Contents:
Live Issues World
World Bank Enemy of the Poor
by Pierre Galand, former Secretary General of Oxfam Belgium, who has
resigned, after failed working groups set up between NGOs and the World
Bank broke down in collapse; Pierre resigned and submitted his open letter
of resignation to LE SOIR newspaper, PARIS, France. We here at Aisling reprint the letter in full.
16
POETRY
"New World Order"
by Bryan Adrian
Some Adrian Family history: regarding First & 2nd
generations of pioneer stewardesses, DOLORES ADRIAN, in the 1950s was among the tiny TWA first batch of stewardesses, then came the 2nd generation
flight attendants in early 1960s with a batch of PanAm special ladies....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZeVxqRpWMo
Dolores Adrian (nee Wolke-Osweiler German American), was one of the eight
stewardesses in the first batch of graduates of stewardesses in US history in
the early 50s. This TV series PAN AM was set in the early 60s, after the
first ladies had paved the way which had been uncharted before them by TWA
stewardesses. Dolores Osweiler-Wolke married
Captain David Adrian, who indeed like in the PanAm television
series, was a pilot who doubled as an operative for US
spy agencies too!
In the 1950s &
1960s stewardesses appearances meant so much that the airlines all competed for
the top names in fashion to come design the in-flight uniforms. In its heyday,
TWA snagged Oleg Cassini, Pierre Balmain and Ralph
Lauren. For
many years, when a young woman signed up to be a TWA stewardess, she agreed to
a contract stating that she would retire at the age of 35 or when she got
married — whichever came first.
Earliest TWA
stewardesses
https://nypost.com/2019/05/22/twa-flight-attendants-expose-sexist-seedy-world-behind-the-glamour/
David Adrian pilot
http://kal007mystery.tripod.com/CLASS-56.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reconnaissance_Office
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_(TV_series)
Inner World
Caught on your Sore Spots
by Kate Carter
19
"Irish Monks and the Papacy"
by Joseph F.T. Kelly
Editors:
Tess Harper
Dara Molloy
"Archaeology of Ideas"
Commodification Gone Cuckoo
by Dara Molloy
12
Social Analysis
The Stench of Development
by Gustavo Esteva
24
Women
Barbie and Bulimia
by Yvonne Burgess
Irish Issues
Raymond Crotty - an by Freda Rountree
appreciation 32
by Aaron Falbel
Ideas
35
Alternative Genesis
by Gillies Macbain
39
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Issue. World [ scanned article ]
WORLD BANK - ENEMY OF
THE POOR
Open letter to the Co-president of
World Bank - NGO Working Group,
from Pierre Galand, Secretary General
of Oxfam Belgium, published by
Le Soir 11 March 1994.
PIERRE GALAND, as Secretary General of Oxfam
Belgium, spent three years dial with The World Bank
in a working group setup between NGOs and the
Bank. His hope was that the Bank could be influenced to
change its Structural Administration policies. Now he has
resigned. Below is his open letter of resignation.
"After having taken part in a dialogue with the Bank over three and a half years in the NGO Working
Group, I now want to give my resignation to the Group as it appears clear to me that there is no space for
manoeuvre in which to make the Bank more humane.
l am retiring before the end of my period in office because I refuse to be the Banks accomplice. I refuse to
support this indispensable and regrettable inevitability preached by the Bank and I prefer to take part in
the strengthening of organisations of landless peasants, of street children, of reception centres for the many women
who refuse to become prostitutes in Asian cities, and trade unions who are fighting against the theft of their resources and the dismantling of their production capacity.
At just a few months from the 5Oth Anniversary of the UN and the BRETTON WOODS institutions, I wish to
withdraw both from the Working Group which brings together NGOs, and the WORLD BANK, as well as from
the steering group. I am forced to take this step because of concern for intellectual honesty and honesty
towards the numerous friends with whom I work in countries of the so-called "Third World".
I had hoped that, working together in the midst of this group, we might have moved some way towards co-
development, taking account of the fate of the most deprived of peoples. This hope was founded on the
fact that the Bank has learned to make excellent analyses, that it is able to speak about important issues -
the priority of the struggle against poverty, the need to protect the environment. The Bank goes even
further, defending the principle of human rights and the rights of minorities and exerts pressure on
governments in this context. The Bank is even capable of putting forward very interesting proposals for
what would be useful for the development of this or that group or people.
The question therefore is: why do such handsome speeches accompany such scandalous practices,
because the practice of the Bank is to condition its interventions to the
socially criminal policies of strict adjustment. The bank is very well informed on the state of poverty, of the many impoverished
and of the abandonment of populations on our planet. That being the case, are we dealing with purely cynical and
deceitful policies?
Now, I note the condition deepening every day, that hunger kills surely than the worst of wars,
that the neglect of the sick without care, of illiterate people, of the homeless, of those out of work are increasing at
an unprecedented rate and the remedies of the WORLD BANK are poisoned medicines which this
process only deepens.
In my soul and my conscience I must say to you "Enough". You have stolen the legitimate reasoning of development NGOs on eco-development, on poverty, on popular participation. At the same time your structural adjustment policies and your activities hasten the "social dumping" of the South by forcing them to emerge without protection onto the global market. Thanks to you and your colleagues in the IMF, multinational enterprises are able to relocate because you are creating conditions of production at a reduced social cost.
The result of your joint IMF/ WORLD BANK intervention is translated into a consistent pressure on entire economies for more competitiveness, higher performance.
[...] In this "fin de siecle" period, growth and competition have become means by which minorities can become disproportionately richer faster and which no longer have a development effect either in co-operation or redistribution.
Inequalities are more and more glaring, the hungry are legion, they are dying without provoking revolt and indignation.
As long as the WORLD BANK maintains its senseless selection of structureal adjustment policies, I think we will all have to mobilise both ourselves and the greatest number of victims of this type of intervention so that we can do battle agianst it.
[...] My wishes for the WORLD BANK, on the eve of this anniversary, will be simple: 50 years --- that's enough. I consider you as one of the chief enemies of the poor and the rights that are defended in the heart of the United Nations.
You are today the most incredible and extraordinary public relations machine which imposes on the world a disastrous sense of inevitability as if development were necessarily reserved only to the few, and poverty inevitable for those no longer able to perform or compete.
The revival of a development economy, one which promotes social justice through the access by the greatest number to an income from work, imposes on us an urgent need to FIND ANOTHER INSTITUTION with which to replace you, so that people can take part in and benefit from actions which will give them back their dignity, food, self-sufficiency and the right to diversity in co-development.
[...] World Bank intervention is translated into a consistent pressure on entire economies for more
competitiveness, higher performance.
Such an objective is itself only reached by ever increasing pressure on governments to economise on and
reduce social rights which are judged to be too expensive. This means that the only governments who are
good students in your eyes are those who are prepared to prostitute their economies to the people holding
the reins of multinationals and big international finance groups.
All this is happening as though the reasoning of the Bank, in favour of the sacrifices of structural
reconversion put forward as necessary for economic and market globalisation, were in some way the
indispensable "crossing of the desert" on the way to the Eden of development.
Now, what I see is that Africa is dying ... but that the Bank is growing richer; Asia and Eastern Europe see
themselves plundered of their riches ... and the Bank supports the IMF and GATT initiatives which
authorise this plunder both material and intellectual. Latin America, like other continents, sees its children
used as a manpower reserve or worse still, as a reserve of human organs for the new transplant trade with
North America. I deduce from all this that the Bank is, for most of us, simply the object of a very big
misunderstanding because, whatever it might say, the Bank is the instrument, at the service of orthodoxy,
of a model of growth based on competition, not on co-operation. Its task is to ensure that all, small and
large, can participate in the great global market. Very rarely and, in any case not today, has growth meant
"development"
After having taken part in a dialogue with the Bank over three and a half years in the NGO Working
Group, I now want to give my resignation to the Group as it appears clear to me that there is no space for
manoeuvre in which to make the Bank more humane.
I am retiring before the end of my period in office because i refuse to be the Bank's accomplice. I refuse to
support this [...]
Open letter to the Co-president of
World Bank - NGO Working Group,
from Pierre Galand, Secretary General
of Oxfam Belgium, published by
Le Soir 11 March 1994.
1.Non-government organisations.
2.The World Bank and The International
Fund, with GATT coming later.
In memory of Dolores Ann Adrian