http://www.poptel.org.uk/scgn/articles/0411/p6a.htm
New alliances to create a better world
By Ken Livingstone
The European Social Forum has provided an opportunity for over 20,000 people to exchange ideas and views, to learn and to discuss how to campaign for global social justice. We must debate how to democratise the world, so that we can tackle the obscene and growing concentration of power and wealth.
This struggle has taken longer than I thought when I became politically active in 1968. Every day my generation felt the world was on the point of transformation as we marched and saw the prospect of ending the war in Vietnam, the struggle to create socialism with a human face in Czechoslovakia and the challenge to de Gaulle?s regime in France. Since then, the situation has been rolled back. We did not understand what a long haul will be required to transform society and the world.
The European and World Social Forums arose in a difficult world situation. The collapse of the Soviet Union, whatever disagreements people may have had about its structure, represented a defeat for the vast majority of people across the world. It allowed capitalism to advance dramatically. It allowed a gross and excessive increase in the inequalities of wealth. In London inequality in wealth has doubled in the last 20 years. We have seen the erosion of pensions and other fundamentals of the welfare state. Yet people are increasingly fighting back ? the tide is beginning to turn.
There are a number of reasons that the US launched war against Iraq ? not only that US corporations wanted control of Iraq?s oil. Saddam Huss-ein?s government took a decision shortly before the war that the sale of Iraqi oil would no longer be in dollars, but would switch to euros. The determination to keep the dollar as the predominant global currency, in order to gain huge advantage for US capitalism is an issue that drives all US administrations. Britain played exactly the same game in its century of global domination, forcing all transactions to be through the pound, with every transaction helping to sustain and reinforce its global dominance. That was a further reason why the US was so determined to remove Saddam.
Every previous attempt to challenge the dominance of the dollar has failed.
However, within decades, there will be a decisive challenge to the dollar. This will be when the Chinese economy, already the second largest in the world, emerges as the largest economy, and questions why it should trade in dollars and prop up the current structure to the benefit of the United States. That will be a most dangerous time for the world. And the majority of the world?s population will have an interest in defeating a financial system that enslaves hundreds of millions of people.
Alliances needed
New alliances are needed at this time. When US imperialism moved against President Chavez?s government in Venezuela, it was important to support Chavez. A similar response will be necessary if the US tries to challenge Lula?s administration in Brazil. Wherever there is such a challenge by the United States, whether we have disagreements on the exact nature of the regime, we have to stand together. That is what the European and World Social Forums can represent at their best ? mobilising pressure to defend those threatened by US imperialism, the World Bank and the IMF.
I was very proud to welcome Aleida Guevara, the daughter of Che to London from Cuba during the ESF. There is no greater example in the world than Cuba of what can be done in the most difficult circumstances to create an alternative society on the very doorstep of the United States. Cuba has successfully resisted the pressure of the US for almost 50 years. It could not have done that without the support and mobilisation of its people. The Cuban revolution has meant that in a far poorer country there is a higher level of literacy and better healthcare in Cuba than there is in the US. It is an example of all that is possible as an alternative way of organising society.
Debate change
For all the talk of creating new structures and the ?third way?, every human society in history has had the same fault line running through it. In every society, there has been the struggle of those that do not have wealth and power against those that do.
It is important to consider whether each stand we take, as politicians, trade unionists or activists, moves us closer to challenging inequalities or pushes us back. I am proud that I can be both Mayor of London and on the side of the people who fight for change.