Faith Groups, Celebrities and Citizens United In One Voice for Trade Justice

On Sunday 26th September, across the blue skies above the beach in Brighton, red banners for Trade Justice and green balloons were seen. Some 5000 campaigners came from all around the UK to express their desperate call to end world poverty.

The campaign took place outside Brighton Conference Centre where the Labour Party held its Annual Meeting. Campaigners marched down the seafront accompanied by samba bands to the front of the conference centre. Not only did the massive quantity of campaigners generate a loud voice to declare their standpoint, but the event was also highlighted by speeches from a number of celebrities.

Firstly the Reverend Sentamu, Bishop of Birmingham, pointed out that rich countries spend more money on pet care than the total sum needed to provide clean water, adequate food and education for all the poor children in the world. He commented this as “ridiculous”.

The Bishop preached to Prime Minister Tony Blair at a church service during the morning before of the event, along with Christian Aid Director, Daleep Mukarji. At the rally, he called on everyone present to cast their vote for trade justice today to make their own personal point to the Prime Minister.

Former Blackadder star Tony Robinson read a letter of support from U2 singer Bono, who was not able to attend the event in Brighton. Bono asked people to pay attention in three issues:

- The way we have set up trade to work favours the richest countries in the world and deny’s the poorest

- Free trade doesn’t equal fair trade

- Trade policy in the poorest countries should be decided by those countries, not dictated by the IMF and World Bank.

TV’s 'Casualty' star, Kwame Kwei-Armah echoed, “A lot of what the government and the WTO are saying is not helping the developing world to be self determining. Lots of fishers and farmers are losing their livelihoods because they cannot compete. People want to trade themselves out of poverty...we need to push [the government] to know that free trade is not necessarily fair trade.”

Neville Gabriel from South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference said it was time to stop the “global economic apartheid”, “On the one side there are the faces of Tony Blair, Patricia Hewitt, Peter Mandelson and others. On the other side there is the face of a 40-year-old textile worker in Cape Town who today is out of work and without any means of supporting her children.”

“Trade injustice in our world today has a very human face,” he said.

“Half of Africa’s population lives in extreme poverty. Leaders say debt relief will get us out of poverty....but they offer this with one hand and with the other hand take it away with unfair trade rules. It’s the height of hypocrisy, it’s a scandal and it’s plain wrong...I am here to join hands with you ...to say plainly and clearly that this sort of global economic apartheid must stop and it must stop now,” he continued.

During the whole rally, the campaigners were very motivated by all these words. They shouted, “Trade Justice NOW!” with a great passion. After the rally, peacefully, people passed their voting cards down to huge transparent ballot boxes lined up along the seafront.

This is the final call from Pushpanath Krishnamurthy of Oxfam, “Please tell your friends, your family, everyone you know - and tell them about trade justice.”

By the end of the day, Krishnamurthy was impressed by the response of people in the UK to trade justice, “This is fantastic! To see so many people come here, so selflessly, to show their support, it’s amazing... I travel the world and I can tell people in India, in Brazil, that the people here are politicised, they are making a noise, they are doing something about trade justice...”

As one of the most prosperous countries of the world, the UK has showed the world a positive image in combating unfair trade. All the effort that have been put in all these campaigns will surely become a source of strength to push the world forward to reach out their hands to people in the Third world.