One No, Many Yeses

by Paul Kingsnorth

  ‘Well,’ he says, slowly, ‘I think firstly one has to put it in the context that we have won an overwhelming majority in four elections now. Every month there are about ten by-elections in this country and the ANC continues to enjoy popular support in those elections. I’m not saying nobody feels deceived by the ANC, or there is no dissatisfaction in the country – clearly there is, but just put it in perspective.’

  There’s a lot of unhappiness, though, I say, with what you’re up to. For example, it’s difficult to find anyone with a good word to say about GEAR – even your partners in the Alliance seem to hate it.

  ‘There is a lot of unhappiness,’ says Sachs, frankly. ‘Yes, there’s a lot of criticism of GEAR. The economic policy we adopted in 1996 was conservative. It has many parallels with what one could call structural adjustment programmes. It’s about fiscal discipline, it’s about macro-economic stability, it’s about overcoming debt. There has been the introduction of market mechanisms into what were previously wholly publicly owned and managed institutions. There’s been a very lively and open debate about this.’

  That debate seems to be loudest outside the ANC, I say. And the party’s keenness on pleasing the markets at the expense of its own people is what is angering so many people. GEAR—

  ‘Well, look, we’re kind of post-GEAR now anyway,’ he says, interrupting. ‘There’s been a relaxation of that tight fiscal discipline, but look, yes, there’s a lot of . . .’ He pauses, thinking, for a very long time. ‘If you place what we are doing in the context of a national democratic revolution, which is what we see ourselves as being in government to deliver . . . it’s a situation that is really very difficult – basically no other revolutionary movement has had to contend with a unipolar world. Certainly not since the creation of the Soviet Union has any revolutionary movement taken power in such unfavourable global conditions – such an unbridled victory for finance capitalism – finance capital being ascendant ideologically, and having a hegemony that is unparalleled in history.’ He pauses, looking tired, then resumes his litany of downgraded expectations.

  ‘We achieved democracy in 1994,’ he goes on, ‘and immediately had to confront the issue of globalisation. We embarked on a very steep learning curve. In that kind of context you have the adoption of conservative macro-economic policies. Maybe they could have been less conservative than they were. Maybe there could have been more social spending. But I have no doubt that if we had embarked on some kind of Keynesian socialist project in 1994, we would have been defeated by now, as the ANC. Macro-economic stability, in a globalised world, is the condition for us to continue our objectives, which are about provision of social services, which are about transforming this country from a racially skewed economy into one which is more egalitarian.’

  But what, I say, if the pursuit of that stability compromises what you say are your goals? What if the pursuit of that stability becomes your goal? People have told me that their lives have got worse since the end of apartheid, and they blame you.

  There is a long pause, again, while he chooses his words.

  ‘Look,’ he says, finally, ‘you’re operating in a world in which you’re forced to make compromises . . . and I think that if you believe that the state is not attempting to discipline capital and ensure that social services are available to the people, then you would have a wrong impression. The standards of living of people in the urban areas may have declined since 1994. It’s been a very austere macro-economic plan, but we’re dealing with a crisis that was not of our own making. Given that our democracy came about in the year that the WTO was created – given those pressures, I think we should be given credit for what we are achieving. It’s not as if we never make mistakes, or I’m trying to paint a picture that everything is rosy and there’s no room for improvement.’

  But you’re not just reluctantly putting up with globalisation, are you, I say, you’re pushing it on further and faster. This very minute, your trade minister is at the WTO pushing for a new trade round – the only African trade minister to do so. You’ve upset a lot of your close neighbours by doing it. You’re removing your tariffs faster than you’re required to by the WTO . . .

  ‘Well, we don’t oppose the WTO,’ he says, deftly side-stepping the point. ‘We’d never join a call to abolish it, or to abolish the World Bank or the IMF. We think you have to engage with these institutions. But – look . . . there’s not a sell-out. I don’t believe there’s been a sell-out. Certainly there are elements within our own ranks that believe in capitalism. But that’s always been the case in the ANC; we’ve never been a socialist party. The approach we take is saying, how do we engage with globalisation? And if we engage with it in a way which is unrealistic, that is dictated to by what are probably good principles, but which don’t recognise the reality of a unipolar world with the strength of finance capital which exists out there . . . you’ve got to take these things into consideration, and say, how do you advocate the most productive agenda in that context?’

  This is turning into one of the starkest admissions of governmental powerlessness in the face of globalisation that I’ve ever heard. I’m beginning to admire Sachs for his frankness.

  ‘You know,’ he says, gesturing at nothing in particular, ‘you can’t just go and redistribute things, in this era. Maybe if we had a Soviet Union to defend us we could do that but, frankly, you’ve got to play the game – you’ve got to ensure that you don’t go on some adventure – you know, you will be defeated. They were defeated in Chile, they were defeated in Nicaragua . . . you can’t do it now . . .’

  In the meantime, he says, it’s not true that services are getting worse everywhere.

  ‘Services are improving,’ he insists, his tone decisive. ‘There’s no doubt about that. In terms of rural development in this country, people are getting water, they are getting electricity. Maybe the cost of living’s gone up, and for the urban working classes, things haven’t been easy in the last five years. Globalisation blows horrible, stinging winds across your economy. But there’s still no doubt that the state is popular and democratic, and there’s no doubt that it is extending services to the poor. There is popular discontent, there is no doubt about that, but I don’t think people are about to abandon the ANC.’ South Africa’s NGOs, he says, do not have a mass base anything like the size of the ANC’s. And as for the ‘anti-globalisation’ movement that they are hooking up with – it ‘has a problem’.

  ‘I mean, it’s not like communism or socialism, which, for all their faults, at least had a vision of what they wanted to replace international capitalism with. This movement does not have this, yet. You can go round to the mayor’s house and cut off his electricity, but what do you propose that the state, or whatever, puts in place of the system which causes these problems? I don’t think this is necessarily inherent in this movement, I think it’s probably just a stage in its development, that it has not yet got to the point where it can say, “This is what we would like to see.” I mean, people like me – I’m against capitalism, we’re all against capitalism, we all think that exploitation of men by men is wrong, but that’s not enough. In the South African context, what is the political alternative to the ANC? Should we adopt, say, similar policies to Castro, who is one of the ANC’s closest friends? Should we be out there condemning imperialism? If you do those things, how long will you last? There is no organisational alternative, and no real policy alternative to what we’re doing.’

  He sits back in his chair, and exhales. My tape recorder continues to whirr. The sound of typing comes through the wall. South Africa’s ANC government must be one of the most admired on the international stage. It had a vast network of hopes resting on it. It already seems to have abandoned most of them; including its own. Globalisation has pulled the rug out from under the feet of the Rainbow Nation’s liberators more effectively than apartheid ever did. To Michael Sachs’ credit, at least he’s honest about it.

  ‘It’s tough,’ he says. ‘I’m not going to
pretend that there isn’t dissent within our own ranks about all this. I’m not saying we’re doing everything right – but we’re trying, you know?’

  On my last day back in Durban, Ashwin and Heinrich had given me a lift to the airport, and we were all hanging around waiting for my plane back to Johannesburg. We were sitting in a typically soulless airport café, drinking coffee to the sound of tinned muzak, and discussing everything and nothing, when Ashwin said something very interesting. He was talking about the South African struggle, and what, according to him, was at the heart of it.

  ‘What was the whole struggle about, from the beginning?’ he demanded, rhetorically. ‘It was about saying, we won’t work in your mines – we want our land, we want control. We don’t want the fucking vote – the vote is meaningless unless we can run our own economy. That’s what we want. People assume our struggle ended when Mandela gave us the vote – that that was what it was all about. It wasn’t – it was about economic rights as much as political ones. We have a right to control our own economy, to use our own resources, to buy and sell our own things. And it’s a gripping question for people, you know – how come we have all this land, all this gold, and yet the IMF and the World Bank and the stock markets tell us what to do? How come we have the vote and yet we are not free? And people are starting to see this now. Our struggle is not over. The struggle of the twenty-first century is the struggle for the right to run our own economy.’

  What Ashwin had hit on was precisely what Michael Sachs, in a more roundabout way, was nudging at in his office that day. Something which reflected, independently, similar words I had heard in Genoa, in Chiapas and in Cochabamba, and which I would hear elsewhere, as I spoke to activists in very different countries, in very different circumstances. It was a simple idea, but one which runs like a seam through the global movement: political freedom without economic freedom is meaningless.

  South Africa provided me with only the starkest example of this fact, but it can be seen all over the world. The activities of governments are severely constrained by the free flow of capital and investment which characterise the process of globalisation. Put crudely, but accurately, if any government tries anything radical and dangerous, like land reform, nationalising industries, reining in corporations, redistributing wealth – anything, in other words, which threatens that country’s status as a safe place to make profits – business, and investment, will up sticks and move elsewhere.

  American journalist Thomas Friedman, one of globalisation’s loudest and most ferocious defenders, has famously called this the ‘golden straitjacket’. He speaks in glowing terms of the process that has been one of the movement’s biggest complaints: ‘As your country puts on the Golden Straitjacket,’ he explains, ‘two things tend to happen: your economy grows and your politics shrinks . . . [The] Golden Straitjacket narrows the political and economic policy choices of those in power to relatively tight parameters. That is why it is increasingly difficult these days to find any real differences between ruling and opposition parties in those countries that have put on the Golden Straitjacket. Once your country puts on the Golden Straitjacket, its political choices get reduced to Pepsi or Coke – to slight nuances of taste, slight nuances of policy . . .’13 This, Friedman thinks, is a good thing. Good or bad, it makes a mockery of the often-heard claim that free markets and free societies go hand-in-hand. The reality, as South Africa shows so well, is that globalisation eats democracy for breakfast.

  South Africa has strapped itself firmly into the golden straitjacket and the result has been a timid government, restrained by the dead hand of global capital from even attempting to achieve its more radical ambitions. The result, seen starkly, is a revolution betrayed. The ANC government has made its decision: to surrender to the power of the global market, and hand their people what crumbs they can gather from its table. Maybe this is understandable. Maybe it is cowardly. Whatever it is, they are not alone.

  But their people are not alone either. Not alone in their outrage or their resistance. Not alone in the growing realisation that economic, not just political, independence is something to be fought for. That fight has begun, and it doesn’t look like stopping any time soon. South Africa’s long walk to freedom is not over yet.

  4

  the church of stop shopping

  ‘All of us in the Coca-Cola family wake up each morning knowing that every single one of the world’s 5.6 billion people will get thirsty that day . . . If we make it impossible for these 5.6 billion people to escape Coca-Cola . . . then we assure our future success for many years to come. Doing anything else is not an option.’

  COCA-COLA ANNUAL REPORT, 1993

  ‘I asked the president, “What can we do to show support for America?” He said, “Mom, if you really want to help, buy, buy, buy.”’

  BARBARA BUSH, MOTHER OF GEORGE W. BUSH, 2001

  It’s the hair that does it. The hair is visible three blocks away, a vast golden skyscraper of a bouffant glinting in Manhattan’s winter sunshine. The hair and the teeth. The teeth are like sarsen stones, and the grin which they collectively form is wide, friendly, deeply cheesy and pointing in my direction. This could be no one else. He rides a bicycle, its chain lock slung around his neck.

  ‘Paul?’ says the Reverend Billy, grasping my hand very firmly indeed. ‘Bill. So sorry I’m late.’ He looks down at the paper cup in my hand, in the bottom of which are the cold dregs of a Starbucks latte.

  ‘Now, you didn’t pay for that, did you?’ he says.

  The Reverend is displeased, and decides that what we both need is some ‘real coffee’. I dispose of my paper cup and we make our way across Astor Place, away from the biggest Starbucks in Manhattan and towards a battered green coffee truck, owned by a friend of Billy’s, which is blasting out jazz from a couple of rickety speakers and serving what is, indeed, much better coffee than Starbucks have ever dreamed of.

  ‘My man,’ says the coffee truck owner to Billy, ‘how goes it?’

  ‘Well,’ says Billy, ‘very well. One of your finest cappuccinos, I think. No, wait – make that two.’

  The Reverend Billy is the founder and spiritual leader of the Church of Stop Shopping, and he is on a mission from God. His mission is to save New York, to save America, to save the world from the scourge of consumerism. A scourge visited upon the unbelievers like the plagues of Egypt; sent down from on high to homogenise their neighbourhoods, destroy their small shops and cafés, substitute independence for dependence and hand control of their streets to a buccaneering gang of multinational corporations who will decide what they buy and take their money for doing so. The Reverend Billy has come to save them – to save us – from all this, and I have come, today, to Astor Place, to have my sins absolved (specifically, the purchase of that latte) and to listen to the Reverend explain to me how he intends to do it.

  We wander a few blocks downtown, the Reverend pushing his bicycle and pointing out, every few yards, this or that local landmark which stood proudly independent for years and which is now a McDonald’s, a Disney Store, a Borders, another Starbucks. We seek refuge in one of the few places in midtown Manhattan that is not yet owned by a multinational chain – Jones Diner, a sixty-year-old American classic, all chrome, steel, neon, plastic, hamburgers and grits (whatever they are). It exudes James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Steve McQueen. I’ve seen this kind of thing in films, so I know.

  ‘This is one of the last human-scale places in the neighbourhood,’ says Billy. ‘They want to knock it down. They want to build an “executive development”.’

  ‘Hey, you!’ says the diner’s owner, popping up from behind the stainless steel counter. He wears a striped apron and a little white hat. He is pure diner, pure New York, pure America. This is my first time in this country, and everything already looks terribly familiar.

  ‘Hey you!’ repeats the owner, waving at Billy. ‘We don’t like your sort in here. You look like trouble.’ Both of them are grinning. This is obviously a well practised ritual
.

  ‘Fine,’ says Billy. ‘We’ll go and eat in Starbucks instead. They have little shrink-wrapped biscuits. We don’t need character in our neighbourhood anyway, we’d rather have corporate cool.’

  ‘Turkey’s the special,’ says the diner man.

  ‘Then bring us turkey, please, my good friend,’ says the Reverend. The diner man disappears into the kitchen, and Billy turns back to me, teeth flashing like homing beacons.

  ‘Let’s talk,’ he says.

  Since he first took his vows, the Reverend Billy has been waging a one-man crusade against consumerism, in a style that is all his own. Others who object to the rash of Starbucks, and other such corporate chains, from bookshops to burger bars, spreading across their town, destroying local competition and bleaching the character out of their neighbourhoods, might perhaps choose to boycott the chains. Might write a letter to someone, may even go so far as to stand outside the store holding placards and shouting ‘no more Starbucks’, or something similar. Billy doesn’t think any of this works, and he’s probably right. Billy thinks that in a new world – a world of wall-to-wall consumerism, mass advertising, information overload – in a world like this, protest must be as new, as shiny, as reinvented, as the economy itself.

  Billy wants people to understand that when they buy a Starbucks coffee they are buying a lot more than a drink, and he wants to get the message across in a way that people cannot possibly ignore; in a way, indeed, that they might even find amusing. And so, on a chosen day, at a chosen time, Billy will enter Starbucks, his hair towering and magnificent, his teeth gleaming, his body encased in a dog collar and white tuxedo, and he will begin to preach.