Perspectives
‘…not long ago, South America was the only continent without a sustainable integration that goes beyond trading arrangements; but now, there is the South American Community of Nations (SACN)’
HUMANITY thrives under conditions of real integration. Gandhi firmly believed that a world federation of interdependent states was the best way forward. And Dr. Cheddi Jagan expressed similar sentiments in his call for a New Global Human Order.

Today, most parts of the world are politically integrated, as Asia (Association of Southeast Nations), Europe (European Union), Africa (African Union), Caribbean (CARICOM), North America (NAFTA), etc. And not long ago, South America was the only continent without a sustainable integration that goes beyond trading arrangements; but now there is the South American Community of Nations (SACN).

Today, South American leaders continue to signal a clear thumbs-down to the Washington Consensus through the creation of countervailing forces: SACN; Venezuela’s Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), strongly supported by social movements as the answer to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA); and Brazil and Argentina’s Buenos Aires Consensus, with a 22-point plan for South American integration.

And indeed, the growing number of centre-left democracies in South America are now beginning to produce cracks in the Washington Consensus and its surrogates; interestingly, these centre-left democracies already demonstrate a tremendous proclivity for dialogue with centre-left social movements; quite dissimilar to the political history of South America.

The Washington Consensus, a creation of the ‘Cold War’, carries some key functions: To damage multilateralism; to increase harsh inequalities within and among small, poor, and vulnerable sovereign states; and today, it executes these functions through presenting a skewed form and content of globalisation via the international financial institutions and the World Trade Organisation, solely operating at the behest of the developed world.

Until recently, the principals of the Washington Consensus and their financial surrogates lived in Adam Smith’s dream-world of laissez-faire capitalism, abused the inadequacies of the free market, and lobbied for deregulation at every instance, all to their advantage, but to the disadvantage of the US middle and working classes. And it is even ironic that today, the same working and middle classes have to bail out the financial principals via more US government interventions in the form of more regulations and a diluted free market.

This US credit freeze and general financial mayhem are now beginning to penetrate global markets, which eventually could reduce the imperial majesty and capacity of the Washington Consensus and its financial collective.

However, for South America, the SACN could be the firewall to the Washington Consensus and the allied financial collective. And so, regional integration may be South America’s only way out to end the damaging effects of Washington’s imperial globalization. Some of these damaging effects on South America include social exclusion, economic stagnation, inequality, and shocks from the human ecological interface, among others.

South America holds abundant opportunities through integration, as attested to by the following: A population of almost 400 million; several ecosystems – The Amazon, the Cordillera Andina, the Pantanal, the Pampas, the Cerrado; a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$1 trillion annually; an economic growth rate of 4.7% in 2005; lavish renewable and non-renewable energy resources; huge mineral reserves; a third of the world’s fresh-water sources; and abundant biodiversity among other factors.

This form of regional integration, SACN, transcends commercial aspects, unlike the integration of collectives like the WTO, NAFTA, FTAA, etc; the SACN is a new type of integration not beholden to multinationals that drive the usual trade integration for profit-making. SACN is more than a trading arrangement.

And the SACN became a living reality in the Declaration of Brasilia of 2000, the Declaration of Guayaquil of 2002; the Declarations of Cusco and of Ayacucho of 2004; and the Cochabamba Document of 2006.

South American leaders, including Guyana and Suriname, through the SACN, agreed to unravel the challenges of economic stagnation, inequality, and shocks from the human ecological interface; and they support a social agenda that is more amenable to bringing economic growth and better standards of living through an equitable distribution of income, access to education, social cohesion and inclusivity, and environmental preservation, among other things.

The SACN, with full endorsement at Cochabamba in 2006, embraces a strategic plan for expanding South American integration; endorses a Commission of High Officials to implement Presidential and Ministerial decisions; sets up working groups to focus on infrastructure, energy integration, ICT, financial mechanisms, institutional convergence of MERCOSUR and CAN, productive integration, commercial integration, citizen participation, and social policies; considers a Constitutional Agreement that eventually could produce a South American identity and citizenship; contains a political coordination that will enhance a democratic culture and respect for human rights; supports political dialogue where political coordination among the sovereign states will be the foundation of regional stability.

And so, there may be much ado about nothing over the recent strengthening of the Venezuelan military.

*Previously published in the Sunday Chronicle.