Editorials
EDITORIALS The politics of hunger Geopolitical thinking has changed wildly over the past couple of years, but, as Bryan Hehir pointed out in these pages last fall [November 17], it still does not...
...His successor in 1967 was Tom Burns, who steered the journal toward its present decidedly more liberal, if orthodox, stance...
...His attitude toward Humanae vitae was highly critical...
...Several contributors to a recent study sponsored by the Overseas Development Council (ODC) (Pulling Together, Transaction Books) confirm that, with a few recent exceptions, the IMF has served primarily as a bill collector for big Northern banks, and that its conditions for granting desperately needed credit to borrowing countries insure that the burdens of repayment are borne mostly by the poor...
...whole continents and scores of nations rate scarcely a mention...
...If indeed a boom is coming, asked Neal, will the third world be allowed entry...
...ET CETERA HISTORIC ANNIVERSARIES Two distinguished journals for which Commonweal has strong affinity are currently celebrating major anniversaries: The Tablet (48 Great Peter Street, London, SWIP 2 HDSB England) and Cross Currents (c/o The College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, N.Y...
...it will be constrained and punished by a loss of markets and credit, and by externally funded violence...
...To maintain a journal of such remarkable quality week after week, decade after decade, is a most impressive achievement...
...Its decades of achievement are ably encapsulated in the Anthology of the Best in Cross Currents, edited by William Birmingham and recently published by Crossroad...
...Even with the end of colonialism in clear view, some empire builders did almost nothing to prepare their subjects for independence...
...In her article on the root causes of third-world hunger [pp...
...A more explicit example is the cover article in the October 1989 Atlantic entitled "The Coming Global Boom...
...From 1892 until 1936, it was owned and operated by the archbishops of Westminster, and its stand was staunchly conservative, in keeping with its ties to Britain's old Catholic families...
...but those who force real political reform will do quite nicely...
...Joe and Sally Cunneen, who founded and still inspire it, managed all this in the face of constant production needs and despite the most slender means...
...In some areas, particularly in Africa, it is hard to achieve unity for struggle, military or political, in the face of ethnic distrust and language differences...
...In all the coverage of the Bush-Gorbachev summit, we saw no analysis of the possible meaning of the cold war thaw for the third world...
...From a study of Madagascar, Princeton's Alison Jolly concludes not only that the preservation of nature is compatible with the lessening of poverty, but that "lessening poverty is fundamental to saving the wilderness environment, and wise use of the environment is one of the strongest means to combat poverty...
...Global...
...As in the East, so in the West...
...EDITORIALS The politics of hunger Geopolitical thinking has changed wildly over the past couple of years, but, as Bryan Hehir pointed out in these pages last fall [November 17], it still does not encompass any serious reappraisal of North-South relations, as opposed to East-West...
...third-world countries are caught up in relationships and structures that are the legacy of colonialism...
...on its own motion the first world will not devote major resources (or attention) to their problems...
...Saving nature for all of us could become a proxy issue for saving people-much as, in this country, the powerful appeal of children's needs has engendered support for programs that help women, families, neighborhoods, and cities...
...In a letter to the magazine [February Atlantic], reader Patricia Neal points out that for writer Charles Morris, the word appears to mean "a triangle composed of the Pacific Rim, Europe, and the United States...
...Despite lip service praising third-world development carried out in the interests of its peoples, most movers and shakers in the developed nations act in solidarity to maintain the status quo, through the mechanisms described by McAfee...
...He adds that the virtual exemption from taxes enjoyed by the wealthy in Latin America may be the region's chief political and economic "illness," and yet the IMF has never addressed the issue publicly, much less required tax reform as a condition for loans...
...Morris speaks bravely of ousting corrupt elites...
...That is why the work of the ODC, of non-governmental aid organizations North and South, the insistent preachments of John Paul II, and recent declarations by the U.S...
...Because of the new environmental awareness, that is amessage that can raise an echo...
...Her analysis focuses in part on the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF...
...The Tablet was restored to its original lay status in 1936, under the strongly conservative cast of editor Douglas Woodruff...
...It is an inspiring story...
...For that matter, an elected, nonrepressive, nonsocialist new regime will not by its virtues earn significant influence over the terms of trade, aid, credit, or debt reduction: the key factors that determine the chances of achieving development with equity...
...That formula is too simple by far, but it includes a saving kernel of truth...
...The Tablet's purview is the whole world, and its news of the church the world over is clearly the best coverage in English anywhere...
...10801...
...First-world elites share that complacency...
...Both institutions, however, are the creatures of the developed countries that set their policies...
...North Americans have some trouble understanding this...
...Whoever and whatever is responsible for the problems of the global South, third-world peoples themselves will have to supply most of the energy and prodding needed if they are to overcome their marginalization...
...The reason it is worth citing is that it is a particularly succinct rendering of a near-universal attitude third-world suffering is not our problem that gives too-easy comfort while ignoring what is at stake for both the developed and developing nations...
...significant change will not occur until a signal comes from the center to the periphery that maintaining the empire is no longer cost-effective...
...Not so in Africa, Latin America, the Indian subcontinent, where the Europeans arrived as conquerors and stayed as masters, acting as agents of their home countries in the transfer of resources across the seas...
...Catholic bishops are so important...
...In some regions, many of those who might benefit from the ouster of these elites are landless, jobless, illiterate, unarmed...
...The roots are in history...
...The Tablet is completing an unbroken century-and-a-half of distinguished publishing which is detailed in The Tablet 1840-1990, A Commemorative History, by Michael Walsh and available from the journal's London office...
...Morris replied: "Underdeveloped countries saddled with corrupt elites, whether of the left, right, military, or Communist variety, will not share in a future global prosperity...
...Created originally to monitor and moderate the workings of the international financial system, the Fund now functions almost exclusively in the third world-but not, she finds, in its behalf...
...Our sincere congratulations.incere congratulations...
...but, because of their circumstances, including their motives for emigrating, they became settlers rather than colonizers, oriented toward development rather than exploitation of the land...
...The May 19 Anniversary Issue, which comes to fifty-two full pages, leads off with an article by Archbishop Rembert Weakland on "The Church in the Market Place...
...Serious moves toward equity would do more than keep the natives quiet...
...From the start it has been a most scholarly journal...
...Since 1982 the Tablet has been ably edited by John Wilkins with its all-round quality top-notch and its circulation at an all-time high...
...In our own country, Cross Currents is celebrating its fortieth anniversary...
...in the long or even the medium term, it would create markets...
...Others, when they pulled out, left behind ready-made elites who shared their values and, usually, their bloodlines...
...380-385], Kathy McAfee describes the network of controls, invisible to most of us, through which the developed nations profit, at least in the short term, by keeping undeveloped countries in a subordinated state...
...The dedication of the Cunneens and of others who were enthusiastic volunteers has made Cross Currents an enterprise of successful cooperative effort...
...Elitist third-world regimes come equipped with tear gas, live bullets, tanks, and helicopters, and are not unwilling to use them, as in Tiananmen Square, Soweto, the villages of Guatemala, and the slums of San Salvador...
...May there always be a Tablet...
...Even when a third-world revolution led by middle-class idealists succeeds, as in Nicaragua, it risks failure if it tries too hard or too clumsily to implement the populist, redistributionist ideology that helped bring it to power...
...Under the inspiration of French and other European philosophers and theologians, who were previously little known in the United States, Cross Currents brought their stimulating ideas to bear on the terrain of Catholic thought in postwar America...
...The special issue includes among other features the reminiscences of former editor Tom Bums, an article on the laity by Archbishop Derek Worlock of Liverpool, and tributes from Cardinal Basil Hume and Robert Runcie, the archbishop of Canterbury...
...With the years the scope of this impressive quarterly has widened to include America's and the changing world's more immediate concerns...
...As elsewhere, the Europeans who came here used their superior weaponry to subdue the indigenous people...
...Thus far, these nations have put laissez-faire ideology and the short-term interests of the first world above the needs of the poor countries, the state of the environment, and longer-term economic sanity...
...But that is not the core message most people will find in Morris's statement...
...Founded in 1840 by laymen, it remained under lay control until 1868, when it was purchased by Father Herbert Vaughan...
...This kind of thinking is said to be gaining influence at the IMF and the World Bank...
...Again, there is a corollary...
...Despite any number of coups and rebellions, most of the ex-colonies remain oligarchies whose leaders are content with national economic dependency as long as they can serve, for rich rewards, as collaborators in the continued exploitation of their countries' people and resources...
...The Harvard economist Jeffrey Archer, for example, reports that the Fund does not even gather data about the distributional effects of its "structural adjustment" programs...
...Directly addressing the injustice of the global economic system is harder, but a similar rationale is at hand: Along with acute suffering, worsening poverty creates political instability that is not in the interest of either first-world or third-world elites...
...Another ODC-sponsored study (Environment and the Poor, Transaction) provides region-by-region details confirming that increasing poverty produces environmental losses that in turn deepen poverty: a cycle that becomes more vicious by the day...
...But the cycle could become benign...
...Through the years it has gone through various phases...
Vol. 117 • June 1990 • No. 12
