Nothing About Us, Without Us

From an excellent article on Red Pepper by Stuart Hodkinson

Kofi Maluwi Klu, a leading Ghanian Pan-African activist and international coordinator of Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign in the late 1990s, is angered by MPH’s lack of representativeness: “We have a saying in the African liberation movement – ‘nothing about us, without us’. Make Poverty History is a massive step backwards in this regard, even from Jubilee 2000.The campaign is overwhelmingly led by Northern NGOs and its basic message is about white millionaire popstars saving Africa’s helpless. The political movements still fighting for liberation on the ground are completely erased”. The absence of the South in the leadership of MPH inevitably translates into the campaign’s politics. For instance, Southern NGO’s and movements are generally critical of making demands on the G8: “The G8 is a completely illegitimate and unnaccountable body of global governance; its governments and corporations are historically responsible for most of the problems of developing countries, and remain so today” say Nicola Bullard, of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South, the respected international non-government policy research and advocacy organisation. “Lobbying the G8 contradicts the very clear call made by hundreds of social movements, NGOs and trade unions from the South and the North at this year’s World Social Forum to mobilise protests against the G8 summit.”

On the same subject:
- Make Poverty History or Make the G8 History?
- Iraq, G8 and a Question for Bono & Sir Bob
- The battle to re-conquest Africa