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Thrive or Survive ?
What does a sustainable community need? It needs the continuity that comes from people settling down in the area, having children, bringing up a family, growing old amongst people they know. It needs the kinds of commercial premises that will provide for all of the residents, particularly those who are less able to get to large out of town shops. In an ideal community, there will be food shops of course, but also a library, somewhere for people of all ages to meet and have a drink or a coffee, and a range of other shops, such as somewhere to buy the kids’ plimsolls for school, clothes shops for older people and teenagers too, somewhere to spend pocket money and buy a decent range of books as well as somewhere to buy CDs or rent videos. It would be nice if as well as takeaway food, you could get a reel of cotton in a colour other than black or white. You need schools too – near enough for five-year-old legs to walk there. It needs safe streets and clean air where people can spend time chatting to neighbours and hear each other speak. People in sustainable communities know each other, even in inner cities there are usually overlapping, but comprehensive, networks of people who know who you are. This way, there is little chance of bad behaviour going unrecognised or loneliness or isolation building up.
Sounds ideal, doesn’t it? And Headingley was just like that only 15-20 years ago. Not only did it benefit from the lively atmosphere
of a favourite University suburb, but it also had a thriving long-term community, many of whose residents had themselves come to Leeds to study and had settled down here happily amongst the
indigenous Yorkshire folk who could count their connection with Headingley through generations. This was a community that worked well for many years, with very little friction between the
different parts. There were allowances made, of course, for high spirited behaviour after examination periods, and concessions too for the needs of the elderly and families. But on the whole
it was seen as a real place – not an offshoot of the city centre where you come to get drunk and kick a few cars. Not a student village where there’s a party in every other house in the
street at weekends, and the little old lady in the middle is not even noticed by her neighbours. Not a wasteland of pizza boxes and overflowing rubbish bins where rats are on the increase
and schools are being closed through lack of children. Headingley has been badly let down through many years by the City Council and by the two Universities. Too
little account has been taken of the damage being done, street by street, by bad landlords and poor commercial outlets. There have been missed chances for the council to encapsulate
Headingley’s special needs in the planning strategies adopted for the whole city. This has resulted in there being little chance of making sensible decisions about where the large numbers of
students might live, and in opposing the disastrous large alcohol outlets that have been opened in recent years.
Let’s return to the ideal community that we began with. Headingley still has many of the things mentioned there. It has a library, thriving churches and schools (though some of these are under threat), nurseries, shops (though fewer in number and range than there used to be). It isn’t too late. But the planning and licensing systems mean that local people themselves cannot create their own sustainability. It needs political will and wisdom to take some radical steps to help us live alongside each other in harmony again. If you think that we have the right idea, please vote for us next time you have a chance (the turnout in Headingley last year was under 16%). If you’d like to help us out (leafleting maybe?), or even join the Green Party, please contact us at the address at the end of this newsletter. Of course, we want our ideas to be adopted, whatever the method. You might, therefore prefer to lobby the existing councillors, or the council itself, to adopt our ideas! The message, rather than the messenger, is the key… Lesley Jeffries |
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The Last Stwar?
Despite the millions who marched and protested Tony Blair has pursued an aggressive foreign policy, contrary to international
law, that has helped kill an estimated 4-5,000 Afghan civilians and possibly tens of thousands of Iraqi people during the so-called 'war against terrorism'. Also, polls suggest that most
people believe that intelligence information was deliberately misrepresented to justify the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it isn't just war. There's
creeping privatisation and the
decline of public services. There's the
economic globalisation that's
putting far too much power into the hands of corporations, while making the poorest people in the world poorer. There's Blair's arrogant handling of the
firefighters' dispute , foundation
hospitals, university top-up fees, Railtrack, a poor record on the environment, teachers and nurses forced to leave their profession due to New Labour policies.
Which was the last straw for you? |
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As a progressive internationalist - not to mention a member of the European parliament - my opposition to the euro is often met with incredulity. The euro is frequently presented as a
matter of good faith for internationalists: a necessary step towards further political integration. We'll never be able to agree on managing our common fisheries, or a united commitment to
upholding human rights standards, so the argument goes, if we can't even accept a single currency.
Opponents of UK entry into the eurozone are often equally driven by ideology. Adopting the euro would weaken Britain's competitive edge at a stroke and drive a stake through its
cultural identity and sovereignty, they argue. Grassroots anti-euro activists have been portrayed as "little Englanders".
So progressive internationalists must be in favour of the euro then? Well, no, actually. Greens, for example, want a sustainable, democratic economy in both Britain and Europe, driven
by social and environmental justice as opposed to the pursuit of ever-increasing economic growth, with the benefits shared widely. Will joining the euro bring us closer to this ideal? - the
answer is clearly no.
Joining the euro would make it harder to move towards meeting these goals, for three core reasons: because it represents a shift in power from democratic institutions to the unaccountable
European Central Bank (ECB) and its corporate bedfellows; because it erodes member states' ability to propose solutions to local, regional or even national disparities; and because it
furthers corporate globalisation and entrenches its goals - increased consumption, trade and profitability. This has and will continue to cause a "race-to-the-bottom" as governments fall
over themselves to sacrifice democratic control and public accountability for the sake of competitive advantage.
With the introduction of the euro, control of interest rates passed from member states' central banks to the ECB, a decisive factor in the Swedes' rejection of the euro. Thus monetary
union is a fundamentally undemocratic project. It has stripped member states of their power to tailor economic policy to local and national circumstances and placed it instead in the hands
of an institution which is open to neither scrutiny and democratic audit nor influence.
The impact on public services would be devastating. Within one year of abandoning the escudo for the euro, Portugal, for example, was forced to make massive cuts in public spending to
meet the stability pact's criteria. The cuts haven't been quite enough on their own, however, and public sector wages now face the squeeze. The government in turn is bracing itself for
popular protest to erupt on the streets again: the prime minister recently said the country was facing its "most difficult period in history".
So it seems European monetary union will not serve the interests of progressive internationalists, equity, social justice or democracy. It won't serve the interests of environmental protection, either, as power transfers to exactly those corporations whose activities environmentalists would like to see regulated further. So whose interests does it serve? A glance at the history of monetary union points to one answer above all: the euro benefits corporate interests, and especially those corporations operating across Europe's borders, rather than those of wider society. It will contribute to a Europe, in other words, run to the tune of the free market agenda, a rigid monetarist environment with maximum price stability. A Europe where regulation - to
protect the environment, human rights or social provision - is frowned upon as an impediment to free trade. A Europe where labour market deregulation will be used to force wage cuts in
countries that can no longer use devaluation as a strategy: a Europe where unemployment rises as wages fall, all in the name of competitiveness. These effects are already there, for all the
world to see, in Germany and France - unemployment in these two economic "powerhouses" has risen every month since they adopted the euro.
That's why the Swedes voted no, after a referendum campaign based not on euroscepticism and xenophobia but sustainability and accountability - and that's why progressive
internationalists, greens and a growing number of trade unions and left-thinkers are opposed to the euro here in the UK.
Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for south-east England |
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Firstly, it presumes that third world hunger is caused because there is not enough food in the world. This is not true; aid agencies repeatedly show there
is enough food to feed everyone many times over. The only thing that stops this happening is 'free' trade rules.
Secondly, even if this were true, it ignores the fact that multinational bio- tech corporations would control each stage of GM farming. This is how these
companies behave; most third world farmers (90% in Africa) rely on saving their seeds to use for the next years crop. Bio- tech companies have pre-empted this by developing sterile
'terminator' seeds. This will force farmers into buying seeds year in year out. And in fact, where 'terminator' technology has been overlooked (such as 'round-up' soya beans in the US) the
companies enforce 'no storage' clauses into the contracts instead. Who knows what the legal standing will be for farmers whose crops have been contaminated with GM, and find themselves
unwillingly locked into the seed/weedkiller buying cycle?
The tempting idea that GM technology will somehow solve world hunger through beautiful bumper harvests, is often exploited by the bio- companies. But in
reality, it will lock defenceless farmers into a cycle of dependency on huge multinationals, whose bottom line is cold, hard profit.
David Taylor, Green Party Agricultural Spokeperson |
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