Sustainable development goes at a snail's space

B. Herry-Priyono, Researcher, Alumnus, London School of Economics, herryprb@lse.ac.uk

On Wednesday, Aug. 28, when the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg reached a low point, a participant was asked "Don't you get discouraged?" To which she replied: "Until midnight when the Summit is over, I'll be knocking on doors".

She has captured the agonizing voices in the struggle between three societal forces that comprise any modern society: Community, business and government. Like any struggle, the dynamic is characterized by tensions, conflicts as well as alliances.

At face value, there seems to be an important shift. In the Summit's preparatory meeting in Bali the struggle took the form of strategic alliances between business and government vis-a-vis community; whereas in Johannesburg fragile alliances between business and activists of community interests seem to have been forged in opposition to government. It may be simply a matter of policy implementation that, in the end, governments are pushed hard to enforce agreements, conventions and legally binding rules.

Any declaration from the Summit is a cause for relief, if only because the Summit could be a way of globalizing the concerns of our shared life. Beware, however, of the underlying realpolitik. Even from the short journey from Bali in June to Johannesburg (let alone from Rio 1992 to Johannesburg 2002), it is clear that business has constantly gained the upper hand. That is why observers find it hard to believe that global reconstruction has, again, been dominated by the terms of trade.

On the positive side, the Summit has produced targets and timetables with regard to a few important issues, such as sanitation, fisheries, dangerous chemicals and the loss of bio- diversity. Fifty nations signed a declaration committing themselves on renewable energy and, at the invitation of the German Chancellor, will meet in Bonn in the Autumn of 2003.

Further progress, however, continues at a snail's pace. For example, there is no lifting of American and European agricultural subsidies that have contributed directly or indirectly to poverty, hunger and famine in many developing countries. Indeed, economic history has taught us that "the rules of free trade are for others, not for us".

Combine it with "whoever has the gold makes the rules", and what we have is the present state of agricultural policies enforced by the U.S. and European governments and agribusinesses. At the heart of this problem is of course the mother of all questions: How can so many allow so few to constantly reduce the issues of life and death to matters of money and power?

It is encouraging to see more countries coming around to sign the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. Three of the global giants -- Canada, China and Russia -- announced their agreement to ratify the Protocol in different ways. That leaves the United States and Australia as the only big hold-outs. As has been evidenced on a number of occasions, the crux of the matter is not about will.

Rather, it is about governments' environmental policies that have become captive to the logic of oil and energy companies. If this is really the way human history proceeds, it is hard to suppress the thought that we are truly doomed. Every season that passes leaves us more alone. Not only are we not the center of the universe, but, through the working hands of a few (no matter how unintentionally), the universe is gradually not made for us. It is hostile, violent and alien. The challenge of the cosmos grows keener and more bitter.

Ethics is good, and it has been the object of rhetoric in countless speeches, both at the Summit and elsewhere. What is often forgotten is that the ethics of societal problems is less to do with pointing out what is "good" for our shared life (which is obvious anyway) than with building mechanisms and movements for establishing the inseparable link between power and responsibility.

But, if there is no power that is deliberately willing to be linked to responsibility, then the issue is none other than to establish and expand movements to pressure the power brokers to the point that they gradually incorporate the terms of responsibility. A legal battle is only one among these movements.

In the struggle between community, business and government, the constant danger is that government tends to listen much more to the voices of business rather than to the agonies of community. It is via this route that "politics" which has stood so low in the gaze of the public, is seen even more as a remote and bent game that only a few plutocrats (administrative autocrats and financial oligarchs) can afford to play.

Whether there is substance to the charge that the destiny of the many is at the mercy of the few, or whether it is mainly perception, is beside the point. The consequence is equally destructive. It is "the tragedy of the commons".

Indeed, if we are looking for creativity and reconstruction for the destiny of our shared life, the politics of Summits on Sustainable Development since Rio teaches us that we have to look beyond both corporate boardrooms and state offices.

It is not because they are unimportant, but precisely because their forces have been so mighty that the alliances between the two have repeatedly produced the kind of sustainable development that moves at snail's pace. Partnership between these three competing societal forces is the ultimate virtue, but even to have such partnership demands societal pressures.

On Sunday, Sept. 1, the planet -- which became somewhat small in Johannesburg -- heard the voices of some theologians: "We seem to come into the world with a sense of scarcity and need; and so we accumulate, we grab and grab". It is apparently this instinct to ceaselessly grab that has pushed us to a sense that many things could be beyond repair.

But, if the human mind has conceived the virtues of globalization, why should it not know how to conquer its vices?