A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to trying to resolve the current financial crisis when the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Group of Seven came together to meet in Washington: Food riots broke out in Haiti and Egypt. As Krishna Guha, Chris Giles and Chris Bryant reported for the Financial Times, this convergence of "wise men of economics" recognized that a change of agenda was in order:
To the surprise of some in Washington, the high-level economic meetings ended up putting as much weight on the global food crisis as the credit crisis.
Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s finance minister, told his colleagues rising food prices were causing severe problems across the developing world.
Leaders agreed on Sunday to support a World Bank “New Deal” for food and called on donors to provide $500m in funding for short term relief.
Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, welcomed calls from Gordon Brown, the UK prime minister, and Susilo Yudhoyono, the president of Indonesia, to make the “global food crisis” the top priority of the next Group of Eight meeting in Tokyo.
But he said “We cannot wait for that. We have to put our money where our mouth is now.”
Domininque Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF, warned of “terrible” consequences if food prices continued to rise. Demands for a rapid and co-ordinated international response came as anger at rising food prices contributed to the collapse of the government in Haiti.
It is unclear whether those who were surprised in Washington were in our government. If so, then they have failed to recognized a significant opportunity for reputation repair. Even a master of agitprop theater like Bertolt Brecht knew that hunger mattered more than ideology and developed this theme particularly effectively in Die Dreigroschenoper; but the historical record is no kinder where this particular sore spot of ideology is concerned. Think of the famines that both Soviet Russia and Communist China had to endure; and, to be fair to both pans of the balance, think of the Dust Bowl in the wake of the "irrational exuberance" (remember that phrase?) of the Roaring Twenties. On a more positive note there are those who are convinced that Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War by the simple act of providing Mikhail Gorbachev with a visit to an American supermarket, where the Soviet leader could experience, first-hand, an economic system that provided consumers with abundance, variety, and affordability. Hunger needs to be fed with nourishing food, not the "pie in the sky" of inspiring ideals.
If there is anyone left in our Government who is still seriously committed to a "War on Terror," they should chew (metaphorically) on these observations. Are Osama bin Laden and his top-level colleagues in the al-Qaeda network prepared to feed their supporters when problems of food scarcity (high prices for low availability) come to their respective bases? Will their next video provide convincing explanations of how the next suicidal act of terror will put food on the table of the terrorist's starving family? Perhaps they will keep silent, viewing hunger as what Douglas Adams called an "SEP" (Somebody Else's Problem); but what will they do when that "somebody else" turns out to be one of the major global institutions of capitalism? It is not a remote possibility that Strauss-Kahn had an outbreak of terrorist acts in mind in voicing the danger of consequences facing a world that does not address the growing problem of world hunger. On the other hand it would also not be surprising if the Bush Administration has not been thinking along those lines (now that we know how little they have been thinking about the price of gasoline at the pump). We may be at a turning point in the current "clash of cultures;" and, if we play things right, we have a good chance of ending up on the side of the angels (for a change). Don't screw it up, guys!
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