It seems safe to say that 2005 is one of the most politically important years in recent history. The Make Poverty History campaign succeeded in bringing the issues of aid, trade and debt to the forefront of the West’s political consciousness and, in doing so, has challenged the roles of the IMF, World bank and the World Trade Organisation. And it is not only the International Financial Institutions that have come in for increased criticism—there are increased doubts about the viability of the Millennium Development Goals and attendant calls for UN reform.

Whilst such discussions are extremely important and timely, the sheer range and complexity of the issues involved is enough to leave anybody feeling a tad bewildered. So it’s DIA to the rescue, identifying and reviewing several key books. Arguments Against the G8 deals with the issues in general, Whose Hunger? and The End of Poverty look at two specific demands of the Make Poverty History campaign (aid and trade respectively) whilst Shake Hands with the Devil delves into the issue of UN reform—so there’ll be no shortage of reading for you!

Gill Hubbard and David Miller: Arguments Against the G8.

Since the protests in Seattle in 1999 the G8 has been followed across the globe by protesters desperately trying to lift the lid on its shadowy activities. This book is a continuation of that movement, spelling out in graphic details the reasons for this social unrest. While Bob Geldof and Bono were insisting that “eight men can change the world”, this book points out that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which eight men make all the decisions with very little or no recourse to global democracy.

The book draws on a wide range of writers and activists, including such famous figures as Noam Chomsky, George Monbiot and Susan George, discussing some of the most important issues facing the 21st century, from war and corporate power to climate change, debt and trade. It highlights how these men are far from global saviours but actually promote and perpetuate a neo-liberal agenda, which actively seeks to exploit and lock half the world’s population in poverty. What is so good about this book is that it delves into these issues in quite precise detail exposing how this is achieved. After reading this book most people will be very uneasy about returning to a life of apathy.

Claire Hobson

Jenny Edkins: Whose Hunger? Concepts of Famine, Practices of Aid

Written before the Make Poverty History campaign, this book expertly deals with one aspect of it: that of aid. Jenny Edkins uses examples from famine situations to criticise both the motivations behind, and the effects of, aid. This highly accessible account argues that aid can often make the situation worse, empowering undesirable governments and actors whilst cementing colonial style relationships between countries. As for NGOs that administer it, they are driven as much by concern for their status, their sources of funding and media coverage as they are by humanitarian imperatives.

In making such claims, the book is extremely controversial--less controversial, however, is its central point that aid must be re-examined and seen not merely in ethical terms but political ones. Overall, the point of the book is not so much to criticise as it is to question, and these questions are more relevant than ever given the attention surrounding the Make Poverty History campaign and its demands.

Abi Dymond

Gen. Romeo Dallaire: Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Lt. (Arrow Books, London, 2004) Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Romeo Dallaire by Dir. Peter Raymont, 2004

It takes only good men to do nothing for evil to triumph. But what if one man wants to do something but is hampered at every turn by people who prefer to do nothing? Canadian Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire was th UN commander in Rwanda in the period preceding the 1994 genocide. For months, he wrote reports to his superiors warning of the impending violence that was to claim the lives of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in only 100 days. But the UN was still smarting from the disastrous Operation Restore Hope in Somalia and had no desire to involve itself in another complex African situation, leaving Dallaire with just a few blue helmet ‘peacekeepers’ and UN HQ’s attention focussed on the Balkans.

The rest of the story constitutes one of the bloodiest episodes in twentieth century history. But Dallaire’s involvement in Rwanda did not end with the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the establishment of a semblance of stability. He returned to Canada a broken man, disgusted and angry by his superiors’ disinterest and failure to prevent death on such a vast scale. The nervous breakdown he suffered found him drunk under park benches and reliant on sleeping pills to get through the dark nights when the tragedy he felt responsible for would not leave him.

Dallaire has written a stark and difficult book, revisiting a personal and professional experience most would wish to forget. His anger at the international community is justified and understandable but one cannot help feel that he allows himself to shoulder the entire burden of responsibility for the genocide.

Peter Raymont’s documentary follows Dallaire and his wife back to Rwanda and reveals a man still in deep shock at the horrific incidents he witnessed. His visit to a memorial, where skulls and bones lie in serried ranks, brings home the shocking human cost of the combination of a carefully constructed political campaign to stir up ethnic divisions in the Great Lakes region, and an international community reluctant to involve itself in a small, poor African nation. The film does not fall into the trap of portraying Dallaire as a saint, rather it depicts a professional soldier, an occasionally arrogant man, finally undone by witnessing man’s inhumanity to man while his hands were tied, like some horrific form of torture. For a brutal, personal insight into the genocide and an introduction to the politics of both Rwanda and the UN, Raymont’s film ranks far higher than the box office fodder of Hotel Rwanda.

Joni Hillman

Jeffrey Sachs: The End of Poverty: How we can make it happen in our lifetime

Sachs, a world-renowned economist and special adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has had a lot of practice making his specialist knowledge accessible and in conveying the centrality of his discipline to development, skills he perfects in ‘The End of Poverty’. The book begins with an overview of different countries’ economic situations, condemning the theoretical debates and ‘black and whites’ of modern development economics in favour of a method of “differential analysis”. Only an in-depth understanding of different factors affecting a country/region can produce successful economic reform.

From Poland to Bolivia to India, Sachs records his personal involvement in many countries economic crises’ and recoveries’, and describes lessons of experience for countries stuck in a poverty trap. His confidence in the possibility of the end of poverty is not naivety, but backed by data. Sachs’ lucid style, peppered with personal anecdotes and data he has compiled, gives his ambitious topics weight and vibrancy.

At first the simple cover and foreword by Bono had made me sceptical that I would have heard it all before. I could not have been more wrong. This book doesn’t give you a ‘this is how things are’ without a ‘this is why’, ‘this is how things change’ and ‘this is how things could be’. I now honestly believe that they could.

Charlotte Alfred