World Economic Forum: Does it serve any useful purpose?

This year's World Economic Forum meeting has just come to an end with the noticeable absence of significant anti-globalisation demonstrators. More than two thousand businessmen, politicians, intellectuals and the like met for five days to address world issues. This year, although the official theme was "partnering for security and prosperity", the emphasis was on the security concerns of the United States.

Iraq dominated the agenda. According to some analysts, many participants felt that the Forum was no longer an impartial venue and that it had been hijacked by the United States government. Last year, Colin Powell, the US secretary of state came to sell the US plan to invade Iraq unilaterally on the excuse that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction capable of striking targets in the West at short notice . (David Kay, the chief American inspector, appointed by the Bush administration has just resigned after making a clear statement that Saddam Hussein got rid of his unconventional weapons long before the Iraq invasion. At the same time he also suggested that an independent commission might be needed "to fully explore the pre-war errors". Now both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have agreed to set up independent commissions for this purpose. Whether these commissions will investigate the errors and responsibilities in an impartial manner remains yet to be seen.)

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This year, John Ashcroft, the US attorney general (the man who enforces the US Patriot Act with the zeal of a fundamentalist fanatic and who defends the incarceration of hundreds of Muslim men and boys in Guantanamo and on the mainland of the US without access to due process of law) came to give lessons on human rights. And of course, Vice President Dick Cheney (the real brains behind the so-called Bush doctrine of pre-emptive wars and a firm believer in Bush's theory of the US being "a nation with a mission") lectured on the virtues of introducing democracy, freedom and liberty in the Middle East and beyond. (One wonders what he really means by that word "beyond"? Does his vision include not only Iraq and Afghanistan but also countries like Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia?)

Despite the somewhat conciliatory tone of Ashcroft and Cheney , there was a consensus of opinion among the participants that the post-World War II international order based on multilateral dialogue , respect for law, territorial sovereignty and the United Nations had been seriously damaged, that the US with its exclusive hold on military and political power had become an international bully, i.e., a law unto itself. In this context one can not ignore Bush's recent assertion in the state of the union speech, " America will never seek a permission slip ( presumably he was referring to the United Nations) to defend the security of our country." What does this mean in plain English? Well, as translated in plain English by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, it means, " Hey, we don't need no stinking piece of paper to bring it on in other countries. If it feels good, we'll do it, and we'll decide later why we did it . You lookin' at me?"

But behind these acts of bravado, there was an uncomfortable and sad realisation on the part of the US that "while there is no regime in the world the United States can't destroy on its own , there is also none that it can rebuild on its own." This was the reason why this year, Cheney came to Davos . He asked the United Nations and the Europeans to forget the unpleasantness of last year (when the US did not want to listen to anyone) and help the US to pacify and rebuild Iraq. Of course, one may well ask, if Dick Cheney was seeking help from the United Nations, then instead of travelling so far to Davos, why did he not just go to the United Nations in New York and submit American proposals there for democratic debate and discussion? After all, the United Nations enjoys much more international recognition and legitimacy than a private organisation like the World Economic Forum. The role played by the Bush administration in Davos, in my opinion, can be best summarised in the words of Andrew Williams, a British Banker, who attended the meeting. Asked by Alan Cowell of The International Herald Tribune to comment on the American position in the world, he said, " Last year they were bidding for moral authority. This year, I don't think the United States comes across with any sense of moral authority. "

On the economic front, there was a grudging acknowledgement by most of the participants that globalisation in its current form had failed to address the most important economic issues of the world such as poverty, hunger and inequality and that despite phenomenal economic growth during the last thirty years or so globalisation had in fact aggravated the already precarious situation in many parts of the world. As Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, as the voice of the universal human conscience pointed out in his keynote speech at the Forum that the most privileged nations of the world (meaning the North) have spent thousands of millions of dollars in their fight against terrorism but have not done much to resolve the very basic problems of the humanity like poverty, hunger or even access to safe drinking water, which, (in my opinion), are the root causes of terrorism. Leaving aside the Declaration of Millennium Objectives ratified in 2002 by 189 countries which, in any case , were thought to be unachievable from the very beginning, the sad fact today is that more than 1100 million people try somehow to survive on one dollar a day. There are approximately 840 million in this world who suffer from starvation on a regular basis and more than 24000 people die of hunger every day. There is nothing to indicate that this trend will be reversed in the near future. On the contrary, the future prospects look even gloomier. The participants were at a loss in their search for alternative strategies to solve mankind's major problems.

After more than thirty years of existence, the WEF has unfortunately become identified with heartless capitalism without any social or ethical conscience. Although from time to time pep talks have been given on subjects like "Social Inequalities", "The Backlash Against Globalisation", " Social Justice", etc., judging by the results of the current economic order, one can not but conclude that the system has failed to deliver on its promises of a better world. So, does the WEF serve any useful purpose?

It is good to have as many venues as possible for formal and informal debates and discussions. In this respect, the WEF in Davos certainly serves a useful purpose. However, if year after year ,its organisers allow the Forum to be hijacked by the United States government agenda and does not take a genuine interest in resolving the problems of the humanity, then, I am afraid, it will continue to be perceived as a rich man's club without any democratic legitimacy where important decisions affecting the lot of billions of people are taken in back room deals.