We are all, no doubt, very busy and focused on ourselves right now - with the survival of our jobs, families and communities uppermost in our minds. Maybe you have so much in front of you that you will think twice about reading these thoughts. But please take a minute and think about just how important you are to everyone everywhere in this moment of time.

A new dawn is rising steadily in front of us, it is the light of a new political and consumer consciousness and it is given intensity by the current crises:  poverty, economic and climate.  If one good thing comes of this, it will a big contribution towards the end of the values that have driven extreme wealth and extreme poverty for many years  -   the end of greed and of ignorance.

As the new dawn rises it will throw light on our path and more people will become aware that we, you and I, exist. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because we will be asked more questions and we will have to prove ourelves more thoroughly and more rigorously than ever before. We will all have to improve on our commitments and support our passion and credibility with facts and analysis and evidence. We will have to be what we have been saying we are.

And it will be bad because, as the world demands change, many will be tempted to make cosmetic changes in order to appear to be to trade fairly.

We have to take advantage of this new light that is becoming brighter every day.  We have to talk to people.  We have to expose the issues as we see them.  We have to explain clearly why and how the world became a threatened and dangerous place.  We have to show people that there is a solution, and we have to prove that Fair Trade can deliver it.

It is not good enough to leave this process to the G20 or any other governing body or corporate entity. They will simply reorganize and reuse the same systems that continue to fail us.  I fear we will continue to see more Cancun and Doha Rounds and more resources simply pumped into the large wealthy country dominated institutions, which with the best of intentions have not served the disadvantaged of our world very well.

We cannot depend on the systems which substantially caused the current crises to fix them. No amount of new light will bring adequate fairness, accountability and transparency to these systems. Poverty never needed to exist.  As Nobel Prize winner, Professor Mohammend Yunus says:   "Poverty does not come from the inside.  It is imposed from the outside."   Unfortunately, people do not survive the free market, they become commodities; the planet simply cannot survive the free market

Fair Trade is more than a price paid. It is more than money. It is a relationship. Fair Trade means that I respect you and you respect me and that together we will be good for one and other. Fair Trade means, transparency, and accountability and fairness in all of our dealings and those dealings are built on principle. The principles of Fair Trade mean that we live socially and environmentally sustainable lives; they mean we live for the next generation and not for ourselves; they mean we invest in each other for the good of us all; they mean we enable democratic process and liberty for all people to do the best for themselves and their communities; they mean that being human is more that being part of a machine; they mean we favor prosperity for both our friends and our foes in the knowledge that equality and freedom will bring peace and quality of life and make conflict and misery increasingly irrelevant. Fair Trade principles mean a lot and people need to know that. Everyone needs to know that.

We must end the tyranny of divide and rule and we must bring people together and prove beyond any doubt that there is another way, one that works and work better than anything that has gone before because it holds people at its heart and uses finance to invest in the future of us all. As the light shifts closer and our shadows shorten, we need to be bold enough to stand our ground and let the world know that we have found another way. Only a Fair Trade solution can end the tyranny of greed humanely.

My good friends, World fair Trade Day is upon us. We have called it BIG BANG!! because it is the start of a new way of thinking and living. Please do not hide in the shadows, be sure to do your part. You have an opportunity unlike any before. Be the change.  

Paul Myers,
President, World Fair Trade Organization.

BEAT POVERTY BEAT CLIMATE CHANGE BEAT ECONOMIC CRISIS!! BEAT A DRUM. BIG BANG!! 09 MAY 09