African Economist Samir Amin on the World Social Forum, Globalization & the Barbarism of Capitalism

Amy Goodman: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Juan González: JUAN GONZÁLEZ We go now to Tunisia, where gunmen killed 23 people at the Bardo Museum in Tunis last week. On Sunday, the Tunisian government is organizing a major march against terrorism. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of activists gathered in the city this week for the World Social Forum. On Tuesday, participants from more than 120 countries opened the forum with a march to the Bardo steps. More than 4,000 groups are attending the forum, which brings together social movements from around the world to discuss grassroots struggles for political change. We're joined now by one participant, the leading African writer, activist and dissident Samir Amin. He is considered one of Africa's leading political economists and was one of the pioneers of global history from the perspective of the Third World, arguing that the countries of the South were not latecomers to capitalism, but were integrated into the global economy from the start, in a position of dependency to the rich, industrialized North. He's presently director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal, considered a precursor to the World Social Forum, and since 1997 has been the chair of the World Forum for Alternatives.

Amy Goodman: Samir Amin was born in Cairo, Egypt, in the 1930s. He earned a Ph.D. in political economy in Paris in 1957. He worked in the Gamal Abdel Nasser's administration after returning to Egypt later that year, was subsequently director of the African Institute for Economic Development and Planning. He's chair of the Center for Arab and African American Studies, which is an independent center of research and debates in Cairo, and mains active and political life in Egypt. He's written thousands of journal articles and opinion pieces, as well as over 30 books with such titles as Imperialism and Unequal Development, Global History, A View from the South, and The Liberal Virus, Permanent War and the Americanization of the World. The scholar Horace Campbell calls Samir Amin, quote, one of the foremost theoreticians of Marxism in the 20th century. And historian Amma Baini says Samir Amin is, quote, an intellectual titan in the canon of African radical thought. Samir Amin, welcome to Democracy Now! as you join us from Tunis, Tunisia, from the World Social Forum. Can you share these thoughts? The World Social Forum is a gathering you have attended for many years, been a part of since the beginning. And now you are back in Tunis. It's the second time the World Social Forum is there, at the same time that this attack took place at the Bardo Museum, killing 23 people, a major march against terrorism planned for Sunday. Your thoughts?

Samir Amin: Good morning or good afternoon, I think it's good morning for you. Thank you for inviting me. I have indeed been associated with the World Social Forum from the very start. That is the first social forum which was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001. I may say even I was one among, with many others, the founders of the idea of the World Social Forum. We had created in 1997, a few years before, in Cairo, the World Forum for Alternatives, you see, insisting on looking after alternatives, and I'll say later alternatives to what. with the support of the Organization for Solidarity among African and Asian Peoples and with many other organizations around the world, specifically the South, Asia, Africa and Latin America. We have organized the first demonstration, not a wide mass demonstration, but a political and intellectual demonstration, 1999, that is two years before Porto Alegre, in Davos. It was the Anti-Davos in Davos. And that gave the idea of having it on a much wider scale, the name of which is the World Social Forum. Now we are again in Tunis for the second time for a new edition of the World Social Forum.

Juan González: Samir, I wanted to ask you, as you—as the World Social Forum is occurring, obviously there's convulsions throughout the Arab and Muslim world between the West and political Islam. You've written often, extensively, about the nature of political Islam in our time. I'm wondering if you could share your thoughts on that as well.

Samir Amin: Yes, I'll come to that subject. But before that, the world is wider than the Muslim countries, of course. And we are a world social forum, not an Arab-Islamic social forum. And therefore, we are dealing with the questions which are of interest for the people all around the world, south and north, east and west, one may say. I think I will give my own opinion, which is shared with many people, but particularly within the network of networks, which name is the World Forum for Alternatives. We are believing that the New World Order, which was established as of the 80s with the structural adjustment programs on the one hand, and with the breakdown of the Soviet Union as of 1990, this New World Order, unipolar, is not viable. and it is proving that it is not viable. We had after World War II, for a long period, not bipolarity and Cold War. This is summarizing in a too short summary what we had. In fact, of course there was a military bipolarity, but this military bipolarity was completed by a political and economic and social multipolar system of globalization. Because we had globalization. We had globalization since a long time. Perhaps globalization started with the history of humankind. But anyway, we had a phase of globalization which was negotiated. Negotiated between a variety of partners. At least, not two, at least I would say four. One, the Western Bloc. organized, I mean the triad, United States, at that time Western and Central Europe, and Japan for the Atlantic powers, associated also in a military arrangement, NATO, which is no less important. That was one partner, not the United States alone, but the United States, which its European and Japanese allies. On the other hand, we had the Soviet Union and with its allies in eastern or dominated allies also in Eastern Europe. But we had a third partner, China, which always had a high degree of independence, whether for its internal choices of development or for its international politics. That was clear and became clear. more clearer and clearer along with passing of years. But we had a fourth actor, no less important, which was out of the conference of Bandung 1955. We are celebrating the 60th anniversary this year of Bandung. We had coming out of it the movement of non-aligned countries which established on the one hand, a political solidarity between most nations and states of Asia and Africa, on the one hand, and on the other hand, at the economic level, the establishment of the group of so-called 77, they are now much more than 77, in the United Nations. Now, that was a pattern of globalization. Well, it came for a variety of reasons, and I have no time to go into the detail, out of steam. And therefore it created the conditions for what I may call, what I call, a counteroffensive offensive of imperialism that is of the allied Western major powers the US the European Union and Japan and and develop the idea and the practice and attempt to establish their exclusive domination over the whole planet and including the former socialist or so-called socialist countries of Eastern Europe, of the former Soviet Union, and including even China, even if China is resisting successfully to it until now, but including everybody. as I mentioned before, a pattern of re-colonization, one may say, of Africa, a new stage of Monroe Doctrine with respect to South America and Latin America, and a non-negotiable globalization. That is a unilaterally imposed globalization. The result of that pattern of globalization was simply a disaster. And it's a disaster for everybody. You can see it in Europe, particularly in Southern Europe, and you can see it particularly in Greece or in Spain now, but you can see it everywhere. I think you can see it in the United States. I mean, when you had the demonstration in New York We, the 99 percent, indeed 99 percent of humankind did not benefit of that pattern of globalization. Those who benefited of it are perhaps even less than 1 percent in some cases, but let's say 1 or even if they were 5 percent, a very small minority, which is run, which is governed, which is managed by oligarchies. Oligarchy is not a specificity, say, of Russia today. You have an oligarchy running the United States, running the European Union and the countries of the European Union. You have oligarchies also running the dependent countries of Latin America, Africa, Asia. Everywhere, oligarchy. Now, this system is not viable. The disaster, of course, in the countries of the South, and particularly in countries of Africa and Asia, the social disaster, which was generated by that attempt to impose a unipolar globalization to the benefit of the rich countries and societies of the north, the triad, this social disaster led to led to struggle. And the World Social Forum is a forum, it's not a party, it's not an international, it's not an association of parties. It is a place where the social movements in struggle for, in most cases, I wouldn't say necessarily in all cases, are very legitimate struggles for this or that right, for this and that, against this and that policy, The whole social forum has been created to that effect and it is operating. Now you had some explosions where more than explosions they led to start to a start for a change. And that happened in Latin America and South America before it happened elsewhere. It happened with the first election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. You should remember it. It happened in Brazil with the election of Lula. It has happened a little later in Bolivia, in Ecuador, and it may develop elsewhere in Latin America. Now they are moving into a new stage and facing new problems, but that's not my point. Now, you had also explosions of popular movements in many other places. After all, the dictatorships of Marcos of Suharto in Indonesia. And I should remind, those dictatorships were supported to the end by the United States and by the Western allies and by Japan. Now, we had in Africa The dictator Moussa Traoré was overthrown 16 years ago by a popular revolt, a popular revolt with thousands of people killed. And this dictator was also supported to the end by the Western powers, in that case particularly France, but behind it Europe and United States. Now, but which gave no big results, because they moved too fast into the illusion of a so-called democracy now, summarizing democracy in pluripartism and fast elections. And history has proven that democracy is far more than multipartism and elections.

Amy Goodman: It needs long time to develop. Samir Amin, we have to break for a moment, but we're going to be back to you in just 60 seconds. Samir Amin is Egyptian political economist, renowned scholar, activist and dissident, has written more than 30 books, his most recent, Capitalism in the Age of Globalization. This is Democracy Now! We'll be back with him in Tunis, Tunisia, in a moment.