Making Politics History. posted by Richard Seymour

Or, why Richard Curtis should die a slow horrible death while being forced to watch repeats of Countdown.

If anything sums up the bleating hypocrisy and political stupidity of the organisers of Make Povery History, it is the unfortunate drama Girl in a Cafe, written by Richard Curtis, a close friend of Gordon Brown, and shown on BBC this weekend. It promised to weave one of his tedious little love stories around the important issues of the upcoming G8 summit. What it actually did was bore the shit out of viewers with a non-story about a couple of non-people engaged in a non-romance who engage in non-politics. Bill Nighy, a great actor, is reduced to some bumbling political servant of the Chancellor, who is lionised remorselessly as a fighter for a cause that is, in his words "as big as the end of slavery". Kelly McDonald plays a damp-eared sap who emotes about "aw they people that ur gaunnae die if you don't do something". Anti-G8 protesters are depicted as scary fence-rattlers, while the man who has bankrolled Britain's wars and continues to bankroll the avalanche of arms that we send to warring African countries every single year is given the Ken Stott treatment - tough but tender, humorous, intelligent, intense and slightly sexy behind pallid rolls of lard.

Richard Curtis should be forced to watch his drama, probably for the first time, then made to eat it, then sent to de-mine fields in the Congo.

A slightly more compelling reason for suspecting the Make Poverty History bunch, which Richard Curtis is one of the main driving forces behind, is the extraordinary lengths they have gone to to squeeze politics out of the G8 protests. Red Pepper reports on how MPH has conscripted the Scottish millionaire Tom Hunter to sell their white wrist-bands in his clothing shops, branded with the logos of clothing companies that violate workers rights. This follows revelations in the Sunday Telegraph that large numbers of these wrist-bands are being made in Chinese sweatshops, with the blessing of Oxfam - by far the biggest and most powerful group in the MPH coalition. In particular, the company owned by Tommy Hilfiger, mercileslly satirised in Spike Lee's Bamboozled, which exploits labour in Latin America. It would be interesting to see the reaction of the workers involved in the making of these wrist-bands once they understood, as most will, what the words meant.

The New Statesman recently carried a cutting article on the extent of Oxfam's political declension, its 'revolving door' relationship with Downing Street, and its lauding of Brown's International Finance Facility, a programme that is expertly demolished by the trained economist behind Dead Men Left .

This in itself is much more disturbing than the absence of African acts booked for Live 8, much derided by Andy Kershaw. But what about the almost total lack of involvement of African social movements? Kofi Maluwi Klu, a Ghanaian activist, notes that "We have a saying in the African liberation movement, 'nothing about us, without us'". Walden Bello's NGO Focus on the Global South has been scathing about Oxfam's political sell-outs and the absence of politics at the heart of the MPH campaign. They note the closeness of MPH's stated goals to those of the British government, and wonder why MPH is devoted to lobbying to G8 when the point is to undermine its legitimacy and act against it.

Many charities, trade unions and civil society groups would be happy enough to go along with this. The MPH campaign is extraordinarily lucrative and effective. It is sustaining a good many jobs for years, and it is gaining a lot of attention - charities and activist groups are receiving a surfeit of attention that they would otherwise never get. The MPH website receives thousands of hits per minute. Doubtless this is not to be sniffed at, even if much of what lies under it stinks.

However, what about the deliberate obstruction of political groups eager to involve themselves in this campaign? Twice, the MPH coordinating team has vetoed the application of the Stop the War Coalition to join, who argue that issues of trade justice and poverty are integrally linked to the persistence of war. One leaked e-mail from Milipedia, an events management company, to MPH advised on the desirability of removing people from the events, if they set up unauthorised stalls and sell newspapers - this was apparently prompted by a Socialist Party plan to involve themselves in the rallies and wear their red 'Make Capitalism History' t-shirts. MPH has purchased a market traders' license to enable them to move unauthorised 'traders' - which will include those foolish enough to sell books, pamphlets or newspapers - off the sites they have booked. Comic Relief, co-founded by Curtis, has threatened to act against 'misuse' or 'alleged misuse' of the MPH trademark. Anyone who has bothered to stay up for the crashingly dull Comic Relief salve-conscience-fests will have seen how the shows depict Africa in an inaccurate way - a succession of natural disasters and warring tribes, leaving innocent little skinny babies to disease and apparently endless flies. Nowhere is the role of corporations, the IMF, the World Bank, the overhang of colonialism, the persistence of imperial interventions, discussed. Meanwhile, the MPH website acknowledges none of the other events planned for the Gleneagles protest.

All of which is by no means intended to dissuade you from heeding Bob Geldof's call to join the protests in the millions. Just be clear about what you're up against. However cynical the operators behind MPH, however politically compromised by their circle-fuck relationship with New Labour, they have inadvertently provided a platform for forces well to the left of themselves. Trevor Ngwane, a South African socialist, sums it up brilliantly :

The launch of Make Poverty History is another example, showing how many, many people — beyond the ranks of the usual protesters — want to see action. There is a rising feeling inside the working class, even if it does not yet turn to action, about injustice and imperialism.

It cuts against the notions of individualism and competition that are pushed at us all the time.

Of course there will be attempts to divert this feeling. At the G8 let’s march together and seriously discuss the way forward. At the recent World Social Forum there was a beautiful intervention at one of the major rallies from Coumba Toure, a women’s rights and anti-poverty activist from Senegal.

She sang a freedom song and then told a story about how we should destroy the cage imprisoning all the birds rather than pay 50 cents to buy a single bird’s freedom, as people seeking luck do in the streets of Dakar.

This must be our vision — to destroy the capitalist cage which imprisons Africans and all of humanity’s social, economic, political and cultural development.
Any lesser vision will be a capitulation to the bird-seller, who sells us the birds’ freedom but is the one who imprisoned — and continues to imprison — the birds in the first place.

It is only when workers rise up in an organised way and refuse to make profits for the capitalists that we will be able to stop the world’s injustices.

I wholeheartedly endorse this, but would add one further stipulation. Let's form a new committee, a new campaigning group called Make Richard Curtis History. We should try and disrupt showings of his films at cinemas, and egg him when he appears in public. Next time some television executive unilaterally decides to bombard viewers with Love, Actually or some such sentimental horse-shit, let's phone up the channel concerned and make weird sexual suggestions. It's the only language these perverts understand.