A World to Win

The tremendous global movement against poverty, brought together by the Live 8 concerts on July 2, has the potential to take history in a new direction, beyond the control of the leaders of the major economies who can only meet together behind barbed wire.

Brought into being by music superstars, the Live 8 concerts were the single largest globally co-ordinated event in history. Hundreds of millions were united by television, radio and the Internet by the concerts in 10 cities in nine countries while over 200,000 marched on the streets of Edinburgh.

More than 24 million people from around the world sent text messages to Live 8 while the concerts were on in support of demands on debt and trade.

Some of the stars were caught up in the feeling that they were involved in a movement that was going places. Taking to the stage Madonna asked the crowd: "Are you ready to start a revolution? Are you ready to change history? I said, are you ready?"

In Philadelphia, actor and singer Will Smith who hosted the concert said: "More than 200 hundred years ago, just down the block, America declared its independence. Today we all gather here to declare our interdependence. Today we hold this truth to be self-evident; We are all in this together."

However limited Live 8's demands are, the fact is that the events raised the issues of poverty alongside political and economic power in an unprecedented way. The focus was, rightly, on the political leaders of the G8, not on charitable giving as in the past.

In Britain, Blair and Brown are trying to ride the Live 8/Make Poverty History wave, so concerned are they that it will take on a life of its own. So too is the media, including the right-wing press and the BBC.

Their desire to incorporate the movement is made easier by the fact that the demands on debt and trade do not disturb the running of the global capitalist economy. Any debt package announced by the G8 will be conditional on poor countries opening up their economies and meeting the demands of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for "restructuring". This is another word for privatising state assets like water and allowing the transnational corporations unfettered access to the country's resources. That is why the last 20 years of "aid" has actually made most Africans poorer and hungrier.

That's why we need a strategy that takes us beyond Edinburgh and simply appealing to the G8 leaders. July 2 showed the potential of a global movement to change history. The challenge is to move on from protest and pressure to action independent of political leaders who preside over the status quo.

Bush, Blair, Berlusconi and the rest cannot make poverty history. These leaders and their state political systems are tied hand and foot to transnational corporations run for profit and plunder. Nor can they tackle the threat from climate change because that too would mean abandoning an economic system that is based on consuming resources regardless of the consequences.

Building on the momentum of July 2, we should instead mobilise people power, with a view to actually overturning their political and economic control. Blair, Brown and Clark are rapidly building an authoritarian, surveillance state in Britain because opposition to their rule is mounting. Attempts to spin the G8 summit in their favour will not work. The wave they are trying to ride can easily sweep them away.

You can help make this happen by taking part in the July 23 launch of A World to Win. This is a new type of interactive, networked political organisation that will campaign and mobilise for popular, revolutionary, democratic change as its first priority.

4 July 2005