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An emperor in Africa Micro Finance in Pakistan

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Non Violence is Aung San Suu Kyi’s Way JULY/AUGUST 2009

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editorial

contents
Micro Finance in Pakistan

Hope

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There are lots of people working for change in our world today In this issue we feature some of them

 An Emporer in Africa

Firstly there is Farhat Abbas Shah who works in microfinance in Pakistan where every second institution is faced with effects caused by the sociopolitical environment being changed and contaminating every walk of life We have the continuing nonsense in Burma where the leader Aung San Suu Kyi is held a prisoner in her own home – a situation which has existed for many years thanks to the military regime

 Mined out in Zambia

You know the kind of thing – it happened in Bosnia Cambodia and Zimbabwe – organised thuggery standing to attention in the name of imposed control And the saddest part nobody ever goes to the aid of those people most affected – women children unless of course there is a financial stake to be guarded That’s why George W Bush is held in such low regard – a man for the oil with blood on his hands Tony Blair is not much better and the findings on the recently announced commission on Britain’s role in the Iraq War may well see him looking for a distant anonymous permanent holiday home

 Non Violence is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s Way

On Page
 Thijs Moonen a Belgium participant reflects on the recent Youth in Progress (YIP) program which guides young people to their most brilliant self and the ability to use their true potential Finally in our Ethical Finance section on Pages   we look at the positive efforts of companies to bring about an improved quality of life for its members The Mirror does not necessarily endorse the methods but simply encourages these companies to keep at it and help make the world a better place


 Credit Crunch Japanese Style

 Ethical Finance

Doug Green

Reflections and Observations The Mirror is published bi-monthly and offers the Reader reflections and observations on the issues of our times. The Mirror welcomes editorial contributions and encourages readers to share their reflections and views with us. The Mirror uses information provided in good faith. We give no guarantee of accuracy of the information. No liability is accepted for the result of any actions taken or not taken on the basis of this information. Those acting on the information and recommendations do so entirely at their own risk.

the Mirror’s Faces MANAGING EDITOR Doug Green RESEARCH WORDS PRODUCTION & DESIGN Karl Grant ADMINISTRATION & SUBSCRIPTIONS Media Hawkes Bay Ltd

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Micro Finance in Pakistan

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Even in microfinance every second institution in Pakistan is facing internal and external turmoil of different kinds Although the Pakistani culture is full of values and morals it is unfortunate that since Pakistan has taken birth the sociopolitical environment has been wrecked gradually and contaminates every walk of life After partition of the subcontinent there was a gigantic gap of skilled human resource In order to control and drive the systems properly improper human resource came into the field and a chain of malpractices started Particularly leading people did not run the institution according to the rules and regulations but implemented their own personal and subjective principles and put their focal mind set into the practice As a result the individual temperament has turned out to be a key tool to operate the systems and procedures of the institutions and no one seems ready to change this culture The practice has become a common phenomenon in the public sector as well as in the private sector As the private sector depicts its management style there is a very narrow space to breath for staff Only a few organisations have a modern approach to management and the rest are only a portrayal of a saith(Sole proprietor and typical money oriented and only personal profit focused business owner) culture There is merely a vague concept of workers betterment and good deed in these organisations There has been a credible change in Pakistan particularly after globalisation owing to the emergence of multinational companies in Pakistan but it is still invisible at country level Although the World Bank CGAP and their retinue like the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Pund (PPAF) are providing facilitating and offering capacity building opportunities as well as resources continuously but it has come into observation that most of the high management of the MFIs are driving their organisations with typical Pakistani style called “one man show” Most of the organisations which have changed their legal status from NGO to a limited company have not accepted this change and are still not ready to delegate necessary decision powers at even senior and middle management levels as per company functional policies On the other hand there are numerous handicaps at staff level too

By

Farhat Abbas Shah

There is a prevailing concept that the well educated human resource prefers to go with commercial Banks rather than Microfinance Institutes; the shortage of quality training and educational institutions FOR management and leadership compare to the population of the country can be make out easily The microfinance sector is about thirteen years old a playful financial teenager in Pakistan It is rapidly GAINING maturity in countries like Bangladesh Malaysia Indonesia and India With reference to Pakistan the sector is facing still the stereo type style of management of Pakistan The leaders of microfinance have different approaches to running their organisations Particularly those microfinance institutes which have become limited companies who are still working like NGOs They argue that only NGOs can work for community with the social responsibility and the MFIs or the Microfinance Banks can not fulfill the mission of poverty alleviation with the full package of other services They emphasise that microfinance can not be executed with the view of commercialisation because it is not just a micro credit rather a full package of financial services along with social services like consultancy on health and education At the same time a few leaders share the belief that it can not be done without a clear cut and transparent commercialisation for the reason that there is no harm in announcing all the practices which are being done by the MFIs ie service charges rates

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There has been a credible change in Pakistan particularly after globalisation owing to the emergence of multinational companies

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They claim that commercial banks and the corporate sector are also performing their social responsibilities and they are not irresponsible in that respect

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They claim that commercial banks and the corporate sector are also performing their social responsibilities and they are not irresponsible in that respect They contend that sector can grow more by lucidity and being clear even it is necessary to explain the flat rates which are being charged by MFIs But in the rebuttal of this point of view NGOs inclined leaders articulate that the clients of microfinance never bother about the service charges Their major concern is to avail financial services for their businesses In spite of all these debates no one can refuse the unpleasant way of late recoveries when the front line staff of MFIs has to play every possible tactic to pull through their overdues There is nothing personal in business Every product has its own life cycle and still there is not any scientific standard to measure the age of any product exactly With reference to the current situation of a leading MFI of Pakistan “Kashf’ can be an indicator for the decline of group

lending methodology It can also be refined and modified If we close our eyes it can become a major threat and the microfinance world will has to stand with Kashf to save the credibility and durability of ‘Group Lending Methodology ’because there is nothing infinite in this universe The day by day tightening clutches of inflation high food prices and continuous deterioration of currency against kind and commodities demand any new sort of methodology and requires some sort of fresh microfinance manner for long term sustainability Since every passing year Pakistan is facing the issue of Currency Exposure for Risk and Convertibility because the US dollar went very high and the rupee fell to the ratio of  to   Mainly during the last four months inflation went as high as  also Definitely it had a bad impact within the sector The current situation is going very bad The customer stimulated adversely They have become even violent and most of them have started to refuse to pay back ❙

Micro finance institutions to benefit “Our sustainability agenda must take into account the fundamental task of re establishing confidence and trust in banks whilst continuing to maintain an unwavering focus on addressing the longer term social and environmental challenges that the world faces” Peter Sands Group chief executive Standard Chartered PLC

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Standard Chartered  Sustainability Review is now available on http://ethicalperformancecom/ reports/links/Standard Chartered This year the Bank has integrated its reporting The Sustainability website will also double up as the Bank’s Sustainability Review You will also be able to watch a video of Peter Sands talking about the Bank’s approach to sustainability In this economic crisis as a leading inter

national bank Standard Chartered recognises the importance of helping to re invigorate growth by supporting clients across Asia Africa and the Middle East by continuing to build a sustainable business as well as helping to address some of the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges Highlights in the Review include: • USD
 million provided in credit and financial instruments to  microfinance institution partners in  countries that will make a difference in the lives of  million people • USD
 billion renewable energy and clean technology projects financed since  • Thirteen sector and issue position statements setting out the Bank’s environment and social

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standards embedded in our financing criteria •  per cent reduction in CO emissions per employee ( ) • One of five financial institutions to develop and sign The Climate Principles • The Bank’s Seeing is Believing A New Vision commitment to provide sustainable eye care to  million people in  cities by   To date  million eyesights have been restored thanks to Seeing is Believing Standard Chartered PLC listed on both London and Hong Kong stock exchanges ranks among the top  companies in the FTSE  by market capitalisation The London

headquartered Group has operated for over   years in some of the world’s most dynamic markets leading the way in Asia Africa and the Middle East Its income and profits have more than doubled over the last five years primarily as a result of organic growth and supplemented by acquisitions The Bank operates in over  countries in Asia Africa and the Middle East and employs almost 
 people representing over  nationalities ❙

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An Emperor in Africa Africa is like an island: who controls the ports holds the continent An emperor in Africa In his African businesses Vincent Bollor’s reach is impressive from ports and transportation to communications and media But the man once known as an ethical entrepreneur has lost his old magic as his group has become implicated in African politics and scandals by Thomas Deltombe

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Vincent Bolloré has been the darling of the French media for years Back in the s he was called the‚ ’prince of cashflow’‚ ‘new capitalism incarnate’ the ethical entrepreneur who knew how to blend social harmony with financial profit Journalists jostled for interviews when the head of the leftwing CGT trade union in Bollor’s paper mill in Brittany swore that the union agreed to ‘play the profit game’ and preferred ‘modernity to class struggle’ But the portrait of the Breton golden boy from those rich years is becoming rather tarnished First the flurry of stockmarket operations in the s which targeted the Bouygues group gave Bolloré a reputation for being a corporate raider ratcheting up dividends over the bodies of one time friends More recently there was his insolently proclaimed familiarity with the newly elected president Nicolas Sarkozy against a backdrop of luxury yachts and private jets Suspicion treason and collusion have transformed the angelic millionaire into something of a demon at least for some of the press () Now yet another facet of Bolloré is emerging: his business activities in Africa Away from the media spotlight they have become a mainstay of the group’s activities over the past  years Africa may only account for a quarter of the group’s official turnover (bn out of a total of bn in ); but with   employees and  branches spread over 
African countries as well as control of highly strategic areas such as ports transport and plantations Bollor behaves like an emperor in Africa And his choice of weapons are those of political and media influence The battle which gets the most media attention is that for African ports the keystone of his African transport and logistical network The Bolloré group owns several companies that made their fortunes during colonial times in transport transit and import export logistics with Africa

The two main companies are SCAC (Socit Commerciale d’Affretement et de Combustibles) acquired in  and later merged with other branches of the group to form SDV; and SAGA its sister company acquired after numerous intrigues in  In addition Bolloré has benefited from the www.asiapublishinggroup.com

wave of privatisations imposed on African countries by international financial institutions and obtained strategic infrastructure concessions also inherited from the colonial era These include Sitarail (Socit Internationale de Transport Africain par Rail) in  a railway connecting Burkina Faso to Cote d’Ivoire and Camrail in  the Cameroon railway company which is vital to opening up landlocked Chad and Central African Republic In just five years through subsidiaries and sometimes in partnership with other operators Bolloré has bagged concessions for managing container terminals in the ports of Douala (Cameroon) Abidjan (Ivory Coast) Cotonou (Benin) Tema (Ghana) TinCan

Lagos (Nigeria) and more recently Pointe

Noire (Republic of Congo) Triumphant press releases with  agencies in some  African countries has seen the Bolloré group gain an impressive hold on the continent with its railways thousands of trucks and millions of square metres of warehousing Under the umbrella brand of Bolloré Africa Logistics established in September  the group has become “the leading logistics network integrated in Africa”() But behind the triumphant press releases the wars being waged around African ports are political as much as economic In  Bolloré used all his influence to acquire the Dakar container terminal in Senegal In addition to rubbing shoulders with Sarkozy he marshalled the former minister Alain Madelin and the rightwing politician François Lotard to support his claim and mobilised French businessman Arnaud Lagardre to dissuade his main competitor the giant United Arab Emirates conglomerate Dubai Ports World (DP World) (
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theEMirrorE He also devoted a special programme to the president of Senegal on his group‚’s TV channel Direct  and printed a double lead story in his so called free newspapers Direct Matin Plus and Direct Soir with a touchingly sober headline ‘Abdoulaye Wade: a great man of Africa’‚ (Direct Soir  March ) Despite these efforts he failed and the Dakar port terminal management finally went to DP World in October  Behind the scenes Bolloré contests this but for the press he’s keen to demonstrate his sense of‚ ‘fair play’ pointing out that his failure in Senegal is proof that his group engages in healthy competition in spite of what some people might say Wasn‚’t it proof that Senegal like other African countries was not the exclusive preserve of French multinationals ()? “Win some lose some” he said philosophically( ) It was a good way to defuse the controversy over the attribution of ports from which he has himself benefited such as Douala in Cameroon or Abidjan granted to Bolloré in  by an Ivory Coast government in the throes of war No gentlemen’s hobby Bolloré’s forced smile after the Dakar snub may be explained by another ongoing war more silent and more deadly which has pitted him against one of his main competitors Progosa This fratricidal confrontation has lasted for years against a backdrop of battles between political and business networks Progosa’s boss Jacques Dupuydauby is the former head of SCAC and was sacked when Bollor took over the company in  After moving to Bouygues he briefly rejoined Bollor before opposing him in port management contracts notably in Togo The fierce competition between the two men rapidly turned into a legal battle in both Europe and Africa and then into a war of clans Bollor is deemed to be close to Sarkozy whereas Progosa is full of former president Jacques Chirac’s supporters And now in this curious blend of media war and political and economic espionage a former gendarme working for the economic intelligence agency Gos claims he is investigating a member of Dupuydauby’s staff at Bollor’s request () “Lies defamation and fraud” say Bolloré’s people Clearly business is no gentleman’s hobby African ports are so coveted because they are invaluable sources of political and economic power Countries can fill their coffers through them (thanks to customs) Ports also control vital information about flows entering and leaving Africa

“Africa is like an island connected to the world by sea” explained a former Bollor group employee in  “Whoever controls the cranes holds the continent” The stakes are all the higher since the arrival of new players led by China giving a new lease of life to any company providing logistics warehousing and transport for merchandise Bollor is well established in this sector and regularly publishes record results “In west Africa our market share in raw materials is between  and  ” said Dominique Lafont CEO of the group’s Africa division ”In east Africa it’s closer to 
 but we are the leading operator everywhere” The group is also acquiring a growing number of contracts in oil mining and industrial logistics including with Total in Angola Cameroon and Congo; and with Areva for uranium in Niger gold mines in Burkina Faso and an electric power plant in Ghana In all his African businesses Bolloré plays on his networks to acquire markets “We know all the ministers there” said Gilles Alix the group’s CEO “They are friends So to be perfectly honest from time to time when they are no longer ministers we given them a chance to be a director of one of our subsidiaries It’s a face saving thing for them And we know that one day they might well become ministers again” () In Gabon where the group coveted the logistics for the Chinese iron ore project in Belinga it placed President Omar Bongo’s daughter Pascaline at the head of its subsidiary Gabon Mining Logistics With such numerous sources of support Bolloré is able to develop his business harmoniously with friendly governments in pure Franafrique() tradition In France too the group has been recruiting influential people for years The best known is undoubtedly Michel Roussin who has been a Bollor ‘Mr Africa’ for more than a decade Roussin‚’s claim to fame was a book about Africa published in  by a company owned by Bolloré’s brother in law the former minister Gérard Longuet () But the reason Roussin is so interesting to Bollor is that he previously held a high position in the French secret services was close to Chirac and was minister for cooperation under President Balladur Roussin is also vice president of the international employers’ federation Mouvement des Entreprises de France (Medef) International It is not easy to

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Despite these efforts he failed and the Dakar port terminal management finally went to DP World in October  Behind the scenes Bolloré contests this but for the press he’s keen to demonstrate his sense of‚ ‘fair play’ pointing out that his failure in Senegal is proof that his group engages in healthy competition

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Continued from page 

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Bolloré’s African concerns benefit indirectly from a number of state aid programmes for infrastructure development and directly from state contracts In his official biography Bolloré claims that these only concern “residual amounts”

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unravel the numerous connections that exist between the group (a worthy successor to the old colonial corporations) and Françafrique networks on one hand and French politicians on the other Like other conglomerates the Bolloré group benefits from French government help in its market conquests on the African continent The president and ministers are always willing to lobby on his behalf when they visit their counterparts in Africa (And though Bolloré’s rightwing friends are well known it’s worth noting that the Socialist MP Jean Glavany sits on the group’s strategy committee along with the economist and business guru Alain Minc) Bolloré’s African concerns benefit indirectly from a number of state aid programmes for infrastructure develop

ment and directly from state contracts In his official biography Bolloré claims that these only concern “residual amounts” and “only in sectors where nobody else wants to venture such as transport in Africa where we are the only ones And that only represents a few dozen million euros that is to say less than  of our turnover” () Residual that may be “but those state contracts notably with the foreign or defence ministries are usually a matter of strategic interest When France transports troops to or from Africa as in the case of Operation Licorne in Ivory Coast it often finds the Bolloré group indispensible The defence division of Bolloré’s  owned subsidiary SDV International Logistics writes in its prospectus (over a photograph of armoured vehicles): “All operations are processed under strict security and confidentiality” “The operator of choice in all aspects of transport in Africa” (as the group likes to style itself) is so well positioned that it can prosper both in war and peacetime The United Nations frequently uses it for transporting UN forces and Bolloré was on hand for the European Union Forces (Eufor) mission in Chad In oil

rich Sudan ravaged by years of violence the group admits to doing very well out of both humanitarian and oil logistics() “Business as usual” While the group is ready to talk about the ‘humanitarian’ side of its business (“quite a godsend” according to one SDV manager) it isn’t so transparent across the board There was surprise at its excellent relations with President Denis Sassou Nguesso in the late s when he returned to power in Congo Brazzaville after a coup and bloody civil war () There was also conjecture at the group’s connections with Liberia’s Charles Taylor In

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 people were wondering how the Belgian company Socfinal in which Bolloré is a main shareholder obtained a gigantic rubber tree plantation concession in Liberia just after Taylor came to power following another violent civil war Without mentioning Bolloré by name Taylor remarked on the time when he was fighting in the jungle There were no privileges he said “It just happened that some French businessmen came to see us before others They took risks That explains why they are a step ahead today” “It’s business as usual Because basically businessmen have no nationality Whether they come from France or elsewhere all they are interested in is Liberia’s wood iron ore and diamonds; that’s quite natural”(
) When a reporter from the magazine Jeune Afrique asked Bolloré directly if he had met Taylor he smiled and replied: ‚”No not me I don’t do anything anymore I’ve got managers in the group to do what needs doing for me” () The relationship between Bolloré and the Liberian regime came up again in  when several associations accused the group of taking part in wood trafficking which the Liberian government was engaged in to finance its war of destabilisation in neighbouring Sierra Leone And now that Charles Taylor is wanted by the Special Tribunal in Freetown Sierra Leone for war crimes and crimes against humanity you wonder if Bolloré is still smiling Though Bolloré ‘categorically’ denies any connection between his group and the Taylor regime Dominique Lafont seems less categorical when it comes to charges against Bolloré subsidiaries in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where a cross border war is being waged The charges come from a panel of experts who were asked by the UN Security Council to investigate illegal exploitation of natural resources in the region The UN is concerned that this trade in raw materials is feeding arms trafficking The resource in question is coltan (or colombo tantalite) used to manufacture cell phones and video game consoles; world prices for this mineral shot up in the early s The first report by the UN experts ‘facilitators or passive accomplices’ in April  stated that SDV a  owned Bolloré subsidiary was one of the main links in the network for exploitation of resources which fuelled the war Thousands of tonnes of colombo tantalite have been loaded in Kigali or shipped via the seaport of Dar es Salaam ( )

theEMirrorE The UN experts repeated their charges in November  before another report the following year placed SDV on a list of companies that “violate Organisation for European Cooperation and Development guidelines for multinational enterprises” Yet another report in 
claimed that the group had not ‘acted on’ the experts’ demands “even though they had ample time to do so”() It was not until the end of  when the fighting in the east of DRC became news again that we heard Bolloré himself on the subject In an interview in the French weekly Marianne() (which used the 
report but forgot the previous ones which were far more explicit) he at last agreed to comment and promptly denied everything brandishing the impeccable CV of the person currently in charge of that area for the group (who has only been in place for two years) On  January this year the educational TV channel France broadcast a  minute documentary called‚ ’The Mines of Hell’ entirely devoted to coltan in eastern DRC and contrived to mention the UN report without once mentioning Bolloré or any other western multinational Media arsenal Profiting from the apathy of most journalists the group has also gone into communications investing massively since the early s The group now controls a veritable media arsenal which ranges from advertising (with Havas) to television (Direct ) polling organisations (CSA) and the free press (Direct Matin Plus Direct Soir) This enables it to control the dissemination of any message from start to finish The group’s numerous media divisions assist in the conquest of the African market with charm offensives targeting all the continent’s important decision makers For instance Direct  (whose director of programming happens to be Bolloré’s son Yannick) broadcasts a monthly programme about Africa presented by Roussin in person (see Never named always present) Similarly the group uses the free press it distributes to millions of public transport commuters in France Capitalising on general ignorance and lack of interest in Africa Direct Matin Plus and Direct Soir tend the images of friendly heads of state most of whom lack any electoral legitimacy and only remain in power by internal repression and exported propaganda Bolloré’s media and advertising divisions provide them with the wherewithal Thus Direct Matin Plus (produced in partnership with Le Monde) drew up a flattering balance sheet of the  year reign of Cameroon’s head of state Paul Biya The Cameroon government one might be surprised to learn

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is working hard to ’improve the purchasing power’ of its people and ‘strengthen institutions that promote human rights’ (Direct Matin Plus  October ) The paper did not publish any denial in February  when food riots were violently crushed leaving some hundred dead Although the Bolloré group is especially well established in Cameroon it is worried by a charge from its rival Progosa of ’corruption and favouritism’ relating to the Douala container terminal Bolloré is taking great care to protect Biya’s international image ‘at no cost to him’ using the group’s own free press and possibly getting a special deal for him from its advertising subsidiary Havas whose chairman Stéphane Fouks apparently made an ‘interesting and fruitful’ visit to the Cameroon president in February Nor do the group’s communications in Cameroon stop there To cover its back the group cosies up to local journalists Six Cameroon newspaper editors were invited to an all expenses paid week in France in May  And the same generous spirit led Roussin to visit Yaoundé in February  to sign a partnership with the Chantal Biya Foundation an opaque structure for ‘the fight against Aids’ which enhances the humanitarian image of the president’s influential wife To be fair when Bolloré is in political/ philanthropic mode he does really spend money on good works such as the Education for All in Africa Network (Réseau Education pour Tous en Afrique or Repta) led by Gabriel Cohn Bendit (brother of Daniel) For years he supported Afrique Initiatives Michel Rocard’s venture capital company with a ‘social’ vocation now defunct He has also contributed to one off operations such as an urgent humanitarian mission to Niger in  by the association Réussir which used to be chaired by the present foreign minister Bernard Kouchner Bolloré’s obsession with Nelson Mandela’s foundation is in the same vein His free press has already devoted four lead stories to Mandela’s struggle against apartheid including one double issue in Direct Matin Plus/Direct Soir in September  when the former South African president visited Paris ”Bolloré who wants to develop his business in South and West Africa organised the event himself even lending his own aircraft” revealed the weekly Télérama ()

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On  January this year the educational TV channel France broadcast a

 minute documentary called‚ ’The Mines of Hell’ entirely devoted to coltan in eastern DRC and contrived to mention the UN report without once mentioning Bolloré or any other western multinational

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“By devoting his media’s attention to the operation he was tending his African

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1 0 EtheEMirror relations as well as those in the Elysée Palace: President Sarkozy was delighted to shake his icon’s hand” That was clear in the photograph in Direct Matin Plus in which Sarkozy was all smiles on the

tarmac at Orly airport delighted with his friend Vincent Bolloré And to make sure no feathers were ruffled Kouchner’s photograph made Direct Soir’s Mandela pages ❙

() See Nathalie Raulin and Renaud Lecadre Vincent Bolloré enquète sur un capitaliste au dessus de tout soupçon Denoèl Paris  and Nicolas Cori and Muriel Gremillet Vincent Bolloré ange ou démon? Hugo doc Paris  () See Bolloré Africa logistics website (
) Antoine Glaser and Stephen Smith Sarko en Afrique Plon Paris  () ‘Planète entreprises’ Radio France Internationale (RFI)  November  ( ) ‘Bolloré répond á tout’ Jeune Afrique Paris
 March  () Patrick Baptendier Allez y on vous couvre Editions Panama Paris  ()

‘Le groupe français refuge des ministres retraités’ Libération Paris  October 

() A term used to denote France’s relationship with Africa currently used in a negative neo colonial sense () Michel Roussin Afrique majeure Editions France Empire Paris  () See Jean Bothorel Vincent Bolloré: Une histoire de famille Picollec Paris  () ‘Les bonnes affaires de Bolloré’ Marchés tropicaux et méditerranéens Paris  January  () See François Xavier Verschave Noir silence qui arrêtera la Françafrique? Les Arènes Paris  (
) ‘Liberia: les métamorphoses d’un seigneur de la guerre’ Politique internationale Paris winter   () ‘Nous nous conduisons en Afrique comme au Japon ou aux Etats Unis’ Jeune Afrique  February  ( ) ‘Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of Democratic Republic of the Congo’  April  () Letters dated  October  and  October 
from the chairman of the panel of experts to the secretary general addressed to the president of the Security Council on the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo () ‘Des entreprises occidentales responsables de la guerre ‘en RDC’ on the magazine’s website wwwMariannefr on  November  () ‘Le raz de marée Vincent Bolloré’ Télérama Paris  November 

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How Are You?

Including this illustration made me realise the monumental task we human beings face in today’s world to staying healthy wealthy spiritually and other and wise I want to see the word ‘Poverty’ in the centre of the illustration changed What do you think it could be changed to and how do you see the change affecting the illustration? How does the information in the illustration affect you? Email words@xtraconz with your interpretation

Doug Green

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Nurturing Micro Entrepreneurs and Enterprising Young Minds Salvador I Sibayan UP Institute for Small Scale Industries

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As initial offerings it carried primary goods (coffee sugar and rice) and farm inputs (fertilizers and agricultural chemicals)

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How long does it take parents to bring their child to adulthood? To be financially independent and contribute to the family coffers? Ten fifteen or twenty years? In Claveria the northernmost town in Luzon Mrs Petra Martinez and her staff would take them twenty years to bring their cooperative to what it is today One with members coming from  barangays all  of Claveria nine in Sta Praxedes to the west of Claveria and  in Sanchez Mira to the east Now with a total membership of   the Claveria Agri based Multi Purpose Cooperative has ten people running a one

stop shop that carries an array of consumer goods This is open from : am to : pm from Mondays to Saturdays and from : am to : pm on Sundays But the story of Agri based as Claverianos call this co op cannot be told without Mrs Martinez’s own tale This is their story In  the Claveria Grassroots Credit Cooperative (CGCC) was founded and its Board took Mrs Martinez (Ma’am Pet to her staff) initially as the Treasurer After five years she was promoted to Assistant Manager She would report to the co op after the usual eight hours in a public elementary school where she taught home economics At the time she was already

married with four children ages; seven five three and one In May  the board members decided to go into trading and formed the Claveria Grassroots Consumers Cooperative Mart (CGCCM) As initial offerings it carried primary goods (coffee sugar and rice) and farm inputs (fertilizers and agricultural chemicals) After some months in operation Ma’am Pet and the Board wanted to go into other lines of business and register as a multi

purpose cooperative (MPC) But the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) refused because at the time it allowed only one MPC in such a small town

While CGCCM started to grow another cooperative was not doing well The Board of Consumers Cooperative Mart suggested that they merge a move that was approved by the General Assemblies of both co ops on August   And the merger gave birth to Claveria Agri based MPC with a combined membership  www.asiapublishinggroup.com

With Ma’am Pet as the General Manager Agri based continued with its trading operations on a   sq m lot It would take three years before it offered loans and savings In  the need for additional space prompted it to buy a
 sq m lot at the corner of Burgos and June 
Streets The next year it had the present administration building constructed and the year after it filed for a franchise with the National Telecommunications Commission to offer cable television This was granted the same year For the first time the townspeople could watch local and foreign TV programs By  Ma’am Pet decided to retire from teaching at the age of  After
 years of public service she simply had to devote all her time to the cooperative

Growth Spawns Problems The following year the membership reached   Agri based simply did not have room to have a quorum of     for its General Assembly (GA) So the Board had to request the CDA if it could hold it by representation This was granted All the members in each of the  barangays get to elect their representatives at the ratio of one for every  members This reduced the GA attendance to some  a number that Agri

based could accommodate on its roof deck with a floor area of   sq m To inform the members of what their co

op is doing and plans to do; board members managers and staff members divide themselves into three groups Each one goes to one or two barangays on Sunday afternoons Considering the number of barangays this takes them  Sundays to cover all And they do these twice a year

Offering Other Services With Ma’am Pet at the helm Agri based continued to diversify It opened a restaurant in  And in  it opened ten rooms for lodging Five of these are air conditioned each one accommodating three persons Another five are non aircon dormitory types each one good for a maximum of   In  it availed of funding from the People’s Credit and Finance Corporation and went into microfinance With five people for this purpose Agri based extends loans ranging from P
 to P   which they collect

theEMirrorE1 daily weekly or monthly depending on the amount In  Agri based opened an ice plant which is just as well because fishing remains a major activity of the town

Giving Something Back When someone remarked that “Agri based must be paying taxes by now” Ma’am Pet replied “No because of our social services” As a participant in the town’s Clean and Green Program it covers the maintenance of the street in front This stretches from Claveria East Central School on one end and Claveria West Central School on the other – a distance of three quarters of a kilometer As early as  Ma’am Pet thought of a Pupils Laboratory Cooperative in a public elementary school This was founded in Claveria Central School that the same year and two others followed a year later All three are registered with the CDA with Agri based serving as their mother cooperative At the opening of each school year pupils in Grade  contribute five pesos as their share capital They maintain this as long as they enroll in the following years up to Grade  When they graduate they get their share capital back Spending an hour a week they prepare snacks and lunch man the canteen and sell school supplies Instead of soft drinks they serve juices which pupil officers buy by the box from Agri based They do this under the guidance of their lunch counter teacher HE teachers and teacher advisers Like their pupils each one has one share For controls the sales proceeds of the day are deposited in a vault that’s kept in the

Principal’s Office The Treasurer or the President of the Pupil Government fills out the deposit slip when the collections are brought to Agri based where it maintains a savings account This is usually at the end of the school week Withdrawal slips however have to be signed by the President of the Student Government the Lunch Counter Teacher and noted by the Principal Pupils account for their transactions with the assistance of their teachers during their math class They record these in their cash receipts book and cash disbursements book from which they transfer the entries to the ledger At the end of each month they prepare the trial balance and financial statements And at the end of every school year half of the net income goes back to them as dividends The other half is set aside and covers the following: educational fund ( ) school fund ( ) and canteen fund ( ) For emergencies the teachers can borrow as much as P  with the principal payable at P  a month plus a monthly interest rate of ? on the declining balance For very young minds it’s as close as they get to running a real business If you’d like to know more you may get in touch with Ma’am Pet or Claveria Agri based at landlines ()    /  

3

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As early as  Ma’am Pet thought of a Pupils Laboratory Cooperative in a public elementary school This was founded in Claveria Central School that the same year and two others followed a year later

”

Note: Two entrepreneurs who were helped by Agri based MPC are featured in Doers Dreamers Risktakers
: The Micros That Roared to commemorate the th anniversary of UP ISSI and the
th anniversary of SERDEF ❙

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1 4 EtheEMirror

Mined out in Zambia For decades Zambia’s copper mines attracted foreign investors Local miners put up with the atrocious working conditions and pollution because they were promised development But the financial crisis now threatens to scupper those hopes By

Jean

Christophe Servant

P

Peter and Irene both
 are engineering graduates of Lusaka university and have been working since  in Chingola a small Copperbelt town in Zambia in southern Africa () The couple are employed by Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) the biggest mining company in a country which earns more than half its gross domestic product from mineral extraction KCM produces  of the country’s copper and provides its employees the children of neoliberalism with a decent lifestyle: a net salary of m kwachas () a month plus shares they can cash in in  They also enjoy professional status in a sector whose   employees earn an average monthly income of m kwachas (
) while  of the population of  million live on less than two dollars a day Of course Peter and Irene have had to make sacrifices Irene’s job is to look after the chemicals used to treat the copper ore and in  she had to leave her husband and young child to go on a training course in India The Indian multinational Vedanta has been the majority shareholder in KCM since  The sale was the latest in a series of privatisations that began in the late s and in which   of Zambia’s  businesses left the public sector Nearly   people lost their jobs over this period   of them from the country’s flagship company Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) which was carved up into as many pieces as there were buyers Vedanta got its hands on the biggest slice when it bought up the Chingola mine Irene has nothing but happy memories of her time in India But when she returned to KCM she found some of her Zambian colleagues had been dismissed and replaced with young expatriate Indians “who are no more qualified but better paid housed in custom built accommodation and given a company car” While she was away Peter had to deal with the sudden rise in price of essential goods petrol and rent: their three

room flat and kitchen infested with cockroaches and subject to regular power cuts now cost them m kwachas (
) Then on Christmas Eve last year the rent fell to m kwachas () – in tandem with a record fall in the price of copper which dropped to   a tonne from more

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than   in July The spectre of mine closures re emerged It was a glum Christmas for the   or so permanent employees of the mining sector – three times fewer than the state sector had employed at the end of the s Employers and employees both had to economise to ride out the approaching financial storm: for workers so they could afford the new school fees at the start of term on  January and for employers so they could maintain their comfortable profit margins

A river of acid Vedanta’s Zambian subsidiary declared a turnover of nearly m in the final trimester of  – almost half what they earned in the previous one First they reduced their contracts with the mainly South African temping agencies which had flourished after privatisation Thousands of underpaid and non unionised workers who had done the riskiest jobs were laid off Vedanta then resorted to other “sacrifices” in order to maintain maximum input (its goal written in large letters above the entrance to its Zambian complex) Suppliers had to wait a little longer to be paid – some went out of business Working hours became longer: “four  hour days followed by two days off ” according to a local member of the largest union in the sector the Miners Union of Zambia (MUZ) Even Peter a model employee says they are being pushed to the limit: “We have to be on call  hours a day If this carries on there will be more accidents” “Who benefited when the price of raw materials went up?” asks the economist James Lungu who teaches at Copperbelt University in Kitwe “Mining companies and their shareholders And who is suffering now the price is falling? Miners their families and the environment We are on the verge of a social catastrophe” It takes  tonnes of ore to produce one tonne of copper On  November  the people living on the banks of the Kafue – which flows down towards Lusaka before joining the Zambezi further south – were confronted with a strange sight: the river had turned turquoise Vedanta had accidentally discharged its toxic waste into it Two million inhabitants of Chingola district –   of whom draw water directly from the river – were deprived of drinking water for at least two days Thousands went for hospital check

theEMirrorE1 ups after eating fish from the river Analyses of the Kafue’s water showed it contained
 mg manganese mg copper and mg cobalt per litre: concentrations  times  times and  times higher respectively than the limits set by the World Health Organisation With a pH of  the Kafue had become a river of acid () The Vedanta employee who admitted the company’s responsibility was sacked on the spot The multinational threatened to withdraw advertising from the state owned daily Times of Zambia if the incident was reported But the editors stood firm and the scandal erupted On the orders of the Environmental Council of Zambia a public body charged with maintaining standards Vedanta called a brief halt to its mining activities at Chingola The company was indignant at losing  m Then business started up again The price of copper continued to rise and with it the pollution An unauthorised visit to the massive Vedanta site during the rainy season revealed a vision from Dante’s Inferno:
km from the mines the pollution control dam was overflowing spewing copper coloured water reeking of acid into a tributary of the Kafue “Of course we pollute ” said an employee “but all the mines do” “It was worse in ZCCM’s days ” retorted Sampa Chita director of KCM’s social responsibility programme “We are fed up being blamed You cannot run a mine without causing pollution” Vedanta is the only mineral extraction company in Zambia to have a department devoted to “the community” In her empty office devoid even of a computer Chita

estimated her budget with some hesitation at around “ or 
m” The money is used to fight malaria and HIV/Aids fund orphanages pay university fees dig wells and support the local cricket team – but not the football team Chita refused to say if this is because Indians prefer cricket to football But now for the first time in its  year history the Chingola copper mines’ football team Nchanga Rangers has been relegated to the second division Chita claimed not to know what her company’s profits are When pressed she admitted only that her department’s budget is tiny given the scale of the problems “ZCCM had a social outlook – perhaps too social ” she added “We are more focused on results But is it wrong to want to make money? Mines need a lot of investment and investors want to make a profit You have to be realistic” Three months after taking over  of KCM’s shares in  Vedanta had already made a profit of  m

A lack of transparency Lungu is co author of an astounding report on the privatisation of the copper mines (
) The sale was orchestrated by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) – including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund – under the government of President Frederick Chiluba () “ZCCM’s privatisation was carried out with a complete lack of transparency no debate in parliament and with one sided contracts which few of us have ever seen ” explained Lungu “It has never profited the inhabitants of the Copperbelt Nor its environment”

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“

The Vedanta employee who admitted the company’s responsibility was sacked on the spot The multinational threatened to withdraw advertising from the state owned daily Times of Zambia if the incident was reported

”

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1 6 EtheEMirror His view is shared up by Edith Nawakwi ➼ Zambia’s former finance minister who

“

Employees of the Chinese mining companies are denied union rights and their conditions are probably worse than for those working for Canadian Swiss or South African multi

nationals

”

oversaw the privatisations Her testimony says a lot about the behaviour of the IFIs: “We were told by advisers who included the IMF and the World Bank that not in my lifetime would the price of copper change All the production models that could be employed were showing that for the next  years Zambian copper would not make a profit Conversely if we privatised we would be able to access debt relief and this was a huge carrot in front of us – like waving medicine in front of a dying woman We had no option but to go ahead” ( ) In recent years international media attention has focused on the social responsibility of Chinese companies in the Copperbelt More than  years after building the Tanzam railway linking Zambia to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam China has made a comeback The nationalist third worldist ideology of the past () has given way to a more pragmatic approach Beijing is now the third biggest investor in sub Saharan Africa But the initial good feelings engendered by China’s “win win” discourse faded in April  when the Chinese dynamite factory (BGRIMM) () near Chambishi exploded killing  people The factory had been contracted out by Non

Ferrous Company Africa (NFCA) itself a subsidiary of the China Non Ferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering and Construction Company Anti Chinese sentiment hit the roof The Chinese president Hu Jintao on an official visit in February  even had to cancel a tour of the mining belt Employees of the Chinese mining companies are denied union rights and their conditions are probably worse than for those working for Canadian Swiss or South African multinationals But for all that Sam Mulafulafu head of the Catholic charity Caritas in Zambia says: “It is important to remember it wasn’t the Chinese companies who privatised copper” The new globalised Zambia is pursued by companies from every corner of the globe but the Bench Marks Foundation based in South Africa notes that many of these multinationals apply much lower standards in terms of health security and respect for the environment in Zambia than they do in the developed countries where they are based () In January  acid waste from Chingola’s mines reached the ground water at Mufulira around km away More than  people in the township adjoining the

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Mopani Copper Mines (MCM) complained of diarrhoea abdominal pain and vomiting The mine is co owned by the Swiss group Glencore and the Canadian company First Quantum and the joint venture was set up with the help of the European Investment Bank Accidents like these increase what two young Zambian researchers call the “ecological debt” Economist Nachilala Nkombo and legal expert Brenda Mofya say the environment has been sacrificed on the altar of privatisation: “Unlike the financial debt the creditors this time are the Zambian people Though linked to Zambia’s financial debt the ecological debt is far larger than Zambia’s bn financial debt was at its peak” () The mining townships of Mufulira are stark reminders of this ecological debt One of the worst is Kankoyo home to
  people and a canker on an otherwise fertile and verdant landscape Only two things grow here: avocado trees and cactus Open sewers dilapidated shacks with tin roofs corroded by acid rain abandoned pharmacies grocers shops with broken windows – the local population maintain these vestiges of the ZCCM’s social programme as best they can

‘They don’t listen to us’ Kankoyo also lies downwind of the smoke spewing out of MCM’s blast furnace: on some days the township is smothered in a choking fog Every year nearly   tonnes of sulphur dioxide is released into the air Cholera is common And unrest grows as unemployment rises MCM’s armed guards sit on plastic chairs on top of the slag heaps watching out for illegal miners searching for minerals among the waste A heavy contaminated air envelops the former hospital where Percy Chanda MP for Mufulira district and member of the main opposition party the Patriotic Front has his office “I am not against foreign companies – we need them ” he said “But the way they have behaved in the Copperbelt is very regrettable They don’t listen to us Imagine you came to my house and I made you a meal You would probably offer to help with the dishes But here they just sit still at the table without lifting a finger waiting for the next course” A former miner Chanda remembers “the good old days” of the ZCCM: a state within a state that looked after every aspect of workers’ lives from birth to death Everything from housing education and health care to evening classes and sports clubs was run by the ZCCM – they would even change your light bulbs people used to joke

theEMirrorE1 Chanda was still a miner when Zambia – caught between ZCCM’s losses of 
 a day and the offer of debt relief – accepted the advice of the IFIs At that time copper was worth about   a tonne A militant member of the mining union during the post

privatisation cutbacks Chanda finally hung up his miner’s hat in  when he became an MP: “I have never been able to find out anything about the agreement that was reached on privatisation Nor about what profits have been made since I feel I am banging my head against a brick wall” When copper prices began to rise Chanda tried to negotiate a pay rise for miners “They told us we couldn’t benefit from the price rise because they had sold their copper in advance at the previous year’s prices Now they tell us they have to lay us off because of the price drop But they are still selling at September’s prices when they were at their peak! But you know it’s not safe being in hostile territory surrounded by your enemies One of these days they’ll regret what they did to us”

Everything is for sale The financial storm has hit the Luanshya Copper Mines (LCM) an Israeli Swiss joint venture registered in the Netherlands which has just sacked its 
 permanent staff LCM’s director Derek Webbstock says business will resume when the price of copper goes back up The atmosphere is gloomy in the mining town Around  policemen have been sent to guard the entrance to the complex but LCM has already sent its mining equipment – sawhorses and piping cut up into pieces – to South Africa by lorry Nothing is wasted – it can all be reused and sold It is rumoured the Chinese may take over the mine At the mini market customers count their pennies and worry about Christmas The local union representative Boniface Kabwe has four children The abruptness of the closure knocked him sideways “In October some miners tried to borrow money from the local bank but they were told they didn’t have enough security The bank seemed to know the mine would close before the government did! In fact [the government] was the last to know” Up to now relations between LCM and the local population have been reasonable Unlike other mining companies LCM had kept the road to Luanshya in good repair In fact the town was voted the cleanest in the Copperbelt last year in a competition dating back to ZCCM days Two thirds of the local council’s revenue – more than bn kwachas ( ) in the last six months of last year

– came from local taxes paid by LCM “They told us recently that they had enough funds to stay open despite the financial crisis ” says Mutakela Kayonde a Luanshya town planning official “It’s not just the miners who are affected by the closure With eight people to a household it’s the whole community” Like an increasing number of people in the Copperbelt including local correspondents from the national press Kayonde is beginning to wonder what’s going on Has the collapse in the price of copper given businesses another opportunity to blackmail Zambia’s government? Last spring the Zambian government finally decided to review its mining contracts It raised corporate tax from  to
 and tax on profits went up from a miserable  to
 The World Bank – forced to recognise how modest the Zambian treasury’s share had been up to then – supported the measure Zambia was getting nothing out of the exploitation of its copper reserves while the multinationals were making a handsome profit The mining companies had even set up sophisticated systems to avoid paying taxes by channelling their profits through offshore companies in islands like Mauritius In  Zambia earned 

m from copper exports estimated to be worth 
bn

7

“

I have never been able to find out anything about the agreement that was reached on privatisation Nor about what profits have been made since I feel I am banging my head against a brick wall

”

Mining companies made 
bn from copper extraction last year But of the m that should have made its way into Zambia’s state coffers only m was actually collected Even though Zambia has some of the lowest taxes in southern Africa the multinationals contested them threatening to take their disagreement to a commercial court – in their home countries That was before the risk of redundancies on the back of falling prices offered them a new way to put pressure on the Zambian government It seems they have achieved their objective After winning a narrow victory at the end of October  following the death of his predecessor Levy Mwanawasa () President Rupiah Banda announced that his government was having discussions with the mining companies – on cutting taxes: “We must ensure that we do not kill the goose that lays the golden egg There is little point in taking in a few million dollars in tax if thousands of jobs are lost as a result” () Fred M’Membe runs the main Zambian opposition daily The Post which started up

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1 8 EtheEMirror Chiluba’s day Sporting a South African ➼ incommunist party cap and going around

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In its obsession with mineral resources though Zambia has neglected its agriculture:  of the rural population lives below the poverty line

”

in a Hummer X he is now one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the country both from his editorials and his stake in the new Zambian economy “Our government opened the doors wide to foreign businesses but didn’t leave itself the possibility of closing them again The economic policy of a country cannot be dictated by agreements made with private businesses ” said the business magnate “It’s true privatisation did create a certain amount of hope But now the Hollywood movie is over and reality has hit with the global financial crisis The only solution is for the state to move back into the mining sector Cooperatives or nationalisation it doesn’t matter The people should be the first to profit from the mines” Kabwe’s zinc and lead deposits used to be the richest in Africa After almost a century of exploitation by the South African giant Anglo American they were finally abandoned almost exhausted in the mid s Now despite a campaign to clean up the site funded by the World Bank this town of
  inhabitants is one of the ten most polluted industrial towns on the planet according to the Blacksmith Institute () The average level of lead in the blood of children is reported to be between five and  times higher than the limit set by the US Environmental Protection Agency

Their only means of survival Illegal miners from the nearby townships dig around in the rubbish tips for bits of manganese copper or cobalt ore which they can sell on in kg bags to middle men Their fathers worked for the mines It’s a risky job – three young men were killed in  when a tip caved in – but it’s their only means ?of survival High levels of lead dust in the soil and heavy metals in the water within a km radius of the town are having a harmful effect on agriculture On the road up to Lusaka fields of maize and stalls selling mushrooms the size of umbrellas are reminders however that Zambia is as rich in arable land ?as it is in minerals Many former miners casualties ?of privatisation have returned to work their ?family’s land In its obsession with mineral resources though Zambia has neglected its agriculture:  of the rural population lives below the poverty line Peter Kapumba – a former ZCCM employee built like a boxer his eyes drained of colour by all the mining chemicals – lives with three generations of his family on an old colonial farm “Life is hard ” he said “But it’s better here than in town I think farming is the future for this country As long as the government makes up its mind to diversify the economy It’s about time too One day there will be no more copper The only thing left will be the pollution” Since this winter another   Zambian miners have been laid off ❙

()

Their names have been changed

()

pH is a measure of how acid or alkaline a solution is An acid solution has a pH of below seven

(
)

Alastair Fraser and John Lungu “For Whom the Windfalls? Winners and Losers in the Privatisation of Zambia’s Copper Mines” Report for Civil Society Trade Network of Zambia Lusaka January 

()

Frederick Chiluba was Zambia’s second head of state between  and  He has been charged with embezzling    of public funds and his trial is due to resume this year

( )

See “Undermining Development? Copper Mining ?in Zambia” a joint report by ACTSA Christian Aid and SCIAF October 

()

In the late s President Kenneth Kaunda encouraged the nationalist guerrillas fighting white rule in Rhodesia who were financed by China and the Soviet Union He nonetheless maintained good relations with the West

()

The Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy

()

“Mining Companies neglecting social responsibilities ” ? September 

()

“Ecological Debt owed to African countries a case of the Zambian mineral extraction industry ” September  This report should be available shortly at Afrodad

() The Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa who was re elected in  died  August  in a Paris hospital The opposition candidate Michael Sata popular in the Copperbelt again lost his bid to be president in the election of October  Now much less critical of Chinese businesses than in  he told me he planned to stand for a fourth time in  () “Zambia may cut mining taxes President says” Reuters  January  () Blacksmith institute

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theEMirrorE1

9

Non violence is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s way

E

Even after  years in and out of house arrest detention since  and  years in prison Daw Aung San Suu Kyi still has confidence and hope In  three years after her incarceration Suu Kyi received the Nobel Prize in Peace “for her non violent struggle for democracy and human rights” in the Union of Myanmar As Suu Kyi was being kept under house arrest and in detention by the military junta during that time Suu Kyi’s sons accepted the Nobel prize in her absence absence

“

“Her absence fills us with fear and anxiety ” said Professor Frances Sejersted Chairman of the Nobel Committee in  “But we also have confidence and hope ” he continued

Thus the forum aims to draw attention of young people to take a proactive action to contribute to the achievement of sustainable future

A year later in  Daw Aung San Suu Kyi set up a trust to use the 
million dollar Nobel Peace Prize award monies for health and education programs for all Burmese

Myanmar citizens in need At the age of fifteen as Suu Kyi was growing up without her father the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi came to her bringing her a deep understanding and commitment to non violence and fearlessness Gandhi’s teachings became part of her everyday life as she lived in India in  during the time when her mother Daw Khin Kyi became Burma’s Ambassador to India Later as Suu Kyi married the British Tibetan scholar Dr Michael Aris the basic precepts of Buddhist teachings became another integral part of Suu Kyi’s approach to living In  under house arrest Suu Kyi was refused the right by the government of Myanmar to visit her dying husband in London On March   Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was refused release from incarceration to visit her dying husband even though she had not seen Dr Aris since   Through the teachings of Buddhism shared by Dr Aris Suu Kyi received a special gift the gift of humility and what she still calls today “a profound simplicity” “In the good fight for peace and reconciliation we are dependent on persons who set examples persons who can symbolize what we are seeking and mobilize the best in

us ” said Professor Sejersted of Suu Kyi in  “Aung San Suu Kyi is just such a person She unites deep commitment and tenacity with a vision in which the end and the means form a single unit Its most important elements are: democracy respect for human rights reconciliation between groups non

violence and personal and collective discipline… During Suu Kyi’s election campaigning in Burma she courageously faced a detachment of soldiers who lined up in front of her prepared to fire if she continued to walk down the street which she did” Today Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is still a vital symbol of peace among her people and the world

“

Her absence fills us with fear and anxiety

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2 0 EtheEMirror ordinary people I believe feel that ➼ with“We her courage and her high ideals Aung San Suu Kyi brings out something of the best in us… The little woman under house arrest stands for a positive hope Knowing she is there gives us confidence and faith in the power of good ” added Professor Sejersted during the  Nobel Prize ceremony

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It is not power that corrupts but fear Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it… Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour

”

The September  bloody pro

democracy protest in Rangoon between the Tatmadaw – the military police forces of Myanmar – and Burmese Buddhists monks students and citizens has brought the issues of human rights searingly to the forefront The government of Myanmar has acknowledged  dead and nearly   arrested with  later released although other reports indicate that the numbers may be much greater The recent UN Security Council statement on the Myanmar protest states “The Security Council emphasises the importance of the early release of all political prisoners and remaining detainees It also calls on the Government of Myanmar and all other parties concerned to work together towards a de escalation of the situation and a peaceful solution” These mass rallies prove that the desire of the majority people is the prevalence of peace and stability in the country and emergence of the new National Constitution ” said a recent
Oct  press release from the Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations Office Geneva On  October UN Secretary General Ban Ki moon asked a UN envoy team to return to Myanmar UN official Ibrahim Gambari met with Myanmar General Than Shwe and also separately with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at her home in Rangoon The UN Secretary General has hopes that the government of Myanmar can “make the bold choices” now toward positive change Ban Ki moon also said that he was “cautiously encouraged” that Senior General Than Shwe Myanmar’s top military leader has made recent statements saying he would meet in person under “certain conditions” with Aung San Suu Kyi

Suu Kyi’s history with the Union of Myanmar previously known as the Union of Burma before  is one of deep personal connection Suu Kyi’s father General Aung San acting as transitional Prime Minister in  was assassinated by the military junta with several members of the transitional cabinet including Suu Kyi’s uncle Ba Win closely after Burma became an independent nation Suu Kyi was only two www.asiapublishinggroup.com

years old at the time of the deaths – just months following the second Panglong Conference for Burmese independence Beset with internal struggles of country division and questions of equal representation of government the Panglong Conference aided in the transfer of power from the British During this time the conference attempted to gather all of the regions and ethnic groups of Burma The second Panglong Conference changed Burma permanently from its status as a colony of British India to an independent Burmese republic Since that time Burma has undergone countless struggles as a nation “Unity in diversity has to be the principle for those who genuinely wish to build our country into a strong nation that allows for a variety of races languages beliefs and cultures to flourish in peaceful and happy coexistence Only a government that tolerates opinions and attitudes different from its own will be able to create an environment where peoples of diverse traditions and aspirations can breathe freely in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and trust ” said Suu Kyi in a  letter to the Mainichi Daily News In a famous speech given to the National League for Democracy Suu Kyi brought the concepts of Mahatma Gandhi into clear focus when she said:

“It is not power that corrupts but fear Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it… Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions courage that could be described as ‘grace under pressure’ – grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh unremitting pressure… Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights fear tends to be the order of the day Fear of imprisonment fear of torture fear of death fear of losing friends family property or means of livelihood fear of poverty fear of isolation fear of failure Fear of imprisonment fear of torture fear of death fear of losing friends family property or means of livelihood fear of poverty fear of isolation fear of failure A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom condemning as foolish reckless insignificant or futile the small daily acts of

theEMirrorE2 courage which help to preserve man’s self

respect and inherent human dignity A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom condemning as foolish reckless insignificant or futile the small daily acts of courage which help to preserve man’s self

respect and inherent human dignity It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again for fear is not the natural state of civilized man The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all the setbacks condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement It is his capacity for self

improvement and self redemption which most distinguishes man from the mere brute At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection the urge to achieve it the intelligence to find a path towards it and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments

1

It is man’s vision of a world fit for rational civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear It is man’s vision of a world fit for rational civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear Concepts such as truth justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power” “I always pray for Aung San Suu Kyi and hope that she will be released soon ” said the Dalai Lama to the press in  The Dalai Lama has corresponded regularly with Suu Kyi up until the last three years when Suu Kyi’s contact with the outside world was discontinued “Aung San Suu Kyi is a person I admire a lot both for her courage and her sacrifice ” added fellow Nobel Peace Laureate HH Dalai Lama Today the words of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi ring clear even through the rising conflict inside the Union of Myanmar today For many of the citizens of Myanmar Suu Kyi still represents a new world and a greater possibility for peace ❙

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The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles

(Sources for this article include The Permanent Mission of the Union of Myanmar to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations – Geneva Mainichi Daily News Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Pages Associated Press CBC news Reuters news Russia Buddhist Forum The Burma Campaign UK VOA news Nobelprizeorg UN News Centre Human Rights House Network and the Daily Yomiuri Online)

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Meeting the Needs of Children Today! International Kolisko Conference February 14-18, 2010 Honolulu, Hawai’i USA Dr. Michaela Gloeckler, leader of the Goetheanum Medical Section, Switzerland, will keynote a conference on “Reading the Needs of Children and Understanding the Stages of Human Development—Birth to Age 21.” Other international presenters will also join this exciting conference for Teachers, Educators, Doctors, Nurses, Therapists, and Parents. More information to come

Sponsored by: Honolulu Waldorf School Anthroposophical Society in Hawai’i Medical Section of the Goetheanum Contact: Van James at [email protected]

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Mend the roof before it rains

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Dongguan in the heart of Guangdong province is one of China’s largest manufacturing and export bases for toys furniture shoes and textiles The situation there is far worse than in the rest of China (see The toy makers of Chenghai) “A lot of factories have closed ” says Mei Hua  a worker from Jiangxi province now living in the Chenghai district of Shantong “My parents still live in Dongguan They say hourly wages have gone down again though they were already lower than they are here and it’s not as easy to get a job in a factory as it used to be” To keep the migrant workers (mingong or peasant workers) employed the city council has launched a vast infrastructure renovation project using budgets allocated under the central government’s national revitalisation plan Dongguan has been transformed into an enormous anthill inside which thousands of workers are toiling away The city’s problems can’t all be blamed on the global crisis: its economy took a nosedive well before foreign demand began to fall in  “Since mid  many of the foreign business people who were renting here especially people from Hong Kong Taiwan and South Korea have left and we have thousands of empty apartments There was a direct immediate correlation with the fall in the sale and leasing of factory premises ” says Cheng Wanhang who sells industrial space for one of the Dongguan branches of real estate group Century  Dr Liu Kaiming founder and executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Observation a non governmental organis

ation based in Shenzhen explained: “Since early  production costs have gone up by 
 [owing to the rising cost of raw materials] labour costs have gone up by  and the yuan has gained  against the dollar and the euro which means costs have gone up by around

 overall” Wages have risen over the last few years owing to a chronic shortage of labour which in early  Liu estimates was around four million workers in Guangdong province alone Rising costs forced manufacturers and buyers based in China out of business (they were already working on small margins) Chronic over production by Chinese industries of this type meant that they were unable to pass their costs on to the customer Dongguan as Mei Hua confirms is well known for its low skilled workforce – and

consequently the mediocre quality of the goods it produces The toy scandal has only served to reinforce this image In the autumn of  millions of toys made by certain companies in Dongguan were turned down by foreign customers including the American firms Mattel and RC on the grounds that their paint contained too much lead or that their plastic parts were too fragile

By

Tristan de Bourbon

Question of nationality Something else about factories in Dongguan may explain why there have been so many closures: the nationality of their owners “All the businesses in Chenghai are owned by local people ” explains one of the directors of the toy manufacturers’ association “They have devoted their entire lives to these factories They’re laying off workers so as to be able to hang on until things pick up again But most of the factories in Dongguan were leased by people from Hong Kong Taiwan and South Korea When their profit margins shrank and the banks became less willing to supply credit or head office decided it needed to cut costs abroad they couldn’t cope and pulled out They could afford to do that because they hadn’t invested much money”

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They would go to a village and offer them a deal: we’ll provide the machines and the orders; you provide the premises and the workers

The idea of “investment free business” was first introduced in Guangdong by Hong Kong entrepreneurs some  years ago “They would go to a village and offer them a deal: we’ll provide the machines and the orders; you provide the premises and the workers ” explained Fabrice Turries a partner at consulting firm Palazzari and Turries which has been operating in China and Hong Kong for more than a decade

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The central government initially approved of this system until it realised that it gave too much power to local authorities which showed little regard for social and environmental standards “So in  ” Turries continued “Beijing launched a massive cleanup operation involving tighter regulation aimed at limiting the damage and forcing Chinese industry to move up market” Which is why Hong Kong investors started to go elsewhere especially to Vietnam where costs are still low The introduction of new regulations in November  concerning “abnormal withdrawal by foreign investors” supports this explanation Bruno Grangier a lawyer at the

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2 4 EtheEMirror ➼ Shanghai offices of Gide Loyrette Nouel said

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The official news agency Xinhua revealed that the figure of  million was only based on “a survey of   villages nationwide”

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that unless they wind up their company in accordance with the law the shareholders could be held liable with the company for any losses incurred by the company’s business partners These measures also target Chinese entrepreneurs whose companies are registered in tax havens Many of them held two passports and absconded after transferring all their money abroad So the government was partly responsible for the difficulties already facing Chinese industry; yet since summer  it has been trying to blame everything on the global crisis Chen Xiwen a senior rural planning official in the central government announced in January that  million migrant workers had lost their jobs or failed to find employment or gone home as a result of the fall in manufacturing and industrial activity This statement should be taken with a pinch of salt The official news agency Xinhua revealed that the figure of  million was only based on “a survey of   villages nationwide” And in any case millions of migrant workers go home every year at Chinese New Year and this year’s migrations were in no way out of the ordinary Last the National Bureau of Statistics announced at the end of March that in addition to the  million unemployed migrant workers in the cities another  million had stayed home in the country after the New Year a claim that every migrant

interviewed since has denied and that experts view with scepticism At the National People’s Congress in March the mayor of Dongguan Li Yuquan warned that the city needed to “mend the roof before it rains” Dongguan had already suffered the loss of   jobs in January and February  and had  factories employing a further   workers which were in an “unstable” condition He feared the situation would lead to social unrest And in fact since summer  the media have carried more reports on demonstrations by workers who have been made redundant However as a European industrialist based in Dongguan points out they have failed to mention that this is not a new phenomenon And that more often than not the migrants are getting together not to protest about losing their jobs but to make sure of getting the unpaid wages due to them Once their demands have been met they go off in search of new jobs because factories in the province are still taking on workers Coincidentally or not this propaganda started just when western leaders were loudly demanding that China less affected by the financial crisis and with colossal cash reserves reach deep into its pockets to help rescue the international financial system – one way perhaps of politely turning a deaf ear to those whom the Chinese government regard as primarily responsible for the crisis ❙

Kerala: mad about books

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M Mukundan writes in the first page of his novel Adityan Radha and Others: “Chapter four ends thus: Amidst the women who sit around Unlike any other the milk bathed Sivalingam my mother might Indian state be grieving for me” Five pages on he writes Kerala “The fourth sentence in the second paragraph traditionally of Chapter eight runs like this: Not a wrinkle communist led was to be seen in the woollen jacket or silk tie boasts almost he wore when after many years he stood with bowed head before his mother’s dead body” universal literacy As a Written in 
the book bears more resemblance to Camus’s The Stranger than it result its thirty

does to  Booker winner Aravind Adiga’s one million The White Tiger Whatever else it may be people are avid Adiga’s novel is not about re drawing the readers in their contours of literature M Mukundan on the mother tongue other hand is experimental And if his writing is unlike anything written in English in India Malayalam today one good reason for that is it is in Malayalam – and written in the context of a By literature that is slippery and shape shifting in Mridula Koshy its embrace of the experimental In Kerala somewhere in the space and time www.asiapublishinggroup.com

that might be the end of Chapter four or the fourth sentence in the second paragraph of Chapter eight there exists this other literature and other writers who are free to be deviants And the trick of this freedom is being in possession of a readership that is not the Booker panel of judges nor even the reader of the New Yorker

Grassroots readers Outside the big cities a very small minority of Indians – only seven to eight million – read in English India has an overall rate of  literacy – measured in people’s own mother tongues But where India drops into the Indian Ocean in the state of Kerala home of Malayalam literature literacy is close to   Not surprisingly the population of Kerala – some
 million – reads books Malayalam writers are in the enviable position of writing for Adiga’s rickshaw puller and not just about him Zacharia one of the best known contemporary writers in Malayalam says: “In the

theEMirrorE2 Indian picture Kerala’s book readers are a record They are the product both of the literacy movement and the earlier library movement spearheaded by a one man army called PN Paniker [the founding father of the literacy movement in Kerala] A whole world of grassroots readers keep emerging from the villages” Sixth on the list of seven objectives of Kerala’s communist led state government’s literacy mission is “provision of facilities for library and reading rooms for creating an environment conducive for literacy efforts and a learning society” The grassroots level activism that brought about the literacy movement continues in the form of publishers like KSSP (Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad) which was formed in  to publish scientific literature in Malayalam Today KSSP continues its practice of door to door sales and Kala Jathas (literacy rallies) According to KK Krishna Kumar its former president KSSP publishes around   titles and sells books worth Rs   m (  
 ) every year In a recent report in The Hindu Ravi DC CEO of DC Books Kerala’s leading publishing house said the sale of Malayalam books has been growing by at least
 a year At the sixth international book fair which DC Books organised in Kerala in November  sales had doubled in a year And he added “the demand for books in rural areas is on the increase” The marketing strategy was now based on the concept that “books should go to people instead of people coming to book houses”

Well read in every sense According to Paul Zacharia the Malayalam reader is well read in every sense including in world literature DC Books’ website offers the reader translations of Carlos Fuentes’ Aura and his The Death of Artemio Cruz There is Alex Haley’s Malcolm X and Amoz Oz’s Fima Che Guevara Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens are all available as are Junichiro Tanizaki and George Eliot Leo Tolstoy JM Coetzee and JMG Le Clézio – all of them in Malayalam (Paul Coelho for some reason is available only in English) And among the million books on display at the week long DC book fair the bestsellers included not only examples of contemporary Malayalam literature like V Vijayan’s Khasakkinte Ithihasam and MT Vasudevan Nair’s Randamoozham but also popular English titles such as Adiga’s The White Tiger Writers in Kerala locate themselves in the great confluence of world literature They are powerfully influenced by both Malayalam and world literature Zacharia for instance says of himself: “I have been bilingual in my formative reading” But he adds that once they write “authors are almost entirely focused on the Malayali audience and not on the world” In the author’s note prefacing his book The Reflections of a Hen in Her Last Hour Zacharia thanks these readers “who keep a stern eye on writers’ performance and put the fear of God into them”

When the greats in Malayalam literature sell they really do sell – edition after edition Nalukettu by MT Vasudevan Nair written in   and selling some   copies over the years was re launched in a special edition in  for its th anniversary (The English translation is available from Oxford University Press) The novel tells the story of Appunni who is born into the matrilineal Nair caste exiled from his home as a child and thereafter aims to regain his lost home or nalukettu (the traditional Kerala house) But the most recent trend in Malayalam literature is the personal narrative The wildly popular Autobiography of a Sex Worker by Nalini Jamila was the first of many such bestsellers The book caused controversy as established writers rejected its literary worth and feminists and others on the left rejected Jameela’s argument that prostitution offers freedom from a husband’s demands and restrictions Jameela a grandmother in her s who is still active in sex work rewrote the autobiography in part as a response to the criticism The latest hit is Sister Jesme’s Amen the autobiography of an ex nun who quit her Kerala church after

years Her revelations of abuse by the church sold   copies in the first two months Zacharia notes: “An average success sells about   copies in   months and keeps selling For a little language like Malayalam the picture is very encouraging” There is also the matter of affordability English language books in India are more costly than those in regional languages A mass

market regional language book normally costs Rs  (just over ) while a mass market English language book normally costs   The old debate around the merits of writing in English versus regional languages (see The word from Jaipur left) got a new lease of life in the wake of Salman Rushdie’s jibe in the introduction to The Vintage Book of Indian Writing (Vintage London ) edited by Rushdie and Elizabeth West He called “what has been produced in the  official languages of India the so called vernacular languages” inferior to the “stronger and more powerful body of work” belonging to “Indian writers working in English” Not surprisingly Rushdie’s pronouncement met with indignant rejoinders as well as a counter

anthology which privileged regional language writings from India The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature (by Amit Chaudhuri Picador London ) When Rushdie claims that “the true Indian literature of the past  years has been made in the language the British left behind” it is worth asking what he means by “true” An Indian novel in English might do well to sell

 copies but each week magazines churn out – in the best Charles Dickens tradition – serialised novels and short stories by the score in regional languages India reads but it reads overwhelmingly in Indian languages ❙

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The novel tells the story of Appunni who is born into the matrilineal Nair caste exiled from his home as a child and thereafter aims to regain his lost home or nalukettu (the traditional Kerala house)

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B O O K R E V I W S Random House

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Cradle To Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things

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By William McDonough & Michael Braungart

William McDonough’s book written with his colleague the German chemist Michael Braungart is a manifesto calling for the transformation of human industry through ecologically intelligent design Through historical sketches on the roots of the industrial revolution; commentary on science nature and society; descriptions of key design principles; and compelling examples of innovative products and business strategies already reshaping the marketplace McDonough and Braungart make the case that an industrial system that “takes makes and wastes” can become a creator of goods and services that generate ecological social and economic value In Cradle to Cradle McDonough and Braungart argue that the conflict between industry and the environment is not an indictment of commerce but an outgrowth of purely opportunistic design The design of products and manufacturing systems growing out of the Industrial Revolution reflected the spirit of the day

and yielded a host of unintended yet tragic consequences Today with our growing knowledge of the living earth design can reflect a new spirit In fact the authors write when designers employ the intelligence of natural systems—the effectiveness of nutrient cycling the abundance of the sun’s

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energy—they can create products industrial systems buildings even regional plans that allow nature and commerce to fruitfully co exist Cradle to Cradle maps the lineaments of McDonough and Braungart’s new design paradigm offering practical steps on how to innovate within today’s economic environment Part social history part green business primer part design manual the book makes plain that the re invention of human industry is not only within our grasp it is our best hope for a future of sustaining prosperity In addition to describing the hopeful nature inspired design principles that are making industry both prosperous and sustainable the book itself is a physical symbol of the changes to come It is printed on a synthetic ‘paper ’ made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers designed to look and feel like top quality paper while also being waterproof and rugged And the book can be easily recycled in localities with systems to collect polypropylene like that in yogurt containers This ‘treeless’ book points the way toward the day when synthetic books like many other products can be used recycled and used again without losing any material quality—in cradle to cradle cycles ❙ Random House 

The Voice of Hope

I have been intrigued with the situation in Burma since watching the movie Beyond Rangoon some time ago It was therefore with great interest that I ordered this book as soon as it was available In “The Voice of Hope” Alan Clements brings us into the present with this tragic situation through the person of Aung San Suu Kyi and her incredible life But what sets this work apart from histories biographies and oddly enough even self help material is the powerful integration of beliefs and action found in Aung San Suu Kyi’s life and philosophy In reading chapter seven alone (“Saints are Sinners who go on trying”) I was personally and deeply moved by www.asiapublishinggroup.com

By Alan Clements the clear connectedness described between her experience with a repressive government and the need for thinking people everywhere to courageously fulfil our potential as thinking “questing” individuals The repressive government in Burma is shown to be an extreme and yet still relevant metaphor for intellectual repression in all its forms And Aung San Suu Kyi’s message offers specific insight together with believable emotional support for those who struggle to reconcile what we discover and know through our own searching with what we are

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Intimations of a greater truth

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In  when Pope Paul VI dies she is almost nine years old There is a holiday and the propriety of celebrating his death is not something she knows to question She assumes it is a celebration All school holidays are for celebration In fact during the mourning period when scores of the unwilling – those disabled from declining by the failure of mothers to disallow it – are dragged off to chapel Hindu and Muslim alike to pray for the repose of his soul she the sole Christian and a Catholic at that joins in the fervent prayer that the new Pope die as well And without further ado when die he does it is with such haste that there is little break for her in the celebration That long week of holidaying is marked by her failure to remember to study for the exams that she has just escaped Instead she roams the convent garden with her friend and fellow boarder the delinquent Miriam of indeterminate age and ferocious will To prove herself worthy of this friendship she drinks with kettle upended one two three kettlefuls of the newly installed pump well’s draw Her stomach bloats unbearably With each step the water clear and sweet sloshes in her throat lapping at the root of her tongue Having duly impressed a vague crowd of onlookers she sets off to discover what else there might be in the world to know please herself with and fear

The tastes and smells they sample in the solemn dark have little to do with the games of daytime girlhood Thus come day she can stand to the side not unmoved but nevertheless removed from the pain as the nuns bid the gardener to bare Miriam’s back and beat her with bundled twigs from the pomegranate tree that grows in the central courtyard At breakfast she slides toward Miriam her plate with the extra rations of double

yolked eggs paid for with the boarding fees her parents continue to remember to send There is nothing she can abide in her stomach save endless cups of water The fear that she has been left behind permanently fogs her mind so that she begins the lifelong habit of accidentally or otherwise misplacing all of the titles and authors of the books she reads She comes to know in these books what she should not know and so she edits for herself the best she can When she emerges eyes glassed to the world there is little she can tell Miriam of the story and so their play loses some of its juice In her after school music class she is sent daily to fetch water for the music master His thirst appears unquenchable although his exertions with the harmonium

By

Mridula Koshy

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At breakfast she slides toward Miriam her plate with the extra rations of double

yolked eggs paid for with the boarding fees

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This is also the year she launches her career as a reader From Lamb’s Abridged Shakespeare she moves to Mandingo What she can understand – living as she does on the Indian subcontinent in a different century and at her age – of quadroons mulattos and miscegenation is irrelevant The fact of having come upon this book in the nuns’ private store and the titillation this lends her intimacy with Miriam spurs her to risk discovery and hide it under her mattress Dipped into again and again the book yields a relevant wealth – the ritual caresses she and Miriam administer one to the other (fair is fair and mutual is must)

expected to believe by others If it helps anyone

is deciding whether this book is worth the ➼ who money I can only say that as one who buys

and reads more than  books a year this book has earned a unique place in my library and in my heart I would trade every other book I have read this year for Alan Clements’ latest contribution ❙

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From somewhere she equips herself with matches sets the scarf on fire and slides it into the dark of a classroom cupboard

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can little tire even the old man that he is It is a creaky instrument and his only students – she and Miriam – don’t warrant effort She is definitely tone deaf and Miriam who has no parents to cover their trail with money is as usual on the periphery there only to consume what crumbs of musical wisdom may be slid in her direction But it is Miriam who is made to remain in the room when Masterji sends her on the long walk from the music room through the courtyard past the statue of Saint Joseph and into the kitchen for glass after glass of water What is left for her to do on these walks but to fall into a trance as she moves through a hallway of endless classroom windows? Motes of dust swirl in precise shafts of light bequeathed by the late afternoon sun Shadows cast by metal bars punctuate this watery warmth She is in light Then in shadow Light then dark On this day she removes the school scarf from around her neck From somewhere she equips herself with matches sets the scarf on fire and slides it into the dark of a classroom cupboard Whether she does this

on the way to the kitchen or on the way from the kitchen is a truth that eludes her for all the years to come Among the surfeit of truths her life is invested with that year a new truth is intimated in Masterji’s unquenchable thirst She walks back to the music room glass carefully balanced in hand sure in her belief that this will be the last glass for a long time to come The package from her mother that brings news of the year in exile drawing to its close contains barrettes for distributions to the orphans of the convent There is a doll for her and a pink and white nightdress – nylon shirred and smocked at yoke – which the nuns declare pretty enough for Sunday church Miriam informs her that her mother’s handwriting in the accompanying letter is sophisticated She knows this is envy speaking and holds back her fear at this new layer – sophistication – she must add to the faltering image she carries of her mother There is much arguing over who gets the silver and who the gold barrettes and it is understood that when she leaves the doll will be Miriam’s to keep ❙

The career, a love story Often employees are on the scrapheap at

 A slow deliberate policy can finally push them to accept an unjust settlement By

Elizabeth O’Donnell

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In June  Brendan Tobin (not his real name) just  skipped his last day of school and headed for the next stage of his life in a small garage in West London that seemed to hold the answers to the mystery of the universe That’s how Brendan’s star career began He was now a car god; the myths about his speed under the bonnet circulated and he finished his apprenticeship under the supervision of a German manufacturer god of the car gods Brendan’s life was blessed and he lived for the next

years in a celestial glowBrendan travelled the world with his company and by October  he had been an expat in Germany for almost  years He knew everything about his product but otherwise had few intellectual interests He was not stupid; he was a doer of purposeful things He talked a lot fluent in humour football the autobahn and computer software But he wasn’t any good at corporate culture warfare He was just a brilliant engineer in love with his work a naïve love too absolute to be realistic When that kind of love dies it pulverises the spirit and destroys the heart As with most love affairs about to end there were warning signs: unrequited passion no promotion shelved ideas picked up by

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somebody else demands to take part in conflict resolution seminars intrapersonal growth workshops and team building Brendan didn’t get any of that He didn’t understand that it was almost over and that he had to find a clean means of walking away When he was called in in October  he behaved as if he had been ambushed wavering between deference and despair but he didn’t exit It would have been simpler if he’d said OK I understand people fall out of love relationships have their sell by dates there’s younger brighter talent on the way up Instead he became confused; his company began a campaign to convince him of his uselessness Gradually the assignments stopped He noticed he wasn’t being invited to attend meetings or weekly reviews He persuaded himself that this meant more freedom to smoke and chew wine gums but the truth was he wasn’t needed any more For several days nobody in his office spoke to him He was  in October  and his birthday turned out to be more than the usual plummet off the cliff of youth His occupational death was painfully slow He soon discovered that the resilience that had allowed him to transcend his British working class roots wasn’t compatible with the organisation’s structured

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routine He only had pidgin German and he didn’t apologise for that “but I do know cars” he said He didn’t consider himself unique He was confident about a few indisputable things

‘Cuckold by choice’ When Brendan first began to talk to me about what was happening to him at work he was in the “cuckold by choice” phase deliberately oblivious to being taken for a ride He continued to meet his obligations and take care of things If he didn’t accept the truth it hadn’t happened Although nothing new was crossing his desk there were a few projects that he continued to nurture confirming he still had some function By the end of  Brendan had found a labour lawyer and was in serious negotiations over his job He said his employer didn’t bargain in good faith For all his years of sales experience and fights with the big boys Brendan still innocently assumed that both parties in a contract dispute always aim for the same goal Brendan had devoted his life to the auto religion across continents His devotion wasn’t professional it was deeply personal and it had sculpted his heart He sought the counsel of friends and relatives as well as his lawyer not seeking advice but solace; like a jilted lover he wanted to be told his devotion had not been a terrible mistake When Brendan sat down with the company representative from human resources it was clear that they had separate solutions Brendan wasn’t offered much money He made the mistake of imagining that he would have accepted if the initial settlement had been fair but no amount of money could have eased his pain Since he had first begun to meet with his lawyer all meaningful work had stalled Even in English he couldn’t say what he felt Every morning as he climbed into his very special German company car he was convinced his life was disintegrating He often didn’t sleep He consoled himself with wine and cigarettes – they didn’t help – and spent hours surfing the net seeking a job description that began: “Wanted:  year old Englishman with a buffed cockney accent City and Guilds Diploma and

years’ experience at a world renowned automobile company that no longer finds him useful” He began to gain weight the kind that settles in the digits and collects around the heart Little by little the memory of who he had been slipped away One day on the way to his office he began to cry; he wasn’t afraid of the tears but of his failure Since he was  he had walked up the driveway of a big house not his own His identity derived from the interlocked stories of his work and life He wasn’t a mechanic who had made good He had become a worthwhile human being because he

“

Brendan’s daughter Flora was  and lived with him and her stepmother in Germany She represented things that Brendan had learned to do well: stay in one place and be a good father But when he lost his job these twin pillars of character wouldn’t support any new building

was a good mechanic Brendan had always excelled at his job because he did everything without ever stinting but now the face he saw in the mirror was of a man submerged below dirty water glaring drearily: he was unrecognisable He looked for comfort in places that couldn’t provide it His divorce from the company was about to happen but he wanted to hear that they had once had a good marriage that there had been great years somewhere between the honeymoon and the pending decree nisi but who would tell him that? The company wasn’t fighting for equity but economy They didn’t have to be generous in spirit Brendan’s daughter Flora was  and lived with him and her stepmother in Germany She represented things that Brendan had learned to do well: stay in one place and be a good father But when he lost his job these twin pillars of character wouldn’t support any new building Flora said what he couldn’t: “I love you dad isn’t that what counts?” He wasn’t a car god any more he had been banished from automobile Valhalla; he was just a minor fact in the historical record obsolete and irrelevant People he thought were his friends had long since behaved differently towards him as though his fall would lead to their own By May  the company had made its decision; the settlement wasn’t just but Brendan thought it was endurable and he couldn’t fight any more He would leave later in the year On May he drove two hours to teach a week’s software course relieved that he was still considered competent enough to represent the face of German excellence The maid found him dead in his hotel room the next morning; he had never realised that he was sick enough to call for professional help The police were called no autopsy was performed and the gods took back his company car before they told his family of his death They were thinking of the bottom line and his love and life were not negotiable assets It is probably safe to assume that he died of a broken heart

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” Nationalise the banks 3 0 EtheEMirror

By

Serge Halimi

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But one day the rope gave way Some debtors ruined and unable to borrow any more stopped repaying their loans

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The ills besetting the financial system are currently devouring the global economy on which it relies When one bank collapses another buys it ensuring that the state will have to rescue it because it is now too big to fail All of a sudden with a knife to their throats taxpayers everywhere are paying thousands of billions of dollars to bail out the biggest financial institutions No one knows how many toxic assets are still concealed in their innards or how much more will have to be paid to buy up the rising mountain of tainted loans – a clear consequence of financial deregulation Once upon a time it seems bankers had a nice easy life They subscribed to the US ‘



’ principle: borrow at
lend at  and off ?for a round of golf at
o’clock It did not take a regiment of mathematicians armed with econometric models to master this simple exercise Then in the s everything changed Diversification risk taking opening up and removing barriers: these were the new watchwords In 

the Glass Seagall Act was passed prohibiting US banks from dealing on the stock exchange Such old fashioned New Deal nonsense was abolished in the euphoria of the new economics Modernity beckoned

and banks no longer depended on the confidence of their savers Most of them rushed to invest in new products: ‘derivatives’ consisting of packages of loans they themselves once ìsecuritisedî The bankers themselves hardly know what is going on (a   page handbook would sometimes be needed for this sort of exercise) though they appreciated the cash all this innovation generated for them Lending more and more in the dark and with less and less equity was certainly taking a chance But these were the days of bubbles endless expansion financial pyramids and astronomical salaries all encouraging a policy of more of the same† At the end of  some banks lent up to
 times the amount they held in their vaults Insurance companies like American International Group (AIG) stood by covering this daring exhibition of tightrope walking But one day the rope gave way Some debtors ruined and unable to borrow any more stopped repaying their loans The banks were in a weak position: if a tiny fraction of the loans they had agreed could not be repaid they too would be bankrupt ñ and their insurers with them With house prices in free fall economic activity grinding to a halt unemployment soaring how are the financial institutions to recover? The answer is: the state will take care of them the same state which has too often let some genius shuttling between banks take the helm It is time for the state to address the problem In any case the financial sector can no longer look to private shareholders for its salvation: they only spring to life when the government announces a fresh injection of funds Nationalising the banks ñ anathema only yesterday when everyone (even the French socialists) was in favour of financial deregulation – is now such an obvious move and the disaster it would prevent so imminent that Republican members of Congress are recommending it in the US and neo liberal magazines like The Economist are regretfully advocating the same line† It seems however that as soon as the banks have been redeemed with taxpayersí money they will be returned to their shareholders In short put the house in order and then give it back to the people who looted it Why? Nationalised banking systems have funded decades of expansion What have private banks done of similar value?

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Women of Souss

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As Morocco’s agriculture has developed to provide Europe with its fruit vegetables and beauty oils its women workers have lost out with their farms engulfed by dams and salaries which remain pitifully small Before dawn in Douar Tamgoute el Jadid on the edge of the town of Aoulouz  year

old Kabira and  other Moroccan women pile into the back of a truck They complain that they won’t get home again till around pm After the first prayers of the day these farm workers are transported standing like cattle in the backs of the vehicles that crisscross the Souss plain to go and work for large scale agricultural businesses most funded by

Moroccan capital (especially from the royal family) or by the French and Spanish “We used to work in our own fields or our neighbours” the women say “There was no need for the authorities There were no conflicts between members of the community But on these big farms we don’t have the right to speak If someone’s not working fast enough the bosses insult them In some places employees get hit with sticks” One of the farms in the area has such a bad reputation that it’s referred to as Guantanamo The vast Souss plain stretches east from Agadir between the

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Its women workers have lost out with their farms engulfed by dams

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Why does ‘the financial sector’ exist?

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The normal suggestion is that a thoroughgoing reform of the ‘financial sector’ is needed that will lead to ‘more ethical’ ‘sustainable’ ‘less risky’ and ‘traditional’ banking From an associative perspective a crucial question to ask however is whether if we were able to manage our finances without the existence of banks we would in fact invent them Are they so mysterious or necessary? The notion of a separate ‘financial sector’ overlooks the fact that financing is implicit in any activity whether it is consciously managed or not If not then the financing aspect gets hived off to ‘specialist’ entities which are then described together as a ‘sector’ allowing them to make a special case for their continued existence The subtle point is that what matters economically is the continued healthy functioning of finance hence financial literacy not the existence of financial institutions Do those ‘in charge of the banking system’ really understand and feel responsible for it? Just as when the priests leave the temple the administrators keep the show running so too when true banking is no longer practised (investing in initiative) functionaries will go through the motions (lending against security) The whole process appears to work as long as the music never stops but then when it does it quickly becomes clear with how much insight banking was being practiced Instead of asking ‘what are banks for?’ therefore it would be more interesting to ask ‘what is banking?’ In that way the assumption that a bank as an entity

needs to exist can be addressed In essence ‘banking’ consists of three main distinct functions:  The settlement of accounts through a payment system  Intermediation between those with surpluses and those seeking capital
 Economic oversight (ensuring the integrity of the whole process through ‘sound’ judgement) However all these functions can be exercised without reference to banks In fact one could ask whether the very existence of banks really helps humanity to better understand its economic interrelationships By occupying the central ground banks effectively obscure what is taking place by maintaining the illusion of ‘undifferentiated’ money Rudolf Steiner’s economic analysis does not make the case for a ‘banking sector’ Indeed his version of a bank was simply an association of what in the West we would call for profits and not for

profits which linked their finances Clearly Steiner had in mind the need to manage economic life through the medium of three kinds of money which look not dissimilar to the three banking functions described above It may be too great a shift in understanding for some to make habituated as they are to the idea of money as a thing subject to the control of the banking community (or the state) The challenge of radical reform however may consist in being prepared to revisit one’s assumptions in this area and strike new ground rather than raking over the old ❙

Arthur Edwards

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3 2 EtheEMirror and Anti Atlas mountains as far as ➼ Atlas Aoulouz The region is home to some three

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Since the s according to Professor Najib Akeski of the Hassan II Agronomic and Veterinary Institute the state has focused its attention and most of its expenditure on a few commercial growing and exporting areas

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million people  of whom are rural Amazigh (Berbers) For generations their lives have been linked to the argan tree These trees grow nowhere else on earth except in this region’s semi arid climate where they form a barrier against the encroachment of the desert Since  a law has recognised ordinary people’s right to exploit these publically owned trees; floods or rare rainfall enable them to grow wheat between the trees graze their goats and harvest the fruits which fall in summer from which they extract argan oil

Peasants pay the price But agricultural policy aimed at integrating Morocco into the world economy has pushed this type of family farming to the margins Since the s according to Professor Najib Akeski of the Hassan II Agronomic and Veterinary Institute the state has focused its attention and most of its expenditure on a few commercial growing and exporting areas gradually giving up on the idea of food security In  under the guidance of the World Bank and the IMF so called structural adjustment programmes set in train the liberalisation of the agricultural sector They paved the way for free trade agreements especially with the European Union (see Why Morocco’s food is not secure) favouring the liberalisation of imports and the reduction of state spending on agriculture Some public or collectively owned land was given over to the private sector and

investment sought from abroad This was how the Souss plain became Morocco’s foremost fruit and vegetable growing area It currently produces   tonnes of vegetables including  of the country’s tomato exports much of which is sold in France from October to June Close behind is the citrus fruit sector with an annual production of   tonnes half of which goes overseas Aziz Akhannouch Morocco’s minister for agriculture is also president of the Souss Massa–Driça region He’s ambitious for his region which he wants to see become “one of the most dynamic agricultural centres in the world” by   Kabira doesn’t share his view however “Tomatoes oranges” she exclaims “I’ve done them all!” When the Aoulouz dam was opened  years ago her family lost its farm beneath the water She was still young at the time but she remembers having to move away and the bulldozers destroying their home She remembers too resettling in Tamgoute el Jadid and the pitiful compens

ation payment that was gone in a few months Though only just an adult she has had to work on big farms without a contract responding to the demands of the harvest cycle earning

 dirhams () a day The building of the dam meant numerous sources of water dried up and it was the peasants of Aoulouz who paid the price History repeated itself in  when the nearby Mokhtar Soussi dam was opened “That year we worked at a loss because the harvest was so meagre We got nothing from the olive trees either Most of us had to go and work somewhere else to survive” says Driss Aakik president of Aoulouz’s Poor Peasants’ Union whose hundred or so families have to cope with poor harvests on parched land The women who lead it organised a march in  to reclaim their right to water and electricity which resulted in charges being brought against them The peasants regularly demonstrate against the government’s investment policy The government “focuses on a few areas which get water from these big hydro projects” complains Amal Lahoucine an activist from the Moroccan Workers’ Union (UMT) in Taroudant

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theEMirrorE3 Encouraged by the World Bank the policy of building major dams has created considerable disparities according to Akesbi The World Bank itself acknowledges that “more than  of state investment in agriculture goes to large irrigation projects which bring relatively greater benefit to the better off farmers and the larger scale businesses” In the meantime thousands of small scale farmers continue to produce on so

called bour (non irrigated) land using archaic methods and without bank finance

Rights of workers ignored The UN Development Programme‚Äôs  report showed that Morocco has slipped back three places in its ranking of human development since  putting it th out of  nations However much the government protests you only have to travel around the country to see the lack of access to health care water and education which affects women particularly badly One of Kabira’s neighbours Khadija who’s only  has been trying her luck with mandarins: “Normally we get paid every fortnight But I started two months ago and I’ve only been paid once” Her friend Thouraya  has been working for the same company for a year and a half and hasn’t even seen a contract The social security department sends every employee on its register a statement; Kabira was surprised to discover that out of the seven years she has worked only three months had been declared by her employers According to Lahoucine Boulberj the UMT’s regional official responsible for agriculture “only   out of   agricultural workers ( of whom are women) in the region are officially declared What’s more lots of employers cheat on the number of hours they declare” These practices mean the employer gets a high degree of flexibility from the workforce while the employees go without unemployment and pension contributions paid holiday insurance and sick pay “We’re only just beginning to talk about work related illness due to pesticide use” Boulberj adds “Unregulated use of pesticides is common here As a general rule the bosses tell people who are sick to come back when they’re better Anyone who makes a fuss gets sacked The right to unionise is only tolerated in some places” The French firm Soprofel is one of the biggest agribusinesses in the region It

distributes its tomatoes in France under the Idyl brand “If we set up a union office the management infiltrate it” reported the delegates of the UMT and the Democratic Confederation of Work (CDT) who succeeded in leading a series of strikes and sit ins in several of Soprofel’s farms in  “We were only calling for our rights: to be officially declared to have pay slips to get recognition for overtime and access to health care But the company abandoned farms one by one put pressure on union members and then opened new ones elsewhere with new workers” The UMT complains that agreements already signed with the union haven’t been implemented Soprofel which produced   tonnes of vegetables in Morocco last season declined to comment By taking advantage of the shortcomings of the Moroccan labour code adopted in  several companies have sacked strikers alleging they were “obstructing work” Union officials of the Royal Domains of Chtouki have denounced these sackings as merely a pretext in order to get rid of union members In Biougra the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) has reported cases of rape on farms Its vice president Fatifa Sakr who is a midwife by training is concerned about the spread of Aids and sexually transmitted diseases She underlines the vulnerability of female workers who travel alone or with their children from distant villages in the Mid Atlas

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The social security department sends every employee on its register a statement; Kabira was surprised to discover that out of the seven years she has worked only three months had been declared by her employers

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“There’s no social housing” she complains “Some companies offer very insecure housing on the farm” In the rural area of Aeöt Amira in the douar (tented village) of Laarab farm workers sleep in shelters made out of rubbish on a piece of waste land littered with filth Oulhouss Lahoucine president of the local section of the AMDH reports that “delinquency and drug use have reached worrying levels”

Water supplies are running out The dusty road to this shantytown is desolate: broken greenhouses sit falling apart on the cracked soil among the dried

up argan trees These are sites abandoned by the big companies At el Guerdane nearly
 hectares of orchard have been abandoned or grubbed up between  and  because the water supply has run out A km water feeder scheme is currently being constructed which

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3 4 EtheEMirror provide irrigation for the remaining ➼ will citrus farms This pipe will start from the

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In addition to Soprofel which has established itself in this desert Azura a Franco

Moroccan company has  farms in Agadir and two in Dakhla This company whose products are sold on the market through Disma International is forthcoming about its organic techniques to combat pests with beneficial insects but makes no mention at all of the question of water availability

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Aoulouz dam and run alongside the dried

up fields of the poor peasants who don’t have any water In spite of the savings they make on wages irrigation costs reduce the profits of the big farms “Most of them now have to pump water from a depth of more than  metres” according to Abdelkrim Azenfar the regional director of the water and forests department for the southwest “That’s causing a drop in the level of the water table of around three metres a year The region’s annual water deficit has reached  million cubic metres” He’s concerned that these businesses don’t seem to worry about the country’s future After they have turned one place to desert they do the same to another further south perpetually in search of as much sunlight as possible: Guelmine and Dakhla in the western Sahara are the new up and

coming areas for hydroponic tomato production under glass In addition to Soprofel which has established itself in this desert Azura a Franco Moroccan company has  farms in Agadir and two in Dakhla This company whose products are sold on the market through Disma International is forthcoming about its organic techniques to combat pests with beneficial insects but makes no mention at all of the question of water availability “The region could turn into a desert” In the Souss region according to a report by the department of water and forests this type of agriculture is already having a serious impact on the argan trees This includes: “changes in social structures through the development of agriculture for profit which benefits speculators and penalises local users; the death of trees as a result of soil erosion; and the drying up of the water supply” As Benhammou Bouzemouri national director for forest development points out argan trees contribute to the household income of peasant families to the tune of between  and   Bouzemouri is worried about the consequences of a form of agriculture which has intensive water needs and is also alarmed by the growing worldwide success of argan oil extracted from the tree’s kernels which increases the pressure on the forest: “In the long term if nothing is done the whole region could turn into a desert”

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However the commercial success of argan oil could contribute to the development of another part of the rural economy in the Souss region There are already more than  production cooperatives giving employment to around   women The first women‚’s social enterprises that produced argan oil sprang up in the late s thanks in particular to Zoubida Charrouf a chemist whose research had already confirmed the virtues of argan Back then oil production was a family affair and hardly anyone outside the forest region itself used the oil Once they have been dried the harvested fruits have their flesh stripped off to get at the nut which then has to be struck between two stones in order to extract the kernel The skill of the Souss peasants lies in this age old practice: workers can produce a little over a kilo of kernels per day And it then takes two and a half kilos of kernels to produce a litre of oil Argan oil appeared on the international market around ”Big companies started talking about giving work and dignity to Berber women” says Charrouf with some irony In the space of a few years middlemen multiplied and Moroccan and European industrialists have set up small and large scale processing facilities in Casablanca and Marrakesh which are equipped with extractors able to provide the production capacity that exporters demand The cosmetics industry in Europe the US Canada and Japan is buoyant and argan oil has appeared in the beauty departments of supermarkets in an ever growing range of products backed by big budget marketing campaigns However there is no machine that can break these nuts properly So most companies buy their kernels from wholesalers for a derisory sum less than  a kilo The wholesalers get them from peasants who because of their isolation don’t have the power to negotiate for the true value of what they are selling The women of the cooperatives on the other hand earn at least    a day and benefit from other advantages such as literacy classes childcare and sometimes profit sharing according to Tareçabt Rachmain president of the National Association of Argan Cooperatives (Anca) As a result of European cooperation the majority of the  co ops that are members of the association are equipped with electric presses Nonetheless they can’t measure up to the price war waged

theEMirrorE3 by the big companies: the production cost of a litre of oil from a cooperative factoring in only the raw materials and wages is at least   There are brands that sell for as little as  a litre in the supermarkets in Morocco produced by companies which sell them for eight to  times more in Europe The French entrepreneur Beno√Æt Robinne has one of the prime positions in these companies “We have two to three thousand female piece workers We deliver bags of argan fruits to them and pay them  a kilo [therefore per day] for their work cracking the nuts” he said However Robinne was filmed by journalists from the Envoyé special TV programme in the souk with a sidekick who was carrying a suitcase full of banknotes to spend on bulk quantities of kernels His company Absim produces 

  litres of oil a month according to the factory director in Casablanca A co op can’t produce more than  litres in that period At the same time given the pressure of demand the argan forest which covers some   hectares is increasingly under threat even though it has been recognised as a Biosphere Reserve by Unesco “All the argan fruit is being collected The forest no longer regenerates itself naturally You even see people beating the trees to collect the fruit damaging the flowers” complains Adelfrim Azenfar To make matters worse the argan trees yielded almost nothing in  as the result of a drought that has now become systemic Unsurprisingly the scarcity of raw materials made the price triple in the space of two months Speculators built up stocks of the fruit to sell on at a high price to producers with supply contracts to fulfil “Some cooperatives have stopped producing for lack of funds to buy in fruits” says Rachmain Even if the  harvest is better the situation can only get worse in the long term: planting schemes for argan trees which only begin to fruit after ten years won’t make up for the annual loss of around  hectares of forest More than   hectares have been turned into agricultural land for greenhouses or field cropping And   more were sacrificed in   for urban and tourist development

What’s in a name? The agriculture minister has admittedly been making an effort to protect a product

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that is unique to his region The creation of a Protected Geographic Indication (PGI) for argan oil from the Souss should help to maintain its added value “Argan is the common name for the oil” insist the women from the co ops But the word was trademarked in the s by the French Pierre Fabre laboratories which marketed an argan based cream under that name While the co ops’ women are outraged the Fabre company claims to be unaware that ‘úits’ trade name poses a problem What‚’s more there’s nothing at present to indicate that the PGI will protect the traditional or semi mechanised cooperatives from the industrial scale businesses that are able to negotiate tough contracts Rather than encouraging the small producers whether in agriculture or argan processing the ministry’s policy is to give most support to investors and exporters: substantial grants are being offered to vegetable growers to invest in irrigation equipment designed to conserve water and aid is also being given for industrial producers of argan oil to move into the PGI zone Meanwhile aid for co ops is limited to consolidating the existing fragile structures rather than creating new businesses And so the new Okhowa co op in Taroudant has received neither machines nor aid Malika a young women whose farm was destroyed by one of the Aoulouz dams has nothing to depend on except the motivation and solidarity of her
 or so fellow co op members “We’re sick of working for the big farms” most of the women say The women of the Union of Poor Peasants of Aoulouz would also like to set up a cooperative But they lack the means “What else can we do?” they wonder Goat rearing isn’t the answer The advancing desert is pushing the nomads from the south into the argan forest with their flocks The forest is already suffering from over grazing Family farms argan production and animal husbandry are the three traditional resources of the Berber peasants of Souss Massa Dreça

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Rather than encouraging the small producers whether in agriculture or argan processing the ministry’s policy is to give most support to investors and exporters: substantial grants are being offered to vegetable growers to invest in irrigation equipment designed to conserve water

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These activities maintained a small rural economy which assured food security in spite of methods that were bound to change The Amazigh culture is also dis

appearing Kabira expresses her concern with a gesture: miming a plane flying overhead towards Europe she says “Here walou! Nothing” ❙

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A one year course, a lifetime to digest By

Thijs Moonen Belgium Participant at YIP – 

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The one thing that spoke most strongly when I informed myself about YIP was the bold courage and idealism which was present in everything I read

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How do you share something you experienced but cannot describe? Looking back on five months of initiation at the Youth Initiative Program (YIP) is a daunting task as I will always fail to cover everything which makes YIP what it is: a one year course followed by a lifetime to digest

world will soon be a merely rational choice if we want to preserve this planet’s fragile biosphere Planet in Crisis is a euphemism for what we are really facing Seemingly drastic choices will be nothing compared to the drastic uncontrolled changes we will see if we fail to take those decisions

There is little doubt that in six months from now when I finish the first YIP year together with
 fellow students my thinking and being will have gone through such a vast evolution that everything I do from then on will somehow relate back to this year of transformation I say this with nuance; dogma is not present and the organisers have no other goal than to create an educational program which was asked for by young people around the world If one would want to put YIP in a box I reckon it would be that of rational idealistic imagineering

Rational idealism is what the world asks for and it is what the millennial generation intuitively looks out for Going off the beaten path taking risks facing challenges with passion and persistence Starting businesses and initiatives driven by the fierce urgency of now; ultimately connecting millions of people worldwide that shape the world we want to see

Bold courage The one thing that spoke most strongly when I informed myself about YIP was the bold courage and idealism which was present in everything I read Few programs claim that they can help young people in their drive to change the world through initiative even though it is what so many of my generation ask for and miss in conventional education I can now say that this claim was not PR talk but the actual core of the program I also realised that this courage alone is not enough but it is the very basic for those who want to guide today and tomorrow’s youth in the challenging decades to come It is a simple matter of leading by example Bold courage idealism and trust in the future make a natural habitat for Change Makers Combine it with Imagineering and you’ve got the ultimate breeding grounds for social change At YIP you’re encouraged to dream big be idealistic imagine and explore ideas as wild as you wish “You want to bring life to the desert? Let’s sit down and see how we can help” In the meanwhile you learn the skills to bring it down on paper communicate and fundraise your ideas

So where does the rational of rational idealistic imagineering come in? It seems to be contradicting the idealism but is not if we take a sober look at the state of our planet To give one example imagineering and engineering the ideal of a fossil free www.asiapublishinggroup.com

True potential The impression might crop up that YIP is an elite program for change making machines But it is not about finding the most talented young entrepreneurs and giving them an exclusive education It is about guiding every participant to their most brilliant self and the ability to use their true potential This is another core belief of the Youth Initiative Program: discovering the world and exploring oneself are unmistakably connected It is difficult to explain how crucial this has been in my YIP experience because Expressions like ‘change in consciousness’ and ‘awareness’ are sensitive to connotation So let me illustrate it with a quote from contributor Nicanor Perlas: the heart of a revolution is a revolution of the heart How does all that materialise? Rather than giving an overview of what we have been doing in the year so far I’ll give an overview of what I’ve been doing this past week The weekend was quite calm A highlight was a meeting with Ulf Dahlström about clean energy engines A brainstorm about next year’s YIP and some research on what I’ll be doing next year filled my Sunday Regine Andersen hosted the morning lectures We mainly discussed the loss of agro

biodiversity worldwide and practical work came in the form of learning a solution tool called the Logical Framework Approach One afternoon we screened the BBC’s ‘Jungle’

episode from the planet earth series as a follow up on a morning lecture on the rain forests Also in the framework of biodiversity we watched The World according to Monsanto prior to meeting a local anti GMO

theEMirrorE3 activist On Thursday afternoon a couple of YIP’ies met with Michael Lask a local engineer who is developing an implosion engine In the evening I had a biographical counseling session

Visions and fears Multiply this by  or so weeks add up a one month international internship a personal project and a Youth Conference organised by participants and you’ve got an idea of what a year at YIP is like Or not quite It’s the small happenings that will never surface in articles that will mark this year for me The indescribable things that happen when
young people from  different countries share their visions and yearnings

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struggles and fears It is a lifetime within a lifetime with crisis and moments of glory deep conversation and conflict Never before has a generation been given so much opportunity for true change We are the ones that will bring forth an era where our relationship to the planet is changed once again We will have to think fast and act even faster We take this inevitable responsibility with trust intuition and the knowledge that we are never alone in our striving The Youth Initiative Program is a proof of that For more information about YIP visit wwwyipse ❙

Credit crunch Japanese style

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On  June  a sunny Sunday afternoon a man in his twenties made his way to the crowded streets of Tokyo’s Akihabara district a popular venue for pop culture in the city Lots of locals and tourists had come to see people dressed up as manga and anime characters The peace of the afternoon was shattered when the man pulled out a knife and went on the rampage killing seven people seriously injuring  more and leaving the country reeling from the shock As always specialists have come forward with an explanation: “Japan is in the process of becoming a criminogenic society To ensure this doesn’t happen again security measures need to be tightened up” () However as Japanese violent crime figures have been falling continuously since the mid  s Japan’s reputation as a fundamentally safe society doesn’t seem under threat The young temporary worker responsible for this savage attack had lost his bearings in Japanese society “I wanted to kill anyone at all ” he said when he was arrested That was the only justification he was able to give for his actions In the weeks leading up to the attack though he had published posts on his website in which he expressed the fear of losing his job and being abandoned He was afraid of confronting a reality which many Japanese escape by seeking refuge in virtual worlds It is a malaise felt by an increasing number of Japanese who face the threat of unemployment and growing social inequality in a country where only
 years ago more than  of the population described themselves as middle class (churyu) ()

At that time the whole country had a common objective to join the club of great economic powers and the feeling of cohesion this engendered made possible an amazing degree of political and social stability The state business education and the family provided reliable reference points for every individual and so it was natural that the Japanese should follow the course that was laid out for them

The bubble burst No one was prepared for the upheavals of the s Neither the government nor business expected the “Japanese model” to fall apart as dramatically as it did after the financial bubble burst just as the communist world collapsed In the space of a few months the economy weakened bringing repercussions for Japan’s international relations A period of chaos coming after such stability provoked a major trauma One result of the crisis was a weakening of the banking sector which a few years before had been ranked among the strongest in the world Businesses were quick to make massive lay offs among a workforce which had devoted itself wholeheartedly to its employers’ success In the geopolitical arena Japan realised that being the exclusive ally of the US during the cold war no longer protected it from international shocks Japan had to assert itself on the international stage at the very moment when its sickly economy was making it weaker And no one seemed capable of setting the right course for the nation

As long as the system worked few questioned it Japan’s booming economy suffered a sharp shock in the s Ten years on despite greater prudence the current world crisis has caused another tumble due to the drastic drop in its exports By

Odaira Namihei

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3 8 EtheEMirror Ten years on from this first crisis just as ➼ it seemed able to get back on its feet Japan

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Car manufacturers the symbol of Japan’s export

oriented economy have been the first victims In profit a year before Toyota reported a  bn loss ( bn) for the year to end March  It has announced   redundancies

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has taken another tumble Even if it didn’t get carried away by the financial bubble this time around it has nonetheless been affected by it: its GDP has fallen by   This collapse is due to the drastic drop in its exports down   in the  months to January  (
) “Japanese export industries have been big beneficiaries of a favourable set of circumstances globally Now that the crisis has affected the whole planet they’re suffering the most ” according to Ryutaro Kono chief economist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo () Car manufacturers the symbol of Japan’s export oriented economy have been the first victims In profit a year before Toyota reported a  bn loss ( bn) for the year to end March  It has announced   redundancies In the car industry overall   people are expected to have lost their jobs by  April  The picture is the same in the electronics sector Japan’s unemployment rate was  at the end of January It could exceed  by the end of the year ( ) and though that may seem a low figure compared with other developed nations Japan is a country used to almost full employment where people find it difficult to accept that society is getting poorer The deregulation introduced to deal with the crisis of   has undermined the country’s ability to cope with the current

crisis “There’s nothing left in this country It’s a dead country ” says the high school student in Ryu Murakami’s novel Kibo no kuni no ekusodasu (Exodus to the Land of Hope) – an illustration of the prevailing state of mind of Japan’s youth In the book the writer imagines huge numbers of adolescents going off to live in Hokkaido where they set up a semi

independent state which runs by different rules from the rest of the country

No longer accountable Everyone profited in the years of the financial bubble Twenty years on only a minority are still doing well while many others have to make do with low paid work The terms freeters (a neologism formed form the English word “free” and the German “Arbeiter” which indicates a person who gets by on menial jobs) and NEET (not in education employment or training) have appeared in the press and become synonymous with social exclusion At the end of  Japan had more than  million freeters and around   NEETs members of a lost generation (known as the losu jene in Japanese) In his film Tokyo Sonata () director Kiyoshi Kurosawa portrays this generation through the character of the elder son in a family that is falling apart The boy joins the US military (permissible under a fictional change in the law) and goes off to fight far from home according to an absurd logic whereby a Japanese national becomes a US soldier The young man however takes control of his destiny and ends up going over to the enemy in order to “find absolute happiness” And that’s the lesson the director wanted to get across: the re

naissance of Japanese society will inevitably depend on its youth and the reconstruction of its key reference points Kurosawa emphasises the border as a symbol of the relationship between Japan (represented in his film by the family) and the rest of the world This film illustrates the way society has changed as a result of the policies of Junichiro Koizumi’s government ( ) Takafumi Horie symbolises

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theEMirrorE3 this period in which neo liberalism came to dominate This young internet entrepreneur started in  with the idea that everything is for sale if the price is right and went on to create the vast Livedoor empire “Without doubt it’s you who makes today’s youth dream ” Koizumi assured him shortly before the

year old was arrested in January  for violating stock exchange rules His indictment provoked a mini crash which forced the Tokyo stock exchange to close early for the first time in its history

‘I can’t get rich even if I work’ If Horie’s value system made some of Japan’s youth dream it contributed to the marginalisation of others who never found a place in a country in which money was all

powerful Tokyo Sonata opens with the father of the family being sacked when the company he works for moves to China He feels outraged at the decision but he accepts it As long as the system worked and enabled companies to make record profits few people questioned it And those who were on the outside kept behaving as though they were still part of it; the father in the film continues to lead the life of a perfect employee: he goes off to work each morning although he has no job and acts like he believes he’ll still be able to find his place in the system again But he has to put up with the fact that globalisation has prevailed over the Japanese model

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Between
 December  and January  he ran a “Village of Temporary Workers” in Hibiya Park in central Tokyo not far from the ministerial district The aim was to publicise the distress of temporary workers as the first victims of the recession As they have no social protection and are often given accommodation by their employer they can find themselves turned out on the street from one day to the next According to official figures    of them were expected to be jobless by  April  ()

Provoking debate Makoto Yuasa’s initiative had an effect: nearly   volunteers turned up at the village to lend a hand and legal advice given to some  of the unemployed workers has helped many of them get compensation Other villages have been set up around the country Of course Yuasa realises that this won’t in itself be enough to get the country back on its feet But a new more stable economic model in which everyone in society has their place remains speculative However the time when the government could act without being held accountable is gone The Japanese Communist Party registered around   new members in  and subscriptions to its daily paper Akahata (Red Flag) also saw an uplift ()

Globalisation has even contributed to the creation of a category of workers which the Japanese refer to by the English term the “working poor” as if to emphasise that the very concept is alien to Japanese culture While the Japanese overwhelmingly identify themselves as churyu (middle class) they prefer a foreign expression to talk about a phenomenon which profoundly disturbs them A documentary entitled “I can’t get rich even if I work” which was broadcast in an early evening slot in July  came as a revelation: what had seemed until then a matter of individual behaviour now struck them as a collective failure which demanded action

Twenty six year old Haruki Konno runs the Posse association which aims to establish new relations in Japanese society and help the young find their way in the world of work He confirms that Japanese people want to get involved In the first issue of the organisation’s magazine one of the themes they tackled was “Identity and young workers in relation to the Akihabara killings” The magazine’s editors knew that by presenting that tragic event in the context of their society’s malaise they would make a splash Their magazine has not just been selling very strongly it has sparked a heated debate ❙

Yuasa Makoto a leader of the Network against Poverty condemns what he calls the “toboggan society” in which workers who don’t have a contract have to fend for themselves “Once you’ve reached the bottom you can’t take the toboggan back up again Starting over is an impossible task for people who are excluded” As a result he decided to launch a campaign against poverty which is threatening social cohesion

() TV programme on Nippon Terebi Tokyo  June  () Report published by the prime minister’s office  (
) Tokyo Shimbun  February  () Asahi Shimbun Tokyo  February  ( ) Shukan Asahi Tokyo  December  () Mainichi Shimbun Tokyo  February  () Asahi Shimbun  January 

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Globalisation has even contributed to the creation of a category of workers which the Japanese refer to by the English term the “working poor” as if to emphasise that the very concept is alien to Japanese culture

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4 0 EtheEMirror ETHICAL FINANCE

Procter and Gamble increases sustainability goals for 2012

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P&G’s work on bettering the lives of children in need through its Live Learn and Thrive corporate social responsibility programmes

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Procter and Gamble says the updates reflect the company’s ‘continued progress’ in improving the environmental profile of its products and operations as well as its work on bettering the lives of children in need through its Live Learn and Thrive corporate social responsibility programmes P&G established its five sustainability strategies in  with specific measurable goals in key areas The revised  goals include: ◆ Develop and market at least USD  billion in cumulative sales of ‘sustainable innovation products’ that have a significantly reduced ( per cent) environmental footprint versus previous or alternative products ◆ Deliver a  per cent reduction (per unit of production) in carbon dioxide emissions energy consumption water usage and disposed waste from P&G plants leading to a total reduction over the decade of at least  per cent P&G originally targeted a  per cent reduction in each of its operational categories ◆ Enable
 million children to Live Learn and Thrive and deliver three billion litres of clean water through P&G’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water programme P&G had set an original target of reaching   million children through Live Learn and Thrive and delivering two billion

litres of clean water through its Children’s Safe Drinking Water programme P&G was recently recognised by the Financial Times and Just Means with the / Social Innovation Award and ranked th in Corporate Responsibility Officer Magazine’s th Annual  Best Corporate Citizens List® For more information on P&G’s commitment to sustainability visit: http:// wwwethicalperformancecom/reports/links/ pg sustainability ❙

ETHICAL FINANCE

Social Responsibility Report from Sompo

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One of Japan’s largest insurance and financial groups Sompo Japan Insurance has launched its seventh annual report on its corporate social responsibility activities

resource conservation plus various corporate citizenship activities in collaboration with civil society organizations

The Sompo Japan Insurance Corporate Social Responsibility Communication  includes details of the group’s role in mitigating and adapting climate change as well as the develop

ment of its socially responsible investment fund

Sompo which is the only Japanese insurance company to have been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for nine consecutive years is the Japanese financial sector’s sole member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

It also covers the group’s performance on the development of environmental financial services and products environmental education energy and

To access the report go to: http:// ethicalperformancecom/reports/links/Sompo

Japan Report ❙

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ETHICAL FINANCE

Sport Matters

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For the eighth year running the sporting goods company adidas Group has published a report on its efforts to be a sustainable business This year the report runs on the theme of ‘Sport Matters’ re emphasising the fact that the Group takes its values from sport Two sections have been expanded to provide a more detailed explanation of strategic priorities and of the issues that challenged the Group in  There is more perform

ance analysis highlighting key findings and trends from the company’s data The review also explains how targets the company has set have helped to deliver its strategy plus the reasons for the progress that was made and what was learnt from the Group’s efforts This year’s document is an online review only with no printed version to make it easily

accessible to as many interested stakeholders as possible Both the review and its pdf can be downloaded from: http://wwwethical performancenet/ a d i d a s G r o u p _ sustainabilityhtml To provide any feedback about the social and environmental programme and its reporting please direct requests and/or comments to mailto: sustainability@adidas

Groupcom The adidas Group is a global leader in the sporting goods industry and offers a broad portfolio of products in footwear apparel and hardware Activities of the company and its more than   subsidiaries are directed from the Group’s headquarters in Herzogenaurach Germany ❙

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The adidas Group is a global leader in the sporting goods industry and offers a broad portfolio of products in footwear apparel and hardware

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ETHICAL FINANCE

Prices reduced in Least Developed Countries

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Multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has published its  Corporate Responsibility Report The report details recent announcements that GSK will reduce prices for patented medicines in the ‘Least Developed Countries’ so they are no higher than  per cent of the developed world price

and reinvest  per cent of profits from sales of medicines in these countries to support the strengthening of healthcare infrastructure It already sells its HIV/Aids medicines at not for profit prices in Least Developed Countries and sub

Saharan Africa GSK will also explore taking a more flexible approach to intellectual property rights to stimulate research into medicines for neglected tropical diseases Other aspects of GSK policy covered in the report include:

➡ being the first pharmaceutical company to publish its product donations at average cost of goods rather than the wholesale acquisition cost thus more accurately reflecting the true cost to GSK ➡ stopping all corporate political donations ➡ committing to publish all clinical trials irrespective of whether the studies are perceived to be positive or negative for GSK products ➡ disclosing physician payments for conducting clinical trials starting with US payments in  ➡ publishing payments to US physicians for advisory services during  extending to European physicians in  To read the report go to http:// wwwethicalperformancecom/reports/links/ gskresponsibility ❙

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Microfinance the Business of Dignity Building Roshaneh Zafar president of Kashf Foundation writes in her article “Microfinance the Business of Dignity Building”

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It has come into observation that most of the field staff are unaware of even the definition and importance of client satisfaction as well as the real objectives of microfinance

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The Pakistan Micro Finance Network has declared the code of conduct for customer protection and all member organisations have signed without any difference of opinion Though it is a milestone in the history of the Pakistan microfinance sector it is now very late because the whole market has come into an enormous jumble A chain of delinquency has occurred in Punjab… the biggest province of Pakistan Thousands of microfinance clients have refused to repay and have started agitation against the largest MFI of Pakistan Moreover some parliamentarians have issued letters to these defaulters who are their voters and supporters also about not paying back their debts to the MFIs This delinquency is spreading like a disease While one fake and illicit NGO is providing shelter to the delinquent clients and maneuvering their demonstrations on the roads as well as in front of media This virus is also thinning out within the other MFIs It has come into observation that most of the field staff are unaware of even the definition and importance of client satisfaction as well as the real objectives of microfinance They are also unaware of the vision and mission of their organisations The perception of target clients and loan portfolio quality is another ‘question mark’ Over stressed demotivated and unsatisfied staff or internal clients has been involved in cash fraud and other malpractices There is a demand of sixteen thousand frontliners according to PMN but the already working staff has not been not allowed to rotate from one to another organisation professionally although the PPAF always encourages and suggests this of staff as well as managements Most management is reluctant to accept the staff with open arms for the betterment of the sector Pakistan Microfinance Network is required to work on ‘staff protection code of conduct also’ Otherwise a precious human resource may be mislaid and inept In spite of a few leading MFIs most of them have become suffocated hodgepodge and some sort of sandwich between eastern and western cultures There is a need to

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customise their working style according to geographical and demographical segmentation Especially it is needed to disburse only target clients conditioned with the use of loans in businesses Over lapping should be prohibited and outreach stopped The race to increase outreach is another cause of losing internal controls of the organization while the  MFIs are not focusing exactly on the targeted poor client suggested by the World Bank Still there is a large potential market available for microfinance in Pakistan principally with an integrated approach because the area of “integrated microfinance” is still vacant The MFIs and NGOs already working are not so capable of make it viable It is highly recommended that the new organisations should be encouraged in this field with a modern and psychographic approach as well as segmentation HIV MSN and spatial areas can be targeted because there is room for it in Pakistan Observations reveal that these very sensitive turning points for Microfinance in Pakistan higher managements have to think upon They have to resolve these issues seriously and will have to come out of their personal shelves PMN will have to set some criteria for model organisations and should start an annual award ceremony for best organizations in different organizational aspects Excellent clients and best efficient staff should also be considered ❙

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The Blue Sweater

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The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World relates to how Jacqueline Novogratz left international banking for an adventure in Africa that proved the starting point for a career as a social investor with a mission to change radically the way the problems of the developing world are approached Her writing is not particularly elegant or original but her stories are powerful She has worked all over the developing world as a consultant who helps poor women start businesses She is a strong believer in the transformative power of capitalism She could be right about that But some of her stories particularly the ones about Africa seem to point more to the rampant corruption that ruins attempts to improve lives than to the small successes that microfinancing sometimes creates Her hopefulness and faith in people despite this endemic corruption is commendable but at times it seems a bit romantic although she often decries this over optimistic romanticism in other Western development workers Her stories about Rwanda are the most riveting She worked in Rwanda in the s before the genocide and then returned often after the genocide to find her friends and hear their stories The stories not unexpectedly are harrowing Many women lost almost all their relatives and children; one was in prison for inciting genocide Her meditation on the efficacy of bed nets to prevent malaria is thoughtful and convincing and she discusses honestly the pros and cons of selling versus giving away bed nets The reader comes away with a detailed picture of life in the developing world in all its beauty and horror and with admiration for the people who keep trying to help despite the enormous obstacles

Jacqueline Novogratz is founder and CEO of Acumen Fund a non profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty Acumen Fund seeks to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital combined with large doses of business acumen can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor Acumen Fund currently manages more than 
 million in investments in South Asia and East Africa all focused on delivering affordable healthcare water housing and energy to the poor The organisation also includes the Acumen Fund Fellows Program focused on building the next generation of business leaders with an understanding of global issues and poverty The organization has offices in New York Pakistan India and Kenya Prior to Acumen Fund Jacqueline found

ed and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Gener

ation Leadership pro

grams at the Rockefeller Foundation She also founded Duterimbere a microfinance institution in Rwanda She began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank She is currently on the advisory boards of Stanford Graduate School of Business and of Innovations Journal published by MIT Press and she serves on the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees and as a member of two World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils on Social Entrepreneurship and on Water She is an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow and a Synergos Institute Senior Fellow and she was recently honored as an Ernst & Young Metro New York Entrepreneur of the Year  award She is a frequent speaker at international conferences including the Clinton Global Initiative and the TED conference She has an MBA from Stanford University and a BA in Economics/ International Relations from the University of Virginia She speaks Spanish and French and has a working knowledge of Swahili ❙

Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World

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Prior to Acumen Fund Jacqueline founded and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership programs at the Rockefeller Foundation

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the peaceful sounds of living water Flowform water – the energy of a mountain stream and the rhythm of life – helping water renew itself These beautiful Flowform™ ceramics can also enliven tap water for use in your home. Design for Life Ltd PO Box 25, Napier, NZ [email protected] www.flow-forms.com Freephone: 0508 327 468 www.asiapublishinggroup.com