The other side of the fence

a commentary by Ernie Schibli, as it appeared in the Montreal Catholic Times, May 2001

Not so long ago I was in Honduras working on a video. Included in the scenes we wanted to shoot were pictures of the homes of the wealthier members of Honduran society. This was no easy task. If these residences were not located far from public view, they were surrounded by high walls, topped with razor wire or imbedded broken glass bottles. Clearly, they were not meant to be seen. Even the new and imposing bank buildings of Tegucigalpa were not to be photographed. When we tried to take pictures of them from the public sidewalks, armed guards would try to chase us off. We could take as many pictures of the poor and the hovels in which so many of them live but when it came to pictures of the wealthy it was clearly a no no.

This is what quickly came to mind last weekend in Quebec City. The fence, that notorious fence, the focus of so much attention, was no ordinary fence. It was another one of these walls, designed to protect the powerful from the excluded. That fence rapidly became the symbol of much that is wrong with today's world. Inside were the power–brokers: heads of state, their bureaucrats and representatives of the corporate elite. (True, the leaders of most of the poorer nations of the Americas were present but many of them, willingly or unwillingly, are but pawns in the hands of the big boys).

Despite all the fine words which were to emanate from this conference about democracy and making the Americas a better place for the poor, the poor were definitely not there, neither physically nor in intent. They were on the outside, excluded.

I wonder what would have happened if this conference had been held, not to discuss "free" trade, but to take concrete action on protecting the battered natural environment of the Americas. Or, what would it have been like if our government leaders had gathered to seriously pursue ways to ensure the protection of human rights throughout our continents. What if they had met to ensure that everyone have access to food, clean water, an adequate house, access to education and medical services? Maybe, just maybe, those who were excluded would have been invited in. Would there still have been the need for all those police with their tear gas, rubber bullets and water canons or, for that matter, even for the wall itself.

The problem is that the Summit of the Americas was never meant to be a meeting about people. If it were, we would have known the contents of what was to be discussed long ago. We might have had a chance to debate it in our home countries so that our representatives might truly be able to represent us rather than hide everything from us. Nor did it have anything to do with developing a system of "fair" trade where producers might freely exchange the fruit of their hands and brains. No. This was a meeting about money and power. It was but the latest in a whole series of meetings – the G–7, the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO, the corporate elites in Davos, and the like – all designed to enhance the "rights" of corporations and those who run them.

We have been experiencing these meetings for years, always held behind closed doors, and all that has resulted has been that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, while our land, air and sea are trampled underfoot.

One of the people we interviewed in Honduras was a campesino leader. He spoke on how Hondurans can no longer grow the food they need to sustain themselves. "We have lost our food sovereignty." Instead, the big companies use the land to grow what the rich world wants. That is what this meeting was about – ensuring that those who have will always be able to get what they want, while those that haven't will always be on the other side of the fence.