Notes for an address to the International Conference
Towards a Just International Financial System
Frankfurt/Main Nov. 23-25, 2000
Erlassjahr 2000 Some lessons learnt from three years of campaigning
Jürgen Kaiser, co-ordinator of the campaign in Germany
- While acknowledging that debt is neither the root cause nor the whole universe of injustice between North and South, it was adequate to concentrate on this particular topic - not as one topic among many others but as one of the key obstacles to sustainable development.
- Key events do have a high potential for mobilisation. Generally they can not be produced by ourselves. It is rather our opponents who define them - mostly through their agendas of meetings and decision making procedures.
- Concentrating on key issues also means running the risk of defeat. The Cologne summit - though quite successful in terms of mobilisation and media attention - was a political defeat for Jubilee 2000, and we were right to acknowledge that.
- If you want people to join your campaign actions you must design those actions under two aspects: they must be feasible for the particular kind of constituency you want to involve, and they must at the same time have a smell of the overall change you want to bring about. The Jubilee petition and membership invitation have worked perfectly in this respect. We have failed to define this kind of action in the year 2000.
- It is essential to combine a short-term target with a long-term overall perspective. In Erlassjahr's case: the need for immediate cancellation with the call for procedural reform, i.e. changing the balance of power between debtors and creditors through arbitration mechanisms.
- You can not do enough to get your message to the (mainstream) media. Jubilee2000 has by sometimes ignorant and sometimes malevolent media time and again been described as a kind of "HIPC-support-Initiative - what we have never been, neither on paper nor in practice. Through this the German minister of economic co-operation has eventually succeeded in presenting herself as the first campaigner of her country.
- When campaigning on financial issues one can not avoid covering the whole range from sophisticated expertise through which one can challenge experts on the other side, to popularising those same matters for "ordinary" people. The two must not be separated from each other. Ideally it should be those who do the research work, who also regularly confront the questions of a church board, which you have to win over for supporting your campaign.
- Limit timeframes and stick to the ones you have established. Looking like you were on your way to become part of the ecumenical jet-set is a recipe for alienation from the grassroots.