t is useless to propose to resolve the problems of the World’s South just looking at the tip of the iceberg: to use a typically African metaphor, it is like looking merely at the ears of the hippopotamus on the surface of the water, without noticing his immense body leaning on the bed of the river”, stated to MISNA Father Francesco Bernardi, deputy superior of the Italian province of the Consolata Missionaries, clarifying immediately that he did not expect much from the G8 summit, closed yesterday in Gleneagles (Scotland).
“The reason is simple: the G8 does not have decisional faculties, it mainly expresses recommendations, auspices, which often remain such. Enormous problems are addressed but with scarce political power. We already witnessed this in previous occasions, such as the G8 of Genoa (Italy) in 2001, many promises but few facts”.
G8 must become a G-All. Until there is not a general involvement it will remain a space for few in which they even say interesting things, but then all stops at that.
According to the missionary, “we observed small changes in an attempt to directly involve the actual nations of the World’s South. This is a positive aspect, but entirely insufficient given that the G8 remains a showcase solely for the more industrialized nations. There were attempts to extend it, there was even talk of a G21, but it is still too little”.
Fr. Bernardi, historic editor-in-chief of the missionary magazine of the Consolata of Turin and coordinator of the “Nos existimos” international Campaign in defense of the indigenous of the Brazilian Amazon, remembered the words of Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, at the time Archbishop of Genoa, in occasion of the last summit on Italian territory: “He said that the G8 must become a G-All. Until there is not a general involvement it will remain a space for few in which they even say interesting things, but then all stops at that. Aside from the terrible events of London, which in part distracted the attention, the results of Gleneagles are meager”.
For Fr. Bernardi, also Africa did not expect more from the G8: “They lived it like many other meetings between ‘powers’, listening to already repeated facts like how to devolve 0.7 of the Gross Domestic Product to funds for Africa, promises handed down from G8 to G8”. In face of the scarce progress of Gleneagles, according to the Italian missionary, the Millennium Goals still remain very far, foremost reducing poverty by half by 2015: “If problems of structural order are not resolved in the fields of economic justice, of peace and security it is unthinkable to achieve such ambitious goals”, concluded the missionary.
(From MISNA)