Home > Not the Hay Festival: Juhasz, Muttit, Christodopoulos
Wars and conflicts International UK
By Sarah Meyer
I used to be a Guardian Hay Festival addict. Good talks, good bookshops, good food. This year the festival is a bit incestuous. The blog editor of The Guardian is interviewing Alan Rusbridger, the editor of the Guardian, for example. Now this would have been a stimulating conversation if one of the Media Lens editors had conducted the interview. The BBC, under continual criticism from bloggers for ‘unbalanced’ reporting, is much again in evidence at Hay - unchallenged. It thus appears that the Hay Festival is supporting the Mainstream Media agenda whilst a roar of controversy and fear surrounds the incursion of bloggers into the corporate news world’s ratings. There seems to be a resistance to, or ignorance of, the radical and informed Blog World. There are excellent UK bloggers that would have given a needed stimulus to the festival.
“Club Regulars,” eg Winterson and Greer, are here.’ Al Gore will talk. But a wide gap remains unfilled by those authors questioning the political / corporate status quo. What has happened to the Hay challenge to expand our knowledge and fixed ideas? Visitors are again offered Christopher Hitchens (yawn). One local said, “Where are the Gore Vidals, the Norman Mailers, the Philip Roths? It seems to be mostly c-list celebs.”
There are exceptions - John Pilger; ‘girl-blogger’ from Iraq, Riverbend, author of Baghdad Burning; Gary Younge, author of Stranger in a Strange Land. Hearing the very special writer whose work cannot be categorized, Philip Marsden will be a treat. The activist / comedian Mark Thomas will try and make the lethal arms trade sound funny.
Last year, the festival moved from the centre of town to a field. Another local person said “Last year I could get a seat in the pub - I’ve never known that during a festival before.” Now the festival is a bus ride away. A small cut-out Guardian headline in a bookshop window reads: "Hell for low-paid locals."
I went, instead, to hear three speakers at the London School of Economics, who should be in the Hay Festival schedule, and are not.
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I became a fan of Loukas Christodopoulos when I read his excellent report, Corporate Carve-up: the role of UK corporations in Iraq (03.03. - 03.06). He spoke on this subject. “It was a political decision to bring corporations into Iraq. The corporations then support the Occupation.” Thus, he said, “it is important to find out who is there. The majority are US corporations.” Perhaps, he thought, the UK felt they were not getting value for money. A great deal of money could be made “all in the name of helping Iraqis.” However, “the restructuring of Iraq’s economy is providing fertile opportunities for an army of consultants.” For example, AMEC, a large construction firm with a £500m contract in their pocket, is working alongside the US firm Fluor. “AMEC is organised much like Tony Blair’s PFI (Private Finance Initiatives) in UK hospitals.1” Consultancy firms, advising the new Iraqi government and the Ministries have also moved in. “Brand Identity” is inserting itself alongside the private security / military companies, in which there are 30,000 private employees.
“A policy decision was taken to base Iraq’s future on corporations. It is an agenda that is being pushed. There is enough talent in Iraq to reverse this trend.” A precis of the excellent full report can be read here.
Greg Muttit is the author of the revealing report by Platform, Crude Designs: the Rip-off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth.2
“The oil situation in Iraq is a repetition of history,” Muttit said. “The British occupied Iraq and in 1925 a contract was signed. There has been talk of the control and ownership of Iraq for 75 years, thus giving all the power to foreign countries.“ In Iraq, Muttit said, “there was enormous opposition to this.” 1961 and 1972 saw nationalisation of oil in Iraq. “Now the players are slightly different, as the US is the Number One power.” The Iraqi people have seen all this before. Now, the language has changed a bit. Oil companies are described as ‘contractors.’ ... The word ‘advice’ keeps coming up. It reveals the attitude: ‘we know how this should be done and the Iraqi’s don’t.”
“There are four months until the final constitution, and then a law will be passed. The Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) can then be signed. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) is helping the Iraqis with conditions. The IMF insisted on being involved in the drafting... The US chose the consultancy company, Bearing Point. This company is now involved, designing the privatisation of oil and depriving a future revenue for the Iraqis.
“This process is not inevitable. There is considerable resistance to this process amongst Iraqi politicians and academics. Strikes have, for example, shut down Iraqi oil. Everyone needs to resist this theft of Iraqi oil.”