The news conference started as a castigation of the South African government and big corporations — in the Nedcor building — and briefly turned into a verbal scuffle between journalists.
It side-lined into a philosophical discussion about globalisation, and only just managed to evade becoming a ceremony for the hand-over of the aptly sculpted ”Bullshit award”.
It all happened under the umbrella of yet another briefing at the fringes — or as some might believe, fraying edges — of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
The International Forum on Globalisation (IFG), in its media advisory described as an international anti-globalisation movement, held the briefing.
But one of the panellists, Canadian author Naomi Klein, pointed out: ”I don’t support the phrase anti-globalisation.”
She described the summit as a ”kind of PR disaster”.
”They have built elaborate fortresses to keep the poor people out.”
The South African government, Klein said, treated the summit pragmatically, as an opportunity to attract tourists and foreign investment.
”They first attempted to create this vision of the sensational city, cleaning up poverty and sweeping away dissent.”
This was in reference to the opulent surroundings in Sandton, where the summit is taking place, and a march in Braamfontein on Saturday during which police used stun grenades to disperse a crowd.
Next they made an effort to co-opt dissent, she said.
Klein was referring to the African National Congress-led tri-partite alliance’s participation in the Global People’s Forum march, planned for this Saturday, when the Social Movements Indaba is also staging a protest march against the WSSD.
The latter was clearly opposed to the ANC’s policies, like the privatisation of water provision, and land reform, she said.
”They try to wrap this in a giant ANC banner.”
Njoki Njoroge Njehu, a Kenyan from the United States-based 50 Years is Enough Network, said: ”We feel the South African government has failed to show true African hospitality by… criminalising dissent.”
Simon Kimani of South Africa’s Freedom of Expression Institute said: ”We’ve stated all along that we were fearful that the South African government would censor any form of protest against the WSSD.”
Also on the topic of censorship, Randy Hayes of the Rainforest Action Network said a full-page advertisement with the faces of US President George Bush, the World Bank president and the president of Citibank and the words ”Putting a face on Global Warning and Forest Destruction” was censored from the New York Times.
He and fellow IFG board member Tony Clarke said the summit had been taken over by the big corporates.
”The environment agenda has been hijacked by the engines of globalisation,” said Clarke.
”The corporates have taken over control of the environmental policy apparatus of governments.”
A journalist, to the dismay of some others who believed that was not the story, asked whether the panel did not regard it as ironic that the briefing happened in the building of Nedcor, the bank which tried to stage the biggest hostile take-over in South African history a couple of years ago.
”We’ll include them in our next ad,” Hayes replied.
Njehu said: ”Our presence here does not mean any endorsement.”
Clarke urged the South African government to ensure full police restraint on Saturday.
Asked about the violence at other anti-globalisation marches like the one at the World Trade Organisation in Seattle, Hayes said: ”We really believe some of the radical protesters were policemen.”
Audience member Barun Mitra of India, a member of the Sustainable Development Network, asked whether he could hand IFG board members an award meant for one of their colleagues who failed to attend the briefing. He was told to wait until after the news conference.
He did so, telling Sapa the award was meant for the recipient’s opposition to modernisation of agriculture. Other candidates considered included Greenpeace, Mitra said.
The award consisted of two mounds of dung — or reasonable facsimiles thereof — mounted on a piece of wood, with the words ”Bullshit Award for Sustainable Poverty”. – Sapa