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The following year the Network for Progressive Governance was set up and since then the summits have been held on an almost annual basis. Leaders can join the group only if the existing members accept that they have a broadly defined progressive view of the world.
Matt Browne, director of the London-based Policy Network, which acts as a secretariat to the summit, says the leaders are united in their support for “modernist, reformist social democracy”.
Browne stresses that the meetings are not about coming up with courses of action to solve world problems, but more about offering a chance for leaders to share their experience of leading with like-minded and sympathetic people.
The ideological pivot for the leaders is essentially that of the “third way”, a term intended to bolster the position of the “New” Labour Party in the UK, coined by London School of Economics sociologist Anthony Giddens.
It is a position that lies in ill-defined ground between the strict market-based capitalism advocated by the conservatives and the staunch support for the nationalisation of the old hard left.
Apart from Mbeki and Blair, the group includes New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
The former prime minister of Canada, Paul Martin, is, according to sources, still planning to attend the summit.
However, Conservative leader Stephen Harper, who defeated Martin in the last elections, would not consider himself a “progressive”.
Other members of the club are India, the Dominican Republic, Portugal and Uruguay — but they will not be at the game lodge.
The broad definition of the term “progressive” is demonstrated by the presence of Meles.
Over the past few months, the Ethiopian government has arrested thousands of members of the Oromo ethnic group, according to human rights watchdog Amnesty International.
In addition, Ethiopia’s election last year, won by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which allowed Meles a third five-year term, was highly contested and led to protests in which at least 20 people died.
At the time of the release of Blair’s Commission for Africa report, however, Meles was widely seen as a reforming progressive.
There has since been some disappointment among Africa watchers, but this may indicate the extremely tricky nature of kicking out a member of the progressive club.
Ahead of the summit there will be a discussion on how to push the international trade talks forward after the ministerial meeting in Hong Kong last year. World Trade Organisation director-general Pascal Lamy and European Union trade commissioner Peter Mandelson will be in SA for the discussion.
At the summit meetings there will be talk of the general political situation in each member country, but the real focus will be on developing a common political agenda.
According to a release put out by the foreign affairs department, the two main issues on the agenda are development in Africa and policy challenges for the 21st century, including economic growth, new security challenges and building cohesive societies.
The issue of building cohesive societies was placed on the agenda well in advance of the uproar in the Muslim world over the cartoons in a Danish newspaper but this may turn out to be the summit’s focus.
The discussion could well have had greater force on world opinion had there been a leader from a predominantly Muslim country present, but this issue could become one that “progressives”, at least those in Europe, will have to respond to amid a potential backlash against immigrants.
Having chosen to place the issue of inclusion on the agenda, the international leaders are now almost compelled to come up with something on the cartoon issue at the summit this weekend.
(Source: Business Day)
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