Day 2 at World Bank/IMF

Today wasn't as bourgeois as yesterday. All the discussions were held at the less glamorous CSO office at Suntec, and they were centered around youth developmental issues such as unemployment, labour migration, child labour etc etc. My mind switched off quite a bit when the Q&A session transpired into some grievance session. Somehow, I pity the world bank dude Emmanuel Jimenez, who led the research team for the World Development Report 2007. He admitted that he is faced with quite a good dosage of limitations when it comes to the allocation of resources from the World Bank to developing countries in the Third World. My own opinion is that most of these governments in these countries are plagued with corruption and a host of other internal problems, which further impedes the flow of money to the right target groups. Somehow I kind of empathize sincere policy makers who are trapped in not-so-sincere institutions; some problems are really beyond their capacity.

The past 2 days have been quite a crash course in international political economy. My rather simplistic assessment of the World Bank and the IMF is that the latter is the bad guy that pushes for global free trade, which I think favors the richer nations like the G7, and encourages more dumping and exploitation in the Third World, while the former is the good guy that tries to come up with policies to buffer the social problems that stem from the unbridled march of global capitalism. The Latin American School would argue that the World Bank is subsumed under the IMF, and thus offers more of a smoke screen to appease global civil society. I've decided not to be so cynical; too much cynicism breeds a sense of political alienation, because you become someone who distrusts every single institution, be it good or bad.

Interestingly, I had a pretty good chat with a prof from NUS soci department. For a while I thought he was some reporter, and I was in my politically correct mode in answering his questions. It was only later when I realized that he teaches human rights in NUS that I became less uptight. It is quite interesting how he advise me to pursue the road of academia, and then telling me that all great philosophers from Marx to Althusser have some sort of severe depression or personal problems. So I should either be prepared to be perpetually depressed or be a mediocre pseudo philosopher. Hmmm... I think being pseudo sounds good, at least I'll be more happy.

Other stuff that I did today include watching the protestors protest, collecting a ton of free publications and trying to be dignified while stuffing all the good stuff inside my bag. I think I'll try to catch some more seminars at the Pan Pacific tomorrow; the free food there is nicer. =P

I really have quite a lot of school work piling up. Somehow school work seems less interesting when you are given a chance to peak into the complexity of social relations and global issues. I still need to work on my totally uninspiring essay on the question "Is Singapore a democracy?".. YAWN YAWN... maybe I should just submit a photo of the sunflowers next to the barb fences outside Suntec. A picture paints a thousand words.