Make Poverty History

Trade Justice Not Free Trade Overnight Vigil – 2005: Twenty years ago on the night of 15th April 2005 and the following morning I was one of around 25,000 people protesting in Westminster for Trade Justice rather than Free Trade. The week of action was a part of the Make Poverty History campaign and it was a long cold night for me.

Trump has put world trade very much into the headlines in recent weeks with his assault on free trade, raising tariffs to silly levels and creating chaos in international trading systems that were largely set up to favour the United States and to a lesser extent the industrial west through organisations including the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) at the cost of the poorer countries of the world.

The Trade Justice Movement calls for policies “designed to deliver a sustainable economic system that tackles poverty and protects the environment.” It calls on the UK Government to:

“Ensure trade rules allow governments, particularly in poor countries, to choose the best solutions to end poverty and protect the environment;
Prevent trade rules that allow big businesses to profit at the expense of people and the environment;
Ensure decisions about trade rules are made transparently and democratically.”

Free Trade which simply relies on market forces ignores human rights, environmental considerations and democratic decision-making and leads to exploitation, environmental degradation and inequality – we need a more just system.

Here with some of the pictures (and the usual minor corrections) is what I wrote about the overnight vigil in which a surprisingly large number of people – probably around 25,000 took part, overwhelming the expectations of the organisers.

Wake Up to Trade Justice – Westminster

15-16 April, 2005

The UK climax of the global Week of Action on Trade Justice was an overnight vigil in Westminster on Friday-Saturday 15-16th April. Along with many thousands of others I travelled to the opening event at Westminster Abbey, only to find it was already full. Fortunately we were able to hear the relay sitting in the seats marked ‘Members of Parliament’ in St Margaret’s Church next to the abbey, but there were many more people in Parliament Square and around the area.

At 11pm we moved off into whitehall, where it soon became obvious there were far too many to fit behind the crush barriers and we took over the road, leaving just a single lane for northbound traffic. People lit their candles and made a fair bit of noise, before leaving either for home or to try to attend one of the various events that had been organised through the night. I went to the Vue cinema in Leicester Square to see a preview of ‘The Fever’ starring Vanessa Redgrave (she had talked earlier in Westminster Abbey.)

When that finished I’d hoped to do something else, but all the venues were full, with long queues, so I went for a walk by the Thames. The organisers had expected a couple of thousand people, hoped and planned for five thousand but altogether estimate that some twentyfive thousand turned up for all or part of the event.

From 4am to 4.30am we crushed into Whitehall again for a mass vigil opposite Downing St. Millions of people around the world suffer from unjust trade, and this was chosen as the time when the largest number of them are awake. I was rather less so, but still managed to blow my whistle and take a few pictures, though I messed things up rather more than usual.

I’d dressed up in warm clothes (the forecast had told me 4 degrees at 6 am), but even so, sitting on a bench in Parliament Square after this was a mistake. I fell asleep and was woken up shivering at around half-past five by a smell of burning. Someone sleeping on the ground nearby had set some of their clothing on fire with their candle. Fortunately it was quickly extinguished, with a bottle of Lucozade serving as a fire extinguisher.

Soon after the dawn procession began to assemble and I managed to drag myself up to photograph it.

People were remarkably wide-awake and cheerful as the ten thousand or so who had stayed the night over made a short walk through Westminster as the sun rose over the buildings. By half past seven it was all over, and I walked back to Waterloo Station taking a few more pictures in the morning light.

Many more pictures on My London Diary.

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Make Poverty History: Twenty years ago on February 3rd 2005 I was one of the 20,000 or so people who packed Trafalgar Square on a Thursday lunchtime to see and hear Nelson Mandela speak in the first major real event in the UK’s ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign.

Make Poverty History was a coalition of charities, religious groups, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities which had come together here and in a dozen other countries around the world to promote trade justice, to cancel the debts that were crippling poorer countries and to press for more aid and for this to be better targeted at improving the lives of people in the recipient countries.

The campaign in the UK had officially been launched on TV on New Year’s Day on the same day that Britain took over the Presidency of the G8 – and in July was to host a G8 summit that was supposed to be largely about poverty in Africa, but this rally was the first major national event.

I’d severely misjudged the numbers that would turn up for the rally, arriving only minutes before it was due to start and was unable to make my way through a densely packed crowd to anywhere near where the the speakers – including Mandela would be speaking.

This was an occasion when a long and heavy fast telephoto lens would have come in handy, but I’ve never owned one of these, preferring whenever possible to work at close range. But the relatively small zoom lens I had with a focal length of 200mm and a maximum aperture of only f5.6 did just about allow me to take some recognisable images of what was happening on the stage in the distance.

It helped that Nikon was still sticking to its conviction that its DX format, a sensor half the size of a 35mm frame was all that was needed for digital photography, giving the lens on my D70 the equivalent view of a 300mm on full-frame.

*he ‘pills’ are a petition calling for urgent action on aids, to get 3 miilion people on treatment by 2005.*

But I was please to have been able to capture some of the event – such as the handshake between Mandela and Bob Geldoff and children coming to meet Mandela, even if someone’s head got in my way a little of the time and those 6Mp images could perhaps have been just a little sharper.

*Mosquito nets can help stamp out malaria in Africa*

Later I was able to return to focal lengths more in my comfort zone, with a fisheye to show the crowds and more normal wide-angle views of people in the crowds.

*The only way to be photographed with Nelson Mandela at the Rally*

The ‘Make Poverty History’ movement lasted in the UK until 31st Januarly 2006, though relations between some of the 540 groups involved were very difficult. Oxfam in particular was seen as far to keep to follow a ‘New Labour’ line and some other major NGOs were also often felt to be insufficiently radical. Even though these groups dominated the campaign the TV adverts which had been aired at the start were soon banned by Ofcom as they were deemed to be “‘wholly or mainly political’ in nature, since they aimed to ‘achieve important changes'” – surely the whole point of the campaign.

Clearly the campaign had begun to disturb the rich and powerful who were feeling their privilege and profits from impoverishing the poor might be at risk. But although the campaign raised awareness of the problems its actual achievements were rather limited.

Bust of Nelson Mandela, sculpted by Ian Walters, commisioned by the GLC to mark the 70th anniversary of the African National Congress in 1982, and unveiled by Oliver Tambo in 1985. It records Mandela’s imprisonment in 1962, with added inscriptions marking his release in 1990, the Nobel Peace prize in 1993 and his inauguration as the first president of a free South Afrrica in 1994.

You can read more about the event and seem many more pictures on My London Diary

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Tag: Make Poverty History

Trade Justice Not Free Trade Overnight Vigil – 2005

Wake Up to Trade Justice – Westminster

15-16 April, 2005

Make Poverty History – 2005