Earlier this week we attended the XXII Congress of the Socialist International (SI), which met in São Paolo, Brazil. We have been members of the SI since 1999, having held an Observer status for many years.
For us, this particular Congress was important for a number of reasons. But before we state these, we must recall some of the features that characterise the SI. It is the world's largest organisation of political parties. Its membership consists of some of the most progressive parties on all continents.
Many of these member parties of the SI also have allies in such mass formations as the trade unions and representative organisations of the youth, women and the religious communities. Collectively, the SI therefore represents a large proportion of world's population, as well as an important segment of the organised formations that impact on the determination of the future of our common world.
These formations constitute a critically important part of the progressive political forces in the world. They are committed to progressive transformation globally, to address the interests of the poor, pursuing the goal of a better life for all.
The XXII Congress met under the theme: "The Return of Politics: For just and responsible governance: For globalisation governed by the people." It discussed a wide range of subjects including the multilateral system of governance, the world economy including the struggle against poverty, issues of peace and stability, gender equality and the emancipation of women, and strengthening democracy.
Among others, the Congress adopted a document entitled: "Governance in a Global Society - the Social Democratic approach", as well as the "Declaration of São Paolo", both of which contain some of the most important positions of the SI.
The document on "Governance in a Global Society" begins with the following paragraph:
"Under the conditions of globalisation, democratic governance has to be reinvented. The aim of the social democratic movement is to reconcile its historical values - social justice and democracy - with the new challenges, tasks, forms and instruments of politics that globalisation will bring about. A global governance concept has to be developed opposing the neo-liberal market ideology, the neo-conservative agenda, and the unilateralist approach. This alternative has to bind the dynamics of the global market to social, ecological, and democratic values."
The Declaration of São Paolo says:
"The Socialist International, the global movement of social democratic, socialist and labour
parties, holding its XXII Congress in São Paolo at the invitation of the Partido dos Trabalhadores, calls on all socially
and politically progressive people and organisations to come together in a global coalition to promote a new world order
based on a new multi lateralism for peace, security, sustainable development, social justice, democracy, respect for human
rights and gender equality.
"The intense globalisation process, of markets and economies as well as technology, communications and cultural
exchange, has accelerated for some, the creation of wealth and increases in productivity and trade - but at an unacceptable
cost: the widening of the gap between rich and poor countries, and between rich people and poor people in countries of both
the North and the South...
" The current system of global governance, established in the aftermath of the World War II, needs reform to be able
to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Neo-conservatives are attempting to exploit the situation to dismantle all forms
of global governance, to minimise the role of the United Nations, to undermine multilateral institutions, to promote
unilateralism and the consecration of the market, and to impose the will of the powerful to decide the future of mankind...
" As was the case after World War II, a new vision is needed based on the enforcement of international law, more
effective regulation of world markets and more democratic, accountable and efficient global institutions to formulate and
carry out policies on behalf of people everywhere."
As indicated above, in its Declaration, the SI has called "on all socially and politically progressive people and organisations to come together in a global coalition to promote a new world order..."
In the document on "Governance in a Global Society", it said: "A global governance concept has to be developed opposing the neo-liberal market ideology, the neo-conservative agenda, and the unilateralist approach."
We are full members of the Socialist International. We have, for a long time, upheld many of the views expressed in its documents. We have pursued these views as an integral part of the national democratic revolution.
Nevertheless, we have a duty to respond to the decisions taken by the XXII Congress of the SI, in the interests of both our people and the creation of what the SI has described as "a new world order based on a new multi lateralism for peace, security, sustainable development, social justice, democracy, respect for human rights and gender equality."
We have made the point in the past that a defining feature of our country is that we have two economies, one belonging to the developed world, and the other to the underdeveloped world, the first and the second. This second economy includes millions of people who are poor. These are ordinary working people whose problems cannot be solved by reliance on "the market". Necessarily, the democratic state has to intervene to commit the resources that are needed to pull millions of our people, in both the urban and rural areas, out of the conditions of poverty and underdevelopment that continue to afflict them.
The same can be said of the greater part of our continent, Africa, most of whose population lives in similar conditions of poverty and underdevelopment. As is the case in our situation, these are people who do not have the skills required by the modern economy and society. They do not generate large enough savings to make a significant impact on the rate of investment.
The failure to achieve investment levels that would increase the growth rate, results in a failure to create new jobs, leading to further rises in unemployment. This has been compounded by rural-urban migration, resulting, in certain instances, in declines in agricultural production.
Once more the point has been recognised that African development, the defeat of the scourge of poverty and underdevelopment on our continent, cannot be achieved without resource transfers from outside the continent. For this reason, the call has been made correctly and repeatedly, that Africa needs increased overseas development assistance (ODA) and foreign direct investment.
In our country the dichotomy between the centre and the periphery exists within our own borders, as it does between the developed world on one hand, and Africa as a whole, on the other. With regard to Africa in general, the resource transfers would be from the developed world. In our case, we are saying that these transfers to the second economy should be from the developed part of our economy and society. This does not exclude supplementary transfers from the developed world outside our borders.
In our case, the requirement to intervene to ensure the transformation of the second economy, our periphery, also means that we must work hard to ensure that our own centre, the first economy, grows and develops to generate the wealth we need to achieve the goal of a better life for all. It is also true that the first economy would benefit in a qualitative manner from the transformation of the second economy. Poverty and underdevelopment act as a fetter on the further development of the first economy.
What all this signifies is that our very conditions of life and the imperative to ensure the social transformation of our country and continent, resulting in the achievement of the goal of a better life for all, mean that we cannot allow ourselves to be prisoners to what the SI called "the neo-liberal market ideology."
The critically important task to end the poverty and underdevelopment in which millions of Africans are trapped, inside and outside our country, cannot be accomplished by the market. If we were to follow the prescriptions of neo-liberal market ideology, we would abandon the masses of our people to permanent poverty and underdevelopment. This would be a betrayal of everything for which the masses of our people have engaged in struggle for nine decades, under the leadership of the ANC.
Thus the call of the SI to all progressive forces to oppose neo-liberal market ideology is, for us in South Africa and Africa, not a matter merely of ideology. It is a practical and rational response to what we have to do to achieve the goals of the national democratic revolution, the objectives being pursued by the AU directly and through NEPAD.
We have a responsibility to engage all progressive forces in our country, in Africa and the rest of the world to come together in the global coalition for which the SI called. This coalition must confront "the unacceptable cost" of globalisation of which the SI spoke, resulting in "the widening of the gap between rich and poor countries, and between rich people and poor people in countries of both the North and the South."
As we have indicated, an important part of the theme of the XXII SI Congress was "For globalisation governed by the people." The SI went on to say: "A global governance concept has to be developed opposing the neo-liberal market ideology, the neo-conservative agenda, and the unilateralist approach."
It said that the global neo-conservative forces are working "to minimise the role of the United Nations, to undermine multilateral institutions, to promote unilateralism and the consecration of the market, and to impose the will of the powerful to decide the future of mankind."
Once again, for all the people of Africa, including ourselves, these are not theoretical matters. They relate directly to the task of the renewal of our continent and the provision of a better life for all Africans. They relate to the important reality that we are part of the global community, but as that part of this community that is on the wrong side of the divide between the rich and the poor.
They speak directly to such matters as the negative outcomes of the globalisation process, the unjust global trading system, the unsustainable debt burden of many African countries and the export of capital out of Africa, access to affordable drugs and medicines, our domination by the powerful, and so on.
Poor as we might be, and precisely because we are poor, we have a duty to contribute to the elaboration of the "global governance concept ... opposing the neo-liberal market ideology, the neo-conservative agenda, and the unilateralist approach." It is we, the poor and not the rich, who need "a new world order based on a new multi lateralism for peace, security, sustainable development, social justice, democracy, respect for human rights and gender equality."
We cannot but be part of the global coalition that must work to create the global society in which the people will govern the process of globalisation. The XXII Congress of the SI communicated the message that our movement belongs to an important alliance of progressive forces that has the strength to contribute to the construction of a new world order that addresses the interests of the ordinary people.
We have a responsibility to respond to this challenge, in our interest, to add what we can to the creation of the humane and people-centred new world order that the Socialist International discussed in São Paolo.
