South~South! (copyright)
Goats taught me Social Justice!
Culture-based curriculum is indispensable to ethical development throughout the Global South
I first experienced, on the ground in Srinagar, Kashmir, India the critical realization that Social Medicine is an essential person-centered, community-based strategy for prevention, amelioration, healing and wellness.
Where? Everywhere, but especially throughout the Global South. Especially for the economically disadvantaged for whom Poverty is a preventable Illness.
Garibon Ki Bimari, as one such economically disadvantaged, oppressed yet dignified person explained to me on Zero Bridge in Srinagar.
1. The livelihood security social justice approach to healing centers on patient self-diagnosis combined with the wise expertise of holistically trained doctors, constitutes an urgent priority throughout the Global South, where hunger, malnutrition cause a wide range of preventable physiological and psychological health problems.
Social Medicine as practiced by Dr. Arshad Arif and his colleagues is a way forward from Togo to Thalassery, Somalia to Srinagar.
2. Collecting data on INDIGENOUS CULTURAL KNOWLEDGES and developing a Taxonomy of Sustainable Indigenous Practices based on these studies can help us develop a template of wholly DO-ABLE projects that can have long term benefit throughout the Global South
South~South, (copyrighted) Everybody!
Dr. Chithra Karunakaran
City University of New York
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
=============================================================================
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
GOATS -- for Social Justice
The Goat Narrative seems to be gaining ground, clambering into ethical spaces in some of the most conflicted and battle-weary war zones of South Asia.
Kashmir and Kandahar (and several hundred villages in between), would benefit from a few thousand extra goats.
Homegrown goats from across South Asia and perhaps a nice Goat Exchange set up with our sisters and brothers in sovereign nation-states in the previously colonized and still oppressed Global South. Indonesia, Africa, Ecuador.
We need Goats instead of Drones.
Let those US generals and US-led NATO European occupiers, chew on that.
Let Obama ruminate.
Goats have work to do. Peacework. Pro-Poor development.
This past summer I volunteered in Srinagar with an innovative Social Medicine project called PACE -- Prevention & Care for Everyone. The founder-director a serene,intense,dedicated Kashmiri doctor who had quit his safe government job to directly offer care to persons suffering from symptoms related to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as drug related problems,
told me a Goat story.
One day, Dr. Arshad Arif was treating an elderly woman patient. She suddenly asked him:
"CAN YOU GET ME A GOAT?"
Is anyone listening to this innocent casualty of terror, violence, hunger and deprivation?
What is she telling us?
That she is fully capable of self-diagnosis. She doesn't really need a doctor to tell her what's wrong with her.
She knows what ails her. What has made her mentally ill is a cruel denial of livelihood opportunity.
If she has a goat, a goat will give her milk that she can sell to her neighbors and the money earned will give her a chance to feed herself and her family.
She will walk around while tending her goat and the very act of walking will take her outdoors with something safe and productive to do.
The very act of walking will kick in her endorphins, lessening her pain and despair, and lifting her depressive symptoms.
She wants to be an entrepreneur. She wants to be self employed and earn a living.
Who's listening?
She wants to be well and knows exactly how to get well.
She's basically saying Don't get my Goat. Just give me one.
Or two.
Or three.
Throw in some sheep to optimize sustainability.
Over in Afghanistan the Goat narrative has been repeated many times over. (see link below)
Who's listening?
Goats for PEACE of MIND.
Goats for a PIECE of the Rock, A Slice of the Pie.
Goats for SOCIAL JUSTICE.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
Read the link below to understand why the US govt will probably NEVER get it right in South Asia. Unless they give up their loose-cannon, control-freak , extremely profitable, expanionist, militaristic mindset.
In this article, the author, a US soldier,(read his bio below) collects powerful factual data from a local Afghan elder. He then proceeds to DRAW the WRONG CONCLUSION, based upon the US IDEOLOGY OF GLOBAL DOMINANCE.
I have bolded passages in the NYTimes text, adding my own emphasis, to refute the soldier's NYTimes article and instead, make the case for SOCIAL JUSTICE. (CKK)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/fending-off-failure-in-afghanistan/?scp=1&sq=Goats%20Afghanistan&st=cse
VIOLENCE is the preferred(read -- most lucrative)option of the US in South Asia.
The sooner WE THE PEOPLE of the sovereign nation-states of South Asia recognize this on-the-ground proven fact, the better for us all in South Asia.
Our own homegrown so-called leaders in South Asia just don't get it, so it is up to WE the PEOPLE of South Asia, working TOGETHER.
Sorry James Morin, Goats and Drones just don't go together. Goats and Troops don't go together. Goats and deadly Firepower don't go together.
Morin, You just don't get it and neither does the government you purport to represent.
I am a voter too and I vote for Social Justice and against Profit-making Violence.
I Vote for Goats.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------
Patience and Staying Power
James Morin
James Morin, an attorney and a former captain in the U.S. Army, has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project. (a paid propagandist proxy of the US govt, my note ckk).
Morin:
Reading General McChrystal’s long-awaited assessment on Afghanistan this morning, my thoughts were pulled back to the frustrating time I spent there as an infantry platoon leader in 2003, and how much our military has learned since then.
In addition to more ground troops, military trainers and civilian experts, we might need some goats.
I remember my first mission in particular, a patrol to a small village of goat-herders, a stone’s throw from Pakistan. Upon arrival we accepted the elder’s invitation to tea. Eager to curry favor with the residents (and learn the whereabouts of the local Taliban), we asked if there was anything the village needed: school supplies, food, medicine.
One elder stroked his long, white beard and responded, “We would like a pair of American goats.”
We chuckled about the similarity to the old adage about giving a man a fish, and then off-loaded thousands of dollars of packaged food and coloring books. To my knowledge, we never gained any intelligence from that village. But then again, we didn’t have enough troops to go back and ask.
So went the remainder of my tour. We hunted the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but we didn’t spend much time listening to and acting upon what the people of Afghanistan needed. General McChrystal seems poised to change this focus to one which “is credible to, and sustainable by, the Afghans.”
With new training manuals, revamped schooling and six years of experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military is well-schooled in the art of counter-insurgency. They now have a strategy to match. But winning, as the assessment makes clear, will require protecting the populace — not just from militants, but from disease, hunger and ignorance as well. Yes, this will require more ground units, more military trainers as well as more civilian experts in governance and economic development. Perhaps, it will even require goats. But more important, this new strategy will require patience. We will only win if we show that we are not just passing through Afghanistan.
Note: Parts of Morin's bio are self-explanatory
Jim Morin is an attorney in the Project & International Finance Group at Hogan & Hartson LLP, where he has worked on a variety of projects involving renewable energy, infrastructure as well as financing both profitable and nonprofit development activities in a wide variety of countries including Iraq, Liberia, Afghanistan, Ghana and Turkey. He has published work on the financing constraints facing renewable energy projects.
Prior to graduating Georgetown University Law Center, Jim served for 6 years as an officer in the U.S. Army, including tours in Afghanistan and Iraq as an Infantry Platoon Leader in the 82nd Airborne Division. He also served as a Company Commander in the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment, The Old Guard (the Escort to the President). He has also served two years in the Virginia National Guard, with a mission focus on homeland security in the National Capitol Region. He was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Exceptional Service in Combat. He is a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he majored in military history, focusing on counter-insurgency and low-intensity conflict. During the Obama campaign Jim served as a Director of Virginia Veterans for Obama.
Jim lives in Herndon, Virginia with his wife and four children.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATTRA/NCAT copyright
Goats and Sustainability
(this is my content title, read more on their website. ckk)
http://www.attra.ncat.org/who.html
===================================================================================
Kashmir and Kandahar (and several hundred villages in between), would benefit from a few thousand extra goats.
Homegrown goats from across South Asia and perhaps a nice Goat Exchange set up with our sisters and brothers in sovereign nation-states in the previously colonized and still oppressed Global South. Indonesia, Africa, Ecuador.
We need Goats instead of Drones.
Let those US generals and US-led NATO European occupiers, chew on that.
Let Obama ruminate.
Goats have work to do. Peacework. Pro-Poor development.
This past summer I volunteered in Srinagar with an innovative Social Medicine project called PACE -- Prevention & Care for Everyone. The founder-director a serene,intense,dedicated Kashmiri doctor who had quit his safe government job to directly offer care to persons suffering from symptoms related to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as drug related problems,
told me a Goat story.
One day, Dr. Arshad Arif was treating an elderly woman patient. She suddenly asked him:
"CAN YOU GET ME A GOAT?"
Is anyone listening to this innocent casualty of terror, violence, hunger and deprivation?
What is she telling us?
That she is fully capable of self-diagnosis. She doesn't really need a doctor to tell her what's wrong with her.
She knows what ails her. What has made her mentally ill is a cruel denial of livelihood opportunity.
If she has a goat, a goat will give her milk that she can sell to her neighbors and the money earned will give her a chance to feed herself and her family.
She will walk around while tending her goat and the very act of walking will take her outdoors with something safe and productive to do.
The very act of walking will kick in her endorphins, lessening her pain and despair, and lifting her depressive symptoms.
She wants to be an entrepreneur. She wants to be self employed and earn a living.
Who's listening?
She wants to be well and knows exactly how to get well.
She's basically saying Don't get my Goat. Just give me one.
Or two.
Or three.
Throw in some sheep to optimize sustainability.
Over in Afghanistan the Goat narrative has been repeated many times over. (see link below)
Who's listening?
Goats for PEACE of MIND.
Goats for a PIECE of the Rock, A Slice of the Pie.
Goats for SOCIAL JUSTICE.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
Read the link below to understand why the US govt will probably NEVER get it right in South Asia. Unless they give up their loose-cannon, control-freak , extremely profitable, expanionist, militaristic mindset.
In this article, the author, a US soldier,(read his bio below) collects powerful factual data from a local Afghan elder. He then proceeds to DRAW the WRONG CONCLUSION, based upon the US IDEOLOGY OF GLOBAL DOMINANCE.
I have bolded passages in the NYTimes text, adding my own emphasis, to refute the soldier's NYTimes article and instead, make the case for SOCIAL JUSTICE. (CKK)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/fending-off-failure-in-afghanistan/?scp=1&sq=Goats%20Afghanistan&st=cse
VIOLENCE is the preferred(read -- most lucrative)option of the US in South Asia.
The sooner WE THE PEOPLE of the sovereign nation-states of South Asia recognize this on-the-ground proven fact, the better for us all in South Asia.
Our own homegrown so-called leaders in South Asia just don't get it, so it is up to WE the PEOPLE of South Asia, working TOGETHER.
Sorry James Morin, Goats and Drones just don't go together. Goats and Troops don't go together. Goats and deadly Firepower don't go together.
Morin, You just don't get it and neither does the government you purport to represent.
I am a voter too and I vote for Social Justice and against Profit-making Violence.
I Vote for Goats.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------
Patience and Staying Power
James Morin
James Morin, an attorney and a former captain in the U.S. Army, has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project. (a paid propagandist proxy of the US govt, my note ckk).
Morin:
Reading General McChrystal’s long-awaited assessment on Afghanistan this morning, my thoughts were pulled back to the frustrating time I spent there as an infantry platoon leader in 2003, and how much our military has learned since then.
In addition to more ground troops, military trainers and civilian experts, we might need some goats.
I remember my first mission in particular, a patrol to a small village of goat-herders, a stone’s throw from Pakistan. Upon arrival we accepted the elder’s invitation to tea. Eager to curry favor with the residents (and learn the whereabouts of the local Taliban), we asked if there was anything the village needed: school supplies, food, medicine.
One elder stroked his long, white beard and responded, “We would like a pair of American goats.”
We chuckled about the similarity to the old adage about giving a man a fish, and then off-loaded thousands of dollars of packaged food and coloring books. To my knowledge, we never gained any intelligence from that village. But then again, we didn’t have enough troops to go back and ask.
So went the remainder of my tour. We hunted the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but we didn’t spend much time listening to and acting upon what the people of Afghanistan needed. General McChrystal seems poised to change this focus to one which “is credible to, and sustainable by, the Afghans.”
With new training manuals, revamped schooling and six years of experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, our military is well-schooled in the art of counter-insurgency. They now have a strategy to match. But winning, as the assessment makes clear, will require protecting the populace — not just from militants, but from disease, hunger and ignorance as well. Yes, this will require more ground units, more military trainers as well as more civilian experts in governance and economic development. Perhaps, it will even require goats. But more important, this new strategy will require patience. We will only win if we show that we are not just passing through Afghanistan.
Note: Parts of Morin's bio are self-explanatory
Jim Morin is an attorney in the Project & International Finance Group at Hogan & Hartson LLP, where he has worked on a variety of projects involving renewable energy, infrastructure as well as financing both profitable and nonprofit development activities in a wide variety of countries including Iraq, Liberia, Afghanistan, Ghana and Turkey. He has published work on the financing constraints facing renewable energy projects.
Prior to graduating Georgetown University Law Center, Jim served for 6 years as an officer in the U.S. Army, including tours in Afghanistan and Iraq as an Infantry Platoon Leader in the 82nd Airborne Division. He also served as a Company Commander in the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment, The Old Guard (the Escort to the President). He has also served two years in the Virginia National Guard, with a mission focus on homeland security in the National Capitol Region. He was twice awarded the Bronze Star Medal for Exceptional Service in Combat. He is a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he majored in military history, focusing on counter-insurgency and low-intensity conflict. During the Obama campaign Jim served as a Director of Virginia Veterans for Obama.
Jim lives in Herndon, Virginia with his wife and four children.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATTRA/NCAT copyright
Goats and Sustainability
(this is my content title, read more on their website. ckk)
http://www.attra.ncat.org/who.html
===================================================================================
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Segregation vs. Social Justice in Democracy: The India Case
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
4:23 am
My NYT Comment #75.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
8:39 am
Segregation vs. Social Justice in Democracy: The India Case
\"New Peace in commute\" for India's women? Your article illustrates the axiom -- No Justice No Peace.
Women-only commuter trains are an integral part of an adhoc, unequal, inadequate and functionally inequitable public transportation policy in Indian Democracy.
Gender segregation on public transportation reinforces the most negative aspects of India's powerfully entrenched patriarchy. Sequestered travel on a train to work is predictively unlikely to increase women's safety, or equal participation in India's democracy.
India's public transportation systems are grossly underfunded. This inequity punishes the poor, especially the poorest women. The nation's poorest women, don't get to ride these commuter trains. That structural inequity is the crux of the problem. In a nation-state that should be providing adequate public transportation for ALL, while making every attempt at a smaller carbon footprint, regardless of what the West does.
Finger-pointing at the West will not help Indians become more ecologically responsible or more socially just, as they attempt to meet their expanding transportation needs.
An Indian policy implementation of relentless attrition in funding, blatantly devalues PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION as a universal social good that should be intentionally deployed, through policy, by both the Centre and the States, as a powerful social leveler, in our unprecedented democratic civil society.
I travel to India twice a year every year (since 1999), spending a total of 5 months, every visit. Over this past summer, I traveled in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, logging thousands of miles and several days on trains and buses. That's democracy on wheels.
A woman, I travel alone in India, entirely by State public buses, state-run commuter trains and the Indian railways ((Second Class sleeper), refusing to use cars proffered by my middle class relatives. Any form of PUBLIC transport is acceptable to me.
Now that may appear eccentric or overly zealous but I am attempting, always in flawed fashion, to sincerely develop ethical practices of civic participation, in myself (no one else), within Indian democracy.
In my view, India cannot afford to produce, much less dispose, a paper cup, as millions carelessly do daily on the Indian trains, any more than India can afford to promote PRIVATE transportation over PUBLIC transportation. Mass Public Transit is a core social justice issue in India's current stage of development, right up there with food/water security, shelter, universal healthcare, universal primary/ secondary education, employment.
My Indian women and men co-travelers in Democracy, especially the burgeoning, heavily subsidized and bribegiving/bribetaking, complicit-in-corruption middle class, who are the main beneficiaries of the women-only commuter trains, can fight JOINTLY for adequate affordable PUBLIC transportation for ALL, instead of cynically choosing cars over buses and/or riding separately in trains.
Such vigorous civic participation would likely advance the Greater Collective Good (GCG), a wholly attainable ideal of ethical democracy.
Satyameva Jayate!
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/asia/16ladies.html
On India’s Railways, Women Find New Peace in Commute
New York City
September 16th, 2009
4:23 am
My NYT Comment #75.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
8:39 am
Segregation vs. Social Justice in Democracy: The India Case
\"New Peace in commute\" for India's women? Your article illustrates the axiom -- No Justice No Peace.
Women-only commuter trains are an integral part of an adhoc, unequal, inadequate and functionally inequitable public transportation policy in Indian Democracy.
Gender segregation on public transportation reinforces the most negative aspects of India's powerfully entrenched patriarchy. Sequestered travel on a train to work is predictively unlikely to increase women's safety, or equal participation in India's democracy.
India's public transportation systems are grossly underfunded. This inequity punishes the poor, especially the poorest women. The nation's poorest women, don't get to ride these commuter trains. That structural inequity is the crux of the problem. In a nation-state that should be providing adequate public transportation for ALL, while making every attempt at a smaller carbon footprint, regardless of what the West does.
Finger-pointing at the West will not help Indians become more ecologically responsible or more socially just, as they attempt to meet their expanding transportation needs.
An Indian policy implementation of relentless attrition in funding, blatantly devalues PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION as a universal social good that should be intentionally deployed, through policy, by both the Centre and the States, as a powerful social leveler, in our unprecedented democratic civil society.
I travel to India twice a year every year (since 1999), spending a total of 5 months, every visit. Over this past summer, I traveled in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, logging thousands of miles and several days on trains and buses. That's democracy on wheels.
A woman, I travel alone in India, entirely by State public buses, state-run commuter trains and the Indian railways ((Second Class sleeper), refusing to use cars proffered by my middle class relatives. Any form of PUBLIC transport is acceptable to me.
Now that may appear eccentric or overly zealous but I am attempting, always in flawed fashion, to sincerely develop ethical practices of civic participation, in myself (no one else), within Indian democracy.
In my view, India cannot afford to produce, much less dispose, a paper cup, as millions carelessly do daily on the Indian trains, any more than India can afford to promote PRIVATE transportation over PUBLIC transportation. Mass Public Transit is a core social justice issue in India's current stage of development, right up there with food/water security, shelter, universal healthcare, universal primary/ secondary education, employment.
My Indian women and men co-travelers in Democracy, especially the burgeoning, heavily subsidized and bribegiving/bribetaking, complicit-in-corruption middle class, who are the main beneficiaries of the women-only commuter trains, can fight JOINTLY for adequate affordable PUBLIC transportation for ALL, instead of cynically choosing cars over buses and/or riding separately in trains.
Such vigorous civic participation would likely advance the Greater Collective Good (GCG), a wholly attainable ideal of ethical democracy.
Satyameva Jayate!
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/asia/16ladies.html
On India’s Railways, Women Find New Peace in Commute
Sunday, September 13, 2009
SOCIAL JUSTICE & The Green Revolution
An expanded version of my Comment NYTimes #25.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 13th, 2009
11:58 am
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/energy-environment/14borlaug.html?sort=oldest&offset=1
I am proud that I grew up as a schoolgirl in India knowing who Borlaug was. No, his name did not appear in my grievously irrelevant postcolonial high school curriculum, but in newspapers I read avidly even then.
Borlaug richly deserved his renown. He fed people. I salute Borlaug. He died yesterday in Texas, age 95. Bless him for working untiringly, and without exception, for the Greater Collective Good (GCG).
I quote from your NYTimes article to make 2 related points and assert that both Borlaug and his critics were wrong about the unprecedented Green Revolution ignited throughout the Global South, by him.
Your article states:
"The Green Revolution eventually came under attack from environmental and social critics who said it had created more difficulties than it had solved.
Dr. Borlaug responded that the real problem was not his agricultural techniques, but the runaway population growth that had made them necessary."
My Point #1:
The self-styled "social and environmental critics" were part of the problem. They represented the political class that, at least in India, cynically overturned many of the potential benefits of the Green Revolution,by preventing farmers from leading the GR, instead exploiting these innovative farmers, through middlemen who brokered speculation in grain prices and stockpiling grain instead of feeding the starving. So, blame the pols. and their client middlemen. These pols and middlemen are still causing farmer suicides in many parts of India. Go figure.
My Point #2
Borlaug was a plant geneticist, he was neither a politician nor a political sociologist. Borlaug mistakenly blamed accelerated population growth for the limited success of the Green Revolution. He blamed WE the People, the ordinary beneficiaries of his extraordinary accomplishment. I know I ate better because of Borlaug. Millions did.
Every study conducted in former colonized nation-states, shows that accelerated population growth is mainly the INTERIM (note interim) result of Social Justice indicators -- access to food, water and shelter, better healthcare, ergo freedom from famine, the chance to survive.
If these social goods CONTINUE and become PERMANENT, the rate of population growth will causally go DOWN, not up. Ordinary people are rational maximizers. Species including our own, adapt to survive, If a people's food supply is assured and their social wellbeing is assured, they will have fewer children, not more. It would not make sense to them to threaten their food supply by being prolific at reproduction. This is true from Sweden to Singapore, a fact based on evidence not opinion.
Social Justice impedes runaway population growth. Hunger (which is a core component of social INjustice) accelerates population growth. So, Borlaug was mistaken (though he saw the big picture on social justice) to blame a faster population growth before and during the GR.
Social Justice redistributive policies, (which are the responsibility of government not the obligation of individuals, that is precisely why we have govts) did NOT accompany the GR, hence populations (especially birth rates) continued to increase. More food through the GR, did not end up feeding timely all the people it was intended for.
Social Injustice breeds accelerates birth rates, which are of importance when studying population growth rates.
Don't Blame Borlaug & His Green Revolution.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------------------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/energy-environment/14borlaug.html
Norman Borlaug, 95, Dies; Led Green Revolution
By JUSTIN GILLIS
A Nobel Peace Prize winner, he developed high-yielding crop varieties that helped to avert famines worldwide.
-----
NYtimes copyright
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/greatest-human-being-rip/?hp
--------
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/weekinreview/20martin.html
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
DINNERTIME Sudanese refugees unload bags of food at a camp in neighboring Chad. The refugees had fled the violence in Darfur.
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By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: September 19, 2009
This past week the world celebrated the life and achievements of Norman Borlaug, the Iowa-born plant scientist who created high-yielding wheat varieties to stave off famine.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Norman Borlaug, Plant Scientist Who Fought Famine, Dies at 95 (September 14, 2009)
Dr. Borlaug, who died at age 95 on Sept. 12, led the so-called Green Revolution that created bumper crops in once impoverished countries like Mexico, India and Pakistan. In lauding Dr. Borlaug’s achievements, the United Nations’ World Food Program said he had saved more lives than any man in history.
But the eulogies for Dr. Borlaug often neglected an important and perplexing fact. Despite his accomplishments, more people are hungry today than ever and that total should exceed one billion people this year for the first time, according to the United Nations.
How can so many people be hungry when farmers produce enough food, at least in theory, to feed every person on the planet?
The answers are complex and involve everything from American farm politics and African corruption to war, poverty, climate change and drought, which is now the single most common cause of food shortages on the planet.
But David Beckmann, president of the antihunger group Bread for the World, boiled the causes down into one unifying theme — “a lack of give a damn.”
“It’s mainly neglect,” he said. “Political neglect.”
The yield gains of the last half-century, both in the developed and developing world, led to grain surpluses and low prices, creating a sense of complacency about agriculture and hunger.
“There was an attitude following the Green Revolution that the problem was solved,” said Gary H. Toenniessen of the Rockefeller Foundation.
So much grain was being produced so cheaply that Western leaders encouraged poor nations to buy grain on the world market rather than grow it themselves. Surplus was shipped to poor countries as food aid. But that aid system has often been ineffective in alleviating hunger in a timely way and in addressing broader agriculture problems facing impoverished countries. Support for agricultural research in developing countries was also cut back for other priorities. The result? While the food supply grew faster than the world’s population from 1970 to 1990, as the Green Revolution’s gains took hold, the situation has now reversed itself. Productivity gains in agriculture have slowed, and since 1990, the growth rate of food production has fallen below population growth.
The consequences have been particularly dire in sub-Saharan Africa, where the gains of the Green Revolution have been difficult to replicate. Among other problems, irrigation — which was key to the Green Revolution — is relatively scarce in Africa.
Few paid attention to these problems until last year, when a confluence of events caused food prices to spike to record levels. Riots erupted in many nations, and even American consumers felt pinched as prices soared.
Prices have come down in the United States, but the situation in Africa remains dismal due to an exploding population and now, a severe drought that threatens millions. The World Food Program says it is critically short of funds.
At a July summit meeting, President Obama and other leaders of industrialized nations pledged $20 billion for agricultural development in poor countries.
Activists say that some of the tools for success are within reach provided the financing and political will persist: those tools include seeds fine-tuned to local conditions, fertilizer and better roads and other infrastructure improvements.
The more difficult problems may lie within our borders. Farm programs are among the most entrenched entitlements in Washington. But crop subsidies and America’s habit of shipping grain to the poor tends to undermine robust markets in developing countries.
Dr. Borlaug, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, understood well the limitations of the Green Revolution’s success. After receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007, he noted that the “battle to ensure food security for hundreds of millions of miserably poor people is far from won.”
“World peace will not be built on empty stomachs or human misery,” he said. “It is within America’s technical and financial power to help end this human tragedy and injustice, if we set our hearts and minds to the task.”
==================================================================================
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 13th, 2009
11:58 am
http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/energy-environment/14borlaug.html?sort=oldest&offset=1
I am proud that I grew up as a schoolgirl in India knowing who Borlaug was. No, his name did not appear in my grievously irrelevant postcolonial high school curriculum, but in newspapers I read avidly even then.
Borlaug richly deserved his renown. He fed people. I salute Borlaug. He died yesterday in Texas, age 95. Bless him for working untiringly, and without exception, for the Greater Collective Good (GCG).
I quote from your NYTimes article to make 2 related points and assert that both Borlaug and his critics were wrong about the unprecedented Green Revolution ignited throughout the Global South, by him.
Your article states:
"The Green Revolution eventually came under attack from environmental and social critics who said it had created more difficulties than it had solved.
Dr. Borlaug responded that the real problem was not his agricultural techniques, but the runaway population growth that had made them necessary."
My Point #1:
The self-styled "social and environmental critics" were part of the problem. They represented the political class that, at least in India, cynically overturned many of the potential benefits of the Green Revolution,by preventing farmers from leading the GR, instead exploiting these innovative farmers, through middlemen who brokered speculation in grain prices and stockpiling grain instead of feeding the starving. So, blame the pols. and their client middlemen. These pols and middlemen are still causing farmer suicides in many parts of India. Go figure.
My Point #2
Borlaug was a plant geneticist, he was neither a politician nor a political sociologist. Borlaug mistakenly blamed accelerated population growth for the limited success of the Green Revolution. He blamed WE the People, the ordinary beneficiaries of his extraordinary accomplishment. I know I ate better because of Borlaug. Millions did.
Every study conducted in former colonized nation-states, shows that accelerated population growth is mainly the INTERIM (note interim) result of Social Justice indicators -- access to food, water and shelter, better healthcare, ergo freedom from famine, the chance to survive.
If these social goods CONTINUE and become PERMANENT, the rate of population growth will causally go DOWN, not up. Ordinary people are rational maximizers. Species including our own, adapt to survive, If a people's food supply is assured and their social wellbeing is assured, they will have fewer children, not more. It would not make sense to them to threaten their food supply by being prolific at reproduction. This is true from Sweden to Singapore, a fact based on evidence not opinion.
Social Justice impedes runaway population growth. Hunger (which is a core component of social INjustice) accelerates population growth. So, Borlaug was mistaken (though he saw the big picture on social justice) to blame a faster population growth before and during the GR.
Social Justice redistributive policies, (which are the responsibility of government not the obligation of individuals, that is precisely why we have govts) did NOT accompany the GR, hence populations (especially birth rates) continued to increase. More food through the GR, did not end up feeding timely all the people it was intended for.
Social Injustice breeds accelerates birth rates, which are of importance when studying population growth rates.
Don't Blame Borlaug & His Green Revolution.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/business/energy-environment/14borlaug.html
Norman Borlaug, 95, Dies; Led Green Revolution
By JUSTIN GILLIS
A Nobel Peace Prize winner, he developed high-yielding crop varieties that helped to avert famines worldwide.
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NYtimes copyright
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/greatest-human-being-rip/?hp
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NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/weekinreview/20martin.html
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
DINNERTIME Sudanese refugees unload bags of food at a camp in neighboring Chad. The refugees had fled the violence in Darfur.
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By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: September 19, 2009
This past week the world celebrated the life and achievements of Norman Borlaug, the Iowa-born plant scientist who created high-yielding wheat varieties to stave off famine.
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Norman Borlaug, Plant Scientist Who Fought Famine, Dies at 95 (September 14, 2009)
Dr. Borlaug, who died at age 95 on Sept. 12, led the so-called Green Revolution that created bumper crops in once impoverished countries like Mexico, India and Pakistan. In lauding Dr. Borlaug’s achievements, the United Nations’ World Food Program said he had saved more lives than any man in history.
But the eulogies for Dr. Borlaug often neglected an important and perplexing fact. Despite his accomplishments, more people are hungry today than ever and that total should exceed one billion people this year for the first time, according to the United Nations.
How can so many people be hungry when farmers produce enough food, at least in theory, to feed every person on the planet?
The answers are complex and involve everything from American farm politics and African corruption to war, poverty, climate change and drought, which is now the single most common cause of food shortages on the planet.
But David Beckmann, president of the antihunger group Bread for the World, boiled the causes down into one unifying theme — “a lack of give a damn.”
“It’s mainly neglect,” he said. “Political neglect.”
The yield gains of the last half-century, both in the developed and developing world, led to grain surpluses and low prices, creating a sense of complacency about agriculture and hunger.
“There was an attitude following the Green Revolution that the problem was solved,” said Gary H. Toenniessen of the Rockefeller Foundation.
So much grain was being produced so cheaply that Western leaders encouraged poor nations to buy grain on the world market rather than grow it themselves. Surplus was shipped to poor countries as food aid. But that aid system has often been ineffective in alleviating hunger in a timely way and in addressing broader agriculture problems facing impoverished countries. Support for agricultural research in developing countries was also cut back for other priorities. The result? While the food supply grew faster than the world’s population from 1970 to 1990, as the Green Revolution’s gains took hold, the situation has now reversed itself. Productivity gains in agriculture have slowed, and since 1990, the growth rate of food production has fallen below population growth.
The consequences have been particularly dire in sub-Saharan Africa, where the gains of the Green Revolution have been difficult to replicate. Among other problems, irrigation — which was key to the Green Revolution — is relatively scarce in Africa.
Few paid attention to these problems until last year, when a confluence of events caused food prices to spike to record levels. Riots erupted in many nations, and even American consumers felt pinched as prices soared.
Prices have come down in the United States, but the situation in Africa remains dismal due to an exploding population and now, a severe drought that threatens millions. The World Food Program says it is critically short of funds.
At a July summit meeting, President Obama and other leaders of industrialized nations pledged $20 billion for agricultural development in poor countries.
Activists say that some of the tools for success are within reach provided the financing and political will persist: those tools include seeds fine-tuned to local conditions, fertilizer and better roads and other infrastructure improvements.
The more difficult problems may lie within our borders. Farm programs are among the most entrenched entitlements in Washington. But crop subsidies and America’s habit of shipping grain to the poor tends to undermine robust markets in developing countries.
Dr. Borlaug, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, understood well the limitations of the Green Revolution’s success. After receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007, he noted that the “battle to ensure food security for hundreds of millions of miserably poor people is far from won.”
“World peace will not be built on empty stomachs or human misery,” he said. “It is within America’s technical and financial power to help end this human tragedy and injustice, if we set our hearts and minds to the task.”
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Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Not India Inc. but India TLTL
SOCIAL JUSTICE is the paramount, imperative, immediate need in India.
Every Indian, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, is entitled to food and water security -- freedom from hunger and malnutrition, safe water for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing.
If we can get this right, other civil society benefits will likely accrue:
* Food and clean water will go a very long way to make disease prevention a reality and give us a better rate of return on investment in public health.
*I've always thought we need a Cabinet level post -- A Union Minister for Soap and Latrines, preferably Brahmin. Preferable a He.
What would this esteemed individual, paid out of public monies, do?
1.Install free public toilets nation-wide at the same frequency as STD kiosks. Learn from Pitroda.
Public defecation (usually male) would go out of fashion throughout India, every city and town would stop being a vast urinal.
2. Provide free soap to every household and school, to cut down on the proliferation of ecoli bacteria and GE-related ilnesses.
3. Conduct massive public health awareness campaigns on handwashing, inflict fines for spitting.
Ok, more to follow but you get my drift. We have to do this first b4 we can move onto questions like why Kerala and Cherapunji, and every district in the nation, has not yet been ordered by the Supreme Court to save ALL monsoon water runoff and send it underground aka rainwater harvesting. Of course, the Centre should pay for it. But the netas at the Centre have to first develop and implement a benchmarked National Water Policy. We don't have one. Our India does not have a National Food and Water Security Guarantee for every Indian. Shame on our netas.
Netas' heads must roll if the policy is not effectively implemented under their watch.
Enough India TLTL. Too Little Too Late serves only the cynical and dehumanized interests of the powerful in our unprecedented, flawed democracy.
SOCIAL JUSTICE is the paramount, imperative, immediate need in India. But is that a priority for our leaders? Recently, during the monsoon Budget session, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is quoted as having said " In order to distribute wealth we must first create it." Is Mukherjee arguing, without a shred of evidence, that India does not have sufficient created wealth that can be fairly redistributed, right now?
Spoken like an authentic privileged dominant caste Hindu. Which Pranab Mukherjee is.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
==================================================================================
Every Indian, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, is entitled to food and water security -- freedom from hunger and malnutrition, safe water for drinking, cooking, bathing and washing.
If we can get this right, other civil society benefits will likely accrue:
* Food and clean water will go a very long way to make disease prevention a reality and give us a better rate of return on investment in public health.
*I've always thought we need a Cabinet level post -- A Union Minister for Soap and Latrines, preferably Brahmin. Preferable a He.
What would this esteemed individual, paid out of public monies, do?
1.Install free public toilets nation-wide at the same frequency as STD kiosks. Learn from Pitroda.
Public defecation (usually male) would go out of fashion throughout India, every city and town would stop being a vast urinal.
2. Provide free soap to every household and school, to cut down on the proliferation of ecoli bacteria and GE-related ilnesses.
3. Conduct massive public health awareness campaigns on handwashing, inflict fines for spitting.
Ok, more to follow but you get my drift. We have to do this first b4 we can move onto questions like why Kerala and Cherapunji, and every district in the nation, has not yet been ordered by the Supreme Court to save ALL monsoon water runoff and send it underground aka rainwater harvesting. Of course, the Centre should pay for it. But the netas at the Centre have to first develop and implement a benchmarked National Water Policy. We don't have one. Our India does not have a National Food and Water Security Guarantee for every Indian. Shame on our netas.
Netas' heads must roll if the policy is not effectively implemented under their watch.
Enough India TLTL. Too Little Too Late serves only the cynical and dehumanized interests of the powerful in our unprecedented, flawed democracy.
SOCIAL JUSTICE is the paramount, imperative, immediate need in India. But is that a priority for our leaders? Recently, during the monsoon Budget session, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is quoted as having said " In order to distribute wealth we must first create it." Is Mukherjee arguing, without a shred of evidence, that India does not have sufficient created wealth that can be fairly redistributed, right now?
Spoken like an authentic privileged dominant caste Hindu. Which Pranab Mukherjee is.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
==================================================================================
Thursday, July 2, 2009
India -- A Democracy Without a SOCIAL JUSTICE Safety Net?
India cannot call itself an authentic and practising Democracy unless it immediately implements a full fledged program of social welfare services on behalf of its diverse billion plus people -- food security, healthcare, shelter, jobs, income guarantees, unemployment protection. Social Justice is every Indian's right in our unprecedented democracy.
Lack of food security results in maternal and infant malnutrition. 'Slum clearance' is dispossession and internal displacement of the poorest and most vulnerable. A social services safety must mitigate these intolerable conditions for our people.
Enough has been written on the subject. A safety net is long overdue and we can certainly afford to. In fact, we can't afford not to. The India govt. is criminally negligent in failing to deliver on these urgent civil society priorities.
We are a democracy, but we can't eat our vote. We can't find shelter by cowering under the ballot box.
Shame on India's alleged leaders so long as they renege on a comprehensive social welfare safety net and turn their backs on providing basic needs.
Civil Society groups in India and hundreds of other countries should bring charges against their governments in the International Criminal Court for oppressing and exploiting their long suffering citizens.
The ILO states that India can spend about 4% of its GDP to cover ALL Indians with social services. From Kanyakumari to Kashmir We the People need that protection. It is a fundamental human right of our civil society.
Lack of food security results in maternal and infant malnutrition. 'Slum clearance' is dispossession and internal displacement of the poorest and most vulnerable. A social services safety must mitigate these intolerable conditions for our people.
Enough has been written on the subject. A safety net is long overdue and we can certainly afford to. In fact, we can't afford not to. The India govt. is criminally negligent in failing to deliver on these urgent civil society priorities.
We are a democracy, but we can't eat our vote. We can't find shelter by cowering under the ballot box.
Shame on India's alleged leaders so long as they renege on a comprehensive social welfare safety net and turn their backs on providing basic needs.
Civil Society groups in India and hundreds of other countries should bring charges against their governments in the International Criminal Court for oppressing and exploiting their long suffering citizens.
The ILO states that India can spend about 4% of its GDP to cover ALL Indians with social services. From Kanyakumari to Kashmir We the People need that protection. It is a fundamental human right of our civil society.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Social Justice, Ethical Democracy & the G-20
My Comment #61.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/world/europe/03summit.html
New York Times copyright
-------------
April 02, 2009 9:28 am
Obama, the first Black U.S. president is squandering an historic opportunity by failing to focus on socio-economic JUSTICE in the world at the G-20 summit.
I didn't expect him to, (even as I voted for him), because he performs Whiteness. He is rewarded for protecting and preserving the dominant status quo. He is the Black least threatening to the status quo. I voted for him because he was the lesser of two evils, not because I expected him to make Change I could Believe in.
The US economy and US foreign policy would both benefit if the US and other member nations of the G-20 focused on the havenots (their numbers are increasing) in the US and in the world. The member-nations representing the developing economies are still exhibiting a colonized dependent mindset.
The rich countries are already heavily "protectionist" and the so-called "free" market is loaded in favor of the rich looting economies.
Regulation, growth and development in the 21st century should be DRIVEN by the pragmatic idealism of social justice.
Sharing and being fair are important lessons learned in kindergarten.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
------------
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/04/03/world/europe/03summit.html?s=1&pg=3
Global Leaders Meeting to Resolve Rift on Economic Plan
By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 2, 2009
New York Times copyright
Updated: March 30, 2009
-----------------------------
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/group_of_20/index.html
The Group of 20, or G-20, is an international body that meets to discuss economic issues. Its members -- 19 countries with some of the world's biggest industrial and emerging economies, plus the European Union -- represent about 90 percent of the world's gross national product, 80 percent of world trade (including trade within the European Union) and two-thirds of the global population. The G-20, which represents a far broader range of the world's industrialized economies than the more Atlantic-oriented G-8, has taken on a new prominence in the current economic crisis. On April 2, 2009, its members will meet in London for a session expected to center around President Obama's push for greater economic stimulus around the globe, Europe's desire for a stronger framework of financial regulation and the desire of emerging economies, led by China, for a bigger role in economic dipomacy.
The G-20 was established as a response to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and to a "growing recognition that key emerging-market countries were not adequately included in the core of global economic discussion and governance," according to the G-20's public materials.
A smaller group of industrialized nations has been meeting since the 1970s (the G-7 and G-8, which convene finance ministers and heads of government, respectively). In the 1990s, given the extent of the Asian financial crisis, government leaders decided to involve a broader group of countries, including emerging market countries, to deal with the turmoil. A group of 22 countries ("G-22") and then a group of 33 countries ("G-33") met on an ad hoc basis. The G-20 was created in 1999 as a more permanent international economic body that includes representation from emerging countries. The member countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the United States. The European Union is also a member, represented by the rotating council presidency and the European Central Bank.
The membership of the G-20 has not changed since it was established, and the organization says there are "no formal criteria for G-20 membership." With the exceptions of Argentina, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, all of the member countries fall within the list of the top 20 biggest state G.D.P.'s in the world (using the 2007 rankings from the C.I.A. World Factbook, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank).
"I don't think it's a club you can join except by having a lot of economic growth," said Simon Johnson, a professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Usually, the attendees of the annual meetings are the finance ministers and central bank governors of the member countries, plus top leadership of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In November 2008, heads of government attended an emergency G-20 session held in Washington to deal with the crumbling of global credit.
The Washington meeting was referred to by many observers as a possible prelude to a sort of Bretton Woods II, meaning an event that marks the start of a new international financial framework. (The term Bretton Woods System refers to an international monetary system set up during a 1944 conference in Bretton Woods, N.H.; it established, among other things, the I.M.F.).
The I.M.F., which had nearly become irrelevant before the current crisis, is now expected to be a focus of the London gathering. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who once worked at the fund, has called for its financial resources to be expanded by $500 billion, effectively tripling its lending capacity to distressed countries and cementing its status as the lender of last resort for much of the world.
Japan and the European Union have each pledged $100 billion; the United States has signaled it will contribute a similar sum, though its money will take longer to arrive because of the need for Congressional approval. China, with its mammoth foreign exchange reserves, is the next obvious donor.
Yet officials of China and other developing countries have served notice that they are reluctant to make comparable pledges without getting a greater say in the operations of the fund, which is run by a Frenchman, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and is heavily influenced by the United States and Western Europe.
New York Times copyright
=====================================================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/world/europe/03summit.html
New York Times copyright
-------------
April 02, 2009 9:28 am
Obama, the first Black U.S. president is squandering an historic opportunity by failing to focus on socio-economic JUSTICE in the world at the G-20 summit.
I didn't expect him to, (even as I voted for him), because he performs Whiteness. He is rewarded for protecting and preserving the dominant status quo. He is the Black least threatening to the status quo. I voted for him because he was the lesser of two evils, not because I expected him to make Change I could Believe in.
The US economy and US foreign policy would both benefit if the US and other member nations of the G-20 focused on the havenots (their numbers are increasing) in the US and in the world. The member-nations representing the developing economies are still exhibiting a colonized dependent mindset.
The rich countries are already heavily "protectionist" and the so-called "free" market is loaded in favor of the rich looting economies.
Regulation, growth and development in the 21st century should be DRIVEN by the pragmatic idealism of social justice.
Sharing and being fair are important lessons learned in kindergarten.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
------------
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/04/03/world/europe/03summit.html?s=1&pg=3
Global Leaders Meeting to Resolve Rift on Economic Plan
By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 2, 2009
New York Times copyright
Updated: March 30, 2009
-----------------------------
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/group_of_20/index.html
The Group of 20, or G-20, is an international body that meets to discuss economic issues. Its members -- 19 countries with some of the world's biggest industrial and emerging economies, plus the European Union -- represent about 90 percent of the world's gross national product, 80 percent of world trade (including trade within the European Union) and two-thirds of the global population. The G-20, which represents a far broader range of the world's industrialized economies than the more Atlantic-oriented G-8, has taken on a new prominence in the current economic crisis. On April 2, 2009, its members will meet in London for a session expected to center around President Obama's push for greater economic stimulus around the globe, Europe's desire for a stronger framework of financial regulation and the desire of emerging economies, led by China, for a bigger role in economic dipomacy.
The G-20 was established as a response to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and to a "growing recognition that key emerging-market countries were not adequately included in the core of global economic discussion and governance," according to the G-20's public materials.
A smaller group of industrialized nations has been meeting since the 1970s (the G-7 and G-8, which convene finance ministers and heads of government, respectively). In the 1990s, given the extent of the Asian financial crisis, government leaders decided to involve a broader group of countries, including emerging market countries, to deal with the turmoil. A group of 22 countries ("G-22") and then a group of 33 countries ("G-33") met on an ad hoc basis. The G-20 was created in 1999 as a more permanent international economic body that includes representation from emerging countries. The member countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the United States. The European Union is also a member, represented by the rotating council presidency and the European Central Bank.
The membership of the G-20 has not changed since it was established, and the organization says there are "no formal criteria for G-20 membership." With the exceptions of Argentina, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, all of the member countries fall within the list of the top 20 biggest state G.D.P.'s in the world (using the 2007 rankings from the C.I.A. World Factbook, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank).
"I don't think it's a club you can join except by having a lot of economic growth," said Simon Johnson, a professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Usually, the attendees of the annual meetings are the finance ministers and central bank governors of the member countries, plus top leadership of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. In November 2008, heads of government attended an emergency G-20 session held in Washington to deal with the crumbling of global credit.
The Washington meeting was referred to by many observers as a possible prelude to a sort of Bretton Woods II, meaning an event that marks the start of a new international financial framework. (The term Bretton Woods System refers to an international monetary system set up during a 1944 conference in Bretton Woods, N.H.; it established, among other things, the I.M.F.).
The I.M.F., which had nearly become irrelevant before the current crisis, is now expected to be a focus of the London gathering. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who once worked at the fund, has called for its financial resources to be expanded by $500 billion, effectively tripling its lending capacity to distressed countries and cementing its status as the lender of last resort for much of the world.
Japan and the European Union have each pledged $100 billion; the United States has signaled it will contribute a similar sum, though its money will take longer to arrive because of the need for Congressional approval. China, with its mammoth foreign exchange reserves, is the next obvious donor.
Yet officials of China and other developing countries have served notice that they are reluctant to make comparable pledges without getting a greater say in the operations of the fund, which is run by a Frenchman, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and is heavily influenced by the United States and Western Europe.
New York Times copyright
=====================================================================================
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