Jubilee 2000: Twenty Years On
Medium Read (9-10 mins)
Twenty years ago, the Jubilee 2000 debt relief campaign came to an end. An idea born in the early 1990s came to life towards the end of that decade, with memorable events like the giant human chain around Birmingham city centre in 1998, and considerable political success. The campaign was able to persuade individual states and international organisations to clear a total $100 billion of debt, as well as cementing the place of debt relief on the political agenda. Many of you will know all of this, as you were involved with the campaign at the time or have been involved with the work that the Jubilee Debt Campaign has been doing ever since. For me, it’s a different story. I was two years old when the Jubilee 2000 campaign reached its deadline (the end of the year 2000) and have learnt about the campaign through academic study rather than lived experience. Writing my Masters dissertation on the campaign felt quite historical, as if reflecting on a moment in time that couldn’t possibly be replicated within the near future. And though there have been other campaigns led by churches since, such as Make Poverty History and the Fairtrade movement, none have quite achieved what Jubilee 2000 was able to all those years ago. Why is this? In this article, I suggest that the success of Jubilee 2000 rested on three Cs: context, coverage and of course, churches.
The chain was the defining symbol of Jubilee 2000.
Context
There have been many worthwhile and well-run campaigns since Jubilee 2000, but none have been able to bring about the political change that it did – Make Poverty History was successful in driving the news agenda, but failed to bring about concrete political change, whilst the successes of the Fairtrade movement are currently coming undone. Part of Jubilee 2000’s success is down to the government of the day. In the late 1990s, Labour came into power with a huge majority, looking to bring about positive change. Alongside the success of the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act and the National Minimum Wage, Blair’s government set out an “ethical foreign policy” and created the Department for International Development. Of course, any mention of Blair and foreign policy these days is rightly criticised in light of the Iraq War. However, between 1997 and 2001, international development campaigns found themselves with a captive government. Jubilee 2000 particularly resonated with Blair and Brown due to their personal links to Christianity – Gordon Brown’s mother notably wrote a letter to her son asking him to do something about debt relief, whilst Tony Blair does actually “do God”.
In addition to a receptive government, the Jubilee 2000 campaign operated amidst a political atmosphere where globalisation and international organisations were coming under immense scrutiny. Although there isn’t a direct link between anti-globalisation movements and Jubilee 2000, both movements targeted the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the G7. These institutions were under consistent pressure to change their ways and adopting some of Jubilee 2000’s proposals was a way of easing the situation.
These days, we have a Conservative government who have just merged DFiD into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, side-lining one of the most prestigious and successful departments within the civil service. International development is often criticised by government and media figures, and anything to do with international institutions seems likely to be shot down. The chances of a Jubilee 2020 securing policy change from this government? Unlikely.
Coverage
One of the key relationships Jubilee 2000 was able to foster was with The Guardian newspaper. This partnership was the focus of my MA dissertation and I believe that it played a significant role in sustaining pressure on governments to change policy. Jubilee 2000 organised newsworthy events – the human chain in Birmingham, protests at the G7 – which gave media outlets something to write about. But in addition to this, the campaign also secured long-term coverage by organising week-long series on the issue of debt relief in The Guardian, which then secured Jubilee 2000’s place on the news agenda for that week. Despite vast differences within The Guardian readership regarding the topic of religion, I found that very few readers criticised Jubilee 2000 and most gave it their full support.
Since Jubilee 2000, similar campaigns have been able to secure media coverage. Make Poverty History even made it into an episode of the Vicar of Dibley! Yet, other campaigns have seemed unable to develop long-term partnerships with media outlets, meaning they might appear in an article every so often but lack consistent support. This is partly because the news agenda has moved on from the issue of debt relief. In fact, The Guardian has been providing long-term news coverage for environmental campaigns and Black Lives Matter. This is no bad thing, as these movements deserve attention and support. However, the ever-quickening pace of the news cycle means that governments are able to wait for some issues to disappear from the front pages, without doing anything about them.
It is interesting to wonder how Jubilee 2000 would have worked in the social media age. Would the media and the campaign’s several high-profile supporters – Bono and David Bowie amongst them – simply have moved on, or would they have stuck with Jubilee 2000 throughout?
Churches
A huge part of Jubilee 2000’s success lay with its ability to motivate churchgoers to get out on the streets and campaign. During my dissertation, I read about vicars being chained to churches and other attention-seeking tactics organised by local churches. Jubilee 2000 was a campaign that Christians really got behind. In addition to this, many people outside the Church seemed to be inspired rather than put off by the massive number of Christians who took part in the campaign. The enthusiasm was infectious and the cause was worthwhile; the Church was doing what people wanted it to do. This particularly applies to organisations like The Guardian, who viewed Jubilee 2000 as exactly the sort of Christianity they could support – liberal, well-meaning, globally aware. This Christianity still exists, of course. But it seems to have disappeared from the news, at least. This doesn’t mean that individuals and organisations aren’t putting in hours of hard work behind the scenes of similarly-minded campaigns these days, but rather these campaigns don’t seem to be grabbing people’s attention.
I was heartened to see the launch of the #CancelTheDebt campaign earlier this year, led by the same organisations and charities that spearheaded Jubilee 2000. The more UK-focused #ResetTheDebt campaign is an important initiative as well. Maybe we are hearing less about these campaigns because churches are doing so much to care for people during the Covid-19 pandemic, to combat climate change and to tackle racism. What is clear is that the news-making, policy-changing, singular focus of Jubilee 2000 will be hard to recreate. Yet there is reason to be positive.
Twenty years ago, the Jubilee 2000 campaign achieved historic change in how we view structural debt.
Today our attentions may be more divided, and our campaigns less visible, but Christians are still out there, changing the world bit by bit, each and every day.