THE WORLD TODAY | JUNE & JULY 2012 | 5

Kenneth Kaunda, the � rst president of Zambia, is not so widely acclaimed these days as Nelson Mandela. This is a pity. I recently had the good fortune to meet him over tea at his home in Lusaka and hear his remarkable story. KK, as he is known, came to rely on the advice of Stewart Gore-Browne, the soldier and white settler who did so much for the cause of Zambian independence. Christina Lamb’s beautiful book The Africa House tells the story of Gore-Browne’s estate, Shiwa Ng’andu, 500 miles north of Lusaka, which I was able to visit. It was in this pink-bricked mansion that Gore-Browne sheltered KK from British colonial brutality. I stayed in another remarkable house associated with KK called Chichele Lodge. It was built for the president and here he entertained guests as varied the Queen, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro and Chairman Mao Zedong. This African leader is an inspirational man, who stepped down in good time to make way for a younger generation. One of this group is the vice-president, Dr Guy Scott, the most senior white politician since independence in 1964. KK has also campaigned against Aids, a cause to which he was introduced after his son died from the disease. Listening to his life story I was reminded of how bereft Britain’s political class is of such talent.

One exception is the Mayor of London, who was re-elected as a Boris, not as a Tory. Voters everywhere adore authenticity and conviction, and Boris Johnson has both. Many of his contemporaries do not. Membership of, and trust in, political parties has rarely been lower in the modern West. Mavericks such as George Galloway, who in March won the Bradford West by-election by a landslide, and independents such as the London

mayoral candidate Siobhan Benita will grow in in§ uence. But increasingly, political activism will take place online, following the successes of websites such as Avaaz and Change.org, whose petitions are now feared by corporations and governments alike. In the coming weeks, I shall be launching a campaigning website that boldly enters this terrain. It will be called Independent Voices.

Ahead of World Press Freedom Day, I visited Ethiopia, having read reports of journalists being persecuted there. The constitution of Ethiopia purports to defend press freedom, but in practice hardly does. Yet for all that, I was very impressed by the country’s development. The last time I visited Ethiopia, I was a child accompanying my grandfather on a zoological expedition, and the country was under the Mengistu regime. Famine and disease dominated all conversation. Now the cities are cleaner and richer, a middle class is brewing, and some freedoms are becoming entrenched.

How cheering to see Barack Obama declare his support for gay marriage – and how astute, too. Some reporters have suggested that Vice-President Joe Biden’s favourable view of gay marriage slipped out in a TV interview, as if by accident, forcing the president also to come out, as it were. Nonsense: the White House is much smarter than that, and its choreographed intervention has invited Mitt Romney to con� rm to the independent voters who will decide November’s election that he is not such a centrist after all. Obama also happens to be right. Extending the dignity of marriage to gays is a basic human right that will strengthen, not weaken, a precious institution, while striking a blow for sexual equality as well. I hope David Cameron, who bravely endorsed gay marriage, comes good on his promise to legalise it here.

What a magni� cently eccentric ritual the Leveson inquiry into press ethics is. Led by a Le Monde-reading judge, whose recommendations will be treated with almost Biblical veneration, I found giving evidence a stimulating experience. This is largely because Lord Leveson himself is charming and thoughtful, with a sardonic wit. His remit is so broad that he may end up responsible for the biggest changes to our media, and its regulation, for a generation. My hope is that, while recognising that those who broke the law should be properly punished, and that self-regulation has been ine³ ective, he doesn’t take steps to shackle our free press. When the police and Press Complaints Commission failed, it took investigative journalism of the most painstaking kind – � rst at The Guardian, and then at The Independent – to expose wrongdoing. In Russia, journalists who wish to do the same are murdered, frequently it seems while working for Novaya Gazeta, the paper my family set up with Mikhail Gorbachev. Our raucous, diverse press makes us luckier than most people in Britain realise. We must hope Lord Leveson is an exception. ●

Evgeny Lebedev is the owner of The Independent titles and the London Evening Standard @mrevgenylebedev

NOTEBOOK

Meetings with a remarkable man

By Evgeny Lebedev

Kenneth Kaunda, right, with Namibia’s President Hi� kepunye

STEP

HAN

E D

E SA

KUTI

N/A

FP/G

ETTY

IMAG

ES

TWT_Notebook_03.indd 5 29/05/2012 10:59

Not playing fairSir – Xinghai Fang’s assertions are accurate as far as they go: China is the dominant economic and military power in the East and its people work harder and longer than most. Yet he ignores some important realities. He says ‘its huge economic success … is singularly due to the adoption of a market economy’ – this is only half the truth. What of the lack of fair wages and workers’ rights, the suppression of protest, ignoring of workplace safety, immense environmental damage, currency manipulation, and massive intellectual property theft – where do you think the ability to build the Boeing 737 he mentions will come from? China’s economy needs to grow at 7-8 per cent a year just to create the jobs needed for new entrants to the workforce or, in the view of some Chinese officials, to maintain national stability. Thus, China’s leadership will seek to maintain economic growth whatever it takes as their survival depends on it. That is what the West and its liberal economies should fear. Tom Keatinge

Party animalSir – As an Italian, I really appreciated Peter Popham’s piece on Silvio Berlusconi’s political end and the new regime of Mario Monti. However, Popham is mistaken when he states that Prof Monti and his austerity measures were ‘foisted’ on Italy by President

Napolitano. While it is true that the President played a key role in the transition phase, it should be remembered that both Prof Monti and his measures were adopted

after a confidence

vote in both chambers of parliament. The political parties were, therefore, responsible for his election. Filippo Costa Buranelli

Majority misruleSir – Mark Malloch-Brown’s article on Syria highlighted how ‘two sloppy doctrines’ have had unintended consequences in the country. I offer two far sloppier and far more damaging ones.

The first is the doctrine that majority rule is always to be preferred to its alternative. One of the issues in Syria is whether it is better to have rule by a minority, which broadly respects the rights of other faiths, or rule by the majority, which quite clearly does not. The answer that ‘Democracy implies that majority rule is always right’ is far too simplistic.

The other doctrine is the assumption is that making dictators answer for their rule in an international court will improve their behaviour. It will not – in fact it is far more likely to stiffen their resolve to go down fighting. Would we have got rid of Pinochet, Amin or de Klerk if instead of retirement, safe asylum and honour respectively they had merely been offered Milosevic-style justice?

Both of these doctrines are very attractive in theory but highly damaging in practice. They ignore the real world, and the real challenge of removing entrenched dictators without replacing them by chaos or worse.

In Libya and in Iraq the West has achieved the quite astounding feat of making many people look back on the rule of pretty unsavoury dictators with fondness. We are well on the way to achieving precisely the same result in Syria, too. John Nugée

Send your comments to letters@theworldtoday.org

LETTERS

Chinese ‘half-truths’

Stay at home and save the worldHow web campaigning is changing the face of global politics

April & May 2012 | £5 | Volume 68 | Number 3

Iran Patricia Lewis sees Iranian opinion shifting on the nuclear issueCapital investors Who owns the London skyline? China Kerry Brown on the communist party’s leap into the unknown

the w

orld

tod

ay | april & m

ay 2012

Aviva’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting CoalitionProgressive companies around the world have come to understand that long term value is enhanced by embedding long-term sustainability into their business strategies and by disclosing their progress and ambitions to investors.

This is particularly important to us as an investor acting on behalf of customers with long-term investment needs. Rightly, our customers expect us to help ensure the companies we invest in are behaving responsibly.

Whilst twenty years after the first Earth Summit a significant number of companies do now disclose their sustainability performance, the overwhelming majority of large and listed companies still do not.

In September 2011, Aviva convened the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Coalition (CSRC) - a group of like minded organisations, including NGOs and institutional investors managing approximately US$2 trillion globally. This coalition is urging the member states at Rio+20 to develop a convention requiring all listed and large private companies to either integrate material sustainability issues within their annual report and accounts – or explain why they have not done so. We would also like to see effective mechanisms for investors to hold companies to account on the quality of these disclosures, for instance through a vote at the AGM.

We believe this measure will create the right kind of discussions within boardrooms and throughout companies. In turn, this will encourage investors to think about the sustainability of the business and to allocate capital to more sustainable, responsible companies, strengthening the long-term sustainability of the financial system.

We are encouraged to note that this call features within the first draft of the Earth Summit outcomes document, the zero draft. However, we believe there is further to go - for example, a clearer commitment, an indicative timeline and a stronger emphasis on accountability.

Rio+20 – a chance to embed sustainability across the corporate world

• Aviva provides insurance, savings and investment products to 43 million customers worldwide.

• We were the first financial services company in the world to put its corporate responsibility report to a separate shareholder vote at its AGM in 2010.

• We are proud to be in the top 10% of sustainable companies globally according to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

• We are a founding member of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) programme.

For more information please email public.policy@aviva.com

IWLOW2016_90930_ADU.indd 1 12/03/2012 16:58TWT_Cover_02.indd 1 27/03/2012 09:09

Volume 68 Number 4

EditorAlan Philps aphilps@ chathamhouse.orgAssistant EditorAgnes Frimston afrimston@chathamhouse.orgDesign Esterson AssociatesSub-Editor Richard Parrack Consulting Editor Burhan WazirPicture Editor Millie Simpson

The World Today is published by The Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London. Any views expressed in this publication are those of the contributors.For submissions, letters, advertising, subscription enquiries and back copies, please contact:The Editor, The World Today, Chatham House, 10 St James’s Square,London, sw1y 4le.Telephone: +44 (0) 20 7957 5712Email: wt@chathamhouse.org

Permission to reprint or republish material from The World Today in any form must be sought from the Editor.Back copies are available from 1990.

The World Today is available on microfilm from The National Archive Publishing Company, www.napubco.comElectronic versions are also available from ProQuest Information and Learning, www.proquest.com

Charity Reg. No 208223issn 0043-9134

Printed by Warners Midlands Plc

ales

sia

pier

do

men

ico/

blo

om

berg

via

get

ty im

ages

TWT_Letters_03.indd 4 29/05/2012 10:53