A man wades through a river of milk. He is a Jamaican dairy farmer, and he has just poured the refrigerated contents of weeks of work onto the floor of his small production plant. White, frothy cow's milk laps against the man's shins.

The reason for this man's lunacy? Heavily subsidized U.S. milk--or rather, powdered milk--has flooded the Jamaican market. Jamaica can no longer counter U.S. milk subsidies with its own because of the conditions it accepted in exchange for international loans. As a result, the Jamaican dairy industry cannot compete, and much cheaper, powdered imports have snatched away its customers. The industry is crumbling, much of its production sitting in vats, unwanted--or poured out by frustrated farmers.

This is one of the stories of economic woe told by Stephanie Black's 2001 documentary, "Life and Debt," a thoughtful, accessible look at the ways that the world's poorer countries suffer under the policies of international lending institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Black suggests that the loans arranged by such global organizations have mired some countries further in poverty and economic inequality, by robbing them of the tools they could once depend on to grow and compete internationally.

In her documentary, Black traces the history of Jamaica since it gained its independence from Great Britain in 1962. Economic problems early on forced it to seek out loans from the IMF--an organization established after World War II and dominated ever since by the United States, Western Europe, and, more recently, Japan. The IMF agreed to billions of dollars in loans for Jamaica. But the loans came with conditions that were much too strict. They went beyond any need to enforce repayment of the loans, and instead handicapped Jamaica's economic policy, by flatly preventing it from subsidizing exports and placing tariffs on foreign products. Decades later, Jamaica still cannot repay its loans; its interest payments swallow up billions of dollars of the government's annual budget--money that could otherwise go to building schools, better roads, and even hospitals. (Jamaica, we learn in "Life and Debt," has not had a single new hospital built in years.)

Such lending policies ultimately benefit the foreign corporations who do business in Jamaica. With lowered trade barriers, they can easily sweep onto the stage, overpowering local industries with slick, well-funded marketing and more efficient means of production. (And as Jamaica's dairy farmers know well, rich foreign governments--free of any IMF loan conditions--can subsidize the goods they ship over even as local industries are denied such advantages.) Nowadays, Jamaicans can now enjoy numerous U.S., European, and Japanese products--everything from McDonald's french fries to Baskin Robbins ice cream. But there is a cost for these luxuries: The popularity of these imports has devastated local industries that employed many Jamaicans. As a result, the extra choices mean little. Without a steady, well-paying job, after all, one can't afford to eat at even McDonald's every day.

"Life and Debt" focuses on Jamaica, but the same points could be made about the plight of many small, poor countries today. Huge international debts have placed a straitjacket on the economies of various Latin American, African, and Asian nations, creating an ugly cycle of desperation: Overly strict loan conditions and massive interest payments keep these countries' economies stagnant--requiring them to seek out further loans that are impossible to repay.

Interestingly, some poorer countries have grown quickly and steadily in the last few decades. But they are countries like China and India, which have pursued policies that the West calls "backward"--export subsidies and tariffs. India's economy, for example, grew by 3.3 percent in the 1990s; India also happens to have the second-highest tariffs in the world. Government planning of the economy, hefty tariffs on foreign imports, and a limited, targeted strategy of "open markets" helped Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea to achieve extraordinary economic growth in the 1980s. Many of those policies would be prohbited by the IMF loan arrangements made today.

The people who make the decisions at the IMF and other international finance institutions don't seem to recognize the failure of their own policies. Hopefully, their misguided approach is due to ignorance, and not any intentional effort to keep down the world's poor. It does seem that the IMF and other such institutions are finally moving (however slightly) away from the narrow-mindedness of their past. In recent years, street protests--most memorably, the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization--have routinely disrupted their meetings and soured their public image. The leaders of these organizations have had little choice but to respond. And so they have spoken eloquently about the need to involve poorer countries in decisions, enhance protections for labor and the environment (concerns that often get drowned out by the well-funded lobbying of corporations), and address the persistent problems of poverty and inequality that breed resentment against the West. Whether they actually act on their promises is something to be seen.

Right now, voting power in the IMF is determined by the size of a country's economy. As a result, the United States is by far the loudest and most influential voice. It alone controls 17 percent of the votes, almost three times the votes controlled by its closest rivals, Japan (6.16 percent) and Germany (6.02 percent). Developing countries, in comparison, account for miniscule blocs of votes--for example, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay together share 2 percent of voting power in the IMF. No wonder that developing countries fare so poorly under IMF loan arrangements, when their interests are hardly represented in the process. Without the support of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan, there is little chance of reforming the organization or influencing its policies. Poorer countries are understandably enraged by the state of affairs--and as September 11 and its aftermath have taught us, the United States ignores that rage at its own risk.

Hypocrisy, too, is a problem. Just recently, the Bush administration approved a tariff on steel imports into the United States. U.S. steel corporations lobbied mightily for the legislation. They cannot compete, in part because a strong dollar relative to other currencies has made their steel so much more expensive compared to the steel being produced in, say, Russia and Japan. The administration said that the tariff would save the jobs of thousands of American workers. Fair enough, but the same tariff that saves jobs for North Americans will devastate the steel industries that employ many South Americans. (In Brazil, for example, the steel industry is relatively small but vitally important to the health of the national economy.) A rich country like the United States should not be imposing tariffs on imports at the same time that it demands that poorer countries open their markets to U.S.-made goods. How can they possibly be expected to compete under such circumstances?

Let's hope that the government leaders and bureaucrats who make such rousing appeals for the reform of the IMF genuinely believe in what they say--and that people like you and me force them to keep their word. And let's also hope that these institutions are reformed, and not utterly dismantled, as some who criticize them want to do. The world needs a system to regulate trade and economic development, so that corporations do not run rampant. No country by itself can rein in the excesses of corporate power. The IMF and World Trade Organization could provide such a system, so long as they are remade to be democratic and fair. Leaving a void in their places is not the answer, no more than letting their erroneous policies continue unchecked.

In much of Jamaica today, violence has become a way of life. Rampant joblessness and deteriorating living standards have sparked civil unrest and caused crime to flourish in Jamaica's cities. (Security work, in fact, is the one of the few vibrant areas of employment in the country today.) This is the Jamaica that "Life and Debt" shows us: the darker face of globalization, the economic crisis that is coming to a boil in various parts of the world. For people who are concerned about the unfairness of the present world order, the task will be to build a truly democratic form of international cooperation--one that will fairly represent the interests of the weak as well as the strong.

Victor Tan Chen
Editor, Inthefray.com
Boston

Mailbag

'Thank you, God, for our Raisin Bran'

When I was a young girl, never paying mind to television and newspapers, my world was just as every child's view of their world is--perfect! All a girl ever needed was a pair of shorts and a shirt, a pair of flip flops, and her hair tied off of her face so that when she sweat, the hair would not stick on her wet skin. My front porch was the meeting point of all the children in my neighborhood. Many games were played from there--hide-and-seek, Pie Man, Bike Fair, Statue Maker. We spent hours talking and yelling. At night, my sleep was untroubled by hunger burning in my stomach. I never was too hot because with the flick of a switch my mother would turn on the air conditioning unit that sat above my bed. Its hum lulled me to sleep.

When I woke up, I would go to the washroom and flush the toilet that had its own room in my house. Then I would go to the kitchen and open the cereal cabinet. I would search through the six or more cereal boxes and frown because my favorite, Cocoa Puffs, was not there. So, I would pout as I poured my fresh, non-expired milk over my second choice of cereal (thank God that the milk was a day away from the expiration date--tomorrow it would be poured down the drain). Water mixed with suds filled the sink and we complained that we hated doing the dishes, how unfair it was to us.

I know full well that all across America, other little girls are going through the same ritual this morning. Perhaps their complaints are louder than they were when I was a kid. And why shouldn't they be? We all grew up wanting to give our children a better life. We wanted our children not to feel the disappointment of not seeing their Cocoa Puffs in the kitchen cabinet. In fact, nowadays we usually know what our children's desires are even before they have to ask. We put the Cocoa Puffs in the bowl and lay the spoon on a napkin, with the juice poured and the Flintstone vitamin sitting next to their plate. Aren't we wonderful parents? Our wonderful children will never have to know the pain that we had to suffer when our Cocoa Puffs were not in the cabinet.

Two months ago, my whole perspective as a parent changed. Watching TV late at night, I tuned into an ABC Nightline special series, "Heart of Darkness." It was about the desperate situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the DRC, formerly known as Zaire). The broadcast showed a Congolese woman as she prepared the night's dinner for her family. The woman collected a handful of minnows, some roots, and some firewood. She sent her daughter for a bit of palm oil. Then she made her children wait outside, because the hunger that they were feeling could not be satisfied until the sun went down. Dinner was going to be served as near to bedtime as possible, so that these ten children could fill their tummies long enough through the night with the handful of minnows and the roots mixed with palm oil.

Did those children need the hum of an air conditioner over their bed? Was it possible that the mother could not even lullaby her babies asleep because she was too tired from hauling 200 pounds of beans seven miles up and down a hill? Why didn't this mother have a man to care for her and her children? (Her husband, we learned, had died of malaria.)

After watching that Nightline special series, I and other concerned individuals formed a grassroots organization, Friends of the Congo. Members of our group are from all over the United States as well as the DRC, and include writers, doctors, restaurant owners, stay-at-home moms, accountants, engineers, and students. One of our members, Mr. Andre Jackson, is the chairman of the JFPI Corporation, which is located in the DRC.

My children are getting their own cereal these days. They also are finishing the last box of Raisin Bran that had continually been shoved way into the back of the pantry. When they complain, I see ten children squatting outside their hut, waiting for their minnows, and I say, "Thank you, God, for our Raisin Bran."

Kristin Zychal
Downers Grove, Illinois
purebeauty0@yahoo.com

What happens to freedom deferred?

Regarding "Freedom, deferred," by Marguerite Kearns (Identify, February/March 2002), and "Guarded intimacy," by Safiya Bandele (Interact, March 2002)

I am the court reporter who took ibn Kenyatta's testimony in the pre-trial examinations for his medical lawsuit. I also took the testimony of most of the witnesses.

To say that I was moved and disturbed by what I heard, is an understatement. Ibn Kenyatta is a gentle man. I sat in the small prison room that is depicted in Part Two of "Freedom, deferred," taking his testimony. The stupidity of the prison officials was very apparent to me.

I have just finished reading Part Two. A lot of questions have been answered. I understand where he is coming from. But his desire to stand on principle bothers me. I feel I can say why openly, as I know he has heard it all before:

Life is precious; your life is precious. Please reconsider and get out of there. You deserve to see the sky freely, hear the birds chirp, relax on a comfy couch, have a good home-cooked meal made for you by your beautiful and caring Safiya. If they give an inch, please take it. I want to see you happy. God bless you and all who care about you.

It is ironic: On the day that I am writing this letter [March 11, 2002], we are commemorating the September 11 terrorism. Our country is going through trying times; our hearts are heavy. I want to believe that ibn Kenyatta will be free, and that through his art, he will give us hope.

Thank you for your articles. They were well done. 

Pat Torian
New York

And all of that jazz

Regarding "Parlor Jazz," by Alexis Clark (Imagine, February 2002)

Enjoyed the article very much. The writer really put a face on Eliot for me where I felt that I understood her frustration, hurt, and the sense of peace with where she is in her life. I would like to read more articles that capture the human spirit in words. Wonderfully written.

Jennifer Clark
Cleveland, Ohio

I just loved the article "Parlor jazz" (Imagine, February 2002). I live in Milwaukee and I am truly envious of the kinds of cultural and just plain cool things to do in New York. The article made me feel like I was actually there. I will be in New York in March and I am going to make a Sunday visit to Ms. Eliot's parlor a must do. What a wonderful thing for folks like me to know about. Thanks for keeping us informed on what's really going on!

Sande Robinson
Milwaukee
sande.robinson@marquette.edu

"Parlor Jazz" is a refreshing and heart-warming story. I will be in New York in May and hope to have the honor of a Sunday visit. Most of all, I want to hug Ms. Eliot and express my sorrow for the loss of her son.

Theresa Brodowski-Scram
Marquette, Michigan

I have a great appreciation for the content, as I consider myself a musician (although of classical music), and lover of jazz. Alexis Clark did a tremendous job of bringing us from our respective places into Eliot's home for a Sunday listen, and simultaneously managed to enhance that experience by sharing Eliot's life behind the music. Eliot is an inspiration--I would be lucky to find a passion so deep.

Jerri L. Jones
[No address provided]

The article entitled "Parlor Jazz" by Alexis Clark was very entertaining. Her style of writing is outstanding and I would love to read more of her articles.

Rachelle Anders
Chicago, Illinois
rbanders@dearborn.net

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