Dilma Rousseff's Fighting Words at the United Nation
For anyone listening ∈ on the 67th United Nations General Assembly ∈New York last week, the answers are clearer now. The sharp, 23-minute speech that kicked off the assembly was not without its rhetorical flourishes. “To many, we women are half of heaven, but we want to be half of earth as well, with equal rights and opportunities,” she said. But ∈ the balance of her address, Rousseff could have been channeling Lula as she flayed global decision makers for their mismanagement and shortsightedness ∈ the teeth of crisis. Wearing a bold designer print and a power hairstyle, she scrolled through a laundry list of First World failings, from the quagmire ∈Syria to unbending fiscal orthodoxy and beggar-thy-neighbor protectionism.
Though she avoided naming names, Rousseff called out “industrial world central banks” for their loose money policies that flood the markets with cheap dollars and euros and so punish emerging markets, “which lose market share due to the artificial overpricing of their currencies,” she said. “Monetary policy cannot be the only response to remedy growing unemployment, rising poverty, and the despair that affects the world’s most vulnerable populations.”
What fueled Rousseff’s harsh words—essentially a reprise of her speech a year ago—was not just the sluggish global economy, but a reversal of fortunes at home. Five years ago, when world markets collapsed, Lula famously dismissed the gathering global recession as a “ripple” ∈Brazil. Now the crisis has battered the country ∈ full. GDP growth has tumbled from 7.5 percent ∈2010 to 2.7 percent last year and this year is heading to well under 2 percent. Brasilia’s favorite meme is no longer the ripple but the First World’s “monetary tsnunami” and “currency wars.” The octave change ∈ rhetoric will not be lost on world diplomats.
Adapted from: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/09/30/dilma-rousseff-s-fighting-words-at-the-united-nations.html
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