Statement of the Colombo meeting on "Rebuilding Global Justice in the 21st Century: Undoing Past Injustices, Social and Economic Orientations"

The Other Debt

I. What the North owes to the South

In a time of remembrance, repentance, compensation, the long history of colonisation has also to be recalled. It is a positive fact that the Shoah (the Holocaust) has been faced as a reality, that victims of the Nazi period in Europe or of the Japanese regime during the Second World War are compensated, that Pope John Paul II asked pardon for the historical sins of the Catholic Church. But are we ready to face the wrongs of the colonial system and the dramatic consequences that peoples of the South had to pay and still are paying?

Much has been said about the debt of the South and its cancellation or its alleviation. The Jubilee 2000 campaign has rightly brought this question to world attention. What about the ravages, the destruction and the mass murders committed by the Northern countries since the end of the 15th century? Something was achieved on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the conquest of the Americas, that some called ironically "the meeting of civilisations," but the time has come to globalise the vision.

The tragedies of the South

Since the end of the 15th century two periods can be distinguished, the mercantile one up to about the end of the 18th century and the industrial one after that. It is of course impossible to have a real account of all the human costs, in life, social disorganisation and cultural destruction, not to speak about the amount of riches extracted. On one side, historical research is far from having established all the facts and discovered all the evidence, but on the other side, it seems more important to indicate the logic which commanded this dramatic part of the history of humankind and to illustrate it by some concrete and typical examples.

a. The mercantile colonisation

This period has been characterized by the search to dominate international trade, the existing one (spices, ivory, etc.), to produce new agricultural products, such as sugar, coffee or tea, and in particular to extract metallic riches: silver and gold. In Africa and Asia, the first step has been the establishment of trade-centres. The Portuguese have been more inclined to make wars, especially in the Northern coasts of India, because they were facing Muslims and thought they were called to destroy the "infidel."

The rapid destruction of the native population in America resulted in the introduction of massive slavery, the new humanpower being taken from Africa by British, French, Dutch and Belgian traders. This is what has been called the Triangular trade. Many families of the high bourgeoisie of Nantes, Antwerp, Bristol or Liverpool built their fortunes on this foundation and Barclay's Bank and Lloyd's insurers made their first capital gains out of slavery.

-- i. Total exploitation of human beings

The first reality was the genocide of the native population in the Americas. In the South it happened through labour exploitation, killings in war and diseases. It is estimated that more than 80 percent of the so-called Indian population was eliminated. In Mexico, there were an estimated 12 million indigenous people in 1519, when Cortez came and a little more than a century later they were only 1,270,000. In Central America they fell from 70 million to 20 million. In Brazil 3 million aborigines were living in 1500 and in 1900 they were reduced to 100,000 (1). In Cuba the indigenous population went from 120,000 in 1510 to almost nil in 1535 (2). In North America, beginning one century later than in the South, genocide was perpetrated systematically to clear the way for the settlers.

The lack of humanpower for the mines and for the plantations was the cause of the slave trade. It is very difficult to estimate the number of Africans brought to the Americas. Reliable sources affirm that they were between 15 and 25 million (3). But it must be added that some sources speak about a mortality of 50 percent during the long voyage between the three continents (4) and that a great number of them died during the slave raids in Africa or on their way to the trading centres. Black humanpower was the source of the economic production to the advantage of the European countries. In Cuba, for example, between 1774 and 1827, the slave population grew from 50,000 to over 250,000 and sugar exports went from less than 60,000 crates to more than 300,000 (5). Women suffered continuous harassment by the conquerors and the slave owners, being forcibly reduced to simple instruments of pleasure and of reproduction for the whites. Existing families were broken and children were separated from their mothers.

It is hard to imagine what this meant for human life in two continents, not only physical sufferings and deaths; but also moral sufferings and social and cultural destruction. On the one side (the Indians of America), it meant the disappearance of their collective being and the reduction of the remaining few to underdevelopment and on the other (for the African societies) a complete halt to the dynamics of their economic and political history.

Such a human tragedy is unique in the history of humankind, because it was not only a military conquest for political purposes or the result of wars between neighbouring peoples, but a long-term process, beginning a new phase of an economic system and of inter-racial relationships.

-- ii. Plunder and extraction of wealth

Trade centres were not only established to control existing international commerce or to set up monopolies (cinnamon, for example), but especially to plunder the precious metal riches. They were simply stolen or extracted from mines with the use of indigenous or slave humanpower. During the 18th century, Latin America alone was providing more than 80 percent of the world production of silver and gold (6). In Asia the work was done by the various "India Companies," British, French, Dutch.

-- iii. Religious justification of the mercantile colonial enterprise

For the Spaniards and the Portuguese, evangelisation of the local population was an essential part of the conquest. They regarded themselves as having the mission of bringing these populations into the Kingdom of God. This was also largely used as a justification for the political and the economic conquests. The reconquista against the Moors was a part of this holy war and no less than 69 papal bulls accompanied the Portuguese enterprise in Africa and in Asia, giving them the rights of trade monopolies and of enslaving the local populations (7).

b. Industrial colonisation

The transition between the two forms of colonisation was gradual and happened at different times in different regions. In this model, colonies were necessary to provide raw material and to provide markets to sell the products. It was the beginning of territorial conquests, in particular in Asia and later on in Africa, with the partition of the continent between the European countries at the Berlin Conference of 1884. Hence the establishment of colonies and not only of trade Companies, and the constitution of empires (British, French, Dutch, Belgian; German, Italian and Japanese attempts at colonisation came later).

-- i. Human destruction

Conquest of territories provoked resistance and a great number of local wars, causing millions of victims, all over Asia and Africa. Some historical sources exist reporting the number of victims for individual situations, but no overall account has yet been made, like for the first or the second world war. However global figures may well be very similar in size to the number of victims of these two wars.

In the British colonies of Asia, the plantation economy led to the forced migration of Indian people from different regions -- Gujarat, Rajastan, West Bengal, Tamilnadu and Kerala -- to countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa, etc. Malays were moved from the Philippines to Indonesia and Singapore.

Between 1880 and 1900, the population of tropical Africa decreased because of wars, famines caused by social disruption, diseases and hard conditions of labour. Only about 1920 did the population begin to increase significantly. To illustrate this we can quote a few facts: two-thirds of the Herero people of Namibia (probably about 50,000 persons) were killed in the course of subjugation; hundreds of thousands in putting down the Maji Maji rebellion in Tanzania, etc. Death rates among forced labourers were often high: 100 per thousand in Sao Tome in 1915, 200 per thousand on plantations in Cameroon in 1902 (8). In South Africa the number of deaths per thousand mine workers was, in 1905, 130 for tropical Africans, 35 for local Africans and 20 for whites (9).

The destruction of the social, cultural and ecological equilibriums provoked also great famines, which are now considered not as natural phenomena, but as direct results of the new economic and political order. In India, for example, there was the famine of 1877-1878, which resulted from war and cost some 15 million lives over about 5 years. Problems of famine arose also as an indirect result of the land taxes, of thousands of families losing their means of livelihood (10).

Indirect consequences of the colonial imposition were also responsible for many victims. For example, in South China, the destruction of the rural economy, after the opium wars, provoked a peasant uprising, resulting in the Tai Ping revolt, which was crushed by the imperial army, aided by the Western powers, and ended with a total of some 12 million deaths.

-- ii. Land occupation

The control of land became more important than during the preceding colonial period, except for the regions where plantations were established early, like Cuba and Brazil. Therefore land was taken over from the local people and put under the direct control of colonial governments or of corporate enterprises.

In India, for example, the revenue from the tax on land in Bengal was 1,238,575 pounds in 1757 and 2,818,000 pounds in 1775. In 1793, it rose to 3,400,000 pounds. In Bombay, the land revenue amounted to 800,000 pounds in 1817 and 1,500,000 pounds one year later in 1818 (11). In order to establish full control, territories were annexed by force, as happened in 1815 for Ceylon and in 1857 for India.

The introduction of monoculture commodities destroyed the food security of many regions of the South, resulting sometimes in situations of hunger and of famine. This was the case with cotton or groundnut production.

Land taken from the local people in colonies of white settlement in Africa has been enormous: by 1930, 2.74 million hectares in Kenya, 3.43 million in Zambia and 106 million in South Africa. In Zimbabwe, by 1970 it was 16.5 million hectares (12).

In North America, the land cleared of its former inhabitants became open for the great European migrations. Indeed, rapid industrialization brought about economic crisis in the countryside of Western and Central Europe. The surplus population was sent abroad, to North America, but also to a less extent to Australia, South Africa and the 'Southern Cone' of Latin America. They were generally poor immigrants, themselves used as cheap labour for industry, or as settlers to deforest or to clear new lands for agriculture.

-- iii. De-industrialisation

India had an important textile industry, especially located in West Bengal. This was rapidly reduced by the coloniser in order to promote British industry. The increase in cotton goods exported from Britain to India rose from 800,000 yards in 1814 to 14 million yards in 1820 (13).

The destruction of village industry led to large-scale migrations and to the shift from a largely ritual distinction of the castes to a more economic and social differentiation.

-- iv. Market domination

Loans were given to local rulers, at very high rates of interest. For example, the Nawab of Oudh owed 300,000 pounds in 1778 and the Nawab of Carnatic three million in 1784 (14).

During the first decade of the 19th century China had earned about US$26 million profit from trade. But from 1828 to 1836, US$38 million flowed out of the country. It was opium that turned the balance and ended by financing much of England's further colonisation of India. In 1830, at least 4 million pounds was taken from India to England (15).

-- v. Social and political destruction

Industrial colonisation continued to destroy the social fabric of many societies by the introduction of a colonial administration, which has to be financially supported by the local people. The tax systems transformed many of the existing social relationships, even when the principle was to rule through existing traditional authorities. These were used and in many instances co-opted by the colonial powers, who produced also new social groups serving as intermediaries between them and the local population. These were sometimes racially mixed, ladino or mulatto groups, sometimes culturally mixed, as with the well-known phenomenon of the "brown sahibs."

Political divisions were introduced, often regardless of the long-existing administrative entities or dividing, by new borders, ethnic groups who were united before. This resulted in later conflicts which in some instances are still continuing nowadays, as for example in the Horn of Africa.

We cannot forget the wars waged to resist decolonisation, as in Indonesia, Algeria and Vietnam, where millions of people lost their lives, not to mention the tremendous material destruction. Vietnam and Cambodia have received much more bombs on their territories than the total amount used during the Second World War. Unlike the cases of the two world wars, no compensation has been paid to the victims, and no "Marshall Plan" has been elaborated for their reconstruction. In this connection we may recall the existence of Moroccan, Senegalese or Gurkha cemeteries in Europe, fruit of the recruitment of soldiers for the European wars of 1914 and 1940.

Outside of formal wars, nationalist movements toward independence and anti-colonial resistance were met with the use of force, obliging their leaders to go into hiding.

Culturally speaking, the language, the food, the dress, the religion and even the names of Europeans were considered as superior and their adoption as a sign of superiority. When the local people accepted this, it led to self-negation.

-- vi. What benefits did the colonies receive from infrastructure, education and health services?

It is said with some justification that without colonisation the South would have remained with little infrastructure, education and health systems. All the same it must be remembered that most of the infrastructure (railways, roads, canals, etc.) were built to serve the economic interests of the colonisers, be it in Africa or in Asia, and of the foreign companies in the majority of the Latin American countries. The human cost of the building of such infrastructure was tremendous. The Panama canal cost the lives of some 25,000 workers, mostly Jamaicans. The construction of the Ocean-Congo railway killed some 25,000 people. Similar figures can be given for the railways in other parts of Africa, in India and in Bolivia. This kind of infrastructure was often useful for the colonists' purposes, but also hindered the further rational development of the various countries. It developed some industries ancillary to infrastructure development.

Education and health services were first necessary for the expatriates and secondly for the social group serving as cheaper intermediaries than the Europeans for the administration. Voluntary organizations, especially the religious missions, organized schools and health care for the native people. However, in spite of a tremendous amount of generosity and dedication, they did not challenge the colonial system.

Depending on the methods of colonisation, a minority of local people were able to be part of the Western culture, considered as "the" civilization. Some of them led the struggle for national independence, some others became leaders of freedom movements including social and revolutionary dimensions, but the majority of them constituted the new social class integrated into the global economic and political world. They are, in fact, often alienated from their own people, having their economic interests abroad and serving as intermediaries, this time for a global system.

c. Neo-colonisation

Neo-colonisation is not a slogan. It can be defined as political independence with increasing economic dependence, to begin with, on the former colonial power. The project of "national development" or of "desarrollismo," trying to substitute imports by local production and based on a certain social pact between national bourgeoisies and organized labour (but not the landless or the small peasants and the urban informal sector), came to an end under the cost of importing technologies and know-how, which was one of the elements causing the present debt. Currency reserves continued to be held in the currency of the ex-colonial power.

-- i. Denationalisation of the economies

With the recent neo-liberal orientation of the world economy, the South has seen, even more rapidly than the North, a process of denationalisation of its economy, which is more and more controlled by multinational enterprises. Hardly any of these have their headquarters in the South.

At the same time the concentration on export-crops and minerals continued with constantly declining exchange rates reflected in the terms of trade. So, as the years passed, the chances of any autonomous development became remote. No viable alternative system was attempted, except in large countries like India or Brazil. In the past Western economies protected their national industrial development, but this was rapidly prohibited for the South.

-- ii. Flow from South to North

The flow of financial capital from the South to the North grew in a number of ways. The expatriate companies based in the imperial country continue to operate as before, to extract profits and to remit them to the metropolitan centre. The local branches of banks owned by the metropolitan power continue to mobilize local savings and lend them to the expatriate firms as before.

But new processes have also taken place. Among them, mechanisms of price fixing, especially of the products of the South, repatriation of profits, rates of interest, especially for short-term investments, export of capital to tax havens, debt service often almost equivalent to export incomes are the main ones. In 1999, the service of the debt alone cost the South US$200 billion. During the same year foreign aid totalled US$50 billion. It has been calculated that the flow of capital from the South to the North is 3 or 4 times the amount of the flow from the North to the South.

-- iii. Co-option of local elites and repression of resistance

Local ruling classes with the same outlook as the colonial power, as we have said, became dominant groups in their own societies. However, the integration in the world system of a part of them brought social and political divisions inside the various countries, the political groups most integrated into the world system tending to become politically powerful.

Social resistance was repressed, not only by the numerous "low-intensity wars" against nationalist or socially oriented efforts, and financed and organized by the North (mostly the United States of America), but also by political and police repression of social movements such as peasant movements, trade unions, indigenous organizations, students' movements, basic Christian communities, Buddhist-inspired groups, Muslim social protest groups, etc.

-- iv. Integration into the neo-liberal globalisation

The policies of the World Bank and of the International Monetary Fund have pressured local economies to integrate themselves into the existing neo-liberal framework, to promote the accumulation of capital. This has been the main function of the "Structural Adjustment Programmes," with all their well-known disastrous social consequences.

Governments are losing their control over national economic affairs and have to accommodate their economies to privatisation and restructuring processes to integrate in the global economy. Even the so-called Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) in Asia, which have seen a significant industrial development, thanks to their integration in the geo-policy of the West, their possibility of exporting to the Western market and the exploitation of their own humanpower, revealed themselves very vulnerable in the financial crisis of 1997. In the process they lost more than 10 million jobs and the majority of their national firms have passed under the control of foreign enterprises.

d. Present day consequences

-- i. Endemic poverty

Five hundred years of North-South, East-West relationships find the North (or the West) more developed technologically and economically than ever before. The poorest and weakest sections of their societies too find their relative conditions worsening due to the operation of the free market economy and the social problems of the dominant individualism that is leading to the breakup of communities, beginning with the family.

In the South, as we begin the 21st century, in almost all countries a small elite is better off than ever before. They live more or less at the level of the affluent in the North. But the majority of the population in most of Asia, Africa and Latin America find their living conditions deteriorating. The "open market" economy and the imposition of structural adjustment policies have weakened the economic position of the poorest sections of all societies. Some countries are suffering unbearable poverty and are irremediably burdened with foreign debt servicing. Poverty is endemic under these conditions. Social conflicts are increasing.

Women are particularly affected by the process and one can speak about a feminisation of poverty. The so-called informal sector depends heavily on women's labour, for long hours and small returns. They are the first victims of domestic violence which results from poverty. They are also suffering the major negative consequences of mass tourism, with the international commercialisation of prostitution. Localising production in the so-called Free Trade Zones offers the opportunity of using cheap female labour under inhuman social conditions.

It is also noteworthy that about 30 wars or international conflicts take place at any given time in the South. This is a characteristic of the present situation of the wealthy North no longer fighting among themselves (as they did in the two world wars, partly for colonies). The conflicts are now in the South due to economic, ethnic or religious divisions. The North produces most of the armaments used in these wars or low-intensity conflicts. They lend funds to combatant parties and eventually come in to safeguard human rights and promote peace. While the Southern peoples must take the main blame for such situations, due in good measure to the rivalries of corrupt ruling elites, the world socio-economic conditions aggravate the conflicts.

These internal conflicts and the lack of opportunities for earning a living are pushing people out of the poor countries to the more affluent North-West. The developed countries perceive such movement of population as unacceptable due to their own unemployment and social tensions. Hence immigration laws are tightened by their countries, particularly against the economic refugees from the South.

Seen in the long-term background of centennial history, this is a movement of people due to population pressure in the poor countries, that cannot provide a decent means of living for their increasing population. Thus India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have together increased by over 900 million during the past fifty years since Independence. But they cannot move to the fertile, uncultivated and underpopulated areas of the world. On the one hand the poor South has contributed personnel, resources and markets for the enrichment of the North; on the other, the European peoples have occupied most of the available land masses of the world.

-- ii. Global apartheid

The peoples of the South and East who are of racial stock different from Europeans have to remain where they are (except a few generally affluent). This would seem to be basically a racial occupation of the lands of the Americas, North-East Asia and Oceania by Europeans. This situation is increasingly unjust, not only due to its origin in large-scale genocide and plunder, but also because the peoples of European origin are aging and growing at a much slower rate (if not beginning to decrease in absolute terms) compared to those of Africa, Latin America and Asia.

This aspect of world distribution of population to land is a form of global apartheid that is generally not taken note of by the developed nations or even by scholars and religious leaders in the North-West. It is the most permanent effect of the European expansion since 1492.

Even the United Nations Organization (UNO) is based on the assumption that the present world order is just. Its maintenance is considered the condition for peace among nations. The armed might of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is utilized to prevent any changes in this situation.

Unfortunately, even the accent on capitalist globalisation as the principal evil of present-day society may divert attention from this basic racial foundation of the world order. While ethnicity and religious differences within nations are seen and analysed as the cause of internal conflicts, the dominant factor of race is hardly analysed and dealt with as a cause of tensions among peoples and world religions. Those who have occupied the vacant land masses of the earth are Christian peoples -- even if this is fundamentally contrary to the values of Jesus or of the jubilee in the Bible. The peoples of the other religions are de facto confined to their original homelands in Asia and Africa (16).

This situation of global apartheid backed up by very stringent immigration laws is quite contrary to the principles of the so-called free market economy where free enterprise is said to bring about an equilibrium of supply and demand. This apparently does not apply to two principal factors of production, human beings and land. It is becoming increasingly necessary for the world to take note of this long-term injustice which cannot be perpetuated without massive social explosions in the world. If the UNO is to have any meaning in the coming decades it must evolve principles and ways for a just distribution of populations in the world.

A truly just (and socialist) alternative to capitalist apartheid globalisation must include a use of land to meet human needs and may not tolerate the present very grave inequalities in land distribution. There is no easy solution and merely encouraging massive migrations might create more problems, but a global approach should be adopted taking into account the unjust disparities of land, land use patterns, cultural factors and development policies.

-- iii. Cultural globalisation

The present-day global culture is brought about by the worldwide extension of the socio-economic system. It introduces as the main values competition, success and money, and is transmitted by powerful monopolies in the mass media. Local cultures tend to be despised or to be reduced to refuges for obsolete attitudes. There is little room for a dynamic evolution of local cultures as part of the human patrimony.

II. Why such an evolution?

It is necessary to go beyond the facts in order to find the logic. There must be a fundamental reason to explain the trend described above.

1. The historical continuity of the extraction of resources

The striking fact is that since the 15th century we see a continuing and growing process of extracting the wealth of the South going on under various forms.

Mercantile colonisation allowed the first steps of accumulation (primitive accumulation), necessary for the development of industrial capitalism. Industrial capitalism, which established itself with the division of labour between a manufacturing North and raw material-producing South, was in need of raw material, of cheap foodstuffs to keep the price of humanpower reproduction low and of markets. This is the reason why exploitation has been continuing.

Today financial capital prevails and extraction of wealth, whether still in the form of raw material or by control of markets, has been more and more under the form of capital flow. The consequences for the South have been already grave, because of the "casino" effects suffered in Mexico, Asia, Brazil. But even the so-called remedies brought about by the international financial institutions have resulted in a more strict dependence on international capital.

What is the logic behind such a human and natural destruction? Are we not facing the rationality of irrationality? What is the meaning of economy, if it is not to assure for the whole of humankind the necessary means of physical and cultural existence? It is only by understanding the logic of capitalism that we will find some answer. If the economic system is based on profit, as motivation and as operating tool, any economic activity must obey this logic.

2. Capitalism is more than an economic factor

Capitalism has social, political and cultural dimensions. Socially, it created new social classes, integrated directly or indirectly in the main labour/capital relationship. Politically, it has been associated with and limited to parliamentary democracy. Culturally, liberal ideology has been the main frame of reference. It must be added that the growth of the capitalist system has been easily associated with fascist regimes, with military dictatorships and with National Security ideologies.

The capitalist system has been able to (subsume) preceding social relationships, feudal or slave, if they were serving its purpose of accumulation. It has also used gender inequalities or racism, which were existing since the beginning of humankind, as useful means and has given them a world dimension. The culture of the inferiority of women was a useful basis to ignore their economic contribution in the reproduction of humanpower, for establishing lower salaries, to deny them the right of forming trade unions. The fact that capitalism was developed in Europe gave the white race (and not the Arabs or the Chinese) an instrument of world domination (in which) theories of the inferiority of other races serve as legitimation for conquest of land and protection from outside migrations.

3. The future

Many questions may be raised about the future. We will confine ourselves to two main ones: population and growth.

a. Population

The size of population in 2025 will be anything between 8.5 to 9.5 billion. In Asia the very adverse sex ratio, because of the "missing women," may well reinforce male-dominated patriarchal values. Supporting the increased proportion of aging people will cause a problem and be a very negative factor for the poorest. Unemployment is bound to increase, especially in the South, where 85-90 percent of the youth of the world will be located. Urbanisation will continue with mega-cities heading toward a collapse. Here also the market will fail.

b. Growth versus quality of life

According to Mahatma Gandhiji's dictum, there is enough wealth in the world to meet everybody's needs, but not to meet everybody's greed. Growth is rooted on the neoclassical postulate of unlimited wants and scarcity of resources.

What is inadequately appreciated is the simple truth that the latter follows from the former. Today the plunder of the earth and the damage to the environmental system have assumed dangerous proportions. Water becomes a serious problem and wars of the future may well have its control as an objective. The concept of growth irresponsibly promoted by economists, international capital and politicians will face its moment of truth in the years to come. Growing inequalities and deprivation will reach unsustainable proportions.

The unprecedented growth of finance capital has created a casino economy, with great vulnerability, as has been shown by the latest crises, in particular in Asia. Global institutions face a crisis of legitimacy and there are talks about a new architecture of the international financial organizations.

More and more groups are convinced that it cannot continue this way and are searching for alternative solutions.

III. Towards a post-capitalist alternative

One leitmotif of the liberal ideology is to affirm that there is no alternative to the market economy. They point also to the failure of the socialist system in Eastern Europe and to the gradual return to the market in countries like China or Vietnam. True enough, those economic and social systems which were intended to propose an alternative to capitalism, returned to some elements of its main logic, under the pressure of their own internal contradictions and of the external pressures and the "cold war." We cannot forget that none of them was able to establish itself without a war organized by the capitalist powers, whether in Russia, China, Vietnam, Angola or Cuba. True enough, their internal contradictions and their own choices brought about new social stratifications of privileges, authoritarian regimes and even mass murders of social groups. Their desire to catch up with capitalist consumerism brought them also to do to major damage to the environment. This is why they are not seen anymore as concrete alternative models. However, it does not mean that we have nothing to learn from what has happened and that a post-capitalist solution is not necessary.

-- i. The limits of neo-Keynesian solutions

Keynesian and neoclassical models of consumerism and growth are at the first glance the most obvious solutions, but are unsustainable on a global scale. Growth is only a means for human development and not an end in itself. The utilisation of the world resources should not be based on profit, except as an incentive to production. Profit unrelated to production has more dangerous consequences. The ownership of means of production should be regulated so as not to create antithesis between production for people and private accumulation. Neo-Keynesianism implies accepting the fundamental logic of the capitalist system, but trying to regulate its functioning to avoid abuses and negative social consequences. This is mainly represented by the so called "Third way" advocated in Europe and in North America.

Neo-liberalism is a type of capital accumulation based on the concentration of wealth, (with) growing exclusion of lower social groups in the industrial economies and of entire countries or even continents, while Keynesianism was built on growth with employment. Presently the concentration of wealth is mostly the outcome of financial transactions of competing big business rather than of the increase of global production and sales. The more finance goes to the stock market, with the hope of future gains, the more capital becomes virtual rather than real. When there is no growth in production, innovation is less and less profitable. The economy would be dominated by capital flows rather than an increase in production and distribution of goods. This is more likely to lead to an economic crisis and even a world depression. The consequences could lead to a revival of fascism.

A neo-Keynesian attempt to reconcile private interests with global common good, with an increasing global demand and a worldwide involvement of working population, is impossible for several reasons. First of all because of the unsustainability of natural resources; second because it is impossible in this framework to manage the economy and avoid depression.

-- ii. Towards a post-capitalist rationality

There is a growing awareness that humankind cannot follow this course. The only way to recover from a world economic crisis is to give priority to the common good above private interests. Therefore global intervention on depreciation is necessary and this implies a change in economic-thinking, which leads to a post-capitalist solution.

Post-capitalist rationality will tend to submit the market to planning and submit private interest to the common good. It has to place the good of all the citizens of the world as the primary goal, and not private interests. Overall growth is possible with a better redistribution of world income. It is possible if production is oriented towards the satisfaction of needs rather than wants. More durable products could save resources and allow investment in the South, without overall global growth and with a gain in global well-being. This approach would open possibilities for a democratisation of the economy and also of the political and social systems.

Concretely it means the necessity of delegitimising the capitalist system, not only for its abuses and evil effects, but for its logic itself, which contradicts the main function of the economy, which is to produce the material basis for the physical and cultural life of humankind. It means also the necessity of globalising resistance and social struggles to come to a convergence of action against the system, as at Seattle.

From the point of view of alternatives, three levels can be indicated. First, the level of the utopia or ideal necessary to orientate and to motivate the action: what kind of society do we want? Second, the level of medium-range goals, such as other modalities of globalisation, the development of regional economic poles to balance the power of the multinational corporations, etc. Finally, there are a lot of short-range objectives, in the way of regulations in various fields: economic, like the Tobin Tax on financial transactions; social, like codes of conduct; political, like the democratisation of the United Nations Organization; cultural, like the refusal of commercialisation of culture, etc.

Many concrete alternatives can be advocated by both neo-Keynesian and post-capitalist orientations, but within the framework of a totally different philosophical approach: the former are considering these measures as a possibility of humanizing the capitalist system, the latter as steps to reverse the economic logic and to reintegrate the economy within society, which means the necessity of envisaging a completely different system.

One can understand the role that Christian faith and Buddhist teaching can play in such a situation, to denounce the injustices of a genocidal economic system and to establish another one based on limits to craving and greed and on solidarity and compassion.

IV. Compensation

The problem of compensation

As described before, the damages caused to the Third World people are more important than we can imagine. If we had to calculate compensation for the unpaid labour, for grabbed land, for usurious loans, for war damages, for slavery, for genocide, for plunder of silver and gold, for unequal exchanges, we would never end the calculation, not to mention the interest. This debt cannot be paid in full, neither morally, nor materially. First, human sufferings and such violations of human rights cannot be expressed in figures. Second, the amount would be so high, especially if we take into account rates of interest, like in the case of the foreign debt, that it would be illusory to fix an amount.

However the question of compensation cannot be avoided. It is a matter of justice, and in the South the consciousness of necessary reparation is growing. It can be raised at three different levels:

1. Moral compensation

The main aspect is the moral one. It should be recognized that all these damages have been caused to the peoples of the South, humanly, culturally, economically, environmentally, politically, etc. Collective memory, on a world scale, should be aware of the existence of the colonial genocide, of slavery, of the plunder. Concrete ways of keeping the memory alive should be found, such as truth commissions, historical research on a bilateral basis -- South and North, memorial days, educational packages, radio and TV programmes, regional and world sessions of the Permanent People's Tribunal, creation of an International Court for economic injustices, liturgical celebrations, etc.

2. Material compensation

Facing the near impossibility of quantifying the material compensation, other measures should be suggested, like an international tax on financial transactions, a solidarity tax on economic growth, taxation on big fortunes, establishing a maximum income limit, etc. This could serve to increase or to create the means to regulate economic exchanges, to favour development policies in the South, to stabilise the process of production and to pave the way for a post-capitalist system.

It should be clear that there is no question of establishing an equivalence between the debt of the North and the foreign debt of the South, for the simple reason that the legitimacy of the latter cannot be admitted. Not only is its origin morally dubious and its growth artificially created, but it has been repaid, sometimes several times. This debt should be abolished, whatever the considerations about the debt of the North to the South. Instead processes of compensation from the North to the South should be rapidly organised.

3. Cultural compensation

Humanist cultural values and riches of all the cultures should be recognized, respected, partaken and spread with modern means of communication, allowing a real cultural diversity. They cannot be the object of mercantile transactions. Mass media should stop serving only the consumerist and individualist attitudes encouraged by the logic of the capitalist system. Artifacts which have been stolen should be returned to their places of origin.

To conclude, it must be strongly affirmed that the only real compensation is the fundamental transformation of the world economic order, first to suppress the obstacles of the human development of the South, and second to search for post-capitalist alternatives.

4. Global Peoples Tribunal on debt to the South

In order to promote the demand for compensation, we propose a process comprising the following steps:

-- a. Selection of some specific cases (e.g. Zimbabwe) that are clearly identifiable and of a limited scale;

-- b. Setting up of working groups for each of the cases, composed of representatives from the former colonial and the former colonising countries, to collect facts, figures and witnesses;

-- c. Organising public hearings, aiming at the widest possible publicity, on these cases, with the involvement of legal experts to prepare proper charges;

-- d. Enlargement of the cases and organising of regional tribunals that collect the cases of legal relevance in regions to be identified;

-- e. The process aims at a global People's Tribunal that possibly could put cases forward to the International Court of Justice.

V. A task for the religions and the Churches in particular

We need a Christian theology that returns to the universal teaching of Jesus of God as love, and love as the primary call to Christian discipleship.

Within this perspective, there needs to be an attitude of repentance for the sins of the past few centuries in which Christians and Churches have oppressed other peoples. We recommend that the 1st Sunday of Lent each year be the World Penance Day on which reparation for the past and an orientation of openness and dialogue for the future would be studied, reflected on, and celebrated liturgically and meaningful action taken in the Churches throughout the world. The Pope's recent asking pardon for the past sins of Christians can be an inspiration.

We can take his example further if we remember the conditions we were taught for a good confession:

-- i. detail the number and gravity of the sins and who were the accomplices;

-- ii. genuine repentance and sorrow, leading to

-- iii. reparation and, if appropriate, compensation;

-- iv. a firm purpose of amendment of life, which, in the case of a social sin, may mean changing the structures of sin;

-- v. avoidance of occasions of sin, which could mean changing structures and systems which lead to sin.

Churches should seek to overcome the structures of domination institutionalised within them and develop a relationship of greater equality among all Christians, clergy and laity, North and South. Discrimination based on gender, race, class, caste and age needs to be overcome.

A global theology of liberation would animate Christians to work for the restructuring of the relationships among peoples along the lines of equality of opportunity for all peoples -- undoing the injustices and the structures of past exploitation now consolidated as the world order. The Churches thus renewed can be a help for global networking for causes working for a better world.

The values and spiritual riches of all the religions and of secular movements can guide us to right relationships based on personal and group reflection, and action inspired by the wise understanding of the local and global realities.

References

(1) Albert Can Dantzing, The Atlantic slave trade and West African societies, in "La Traite des Noirs, Nouvelles Approches," Paris, Societe Francaise d'Histoire d'Outre Mer, 1976, p.266.

(2) Jesus Guanche, "Componentes Etnicos de la Nacion Cubana," La Habana, Uninion, 1997, p.20.

(3) W.E. Minchinton and P.C. Emmer, in "La Traite des Noirs, Nouvelles Approches," op. cit. p.12.

(4) Philippe Paraire, Economie servile et capitalisme: un bilan quantifiable, in "Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme," Paris, Le Temps des Cerises, 1998, p.31.

(5) Jesus Guanche, op. cit., p.45 and Hebert Klein, The Cuban Slave Trade 1790-1843, in "La Traite des Noirs: Nouvelles Approches, op. cit., p.70.

(6) Maurice Garden, Images industrielles dans l'Europe occidentale et les Ameriques avant leur independance politique, in "Leon, Inerties et Revolutions: 1730-1840," T.3, 1977-1978.

(7) Francois Houtart, "Religion and Ideology in Sri Lanka," Colombo, Hansa, 1994, p.127.

(8) A. Adu Boahen (editor), "Africa under colonial domination 1880-1935: UNESCO general history of Africa," vol. 7, p. 162 (abridged edition), James Currey, London, UNESCO, Paris & University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990 (9) Ibid.

(10) C.R.C. Dutt, "Economic History of India," 1901, p. VI.

(11) Ibid.

(12) A. Adu Boahen (editor), op. cit.

(13) R.J. Moore, India and the British empire, in C.L. Eldridge, "British Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century," London, Macmillan, 1984.

(14) Ibid., p.70.

(15) Frederic Wakeman, The Canton trade and the opium war, in "The Cambridge History of China," p. 173.

(16) Tissa Balasuriya, "Planetary Theology," Orbis Books, New York, 1984, pp. 23-33.