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“The World Will Never be the Same Again”

Ian Miller takes a look at the progress of the Jubilee 2000 campaign in its aim to cancel world debt

Just before the end of the millennium, Gordon Brown used the opportunity of Jubilee 2000’s final event to announce that the UK will no longer benefit from money taken from the poorest countries. This was wonderful news, and was given lots of coverage at the time by media across the globe. Rather typically though, it’s not the end of the story.

Money owed to the UK was minimal — that’s partially why Gordon Brown found it so easy to deal with. To make a real difference, other creditors — especially the World Bank and IMF — must follow suit. At the moment under the HIPC initiative, of 41 countries deemed eligible, only 22 will receive some relief and 16 of these will still be spending more each year on debt than on Health. After all the conditions and hurdles imposed on debtor countries by the World Bank and IMF, debt relief still amounts to a 29% reduction in debt service payments. I’ve got a shed-load of other facts and figures, but I feel that the average Christis reader is probably fully aware of the situation.

It would be safe to say that the Jubilee 2000 campaign was an extraordinary achievement. It’s tiny budget, and small friendly staff — dwarfed by most major aid agencies — has had a huge impact over the last couple of years. It has turned a complex subject into a mainstream campaign and in the process has educated thousands of activists in student groups, trade unions, community organisations and pretty much all the mainstream churches.

It is this groundswell of mass support that affected Gordon Brown. He said in his speech on 2nd December at J2000’s closing event in Westminster that he was “inspired first of all by the idealism and the tireless strength of our churches and a million campaigners. Driven forward by the calls of justice and the urgent cries of the excluded. Humbled by the faith and prayers of those who have sustained us on our way.” That is not the language we normally expect to hear from a politician. I suspect that it is his own Scottish Presbyterian Church background showing through. Later in his speech he quoted Isaiah — “to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free”.

The broad spectrum of Jubilee 2000 has involved all major faiths, inspired by the moral core of the campaign. However, the role of the churches has been unique. Some of us would say that the Jubilee 2000 campaign has seen the churches at their best. Leaders, whether Anglican, Methodist, Roman Catholic or some other have all supported it. Above all, the people came out in force. We wrote letters, said prayers, took to the streets, gave our money, found our courage and learned to become political activists. All this, and supporters stopped worrying about themselves and their future to join hands with people of other religious faiths and none. Perhaps we were inspired by the word ‘Jubilee’. The Old Testament Jubilee practice of simply returning land to the poorest, freeing slaves and cancelling debts was always a nonstarter especially in the complex modern world, but the principles of peace, justice and narrowing the gap between rich and poor were as relevant as ever.

Michael Taylor, president of J2000 and Director of Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham said, “For once they [Christians] resisted the temptation to privatise the Gospel. They insisted it was not just about their souls and their sins and their individual relations to God. It was also about their relations with brothers and sisters all round the world and the structural sins that deny so many of them a chance. And they seem to have discovered in a new way that Jesus and his followers are anointed by the spirit to bring good news to the poor.”

So what of the future — that great unknown? Gordon Brown said in December, “my plea is that civil society, churches, NGO’s, individuals everywhere … hold us accountable to those objectives, and participate in meeting them.” So Jubilee 2000 continues. It has always been written in stone that Jubilee 2000 would close at the end of the year 2000. However this is not the end of the story, the campaign continues …

Ian Miller

For more information on the Drop the Debt campaign see www.dropthedebt.org. For wider information concerning debt and issues on international finance see www.jubileeplus.org.

Last modified: 25th November 2005