Mennonite
Central
Committee

The Intellectual, Economic, Ludicrous Whisperings of God

By Jamie Miller, MCC Nicaragua

In January I headed off to visit Honduras, for the first time in my life, with a mission: to learn about the effects and trajectory of economic globalization in Latin America, and then to teach what I learned to others. The day and a half at the MCC globalization consultation seemed very short. We barely had time to each tell our stories, which all seemed to be lamentations.

I would like to communicate to you some of my leanings and thoughts. I hope that when you are done reading this you will know what a roomful of Americans (north, central and south) discovered about privatization, as well as the story of a poor Nicaraguan woman who taught me several important lessons about privatization and power.

Before I delve into all that, I think that there should be several general points clarified about the context in which the consultation occurred.

Point one: The graffiti on the walls in Honduras and Nicaragua says plenty: "Privatization is terrorism against the poor." "Privatization is corruption." "Bush, privatize your mother." Although somewhat extreme, these phrases in many ways summarize the Latin American opinion of forced privatization by the World Bank and IMF.

Point two: the economic situation in Latin America is abysmal, especially in Nicaragua. In Managua (where I live) people don’t have enough food to feed their families, there is little work, education is substandard, medicine is scarce and unaffordable, government corruption is intolerable.

Point three: Many Latin Americans consider the United States an empire and either try to reap the benefits that empire brings, lose themselves in indifference and poverty, or become zealots and try to fight it. However they all know that the United States is interested in Latin America for its own benefit, and not for the benefit of Latinos.

There, that should give you a good starting point.

About privatization

The first thing I learned is that privatization is more prevalent in most Latin countries than in the United States itself. Where I live in Harrisonburg, Va., water, sanitation, trash, roads and public transportation are all public and that is more public utilities than most Latin countries have been left with since structural adjustment programs took effect.

In Nicaragua, the IMF has forced privatization of electrical, phone and medical services, and is demanding that water be privatized. It is ironic that in the United States water is public, and privatized electric is giving many doubts in California, but our government is still forcing these measures upon other countries.

We as a group also came up with two laws based upon our observations.

• One: Privatization without regulation does not work. Nicaragua is a great example of this. The electric company was privatized five years ago and in its contract agreed to raise the costs for the public once in the next five-year period. In that time the electric prices have been raise at least four times, and the government is unable to control them. It should be pointed out that all the companies that have bought out the government utilities (at very cheap prices) are all foreign transnationals, and it has been proven again and again that the government here does not have the power to contend with them. In Brazil, privatization of certain things such as phone has been successful, but the reality there is different; the Brazilian government has the power to regulate.
• Two: Privatization causes inequality. Private companies serve those who can pay. In Nicaragua, the poor dump their sewage and trash in the street because sewer hookup is too expensive and the government sends trash pickup to rich neighborhoods. Medicine is scarce and affordable only to the rich. Good education is unaffordable to the majority. Human needs do not motivate private companies, profits do.

In the end, our general opinion was that privatization can be good and it can be really bad, but it should not be forced upon any countries in order to get loans from any bank. That is why we call these countries democracies, because they supposedly have the ability to decide with a vote what they want as a country.

The real learning

The real learning came later that evening when I had a long talk with Silvia Mendez, a Nicaraguan mother and volunteer for Generando Vida (Generating Life, the project where I work), about privatization.

"New technology really just makes me feel even farther behind," she told me, answering all the others claims during the sessions that the poor always want the latest technology, and don’t want to seek alternatives. "I mean a telephone seems nice, but I will never run into that kind of money in my lifetime."

We talked a little bit more about healthcare and education, which hardly exist for her. Then she shared a secret.

"You know what, I am tapped [illegally] into the electrical system," she added, tears welling up in her eyes. "I don’t want to, but I can’t afford it otherwise. I have three kids, and I can’t even put food on the table for them — how am I going to pay the electric bill?"

"But why didn’t you share this stuff with the others here?" I agonized. "We're just a bunch of educated fools; you are the only one who really has experienced the negative effects of globalization first-hand."

"None of those people would understand," she said. "Besides, the Motorola man made me feel uncomfortable."

This referred to a speaker who wore Levis and loafers and waved around a Motorola cell-phone during his entire, very professional, PowerPoint presentation (Note: Levis, loafers and Motorola are all symbols of empire here in Latin America and communicate power.) I cried; she was right. Few of the rest of us there knew what it was to not have food on our table.

I felt ashamed that all of these people had gotten together to discuss economic globalization, and especially how it was affecting the poor of Latin America and we had not taken the time to listen, or created the space that made her comfortable. Or maybe it was just something that could only be shared with a friend.