A NEW GUINNESS WORLD RECORD IS SET FOR THE LARGEST NUMBRER OF PEOPLE TO EVER STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY, IN SUPPORT OF THE MDGs.

On Tuesday 17 October, the Guinness Book of Records, the official depository of all broken and unbroken records for all kinds of challenges that human creativity, eccentricity and imagination can think of also had its own record broken. It recorded the largest number of people standing up for a single cause in all its history of keeping records and setting challenges. The challenge looked very simple during initial negotiations between Guinness and the UN Millennium Campaign led by Mandy Kibel, Communications Director for the Campaign. The idea was to get at least 10,000 people across the world to Stand Up Against Poverty and Stand up for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) over a 24 hour period. When the idea was first formally discussed within the Millennium Campaign my initial reaction was to point out how very modest the ceiling was. I even boasted that if I seriously put my family honor in Funtua at stake we could muster those figures within the Ayilara family (my extended clan), at home and in their various internal diasporas alone! The Campaign Director, Salil Shetty, and Deputy Director for India, Minar Pimple, both from India, called my bluff and suggested that they could get those numbers just
shouting by the road side in Mumbai!

As discussions continued, my colleagues in the Africa section of the Campaign thought the challenge was 10, 000 per city or at least in one country. But it was later clarified that the 10, 000 was the minimum set by Guinness for the global challenge because nobody else had set such a challenge before.

By the time the idea was sold to our principal partners, Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) we all had no doubt that the 10,000 mark could be easily beaten. Mobilisation ensued within various National Coalitions of GCAP/MDG Campaigners, but also by many enthusiastic individuals, groups, organizations who just register their events directly and carried on mobilizing. The idea was simple enough and it could be done practically by anybody whereever
they may be. In spite of the general optimism, as the dates got nearer, things went into frenetic pace. One is never quite sure what would happen in these mass activities. Anything can happen. Some of the campaigners in Africa prayed that the gods hold the rains for the 24 hours!

By Tuesday, 17 October (International Day for the Eradication of Poverty) none of us could have predicted the fantastic figures the Guinness records had verified as having stood up Against Poverty and for the MDGs: 23,542,614 participants had stood up in 11,646 events in more than 80 countries around the globe. Minar and Salil got their millions with more than 18 millions standing up in Asia and over 9 million from India alone! Activists in my local town helped me redeem my boast too: Over 43 000 people stood up in Funtua, Katsina State of Nigeria. Africa as a whole posted more than 3.6 millions in more than 3000 events across the continent. Malawi, posted over 1.5 million because of the mass involvement of the churches through the Micah Challenge and Nigeria had more than 1.3 million with Kano state through the State Board for Universal Basic Education (SBUB) that participated through all its schools registering more
than 1.1 million pupils. The responses world wide had been overwhelming: Places of worship including churches and mosques, schools, sporting facilities, offices, markets, beaches, parks, disabled people, artists, women, trade unionists, youth, students, professionals and people from all walks of life. There was Aerobics Against Poverty in South Africa, while a group of disabled people suffering from leprosy were part of the Stand Up in Abuja, Nigeria. I even
attended a Hip Hop Against Poverty event in a taxi park in Alexandra township in Johannesburg.

As Madonna battled in court to acquire her latest emotive accessory ,I was with almost 500 kids (with no hope of being adopted) in an LEA school in a poor area of Lilongwe, Malawi enjoying Stand Up activities. All of them took part in this symbolic act of solidarity with the world’s poor demanding that all governments in the richer and poorer countries of the world fulfill the commitments they made to the peoples of the world in 2000. It is both a reminder and also a notice that citizens of the world would no longer stand by and watch while a majority of the peoples of the world suffer extreme poverty.

In a world in which we are made to believe that there are no just causes to unite all of humanity in solidarity last weekend’s activism has shown that the global anti poverty movement remains a possible unifier of the peoples of the world as a just cause.

September 11 was a potentially uniting horror, but both Bush and Blair soon manipulated it into a vendetta war without end in the name of fighting terrorism. Though, the unjust war against and subsequent occupation of Iraq helped in reviving in some ways the Anti-War and Peace Movement, globally the Movement seems to have peaked even as the situation in Iraq worsens. The Movement has somewhat maintained a public stalemate in the face of bellicose powers in Washington.

Veteran activists are nostalgic about the struggles of the past, fondly recalling the Anti-Apartheid Movement, or before that the struggles for liberation from colonialism in the Third world or even the Anti-Nuclear Campaigns of the cold war days and other epic struggles. They often lament the absence of similar solidarities, commitment, sacrifice and dedication especially among the youth today. Part of the problem has been the relative fantastic wealth and prosperity especially in the richest countries of the world in the last quarter of the 20th century. In addition, the spread of consumerism, the collapse of Eastern bloc and a triumphalist neo-liberal ideology condemn everyone and every thing to the market. But that same affluence that produced the M-NET and CNN generation is manufacturing desperate poverty for a significant minority in the rich countries and the vast majority of the peoples of the poorer countries.

Such poverty and inequalities threaten the wealth of the rich who cannot expect to have any social peace and security to permanently enjoy their opulence. Attempts to soften the impact through aid and charity have not offered any long term solution. Consequently, fundamental questions are being asked about the nature of the system. Neo liberalism is suffering backlashes
and its ideological commitment to growth without development being queried even on economic grounds. The adoption of MDGs in 2000 in spite of the imperfections is an attempt to address these issues in a multilateral framework which is politically, even if not legally, binding. While their fulfillment may not solve all the problems of the world or even eradicate extreme poverty totally, they will certainly help in making the world fairer and give the poor and poorer countries a needed and necessary breathing space to regain stamina for the challenges that will still remain.

Will it really hurt anyone if these goals are achieved?

Even the minimal consensus that produced the MDGs risk being compromised by political leaders and governments who had signed up so enthusiastically in 2000. Almost half way to 2015, the 23.5 million citizens of the word who participated in the STAND UP events last weekend were not just happy to set a record but are saying: no excuses before and by 2015. They are also teaching us a lesson that great issues are that can unite peoples of the world and build genuine solidarity are not dead. Poverty is one of them and they are ready to take action.
In welcoming the surprise turn out, the UN Millennium Campaign’s Executive Coordinator, Eveline Herfkens , spoke for all when she declared: “The record we really want to break is the world’s record of breaking promises and ignoring the poor. We do not want to record numbers of people dying of poverty every year. This is the great issue of our times, let us become great by dealing with it decisively.”

If you did not participate last week it is not too late for you to join the campaign and be involved and stay engaged in building the movement against poverty and inequality in the world, right now and helping to smash this new record next year. You will not just be standing up against poverty, but also doing your bit to end it by actively supporting the MDGs.

“Forward ever , backward never” Kwame Nkrumah (1909 – 1972)

……………… DON’T AGONISE! ORGANISE!!……………………..

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 10:31 am and is filed under Thursday Postcard. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.