First London, then Seattle and now Hanover
- the Expo-World Exhibition in Germany -

Isabel Rodde

The early exhibitions presented primarily technical sensations and staged national competitions; in the last decades, however, leisure time activities have become more and more prevalent: world exhibitions as a cross between Disney-Land, political demonstration of power and gigantic tourism fair. If one were to believe the Expo organisers, it will be totally different this time. The motto "man - nature - technology" presents the Expo 2000 as a world exhibition of a "new kind". The Expo's boss Birgit Breuel promises "sustained solutions for attempts to deal with the global problems of this world". A "unique alliance" between governments, industry and basic organisations is to support them. The comment on these promises by representatives of a countrywide anti-expo-league: "The wolves have put on sheep's' clothing. These fashionable phrases only veil the world-wide relations of authority and smoothtalk the effects of globalisation, gene-technology and atom energy". While churches, unions and non-governmental organisations such as the WWF and Amnesty International have, in the meantime, become involved on the grounds of the world exhibition, the Expo-opponents are calling for reactions. Their motto: "First London, then Seattle and now Hanover" 1).

Eurocentristic and technology-friendly?

It was a long struggle until the direction of the content of the theme-park was decided. It was the decided aim of the Expo-organisers to have commercial companies, research institutions and non-governmental organisations participate together in the planning. Most of the NGOs declined participation, many because they reject mass events in principle, some because of the excessive costs. Particularly private businesses were wooed in order to attain the budgeted sponsor funds (100 of a total of 350 million DM). "The position of atomic energy operators is reflected word for word in the project plan for energy ", criticises Ralf Strobach, speaker for the executive of the Bundesverband Bürgerinitiative Umweltschutz (national association of citizens' initiative for environmental protection).

The developmental-political umbrella organisation VENRO also came to a distinctly negative conclusion when it audited the theme-park project plans two years ago: the developmental-political solutions presented were eurocentristic and technology-friendly, the causes of world-wide inequality were not mentioned. In the meantime, however, the association has its own exhibit in the theme-park "Man".

Expo 2000 is everywhere?

When theme-park organisers are asked where solution attempts by basic initiatives of countries from the south are exhibited, they refer to the +/- 770 world-wide projects. These Expo-projects are a novelty in the history of world exhibitions. The central great event has repeatedly been criticised; in reaction thereof, an international council has, over the years, selected examples of "sustained development" that are to continue beyond the world exhibition. 280 projects are from Germany, the international projects are divided up among Africa (128), America (149), Asia (112) and Europe (100).
While the German projects present a colourful array of an ecological adventure-forest, women's living projects and a gene-laboratory, most of the projects from Africa, Asia and Latin-America put the emphasis on basic provisions for the people. The spectre goes from securing peace for the Tuareg in Mali to small water-power-stations in the Himalayas or health education by theatre groups in Madagascar to the solar telephone on the Philippines. Aspects of gender were no criterion for selecting the projects: of the 487 international projects about 50 consider gender-specific issues, among the German projects just 7 do this.

An increase in image for the Expo

About half of the international projects are to be presented on the world exhibition grounds themselves. The largest part is exhibited in the "Global House", a five-storey glass-pavilion, in which, among others, the Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit (the ministry for economic co-operation and development, BMZ) is represented. The BMZ will pay 17 million DM towards the presentation, but, as ever, the main problem for the projects is a lack of funds.
The planned co-presentation of the indigenous peoples in which Rigoberta Menchú was to participate also failed in the spring of 1999 because of a lack of funds. The Nobel Peace laureate had been informed in April that the promised exhibition space had to be reduced by three quarters because there were not enough funds from sponsors. The design too was no longer to be done by the indigenous organisations. Thereupon Menchú retracted her agreement. A smaller presentation is now planned in Global House on an area of 300 sq.m. Showcases are supplied for forty projects to be exhibited in cargo crates which they may furnish themselves.

Clay-houses, waterfalls and Springbok-steaks

About 170 governments are participating at the Expo 2000, of these 130 are development and threshold countries. A total of 100 million DM is paid by the BMZ to support the presentations of the poorest countries. 52 million of this amount go to individual countries to finance their expo-contributions, 21 million go to the Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit (the society for technical co-operation, GTZ) which acted as consultant to the governments during the preparations for the exhibition. The GTZ was commissioned by the Expo-company to manage the Africa-hall in which 35 African countries are jointly represented. The GTZ emphasises that it is not interested in managing a tourist-cultural advertising event. The press releases to date give the impression, however, that the main consideration is predominantly the beauty of nature, the exotic of life in the desert and tourism. E.g. visitors are to recuperate from the taxing stroll through clay-houses, rain forests and waterfalls in an adventure restaurant offering Kudu, ostrich and Springbok steaks.
"The economic and political causes of the problems with which the continent has to grapple are clearly not represented at all in the Africa-hall", feels Thomas Mösch, representative of the Initiative Pro Afrika.
David Hernandez, a journalist and author from El Salvador, is similarly critical of the Central-American co-representation of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. "The pavilion will be a mixture of Kitsch and clichés, worthier of Disney-Land than of a serious, objective exhibition".

Human rights violations - a non-issue at the expo?

In 1995 the then German government invited all those countries to the Expo 2000 against which the UN had not implemented any official sanctions. When Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul was asked about how participating countries guilty of violating human rights would be dealt with, she declared that she accepted that problematic human rights issues would be made a topic at political debates during the exhibition. Of course, this cannot be expected of the national presentations. E.g. Mexico presents itself at the Expo as a modern democracy "with a rich history and a great future" and joins nine other countries in decorating the "Feast for the World" for the opening of the Expo. While Amnesty reports of torture and cruelty, arbitrary arrests and governmental murders especially of indigenous people, Mexican Expo-planners suggest that the different peoples co-exist harmoniously; the project plan of the exhibition reads: "The people of the year 2000 do not distinguish each other according to their ethnic descendence but, instead, they use the word 'Mexican' rather than 'Mestice'".

Isabel Rodde is the editor of the expo-critical Internet-forum
Contact:redaktion@xposition.de

1) "First London, then Seattle and now Hanover" is the motto of numerous solidarity groups which are planning protests and alternative events.

Some sources of information:
http://www.xposition.de/ critical forum about the world exhibition, partly in English
http://www.expo-watch.org forum of the Expo-watch office, English/Spanish
http://www.expo2000.de official information by the Expo-organisers in 11 languages

The 10 debating events about world-wide topics should also be interesting: (expo2000.de/global); they are being critically followed on the internet as well.
The complete article is to be found on http://www.xposition.de/ .

Translated from German into English by Christine Spargel

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