Review of 'Third World Health: Hostage to First World Wealth'

Professor Bill Bowring, Director of the Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute (HRSJ), reviews Professor Th?odore MacDonald''s book Third World Health: Hostage to First World Wealth:

Theo MacDonald is no stranger to London Met - he is an Associate of the Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute, based in Ladbroke House. His new book makes his connection with HRSJ plain on its title page. We are proud of this association, which helps to bring to life our commitment to researching and campaigning for human rights and social justice.

Theo MacDonald has had considerable field experience, working in health and education with NGO''s, UNESCO, WHO, etc. in some of the world''s poorest nations. He has also published a number of books on Cuba''s health and Education systems, as well as his highly regarded "Rethinking Health Promotion: Global Approach" (Routledge, 1998). His main concern is the relationship between international development and global equity. The growing inequality between the North and the South, and its insidious impacts on health, education, environment, on the South, are for him matters of immense worry and cannot be sustained.

This new book is an astonishingly thorough and wide-ranging analysis of the catastrophic problems facing the South, and the ways in which international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF exacerbate the plight of the poor, especially in the South.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of South Africa, in his enthusiastic introduction, states that MacDonald "writes with passion as well as sense… [he] persuades us of our power to influence local events, to develop an informed community stance on environmental issues, etc." It is for this very reason that the new book emphasises the various ways in which people in all countries and walks of life can become involved

This new book is also written in a highly accessible style, with full explanations of all technical points. There are a number of truly illuminating charts and graphs. Each chapter is brought to life through case studies. Thus, Chapter 1, "Health and Poverty", starts with the case of Cambodia, and then takes the reader through the role of TRIPS and the World Health Organisation. An analysis of the Christmas 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Chapter 2 provides the basis for a compelling account of the water crisis threatening more and more of the planet.

The conflict between global health and global finance in Chapter 4 focuses on the case studies of Uganda, and the privatisation of pharmaceutical provision in India. Chapters on "Milk and Imperialism", Peru as a case study, and "Cuba - model or monster" are interspersed with chapters which explore the ways in which the third world helps itself through community health programmes, and the world-wide movements against global capitalism, world poverty, and the Iraq War.

Theo MacDonald makes it plain that the United Nations is an irreplaceable resource and locus of struggle, but one badly in need of reform. One of the Appendices is the UN''s 2000 "A New Framework and Guidelines Enshrining a Fundamental Human Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health", an inspiring document.

This splendid book ends with an apt quotation (slightly inaccurate in the text) from Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Red Shelley", whose The Mask of Anarchy, written on the occasion of the massacre carried out by the British Government at Peterloo, Manchester in 1819, contains these lines:

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.''

Theo MacDonald writes: "Most of us, by far, really do want to reverse the present brutal inequalities and to live in the security which only global justice and peace can continue. To do so, however, we need to make our voices heard and our votes count." (p.234). This is the philosophy of the HRSJ Institute.



8 September 2005