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Cocoa slave plantations in Ivory Coast.Last night I read your first chapter on the effective economic slavery of Children (and Adults) on remote cocoa plantations in the Ivory Coast. This was a powerful, moving account. Personally, I found it penetrated my brain (and heart) better than the TV documentary on the same subject you made a couple of years ago; or, possibly, the reinforcement of the written word to the previously seen images had a cumulative effect. It was depressing for me, and engendered bitter reflections on the appalling inequalities and injustices underlying the apparently smooth, civilized surface of our life in England. It also sparked feelings of anger, and consequently a wish to effect change.
As it happens, I was recently reading about the certification of forest products, and pondering this question yesterday, as I applied teak oil to a garden chair of dubious South East Asian origin. So your point about insisting on the certification of the origin of cocoa is perfectly valid, and probably one of the ways forward. I’ll see what I can do at this end. I don’t want to get into big picture theorizing about capitalism, free markets and so forth at this stage – though I think that is a very worthwhile discussion to have again later.
But I want to comment a little on the ‘Washington consensus’ free-market fundamentalists: The ‘Washington Consensus’ refers to the nexus of free-market ideas centred in Washington at places like the World Bank, the IMF and the US government. They are appalling theorisers in ivory tower conditions, working from fundamentalist ideas, instead of the empirical reality which you so bravely picked out. In my corner of the financial markets, where I worked (on and off) from 1982 to 1994, I was always suspicious and somewhat contemptuous of these ‘bureaucrat bankers’ with plush jobs, flying around the world first class. That attitude has been nuanced but also reinforced by contact with some of these ‘Supranational’ institutions since – for instance, I went to the Ivory Coast myself in 1997, and worked at the African Development Bank for two weeks. I think many of their ideas are wrong, and destructive in the wrong context.Those fundamentalist free-market ideas are muddled, contradictory and even hypocritical, as exemplified by the Argentine economic debacle, as I tried to explain. Actually, the ideas are probably hostage to previous events, the aims of their sponsors (Western Governments) and organisational inertia. How can they insist that an African country throws open its markets, while subsidies and tariffs protect farmers and industries in the EU, USA, Japan etc..?
How can they have the sheer stupidity to apply the free market philosophy of a New York dealing room to an impoverished farmer, with only one buyer, who arrives from time to time down the pot-holed roads of the Ivory Coast jungle? How can they advocate free markets in one context, yet insist that Argentina fix its currency to the US Dollar?
Not only is it bad thinking, but it is bad ethics.Someone (or rather, a large group of people) need to agitate for change, and I congratulate you on throwing a little light on this specific appalling situation. Keep up the good work! As a hasty first ‘wish list’ I would suggest:-
Certification of cocoa origin on consumer products-
Pressure on food companies to devote time, money etc to bettering the lives of farmers at the root of their supply chain- Involving: Medical facilities, Schools and Water services in villages-
Direct investment in improving the supply chain, such as metalled roads and intermediate storage facilities-
Abolition of import duties on processed cocoa products into developed countries
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3 Responses to “John Vernon on Cocoa child slavery and Democracy Kills”
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September 14th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Dear Humphrey,
The questions your raise are considered in the play “Man of La Mancha.” In this scene, the other Inquisition prisoners have put Miguel de Cervantes on trial and are threatening to destroy the manuscript of Don Quixote de la Mancha that Cervantes has written. In his defense, Cervantes explains the madness of Don Quixote, who is accused of not seeing “life as it is”:
*** Begin quote
“‘Life as it is.’ I have lived for over forty years and I’ve seen ‘life as it is’. Pain. Misery. Cruelty beyond belief. I’ve heard all the voices of God’s noblest creature — moans from bundles of filth in the street. I’ve been a soldier and a slave. I’ve seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I’ve held them at the last moment. These were men who saw ‘life as it is,’ but they died despairing.
No glory. No bray of last words. Only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning, ‘Why?’
I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived.
When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. But maddest of all — to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”
*** End quote
On my web site, I have often criticized the news media, including the BBC, for not seeing life as it is, but telling people what they want to hear. The problem is that the slavery documented by Vernon is not anything particularly exceptional, but is typical of life as it is. There’s too much pain in the world for the mainstream media to report on it. It’s easier just to focus on the hopes and dreams of the politicians, even if what they say is more often wrong than right. “Life as it is” is too much for people to bear.
For seven years, I’ve been developing generational theory, which presumably tells us about ‘life as it is.’ If Cervantes is right, then perhaps those of us who study generational theory are the ones who are mad. I would find it difficult to disagree.
Sincerely,
John
John J. Xenakis
GenerationalDynamics.com
September 15th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Let me get this right, John, as I am confused. Is yours’ a kind of fatalist beliefe that whatever efforts and dreams we have to make things better, the generational theory means that that life will not substantively change — that pain, misery and cruelty will continue?
September 15th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Dear Humphrey,
I wouldn’t use the word “belief”; I would use the word “conclusion.” You and I have been discussing this for years, and the answer is always the same.
Generational Dynamics may be a new discipline, but the observation that pain, misery and cruelty will always continue is as old as time. Here’s Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 – pay particular attention to the last sentence:
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“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.
I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men!
I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. I thought to myself, “Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.”
Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.”
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Sincerely,
John
John J. Xenakis
GenerationalDynamics.com