Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:53:26 -0500 (CDT)
From: Saskia Sassen <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: OP ED: Entrapments Rich countries cannot escape (fwd)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 05:15:52 -0500 (CDT)
From: Saskia Sassen <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: OP ED: Entrapments Rich countries cannot escape


Saskia Sassen
Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology
The University of Chicago
Social Science Research Building,
Rm 323 1126 east 59th Street Chicago, IL 60637
Telephone: (773) 702 7279 Fax: (773) 702 4849
e-mail: [log in to unmask]



Saskia Sassen
Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology
University of Chicago
and
Centennial Visiting Professor
London School of Economics

ENTRAPMENTS RICH COUNTRIES CANNOT ESCAPE:
GOVERNANCE HOTSPOTS

The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brings home more

clearly than ever, that we cannot hide behind the walls of our peace
and
prosperity. The evidence has been growing--it is all over the place.
But our
leaders do not want to see it. It will take this horrific event today,
with a
current estimate of 10,000 people dead and large numbers of wounded.
The
horrors of other wars and other deaths far away in the global south
simply do
not register.

Globalization has not only facilitated the global flows of capital,
goods,
information and business people. It has also facilitated a variety of
other
entanglements. Intercontinental Anti Ballistic Shields cannot protect
us from
hijackers of commercial planes on domestic flights flying into
commercial or
military buildings. Powerful states cannot fully escape "bricolage"
terrorism
-- bombs spiced with carpenter nails, elementary nuclear devices, and
"homemade" biological weapons. The growth of debt, unemployment,
decline of
traditional economic sectors, has fed an exploding illegal trade in
people,
largely directed to the rich countries.  The diseases and pests
present in
many parts of the global south which we in the rich countries could
forget
about, are now increasingly here as well: tubercoliss is back in the
US and
typhoid fever in the UK, the encephalitis producing Nile mosquito has
made
its first appearance in the global north and so have a growing number
of
other pests and diseases. As governments become poorer they depend
more and
more on the remittances of immigrants in the global north and hence
have
little interest in the management of emigration and illegal
trafficking. The
pressures to be competitive make governments in poor countries cut
their
health, education and social budgets, thereby further delaying
development
and stimulating emigration and trafficking. In brief, the
interdependencies
are many and they are multiplying.

The growing interconnectedness of the world has given new meaning to
old
asymetries as well as creating new ones. The rising debt, poverty, and

disease, in the global south are begining to reach deep into the rich
countries. We can no longer turn our backs on all this misery as we so
often
have in the past. If we dislike humanitarian reasons for addressing
these
issues, we can opt for self-interest as a motivation.

After a decade of believing that markets could take care of more and
more
social domains, we must now accept that markets  cannot take care of
everything. In an era of privatisation and market rule we are facing
the fact
that governments will have to govern a bit more. But it cannot be a
return to
old forms --countries surrounding themselves with protective walls. It
will
take genuine multilateralism and internationalism, some radical
innovations
and new forms of collaboration with civil society and supranational
institutions. The violence of hunger, poverty, decimation of once
fertile
lands, the oppression of weaker states by highly militarized ones,
persecution--all of these feed a complex, slow but relentlessly moving
spiral
that moves into the global north. The global north has the resources
and
power to produce much of the damage and it has the resources to
redress some
of it.

Part of the challenge is to recognize the interconnectedness of forms
of
violence that we do not always recognize as being connected or for
that
matter, being forms of violence. We are suffering from a translation
proble,
it would seem. The language of poverty and misery is unclear,
uncomfortable.
The languge of the attacks to day is clear. No translation problem
there.

Let me address two hotspots as a way of dissecting the nature of the
challenges and identifying specific governance mechanisms: the debt
trap in
which a growing number of governments are caught, and immigration.
Both of
these will require innovations in our conceptions of governance. And
both
show that even as the world is more interconnected, we will need
multiple
specialized governance regimes in order to address the issues, rather
than
more overarching institutions.

The debt trap is far more significant than many in the global north
recognize. The focus is always on the amounts of these debts which are
indeed
a small fraction of the overal global capital market now estimated at
about
83 trillion dollars. There are at least two utilitarian reasons why
rich
countries should worry. Because it is not just about an endebted firm,
but
about a country, it will eventually entrap rich countries indirectly,
via the
explosion in illegal trafficking in people, in drugs, in arms, via the

re-emergence of diseases we had thought were under control, the
further
devastation of our increasingly fragile eco-system. Secondly, the debt
trap
is entangling more and more countries and now has reached middle
income
countries. There are now about 50 countries recognized as
hyper-indebted and
unable to redress the situation. It is no longer a matter of loan
repayment
but a fundamental new structural condition which will require
innovations in
order to get these countries going.

The actual structure of these debts, their servicing and how they fit
into
debtor countries economies, suggest that most of these countries will
not be
able to pay this debt in full under current conditions. Debt service
ratios
to GNP in many of the HIPC countries exceed sustainable limits. What
is often
overlooked or little known is that many are far more extreme than what
were
considered unmanageable levels in the Latin American debt crisis of
the
1980s. Debt to GNP ratios are especially high in Africa, where they
stood at
123%, compared with 42% in Latin America and 28% in Asia. The IMF asks
HIPCs
to pay 20 to 25% of their export earnings toward debt sevice. In
contrast, in
1953 the Allies cancelled 80% of Germany's war debt and only insisted
on 3 to
5% of export earnings debt service. These are also the terms asked
from
Central Europe after Communism.

A second governance hotspot concerns immigration and illegal
trafficking.
Both will grow partly becasue of the conditions described above. The
growth
of debt, poverty , unemployment, closing of traditional economic
sectors, has
fed an exploding illegal trade in people as well as created whole new
migrations. As the rich economies become richer they become more
desirable
and as they raise their walls to keep immigrants and refugees out,
they feed
the illegal trade in people.

Yet even as the rich countries try harder and harder to keep would-be
immigrants and refugees out, they face a growing demographic deficit
and
rapidly aging populations. According to a major study by the Austrian
at the
end of the current century,   population size in Western Europe will
have
shrunk by 75 milllion (under current fertility and immigration
patterns) and
almost 50 percent will be over 60 years old --a first in its history.
Where
will they get the new young workers they need to support the growing
elderly
population and to do the unattractive jobs whose numbers are growing,
some of
which will involve home and institutional care for old people? Export
of
older people and of economic activities is one option being considered
now.
But there is a limit to how many old people and low wage jobs you can
export.
It looks like immigration will be part of the solution.

But the way the countries in the global north are proceeding is not
preparing
them to handle this. They are building walls to keep would-be
immigrants out,
thereby feeding illegal trafficking. At a time of growing refugee
flows, the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees faces an even greater shortage of
funds
than usual. This will also feed illegal trafficking of people. And
anything
that involves development of infrastructures for illegal trafficking
will
easily bring about an expansion and diversifying of illegal
trafficking of
all sorts, not just people, but also arms and drugs.

We will need regionally focused multilateral approaches involving the
governments of both emigration and immigration countries, as well as a
range
of non-governmental actors, to develop the capacity to manage
migration
flows. This means recognizing that migration flows are part of how an
interconnected world functions. The challenge that lies ahead will
demand
that all countries involved move beyond current conceptions of
immigration
policy in the receiving countries and that the governments of sending
countries, notorious for their lack of involvement and indifference,
join in
this effort.

We may think that the debt and growing poverty in the global south may
have
nothing to do with today's violence in New YOrk and Washington. They
do. The
attackes today are a language of last resort: the oppressed and
persecuted
have used many languages to reach us. We seem unable to translate the
meaning
of what they say. A few then take it into their hand to speak a
language that
needs no translation. That was the language used today.

Saskia Sassen is the Ralph Lewis Professor of Sociology at the
University of Chicago. Her book The Global City has just appeared in a
new
edition with Princeton University Press.

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