s own sons Estevao (appointed
Captain-Major of India) and Paulo.64
Departing from the Tagus late in the season, in mid-Apri1,
although
in Mozambique in mid-August,
the fleet arrived
wreck.Passing
ships in a wreck.
65
Gujarat, the fleet arrived at Chaul, where Gama summarily and
where
impatiently assumed the post of viceroy, and then Goa
weakened by
the loss
of several
promptly dismissed the captain Francisco
Perei ra Pes tana and substituted him with Dom Henrique de
Meneses. The events of the period were noted by the Goa
the
new
viceroy
Municipal Council in a letter to Dom Joao III, which states:
’’The Count of Vidigueira arrived in this city on the 23rd
of September of the present year of 1524 with nine
it is
said that
vessels, L--------- five
- - are missing from the number
that left with him from there. It seems to us that he
comes with good intentions and desirous of serving Your
Highness and doing justice to all parties,, which is much
needed in this land, for we see that in the few days that
he was in this city he made reparations to many persons,
and cleaned up many errors that had been committed in
respect of Your Treasury, He was received by us in this
city with the honour due to those who love justice and
follow your orders”.66
What Gama would have achieved had he been viceroy for his full
term of three years, we cannot say. His image was that of an
irascible and implacable disciplinarian, as Correia reports building on the case of three women who were found on board the
<
►
37
Fi
i
and whom he had flogged in Goa for
fleet against his orders,
also had a reputation for being personally
this offence. He
Municipal Council notes that he "did not
incorruptible; the Goa
either Christian or Moor, not even
wish to take anything from
from this City, which all of us here found strange,
strange. for it is
the custom to take everything". Perhaps he would have changed
the face, if not the content, of Portuguese Asia - by returning
focus on
on Hurmuz,
Goa and Cochin and leaving the Bay of
Hurmuz, Goa
Bengal and parts
parts eastwards
eastwards to
to private enterprise. Certainly,
his intention
was to
to send
send out
out a strong armada to the Red Sea
intention was
under the command of his own son, Estevao, but this was not to
be.67 Instead, the main preoccupation of Gama between September
to a
i
(when he arrived at Goa), and December - when he died in Cochin
- remained the settling of scores
scores with
with his predecessor Dorn
In the course of these months, he showed a
Duarte de Meneses.68
of Albuquerque's opponents, and
notable partiality for some
of
when taken ill at Cochin even moved into the house of one
these - Diogo Pereira - where he died on Christmas Eve, 1524.
throughout his known career, Gama remained thus
In the end, as
Dorn Manuel,
and the agents of Manueline
at odds with
imperialism.
His immediate successor,
inadequate substitute
for
Dorn Henrique de Meneses, was an
the imperious Count of Vidigueira,
whose plans could not be put into effect. Other governors of
(including the
the late 1520s and 1530s
1530s (including
the celebrated Nuno da
Cunha) did not carry the weight of royal authority behind them;
besides, from the late 1520s, Dorn Joao III had begun to lose
his initial enthusiasm for reform in Asia.69 Such a level of
pomp and circumstance
circumstance as
as attended Gama's return in 1524 was
attained again only with his great-grandson, Dorn Francisco da
Gama, on becoming viceroy in 1597. But unlike his ancestor, Dorn
Francisco had no well-defined programme, save to enrich himself
while playing Asian politics by the rules of Machiavelli. In
these endeavours, he may perhaps - unlike Dorn Vasco in 1524
be counted a success.70
VIII.
We are aware that two great
of early Portuguese expansion in
legends dominate the history
Asia - those of Vasco da Gama
38
and Afonso de Albuquerque, Both men left behind inot merely
legends though; they also left behind dynasties of clansmen,
who zealously guarded and propagated the legends of their
heroic forbears,
already by the late sixteenth century.
Albuquerque had his admirers in the chroniclers Fernao Lopes de
Castanheda and Gaspar Correia; Gama had his in the later
sixteenth-century
de
Diogo
do
Couto, whose fulsome eulogy to him we have already cited.71
In
the
late
writers
Luis
sixteenth century,
Vaz
Camoes
Couto noted,
and
albeit
sotto voce,
that the two legends vied for space not merely metaphorically
but also literally: when Dorn Francisco da Gama had his great
grandfather’s portrait placed in a position of honour in the
Municipal Counci 1-House at Goa in 1597, it was resented by
many. Couto writes:
"This portrait of the Count Dorn Vasco da Gama, which was
thus put in that place with such rejoicing in the City,
was later shifted I do not know by whose order; for the
relatives of Afonso de Albuquerque claimed that the first
place in that City belonged to them as he was the
Conqueror of that City; and in order not to offend anyone,
both these Captains were moved to the porch of the House,
that of Afonso de Albuquerque on the right where the
Councillors sit, and that of the Count Admiral on the left
’•
7 2
Not only this: a statue of Vasco da Gama, which his greatgrandson had erectedI
in
the Viceroy’s Arch in Goa was
mysteriously pulled down one night by miscreants, who i t was
suspected enj oyed
the protection of Francisco da Gama’s
successor as viceroy, Aires de Saldanha, as well as of a number
of other officials and noblemen. This affair, which became a
cause celebre in the early seventeenth century, was never quite
resolved to anyone’s satisfaction,
despite a long report by a
commission of enquiry.73 There are some who would see in this
late sixteenth-century struggle the revival of tensions between
the proponents and the opponents of Manueline imperialism, but
this is surely too simplistic. The dialectic was not an eternal
one; Francisco da Gama was not Vasco da Gama, any more than his
predecessor as viceroy, Matias de Albuquerque, was the Terrible
Afonso (to whom he was, despite claims by his panegyrists, not
closely related in any case).74 But nor was this the mere
expression of the animal spirits of factional rivalry, the
39
analyse earlier quarrels like those
usual framework utilised to
Vaz de Sampaio in 1527,
be tween Pero Mascarenhas and Lopo
Joao de Castro in the
between Martim Afonso de Sousa and Dorn
Rather, the context was a Portuguese Asia
1540s, and so on.
1498 and 1524 had
in which the events of the years between
pseudo-Hellenistic
become overlain wi th a thick crust of
less than Jason
mythology; to Couto, Gama and his men were no
the
and the Argonauts, and the literary insp i ration for
not
Lusiadas need hardly be stressed. 7 6 The struggle was thus
in which they
only between two clans and the social networks
mythological
competing
two
between
but
located,
were
power in
cons t ructions of the establishment of Portuguese
differences over
India, and thus a concrete expression of
legendary ’’property rights”.
There had traditionally been a certain reluctance to
address
this
question
in
the
literature
on
Portuguese
this
expansion. Indeed, the Portuguese liberal historiography of the
late
nineteenth
century
confounded
matters
further
by
introducing a red herring into the picture: namely the topos of
a binary opposition between Loyal Subject and Ingrate Ruler. It
even appeared that the Great Discoveries were the result of the
collective genius of Portuguese citizens, who had to overcome
not merely natural
forces
but the malevolence of
monarchs. Writers of the liberal school
incompetent
thus blithely brought
together under a single head a set of wholly diverse cases from
the reign of Dorn Manuel: Vasco da Gama, Afonso de Albuquerque,
Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Pedro Alvares Cabral, Diogo Lopes de
and this
list does not even claim to be
Sequeira
exhaustive.7777 By unconsciously accepting this idea, t wen t i e t h
century historians had in turn missed an opportunity to demystify a historiography that was ever more steeped in legend,
and which the state-sponsored celebrations of the Discoveries
stressing the technical achievements and
in 1960 and 1969
universal mission of internationalist bonhomie inherent in
Gama's voyage, once shorn of its cultural and political context
were hardly concerned to do in Portugal.
It would be anachronistic in the closing years of the
twentieth century to speak of feet of clay, or to denigrate
__ ro
40
Gama by posing him as no more than a mixture of irascible
egoist , wi ly factionalist, and intriguer, But, at the same
time, we can surely do better than Couto, who saw in him an
amalgam of Jason, Achilles and Cato, or even a recent F rench
his torian, Genevieve Bouchon
Bouchon,, whose otherwise useful popular
biography of Afonso de Albuquerque refers to its subject
repeatedly as "our hero", and uses, without apparent irony, the
address of "lion of the seas" (asad al-bahr) used for him in
correspondence by Shah Ismacil of Iran, though it is obvious
that the title was no more than a conventional formula, often
used in letters by Asian rulers of Perso-Islamic culture to all
the Portuguese vicprnv.qjs
viceroys.78 Indeed, all in all, it is the
absence of irony, and the presence of a self-conscious desire
to rhetorical inflation heavily inflected with simple-minded
nationalisms <of various sorts, that separates the history of
Vasco da Gama, the man in his context, from both the myth of
Gama, the eternal Argonaut, and the black legend of Gama,
Darth Vader of the sixteenth century.
the
a modern historical novel entitled Padasancar, 1the
Bengali novelist Narayan Gangopadhyay opens with a
scene in Calicut, where Vasco da Gama has just arrived.79 His
cannons blaze, and the main minaret of the Calicut mosque falls
down; Vasco da Gama laughs. This disembodied laugh carries,
floats over
the Indian subcontinent, wafts over various
provinces, and eventually arrives in Bengal, where this laugh,
this cutting laugh, hacks the hands of the weavers of Bengal.
Vasco da Gama has become the English East India Company of the
post-Plassey period, and the chapter is titled "Quim te trouxe
aqua (sic)’’, an obvious reference to the exchange at Calicut
reported in the journal of Gama’s first voyage. The novelist is
entitled to his vision, but we too must take ourselves whether
we ought to take that vision for history. If we do, historians
but
H
<
In
leftist
may as well lay aside their pens or word-processors,
suspect they shall not be the only losers.
<
I
1 I
i
1
I
i
41
h
l
I
t
i
NOTES
arguments
and
materials
♦.
This
paper
obviously draws
extensively from my book The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama
(Cambridge/Delhi: Cambridge University Press/Foundation Books,
1997).
1. Extract from a speech made by Couto at the Goa Municip
Council before the viceroy Dorn Francisco da Gama, Conde da
Vidigueira, and great-grandson of Vasco da Gama; text from the
Biblioteca Publica e Arquivo Distrital, Evora, Codex CXV/2-8,
no. 1
P. 268. A slightly different version may be found i n
Diogo do Couto, Da Asia, Decada XII facsimile of the Regia
Oficina Tipografica edition, 1788 (Lisbon, 1974), pp. 116-7.
b
i
the
2. There was also a fourth book somewhat earlier,
semi-fictional
confection
of
Rene
Virgile
altogether bizarre
Duchac,
Vasco de Gama: L'orgeuil et la blessure (Paris:
L’Harmattan, 1995), but it can hardly be termed history.
review to date is that of
3. Thus , the most critical academic ‘i Vakil
in Portuguese
AbdoolKarim
the Portuguese historian
unfortunately
marred by
222-24,
l
Studies, Vol. 13, 1997, pp.
wild
and
errors,
misreadings
and
several
elementary
3 to be
Vakil
’
s
central
reproach
appears
unsubstantiated claims,
the nineteenth and
that the book is inot mainly focused on t..~ ---twentieth centuries.
4. For an example of recent Brazilian historiography, see
Geraldo Martires Coelho, 0 Genio da Floresta: 0 Guarany e a
Opera de Lisboa (Rio de Janeiro, 1996).
t
li
5. For a sense of the long-term evolution of these tendencies,
cf. Sergio Campos Matos, "Portugal: The Nineteenth-Century
Debate on the Formation of the Nation", Portuguese Studies,
Vol. 13, 1997, pp. 66-94.
6. On Columbus, see P.E. Taviani, Cristoforo Colombo: La Genesi
della Grande Scoperta, 2 vols. (Novara, 1974); the massive, but
Jacques
Heers,
of
unfortunately
unreferenced,
biography
Carla
Rahn
Christophe Colomb (Paris, 1981); and in English,
Worlds
of
The
Phillips and
William D.
Phillips j r . ,
Christopher Columbus (Cambridge, 1992).
7. See Eila M.J.
M. J . Campbell, "Gama, Vasco da, lel Conde (1st
Count) da Vidigueira (b. c. 1460, Sines, Port. - d. Dec. 24 ,
The New Encyclopaedia Britannica:
1524,
Cochin,
India)",
LBo,. 1989), v, pp. 100-101, a
(Chicago
Micropaedia\ 15th edn.
an
<article already published in the
slightly revised version of
14th edition (1964).
8. For the political context of thej 1880s celebrations, see
Maria Isabel Jocfo, ”A festa civica: 0 tricentenario de Camoes
nos Azores (10 de junho de 1880)”, Revista de His toria
Economica e Social, xx (1987), pp. 87-111. For a contemporary
account, see Manuel Pinheiro Chagas, ”A trasladaqao dos ossos
<
de Vasco da Gama em 1880", A Ilustracato Portuguesa,
49-51 (1885-86) (in three parts).
ii ,
IK
9. Luis de Camoes, Os Lusiadas, introduction and notes by Mai
Leticia Dionisio (Lisbon, 1985), canto i, verse 12: "Dou-v
tambem aquele ilustre Gama/ Que para si de Eneias toma a fama”.
10. See Luciano Cordeiro, "Os Restos de Vasco da Gama", Boletim
da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 15a Serie, iv ( 1896), cp.
191-200.
11. Cf. A.C. Teixeira de Aragao, Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira:
Estudo historico (Lisbon, 1898). In English, see the mediocre
account in K.G. Jayne, Vasco da Gama and His Successors, 14601580 (London, 1910), and the materials published in Henry E.J.
Stanley, The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama and His Viceroyalty
(London, 1869).
12.
Cf.
Carmen
M.
Radulet,
c ircumnavigazione
dell rAfrica,
Edizioni Diabasis, 1994).
Vasco
da
1497-1199
Gama: La
prima
(Reggio
Emilia:
13. Jaime Cortesao, A politica de Sigilo nos Descobrimentos
(Lisbon, 1960); Armando Cortesao, "The mystery of Columbus”,
The Contemporary Review, cli ( 1937), PP- 322-30.
14. Armando Cortesao, The Mystery of Vasco da Gama (Coimbra,
1973). The book was also published in a Portuguese version, 0
mis ter io de Vasco da Gama, in the same year.
15. This point of view was defended by a Portuguese member of
the audience in the book-discussion of The Career and Legend,
held at the India International Centre, New Delhi, on 29 August
1997 . For a balanced discussion of the evidence and hypotheses,
see
Francisco Contente Domingues,
Domingues, "Colombo e a politica de
s igi loi na historiografia portuguesa", Mare Liberum, i (1990),
Navegadores
vegadores, Viajantes e
PP • 105-16;: also Luis de Albuquerque, Na
Aventureiros Portugueses: Seculos XV e XVI, vol. i (Lisbon,
1987), a work highly critical of Armando Cortesao’s hypothesis
on Gama, by one of his former collaborators.
16. Most of their relevant essays will be found in Jean Aubin,
Le Latin et 1 'Astrolabe, I: Recherches sur le Portugal de la
Renaissance,
son
expansion
en
Asie
et
les
relations
internationales (Paris: Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian,
1996) and Luis Filipe F R. Thomaz, De Ceuta a Timor (Lisbon:
Difel, 1994).
17. Jean Aubin, "D. Joao II devant sa succession", Arquivos do
Centro Cultural Portugues, xxvii (1991), pp .101-40.
18. Cf. Luis Filipe Thomaz, "L’idee imperiale manueline", in
Jean Aubin (ed.), La decouverte, le Portugal et 1'Europe
(Paris, 1990), pp. 35-103, and Thomaz, "Factions, Interests and
Messianism: The Politics of Portuguese Expansion in the East,
1500-1521", The Indian Economic and Social History Review,
xxviii (1991).
I
1
43
19. Conde de Ficalho, Viagens de Pedro
1898); Aubin, Le Latin et 1'Astrolabe.
da Covilhan
20. Thomaz, De Ceuta a Timor; Subrahmanyam,
Empire in Asia, 1500-1700, pp. 30-37.
The
(Lisbon,
Portuguese
21. For a longer view of the hostility of the territorial
nobility to the Crown, see Humberto Baquero Moreno, "La lutte
de la noblesse portugaise contre la royaute a la fin du Moyen
Age", Arquivos do Centro Cultural Portugues, xxvi (1989), pp.
49-66. For a view of the constraints faced by Dorn Joao II, and
his weakness with respect to Castile, see besides Aubin, "D.
Joao II devant sa succession", Jean Aubin, "D. Joao II et Henry
VII", in Congresso Internacional, Bartolomeu Dias e a sua epoca
- Aetas, Vol. I (Oporto, 1989).
22. Joao de Barros, Da Asia, 4 Volumes in 8 Fascicules (reprint
Lisbon, 1973), Decada 1/1, pp. 1-2.
23. Teixeira de Aragao,
Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira, pp. 3-5.
24. On Zacuto, see Francisco Cantera Burgos, Abraham Zacut
(Madrid, 1935), and more recently Victor Crespo, "Abraao Zacuto
e a Ciencia Nautica dos Descobrimentos Portugueses”, Oceanos,
xxix ( 1997), pp. 119-28. .
25. Garcia de Resende, Cronica de Dorn Joao II, ed.
Verissimo Serrao (Lisbon, 1973), ch. cxlvi, p. 213.
26. Documents reproduced in Teixeira de Aragao,
a Vidigueira, doc. 6, pp. 215-6.
Joaquim
Vasco da Gama e
27. Gaspar Correia, Lendas da India, ed. M. Lopes de Almeida, 4
vols. (Oporto, 1975), i, ch. v, p. 13.
28. Grant-letters reproduced with a facsimile in Cortesao, The
mystery of Vasco da Gama, pp. 178-83, with English translations
on pp. 184-5.
29. For the chroniclers’ views, see Barros, Da Asia, Decada
1/1, book iv, ch. 1; Correia, Lendas da fndia, i, p. 12; Fernao
Lopes de Castanheda, Historia do Descobrimento e Conquis ta da
fndia pelos Portugueses, ed. M. Lopes de Almeida, 9 books in 2
vols. (Oporto, 1979), i, pp. 10-11; Damiao de Gois, Cronica do
felicissimo Pei Dorn Manuel, 4 vols. (Coimbra, 1949-55), ch.
xxiii;
see also M.N.
Pearson,
The Portuguese in
India
(Cambridge, 1987), p. 19, who largely accepts a rather romantic
account by Gaspar Correia.
30. Bouchon,
Vasco de Gama, P.
31. Fonseca,
Vasco da Gama, P. 33.
101 .
32. For the Atlantic passage, see the classic work by Carlos
Viegas Gago Coutinho, "DiscussSo sobre.a rota seguida por Vasco
da Gama entre Santiago e S. Br&s”, Anais da Academia Portuguesa
2^a Serie, ii ( 1949), pp. 99-131. There are some
da His toria, 2
'M
additional speculationsj on a landfall near Brazil by Bouchon,
which remain unverified.
Vasco de Gama, pp. 114-15,
L_33. Anonymous (attributed to Alvaro Velho), Roteiro da Primeira
Viagem de Vasco da Gama, ed. Neves Aguas (Lisbon, 1987), p. 36.
For an earlier English translation, E.G. Ravenstein, ,A journal
of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497-1499 (London, 1898).
34. Anon., Roteiro, pp. 54-5. The convict-exile (degredado) is
also sometimes identified as a converted Jew (cristao-novo) .
35. Anon., Roteiro, p. 75
36. Teixeira de Aragao, Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira, docs. 8
and 9,
9, pp.
pp. 217-20;
217-20; for
for the context, also see A.A. Banha de
Andrade, Mundos Moves do Mundo: Panorama da difusao pela Europa
de noticias dos Descobrimentos Geograficos Portugueses, 22 vols.
(Lisbon, 1972), i, pp. 206-24.
37 Radulet, Vasco da Gama, p. 169; for an earlier translation,
see Ravenstein, A Journal of the first voyage, pp. 123-36, the
author being Girolamo Sernigi. This letter is almost identical
in some respects to a version attributed to Sernigi from the
:__J as ’’Navigazione di Vasco da Gama
same month, and published
(
jh , in
; r, Giovanni
r?
i Battista Ramusio,
Ramiicio. Navigazioni
NaviPazioni e viaggi, ed .
Marica Milanesi (Turin, 1978), i, pp. 607-17.
38. Radulet, Vasco da Gama, p. 196.
that uama
Gama returned
leiuincu only
39. One anonymous source even suggests mat
t
cf.
Luis
de
Albuquerque
(ed.),
Cronica do
in October 1499;
Descobrimento e prime!ras conquis tas da India pelos Portugueses
(Lisbon, 1986), p. 41.
40. Teixeira de Aragao, Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira, doc.
pp. 220-21 .
10,
41 . Anselmo Braamcamp Freire, ”0 Almirantado da India: Data da
Archivo
Historico -Portuguez,
i (1903),
.
, . pp. 25-32.
sua criaqao", --------------~
k *
The title of Admiral is used in several documents of 1500, but
not in some others of 1501, where Gama is merely termed Dom and
a member of the Royal Council. •
42. Cf. Felgueiras Gayo, Nobiliario de Familias de Portugal,
vol. xiv (Braga, 1939), pp.
pp. 75-6;
75-6; also Affonso de 'Dornellas,
’’Bases genealogicas dos Ataides", in his Historia e Genealogia,
i (Lisbon, 1913), pp. 107-42.
43. This has been disputed however by Francisco Leite de Faria,
’’Pensou-se em Vasco da Gama para comandar a armada que
descobriu o Brasil", Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, xxvi
( 1978), pp. 145-85. Faria points out, on the basis of an
undated document that Gama’s name was considered in place of
Cabral to head the 1500 expedition, but then goes on to assert
that in 1502, there was no question of Cabral leading the
expedition, the chroniclers notwithstanding.
1!
45
Gois , Cronica, part
44. Barros, Da Asia, Decada 1/2, pp. 21-2;
i, ch. Ixviii.
45
There are two versions of this grant letter, dated two
vears apart
The first, from 1500, may be found in Braamcamp
Frelre
AULrant.do da India"; the seeoni1 dated 1 O^hJanuary
1502 is reproduced in an appendix to Stan y,
Voyages, pp. i-vi.
46. Besides the chronicles, a particularly valuable eyewitness
is that of the Italian Alberto
account to this ceremony
Duke of Ferrara in Lisbon, published
Cantino, ambassador of the
in Henry Harrisse, Document inedit concernant Vasco da Gama:
Relation adressee' a Hercule d'Este, Due de Ferrare par
Ambassadeur a la Cour de Portugal (Paris, 1889).
son
Indie Orientali di Tome Lopez", in
, i. PP- 683-738, an account
Ramus io, Navigazioni e viaggi
into’ Italian, of which the original
translated from Portuguese
; also Prospero Peragallo. "Viaggio
’’Viaggio di Mattec> da
is untraced; <--.
India sulla flotta di Vasco• da Gama, 1502-1503
Bergamo in
series iv, vol.
Bollettino della Societa Geografica Italiana,
also
a
third
anonymous
account,
in
iii
( 1902). There is also a third
Freire
Costa
Joao
Rocha
^Pinto,
and
Portuguese,
in Leonor Freire Costa
"RelaQao Anonima da Segunda Viagem de Vasco da Gama a India”,
"Navigazione verso
47.
le
in Cidadania e Historia:
Jaime
Homenagem
a o
--- Cortesao
---j”
‘5“
(Lisbon,
1986).
published in Antwerp possibly in
48. The Flemish text, first t
reproduced
in
Teixeira
de Aragao, Vasco da Gama e a
1504, is i .
modern
edition exists by Jean
Vidigueira, pp. 79-86; a more
Denuce, Calcoen: Rec it flamand du second voyage de Vasco da
Gama vers 1’Inde• en 1502-1503 (Antwerp, 1939). A summary of
already
available in Venice by early 1504, and is
1
v, ed Federico
Stefani (Venice, 1881). pp. 1064-5. Other accounts differ in
suggesting a tribute of only 500 misqals, but also describe how
Kilwa was heavily bombarded before the ruler capitulated.
I
■ c"
f PY t
\a/A
reproduced in l'Dlaril ~di Marino Sanuto, vol.
49. Also see Barros, Da Asia, Decada 1/2, pp. 34-8. It is
curious that the major Egyptian chronicle of the epoch carries
no echo of this incident;^; cf. Ibn lyas al-Hanafi al-Misri,
Bada fi * al-Zuhur fi Waqa'i c al-Duhur, translated by Gaston Wiet
as Journal
d'un
d 'un
50. Ba r ros,
Da Asia, Decada i/2. P • 43.
bourgeois
du Caire:
Chronique d'Ibn lyas,
2
vols. (Paris . 1955-60), particularly vol. i (1500-1516). It had
been suggested by Genevieve Bouchon that the Miri mayr in fact
which
the
Portuguese
vessel,
been
a
Gujarati
have
states
that
in one
his
part,
for
misidentified. Tome Lopes,
di
Calicut",
and in
nave
gran
"una
;
place that the vessel was
but
to
his
agent
it
belonged
not
to
the
Sultan
another that
on
board;
cf.
who
was
Afanquy
")
,
Jauhar al-Faqih
("loar
Ramusio, Navigazioni e viaggi. i , PP ■ 701-702.
Compare Lopes,
49.
51.
Barros,
Da Asia,
Decada 1/2,
p.
in
Ramusio,
Navigazioni
"Navigazione verso le Indie Orientali",
46
e viaggi,
letter.
P-
711 ,
with
a
brief
paraphrase
52. Barros, Da Asia,
Decada 1/2, pp.
occurred on 31st October, i f one follows
Lopes, ’’Navigazione’’ , pp. 714-5.
of
the
same
52-3. These events
the account of Tome
53. See three letters from Affaitato in Lisbon to Piero
Pasqualigo, dated 20th August, 14th September and 17th October
1503, in Diarii di Marino Sanuto, v, pp. 130-31, 133-4, and
841-3. Gama’s own fortune is discussed in the last of these,
The letters to Florence of 1499 affirm that even on his first
voyage, Gama brought back goods on his own personal account,
while scarcely making efforts to secure the trading interest of
the Crown
some of whose goods he abandoned in Calicut.
54. Of course, Gama was expected to use force, as we see from
Bartolomeo Marchionni's statement after his departure that his
fleet
would
"subjugate
all
of
India",
and
Affaitato's
prediction that lacking specie, the Portuguese would have to
use force to get a good lading; these statements may be found
in letters dated 20th and 26th September 1502, in I Diarii di
Marino Sanuto, vol. iv, ed. Nicolo Barozzi (Venice, 1880), pp.
544-5, and 664-5. The point is that Gama’s actual use of
violence was often at odds with the larger strategic conception
of Dorn Manuel.
55. Aubin, Le Latin
Bouchon, Albuquerque,
pp.
1
e t 1 'Astrolabe, pp. 49-110; Genevieve
le lion des mers d'Asie (Paris, 1992),
47-51.
56. AN/TT, Livro dos Copos, f o. 257, in Teixeira de Aragao,
Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira, doc. 18 , pp. 250-52.
57. Cf. the ’’Relazione de Lunardo da cha Masser”, published in
Prospero Peragallo, ’’Carta de El-Rei J). Manuel ao Rei Catholico
narrando as viagens portuguezas a India desde 1500 ate 1505
(...)’’, Memorias da Academia Heal das Sciencias, 2a Classe,
Lisbon, vi/2 (1892), pp. 67-98, especially p. 89.
58. Teixeira de Aragao, Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira, doc. 23,
pp. 257-8. Also see Luciano Cordeiro, De como e quando foi
feito Conde Vasco da Gama (Lisbon, 1892), which earlier brought
together much of the documentation of 1518-9.
59 . Teixeira de Aragao, Vasco da Gama e a Vidigueira, docs. 24,
the Bragan^a-Gama
and
27,
pp.
258-9, 261-70.
Later,
26,
alliance
was
a
conspicuous
Restoration of 1640.
f eature
of
the
Portuguese
60. The letters of Juan de Zuniga are conserved in the Archivo
General de Simancas, Estado, Legajos 367 and 368; they are
calendared in A. Teixeira da Mota, ’’Duarte Pacheco Pereira:
Capitao e Governador de S. Jorge da Mina", Mare Liberum, i
(1990), pp. 1-27. Earlier letters from Zuniga, written between
May and July 1523, are reproduced in an appendix to Luis de
Matos,
’’Antonio Maldonado de Hontiveras e a cquestao das
I
<
I t
47
da Mota (ed.), A viagem de Fernao de
MolucasJ ” , in A. Teixeira Molucas (Lisbon,, 1975), PP- 548-77.
das
<
Magalhaes e a questao
jy •. 111-32; also see Ronald
\
1
'Astrolabe,
PP
61. Aubin, Le Latin et
de Sequeira (Lisbon, 1975).
Bishop Smith, Diogo Lopes
the
Moluccas problem, focusing on
discussion
of
the
— * , see Luis
62. For a
of iApril-May 1524,
de
vista de D.
failed Luso- Hispanic negotiations
"Os pontos
de Albuquerque and1 Rui Graqa Feijo, in Teixeira da Mota (ed.),
”,
Joao III na Junta de
< _ Badajoz-Elvas
.. pp.
527-45.
Fernao
de
Magalhaes
,
A viagem de -------1 'Astrolabe, pp. 309-69.
63. Aubin, Le Latin et
ii, pp. 815-6.
64. Correia , Lendas da India,
G3. An
Venice, which also stale
An alternative .leparlure^.hM^
65
contradicted by letters
ducats was spent on the fleet,
that an enormous sum of 35O’°
i
f iqo.OOO ducats; cf. two
including an /"vestibie capital
d& Molin of 8th
letters from Francesc
niarii di Marino Sanuto, vol. xxxvi,
St,6Ft\Tr:liUC4’Be“eier:nrrNdJBarozzI (Venice. 1892). PP.
352-3.
from the Goa Municipal Council1 to Dorn Joao III,
66. Letter
appendix to Stanley,
dated 31st October 1524, reproduced in an <
The Three Voyages, PP• x-xvi.
of Portuguese India in
67. It was only much later, as Governorda Gama could lead a
the early 1540s, that Dorn Estevao
far as Suez.
celebrated expedition up the Red Sea, as
this
ii, pp.
fotnd^tn India
1 thea’"Relkzi
Pone di Gasparo
68. Correia,
quarrel
letta in
ritornato 1T2b“.O1VnOreEug:nio AibeM (ed
(ed.).
.) ,
Novembre
"Onbasciatorl Veneti al ^nato.
‘ sill is less
1840), p. 49, where Gontanni
these captains of his whom
srs::
j^^
8?nn?o
have begun
to aisx
compete tsestpthe„se1ees
Empire in Asia, PP-. 80-88. For
69. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese
Joanine rule,
transitioni from Manueline to manuelino ao
another view of the
Oliveira ee Costa,
"Do sonho
'
see Joao Paulo Oliveira
as relacSes lusoNovos
documentos
sobre
realismo joanino:
Studia, 1 (1991),
chinesas na terceira decada do seculo XVI",
pp. 121-56/
as Assassin: The
70. Cf.
c. 1600” , Santa
Mughals,
1995, pp. 162-203.
Barbara Portuguese Studies, Special Number,
ulImo, Em torno de Diogo do Couio
71. Cf. Antonio Coimbra Martins,
de Coimbra, 1985).
(Coimbra: Biblioteca Geral da Universidade
--
120.
72. Couto, Da Asia, Decada XII, p.
eq
48
73. "Devassa (treslado da) que tirou o Licenciado Silvarte
Caeiro de Gra, ouvidor geral do crime, a respeito do motim que
se fizera pera quebrar a estatua de D. Vasco da Gama", in A. da
Torre
do Tombo, vi (Lisbon,
.
Silva Rego (ed . ) , As Gavetas da 7L.
1967), pp. 370-98.
74 . Biblioteca Publica e Arquivo Distrital, Evora, Cddex CXV/113, "Vida de Mathias de Albuquerque", ch. 1, fos. 2-2v, 215-21.
75. For the Mascarenhas-Sampaio quarrel for succession to the
governorship at the death of Dorn Henrique de Meneses in 1526,
see the detailed exposition in Antonio^ Coimbra^ Martins,
"Correia, Castanheda e as Diferen^as da India”, Revista da
Universidade de Coimbra, xxx (1984), pp. 1-86. For a more
general discussion, largely in the context of the seventeenth
century, see Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, pp.
235-8.
76. Antonio Cirurgiao, ”A diviniza^ao do Gama de Os Lusiadas t
Arquivos do Centro Cultural Portugues, xxvi (1989), pp. 513-38;
also Silvia Maria Azevedo, "0 Gama da Historia e o Gama d ’ Os
Lusiadas", Revista Camoniana, New Series, i (1978), pp. 105-44.
77. Cf. Aubin, "Les
” Les frustrations de Duarte Pacheco Pereira",r PGama, ^the preface by Manuel
183 and passim. On Vasco da Gama,
Pinheiro Chagas to Teixeira de Aragao, Vasco da Gama e a
Vidigueira, pp
pp.. xxiv-xxx, with <a curious comparison deriving
from the writings of Alexandre Dumas between Dorn Manuel I and
Louis XIV of France, both egoists and both unjust to their
subjects. On Albuquerque, more recently T.F. Earle and John
Villiers, Albuquerque, Caesar of the East: Selected Texts by
Afonso de Albuquerque and His Son (Warminster, 1990), in which
and Ungrateful
introduction,
"Faithful Servant
-Villiers’s
which
could
well
have
been
written
in 1890
Master”, PPpp. 1-23,
rather than 1990.
78. Cf.
Cf . Genevieve Bouchon, Albuquerque, lion des mers d'Asie;
for example, Arquivos Nacionais/Torre do Tombo, Convento da
Gra^a, Tomo III.
III, P.
p. 295, letter from Chand Bibi of Ahmadnagar
to Dorn Francisco da Gama, 3rd October 1598.
79. I am grateful to Gautam
summary of the novel’s plot.
Bhadra
for
the reference
and
a
I
r
t
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
on
COLONIALISM and GLOBALIZATION
Five Centuries after Vasco da Gama
February 2-6,1998
New Delhi, India
Trade Mechanisms in Portuguese Asia:
The Society of Jesus in Trade during 1542-1759
»
by
Dr Charles J. Borges, S.J.
Director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research,
Goa, India
Et
Trade Mechanisms in Portuguese Asia:
The Society of Jesus in Trade during 1542-1759
By
Fr. Charles J. Borges, S.J.
Crown and private trade mechanisms in Portuguese Asia were meant to help the mother
ilv
If the Portugal had made use of military strength in the early years of her
involved with the Portugal also benefited to some extent.
Various causes went into the making of the Portuguese commercial enterprise in the East.
Prof Saniav Subrahmanyam in his masterful summary of Portuguese empire in Asia
•isn(^1700 concludes that the Portuguese commercial and imperial enterprise in Asia
eha.ac.erLd
.he.esuh of .he io.e.ac.oo of eh^es no.
merely in the metropolis itself but in East Asia, Africa and South America.
WnrVino Aloneside the Crown and private merchants, was the religious group known as
the Society of8 Jesus An important unit worldwide, in Portuguese Asia it turned out the main
the Society ot Jesus. A
p
... . Order of Friars Minor, Order of Dominicans and
rehg'om>or^1^
its trading activities on its own financial strength (except
EBB:
evangelization, trading, education and control over the people.
«
The present paper describes the trade and market activities of the Jesuits, the members of
the Society of Jesus^d suggests that these activities were to a large extent to the detriment of
the local economy. Meant to help primarily the Order, by extension it did benefit in some degree
the local people and causes.
see Jesuit trading and commercial patterns. One
It is the Jesuit missions that help one
in Africa has commented: "When studying the
historian while studying the Jesuit missions
have
to try to see how they (the Jesuits) obtained their
economic role that the missions played we 1
resources, how they used them, to what extent these were sufficient to maintain their work and
century 1600-1663, New Delhi: Gian
_1_ in
’ i seventeenth
1 Afzal Ahmed, Indo-Portuguese trade
pation in the
* TT" :
23-24; Charles J. Borges, "Native Goan partici
Publishing
House,
(seminar
paper, 1996).
Estado da India and inter-Asiatic trade
(
2 The Portuguese Empire in Asia 1500-1700: A politi
Longman Group UK
Limited, 1993, p. 277.
cal and economic history, England:
1
finally the influence of the missions on the economic life of the country as a whole. In spite of
the small place taken by material affairs in their correspondence the missions must have been
very much concerned with them, for their work could not flourish without a sound material
foundation".3
Finances were meant for the growth of the missions and a study of the Jesuit Asian
Assistancy, for instance, substantiates this. Since the promised Crown subsidies to the
missionaries often never came along, Jesuits looked elsewhere for funding and established links
for this purpose between themselves, and merchants and political powers as they worked in their
Asian missions.
Among themselves they set up a system known as economic networking by which they
laid emphasis on finances moving from one place to another (most often out of India),
facilitating at the same time the work for which it was necessary. As it turned out, the system had
many critics. Jesuit economic activities in Asia can be seen in their workings in their four
provinces of Goa, Malabar, Japan and China.
The Provinces
<
Among the four provinces that made up the Asian Assistancy of the Society of Jesus, the
first to begin and the largest of them was the Goa Province which from 1542 till 1605, consisted
of the Goa islands, certain parts of North and South India, Japan and China. At Goa, the
province had St. Paul's College, the Bom Jesus church, Professed House, Novitiate of Chora_~o,
and the Rachol and Ma o colleges. There were residences in the Mughul empire, at Bengal,
Srinagar, Tibet, Madurai and Calicut. There were also residences at Bassein, Thane, Daman
and Diu, and Chaul. The Province also had missions in Ethiopia and Persia.
l
I
1'hcse colleges and residences grew' strong with initial Crown funding, donations and with
destroyed Hindu temple properties. St. Paul's had rents from orchards, palm groves, and
plots on the Divar and Chora_~o islands, and
also owned the North Province villages of
Bandra, Corlem, Sargy and Mori (outside Goa). It had a substantial income from its properties
and from the gifts which the King received from the local chiefs and which he passed on to it. 4
The Professed House housed the Fr. Provincial and important Jesuit officials. Besides
these it was supposed to house fourteen Jesuits only who would work exclusively with the local
and non-Portuguese people. The Constitution of the Society of Jesus had decreed that professed
houses had to concentrate purely on spiritual ministries and could not receive any regular income
• W illiam Rea, The Economics of the Zambezi Missions
Historicum Societatis lesu,
1976, p. 19.
1580-1759, Rome: Archivum
4 Josef Wicki (ed.), Documenta Indica (hereafter DI), Rome: Archivum Historicum Societatis lesu,
vol. 14, 1979. p. 108.
2
I
for their upkeep.
Jeronimo
benefactors of this Goa house.
io Moreno had been two
Mascarenhas and Antonio
important
southern Goan village of Rachol
■ The Seminary and St. Ignatius College came up at the
had temple lands and
in 1574, and the Holy Spirit College was ^Benli^RaiT and Talaulim. 6
various land donations at Margate, Naveltm, Bemim,
The Novitiate at Choro ^/^e/theTs^doT Luvary"
r
A^Tertain Gaspar15Viegls on
at Carmona, plots and saltpans, an own
wealth to this Novitiate which enabled it.to
entering the Society of Jesus had gifted much of
bequealhed a further
buy properties at Cannons Taie^ao and P»,
of ch
d „ a stgn
b“ppSo“aX had Sito the. a huge pic. of ground near the Church.
The Royal Treasury had confiscated
a Dorn Pedro de
Velitn and Ambelim from their ongirta ownca!1
d
vU1
t0 the Novitiate al
Castro. He in tum. being unable 10 pay the ^“lr“ r
’
. his estale at Curea to (be Jesuns
Ch“raX CfOeinhX7 Hr:enP"mo7«y™m ^e lesui. Procurator of ^e lapan
P°ro.mcenlc°e heXd find no one else who eouid lend him as much.
St. PauPs (new) had at Mahim
Bombay Hee fields ^P--—
“ “d
StpJs at Pare! and Wadala. and palm-trees at Daman and Dtu.
s John Humbert, ',Some
^e”oral35°f
p0*329; Josef
Acquaviva Vitelleschi 1581-16 j
’• u Von Goa an die Konigleche Akade mie der
Wicki,"Der Bencht des Je^iten Prov^nzH
Compendios
Portugiesischen Geschichte , AHS ,
. ,
’
Provincia dos Jesuitas de Goa,
da, Ordeoa dos Padres Gera.s =
377-378; Afonso 3. de Melo. "A
XX C- BoSm
to 3a Arquidiccese de Goa. vol. > 1. nos. 5-6,
1952;
DI, vol. 17, 1988, pp. iv-v, 367-381
■ 2_3 nos concelhos das Ilhas,
. Francisco X. da Costa (ed.) Legados Pios que oneram M bens simados
Chantre Francisco Xavier Vaz, Bastora: T.
Bardes, Salcette e Mormuga_~o do distnto de Goa
Rangel, I960, pp.
163-164.
pp. 162-163; DI, vol. 16, 1984, pp. ix-x.
’ Josef Wicki, "Der Bericht..", AHSI, vol. 39, 1970,
.D1, vol 2,1950. pp. 577-57.;
-A Ccp^ *
577-578; AOenno
Adelino oe
de Almeida
India meados do . s,culo
s.culo XVII",
XVIl", Stud,A
--------Studia, no. 40\ "978. p. 355.
majo
no.
62,
1750.
9 Arquivo Historico Ultramanno (AHU): (Lisbon) India
».
10AHU: India majo 10, doc. 77, 22 March 1720.
3
I
The Kumbarjua island in Goa was in 1665 bought by the Jesuits. Prof Teot^nio de Souza
in his article refers to the tax levied there by the priests on prostitution, their issuing of licenses
to Hindus to celebrate their weddings on the island, and the illicit transaction of trade
commodities at a much lower duty than that collected by the State at the official customs check
post.11
The Goa Province had gained much property in Salcete of Goa, particularly, in the villages
of Assolna, Velim and Cuncolim. It came to it partly through donations and partly through
various methods of land acquisition and land sub-letting. The villagers there sent petitions to
the Portuguese Crown, which decided against the handing over of the villages to the Malabar
Province of the Jesuits which claimed ownership over them. The Province had the property for
over a hundred years.12
The problem of these proper ties arose since Dom Pedro de Castro had donated them in
1587 juridically to the Jesuit College at Cochin, though he had intended them for the Novitiate at
Chora_~o in Goa. This had led to much enmity between the two Provinces, with the Novitiate
winning its case in the end.13
Side by side with its own activities, the Jesuits did help the State in time of need. I hey
had offered one-eighth of their annual income to it in 1664. That was in response to Viceroy
Antonio de Melo e Castro's call to the religious Orders in Goa to pay one-eighth of their income
to meet expenses the State had incuned in State defence. The Jesuits had also given a loan for
the war in Colaba. 14 The two loans were 1,25,000 xerafins and 14,000 xerafins
respectively. They had offered the Exchequer loans in 1727 and 1728 at 8% interest. These
helped in the funding of a fleet to Mombasa and Patte in East Africa. In return the$ Jesuits
were given the administration and rents of the villages of Corjuem and Ponulem till 1741.
The Jesuits often joined other government officials on their visits to the neighbouring
kingdoms to discuss trade. Fr. Gonjalo Martins went to Honavar to discuss a peace settlement
discuss the amount of pepper and the
with Vittal Malya. The Viceroy sent Fr. Joa Rodrigues to
t---------stationing of a permanent representative at Honavar.
11 Teotenio R. de Souza, "A Pious Hindu commemorates
Paulistas in Kumbar
in Marble the Activities of the
12 AHU: India majo no. 64.
13 Historical Archives of Goa (HAG): Assentos do Conselho da Fazenda (ACF), vol. Ill, fl. 115;
DI, vol. 14, 1979, pp. 628-632, 641-42.
14 Monto ~es do Reino, no. 957, fl. 34, no. 960, f 46-48; AHU: India mato no.
35, 8 Jan 1733.
15AHU: India mato no. 11, 1728.
16 16. ACE. vol. 3, pp. 239-240.
4
*>
lk I
The North Province of the Goa Province meant its properties and houses at Bombay,
Bassein, Thane, Daman, Diu and Chaul. With better returns coming in from these properties, and
with the prospects of acquiring even more, the other Jesuit provinces of Malabar, Japan and
China joined the rush to derive income through the purchase and renting of lands there. The
administration of forts, management of granaries and the collection of rents, kept the Society of
Jesus busy and active in those areas. The methodology used of drawing income from landed
properties for overseas missions was sound to some extent, yet it turned out to be a drain on the
local economy.
[
The Jesuit College at Bandra had much land and as a result a number of privileges on
the island of Bombay. But the English Governor, Sir Gervase Lucas had refused to admit them,
Jesuits—
lost their
confiscating their lands and depriving them of their rights, and as a iresult
— the---------annual revenues. 17
The English them complained that the Jesuits gave them much trouble by their attempts to
defraud the Exchequer. In 168Bthe Fr. Superior at Bandra was detected manufacturing salt by
stealth. The Bombay Council discovered that he had made a salt pond (between Sion and
Matunga) and had refused to appear in court when summoned to do so. There were complaints
that the Jesuits at Bandra had claimed a considerable amount of land to which they had not been
entitled and had used force to have their way. 18
The English traveller, John Fryer commented on the Jesuits and how he had once to
wait upon the Fr. Superior of the North Province, a learned Spaniard. He and his fellow
religious, according to Fryer, lived very sumptuously and the greater part of the island belonged to
them. He noted that when he was with them "entertainment was truly noble and becoming the
quality of the Society". Of the seven members of that Bandra community in 1674, two looked
after the plantations, the produce of which went to support the missionary activities in Agra and
Japan. 19
We learn of Jesuit farms at Bandra, Mahim, Marol, Ghat kopar, Thane and Bassein in
■connection with instructions from Jesuit Superiors that Jesuit brothers ought not to handle the
money but ought to deposit it with the priest procurators of the respective places. A priest
was in charge and bought or sold for the benefit of St. Paul’s and of the houses at Agra, Malabar,
China and Japan.20
17 James Gense, "First confiscation of Jesuit properties in Bombay", The Examiner, September 10
and 17,1938.
l8Phiroze B.M. Malabari, Bombay in the Making, London: Fisher Unwin, 1910, pp. 257, 393).
19 James Gense,"The Bombay
2,
September
1965,
PP-
Riddle
121,
and
the
Bombay Answer", Indica, vol. 2 no.
123.
20John Humbert,
"Some Answers of the Generals of the Society of Jesus to the
Province of Goa. Acqua viva - Vitelleschi 1581-1645," AHSI, vol. 35, 1966,
p. 337.
I
9
5
Reve nues from tobacco in the north province were on the increase and reaped 50,000
xerafms annually. Jesuits were warned not to share tobacco with their friends. The profits from
the tobacco sales were used for the Chora_~o and Rachol colleges at Goa.21
Rents from the villages of Bassein (Marol, Ponvem, Kondoti, Mulgao, Borbata, Quirol,
Morocil) helped the Japan Province. The Macau college got rents from Arem, Mirem, Malvara
and Thane while the Tonkin mission had income from the villages of Moroci, Sar and Maljaca.
Under no condi tions could the Fr. Procurator lend the money of the Japan Province to others.
According to Prof. George Souza, he had to dispatch to Goa all the annual income from the
proper ties which came in the form of letters of exchange, curriencies or merchandise. These were
changed into silver or bullion and sent to China. Figures show that between 1691 and 1735
1,202,039 xerafms was remitted to Goa from the properties.22
The Jesuits were involved in the running of rice granaries and the funding of government
fleets too. They had granaries at Bassein and these helped the Portuguese fleets have a quick
supply of rice for immediate dispatch when needed. The priests would buy whole villages in
order to stock their granaries keeping always 600 to 800 mudas of rice which would be
sufficient in case of an enemy attack. Fr. Theot^nio Rebello was said to have been a goood
admin istrator and with the profits he made he fed the poor of the villages and bought more
granaries. Fr. Antonio Guerreiro, another administrator, had given the Factor of the city a loan
of 14,000 xerafins for the fleets, and Fr. Alexandre Souza another 20,000 xerafms for a fleet to
the Straits. He also gave two ships, one for the factory of the city and the other for the shipyard of
the Crown, and Fr. Joseph de Veiga handed over 4,000 xerafins towards part expenses of a fleet
23
for the high seas.
I
I
i
<
<
There were similar Jesuit granaries at Assolna in Goa but some complained that the
priests stored grain there and sold it off to those offering higher prices. Viceroy Count of
Linhares had objected to this but realised that the Jesuits were at an advantage since they
would preach in their churches against his interference in their private affairs. He believed that
they also worked the people against him when he had sought to make more grain available for
all.24
23 John Humbert. AHSI. vol. 35, pp. 336-337; Some Answers of the Generals of the Society of
AHSI, vol. 36, 1967, p.
Jesus to the Province of Goa from Carrafa to Tamburini 1647-1726,"
vol. 3,
84; J. M. do Carmo Nazareth, "Monopolio do tabaco na India", O Oriente Portugues,
Mar-Aug 1906. p. 96.
22DI, vol. 18, 1988, p. 624; DI, vol. 16, 1984, p.96, 99, 100; DI, vol. 14,
1979, p. 496-497; George B.Souza, The Survival of Empire:
Portuguese trade
and society in China and the South China Sea 1630-1754, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press,
1986,
pp.
pp.
191
192.
:? AHU: India mato, no.
no. 8, 1750; "Os Portugueses em Bataim’’, O Oriente
Portugues, nos. 7-9. 1934-35, pp. 152-153; HAG, Monto_-es do Reino, no. 957,
fl. 34, 960, fls. 46-48
no. 8, 1750; ’’Os Portugueses em Bataim’’, 0 Oriente
24 24 23 . AHU: India mato,
1934-35, pp.152-153; HAG, Monto_-es do Reino, no. 957, fl.
Portugues, nos. 7-9.
34, 960, fls. 46-48
6
I
I
I
1
4
<
b
ii
Jesuits were also administrators of the Portuguese forts in the North Province. The State
praised them for their work and for the gift of 20,000 pardaus towards a State armada. 2:>They
were also administrators of the warehouses for war provisions, artillery and were in charge of
the fortifications of the forts.26
Donations came along for the Jesuit houses in the North Province. Viceroy Dom
Constantino, duke of Braganfa had in 1558 offered the Jesuits at Daman an orchard and houses.
Joa_~o Dias Ribeiro gave a certain amount towards the fou tion of the college in the city. The
Jesuit college at Thane functioned under the supervision of the college at Bassein. A grant from
King Sebestian in 1569 helped in making it financially independent. It received 80 gold
pardaus each year from the rents of the village of Vellapa.27
King John III had been helpful to the Bassein college in 1550. Later King Sebastian in
1568 granted it various privileges and in 1571 gave the Jesuits permission to buy in Bandra
villages which gave an income to the Japan mission. 28Governor Cabral was equally generous
to the Jesuits at Bassein gifting them land and houses.29
The Jesuit Visitor Fr. Alessandro Valignano had written to his Superior-General in Rome,
Fr. Claudio Acquaviva from Cochin on December 24, 1584 mentioning the annual income of the
Bandra college and its increasing expenses. Unfortunately the property had been let out at a
low rate of interest although letting out property was contrary to the rules of the Society of
Jesus.30
I
I
In 1548 Fr. Antonio Gomes wrote to Fr. Sima_~o Rodrigu in Portugal about the intrigues
regarding the foundation of the Jesuit house at Bassein. The Franciscans were not interested in
a college and so he thought the Jesuits ought to take it up, since the land was very cheap, rice
and wheat and cloth easily availabe and with the profits other colleges could be helped. The
Franciscans were insufficient to the task there since they were only two in number, and the
people liked the Jesuits more.31
Two French and Italian travellers, Thevenot and Cared, described how the church of the
Jesuits at Bassein was richly gilded, the chapels and the walls of the arch as well. The
dormitory and the cloister were the best in the city, they said. In the garden one could find both
25John Humbert, "The Goa Archives in 1963", Indica, vol. I, no. 1, March 1964, pp. 57, 60.
L ■
26J. A. Ismael Gracias, "Os ultimos cinco generaes
27 DI, vol. 16, 1984, pp. 164-165.
28 DI, vol. 12, p. 419.
29
DI, vol. 7, 1988, pp. 583.
30
DI, vol. 16, 1984, pp. 378-79, 776.
11 Frei Paulo da Trindade, Conquita Espiritual do Oriente, vol. 2, Lisbon: Centro de Estudos
Hist^ricos Ultramarinos, 1962-67, p. 103.
7
Indian and European fruits. The Jesuits they believed owned all the parts of the island that
looked towards the East and the channel of Bassein.32
Thane was inhabited by the Portuguese, the native Christians and the Hindus who came
from Bassein, according to Abbe Carre. The Jesuits, he believed, drew a gret revenue from the
place. They had many villages in the country and fortresses on the coast and were both feared and
mistrusted. Their magnificent house looked all the finer as it had been entirely rebuilt after it
was destroyed by fire due to the negligence of a priest, the Rector of a community. "He had
considerable private wealth, and was made to rebuild it at his own cost and did not mind it for he
had enough to build an even finer one. The next day a Portuguese of Bassein said the Father
actually burnt it himself to perpetuate his memory by rebuilding it in this superb manner from
vanity of his wealth", concluded Abbe Carre.33
Chaul was a Portuguese harbour city and the Jesuits had Sts. Peter and Paul residence and
had received over 1,000 pardaus in alms and over 80,000 cruzados which they used to help
many orphans get married and captives to get freed. The Viceroy had allotted 1 % of the town
revenue to the Jesuits.34
Daman had since 1559 the College of 11,000 Virgins with six Jesuits and a school. When
Daman was in danger of a Maratha attack, writes Abbe Carre, the Governor had asked the
Jesuits for war ammunitions, but they had refused asking for cash payments first. The Viceroy at
Goa had sent two canons to Daman and wanted money for them from the Jesuits (for they
managed an arsenal there) but the latter refused to accept them and had them sent back because
they had been obliged to pay for them. Abbe Carre felt they flouted the viceregal order in a
manner where they showed him that they had more power and authority in the country than he had.
35 .
Diu had St. Paul's College and Abbe Cane mentions that since Diu was pillaged by the
Muscat! Arabs in 1669, the splendid Jesuit church in the town was destroyed but the Jesuits
rebuilt it, since according to him, they had large revenues which brought them many riches.
About them he wrote: "They govern all Portuguese India in matters spiritual and temporal with a
superiority and address that render them redoubtable to any who dare to work against their hold
on society".36
32 Surendranath Sen (ed.), Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri, New Delhi: National Archives
of India,
1949, pp. 169, 179-180.
The Travels of the Abbe Carre in India and the Near East 1672 to 1674, vol. l,pp. 180-181,
vol. 3,
pp. 723-724; DI, vol. 17, 1988, p. 11*.
34 DI. vol. 16, 1984, pp. 734-735; P. S. S. Pissur
lencar, Assentos do Conselho do Estado, vol.
3, Bas
tora: T. Rangel, pp. 230-231.
33
The Travels of the Abbe Carre in India and the Near East 1672 to 1674, vol. 1, pp. 170, 172,
173.
35
36 The Travels of the Abbe Carre in India and the Near East 1672 to 1674, vol. l,pp. 132-133.
8
Further north in India. Che Jesuits
and Aurangzeb, and their works were collect
GovernOr of Lahore. He donated a
Agra College was Mirza Zu-I-Qarnain,
•
foundation for a college at Tibet,
property at Pare! in Bombay and “ 8‘v“ “““^Castro took to Goa in order to settle the
He had given the Society m»7n“h,p ov7„ee ?he revenues of the Pare! house belonged to the
purchase of two villages tn the North Provmce
Naigao„_ Wada|a, Mah.m and
As'a- Iap”
Xv“X“ " “ »PP»«
and China.
►
I
I
38
»
I
T„ ote donors .00.
legacy of 40,000 dusados, Isabe‘d'A8“”enl officer and scale councillor gave 5,000 xerafrns,
Francisco de Melo e Castro, a
}
300 xerafins for expenses in maintaining
Anlilnio Paes de Sande offeree to Church of Born
prop ernes
the oil-lamp at the chapel of 8
annual income of 840 xeratins.
in Bambolim worth 10,500 xerafrns and with annual incom
thP Malabar Province functioned independently of the Goa
The second Indian province t
Qf God at Cochin? the College of Malacca,
Province after 1601. It had the o ege
colleges and seminaries of Quilon, Tuticorm
the Seminary of Santa Cruz at Vaipikotta and
l^g
province> Maiabar had
iis -s,s “di,s
catechists.
The Jesuits had serious financial Pro^^d ^yi^oy t^inquhe'into the property of
Hindus who had later absconded^ e r°^1vinces had and how much money the Hindus had
the Fathers, to find out what each of
wished a)1 religious Orders to submit the lists
received due to the negligence of the P ocumt .
in need of money
of their properties and revenues. It was clear to me
K^XboXs0' Xobs'^^ScS^ety
of Bengal, 5 (no. 4), p. 137.
MASB 5 (no 4), 1916, pp. 115-194.
>. Josef wicki, "Der Bericht", p. 166; Henry Hosten MAS®' 5 (”
.
.»
■•ot- UJ....PP i».rt>;' “ ■“ c-”
“
173-176.
9
IB
kt
IB
I
for their growing missions. In the North Province since people had deserted their villages the
Jesuits could take some of these, he decreed, and help in rehabilitating them, while retaining
the revenues of the same.40
The Malabar Province had given loans totalling 4,45,121 xerafms and received 35,598
xerafms in interest. Yet the money was not always sure. It spent much on its Procurator and staff
at Goa, for the journeys of its members, for the poor, for cases of litigation and for repairs. In
1733, it spent 9,098 xerafms for vestments, wine and church furniture. Its Procurators often
received gold and precious stones which at times proved false. It had loaned the Portuguese
Jesuit Province 12,217 xerafms at 5 % interest. 41
The East Africa mission was connected with the Goa Province and Fr. William Rea in
his work cited above discusses the economic contribution of the Jesuits during their 150
years' stay in the Zambezi missions there. Fr. Gaspar Soares was in 1609 the first Superior of the
mission. The Jesuits had found the royal grants inadequate, and neither the College of
Mozambique nor the Goa Province could help. Yet, the Zambezi mission avoided all debt and
sue ceeded in increasing its revenue.
The Jesuits got much of their income from their farms on the left bank of the River
Zambezi, and from their share in the gold trade during the last three decades of their presence on
the Rivers. The large loans they advanced, believes Rea, proves that they made substantial
profits. They were an index of the economic role the missions played during the period. 1 hey
enabled a large number of traders to carry on business, yet since a number of them did not pay
back it was doubtful whether the Jesuits made much of a profit.
<
<
In East Africa, the Crown promised the Jesuits the stipend equivalent to the pay of two
soldiers, but it often remained a promise. Jesuit Superiors had allowed their men to buy or to
accept propertv. In 1633, the Count of Linhares objected to these means and expected them
to pay tithes on the land. The Goa Province had thus to spend 5,000 xerafms annually on behalf
of the College of Mozambique. The Jesuits could keep ivory on their own lands and could
exchange it either for cloth or other commodities.
I
I
The use the Jesuits made of property helped them towards their own economic stability in
their missions. The College of Mozambique and the Zambezi missions received an annual of 250
cruzados. Francisco Soares donated nine pastas of gold, and the mission got another two pastas
each year out of the rent of two store-rooms within the fortress of Sena. The Mozambique
College, which owed the Goa Province 2,500 xera fins, had a palm-grove yielding 500jruzados
annually. It had purchased the island of Kumbarjua in Goa hoping to wipe out its debts.
I
AHU: India maco no. 20. 1723.
41 Domenico Ferroli, The Jesuits in Malabar, vol. 2, Bangalore: King & Co., 1951, pp. 346-347.
42 William Rea. The Economics, pp. 71-74.
4? William Rea. The Economics, pp. 57-61.
44 Willima Rea, The Economics, pp. 61-66, 77-80.
I
I
10
<
f
It
I
diggings, the gold was expo
lvory was another source of income, and every
, needed as currency to buy what t y
Mnzambiaue for Goa Rea informs us.
year three large Portuguese ships withe^goe^of it 1 eft Mm
Jesuit economy was prosperous en g Traders could carry on their business, and the terms
e“”Z. Ao"o X
an =eo„omie point of view .be 8iv.ng of etea., was the most
important function of the missions.
cxx
xr Xs“ .p
;n rSnayielding
^^^^“^XXooXaosin^bana 2.000 pataaus in an oho.ape
in the port of Nagasaki.
in 1571 Kina Sebastian had given the
Japan Jesuits permission to buy in Bandra
sernsome gold to India as part of his trading operations. Fr. Acquaviva had warned him against
it as the Viceroy knew about the transaction. The Province bought a certain amount of si k
from the Portuguese mer chants and sold it at a profit. The General wanted the Visitor to b
>nt th.- procurators from making con tracts in the name of seculars or to receive money on
!heirL behalf. PThe mission had permission to deal in silk alone, but had taken up other materia s
too. 49
There were many who did not approve of the commerce of the Japan Province Fr.
Valignano was ready to give up the trade if money came in another fomn He had suggested a
landed income in Japan to help the Province become self supporting. It needed money for
^Willima Rel, The eZ^cs, p. 80; Felix Zubillaga, "La provincia Jesuitica de Nueva Espana
su Funda mento Economico siglo XVI", AHSI, vol. 38, 1969.
46 DI, vol. 14, 1979, p. 653.
47 DI, vol. 14, 1979.
48 DI, vol. 16, 1984, pp. 13-14, 249.
1549-1650, pp. 119-120,425,427.
” Charles Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan
11
>
seminaries, hospitals and elementary schools. Trade was the only means of sur vival. The
mission had already suffered bad debts and other losses.50
I he Japan Jesuits were involved with the local country traders. One of them, Bartholomeu
Vaz Landeiro, according to Prof. Charles Boxer, was a major contributor to the Japan mission
and had placed his resources and shipping interests at their disposal. He made sure he did not
enter any port with his merchandise where Jesuit transactions were likely to be.in danger. '
Fr. Valignano laid down regulations for things meant for Japan from India. He appointed
a Procurator in India for Japan. His duties included collecting and sending the subsidies and
revenues, buying and dispatching the things necessary for Japan, and providing for the
missionaries going from Goa to Japan. The Rector and Procurator of the College of Malacca had
the duty of collecting and forwarding the money and things for Japan without detaining them in
Malacca. 52
Fr. Valignano, according to Prof. Boxer, while under many constraints in 1578, entered
into a contract with the merchants at Macau. Of the 1,500 picos annually shipped to Japan by
Macau, 50 belonged to the Japan Province. Profits amounted to about 6,000 ducats annually. This
together with amounts from Malacca, India and Europe totalled 12,000 ducats. Trade, some
Crown payments and the capital transfers from the rental and agricultural properties in India
together with the administration of donations and legacies from Macau were the main sources of
income.53
The Visitor in his supplementary report of 1592 mentioned that many of the daimyos
wanted the Jesuits to act as bullion-brokers in their business. Some of them, writes Prof. Boxer,
started in a small way exchanging silver for gold in China. The Jesuits were aware that the
favours thev would give would in turn bind the daimyos to them, played their part in the business
between Canton. Macau and Nagasaki. 54
The Jesuits acted as linguists and had the right con tacts in high places. They played an
important part in the silk trade and, it is said, sent cargoes to Nagasaki under other names after
their expulsion in 1614. The leyasu admired the skill of the Jesuit-interpreters, and in 1602,
had appointed Fr. Joa_~o Rodriguez as his agent at Nagasa He helped the Jesuits financially with
350 cruzados when they lost their annual silk investment in the Macau trade due to the Dutch
capture of it in 1603. He wanted them to foster his foreign trade and to act as intermediaries. ”
1549-1650, pp. 120-121; George Souza,
50 Charles Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan
The Survival of
Empire, pp. 34-36.
51 George Souza, The Survival of Empire, pp. 37, 189.
-DI. vol. 16, 1984. p. 95.
117-118; DI, vol. 14, 1979, p. 19; George
53 Charles Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, pp.
Souza. The Survival of Empire, p. 190.
112-114.
•4 Charles Boxer. The Christian Century in Japan, pp.
Lisbon: Centro de Estudos Historicos
" Charles R. Boxer, The Great Ship from Amacon,
Publishing House, 1975,
Ultramarinos, 1959, p. 12; James Clavell, Shogun, New York: Dell
p. 59; Charles Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, pp. 182-183.
12
Tk Uc.ntc hroan their stav at China with their involvement at the Imperial Court,
dinero Prof John Wills Their efforts were more successful and lasting than the Jesuits in
i
H China they helped the various embassies of the Dutch. Fr. Ferdinand Verbiest was
XX in Chhei and Mancha during these mee.ings^rnrd .he 1679 trade eoneess.ens Macau
received were said to have been largely due to his efforts.
I
h
The Jesuits introduced the Emperor to many facets of European culture and science Fr.
Thomas Pereira made musical instruments and taught the elements of western music to members
Ihomas rereira maue
uinisPif The Jesuits helped the Dutch as they had earlier
helped C°the Portuguese. They tried to weaken the Dutch control in the China trade lest the
competition damage Macau^ They
noMoo qwn^ sin^they
appear tQ
Court and had their own well-tested connections and friendships.
The Money System and cautions from Superiors
Wherever the area, the Jesuits as a strategy had a good system of org“‘si^e
of financial resources. The Procurator for the Indtan Provinces resident at St. Anta o College
atlisbon for instance, d the duty of sending to India provisions such as books, religious an
and foodstuffs (olive oil. meat, plums, cereals). In turn be rece.ved from
his counterparts in Goa pepper, bazar stone, diamonds, ivory and aloeswood.
*
Fr Gontalo Martins was one such procurator for the Portuguese Jesuits in Goa. In 1653,
the King of Portugal wrote to the Viceroy recommending him for all help and favour since he
had Zed in the dispatch of cinnamon for the Duchy of Braganza. He had a so been on
different occasions ambassador of the Viceroy to the Maratha chieftan Shivaji and to the Adil
Shah He had been dispatched to the court of Shivaji to secure the ratification of the
Maratha-Portuguese treaty on 1667. 59The creation of the post of a Jesuit Procurator was an
important idea of Jesuit management. The person had to help the exchange of correspondence
between the Jesuits of Europe and of the Indies, and had to establish contacts for their mutual
^formation 60 He had to obtain for departing missionaries materials like books, retables, and
» John E. Wills, Embassies and Illusions: Dutch and
Portuguese Envoys to K’ang-hsi 16661687, Cambridge (Mass): Harvard Univ. Press, 1984, pp. 237-241-
Co±2\^Chi "td^^P-AVXraS If Jean-Francois Foucquit SJ. (16651741), Rome: AHSI, 1982, p. 5
58 HAG: MR, codex no. 2570 (1664-1708).
58 HAG: MR, no.'23 (1653), fl. 263.
60 Felix Zubillaga, "El Procurador de las Indias
417.
Occidentales", AHSI, vol. 22, 1953, pp. 367-
13
mass-wine, for instance and had to petition the King for confirmation of the foundations of the
Jesuit colleges in India.61
His duties also meant keeping the yearly accounts ready before the departure of the ships
with copies of them for Rome, the sealing of letters and documents meant for the other
procurators and for Fr. General, and the dispatching of them without delay through the royal
court. He had to be aware of the arrivals and departures of the various fleets and had to avail
of every fleet to send the mail. He had to maintain a record containing information of the
foundations of the colleges and houses with their income, and send a summary of these to Rome.
Ina second book he had to enter all information from Rome pertaining to his office, of things
sent and received, of the lists of those going to the Indies, of the time for the fleets, and of
Provinces with details of the country of origin, age, years in the Society, state, studies and talent
of each Jesuit. The account book also included details of Crown dealings, the amounts spent for
books and clothes, the minutes of the meetings, the articles for the Indies (wine, olives, and
ornaments for masses), the stipends for the departing missionaries. He had to write a list of the
missionaries with their times of arrival and departure. He stacked the necessities for the voyage
in a suitable storehouse, and had the money of the Province in his safe-keeping. His other duties
included filing information of good sailings, arranging books for the missionaries, having an
intelligent and able assistant, paying Rome for the expense of lettersjnd other things for the
Indies, discussing relevant issues with the Crown, and writing to Rome.
The Jesuits were procurators for the House of Braganzas in Lisbon. In 1751. Fr. Rodrigo
de Estrada as Procurator sent the Queen 300 quintals of spices free of charge but there were
reactions in Goa to this practice63 He was a hard-working but quick-tempered man, and had
antagonized others when he once tried illegally Jo appoint his own collector to handle the taxes
of the villages of Panulem and Corjuem in Goa.
The Jesuits with their properties in Goa and in the North Province had a good hold on
the finances of the time. They received and sent money to their offices in Rome and in Lisbon.
Their Superiors warned them to be cautious in their dealings. They would either write directly
to the Provincials cautioning against some of their practices or would send their special Visitors
to study the matter first hand. These came armed with powers to probe spiritual and financial
matters and to give instructions.
Jesuits at times appeared guilty of transgressing the canonical requirements in the matter
of trade. In Africa though they sold ivory they could do so only of elephants which had died on
their property according to the Provincial order, thus observing canonical regulations.
Jesuiten in Lissabon bis 1580", AHSI,
61 Josef Wicki. "Die Anfange der Missionsprokur der
62 Felix Zubillaga,''El Procurador de las Indias
Occidentales", AHSI, vol. 22, 1953, pp. 400-
402.
6?AHU: India majo no. 99 (14 December 1758).
64 AHU: India majo no. 56, 1751.
Archivum Romanum Societatis lesu (Rome): Goa, no.
14
35, fl. 102v.
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Canon law defined trade as buying a commodity with the intention of selling it unimproved tor
a higher price.
Jesuits had to refrain from keeping the money of a third party without the permission of the
Superior The case of Bro. Villas was fresh in the minds of many. As Administrator of the
College of San Hermenegildo (Seville), he had traded in a big way with the funds of the Society,
and had caused it much financial harm. 66 Superiors of houses often did more than charity called
for. The Vicar-General Fr. Carlo de Sangro in his order of 2 January 1645 suggested that alms
giving though commendable had to be the amount sanctioned by the Provincial after due
consultation. He fixed the amount at 20 pardaus in order to stop abuses which took place in times
of economic crisis. Though Superiors were ready to help others, they overlooked that they had
first to pay off the loans their own religious houses had incurred
Fr. Oliva wanted his men to combine charity with sanity. The Professed House had
taken a deposit to offer Ioans to outsiders (non-Jesuits).^There was a danger of these turning
into bad debts and thus becoming a burden for the House
>
The Frs. Provincial could not dispose of any property without consulting either the
Province or the College concerned. The consultors would then have to sign the minutes and send
them to Rome with their own respective comments.69 The Provincial could accept goods of
sufficient worth with their accompanying obligations, a mass each year for in stance, yet he
had to judge what was best, and without any grave obligations. He could agree to sell estates to
payoff debts. Jesuits could trade in property only with benefactors of the Society.
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The Provincial had the authority to transfer real estate worth 200 pardaus thus changing the
will of the donor. He could do so if the need was urgent and if he could not wait for a reply
from Rome. Yet he had to inform Rome of his decision as soon as it was possible. Those
going to Japan could not take the money of seculars along although they were good friends of
the Society. The Procurator could exchange money even though it would entail some loss. The
Provincial had the duty of sending 600 xs. each year to the Procurator in Lisbon.
The General had allowed Jesuits to purchase property in Portugal in the name of any local
college or house in order to pay the expenses for the Province of India in Portugal. Fr. Jeronimo
Cardoso, the Procurator at Lisbon had complained that those in Goa did not honour his letters
of credit. Hence he could not buy and send things for the colleges in the ships. It was not right
to ask the Crown to buy landed property for Japan, or to meet the expenses of those going to
India from other Provinces.72
John Humbert, AHSI, vol. 36, pp. 78-79, 96.
John Humbert, vol. 35, p. 344; ARSI: Goa no. 5,
66 John Humbert, vol. 36, pp. 84-85.
63
John Humbert, vol. 36, p. 85.
66
S'?
’0
37; no. 10, fl. 180.
Josef Wicki, Stijdia, nos. 43-44, pp. 362-366.
Josef Wicki, Studia, nos. 43-44, pp. 362, 409.
Josef Wicki, Sludia, nos. 43-33, p. 482; DI, vol, 14, 1979, pp. 604-608.
15
>
Fr. General Tirso Gonzalez had accepted the donation of Joa_~o Dias Ribeiro and his son
Domingos for the Profess House. He concurred with his predecessor that it was not against the
poverty of the House to run a farm at Bambolim in order to pay for the religious feasts in the
church of Bom Jesus, provided the surplus went for the church maintenance. 73
The Superior of a house could transact the sale of houses of any value, but not before
seeking the advice of his consultors. He could lease out coconut-groves for a period of 30
years. Yet he had no permission to accept any colleges, houses or property under heavy
obligations. 74
Jesuits could accept land only if it was possible to sell it later. They could not avail of its
profits if it had been given for churches and pious works. But if they had received it without any
mention of the recipients in the houses, they had to send it to a college nearby. If the donor had
gifted it as a perpetuity for members of the houses, they had to inform Rome on its possible
conversion into a college. If they were unable to do so, the property had to go to the Bishop or the
inheritors of the debt.75
I
Colleges could not seek alms, though they could receive them if they were freely given.
They needed the prior permission of the Provincial stating the reasons and the amount since
there was no general permission in this regard. They could sell the fruits of their property in return
for purchases, but could not buy anything for sale elsewhere. They could purchase property in
one place and sell in another. They had, however, to fulfill three conditions: not holding on to
more than was necessary, doing nothing against the law, and retaining the remainder without
its sale. 76 Jesuits could not involve themselves in buying pearls on behalf of seculars. A priest
once came from the Fisher}’Coast with about 12,000 pardaus to buy pearls which he claimed
he did with the knowledge of his Superiors. The risks and scandals involved in such trade on
behalf of others called for his removal. Buying and selling went on in the Province in the name
of necessity. It polluted the poverty and purity of the religious houses.
<
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73 John Humbert, vol. 36, pp. 94-95.
74 Josef Wicki, Studia, nos. 43-44, p. 483.
Josef Wicki, Studia. nos. 43-44, pp. 366-367.
■ Josef Wicki, Studia. nos. 43-44. pp. 382-383.
DI. vol. 16, 1984, pp. 21-22. 32-33.
16
Conclusion
Looking back at the picture of the Goa Province and of the other provinces in Asia, one is
struck at their involvement in trading and commercial activities in order to fund their mission
works They had adopted a definite strategy of acquiring properties in Goa and in the North
Province and passing on rents and profits received from these to their various units in Asia. Yet
it turned out to a large extent, a drain on the local economy.
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UNIVERSIDAD CENTROAMERICANA
MANAGUA. NICARAGUA
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Jesuit Universities and the North-South Face-Off:
A proposal for the next millenium
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Jesuit Lecture by
Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
President of the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), Nicaragua,
St. Joseph's University
Pennsylvania, US
March 25, 1997
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Jesuit Lecture, Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
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I take this opportunity as a “sign of the times”, an opportunity to re-examine the work
of Christian inspired universities-both in the North and the South-in order that we may
confront the challenges which accompany the end of the century. Allow me to reflect out loud
for a moment, about how these small, very poor, Central American nations perceive the
challenges, opportunities and commitments faced by the University in these times of
uncertainty and perplexity, implied by a period of rapid and profound change. For us, it is
more than a epoch of change, but rather a change of epoch which, therefore, must signify
profound changes for the University.
Five hundred years ago, in 1492, humanity was discovered and known as a unit.
Today, we are one world, a global village, and human beings can be citizens of the world for
the first time in history.
L
More than 500 years ago, Latin America showed mankind that the world was one.
Today, this unity is an astonishing reality, despite the fact that the gap between North and
South, between capital and labor, between the "West and the Rest" continues to grow more
polarized.
There are a series of concrete facts which reflect the profound crisis of our civilization.
This civilization in the decade of the nineties is not universalizable, it cannot be extended to
all of the world's citizens due to ecological, social and political limits. It is unstable, and
cannot continue to reproduce itself in its current form-as a democratic society for all world
citizens.
Scandals are the bread and butter of the mass media today; but the greatest scandal
of our age receives all too little attentions from not only the mass media, but also from our
university communities, even from our Jesuit university communities.
As we prepare to enter the 21st century, the fact that in Central America, as well as in
Africa, we have “quality of life” levels today that are lowers than the levels reached by the
indigenous peoples of Central America and Africa 500 years ago, is the scandal of our age.
More than 70% of our sisters and brothers in Central America live in poverty - 50% in
economic misery, and these percentages continue to rise each year. This scandalous
situation that touches thousands of millions of women, men and childrens around the world
today implies — or rather, shout out to us - that something is profoundly wrong and sinful in
our present civilization.
I'll now mention some of the critical aspects of this change of epoch, in order to
illustrate the nature of the crisis which our civilization is experiencing:
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Jesuit Lecture. Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
n A Champagne Glass Civilization, reflecting the antagonism anc1 asymmetry in the
» k r
nf incnmp between the top 20% of humanity who control 83 /o of the world s
“ " nd t
ttom 20% »Ncb sXes with oniy 1.4%. in other words, more than one
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| wealth, ana tne oonon
.btil,on human b»9s —e on ,0^3$VOO^per day^
injustice in the distribution of
Development for 1994
!”„dSesathat the gap m the distnbution of wealth is growing with the income ot the nchest
l 20% increasing from 30 times greater in 1960 to 61 times greater in 1993.
2) There is an even greater concentration of knowledge. The disparity of investment
! on Reseamh and Development means that it tends to be concentrated more and more n he
Xr^r?in 2XXXS ZXXS n =JemJ
’
|Ke
Xoiis andlhe Xies, assists today between a email group of privileged count,,es in
• the North and the great majority of nations of the South.
I
Todav however the North and the South are not only geographical
but
"nd Xns X h“ marginalized by grow,ng unemployment and other forms
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I of discrimination.
3) The acceterated growth of super-millionaires, or billionaires, who hm mm than
i one thousand million dollars, is also a phenomenon of this change of epoch. The^Ju ,1994
r issue of Forbes Magazine which analyzes great world fortunes, provides some stat.strcs
I which, from a Christian perspective, are truly scandalous 358
some
I speaking of transnational corporations-have a personal, accumulated capital worth of some
i USS 762 billion In other words, they possess the equivalent of the per capita income of 45 /□
| X wo“° population. 0, 2 5 billion human beings. These billionaires have. tripled tbeir
I income between Pf9S7 and 1994. The natron with the highest growth rate of billionaires is
ttaico-a country which the IMF and the World Bank have paintec1 as a^9“^
what neo-liberal structural adjustment policies can achieve The work s
increased bv 140% in these seven years, and the nation with the greatest growth is Mexico*
I hTXXX then, that theChiapas Phenomenon coinc.d^th^-^^
billionaires. Similarly, passage of Law 187 in California makes it perfectly clear that NAFTA
j only a free market for capital and its products, for rich people, and not for labor.
4) With the end' of the.Cold War and despite a reduction in the world's military budget,
annual military spending in 1993 was, surprisingly, USS 815 billion, or 50% of humam y s per
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Jesuit Lecture, Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
eapna income,
am -hese arms
i^Xi
Rwanda, Haiti? We have passed from the Cold War to a war
decreases.
Private security spending .nereases hnhe same exte^tha ^Vthat ihe end of the
r^^m
^^"“musiy affriPufetf to the threat of the eW
empire.
51 According to INTERPOL'S report of May. 1994. drug trafficking accounts for USWOO
ii
f Ki^h 1billion are laundered by transnational banks. The UN
hit,ion annual^ o ^aton' supported by 38 nations, made the commitment to curb the
mcmase ,n cnme are due to a lack of meaning of life, and the search for escape through the
use of drugs, sex, or religious or political fundamentalism.
6) The environmental crisis of our times has been produced, on the one hand, by the
over-consumption of a small number of nations and people, and by the growing
impoverishment of the South. This poverty, and the consequent need to survive at any^cost
has become the most significant threat to fauna, flora and the world s oceans. The South s
growing megalopolises-produced by irrational development and the massive interna
migration of peasants, as in Sao Paulo, Mexico, Calcutta, Shangha., etc-revea the lack of
direction, rationality and sense which exist in today's world of technological revolution.
This Champagne Glass civilization reflects a crisis of civilization-its instability
insecurity and lack of meaning. This antagonistic civilization of North against the South, of
white aqainst color of man against woman, of the present against the future, of consumerism
as a means to happiness, and of growth against nature requires profound reflection by those
institutions- such as universities-which should act as society's critical conscience as a
preventive and prospective conscience against the threats of the future, as the molders
generations who can create a more humane, just, sustainable and harmonious world.
This global crisis demands
demands new
new forms
forms of
organizing citizens, non-conventional
of organizing
university programs and different ways of training professionals, who do not reproduce and
amplify the present system but instead assume responsibility for it, who are capable of
These concerns oblige us to re-think the role of the university, to jransform the
conZSenc^Tjohn Pa^rreq^es^eJiMheS
call to universities, in the document
Ex Corde Ecclesiae."
I believe that jesuit universities must confront this scandal at the end-of-century and
the beginning of a new millenium in an organized manner. This scandal and our efforts to
Kf
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Jesuit Lecture. Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
4
confront it jointly are our principal challenge of our generation, as jesuits, as Christian, just as
human persons and citizens of our global village.
Faced with this challenge, those of us working in jesuit universities in Latin America
are continually asking ourselves whether we are part of the solution or part of the problem. In
our educational efforts are we merely reproducing and/or strengthening a system that
continually widens the gap between rich and poor, women and men, different races, and
between increasing individual consumption and sharing more equitably the world s limited
resources?. Are we producing successful professionals who merely take advantage of failed
and/or oppressive societies in order to enrich themselves?.
It is not sufficient today for the jesuit university to pursue academic excellence locally,
or even nationally; nor it is sufficient to tranquilize our individual and institutional consciences,
and/or bolsters our social image by participating -sometimes more, sometimes less- in
activities in the world of the excluded (formerly known as the Third World). Excluded people
which exist in all our countries, north and south.
The character of the crisis of the 21st century is the rapidly increasing chasm between
rich and poor throughout the world. This crisis demands that we create an international
consciousness, an international program and a genuine community of jesuit universities to
make it possible for us to go beyond the local campus, or city, or even nation in our planning,
research, teaching and personal commitment.
We are living in a change of epoch more than an epoch of changes. Preparing
ourselves for this new millenium the jesuit university exists primarily for the world; and 2/3 of
this world is excluded from the wealth, comfort, knowledge and power of the privileged 1/3.
Is this vision of our world a partial, parochial, distorted, injustified perception of our
world or is it the real challenge before us as jesuit universities to confront this crisis of our
present civilization —and confront it jointly—.
There probably does not exist another
organization in the world capable of forming a coherent strategy (global, national and local) a
“gloncal strategy” to confront this crisis.
Possibly, we, working together, will come to the conclusions that the basic roots of
increasing worldwide poverty and oppression, social and economic exclusion, and
environmental destruction are not only economic, but rather ethical, social and cultural.
International AID, economic cooperation does not touch fundamental international inequities;
it is basically- insignificant, and, as a matter of fact, is declining rapidly. Also, traditional
international cooperation between North and South tends to increase the dependence and
subordination of the latter'on the former.
To attack the roots of the widening chasm between rich and poor requires, I believe, a
three-tiered strategy: ethical' cultural and theoretical. The almost 200 jesuit universities
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Jesuit Lecture. Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
beginJto deal jo^
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5
wiU^tNs crisis', not as colonialists nor as saviours, but with
a fundamental commitment to engage ourselves seriously in the struggle to humanize our
civilization and evangelized our humanity.
►
We dont lack international calls to action in the face of this crisis A mammoth
collection of United Nations data and recommendations, and international summits in Rio de
Janeiro. Cairo, Geneva, Copenhague and Beijing all speak with one voice, ours is a
civilization of the very few wealthy and powerful, a cognitive and finantial elite hat
concentrate and centralize power, finance, technology, knowledge and the contro! of
international institutions on the one hand and the overwhelming growing, majority of excluded
of wealth, knowledge and power on the other.
Our own General Congregation 34 identifies four pillars that serve to re-mforce our
options for the excluded and oppressed of the world: inculturation; the fundamental new ro e
of women; the struggle against poverty and exclusions; and the need for a new spirituality
and set of values to confront the 21st century. "Today we bring this countercultura gift of
Christ to a world beguiled by self-centered human fulfillment, extravagance, and soft living, a
world that prizes prestige, power, and self-sufficiency. In such a world, to preach Christ poor
and humble with fidelity and courage is to expect humiliation, persecution, and even death.
We have seen this happen to our brothers in recent years".
What is lacking?. From our Central and Latin american jesuit perspective represented
in AUSJAL (Asociacidn de Umversidades confiadas a la Compania de Jesus en America
Latina) university program and in the recent declaration of all our 18 provincial superiors who
met with Fr. Kolvenbach in Puebla (Mexico), what is lacking is the consciousness of the
human tragedy, the political willingness to engage ourselves on the humanizing struggle, the
ethical vision that goes beyond reducing development to material progress, controlled by a
global market in the hands of a financial elite that also control the flow of knowledge and
information in the interests of intensive and rapid economic growth and profits. Moreover the
lack of an integrated theoretical approach to overcome the paradigm of no alternatives, a sort
of theology of inevitability.
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spite of nominal ties, jesuit universities do not form an organized group, and much
In
less a community of purpose, nor a common project. Each one of our universities has a
specific role in the city, region or country in which it is located. The international ties between
our institutions, however, are very weak. We lack common objectives. How to make of
ourselves a real international organization, a network of like-minded universities that
complement and collaborate with each other in the effort to fulfill common goals in order to
and common threats of our global village in an alliance of
face off the common problems
|
common values and common interests?
1 General Congregation 34. Decree Twenty-Six. no. 5
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Jesuit Lecture, Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
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How to begin a process of creating a joint project that involves all or a sustantial
number of jesuit universities?. From our local, regional and national bases, how can we
develop a shared international commitment to confront the root causes of growing poverty,
economic exclusion (unemployment; discrimination against women and youth) and cultural
and spiritual opppresion of the overwhelming majority of the world's population?.
l
I often ask myself if the main failure of the jesuit university is not in reality a sin of
omission, or perhaps, in the Ignatian context of seeking always God's greater glory, a sin of
mediocrity. With humility, but at the same time with a realistic appraisal of our potential
(often perhaps wasted), we have to confront this end-of-millenium crisis, and seek the
“magis", God's greater glory, from within this leash “minima”, Company of Jesus, through a
ignatian discernment of our universities. This may imply a profound transformation of our
university life and “model”. It may imply the creation of a network of jesuit universities, that
goes beyond political and cultural boundaries, and embark upon a process of international
formation of professionals prepared for a global citizenship, committed to integral human
development based on equity, sharing a sort of geocultural development based on
sustainable human relations.
What I am suggesting does not consist in countries and universities of the North
donating goods and services -and education- to countries of the South. Rather, I am
propossmg that together, as a community
-----, of jesuit universities, we create within each country
a “gloncal strategy” to form educated professionals with vision, commitment and talent to
confront and solve the problems which are at the root of our crisis of civilization.
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Structural change at a socio-cultural level in the countries of the excluded South is
going to imply a transformation in the socio-cultural structures of the universities and societies
of the North. This process will be a two-way street: the universities of the North will very likely
receive as many or more benefits from this shared experience than the jesuit universities of
the South.
While it is the university as institutions that is invited to take up this 21st century
proposal, the project will probably be iniatiated by a few individuals or groups/departments
within the university. This initiative will hopefully lead to an epistemological breakthorough in
which the university can confront and possibly re-discover its identity and mission as a result
of a profound end-of-century Ignatian discernment.
This discernment’ and accompanyning transformation will demand a higher level of
competence and. professionalism in our universities, a more profound cultural and ethical
underpinning, afifi a commitment to be agents of change and solidarities in the 21st century.
Jesuit Lecture. Xabier Gorostiaga SJ
7
rather than excellent professionals, given that the task is
We are invited to be pioneers
social development of ail citizens than mere
more the creation of a humane civilization, a
materia! progress for a minority.
I would like to offer some concrete ways in which we could initiate this project in 1997>
As Jesuit universities, we could inmediately initiate a s7"sG^3^7hS^O0ntSh
oXl^oMh^'ylaOhTR^ctors of9Jesuit Universities from all the world will meet in
Santiago ChTe To prepare the Assembly of the Internationa. Federation of Cat o c
Universities This meeting could serve as an opportunity to begin the slow and difficult
process of conscientization necessary before thinking of an institutional networking process.
To facilitate this process of conscientization, it would be important to initiate some
limited loint commitments -perhaps in the initial phases-, by sub-regions for example,
between Canada the US. Latinamerica and the Caribbean; while Europe could do the same
witMhe even more urgent needs in Africa, and a similar process for Asia and the Pacific.
.. s ~ x—s
Community of Jesuit universities for the 21st. Century.
This fund could be used to facilitate international exchanges, the creation of joint
research groups joint post-graduate courses that would serve to reform our universities
preparing a new generation of pioneers-professionals to confront the crisis of 21st century
civihzation As I mentioned before probably no other institution in the world has the potentia
and the value system to undertake a project of such ethical-cultural and intel ectua
importance. I think that, in a closer collaboration with our lay partners, we can undertake this
difficult but evangelical and academic challenge.
This joint enterprise will be slow and difficult to get off the ground; but it is a project that
is essential if we are to confront effectively and jointly this threat to our civilization -a threat
that'is more critical and dangerous tham was the so-called “Cold War
Our
adversary is neither a doctrine nor a political system, but “an inhuman Process^ ^th nedher
soul nor direction
blind and deaf, expert in prices, ignorant of values (Mexican p
,
Octavio Paz).
Albert Einstein brilliantly described the character of this crisis: “the civilization that
perfected the means, but is confused about the objectives." Eduardo Galeano. author of The
Open Veins of Latin America, synthesized the same thought in a question, wh.ch has
profound meaning for the universities: "The West has sacrificed justice m the name o
freedom upon the altar of divine productivity. The East has sacrificed freedom in the name of
Docirwnl
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jrsidad Centroamericana
igua, Nicaragua
Volume 16 Number 187-188
February-March 1997
For Life and Against Neoliberalism
| /if Jesuits of Latin America, meeting in Mexico at the
|F grid of 1996. dre* up a letter and a working document
which the\ denounced the neoliberal ideology and econiv with lucidity and conviction. And, with passion and
mpassion. they ratified their proposal for a society in
uch everyone fits, envio offers a translation of both the
Ter and fundamental sections of the document below.
> DearFnends:
| We Provincial Superiors of the Society of Jesus in
frtin America and the Caribbean, following the call of
eneral Congregation 34 to deepen our faith-justice
Ission. want to share some reflections on the so-called
oliberalism in our countries with all o! those who are
mcipating in this apostolic mission of the Society of
Sus throughout the continent and all who are concerned
out and committed to the destiny of our people,
pecially the poorest.
! We refuse to calmly accept that the economic
casures applied in recent years in all Latin American
untries and the Caribbean are the only possible way to
ient the economy, and that the impoverishment of
ill ions of Latin Americans is the inevitable cost of future
jowth. Behind these economic measures lies a strategic
ilicy. an underlying concept of the human being and
illure that must be discerned from the perspective of the
pdels of society we aspire to and work for. at the side of
many men and women moved by the hope of life and of
Bving future generations a more just and human society.
P the 18 Provincial Superiors of the Society of Jesus in Latin America
The considerations presented do not pretend to be a
scientific analysis of a complex issue that requires research
from the point of view of mans disciplines. They are only
reflections that we find pertinent on the consequences and
criteria of neoliberaiism. and characteristics of the society
that we desire. Our primary concern in sharing these
reflections is religious and ethical The political and
economic behavior we refer to reflects in the public terrain
the limits and counten alues of a culture based on a
concept of the individual and ot human society that is far
from the Christian ideal.
The Society We’re Part of
On the threshold of the 21st century, communications
link us closely together, technolog) gives us ncv. possibilities
of knowledge and creativity, and the market penetrates all
social spaces. In contrast io the past decade, the economy of
the majority of our countries has once again begun to grou.
This material boom, which could create hope for all.
actually leaves multitudes in poverty, with no chance of
participating in the construction of a common destiny. Il
threatens cultural identity and destroys natural resources.
We calculate (hat at least 180 million people live in
poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean and 80 million
live in extreme poverty.
The economic dynamics that produce these perverse
effects lend lo transform imo ideologies and to make
certain concepts absolute: the market, for example, goes
from being a useful and even necessary instrument to
increase and improve supply and reduce prices io being the
means, the method and the end governing relations
d I he Caribbean
iruiry-March 1997
I
47
Docimerrt
sidad Centroamericana
ua, Nicaragua
Volume 16 Number 187-188
February-March 1997
For Life and Against Neoliberalism
he Jesuits of Latin America, meeting in Mexico at the
end of 1996. drew up a lener and a working document
lich they denounced the neohberal ideology and econwith lucidity and conviction. And. with passion and
assion. they ratified their proposal for a society in
i everyone fits, envj'o offers a translation of both the
and fundamental sections of the document below.
)car Friends:
Ve Provincial Superiors of the Society of Jesus in
America and the Caribbean, following the call of
ral Congregation 34 to deepen our faith-justice
on. want to share some reflections on the so-called
>eralism in our countries w ith all of those who are
ipating in this apostolic mission of the Society of
throughout the continent and all who are concerned
and committed to the destiny of our people,
all) the poorest.
v'e refuse to calmly accept that the economic
ires applied in recent years in all Latin American
ics and the Caribbean are the only possible way to
the economy, and that the impoverishment of
ns of Latin Americans is the inevitable cost of future
i. Behind these economic measures lies a strategic
. an underlying concept of the human being and
: that must be discerned from the perspective of the
s of society we aspire to and work for. at the side of
iv men and women moved by the hope of life and of
g future generations a more just and human society.
IS Provincial Superiors of the Society of Jesus in Latin America
Caribbean
The considerations presented do not pretend to be a
scientific analysis of a complex issue that requires research
from the point of view of many disciplines. They are only
reflections that we find pertinent on the consequences and
criteria of neoliberalism, and characteristics of the society
that we desire. Our primary concern in sharing these
reflections is religious and ethical The political and
economic behavior we refer to reflects in the public terrain
the limits and counten alues of a culture based on a
concept of the individual and of human society that is far
from the Christian ideal.
The Society We’re Part of
On the threshold of the 21 si century, communications
link us closely together, technolog) gives us new possibilities
of knowledge and creativity, and the market penetrates all
social spaces. In contrast to the past decade, the economy of
the majority of our countries has once again begun to grow.
This material boom, which could create hope for ail.
actually leaves multitudes in poverty, w ith no chance of
participating in the construction of a common destiny. It
threatens cultural identity and destroys natural resources.
We calculate that at least 180 million people live in
poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean and 80 million
live in extreme poverty.
The economic dynamics that produce these perverse
effects lend to transform into ideologies and to make
certain concepts absolute: the market, for example, goes
from being a useful and even necessary instrument to
increase and improve supply and reduce prices to being the
means, the method and the end governing relations
47
Document________________
between human beings.
immense imbalances and perturbations neoliberalism
To achieve this, measures known as neoliberal have been
causes through the concentration of income, wealth and
generalized throughout the continent. These measures:
land ownership; the multiplication of the unemployed
□ put economic growth, rather than the full harmony
urban masses or those surviving in unstable and
of all men and women with creation, as the economy’s
unproductive jobs; the bankruptcy of thousands of small
raison d'etre;
and medium businesses; the destruction and forced
□ restrict state intervention to the point of taking away
displacement of indigenous and peasant populations; the
any state responsibility for the minimum goods that
expansion of drug trafficking based in rural sectors whose
every citizen deserves as a human being;
traditional products can no longer compete; the
D eliminate general programs that create opportunities
disappearance of food security; an increase in criminality
for all. replacing them w ith occasional support to focal
often triggered by hunger; the destabilization of national
groups;
economies by the free flow of international speculation;
□ privatize businesses according to the argument that
maladjustments in local communities by multinational
the state is always a bad administrator;
companies that do not take the residents into account.
□ open the borders to merchandise, capital and
As a consequence, together with moderate economic
financial flow without restriction, leaving the smallest
growth, social unrest expressed in citizen protests and
and weakest producers w ithout sufficient protection;
strikes is increasing in almost all of our countries. Armed
D remain silent about the foreign debt problem, the
struggle, which resolves nothing, is emerging again in
payment of which necessitates drastic cuts in social
some areas. There is increased rejection of the general
spending;
economic orientation that, far from improving the common
□ subordinate (he complexity of public finance to
good, deepens the traditional causes of popular discontent:
macroeconomic variables: a balanced fiscal budget,
inequality, poverty and corruption.
reduced inflation and stable balance of payments, as if
the common good follows from that and does not
The Concept of the Human Being
generate new problems for the population that must be
attended to simultaneously;
Behind the economic rationality that calls itself
D insist that the adjustments w ill produce growth that,
neoliberal is a concept of the human being that reduces the
once voluminous, will raise income le vels and resolve
greatness of men and women to their ability to generate
the situation of the less favored;
monetary income. It exacerbates individualism and the
□ motivate private investment by eliminating the
desire to earn and possess, and easily moves to an attack
obstacles that protective labor legislation could impose.
on the integrity of creation. In many cases it unleashes
3 exonerate powerful groups from paying taxes and
greed, corruption and violence. And. when it is
from en\ ironmental obligations, protectinc them so as
generalized among social groups, it radically destroys the
to accelerate the industrialization process, lherebs
community.
provoking an even greater concentration of wealth and
Thus is imposed an order of values that stresses the
economic power:
individual liberty to seek the consumption of satisfactions
D put political activ ity at the sen ice of this economic
and pleasures; that legitimizes, among other things, drugs
policy. leading to the paradox of eliminating all
and eroticism without restrictions. A freedom that rejects
barriers to the free market while at the same time
any state interference in private initiative, opposes social
placing social and political controls--for example on
planning, rejects the virtue of solidarity and accepts only
the free contracting of labor--to guarantee the
the laws of the market.
hegemony of the free market.
Through the economic globalization process, this way
e must recognize that these adjustment measures
of understanding men and women penetrates our countries
have also had positive results. It is enough to mention the
with symbolic content that is very seductive. Thanks to
contribution of market mechanisms to increasing the
the domination of the mass media, it breaks the roots of
supply of better-quality goods at lower prices; the drop in
local cultural identities that do not have (he power to
inflation all over the continent: the removal from
communicate their message.
government of tasks that do not pertain to them so they can
Our society’s leaders, linked into these globalizing
dedicate themselves, if they choose, to the common good;
movements and indiscriminately accepting the market
the general consciousness of fiscal austerity that uses
forces, commonly live as foreigners in their own countries.
public resources better; and the advance in trade relations
Without dialoging with the people, they consider the
among our nations.
people an obstacle and danger to their own interests rather
But these elements hardly compensate for the
than brothers, friends or partners.
48
February-March 1997
-
In a more general way. (his concept considers it
normal tor millions of men and women to be born and die
in abject poverty all over the continent, unable to generate
(he income to buy a more human quality of life. The
governments and societies are thus not scandalized by the
hunger and uncertainty of the multitudes who are made
desperate and perplexed by the excesses of those who use
the resources of society and nature without thinking about
others.
ill
The Society We Want
_8I
______ ________________________ __ _______ Document
philosophy to study neoliberalism, working alongside
many others in our universities and our studv research
and promotion centers to explain its deepest rationality,
and the effects it has on human beings and nature
3 To discern and weigh (he lines of action that emerge
from this analysis, choosing pertinent options
This knowledge and these decisions should lead us to:
O Accompany the path of the victims, from
communities of solidarity, protecting the rights of the
excluded and undertaking with them, in dialogue with
decision-making sectors, to build the most inclusive
society possible.
□ Strengthen our people s cultural and spiritual
traditions so that they can situate themselves in the
space of globalized relations, from their own identitv.
without diminishing their symbolic richness and
communitv spirit.
3 Incorporate into the educational work that we and
many others do the kinds of values necessary to form
people able to preserve the primacy of human beings in
the world we all share.
3 Give students (he necessary preparation to
understand and work to transform that reality.
3 Resist particularly the consumer society and its
ideology of happiness based on unlimited buying of
material satisfactions
3 Communicate through every means the results of the
analysis of neoliberalism, the values that should be
preserved and promoted and possible alternatives.
O Propose viable solutions in spaces where global and
macroeconomic decisions are made.
Thank God. there are transformation initiatives that
insinuate the rise of a new world from diverse cultural,
ethnic, generational, gender and social sectors.
Animated by these efforts, we want to help build a reality
closer to the Gospel’s kingdom of justice, solidarity and I
Iralemny. where hie with dignity is possible lor all men and
women
A society where every person has access to the goods
and services that he or she deserves for having been called to !
share this common walk to God. We are not demanding a !
wellare society, one of unlimited material satisfactions, but I
a just society , where no one is excluded from work or from I
access to fundamental goods tor personal development such
as education,
nutrition, health, housing and security.
...................
I
We want a society where we can all live as a family and I
look to the future with hope, sharing nature and leaving ns
marvels tor future generations to enjov
A society attentive to the cultural traditions that gave
identity to indigenous peoples, to those who came from other
places, to African-Americans and to mixed peoples.
A society aware of the weak, the marginalized, those
who have suffered the impact of socioeconomic processes
that do not [pul 'human beings first. A democratic society.
We will work to strengthen the value of gratuity in a
built with participation, w here political activity is the option 1 world where everything is bought for a price; to stimulate
of those who want to dedicate themselves to the service of
the sense of a sober life and simple beauty; to favor the
everyone’s general interests.
interior silence and spiritual quest and invigorate the
W'c are aware t'that achieving this kind of society has a
I responsible freedom that decidedly incorporates solidarity
high price because it demands changes in attitude, habits
I from the spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.
and values.
valuer. We
We arc challenged to make the positive
and
I committed to the transformation of the human heart
dements of modernity our own. such as work.
To make our pledge believable, to demonstrate our
organization el In icm v u nhi mi w hn li ur run Id imi Inn Id
solid;iii|\ with ihr ex, lu>l< ,1 iln- , iiuliu, nl iin<| i,,
lllHl mo, if is 111 w Im I, \\ u di, .on
Olli dHIulk V Ikhii LMllMilllClHlii wc will pincUIC Hot i)|||y
Finally, we want to contribute to building a Latin Ameripersonal austerity, but also that our works and institutions
can community among our people.
i avoid all type of ostentation, using means coherent w ith
our poverty. Their investment and consumption policies
The Tasks Before Us
will not support businesses that notoriously infringe on
human rights and damage the ecology. In this way we
|
We have before us an enormous cask co be carried out in
want to reaffirm the radical option of faith that led us to
I different fields:
respond to God s call to follow Jesus in poverty, to be
OToundenake
____
intellectualaneffort of__________
great
more effective and free in the search for justice.
B importance in the social sciences, theology and
W'e will seek with many others a national and pitin
hk Rb«Wfy-March 1997
’
------------------------
B'
t
49
_______________
Document______ ___ __________
American community of solidarity, where science,
technology and the markets are at (he service of all
members of our peoples. Where the commitment to the
poor makes evident that working for the plenitude of all
men and women, without exclusion, is our contribution,
modest and serious, to the greater glory of God in history
and in creation.
We hope that these reflections animate the efforts to
improve our service to the Latin American people. We ask
our Lady of Guadalupe. Patroness of Latin America, to
bless our people and to intercede so that we may obtain
abundant grace to carry out our mission.
Fernand Azevedo (Northern Brazil) Carlos Cardo
(Peru), Jose Adan Cuadra (Central America), Benjamin
Gonzalez Buelta (Dominican Republic), Juan Diaz
Martinez (Chile), Mariano Garcia Diaz (Paraguay).
Ignacio Garcia-Mata (Argentina). Jose Adolfo Gonzalez
(Colombia). Mario Lopez Barrio (Mexico). Jorge Machin
(Cuba). Allan Mendoza (Ecuador). Emilio M. Moreira
(Bahia). Fernando Pico (Puerto Rico), Armando Raffo
(Uruguay). Marcos Recolons (Bolivia). Joao Claudio
Rhoden (Southern Brazil). Francisco Ivern Simd (Central
Brazil). Arturo Sosa A. (Venezuela).
Mexico City. November 14. 1996
Working Document With Contributions for a Common Reflection
(selected sections)
A Conceptual Approximation of
Neoliberalism
The Concept of Human Being
Underlying Neoliberalism
( ...) Neoliberalism, as it is understood in Latin America,
General Congregation 34 invites us to lake action given
is a radical concept of capitalism that tends to absolutize the
the fact that "world structural injustice has its roots in the
market, convening it into the means, method and end of all
system of values of a modem culture that is having world
intelligent and rational human behavior. According to this
impact." This impact comes to our countries through tech
concept, people's lives, the behav ior of societies and govern
nolog) and international financial systems.
ment policies are subordinated to the market. This absolute
This cultural impact, when radicalized by neoliberalism,
market accepts no tvpe of regulation. It is free, with no
tends to value the human being only through his or her
financial, labor, technological or administrative restrictions.
capacity to generate income and be successful in (he market.
This way of thinking and acting lends to convert the
With this reductionist context it penetrates our countries’
economic theory of some of the most brilliant economists of
leaders, infiltrates the middle class and reaches the farthest
modern capitalism, those w ho created neoclassical thinking,
corners of popular, indigenous and peasant communities,
into an ideological totalitv Those thinkers did not try to
destroying solidarity and instigating violence.
reduce human and societal behav ior to the elements that (hev j
find ourselves before a profound and overarching
put forw ard to explain part of the relations and of the complex
system of values; profound because it (ouches the human
lite of people and communities.
heart and overarching because it imposes its convincing
Therefore, neoliberalism js not the same as the economv ' messages, infiltrating Latin America’s social and instituthat recognizes the importance of the market for all goods and j lional life.
services without absolutizing it. nor is it equal to liberal
Absolutizing the market is even sei out with religious
democracy. Opposing neoliberalism does not mean being
connotations. B v saying that the market "is correct and just"
against the efficient use of resources that societ} has at its
converts it moral)) into a legilimizer of questionable activi
disposal, it does not mean delimiting individual freedom: it
ties. We allow the sense of life and human realization to be
does not mean supporting Mate socialism
defined from the market
Opposing neoliberalism means stating that there are no
This system of values is presented in ambiguous sym
absolute institutions to explain or conduct human history,
bols that are highly seductive, and. thanks to its domination
that men and women cannot be reduced to the market, the
of the mass media, it easily affects local traditions, unpre
stale or an) other power or institution that wants to impose
pared to establish a dialogue that could enrich all sides and
itself as a totalizing element. - Il means protecting human
preserve the identity and freedom of the deep human tradi
freedom, affirming that God is absolute and that his com
tions with no pow-er in the markets to communicate their
mandment is (he love that is social!) expressed injustice and
messages.
solidaril) And i( means renouncing totalitarian ideologies,
We are not unaware of the positive elements of interna
because when the) have been imposed, the result has been
tional mobilization carried out by technological iransformainjustice, exclusion and violence.
tions that have allowed a drop in illnesses, facilitate
50
Febriary-Wrch 1997
Document
_____________________________________________________________ _ ________________ __________
communication, increase time available for leisure and the | in transport infrastructure for the majority of poor urban and
L* ««
/-»I
..
■•
. •
*. . —.
_
interior lalife, *1and make
home Ilife* more
comfortable.
But we I : rural homes. The
destruction
of natural resources
is advanc
also see the aspects of these processes that diminish men and
ing and. with the implementation of administrative decen
women, particularly in the context of neoliberal radicaliza
tralization processes in all countries, the great fragility of
tion. because-wanting to or not-they initiate the desire to
local institutions is clear, especially in poor communities.
possess and consume, exacerbate individualism and compe
It could be said that the poor in Latin America have
tition. forget about community and destroy the integrity of
always lived with this vacuum of social capital, but n has now
creation...
been aggravated by neoliberal policies, by the state’s with
drawal in favor of private initiative, by public spending cuts,
and by the abandonment of suppon for natural and cultural
Problems of Structural Poverty
heritages and for peoples’ organizations.
Exacerbated by Neoliberalism
Markets Without Social Control. As an historical
expression of human beings’ need to support each other in
Neoliberalism emerges from within modern culture and.
order to open current and future possibilities, the market is
without necessarily meaning to, produces structural effects
neither good nor bad. neither capitalist nor socialist It is
that generate poverty and that have been acting since long
proposed for all as a relationship that must be controlled, in
before the neoliberal rise in the 1980s. These factors are.
treedom. solidarity and
among others, inequity or injus
skill, to achieve an accept
tice in income distribution and
able existence for all As in
wealth, the precarious nature of
s poor
social capital and the inequality
all types of relations, the
alway
a
or exclusion in exchange rela
market can be used per
tions.
versely to destroy people
social capital, but
The Bad Distribution of
and communities but the
aggravates
Wealth and Income. Eco
fact that it can be perverted
nomic inequity and social in
in this way should not allow
equality prevent almost half of
us to forget the heritage »•!
knowledge and culture that humanity throughout history has
Latin Americans and Caribbeans from reaching the material
conditions necessary to live with dignity and to effectively ! built around the market. The challenge is not to destroy the
exercise their rights.
exchange relationship, but to pul it at the service of the
fulfillment of human beings in harmony with creation: to
By opposing state redistributive intervention, neoliber
alism today perpetuates and increases traditional socioeco
place it within a framew ork of equality of basic opportunities
nomic inequality . It introduces the criterion that only the . ror
people and free them from the forces of domination
market possesses the virtue ol elficiently assigning income [I and exploitation that have distoned the general Western
mode of production.
levels to the diverse social actors. Social justice efforts
through a progressive tax structure and public spending that
With the cntrv ot neoliberalism. the inequalities pro
privilege the least privileged are abandoned, as are attempts
duced in a societv w'nere the market is not under the control
to democratize property ow nership or promote integral agrar- f
society and the state have been accentuated. In effect.
lan reform.
by neglecting the production of social capital, the market
The Precariousness of Social Capital. Social capital
remains at the service of the most educated, those who
is understood
human, naiuml
natural, infrastruc- 1 possess infrastructure and put the institutions at their■service,
iderstood as the accumulated human
hn rnnrpnfrnrn
nmn Vl
’itk ik.»
.4.
tural and institutional wealth of a society. Social capital is. 1■ and
and ihost*
those uwho
concentrate inInrm
information
With
the deregula
theretore. the culture, knowledge, education, naturalte- jI lion
<ion of labor and finances, the market easily
easilv transfers the
sources, communications and roads that a nation offers its I value produced to national and international nuclei of accuinhabitants. This capital is slowly configured with those i mulation.
private and state investments that raise the potential and the I
In many cases, people have not been incorporated into
creativity of all men and women. Social capital is founded i the vigorous production of added value. And in processes
above all on the participation of civil society and the state in | like the maquila (plants that assemble imported inputs tor
expanding opportunities.
re-export) or the informal economy, people have not been
A look at the social capital in our countries shows that
allowed to participate in the wealth generated. There has
educational offerings are scarce and of low quality for almost
been no process of incorporating the poor, the popular sectors
hall ol Latin America and the* Caribbean. Investment in
and middle class in the economic relations in an increasing
science and technology is marginal in the majority of national
fashion, with the ability to retain the value added by them
budgets. Health conditions are had. There is a huge vacuum
selves and climb out of poverty.
n /A
r
i
fc
-■
*
z-x
a
• Tz
I
D
•
..
. -——
X*
—
I
J,
Latin America’
have
suffered vacum of
neoliberalism
I
Februiry-March 1997
it.
51
r ~—
I
I
Docunent
_______________________________
The labor market is a central element in the integration
of the world economy. In current neoliberal competition
investments seek cheap labor. Their production costs
thereby drop to the detriment of both Latin American work
ers. who are poorly paid, and workers from the North, due to
the unemployment created because factories move to the
South. Furthermore, workers from poor countries are sys
tematically denied access to wealthier countries.
In an unrestricted financial market, so-called "swallow
capital" flits from place to place with no other goal than to
take advantage of banking and
monetary systems; it can com- “
pletely destabilize any coun
try. producing devastating
effects even on the strongest
economies of Latin America.
The effects of the market
without social control have
been particularly grave for ru
ral populations, who strongly
fell the blow of the market
openings that pushed millions of peasants out of production.
There the lack of social capital is much more critical.
state as is required for the common good, neoliberalism
coldly proposes that it is best to have less state, only what is
required for macroeconomic functioning and (he promoting
of private enterprise.
Concern for the population's general quality of life now
and in the future, which was expressed through earlier wel
fare states, disappears as a goafin this context. With the
disappearance of the good of all as a goal, the sense of the
common or public home disappears.
There is thus no need to care for the family as the nucleus
and cell of a common good
that no longer matters.
Women become simply a
A general rending of society cheaper source of labor, na
ture a source of rapid enrich
can
ment for present generations,
throughout Latin America. and the peasant an inefficient
citizen who must emigrate.
In this horizon, into
which what is public tends to
disappear, political parties as
a way of building society and nation lose their reason for
being. Political and administrative competition is reduced to
demonstrating that the candidate or the president is the one
most capable of creating the necessary conditions for the free
Neoliberalism and the
and open play of markets. All are subordinated to the pro
General Social Crisis
grams of adjustment and opening, imposed by international
market necessities.
It is very important to reflect on the relationship between
It is not surprising that in this context, where community
neoliberalism and the general crisis of our societies, because
is irrelevant and the common good useless, violence would
we perceive that, alongside the persistence of poverty and
grow, drug production and consumption would skyrocket,
growth of inequalities, old problems with premodem and
and the elements most contrary to human fulfillment con
modem roots take on new strength in our societies. We are
tained in today's culture would be reinforced, casting aside
dangerously propelled by a culture ba^ed on the ambition to
possess, accumulate and consume, which substitutes per i the most valuable contributions of modernity and postmodsonal fulfillment in participatory communities with individ I ernity.
ual success in markets
A general rending of society can be perceived through
Overcoming Social Exclusion,
out the continent: it has multiple causes and evidences itself
At Whatever the Cost
in family instability, multiple and growing forms of violence,
discrimination against women, environmental destruction,
Given this reality, which goes against the work of the
manipulation of indi\ iduals by the media, harassment of the
Creator, a demand of faith calls us. so that God may be God
peasantry and indigenous communities, the growth of inhos
among us. to resist the dynamics that are destroying our
pitable cities, corruption among leaders, privatization of the
brothers and sisters and to work with many others for a
state to groups with economic power, the loss of govemabilchange, to contribute to the building of a society closer to the
ity by the state apparatus, the penetration of alienating con
kingdom of solidarity and fraternity in the Gospel.
sumption like drugs and pornography, and the complexity of
The cost we have to pay in this determination doesn’t
the secularization processes and of spiritual searches lacking
matter. We have no alternative II is our loyalty to Jesus
community commitment and the practice of solidarity.
Christ that is at stake. It is the foundation of the conditions
Neoliberalism exacerbates this crisis by eliminating the
for the possibility of fraternal living, for which the Jesuit
common good as a central objective of politics and the
martyrs gave their lives in diverse points throughout Latin
economy. The common good is replaced by the search for
America....
equilibrium of market forces. Contrary to the social thinking
We face an immense pedagogical task. In a context
of the Church, which believes that there should be as much
where the common good is disappearing as a goal and eve-
I
be perceived
52
I
I
February-March 1997
i
■J
■
________________ _______ __________________ Document
ryone is seeking their own fortune in the market, social
natives for human and sustainable development oriented to
exclusion is deepening. Formal and informal educational
the common good, that guarantee fulfillment for all ol our
efforts must be undertaken to transform the institutions,
current and future brothers and sisters in harmony with
enterprises and projects that are exclusionary, the policies
nature.
that exclude, and the men and women who are actors in this
In very general terms these are some of the issues that
exclusion, many times without being aware of it. We must
should be studied:
begin by examining ourselves, our preferences and the
The Goods that all Deserve. We should pay particular
groups we frequent. We also may be pan of the dynamic of
attention to getting the state and society to guarantee to all
exclusion. And the excluded
i
the goods they deserve for
also must change, because
being God’s children. Goods
many times they are the coun
should be guaranteed as basic
terpart of the national and in
citizen
rights, independent of
America’ poor
ternational society we have
whether families are or are
created.
can
nothing,
not able to buy these indis
The challenge is to begin
pensable
elements in the marhave
with those who have been left
kets. Such goods are health
out and. from there, at the side
care, education, security,
of the poor and walking with
home and housing. These are
them, to propose the most inreally public goods. We do
elusive or mcluding societies that are possible and viable for | not seek a welfare society dedicated ’to satisfying the
insaall This task calls for a structural transformation of our
our ; liable demands of consumer citizens. We wanl’aju’st society
societies, one which goes beyond resisting the disturbing j where every person has the essential ingredients to live in
elements of neoliberalism. Al issue is not to include the I dignity.
excluded in a system that generates exclusion. Rather it is a j
‘ Natural
Resources. Sustainable
Sustainable development
requires
Natural Resources.
development requires
sow an patient task to create a communal society that does ! environmental secunty and equity between the men and
Latin
s
demand
for they
no market value.
women of today and of the future It is indispensable to
' present alternatives so that the economy gives these resources
Overcoming the
1 a different treatment than the one imposed by neoliberalism.
Culture of Poverty
which does not incorporate long-term ecological and social
costs and benefits. We have the enormous responsibility of
This expression does not allude to the culture of the poor,
finding new ways to guarantee the quality of life for'all.
with its values and ambiguities. It refers to a way that all of
within
consumption and extraction patterns that are different
!
society behaves in the national and continental. venue.
A I from the countries of the North and the rich elite of our
___ ..
society whose leaders, whose social, political, educational j societies, who destroy the environment and appropriate the
and religious institutions, and whose grassroots sectors, have | goods of the earth to the point that they. 20Q of the earths
grown accustomed to living with poverty as something nor- I population, consume 80% of the earth's resources.
mal. Even though the means exist to overcome this situation. I
Gender Equity. In recent years, with the drop in salathere is no interest in putting them in practice.
! ried- incomes
--------- . and
.-J inrise
unemployment, various tamilv mem
;
It can be ^aid that this culture of poverty has existed for
bers have frequently been obliged to work in the informal
many decades in Latin America, but with the promotion of
economy. In these informal labor market conditions, middle
neoliberalism in all of our countries, this way of seeing and
class and grassroots women find themselves forced to work
feeling things finds a perverse justification. In effect, the
a triple day: contributing to the family income, doing the bulk
existence of millions of poor people in Latin America pro
of the domestic labor and raising the children Women are
duces no scandal tor neoliberalism. These people have noth
also used as publicity objects and articles of commerce. In
ing they can demand, because they have no market value.
this context it is worth remembering the reflections of Gen
And the economy is not there to pull them out of poverty, but
eral Congregation 34, which speaks of "a systematic dis
to produce more, sell more and earn more.
crimination against women'’ and proposes that we contribute
to this task (of gender equity ), which "is at the center of all
The Search for
contemporary missions that claim to integrate faith and jus
tice.”
Viable Economic Alternatives
The Congregation’s statement makes full sense in the
Latin American situation. "There is a feminization of povOne or the most urgent responsibilities is to move from
critical analysis to proposals. We must present viable alter- | cr^’ a ^cm*n’ne ^acc lo the oppression.” It is indispensable
i
February-March 1997
53
I
I
Document_______________ ______ _________ ___________________
to heed the call to align ourselves in solidarity with women.
Listening particularly to women, explicitly teaching the es
examined to assure that its payment at least not jeopardize
social spending. And it is indispensable to help formulate
sential equality of women and men. supporting liberation
movements that oppose women's exploitation, and having
alternatives so that our people can confront this common
problem together based on joint investigations and with a
general understanding of the dimensions of the problem and
them present in Society activities.
Rural Policy. The neoliberal opening has left devasta
tion among peasants throughout the continent. Small and
medium farmers represent the majority of agricultural pro
ducers in almost all our countries. Undertaking a different
process demands a complex combination of measures that
implies, among other things, the participation of peasants in
modernizing productive structures-, research on their particu
lar systems: access to the new1 technologies and technical
assistance, linkage to the national and international market,
without forsaking self-consumption; caring for the typical
conditions and necessities of diverse products and localities;
acricultural credit; land tenure, distribution and deeding,
deconcentration of the market, distribution and information
channels, credit; roads: rural energy: and public health and
education serv ices. All of this w ithin a framew'ork of sustain
able agriculture and food security
Industrial Policy. In the neoliberal economic frame
work. the export industry is (he motor force of development.
Although this has grow n. however, it does not propel the rest
of the economv because it is not sufficiently linked to the ,
other sectors and is highly import-dependent.
ays must be
found to diversify manufacturing and agroindustrial produc
tion that support medium and small enterprise and not only
laree enterprise, that satisfy the population s basic needs,
strengthen society’s accumulated technology, and promote
equitv and sustainable growth.
Labor Policy. Existing economic dynamics tend to
compete internationally by lowering labor costs and paying
bad salaries. Strategies need to be fostered that lead to
competitive insertion in markets based on people s skills and
the expansion of their creativity, and change the concept of
enterprise into a true community of labor And there must be
an outlook of overcoming unemployment and underemploy
ment
The Foreign DebL The Pope invites us. in the spirit of
the book of Lev iticus. to make the 2(XX)-ycar Jubilee a good
time to think about "a notable reduction, if not a total con
doning. of the international debt." V* e cannot lose sight of
the fact that the foreign debt constitutes a serious limitation
to the potential for equitable and sustainable development
from Mexico to Chile. We cannot ignore this issue of inter
national justice which affects the daily life of the popular
majority and continues to concern the Church. Out of this
grows the need to contribute well-founded proposals so that
Latin American and Caribbean societies and governments
can negotiate the pardon of an important portion of the debt,
particularly the part caused by the abrupt rise in interest rates.
And so that the part of the debt that cannot be condoned be
its repercussions in the daily life of the poor.
Dialogue with the World .Bank and International
Monetary Fund. The challenge is to advance the dialogue
and study of rigorous proposals that our Jesuit brothers
throughout the continent have put forward through the initia
I
tive taken by the Center of Concern in Washington.
With respect to the North American economy, we should
help support a dialogue around the decisions that most affect
Latin America: the financial system, institutions, and multi
national businesses. The private financial sector should be
studied with particular care in our universities and social
centers. This sector is mobilizing billions of dollars that
concentrate credit in rich countries and produce destabilizing
effects in the main Latin American economies.
Overcoming Society’s Crisis. The crisis of our socie
ties has an historic origin and many causes, and is growing
because of neoliberalism. For this reason, we cannot fail to
touch on fundamental aspects of the common good when we
try to present alternatives to the neoliberal political economy.
Constructing Civil Society. The Church, whose mis
sion we share, does not exist for itself but for humanity.
Affirming their Christian roots, and respecting the autonomy
of earthly realities, our communities of solidarity should be
pul at the service of the collective citizenry in the construction
of spaces where public issues can be discussed. This is
becoming even more urgent as pressure mounts in our coun
tries toward silence and the disappearance of the citizenry's
responsibilities for solidarity and the common good.
Invigorating the Political Vocation. To overcome the
!
J
1
i
crisis of governability and dignify public sen ice. and to put
economic policy and the markets under social control to
protect the common good, we should contribute to the forma
tion of men and women w ith a political vocation, so that they
will work to build states that guarantee the dignity of all
citizens and care for their poor.
Transforming the State. We should contribute to an
interdisciplinary study that clarifies the state s role as an
important agent in an alternative equitable and sustainable
development model, with human beings at the center, one that
presents alternatives to the neoliberal concept that asks the
slate to be reduced to a minimum. The successful examples
of development today show effective and efficient state ac
tion to prioritize objectives and spending, restricting and
distributing losses, with an important role for the state in
strategic projects and in the adequate provision of goods that
i
all deserve.
The Elaboration of a Public Ethic Taking into ac
count that neoliberalism subordinates moral behavior to the
February-March 1997
sT
l
X
nt
ton
b>
MB
-
B
------------------------------------------------------- ------------Document
market and produces destructive effects in the c. plimunity, |
We still do not know what this Latin American unit)
we. as followers of the Lord Jesus who is our final moral law.
means. But the accelerated process leading toward it is
should contribute to establishing a public or civil ethic, a task
vigorous and irreversible....
in which we are simple citizens with all others, believers and
Such a vision must leadI us to continental solidarity A
nonbelievers.who are responsible for establishing the moral
lucid solidarity that allows ius to dialogue with our Noah
values pertinent to a reality in profound change, values with
American friends, to do studies and seek the common sood.
out which our societies cannot survive and guarantee every
to seek alternatives to problems like those of multinational
one’s fulfillment. Along with many others in this effort, we
corporations that compete based on low salaries in our coun
will be pedagogues of life, the search for truth, justice, human
tries. huning workers from both pans of the continent. We
rights, the fight against corruption, peace and the protection
must
unite, when poverty promotes Latino migration to the
of creation’s integrity.
United States and Canada; when the Nonh sells arms to our
For us as Jesuits, this ethical task has a deeper dimension.
countries to intensify fratricidal violence and war becomes a
It is to know, to seek apostolic strategies so that our dialogue
reason for displacement to other borders; when money from
about the policies of the economic system carries the sense
US workers pension funds are invested in volatile Latin
of the gospel to the depths of cultural experience, where we
American financial markets; when there is also a drop m
find or reject God. build or destroy human identity and nature
social solidarity and poverty grows in the United States and
where we open or close the door to the Kingdom. That is the
Canada, when putting a stop to the expansion of cocaine and
place of deep discerning where we must put ourselves with
in the
in building new social relations in transparency, justice and !
solidarity.
| Conclusion
As a specific task, it is indispensable
i ‘\
that, with an Ignatian attitude of searching for the greatest
universal good6
W ----- - —•»••• £yzvz*J, we j
finally touch the conscience of those leaders who make ! th-,. We want to seriously assume lhe promotion of justice
i our ta
faith
deepen “it accordin8 10 lhe
‘
' and' economic
_________
j. so that their
“h| and deepen
financial
decisions.
J._;. technical 1
^•r technical , changing needs of our peoples and cultures and to the pecudeterminations have positive effects on the transformation of
the culture of poverty and death into a culture of shared life. ; harmes of our continent’s historic moment. Men and uomen
I will always be threatened by greed for wealth, ambmon tor
j power and the insatiable search for sensory satistactions.
A Latin American Perspective
j Today this threat is made concrete in neoliberalism, and
While making these reflections it is important to look at | tomorrow it will have other ideological expressions and there
will be other idols. We have been called in the Church to
all of Latin America and the Caribbean. This territory, with
j contribute to the liberation ot our brothers and sisters from
common cultural and spiritual roots, has been considered a
human disorder and we will remain there,
there in this task at the
mosaic of nations with distinct destinies. It is no longer
service
of
all.
placing
ourselves
at
the
side of our friends the
possible to see things that way. It would be like going to a
i
poor
because
that
is
what
our
Lord
Jesus
did..
past that no longer exists.
I
▲
I
I <
I
I
|
I
»
Ftbmary-March 1997
55
J
s
Latin America in the “ New World Order
Xabicr Gorosiiagu
I
Far-reacbmg Structural Changes
IV
V
i inn Xmenca. Harvest of the 19HIK
Debt. Neohberai
Neoliberal Adjustment
Adjustment and
and the Bush Imitative
VI
VI
The Revolution of Civil Society
Popular Agenda for the 1990s
political Changes
nHl Worldwide
A
of Civilization
f\ Crisis w
--
IS
America and elsewhere in
A sent. of
of international
international meeting
meetings and seminars held in Latin
s cris’.j, its dominant
1990-l‘-91 indicate a common evaluation of the nature of Latin
rpnsingly coinciding altematendenc.es and countenendenc.es, and a constellation of su
crisis of model and of
AU this takes place at
at aa historical
historical moment
moment dom.nated by the
uves.
4 k kricic nf in alternative
alternative vision
of society
vision of
society and history itself.
“160 '^e depth and speed of the changes throughout the world
world make the 1990s very strategic.
L
- ■—
“X—
xx—xxx . . -—..« -
Er
21st century will be defined.
We are also expenencing a
i
H
(
crucible of Copernican chances, greater than those seen
started late, in 1914, with the great confrontation
the 1914-1917 period. The 20th century
toppling of the Berlin
between capitalism and socialism, and ended early in 1989, with the
with a confrontation be«1
.. end «l .be Cold W«. Tbe dis. .."O’ b- begn.
longstanding confrontaN, rS and Sou.b between edpWl and labor WMe dns ts a
tween
- n new nhase with qualitatively different parameters,
non. it is entering a ne* phase wun H
of Latin Amenca cannot be
-ru
nn ven
The “ discovery
The coming
year. 199'’ is
is symbolic.
sy***
k.a-i
own identity and civilization when the Spaniards
celebrated, since the continent had its own
y
totality.
uq"’ was universal history and the world as one
amved. What was discovered in 14V- ^as uni ei
a
tn.
be...., ..sed i. b..nS dl.oee.ed aa one .odd, an -P™ '
tonununal home Unbed to a eon.™.
™ dea..n, » .be P»d.e. o< a
=
•
fnrrmtion social communication and transportation, and also
revolution, a revolution in information, so
nf the threat of collective suicide for having overstepp
of a growing consciousness of the tnredi ui
bounds of the planet.
•
speech to the Conference of the Latin American Socioiog) Association. Havana. . 1
Revised edition
•• President of ibe Reponal Coordinator of Economic and Social Research (CRI^S).
Vol. XIV, No. I (Pnmer Semestre 1992)
13
>
In addition to symbolism, 1992
represents a tremendous challenge for Latin A me:
self-construction, for overcoming these last 500 hidden
overcoming these last 500
years
challenge, however, comes in these “" ttmes
times of
of cholera,"
cholera.” * which reflect the
depth o;
economic and political crises facing Latin Amenca.
Amenca. We are also wnness
to the me
exodus of the Kurdish people, the ecological disaster in Bancladesh the
Civil *ar
Yugoslavia and the threat of disintegration of the Soviet Un.on
Persistent and gro-A
starvation in Africa surpasses all these other human
tragedies in drama, all at a momen:
Which both " the end of histon" and the " New World Order"
are being irrespons.
proclaimed.
l>
self discover)' and
l»
In this essay, we hope to underscore the
of the changes taking place.
desperation, anguish
and
Latin Amencan
rage, while
the
contradictory, dialectic and global charac:
intellectuals are debating between hope
people
are
using
their ingenuity
to
increasing impoverishment.
sur.r.
In the first pan of the essay we analyze the
structural causes of this ne'A crossrcac
in the broadest framework of the
restructuring of capital and the
new world order proclaime
in the wake of the Gulf War. The second
pan assesses the iimpact
—
of these changes in Latir
Amenca and the Caribbean and Bush’s Initiative
for the Americas' in the context of the
trilateral megamarkets and the US recession,
Finally, we indicate
some characteristics of
the dialectic between increasing democracy and
economic submission, both of which are
contnbuting to the crisis of ungovernability and political
weariness that affects both
left and nght throughout Latin Amenca.
the
The cnS.s of civiluauon demands a restatement of the problems from
»
within as 'Aell as
from the base and a search for new alternatives
to respond to the neoliberal avalanche. Hie
most recent Papal Encyclical reflects how far this avalanche of North
against South and capn
al against labor has surpassed limits until very recently cons.dered lesser ev.ls.
I
>
>
I. FAR-REACHING
►
structural
CHANGES
in history has there been
nanons and
J,'“T,Oroup
s"“- “h
n[oraa|ta lnJ
the Group of Seven, with their SOO million
Mmon plople >t0
sweep,n?'Ljuo AmenVand ^soTeaLVr^tr^x?3
Garc, M.qu„ s bcsi scJbog
14
<
military power than
‘O ‘bC
-'^ase now
‘ ~
-
technological
the character of the new
of
capital
corresponds
to
us concentration
depends less and less on intensive use
cycle of capital accumulation
on m uhich the
and more on an accumulation
labor, or even of productive capital,
ral resources and
concentration and centralithe intensive use of knowledge. The
other forms of
nology based on
knowledge is more intense and monopolisuc than
of technological
between North and South even more.
increasing the gap
the growing - dematenabzauon” of producuon. tn
^he repercussions of this have led to
product produced. Over the last 20 years
material is required per
less and less raw
used per product
the amount of raw tmaterials
npanese production process has reduced
of this reduction in
2% (Table 1). Even more significant is the accelerated rhythm
material use
In the 1965-76 period, raw
industrial product
JJIC of raw materials per
has been 3%, nearly a six-fold drop1980, the annual »“duction
0.6% annually; since
de-materialization is ex
In essence, this
fall for
TABLE 1
in the tendency of real prices to
jaoanese Kanufacturtng:
of
fritfonsuD 3St^n 3^
Js.
|^33 principal raw materials, the majority
Anc
Proaucnon •
the South’s export products. This deteW65-I9SK
arC
pronounced in recent years,
Raw Materials RH IP
Incust ria I
|Mtion is even more
(RM)
Year
p
roductlon(lP)
Additionally, the automatization and robot1.154
1965
32.5^
1.163
42.8
that
labor
loses
jo 8
1956
of production means
1 IcO
51
8
43 9
1967
1.155
57.9
50 2
relative to capital, in both the Nonh and
1968
1.156
67 6
58
4
1969
1 146
|Z||th. Both processes lead to a permanent struc76 2
66
5
1970
1 116
76.2
68.3
1971
El deterioration of value relative to what are
1 115
81.7
73.3
1972
1.128
95.2
84.4
1973
^posedly the South’s comparative advantages in
1 115
90.4
81 1
1974
1 112
80 2
72.1
1975
1.C91
87 5
K duction and world trade.
80.2
1976
1.075
89
8
83.5
1977
1.049
93
3
These phenomena coincide with the transna
88.9
1978
1 046
99
9
at
5
Enalization of systems of production, financing
1979
1 0C0
100 0
100.0
1980
0 939
94 8
101.0
1981
0 901
91.4
llpd marketing, which for the first time permits a
101.4
1982
0 379
92.2
104
9
1983
0. 853
99
6
116
7
global market.
1984
0 330
101
3
122.0
1985
0 302
97.5
L-l The new areas of expansion of global accumu
,-wv
121.6
1986
0.777
98.5
july 1987 126.7
lation for the end of the century - such as space.
TP^xes of moustrial oroouction an: use
and energy - are completely subordinated to
control of economic, technological and miliErs !»*«■ which
Provoke even grealer conEventration and centralization. and thus, a greater
between Nonh and South.
and asymmetry
oFraw materials. 1980:100._.
'in
SMrcs Bank of Jaoan "Key Statistics
', 1985 Office
iCJKi': Statistical "Key Statistics "
of Statistics of Jaoan.
.wtfi/i Statistics or Japan. No. 317 ihovesaer 1937)
15
'I
I
p
The revolution in telecommunications, transportation and informatics has produced
management innovations that have funher facilitated mergers of capital and technology,
whereby private business in Latin Amenca and the South in general is increasingly mcorpo-
rated in a dependent way into the logic of centralized capital.
National business, both
private and state-run, is increasingly marginalized and in an asymmetric position vis-a-vis
transnational industry, and thus more and more isolated from
the logic of the domestic
market and the survival of the large impoverished majonty.
The underdeveloped countnes, with 75%
scarcely 19%
of the world’s population, have access to
of the world’s gross domestic product, a reduction from ihe 23%
decade ago, and their participation in foreign stock investment dropped from
figure of a
25.2%
to
16.9%. This is even more serious if we consider that in the same decade the net finan
cial transfers from the South to the North were the equivalent of 10 Marshall Plans. In the
case of Latin Amenca, according to the most recent Latin American Economic Svstem
(SELA) report, foreign debt-serTce payments alone were 80%
more than the total amount
of foreign investment. If we include Latin American capital in the North (on the order of
S160 billion) and the deterioration in
the terms of trade (some $100 billion), Latin
America’s financial and productive debacle in the 1980s could be compared to the worst
years of colonial pillage.
We have described this structural phenomenon as an avalanche of North against South,
of capital against labor. Never before in history, not even in colonial times, has such an
extreme bipolarization of the world existed. This bipolarization, from
the South’s per-
spective, is the fundamental element of the structural changes defining the end of this
century. The so-called “ Africanization”
of Latin America is an objective reality. In the
1980s, Latin America decreased its participation in the international market from 7%
and direct foreign investment stock dropped from 12.3%
in 1980 to 5.8%
to 4%,
in 1989, making
Latin America the region of greatest backward movement in the world, even greater than that
t
of Africa, which went from 2.4%
to 1.9%.
Thus it should not be surprising that the UN Economic Commission on Latin American
(ECLA) recognizes that, in the same decade, the number of people living in poverty in Latin
America has jumped from 112 to 184 million people.
II. WORLDWIDE POLITICAL CHANGE
Four fundamental elements define the political charactenstcs of the 1990s:
The profound crisis in Eastern Europe. This has had dramatic repercussions throucnom
16
I,
IB
historic phase with the end
of the Cold War. From
a Third
Mid. touching off a new
complex. One concern from the
of
these
changes
is
very
L perspective, the evaluation
socialism - understood as
L* American experience is whether or not there really ever was i
, _ in the Eastern bloc.
to capitalism
in the Soviet Union
socialist alternative
L Latin American debate tends to assert tha
Later, the USSR became a
fnot have outlived the period of the sov.ets from 1923-24.
military alterdefeat of Germany, a
alternative to the Nazi regime and. after the
countries never
pitary
of the Eastern European
the threat of nuclear war. The majonty
i defensive and
Live to
their own countries, instead forming a
socialism
indigenous
to
socialism
jycloped a
of this militaristic and statist
J
aUiance. The negative impact
loosed military
organzing styles and statism imDogmatism, top —down
trmendous in Latin America
Communist parties u-id the
affected all th<
Eastern European experience
counpned from the
the Socialist bloc served as a
American left. Nevertheless.
for
jajority of the Latin
and a rearguard of support
that
permitted
a
geopolitical
space
Rialance of sons
It— »“■-
and of that economic and
ranges in the South.
loss of a paradigm.
L ’The collapse of Eastern Europe means the
ideological and practiit potentially opens
>-opolilical counterbalance. At the same urn
conflicts by negotiation
towards resolving
i-l space for new experiences in a world leamng
or “ state”
...,,.8 - l-pon...
r
is.
-»■
revolution and consumer society.
of this collapse.
The “ illusion of the West
■including Poland and what used to
[not respect social customs or habits
of national identity.
The cnsis
could cloud quickly in some
of the Eastern countries,
be East Germany, under the specter
and is unconcerned with social or
The majonty
of Eastern Europe
of a market that does
cultural consequences
is heading towards a
of natural
transformed into an area
could
easily
be
of the
krapid Latin Americanization, and
Western Europe and the rest
further development in
^resources and cheap labor for
threat of disintegration of
challenges given the —
Fnorth. The USSR may, well face even greater
or ascent of populist fascism.
Fthe entire federation and of a military coup
and much
will absorb Europe s pol.litical attention
In the coming years. Eastern Europe
and economically the
both politically
its available financial resources, affecting I
in Eastern Europe,
; South of the changes
attention needed by the South. The impact on the
date. The direct
what they have been to
* however, could be very different over time from
bloc, transformed by its crisis, could
I relationship between the South and the former Eastern
lor questions
17
J
.. !
&
I
become an international source of creativity and complementarity. For this to happen, the
complexities and isolation facing both civil societies will have to be overcome.
European unity.
Hegemomzed by German unification, this new European unity has
changed the correlation of international forces. From Yalta to Malta, from February 1945
to December 1989, the world has undergone transformations in less than half a century that
in other times would have required many centunes. These chances are ideological, political
and economic and, for the first time, tragically, ecological. A
united Europe could become
the productive, financial and commercial center of the world, together with Japan and the
Pacific nations. This would leave the US in an increasingly vulnerable position, and could
u
lead to a new dividing up of world “ spheres of influence."
It would also open the possi-
bility for the countries of the South to take advantage of new spaces and contradictions in
the sysvm.
I
Emergence of the Pacific basin bloc. As the century comes to a close. Japan and
Southeast Asia are emerging as a preeminent industrial, financial and technological power
bloc. Japan, however, though an economic giant, is diminutive in political stature. It has
not been able to play a foreign policy role corresponding to its economic power. From the
perspective of Latin America and the South, Japan’s history, culture, race and religion are
i
seen as very different than those of the Nonh. The Japanese are not white. Western, nor
Christian.
i .f
Group of Seven tend to draw Japan into the nonhern orbit, thus increasing the avalanche
i I
of North against South and capitial against labor.
i .
The loss of US economic hegemony. This phenomenon coincides with the three des
I
cribed above, but has its own clear economic roots. The US has been unable to overcome its
fiscal and commercial deficits and is saddled by a gargantuan military budget. Its tendency
1 •
.
/
But the structural forces of the market and the different institutions of the
to base the last decade’s growth on a rapidly increasing debt has transformed the onlv
■
country whose national currency functioned as an international reserve into the most
indebted nation on the face of the earth. Under these conditions it will be very difficult
to avoid a recession without an annual net inflow' of more than S100 billion.
The loss in technological competitiveness and productivity means that the US will not
be able to maintain its political hegemony unless it is based fundamentally in miitary and
ideological power. This, in turn, requires a military budget of about $300 billion annually
and control over some two-thirds of all media images produced in the world. The financial
instability of October 1987 and the more recent savings and loan crisis, along with the
growing deterioration in the US productive and social infrastructure, indicates that the
debt, deficits and military budget are simply no longer sustainable under these conditions.
The Gulf war could temporarily alter this, and thus the global political balance, but
18
I
K
ill
iaM
B
IB
have outlined here.
hecemonized by the
neo-tniateralism,
|^e three significant groups comprise a
institutions organized under its control (the
of
world
O Seven, with a constellation
with its financial dependence and the veto
United Nations itself,
World Bank). The
-itv Council, still maintains a framehold in the Security
|Bat the key economic powers
Which the majority of the member countries are
Cold
War,
in
has its origins in the
democratic participation.
|B) benefit from equitable and
,-economic interests shared
the alliance of geo
threat to the South is increased by
of attending to the cultural,
which are incapable
l^untnes in the Group of Seven,
different peoples of the South, increas|> and national characteristics of the many
on the table from the Nonh
fthmeraed in poverty and margtnalization. The propos
of trade, finances and priva;r3l,on- .nlo ” market culture,” with a Itberabzanon
market forces will be able to
which reduces state autonomy.
^surnes
stabUity in an increasingly unified
|>ne poverty and achieve political and democratic
hanging the structural tendencies we
l»
l»
llH.
a
CRISIS OF civilization
IB
geographic and histone unit. The
|fc-|Ve hundred year ago. the world emerged as one
dramatically divided, entity. The
inseparable, although
|| in 1992 is recognized as one
increased and centralized
of Seven, has
llral North, which revolves around the Group
tends to reinforce
of the capitalist system
iBr in all possible forms. The restructuring
a countervailing weight to the
that there is no longer
foiolanzation and asymmetry given
North of few people and many
world, between a
| The increasing division of the
, is the axis of the current cnsis.
and few resources
Irces and a South with many people
simplify the world’s problems, but they
||s true that the terms “ North” and South
|B auow us to underline the dominant contradictions.
E Under these conditions, the current model of sooety tn
in the North
Bent and lifestyLe - cannot be reproduced -ou
style of devel_
the world because
structural conditions. *
accumulatlOn - with .ts
accumulation —
jmadicuon is between the model s requirement or
_
_
exduded
jhinc concentrauon of capital, technology and power m the N
Jonties ,n the South who demand not only survival but also a standard
jUog-ca! and populauon limits and carries wit in
B peace and democracy.
IJ
II
II
II
II
II
II
II
l»
i
h is revealing that precisely when
“ the end of history”
and the triumph of capitalism
19
I-
are being announced, the World Bank published its Report on World Development 1990:
Roverry', in which it emphasized poveny as “ the most pressing question of the decade."
k
The reality of a billion people throughout the world with less than a S370 annual income is
not only shameful, it is unsustainable.
The crisis is not only one of distribution and equity, it is a crisis of values and the
direction humanity is taking.
For this reason we can call it a crisis of civilization.
ciety worldwide is neither sustainable nor stable under these conditions
So
Democracy is noi
possible for the majority of the world’s population, and this fact is leading to increasing
ungovernability in many nations of the world.
Samuel Huntington, the ideologue of the
Trilateral Commission in the 1970s, called the increase in Third World demands for demo
cracy a threat. “ Guiding”
democratic processes in the South has become an imperial
necessity if the North wants to m. intain its current privileges. What wc could call Low-
Intensity Democracy in Latin America is more a structural than a momentary product of the
inability of the material base to sustain even these incipient processes of democratization.
To lend legitimacy to this situation, an attempt is underway to ideologize the North-
South confrontation, presenting the South as the new enemy, in the wake of the “ evil
empire’s”
demise. The South is ponrayed as a den of evil goings-on, a dangerous place for
citizens from
the Nonh.
In this vision, the threats of drugs, immigration and political
instability, along with regional conflicts, all come from the South.
The objective structural gap between Nonh and South is widened with this subjective
ideologization, which has deep and racist roots.
p
Instead of confronting the causes of the
crisis, this ideological view looks at the consequences, and seeks to lay blame there.
IV. LATIN AMERICA: HARVEST OF THE 19SOs
The so-called ** lost decade”
was a complex and dialectical one.
competitive capacity in the 1990s is substantially lower than in
the
Latin America's
1980s.
Losses in
foreign trade and in foreign investment, thoroughgoing decapitalization and disinvestment both productive and social - as well as other well-known indices from this “ lost decade”
demonstrate profound and structural economic deterioration throughout Latin America. Most
of the continent, with the possible exception of Mexico. Chile, and. in a cenain sense,
Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela, is simply not an attractive panorama to capital.
appearance of cholera in “ the times of adjustment”
“ Africanization”
and economic marginalization.
The
symbolizes Latin America’s growing
Political marginalization is also evident
as a result of the Middle East conflict and the strategic interests involved there, as well
[i
20
•.he growing disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Latin American society is
of the 1980s. The “ lost decade”
ilitanvely different than itit was at the beginmng
of Latin Amen can democracy” in
nodes with and is in pan a cause of the “ explosion
reflection of a radical and
198OS Electoral democratizat.on is nothing more than a
Decades of struggle
^nd democracy that has touched different areas of c.vtl soctety
in this revolution of civil
unst oltearchies, dictatorshtps and militarism have gelled
made clear in an April 1991
riely as representatives of Latin American political pan.es
countries is expressed by repre:eung m Vienna, " Incipient electoral democracy in many
democratic and constituntative democracy, which tends to transform itself, through t e
~
The
lost decade,"
complex-
however, is much more
analpressu., of the majoriues. mto authentic paniepatory democracy.
in -ivil society is
This complex dialectic of the economic crisis and the revo uno
of the organized and
the 1980s The democratic participation
ie defining characteristic of the 19BUS.
histoneal subjects
x x. i. - - * —. - Tir
nat demand pantcipation in the economy, pohucs, religion
emalai Argentina,
This dvnamic of civil socety has obvious excepuons.
g
and Peru. The culture of terror imposed by military repression in the
two
’anama
US military occupation of Panama and the economic collapse of Pen. e^p am
ases, the US military occupation of Panama and the
OI
isintecrauon of civil society in these nations.
in
„„ ;
„O Sn« nn n.unbl b.se »
7.
t
~
to
.be
>«»
L.
This
» P»i
x:..
Fujimon in Peru, Cnstia
““d"
is expressed in the rapid
‘ *lbe m^on.y ni
Nicareua and Panama. In
ZZ-blcd XL
biCPlh. P-M- -w
neither of those countnes has the US
eov£mmenu. To their
in Het there are deep divisions within both governments.
or economic recovery. In fact, there are a P
B0Vemments, which
apparent surpnse. the US has been unable to financ.ally assist th
g
could have been convened mto showcases for “ the marvels of US foreign po cy.
Unaovernability is leading to a society of beggars and dehnquen“ Wh°
• , ’a, anv cost This unorgamzed mass is an tmponant challenge for altemauv
h
S“
in Latm Amenca. It is a group easily coopted by escapist rehgions. drugs, an
projects
t of Latm Amenca, as well as by violent ultra-leftism unconnected to
growing migration out
and viable proposals. Between hope and disaster: that is how this dialectic o
alternative tIn another histoncal moment. Pablo Neruda eloquently
sentiments could be characterized.
cm all the flowers, but they wall never stop the spnng.
declared a similar feeling: They can
21
V. DEBT, NEOLIBERAL
adjustment and the
The continuing debt crisis, the
r
►
bush
[NITIATTVE
structural adjustment processes underlay
and Bush s ne'*
to restructure
continent allow us to visualize a project
proposal for the Latin Amencan
continent into the world capitalist market,
Latin Amencan capitalism and reinsen the
proclaimed by Bush and
in the " new world order”
Latin America will take its place
Gulf war.
Baker in the heat of the Persian
new” order, Bush declared to Congress that " there are no subIn announcing this[sid leadership in the world." Secretary of State Baker sa.d, " NVe
stitutes for American Llv nanon that has the polit.cal wall and the miluary and economic
remain. We are the
tools at our dispose 1
' control the illegality that is don. mating certain
to
r
world. The world has become a
1
remaining superpower.
Debt has
areas at the
dangerous place and we need global reach. We are the only
-. :
-r.
extract net
financial transfers out
with Its denationalizing effect. Utin Amencan attempts to re
into a submissive position
were unable to achieve equitable terms, in spite of vanous
negotiate rhe debt individually
on payments. Ute Internauonal Monetary Fund (IMF), the
attempts to declare a moratonum recently, the Intemamencan Development Bank (IDB) hate
World Bank, USAOD and, more
national governments and enterpnses. such that the
imposed overlapping conditions on
conditions have severely weakened Laun Amenca s negoadjustment policies linked to these
President Bush’s Enterpnse for the Amencas
dating capacity. It is in this context that
Initiative must be understood.
Initiative for
SELA’s cogent Apnl 1991 analysis of the Bush p!an states that the
Aeneas does not propose a strategy for the development of the regron. bur ra.her
a strategy
the
mechamsm
acerate the econonuc reforms underway whose pnn^
accelerate the
constitutes a
been promoted by multilateral
multnateral financial
financial inst.tut.ons,
institutions, wtth the suPPelements have
It responds to economic needs and concrete strategies
US government...
thus proposes a search
search for elements allowing mutual benefits wit n an
States." SELA
of mutual interests that create an authent.c partnershtp. This rentes
that
identification
and entena for an understanding with the Umted States.
defining the rules of the game
We hold Ih., me Bu,!. pb. .. •
us ««»■»>• .n
The U»ed S.h.ee
„
‘
O. »S P—> ™
-he
«. W~P"=~ "
BOB. • —
Europe. .»d d* .eS.»rhe, d bp.» ."d ■>»
22
01
’
(
pension of a free market from
Alaska to
^osts of its own adjustment with Canada and
Patagonia would permit the US to
Latin America. At the same time, it
the new global trade agreements now
SFcase US negotiating power in the debates on
of GATT talks). Given the possible
le in the.Uruguay Round (the cunent round
its competitive capacity to take
■h
ootc the
"’reach new agreements,
the US
Ub needs to broaden
Europe and Japan.
both bilateral and multilateral - with
igrccmcnts of the Bush plan - bang with them
•
the
three
pillars
trade, and investment iderscored. The SELA document
Bush
has
repeatedly
urn
Jitions that President Lderived from the linkage
relative to the debt, the conditions
hat * in all matters
think that this criterion will
essential requisites.” We
reforms
constitutes
an
■Wmic
evident in relation to
and investment Th , is already
trade
issues
plapplied to
official negotiations,
been usedI for debt reduction; in
which
have
not
r uiechanisms
real substantially reduced, market price of
the
i
refuse
to
accept
oroganizations
the same logic, conditions for the incorposecondary
market.
By
as set by the
wiU be linked to the acceptance of condmons
in
Latin
America
. J US investment
,-reciprocal and asymmetncal use
-z of the market, whrch wall
nug the debt and the non
Intend to a free flow of the work
force between the US and Utin
Latin Amenca, even in
of Mexico.
analyzed first from the
„e take as our start.ng point that the Bush plan should
starting point
in the United States,
tLtlve of the recession and
and need
need for
for aa macroecononuc adjustment
and loss of internapermit the United States to face
face tts
its structural mdebtedness
a zone of privi( competitiveness in better• conditions,
conditions, and
and expand
expand tts market towar
continental supply of natural
, influence to increase its strategic security and its
maintain its geo-strategic
particularlv petroleum. This will allow the US to
irces.
Kony based on a geo-economic competitiveness that it currently lacks.
PVhe total US debt, shown in Table 2. reflects
TABLE 2
Total US Debt
ffarcely fictitious nature of the US economy.
H depends on international transfers of over
(in US$ Di 11 ions)
1980
J, billion and on a progressive indebtedness of
private business and consumers.
|; .In one short decade, the United States went
U. being the world’s largest international credFto beine its greatest debtor, almost doubling
Kudget for debt servicing and reducing the
. jtry’s savings by nearly half. That has creatFan eminently unstable situation. The United
Debt.
1990
914 3.200
316
850
829 2.100
1.300 3.000
1 400 9.150
Total
Gross Domestic Procuct 2 732 5.300
•180 -800
Foreign oeot
20%
13%
Debt service/Duoget
4%
7%
_
Savings____
Feaeral
State
Business
Consumer
Source US Commerce Deoartient.
23
of
of the
the world
world’ss energy,
energy. auve
50% of whtch is
maintain gasoltne taxes six times less than those of Japan.
to consume 25%
States simply cannot continue
imported. It cannot continue to
If the US were to increase its gasoline tax to the level or its
Germany, Italy and France,
its income by S180 billion annually. This squandereconomic competitors, it could increase
the decision to get involved mtlitarily in the Pers.an Gulf,
ing of energy explains
subsidy, US productivity, measured by per-capita GDP, was
In spite of this energy
tndustnaltzed nations by 1988. If this trend continues.
fourth among the world s 2- most
2030. The fundamental
the US wtU drop to thineenth
thtneenth tn world produettvity by the year
the US is half
reason for this decline m
producttvtty is that the rate of savings tn
in US productivity
that of tts tndustnal competttors and a q
uaHer that of Japan.
reductmn in US
quaner
Japan,
savtngs, moreover, comradtc. a basic
baste tenet of neoliberal
neohbera! policy,
pohey, wtuch ho ds t at a con-
centratton of income allows for an increase in savings and tnvestment.
a,
investment. In the
Lentrauon of tncome tn the hands of the wealthtest top 10% of the population
populate mcreased
by 4%
between 1980 and 1990, making that group’s share of the GDP .7%. In the same
decade, however, savings fell from 7%
to 4%.
of GDP is four times greater than that of
US military spending as a percentage
spending, including infrastructure
other industrialized countnes, while tts non-mihtary
andsocial spending, is 45%
lower.
TABLE 3
US Career: t/vensss /n rr.e
/nrernat/ona/ Marxer
States’ loss of international
competitiveness is also notable. Table 3 shows
an almost 50% decbne for the key areas of US
The
United
i 1950
technology in the same decade that its petroleum
dependency tripled.
In
73%
60S
is:
12%
19Su
IS
Oouc Fibers
S6X
Conductors
7X
Acricultural aacnmery
36%
Petroieun oeoenGence
Source se»sitee.\ Aoril 1 1991
1990, the US held a
technological lead in only a few areas, primarily
biotechnology and industrial design.
reduction in the investment rate . funds
This loss of competitiveness corresponds to a
dedicated to research, productivity, and infrastructure, and even ini the loss of its own
The US consumer is losing
internal market, which shows a growing propensity for impons.
confidence in US products, particularly vis-a-vis Japanese and European design and tech
nology. US consumer confidence
confidence in
in domestic
domestic products
products has
has droppea
dropped anvo
54% since 1980. which
has begun to
billion from
have international repercussions.
In 1990. Japan withdrew
more than $30
the US market. At the same time, the prolonged US recession has caused a
in the number of the poor in the US, now some 30 million.
high military budget and dedicating two-thirds of all funds to
Maintaining such a
the competitive gap in terms of civil technology,
hich-level military' technology increases
dramatic increase
p.„.c»w, «i.l>
24
d°
s“d’ h'sh sp““‘“'s
“
r.
the irrevocable need for a
“’^d o«
debates in
^juument m rhe US economy. The ro .c
,
not raise taxes.
even President Bush bad to break h.s ke
P 6
in Latin
thal the US needs an ad.ustment even stricter^
effects on world
^Furthermore, the distortions in the
eco
.
Speculation. The inmd stock market fluctuations ano spv
■Markets, interest rates
financial stability, however, are
m
«Tihlished to guarantee world financial
It institutions establisn
B
modern economy.
H^wuh one of the most fundament. ,s—
and with
Amenca. having a neighbor and kev market n a
Latin
3S lh05e outlined above means hav.ng a ern n
BA. as great
The Bush plan cannot be analyzed independent
BUn economies
the urgency of mcreasmg US geo-economic compeunveness
n a readjustment and
Pnmology.
g^s-d be emended
MIIl* mecamarkets of Europe
P that the Bush plan could serve as an element of
■Bbse Latin Americans who believe
h that the US economy was in the
Sand stability, much like the motor
—7 force of growth
investment and productivity, need to
in technology.
Shen the US was the world leader
I—
The US military monopoly, coupled
S their relation with the US in this new context.
stability. As Professor Paul Kennedy
Se multipolar economic situationi, does not lead to
to compensate for their
be more mrUtanly aggressive
Luns, empires in decline tend to
Buc weakness.
be posed to the Bush Plan:
"hiree
■ee alternatives can
lack of reciprocity and the asym^gotiate better terms W1th the US to overcome the
, assumes as given ihai the Bush
so clearly shows. This position
fy that the SELA analysis ■.
America's economic crisis.
out of Latin
in Initiative is the only *ay
in Latin America, integrating the
of subregional integration
pRrengthen the mechanisms
j-Sur, Andean
Andean Pact, Central
markets (Merco
pment through subregional common
This
Colombia and Venezuela).
^.fca-Caribbean. with a special relation with Mexico,
US and Canadian
necessary to deal with the
ation would permit the complementarity
results for Latin Amenca
obtain more positive
Rets "ntis second alternative hopes to
United States through its own
M the Initiative by diversifying its linkage to the
the Pacific nations.
l&ration and by opening new relations with Europe and American society. The thrust of
vision and proposal for Latin
Wput forth an alternative
.Ke cuee. »< .be =«»«»"
““ “
"!P“d '
“
—jc crisis
and“ respond
■ proposal would be to
„» s„»e.y
I. .o„.d seek » «=..= .be n...e,».
KmuUted demands of emerging
penloipe™, democaey.
W maintaining and deepening
™>
*
25
I
B
ii i rm
r
"
I*
vision of society that has been called
historic exploitation of work, nature
izes both victors and vanquished in
" the logic of the majority"
and aims to overcome the
and sovereignty. The crisis of civilization dehumanthe market and thus calls for a reconstitution of equity
authentically free market.
solution that reinforces the Latin
This alternative offers a medium- to long-term
1990s the most viable route is to advance
Amencan vision of the second proposal, For the
context of reciprocity and
and deepen Latin American integration and diversification m a
society that goes beyond
symmetry. Bold pragmatism, however, requires having a vision of a
not reduce itself to the agenda
strict market mechanisms. The Utin Amencan agenda must
and symmetry, both necessary to an
E
of the Bush plan.
This third alternative implies some strategic priorities:
(1) Develop a strategy of survival and approbate technology based on the accumulated
majority of the population
experience of the popular Latin Amencan econom.es in which the
is barely surviving.
into producuve
(2) Make significant investments in human capital, converting the poor
this would be what Adam
agents so that they can overcome their poveny. In classical terms
Smith called the wealth of the nations.
as the economic arena of the great majority of Latin
(3) Recognize local production
should be integrated into the internal market and expanded to subregional
Americans, which
food self-sufficiency and competitive expons for the popular
projects in order to guarantee
sectors.
international market, rather than provide an absolute
(4) Selectively connect with the
until such time as conditions of greater symmetry and competiopening. This is important u..
tiveness can be achieved.
(5) Design spea1 p.Ud« to, ihe infonn.!
bo.b eeb.n .nd pen.nn.. .h.i
allow for the creation of an internal market with enough demand to stimulate both agroof the informal sectors,
industrialization and manufacturing. Without the incorporation
transnational counterpart.
national industry will be elitist and totally dependent on its
This requires regionalizing this proposal throughout Latin America.
(6) Make the state - that ambiguous, yet initially essential, entity - increasingly unnec
should be decentralized
essary as the transition to civil society is effected. State power
to civil institutions. Use the state to create the social framework that would strengthen
the growth of popular organizations and increase their negotiating capacity at both the
regional and international levels.
(Ji Transnat.onal.ze the labor, technology, and financ.ai mstituuons of popular orgam-
zanons, as requ.red by the transnationalization of cap.tal in the world market, me trans-
26
aimed at
of these experiences is
at a national,
democratizing the market
pn
can and international level.
tnonopohstic market produces an
ipular alternative starts from
,|
economic Darwinism"
•gressivciy
in
>
the premise that a
disappers, given that the
which state equilibrium
substitutes for the state
and
absorbed by capital
the weakest are
INff. the World Bank and
an.
in particular the
, in international relations.
establishing equity
Cold War, and respond to the
democratization is key to
This
these institution;* emerged during th
mental organizations (NGOs)
f Unned Nanons, these instituuons
in[ernauonal network of non-govera
of the South.
the North. The
for repre:
instructive for he
an imponant 'ole
could oe vciy
Canadian
experiences
- rapid nego—
L mlvsis of the Mexican and Canadian
■ fast track
indicate that the
symmetrical
America. Initial evaluauons
equitable, reciprocal or
negotiate in
i . is not penmtting Mexico to
1S essennaUy an agreement of free
trade agreement
subject to any
L u. Moreovoer, Mexico s free
■ words, trade is not
In other
controls in both
with fuU supranational guarantees.
This avoids
in the future.
the negotiatlhal could take place in Mextco
labor force reduces
abundant Mexican
while the cheap and
and Mexico,
after its revolution has
counterpart.
acity of its US
in Mexico ;
stability
permitted political
: Gortari to power. His
1 he social pact that
broueht Salinas de
GDP in 1976 to 23%
Wtth the latest electoral
electors fraud
— that
-40% 0*the
jroken
drastic reduction in salaries - from
sovereignty t all in the context
have meant a
of labor, natural resources and
the continent if the balance
|pX). Superexploitation
could soon be the rule throughout
»o-called free market,
third alternatives is not achieved.
the second and
, sed in
isiizc
lhe mternauonal msutuuons
teanges
1
I
L ' VI. THE REVOLUTION OF
CIVIL SOCIETY
Utin America.
discovered”
when
he
where he was
conceals Latin
| Columbus did not even know
decade”
The
“
io*
1
i 500 years later.
|s initial misunderstanding persists
for its discovery. characterize the 1990s unphes the
|,encan reality, rather than allowing
continue to
The ungovernability that will likely
through the innumerable organ,
of civil society
base for the emergence
historical subjects. We wtU try to
h ,k Of a material
material base
of new
civil socety whose explos.on .s h.dden
k tional forms of the masses and the
k
hmhesize some
. —. rhametensucs
dominant
characteristics of trus new
27
P
by the economic realities of the “ lost decade”
and the <rynical proclamation of the “ end
of history."
qualitatively different in the 1990b
The majonty of
i Latin American societies are
A broad demilitariThey have overcome: the old oligarchic, dictatorial and military models,
as Central America. In
zation process is underway, even in areas of great conflict such
to cinl society. In
most of Latin America, the military is being progressively submitted
»
the face of pressures from
civil society, authoritarian governments and military dictator
electoral processes and democracies, although these are still
ships have opened up to
supervised and restricted.
Nevertheless, stagnation and submissive, asymmetrical and dependent transnationahzed
insertion in the world market are the 199O’s key and ambiguous legacy . The harvest of the
1980s also clear up any ambiguity about foreign cooperation and th-' nternational market as
motors of growth and development.
In very telegraphic fashion, we describe below some elements evolving in civil society
This takes us into the realm of hypotheses and suggestions, some provocative, which call
for creativity and political honesty.
The proposals are painful, because otherwise there
will be no solution to the dramatic crisis in these " times of cholera.
Fiscal crisis and state disintegration. The debt, adjustment plans and generalized
economic recession have weakened, and in many countries (including Peru. Argentina. Haiti,
and Panama) completely destroyed the state's regulatory capacity. In its role as economic
promoter and regulator, the state has become a factor of economic deregulation.
The
indiscriminate opening to the international market has provoked what has been charactenzed
as transnationalized, submissive and asymmetrical insertion.
Emergence of new popular movements. These are the product of increasing impoverish
to
ment, social polarization and the weakening of traditional political parties of both the
right and left. The struggle for survival has spurred reorganization in both the informal
P
sector and the peasantry.
Neither the state nor the political parties offer channels of
action for this emerging social phenomenon, since neither comprehend it theoretically or in
practical terms.
The LavaUs movement that brought Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti is quite
possibly the best smgle symbol of the ability of these popular forces to organize a social
avalanche that recreates its own leaders, makes new alliances and is able to defeat a
dictatorship, initiating the reconstruction of the nation and the state itself.
The coming together of a new Latin American left. In many senses, this left is return
ing to the histone vision shared by Latin Americans from
the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, including Marti, Mariategui. Haya de la Torre. Sandino. Zapata. Recabarren and
28
.
i.It also
qkn corresnoiiui
corresponds to what was being synthesized
m the nationalization of theory. It
also corrcsj
.same era by Gramsci. Undoubredly. th.s new let.
left has been affected by both the cns.s
.alism m the East and the stagnation of
the Uum
of the
Latin Amencan left. Again today,
ide the confusion and
miual loss of spirit, a strong and creative movement ts
ng the tssues and demands m aa new
new histone framework, making way for what has been
, - socalism of the majonty,"
them
“” creole
creole socialism,
socialism,’”’ and ” third world soc.ahsm
part of a search for socialism w.thin
within civil soc.ety.
society. Lula’s Workers’ Party m
and Cardenas - more specially than his PRD itself - m Mexmo reflect smular
more
Lula Anstide and
Cadenas symbolize
phenomenon, wh.ch also has unique
and Cadenas
symbolize th.s
this phenomenon
ICS.
ssions in Colombta’s M-19 and Uruguay’s United Front. The profound poltuca!
Colombia's M—19 and
FSLN in their revolutionary processes would seem to
Lucturing of the FMLN and the
of this phenomenon, which implies new
kite the existence of a conscious awareness
^•standing of the tasks of the party in relation to civil society, the state and the
kd forces.
In the innumerable encounters
that have taken place among these new emerging forces,
| are some fundamental points of agreement
This comon profile permits a clear insight
filhng the void left by the
| the character of this new political leadership that is
Lonal and neo-traditional parties across the political spectrum.
L The radicalizing nature of democracy as culture
, method, style and political project,
'the first time, the left has taken up democracy as a
banner of struggle interwoven with
democracy to all levels of
L rest of its demands. The goal is to bring participatory
Lty. respecting the independence and autonomy of different movements and transforming
ktop-down styles and ideological rigidity that characterized past actions.
L A new political language. “ Forbidden to forbid” was Lula’s slogan at the PT Con
k. " A President in the opposition"
was
was Aristide’s pledge to the peasant movemen
are only a few indicat.ons of a new language accompanied by a new pedagogy that
.e
)ccis popular rhyihms and consciousness.
as there is of the oligarchic
There is a rejection of the left’s political language,
Collor de Mello, Fujimori and Menem himself
guace Varsas Llosa used in his campaign. ------- —
they did not also change the
re med to create a new language, ultimately failing since
tatent.
invasion of the fundamentalist
L It is important to make reference here to the massive
take stock of
Angelical movement in Latin Amenca. The “ sects" indicate the need to
itself, along with the pedagogy and practice used in the Christian base
jeration theology
the face of these expressions of popular religiosity that have become
knmunities in
and serve as
as aa political base for the right wing. The advance of the
tf-apisi movements
I
29
1 }■
fundamentalist evangelical movement points to a senous weakness and even a cenain failure
on the pan of liberation theology. It is clear that funding for these movements comes from
the United States and that the CIA
has politically infiltrated them. Nevertheless, popular
religiosity, in which the culture and consciousness of the impoverished masses is pnmanri
expressed, was never taken up adequately by liberation theology.
was excessively
abstract, theoretical and
politicized.
In
Its theological discourse
addition,
it did
not leave
sufficient space for celebration, for joy, for letting go. for the spontaneous participation
of a people exhausted by the struggle for survival.
New, not exclusively economic, demands. These demands seek a new project of societv.
new values and a new civilization. They come essentially from the new historical subjects -
women, indigenous people, youth — as well as from growing awareness of the deepening eco
logical crisis. The topics of “ gender
rectification, creativity
and “ political machismo”
open great potential for
nd popular mobilization. The demands of women and of different
ethnic groups, as well as those calling for environmental protection, are the most radical,
alternative and international ones. The technological and neoliberal paradigm is weaponless
against these demands, which have long been a chahenge either rejected or given short
shrift by the traditional left.
New concertacidn and new alliances
The change in the correlation of forces within
each country, resulting from the prolongation and extent of the crisis, is leading to unprecedented rapprochements between some sectors of society. At the same time, society’s most
extreme and ideologized groups are being polarized. Concenacion. which at first glance
could be seen as a centrist position, a third way, is an ambiguous and fluctuating movement.
It has components of exhaustion and confusion, as well as of aspirations and demands
unsatisfied by politicians from either the right or the left. It is not a third way that
denies the right and left; it is a search for consensus, for a common denominator that would
permit a national project hegemonizd by the popular majorities.
The economic concenacion taking place in most Latin American countries has pushed
ideology and even medium-term political interests off to one side, seeking instead stability
and security. “ Politics is the art of the possible,”
declared one of the most lucid modern
thinkers. Politics in the 1990s needs this art, so as not to renounce values and pnncipies, but rather deepen and purify them, adapting them to new conditions.
Non-organized sectors. Setting up links with these groups is a pnority task and one
of the most difficult to achieve. The widening of the cultural and political gap between
organized groups and the growing unorganized masses demands new styles and leadership.
For many among the unorganized, political messages and politicians are increasingly seen as
old and worn out. Ethical standards are determinant in the culture of the unorganized
30
■
I
It
1
to
I'
a language with much to say to a culture threatened by desperation and with no hope
the future.
The crisis of management and the problem of efficiency. In the era of the technical
^■•volution efficiency and management are two paradigms of today’s world, but they have not
[jjecn the most outstanding characteristics of the panics and groups with popular objectives.
Reversing the lack of credibility in the left's efficiency and, on the other hand, the
Lmythology of the pnvate sector's efficiency is another of the challenges of this decade.
I
The crisis in management is also a crisis of the rhythm and speed with which new
Hcchnologjes are imposed. The changes produced by consumer society’ have put supply in
Ld^rect communication with demand, at least in the manipulated imagination of media images.
It is also a crisis of the communication media. B^ezinski correctly declared that, in
^addition to military hegemony, the US hegemonizes the media, given that four of every five
messages or images produced in the world are controlled by the United States.
'
At the same time, the revolution in management implies the deideologization of this
science, generally seen as bourgeois. It must be appropriated as a contribution to the
Socialization of available resources. The efficient and complementary linking of the macro
micro is one of the greatest contributions of technical management and is an economic,
■Political and even military necessity.
Negotiation and alliances as political forces. The end of the East—West conflict and
dhe new “ culture of peace and tolerance,”
after decades of polarized ideological alliances,
Lmm negotiation and alliances into priority instruments, both for cooping the enemy and for
l^hieving hegemony over the pluralism
and diversity of civil society.
The ideological
[alliance that divided the world into two poles has left a void in values for the creation of
M^new world order. A truly global world requires an alliance of common valuesable to link
l^gether 21st-century civilization.
It is an alliance of common material interests in the
Ltace of shared threats (ecological crisis, security and disarmament, regional crises, etc.).
’Without this alliance, imposed political power will determine the future within the very
l<:uneparameiers that have brought us to civilizations’s current crisis.
VII. POPULAR AGENDA FOR THE 1990s
!
The 1990s is a complex decade, ushered in with the Sandinista defeat, the growing
isintegration of socialism in Eastern Europe, the division of the South exacerbated by the
.Julf Crisis, and the current incongruence of the Movement of Nonaligned Nations.
I Americana implies a defeat for the ** wretched of the earth”
Pax
and the formation of a new
31
I
trilateralism coordinated by the Group of Seven.
The United States has overcome ” the Vietnam syndrome”
with the Persian Gulf vic
tory and consolidated the already strong coalition in US economic, political and ideologica.
power circles.. The alliance of the three big US lobbies - petroleum, military and pro
Israel — around the Gulf crisis exceeds in strength the alliance called the Committee of the
Present Danger that brought the new right and Reagan to power. The ideological roots of the
Truman Doctrine in the: 1940s and the National Security Council’s foreign policy formulates
in the 1950s (known as 1NSC 68) have also been strengthened with the Gulf victory. There
even talk of establishing a special alliance between the US and Japan, which Brzezinski
refers to as “ Ameripon.”
At the same time, the international counterweights are disappearing -
first of all in
the East, but also in the nonaligned movement and *he international organizations. The last
is particularly true for the United nations, which has been vinually paralyzed by the veto
power wielded by the five big Cold War powers.
From the perspective of the southern countries, this avalanche is a threat comparable
to 1930s fascism in Europe. Confronting it will require a broad alliance within each
country as well as internationally, including with the new historical subjects of the Nonh.
who, though minorities, are increasingly conscious that this crisis of civilization affects
both North and South.
What is still needed is a rethinking of the global theory of socialism or of non
capitalist alternatives. The longstanding debate about socialism in one country is again
demonstrating that it cannot survive, something Lenin realized at the beginning of the
century when socialism did not expand throughout Europe. The lack of a global project of
change and of an accumulation of forces will make any alternative project iin one single
country impossible, or at least extraordinarily costly.
The transnationalization of labor and the south.
International social subjects are
sending out calls in different forms, in all pans of the world, through political, reli
gious, union and NGO forums and, for the first time, they have begun to link up interna
tionally. Examples include the Japan—Asian People’s Plan 21, which brings together hundreds
of Japanese and Pacific organizations; the Third World Network; and the Forum for People s
Economics, which draws in numerous groups of researchers from the North and South and is
working on economic alternatives to neoliberal economics.
The network of NGOs and the South, the political parties that have organized around a
“ socialism
of the future”
project, which includes, for the first time, diverse tendencies
from the European left - Communists, Trotskyists, Socialists - the “ casa comun of social
ism,”
32
I
II III
originated in a meeting between Mikhail Gorbachev, Willy Brandt and Ernest Mandel
I
»
1
ganized by the Polish philosopher Adam Schaft
This network is trying to put to one side
“ ecumenical humanism.
Although
historical differences within the left and create an
is project has not produced more than a few relatively small ideas with relation to the
Uh. the significance of these examples is the growing tendency toward this transnational
nation of non-capitalist alternatives whose dominant logic is that of the majonues.
u
in fhk new single world for revolutions “ against” ;
Be that as it may, there is no room m tms ne
&
tere must be projects and proposals “ for." Anti-tmpenalism and non-cap.taltsm should
I-
t rethought within the sweeping global changes taking place and within, as well, a culture
Cf peace and democracy, where any form of imperialism loses legitimacy and remains tsolat-
R as an “ enemy of humanity.” This demands a contextualization, which could well include
Lead sectcis of the Nor.h, around an international agenda for the 1990s that puts forta
k^.rc7.or. and liable proposals. This requires beginning a country-by-country process of
Upular agendas in Latin America to find the cumulative synthesis and consensus in all
dealing with the problem of the New Order.
meeting of Latin American political parties in Vienna, it was proposed that the
E|uly 1992 World Conference of the United Nations, scheduled for Brazil, as well as the UN
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) meeting in Colombia in February of
lll^ext year, serve as the initial platforms for the launching of alternative global proposals
n the pan of numerous countries and innumerable popular organizations in all continents.
What is needed is an assertive and creative attitude, going beyond “ protest without
ropwal"
to instead present “ the proposals with protest”
that need to be put fonh now.
To think ana analyze in an alternative manner in these times causes anguish. Thinking
wnot be done painlessly. When thought processes are not painful, it is because there is a
rim of ideas and, more importantly, of alternatives. We would otherwise be agreeing with
ukuyama that politics can continue, but that ideological history has ended.
In this crisis of civilization, we urgently need this alternative vision or utopia with
hich to confront technological totalitarianism, which permits no space for a future or
topes that are not submitted to its parameters, The crisis of civilization is not a contcpt, but a reality that cries out for a new historic synthesis. It may seem romantic to
hink that the opportunity exists to begin this process in 1992 , 500 years after the
Xpnmng of universal history and of racial, cultural land historical syntheses in the
aettito continent of Latin America. But, as Rub6n Dario would say, “ who exists who is not
Otnantic?”
The dialectic of feelings that envelop us at this turning point could be synthe
sized M * between hope and disaster.”
At another turning point, also historic, Pablo Neruda
ruptured this same feeling perfectly when he said, “ They can cut all the flowers, but they
petl*t Itop the spring.”
33
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to
THE GLOBALIZATION A NEW FORM OF COLONIALISM?
Perception,
experiences,
and the search for alternatives from the
Caribbean and Latin American countries
Xabier Gorostiaga SJ.
Former Rector of the Universidad Cenlroamericana
Managua. Nicaragua
• i oh 'Colonialism to Globalization. Five Centuries
Paper presented to (he International Consultation
after Casco da Gania , New Delhi. 2-5, February 1998.
<
S’ <
The Globalization a new form of Colonialism?
Perceptions, experiences, and the search for alternatives from the Caribbean
and Latin America countries.
A. Introduction. In a short telegraphic form lets present a message about our
hopes, values and commitments.
India, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) how far apart and yet how
close in their own cultures, civilizations and values.
1. The necessity of a joint effort by our people, civil societies, and governments
to overcome the currently crisis of civilization, and to come up with
alternative proposals for the new millenium.
2. The conviction that there exist better alternatives than the current model that
has been imposed on the countries of the South. What is lacking, however,
is the political power and global institutions to implement these alternatives.
3. Experiences and suggestions from the “backyard”, the small, poor,
peripheral countries of Central America and the Caribbean during the
historical regional crisis from the Cuban Resolution in 1959, through the
Panama Canal crisis, the Sandinista Revolution, the Central American
regional crisis, arriving at the new “Pax Americana” and induced
globalization with the end of the cold war.
E
4. There are alternatives. However, the main potential of the dominant system
is the capacity to distort blockade and destroy the new experiences proving
in this way that there is no alternative development.
B. Globalization Distinguishing Marks
t
As we reach the end of the millenium we live in a change of epoch rather than
in an epoch of changes. This change of epoch coincides with a profound crisis
of civilization, marked by the concentration and centralization of economic,
technological, political and military power which excludes the world’s
“majorities”, and destroys the environment. At the same time endangering the
future of coming generations...and the planet itself.
There exists today in this “global village" a society with two classes of citizens
and two distinct speeds, which serve to reproduce conflict and an increasing
inability to govern. In LAC there is a rapid formation on, the one hand a
“Taiwanization” of modernizing and “globalizing” enclaves, and on the other
hand a “Somalization” of groups increasingly marginalized or excluded from
the market, made up of the great majorities of the region, especially indigenous
people, “Campesinos” and Afro-Americans. In this process there exists a
distinctive and strong discrimination against women. A “superfluous population
has been created by the present globalization process.
b
')
This is an antagonic civilization structurally conflictive, confronting North
against South, capital against labor, rich against poor, man against woman,
white against person of color, the present against the future, economic growth
against the environment, consumption against shared satisfaction of basic
needs. This conflictive civilization is political un-governable, economically
inefficient, and environmentally non sustainable.
What is needed is a change of course, changing the direction and the
objectives of the globalization. Our generation is living the transition from an era
dominated by geo-politics and the bi-polarity of the “Cold War”, to the present
era dominated by geo-economics and the triad structure of three mega
markets, advancing towards an era based on geo-cultural development
in the next millenium.
C. The rising of a new, emerging global consensus
The frustration and increasing crisis of the Washington Consensus is leading to
the growing consolidation of a sort of Copenhagen Consensus as regards the
World Social Development Summit (WSDS).
The triumphalism and optimism of the West occasioned by the end of the Cold
War is now crumbling. The Washington Consensus faced with a neoliberal
program as part of a conservative revolution, administered by the corporate
establishment, the Group of 7, and the Bretton Woods institutions, is rapidly
losing force, although it continues to be the dominating model.
In LAC certain elements appear which allow for new forms of consensus, and
new alternative forces and social spaces but these need to be seen and tested
with their counterparts in India and other parts of Asia and the South:
i
•
Crisis in academic thinking. Intellectual retreat of the “Chicago Boys". On the
other hand, a profound crisis of theory in trying to confront this change of
epoch.
•
The beginning of a different “official consensus" in Copenhagen (rhetoric,
and lack of will to implement it?) On the other hand the alternative
declarations of politicians and academics from all over the world in the Oslo
Fiord Declaration; in the South Declaration in Switzerland, in the Alliances
for the Sustainable Development, in the Third World Forum etc. (Compare
with the Alternative Forum in Asia.)
•
The frustration and failure of neoliberal policies in Africa and LAC. Internal
recognition of this fact by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs). The
new wave of ethical protest against Neoliberalism by Theologians, and
religious leaders of the world.
i
3
•
Growing confrontations between the Bretton Woods institutions and the
specialized organisms of the United Nations.
•
Declaration by Candessus (IMF), J. Wolfenshon (WB), Enrique Iglesias
(IDB). A new rhetoric? A new phase of structural adjustment, after the crisis
of “models" like Mexico and the Asia miracle countries.
•
The position of the wealthiest billionaires financiers and some political
leaders (George Soros, Stephan Schmidkeiny, J. Goldsmith, Erick
Sakakibara, Ul Kag, Pierre Shori, Mandela) calling for a change of course as
to avoid an even greater social disintegration , environmental degradation,
and the ever increasing crisis of governance.
D. Elements for the new consensus
B
&
•
Overcome the growing contradiction between the spaces of freedom and
democracy gained during the last decades, and the tendencies toward
concentration and centralization of power. This contradiction is the basis for
the increasing inability to govern.
•
The search for an integral development centered in people and in preserving
nature, No longer can we continue to give priority to growth without specific
goals/purposes, such as the creation of employment, the elimination of
poverty, the preservation of the environment, improving in the distribution of
income.
•
The search for ways in which the state, market and civil society can work
together, looking out for the interest of future generations as well as those
of the present. Overcoming the simplistic dogmatism of the proposals put
forth by monetarists and neoliberals.
•
The necessity to democratize the market through the free and fair
participation of middle and small producers and traders, democratizing
credit, technology, marketing and information.
•
The urgency to democratize knowledge and technology, bringing about a
profound educational reform with the integration of all levels of education
around a social consensus for a new education.
•
The necessity to democratize the state starting with municipal and local
sources of power. Regaining local “spaces”, local production, and political
organization, and the creation of “global linkages” of these experiences.
•
Re-discover the “missing link” between the micro and the macro, the local,
national and global within a gloncal strategy (global-national-local)
4
•
The necessity to democratize multilateral organizations, demanding their
transparency, accountability , and an independent evaluation of the Bretton
Woods institutions - after 50 years operating without such democratic
condition.
•
Working Suppositions
i
There is a needed vision of society that looks for the quality of life based on the
satisfaction of
basic needs of all, socio-political human rights and a
development that can be sustained. The world today has the resources and
technology to do this. We feel that in today’s world there exists a majority
consensus in favor of such a vision, but the political power and will is lacking to
put the vision into practice.
It’s also necessary to overcome the monopoly of “one and only one way of
thinking" which doesn't allow for development alternatives. For this to happen
the democratization of knowledge is called for, and the joining together of
successful alternatives experiences in different parts of the world - as we are
trying to do in this conference.
An ethical position that maintains the essential equality of all persons,
encouraging cultural diversity as part of the common heritage of all.
A sense of interdependent solidarity in this global village of which for the first
time in history, we are all citizens. We travel together in this “space ship” called
earth where, in spite of class differences and differences in where we find
ourselves, there is possible only one sure human landing that depends on this
interdependent solidarity.
We propose the necessity to work and move towards a global social contract , a
new global arrangement which must emerge from a coalitions of forces,
organizations, and accumulative power in the South. Previous attempts of NonAligned countries, the Group of 70, and regional groups did not have the
objective conditions created by the current globalization process.
•
Lived experiences in LAC
In the actual neoliberal system there are five fundamental elements that cannot
be included nor find an integral solution within: employment, the environment,
culture, gender equality and the new generations (over 90% of today’s birth are
in the South). These five elements are the current system “Trojan horses" and
the source of reflection and search for new alternatives.
The need for a new paradigm must came from an epistemological breakthrough
induced from the perspective of women and new gender relations; from the
perspective and logic of considering the environment as a key component of
growth and development; from the perspective and logic of the different cultures
. I
5
and their complementary diversity; from a job-creation perspective more than
from a profit perspective; from the “new generation drama struggling to find
space, jobs and hope for the majorities who are condemned to exclusion,
migration, delinquency, drug dealing and condemned to different sorts of
religious or political fundamentalism even terrorism.
The “Achilles tendon" of our currently system is how to integrate into its
structures and logic these "Trojan horses" without destabilizing the system. This
problem is even more unmanageable if we take into account the many diverse
cultures and the many distinct local forces and territorial spaces.
The “trickle down effect” , that starting with the macro and general economic
growth, trickles down like a “cascade” and reaches all parts of the economy as
a result of “blind” market forces and the “invisible hand” has not worked nor can
it work, as a result of existing structures of power, class and castes, and
cultural diversity.
“The trickling up effect” or (“volcano effect”), however, takes off from below,
locally, and incorporates the five elements mentioned above at territorial and
regional basis. These five elements operate at the local and cultural level , the
only spaces in which they can be organized within a gloncal strategy which
serves to harmonize and integrate their needs and demands.
Economic accumulation continues to take place because it is necessary for
development, but it takes place in a system more participatory and democratic
in it's organization production conforming the institutional set up for a human
and sustainable development.
This distribution and democratization of power, which is the basis for a
cfevelopment that is both participative and sustainable, is more radical and longlasting than the seizure of the State by revolutionary elite that has not learned to
democratize power.
We fee| that Globalization- from below - from within a diversity of cultures and
open to the universality of other people offers a logic and dynamism that are
more suitable, democratic and sustainable.
There are successful experiences of geo-cultural development which include
and spring from the local culture, globalize from below without enclosing
themselves in a form of local self-sufficiency and isolation, always seeking
complementary advantage and diversity sharing with other people and cultures.
This “logic of the majorities” subordinates the logic of capital. It is not opposed
to the accumulation of capital because every type of system needs this
accumulation, be a system more or less socialistic or capitalistic. The market
also is necessary as an instrument of efficiency; equally necessary are the
planning and incentives of the State. The synergy of the State and the market
within a strong and active civil society will determine democratically the
character and extension of both.
tf.-
L-
iias
The organization of civil society is therefore the determining element in this logic
of the majorities and of this geo-cultural development. The deepening of
participative democracy is the principal dynamic in this long alternative process.
The educational system which corresponds to this logic of geocultural
development will therefore be the key factor of accumulation, participation and
distribution. In our change of epoch intensity and quality of knowledge is more
important than natural resources or even financial capital itself. The great battle
today is and will continue to bef to design the quality of an educational system
that corresponds to this proposal for geo-cultural development. Education is
today part of the problem more tan part of the solution.
- Media
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