The Age of Consent

Manifesto for a New World Order

by Pauline Hadaway

As public engagement with politics continues to decline across the western world, the presentation of a manifesto for a new world order appears bold and inspiring. Imagining a good society for the future is an essential condition for driving progress in the here and now. Not so much utopian, but grounded in present-day experience, the imagined future becomes an incubator for new ideas, which may in turn give purpose, meaning and substance to future political action.

George Monbiot, environmentalist and anti globalisation activist presented his newly published Manifesto for a New World Order on October 9th, to a near capacity crowd at Belfast’s Elmwood Hall. The event, hosted by the New Ireland Group and de Borda Institute, demonstrated that public interest in political ideas remains a latent force even in these cynical times. Regrettably, Monbiot’s manifesto, informed by the contemporary disenchantment with mass politics, invalidates rather than substantiates the very principles upon which future progressive political movements might be built, proving that much of what passes for ‘radical’ politics today is simply old fashioned conservativism, recycled and rebranded.

Philip Orr (New Ireland Group) began by welcoming Monbiot to ‘the Belfast of the United Irishmen’. The United Irishmen’s vision of a future Ireland, transcending narrow divisions of religion and ethnicity, was informed by Enlightenment principles of liberty and equality, from which the modern concept of democracy emerged. The next speaker, Philip Emerson (de Borda Institute), seamlessly followed up with a full frontal assault on modern democracy, which he dismissed as the ‘imposition of majoritarianism’, founded on the ‘arrogance of the western mindset’. Emerson, clearly a big fan of current political arrangements here in the North, preferred pre modern systems of ‘tribal governance’ founded on consensus not conflict, while drawing a direct line between the Age of Reason and the genocide in Rwanda. How could two men with such conflicting views share the same platform with never a word of dissent? Does this represent the triumph of consensus over conflict, or is it simply politics devoid of principle?

Monbiot’s presentation steered a path between the two positions, helpfully fudging any explicit definition of democracy. His manifesto, consisting of a series of ideas for reforming global institutions, such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, appears to be driven by an aspiration to extend ‘global democracy’, although the actions it proposes undermine fundamental principles of individual liberty and self determination upon which modern democracy was founded.

Describing the UN as the antithesis of global democracy, an expression of individual state power, where economic and military might wield a veto over democratic mandate, Monbiot’s analysis compelled attention. His manifesto would extend democratic rights by counting votes according to demographic numbers rather than economic influence- a utopian New World Order, in which India could theoretically wield greater power than the UK, France and Germany. Sorry to say Monbiot qualified his manifesto for global democracy, by arguing for the regulation of voting power, within a scale of ethical measurements. Translating full on democracy into a policy where the mandate of states that fulfilled a set of prerequisite principles, including recognition of minority rights, equal treatment of women, fair distribution of wealth, conservation of natural resources and so on, would carry greater weight than those who failed to measure up. On these terms Northern Ireland with its panoply of human rights legislation might wield greater theoretical power than China.

And who would impose and police these regulations? Democratic control of the regulatory mechanisms would be ensured through systems of consultation in which minorities and less powerful groups appoint advocates to represent them on regulatory boards. For a Northern Irish audience this kind of government by committee and self appointed quango sounds depressingly familiar.

Monbiot’s urgent drive to act is based on a belief that we are facing the imminent death of the planet, but far from offering a vision of human centred progress, his ideas simply reflect a world weary status quo.

Pauline Hadaway...24 October 2003

Thursday 9th October. The Elmwood Hall, Belfast.(Hosted by the New Ireland Group and de Borda Institute).