The answer is Ulster Bank’s sponsorship of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s; or as it’s now called, the ‘Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen’s.’  The 49^th annual festival begins this week.

It came from humble origins; started by an undergraduate student in 1962, the festival blossomed and continued through the days of political upheaval to the present day. From Jimi Hendrix to the Moscow State Ballet, it can boast an impressive, star-studded history through very dark times to brighter days.

A few years ago, due to under-funding by both the University and the Department for Culture, Arts & Leisure, sponsorship was sought and met by Ulster Bank, in a 3-year deal starting in 2008.

Ulster Bank is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group – a bank now 84% taxpayer-owned since it was bailed out by the UK government three years ago. The public now own the largest share of one of the biggest banks in the UK. The government is ultimately responsible for making sure that public money – that is to say, our money – is not being used in ways that would violate human rights or used to further unethical actions.

However, since 2008, RBS has awarded its failing executives, some of whom were credited with helping to create the financial crisis, with huge rewards from our money.

It has been identified as the world’s principal creditor to the arms industry, having participated in deals totalling an eye-watering £44.6 billion in the last 10 years, including deals involving producers of depleted uranium ammunition and cluster bombs.

It was recently forced to back down on a controversial loan it was prepared to make to the government of Belarus as its President, Alexander Lukashenko, cracked down on pro-democracy protestors.

And perhaps worst of all, RBS provides billions in loans to finance the extraction of the ‘tar sands’ of Alberta – a super-polluting form of oil extraction which involves using huge amounts of energy to remove the topsoil (and anything on it; trees, habitats, everything) to get at the oil underneath, destroying everything as this image shows. The First Nation communities in Alberta have documented serious impacts on their health – from very rare cancers to immune system-related illnesses, to a decline in local animal populations and water quality – not to mention over 17,000 violations of their indigenous rights guaranteed by centuries-old treaties.

As a report by a coalition of NGOs demonstrates, if the tar sands project can be proven to be viable in Alberta, this could see it rolled out to other parts of the world as oil addict economies become increasingly desperate and willing to do anything for a fix. If this type of oil extraction becomes acceptable, the world faces an even more grave challenge in dealing with the climate crisis.

Despite UK taxpayers now owning one of the biggest banks in the world, we continue to have little say in how it could create a better world for us and our children; or how it could easily become a force for good by financing clean technology.

And this is what links Ulster Bank and Queen’s University Belfast to the financiers of global suffering. The festival, it’s hard-working staff and its guests and performers are a force for good. The sponsor isn’t.

Is this really the kind of brand that a University that has just adopted the slogan ‘We Are Exceptional’ wants to be associated with? Exceptionally unethical? Exceptionally dirty?

Some may think that connection is absurd, but it’s very clearly a straight line. I’m so tired of people looking at investment in a vacuum. Part of the reason why unethical investment is permitted to exist is because people juxtapose the funding source and the end result. Sure, it’s near-impossible to live a 100% ethical live in a western consumerist democracy, but that’s no reason to do what many people do and just decide not to care about the ethics of anything. Some people are determined to ignore the cruel origins and decisions that furnish our lives with (often frivolous) first-world luxury. More active, more responsible, and more compassionate consumers could go a long way to changing this.

The EU have recently indicated they may clamp down on imports of tar sands oil. Now’s the time for RBS, other high street banks and their owners to put the long-term interests of taxpayers first and invest its considerable funds in low-carbon technology and disinvest in harmful industry. And now’s the time for Queen’s University to look into a different, less oil-drenched sponsor if RBS won’t do that.

In the meantime, what’s a decent response? Withdraw your money and put it into a bank that thinks before it invests your money in something unscrupulous. And tell your bank why you’re leaving. I did.

NZ’s 100% Pure international image is hugely important for the country. Tourism and dairy are the NZ’s economies largest exports and they both rely heavily on this perceived brand. Luckily for the government, the tourists aren’t coming home telling tales of the permits of deep sea oil drilling in waters far deeper than where the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurred or the continued attempts by the government to open up conservation land to open cast coal mines. They see the pristine beaches and gorgeous coastlines they are supposed to. Little by little however, the truth is starting to leak out: NZ’s conservative National party is as addicted to the fossil fuel agenda as the rest of neo-liberal Kool-Aid drinkers.

With little chance of the National party losing the election this coming November, Kiwis are fighting to stop the reckless destruction of some of NZ’s most beautiful coastline and conservation areas. Prime Minister John Key’s idea of running the country has been to enthusiastically hawk opportunities for deep sea oil to international investors, promising billions of barrels of oil and granting permits for the Great South Basin, West Coast Basin, Offshore Taranaki and the Rakumara Basin in addition to offering up a Northland block around Cape Reinga. For the Maori, Cape Reinga is place of spirituality and legend; the jumping off point for spirits of the dead into the next life. The prospect of a Deepwater Horizon spill in these waters is quite understandably horrifying.

NZ’s increasingly industrialised dairy industry is responsible for roughly half of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Attempts to bring agricultural emissions under the Emissions Trading Scheme have met with fierce resistance not only from Fonterra, NZ’s largest dairy company owned by 95% of the country’s farmers, but also from the government. In addition to pushing an increasingly industrialised farming model Fonterra relies on imported palm kernel animal feed from processing plants in Indonesia that are contributing to massive deforestation in ancient forests. Greenpeace NZ calculates that the amount of palm kernel feed imported by Fonterra in 2008 had a carbon footprint of over 20 million tonnes. Fonterra is also one of the largest coal users in the country burning over 400,000 tonnes at its dairy processing factories.

Mining for coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is not being phased out as scientific experts say is needed to have any hope of preventing a 2 degree temperature rise, it is running full steam ahead. One example is the Escarpment coal mine on the Denniston plateau, an area located on public conservation land. Solid Energy, a coal focussed, state owned energy company, currently has plans to dig up lignite (the lowest ranking of the already dirtiest fossil fuel) and create a lignite to briquette processing plant. The Green party in NZ says the plan would increase NZ’s carbon emissions by 10 million tonnes a year. And last but certainly not least fracking has been added to the fossil fuel cocktail here in NZ. Among other concerns such as water pollution, fracking has been linked to earthquakes and companies here are operating along known fault lines within the Taranaki area. In the shaky isles, a country that has recently been through devastating earthquakes is there any other proof needed that the NZ government should share the title of fossil fools?

While fossil fuel advocates label their opponents economic saboteurs, the reality is that NZ has several advantages that could make it a world leader in renewable energy creating new jobs and boosting the economy. In fact 74% of the country’s electricity already comes from renewable energy. But as is too often the case, it is lack of political will that is holding back the country from truly living up to its Clean and Green image. In NZ as with most of the rest of the world it will require public pressure, and lots of it, to create a country that truly deserves the description ’100% Pure’.

That does not mean that oil wasn’t a factor. And as one chapter of this exchange draws to a close, the next is likely to show us just how much our oil companies have to gain from this venture. After coalition forces took Baghdad, they prioritised securing the safety of the oil wells – famously leaving the museums – and people – to their fate. Over the next few years, our governments worked hard to force through a rapid privatisation of the oil industry – doing everything they could to ensure that it was our companies, rather than the Iraqi people, who benefited from the sale of Iraq’s plentiful crude.

Similarly, after the fall of apartheid in South Africa, the ANC’s promises to nationalise assets were negotiated away amidst the celebration of the collapse of the racist government. To this day, despite the democratic reforms, economic apartheid is far from abolished. Or as the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russian economy was handed – at the insistence of the IMF – to oligarchs. Which hasn’t exactly gone well. These stories are, of course, all documented in Naomi Klein’s book “The Shock Doctrine” – which tells story after story of corporations circling like vultures, then pouncing at a time of national emergency or crisis, robbing countries of their wealth.

Of course, the situation in Libya isn’t exactly the same as it was in Iraq, or in South Africa, or in Russia. But it is similar enough: a new government of some sort will emerge. Will it be a Gaddafi-lite style regime – now, without the Gaddafi? Will it consist of some kind of liberalish democracish elite? Will the country plunge back into civil war? Will it be some new enlightened truly democratic state? No one can know yet for sure, and I certainly don’t know at all. But I am pretty sure of this. For a while, there will be chaos. It might be a couple of days. It could well be a few months – or longer. Large Western oil companies will be deperate to take advantage of that chaos to ensure long term access to as much of the Libyan oil reserve as possible, for the lowest possible cost.

And so we must resist them – until the people of Libya have decided how they wish to manage their resources – and until they have a mechanism in place to decide this properly – we cannot allow Western oil companies to take advantage of the tumult of transition. And we must also insist that just as debts incurred under dictators must not be charged to the liberating governments who overthrew those dictators, the oil companies whose contracts helped prop up the dictator should not have the right to assume that their contracts will be maintained. We cannot at the same time say that Gaddafi was a mad and corrupt and murderous leader, and that the people who have just overthrown him will be bound to the contracts that he signed without the consent of his people.

Of course, I would rather they left the stuff in the ground. And failing that, I think it should be nationalised and used to fund world leading public services. But these are no more decisions for me to make than they are decisions for the Pentagon, IMF, or BP. The Libyian people must choose their fate, and we must ensure that, whilst they do so, our companies aren’t stealing what’s left of their wealth. It’s been a tough few days, months, and decades for Libya. Let’s make sure we don’t allow Western companies to revert to type, and kick them as they begin to stand up.

Politicians have failed, he says, to prepare us for the rocky ride ahead.

Well, I can go half way there with him. Our economy is in serious trouble, and all of the reasons he outlines are contributing factors. But, here’s my question: What’s his plan. Other than running around the country shouting ‘WE’RE ALL DOOMED’ what does he mean to do about this? He is, after all, Business Secretary.

As I’ve written before, the government’s economic plan seems to have 3 strands – export led growth, privitisation and de-regulation, and re-inflating the financial bubble.

Essentially, Cable today seems to be saying that these won’t work. I agree. They won’t. To whom, precicely, are we supposed to export? As Vince Cable outlines, this strategy is clearly going to fail as the seas of the global economy fail to calm. Privitisation doesn’t deliver real wealth, only the pyhrric joy of a stock market high. There is little evidence that de-regulaiton helps at all – we had much faster growth rates both in the UK and around the world in the era when things were much more regulated. Re-inflating the financial bubble will end with another pop.

I’m glad that the Business Secretary has realised this. I’m glad he can see far enough to realise that the course on which his government has set us is disastrous. But being able to see a long way is not the same as having vision. And it is this vision that Cable lacks.

Becuase decline in quality of life is not intrinsic to our situation. We are one of the richest countries on earth. We have remaining a fantastic education system, and the resources with which people can build a better economy. But that will require a government willing to invest. That will need a government willing to take risks.

What Cable expressed today is the sentiment of the whole of Europe’s failed liberal centrists  – politicians left floundering in the wake of an economic storm they didn’t understand and in which they have failed to get a grip.

Because the truth is that Cable is right. As Peter McColl has put it, the credit crunch removed the velvet glove from the iron fist of neo-liberal capitalism that has been asset stripping and gutting our economy for the last 30 years. The strategy of the centrist liberals – try to collect the wealth of neo-liberalism and redistribute it through the welfare state – this strategy has failed. Cutting back public sercies is simply an attempt to dig our way out of this hole.

And so now is a time for new ideas. Now is a time for people to take the rocks left lying around after the explosion of the credit crunch, and to build something new, something better. We need an economy in which wealth doesn’t fly from continent to continent, chasing the ‘winner’ of the race to the bottom. And that means it must be rooted in communities, not controlled by a Lear Jet elite. We need an economy based on new ideas and creativity. And that means mass investment in education, arts and science. And we need an economy based on people doing for each other those things that we value. That means we need to re-look at how we measure value in our national economy.

Cable complains of the volatility of oil markets. Where is his mass investment in renewables? He complains of over-financialisation. Where is his industrial plan? He complains about inflation. Where is his global treaty to control speculation?

We are 3 years now from the credit crunch. The time for moaning has passed. Now is the time to build something new. The crisis in finance has been mirrored by a crisis in imagination. Now is the time to imagine tomorrow.

Today, there have been reports of French planes bombing Libya, and firing from the air at tanks. So, the first thing that we have learned is that, as predicted, there is no such thing as a No Fly Zone which is only a No Fly Zone. This action means air strikes. It is surely time to bust the myth that the West would only impose a No Fly Zone. This is a full scale air intervention. It was always going to be.

2) This isn’t about democracy.

The Pentagon is planning to train the Saudi Air Force. This is coming out only days after Saudi forces oppressed the democratic uprising in Bahrain. This is coming despite the Saudi government’s record of democracy and freedom of expression… If this training is the price we are paying for the Saudi government not kicking off about the intervention in Libya, then what we have effectively done is stop the cruching of one rebellion by training the crushers of another.

For Western governments, this isn’t about the brutality of dictatorships, and it’s not about supporting the revolution. We may believe that it is better to have our leaders intervene in Libya despite peverse motives, but please don’t believe that our governments support democracy in the Middle East. And if we ever wonder why it is that many in the Arab world hate us, it is not because we oppose their governments. It is because we support them.

3) Our governments don’t care about chocolate.

Over the last few months, tens of thousands of refugees have fled Cote d’Ivoire as the elected president and the encumbent president Gbagbo have done battle. Gbagbo was defeated in the election, but is refusing to leave. He is digging his heals in and his people are digging graves as organised forces on each side clash. In other words, democratic forces are battling a brutal dictator, and people are being killed in the middle. Sound familiar? We have done almost nothing to intervene. Today, this violence has intensified. Libya is a major oil producer. The Ivory Coast is the world’s biggest producer of cocoa. Is that why we are talking about Libya, but not looking a few hundred miles to its South?

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None of these are, on their own, reasons to support or oppose the military action taken by France. But let’s not pretend that the argument is a simple one, and let’s not be so naive as to trust the motives of our governments.

Our fight is global because our attackers are global. These cuts are not motivated by the economic illiteracy of George Osborne. Sure, he is illiterate. But those pushing him know precisely what they are doing. The corporations who run the more privatised countries of the world have persuaded British politicians that they must turn our public services onto their back so that they can feed from the soft underbelly of our welfare state. They have convinced our leaders that the only way for corporate capitalism to grow its way from the crater left by the collapse of the banks is through the privatisation of the welfare state – a privatisation that they know will be politically much easier if services are first so run down that few will fight for them. These corporate megaliths are not, primarily, domestic. United Health UK – one of the companies grabbing our NHS with its grubby hands – is part of the United Health Group – an American company who led the assault on Obamacare, a company whose president personally pocketted 1 in every 700 dollars Americans spent on healthcare, in one recent year. As long as so much political power is concentrated in the hands of any corporation, anywhere, our public services will be under threat from that power. And so the struggle of the people of Wisconsin is our struggle. The struggle of any people against the power of plunderers is a struggle to defend us all from their piracy.

Our fight is global because those who have already wrecked our economy have globalised. The idea that we must race to the bottom in order to build a prosperous nation is bollocks. Try telling that to the people of of Iceland or the people of Ireland – or to the people of Sweden, or the people or the people of Costa Rica. But we can’t dismiss it that easily. As long as multinational corporations continue to exist and can find cheaper and more easily abused labour abroad, they will always threaten those who they have made dependent on them. And so the struggle of Bangladeshis for fair wages is inextricably linked to our struggle to fair wages.

The idea that individual governments are powerless against footloose finance is bollocks. Building a post-neoliberal economy will be much harder if we must bear the weight alone, but the more people work together, the lighter this weight will become.

Our struggle is global because we all face the same crises – the crash of capitalism, the crunch of the climate, and, one day, the end of oil.

Our struggle is global because we can learn from each other. It was not without a fight that the people of Bolivia chased the darkness of neo-liberalism from their country. The Shock Doctrine the people of Britain face today is the same one that the peoples of Africa, Latin America and Asia faced in the 1970s. They too resisted, and many of them won. We must learn how they did so.

And our struggle is global because our power comes from numbers. While they have money and they have guns, we have each other. As we’ve seen in Egypt, and Tunisia, and Libya, concentrations of power can only be challenged by mass movements. For too long progressives in Britain have believed that our power comes from the strength of our argument – that we will win win by speaking truth to power – as though we can convince the billionaires with the glossiness of our reports. The truth is that speaking truth to power isn’t enough. We must see where our power lies, and we must play to our strengths. And if it is numbers we need, then surely our movement is best when it is international?

And finally, our struggle is global because we can’t pretend we don’t care about each other. When an earthquake tipped plundered Haiti into carnage, I curled up and wept. As people across the Arab World build a movement for democracy, my heart quickens its pace. As students in the UK fought for education and their futures, we received messages of solidarity from Greece, and from America and from across the planet. Because people everywhere are the same, and people everywhere care.

And if our struggle is global, if there are lessons to be learnt and bonds to be forged, then the Six Billion Ways conference is the place to begin. This Saturday, in Rich Mix, at Hackney, activists will come together from across the UK and across the world to share tactics, share stories, and share beer. With discussions on everything from cuts to the Arab uprisings, and activists from as far away as Egypt and Bolivia, 6 Billion Ways will be the place to be. Because while all politics is local, our struggle is global.

We own 84% of RBS. They’ll be announcing their profits this week, and UK Uncutters across the country will be sitting in branches to remind everyone who it is that caused this crisis – and who is paying for it. But I thought I’d do a quick guide to some stuff you might not have known about RBS.

1) As of January 2009, the RBS group were (by assets) the biggest company on earth.

2) According to a report by CAS Business School expert Nick Silver, RBS is responsible for financing projects and companies delivering 3% of globl carbon emissions – more than the entire UK.

3) According to a 2008 report by War on Want, RBS were the main bankers to 4 major arms companies, including BaE systems.

4) The RBS group owns a bunch of companies, including:
NatWest
Ulster Bank
Direct Line
Citizens Financial Group
Coutts & Co.
Adam and Company
Child & Co.
RBS Securities
Churchill Insurance

5) RBS subsidiary Citizens Financial Group – itself the 8th largest bank in the USA, and is under investigation for its role in the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

6) RBS Subsidiary Coutts & Co; are private bankers to the mega-rich, who specialise in helping them dodge tax – as their website says::

“Our tax team works closely with your private banker to understand your particular situation so that you receive bespoke advice tailored to your circumstances.

Whether you are an entrepreneur selling your business, an executive with complex share schemes, a non-UK domiciled individual living in the UK or simply looking to structure your affairs more tax efficiently, the tax team can assist”.

Yes, that’s right, a bank that’s 84% owned by the government is specialising in helping the mega-rich avoid paying taxes to the government.

Other subsidiaries – Adam and Company and Child and Co – are also solely for ‘high net worth individuals’. Adam and Company also offer tax advice, while Child & Co seem to be so exclusive, that I can’t find their website!

7) In 2009 (after the bail-out) RBS provided tens of millions in finance for Irish Company Tullow Oil to explore for oil from an island on lake Albert, whose ownership is claimed by both Uganda and the DR Congo – a region that has seen millions die in a resource fuelled war in recent years. When oil was discovered, troops were mobilised on both sides and the media and human rights observers were not allowed access. Tullow’s partners, Heritage Oil, then (according to the UN) armed these troops with speed boats and land-rovers. Despite widespread outcry from human rights groups, publicly owned RBS co-ordinated another round of financing of nearly £1 billion for this project in 2010.

8. RBS are one of the main targets of the campaign against depleted uranium, because of their significant role in financing the stuff.

9) According to Amnesty International: “The Royal Bank of Scotland, together with other well known high street financial institutions such as Barclays and HSBC, are providing investment to the tune of around £800 million to the producers of cluster bombs”

10) Last year’s RBS Bonus pot was £1.3 Billion.

Yes, that’s right. This is the bank that the government owns 84% of – that we won 84% of.

The millions on the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez are furious at Mubarak for upholding his own interests and those of Western powers and foreign companies at the expense of the Egyptian people. For decades, British and American oil companies worked hand in glove with the Egyptian dictatorship, enjoying its “stability” (lack of democratic change), “security” (repression of dissent) and “favourable business environment” (neoliberal policies and restrictions on trade unions).

Since Egypt’s first oil field at Gemsa came into production in 1910, the country’s resources have been dominated by London-based corporations. Back in the early 20th century, Anglo-Egyptian Oilfields – a joint venture of present-day BP and Shell – was the major operator in the country. A century later, vast chunks of the Gulf of Suez, Western Desert and Nile Delta remain long-term concessions granted to the same two companies, plus Reading-based BG.

BP is particularly proud of its “strong relationships with the Egyptian government”, boasting that it is the single largest foreign investor in the country and responsible for almost half of Egypt’s entire oil production, easily overshadowing all competitors. Describing itself as a significant part of the Egyptian oil industry for more than 45 years, the company witnessed Hosni Mubarak’s rise to power as Head of the Air Force and then Vice-President under Anwar Sadat, before he gained complete control in 1982. BP continued to extract crude and underwrite repression throughout more than four decades of Emergency Law, investing over $17 billion in oil rigs and pipelines. Billions of dollars in revenue payments enabled Mubarak to build up and arm both his civil and paramilitary police forces and the army.

In exchange, the regime ensured that its Western corporate allies profited handsomely over the years. Privatisation and reduced state involvement in the economy during the 1990s pleased the IMF, made billions for Mubarak’s associates and increased incentives to Western oil companies. Exploration and production concessions were made yet more profitable, with increased cost recovery allowances, larger blocks and longer license periods.

In parallel, harsh restrictions on freedom of expression, social movements and civil society reduced space for Egyptians to raise environmental concerns. In this context, BP has continued to drill new wells in the coral-rich but threatened Red Sea, including in its North Shadwan concession near the SS Thistlegorm, a British armed Merchant Navy ship sunk in 1940. Expanded oil extraction in these waters threatens the Egyptian tourist industry in Hurghada and the Sinai, especially after a major oil spill in June 2010. The Ministry of Petroleum, praised by BP, attempted to cover up the leak by claiming it was caused by a passing tanker discharging ballast.

With such limited environmental oversight, BP has been eager to drive ahead with new prospects, “drilling to reach reservoir technical limits”. The company aims to create “a new profit centre” in the Nile Delta offshore region by introducing its deepwater ‘expertise’ from the Gulf of Mexico.

By investing $1 billion a year into the country and making Egypt one of its 14 global Strategic Performance Units, BP emphasized the faith it places in its relationship with Mubarak’s government. Hesham Mekawi, Chairman of BP Egypt, has lauded “the stability of the country”, insisting that British oil investors will have a sustainable business in Egypt for years to come. When the regime felt threatened only months ago by a potential US Congress resolution demanding that Mubarak “hold fair elections, allow international monitoring of elections, and respect democracy and human rights”, BP allowed the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, in which it is one of the primary players, to lobby hard and successfully to scupper the debate in Congress.

The company that brands itself with green images of sustainability and responsibility has taken a simple approach to CSR in Egypt: Providing a handful of scholarships to Cambridge each year alongside continued support for the dictatorship.

So now that we’re witnessing a vast popular uprising across Egypt, has BP ended its allegiance and support for the dictatorship? The company’s website carries no comment on the democratic protests or the regime’s attempts at repression, referring only to “the ongoing unrest in Egypt” and evacuation plans. Meanwhile, drilling and extraction operations continue unabated, with most oil facilities located out of reach of normal street protests. BP is assuming that Egypt’s strong army will guarantee the security integrity its assets, and continues to pay revenues to and underwrite a regime now widely accepted as illegitimate.

Demands from the democracy activists sweeping Egypt include “Putting on trial all those responsible for the policies of impoverishment and torture”. Will BP Egypt Chairman Hesham Mekawi and BP ex-CEO Tony Hayward answer for their part in enabling and supporting Mubarak’s repression? Or will the company’s faith in strongman politics be rewarded with Mubarak’s survival or relative continuity through a military takeover?

We’ve written here before about how these protests are tied to the UK’s anti-cuts struggles. Each demonstration is complex, and each country has its own circumstances. But from Tunis to Amman, it is not just concentrations of political power that have mobilised people. Tunisia’s uprising started with a protest over the economy – as food prices go through the roof. In Jordan, banners demand the government combats price hikes. Around the world food prices are going through the roof.

These spiralling prices are happening for a bunch of reasons – among them, extreme weather in Russia, Canada, Australia as climate change kicks in, rising fuel prices, and, crucially, speculation. Bankers who destroyed our economy by gambling on the housing market are moving into food markets, pricing meals off people’s tables. The ability of the money men to smash and grab in our globalised economy is ruining us. And the new, democratic governments of the Arab world will need our support if they are to gain control of prices and their own economies.

And if we look to who it is that were first to hit the streets, we will see the same, young faces – people whose futures are disappearing ahead of them, who know they must fight for tomorrow. The fruit stall holder in Tunisia who set himself on fire was a university graduate with little prospect of a good job. Mass youth unemployment is even more pronounced in the Arab World than in the UK. The jilted generation is not only a British phenomenon.

But of course it is not just the state of their economies that has triggered revolt in the Arab world. Tunisia is poor, but it isn’t the poorest of the Arab states (it has a lower infant mortality rate than Detroit, for example). For decades, brutal dictators have ruled. There are, of course, domestic reasons for this, but it’s hard to ignore that it’s been our governments who have propped many of them up, in the hope of maintaining “stability” in the region and so in the price of oil.

And now that a stability delivered through the electrodes of Mubarak’s Mafia looks to crumble, and instability of that system of human organisation called democracy may be ushered in, our fate will be tied to the Middle East once more.

Because while our governments were wrong to prop up the murderers and torturers and dictators, they were right that oil price stability is tied to Middle Eastern stability. As Nouriel Roubini points out in today’s FT, three of the last five global recessions have followed a Middle Eastern geo-political shock that led to a spike in oil prices. We don’t know how this will play out. We must do all that we can to support the democracy movements of the Middle East, even if they elect governments we don’t like. But if oil prices go through the roof, then our economy, under assault from Osborne’s austerity, will surely fall through the floor.

And so we must learn, finally, that oil isn’t just killing our planet. It has been used as an excuse to back the murder and torture of Egyptians, and Saudis and Yemenis. It leaves us dependent on a false stability enforced at the barrel of a gun. It leaves our economy vulnerable to others’ democracy. Its time has passed. Our fight to build a new green economy must intensify. Our battle to rein in our bankers must quicken its pace – not just for our children, but also for the people of Egypt.

Last week the citizens of Southern Sudan voted in a historic referendum to determine whether they remain part of a united Sudan or secede. If those who want to secede win the vote – and all the indications are that there has been a landslide vote in favour of separation – the result will be to create one new and independent state, and to redraw the boundaries of the existing state of Sudan to such an extent that it is effectively a new country. That the political future of Northern Sudan will in effect be determined by the decisions of up to four million Southern Sudanese is an irony that has not been lost on the peoples of the north.

The Referendum was one of the most important provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which brought Sudan’s long and bitter civil war to an end.

That it was held in accordance with the terms of a peace agreement hammered out years before is a cause for celebration not least because of the way it demonstrates that civil wars, even wars that have endured for decades, can be settled by political processes. Some observers will have been surprised that the referendum was held at all; many will be amazed that it was help exactly on time, in accordance with the CPA. Not that it’s all sorted yet.

The Referendum is the mechanism that puts into effect the right to self-determination but once the decision to secede has been made and accepted by all sides, there will be months and even years of arguments and negotiation over a string of key issues that have not yet been resolved….such as the boundary between northern and southern Sudan, the future of a contested region that was not included in the Referendum, and perhaps most critically, financial issues such as the division of the debts which Sudan owes and the division of the income from the oil which is Sudan’s most important export.

The ultimate success of the peace process, of which the Referendum is but one key ingredient, will be shaped by the outcome of these outstanding issues.

One thing that will not change is the importance of oil to both Northern and Southern Sudan. Sudan’s oil reserves lie largely in the South – but refining and shipping capacity is almost exclusively located in the north. Sustaining the oil economy is in the interests of both governments – means that whatever the outcome of the Referendum, there will be a high level of interdependence between the two Sudan’s for the foreseeable future.

This inter-dependence has the potential to confound simplistic analysis and policy responses. Sudan has had a problematic and distrustful relationship, with western governments at least, for many years – illustrated for example by its readiness to give refuge in the 1990′s to ‘Carlos the Jackal’ and Osama bin Laden, two of the world’s most wanted fugitives for terrorist activities, the decision by President Clinton to bomb a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum and more recently, the indictment issued by the International Criminal Court against the current President for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in relation to the civil war in Darfur. It will be interesting to see if these distrustful and antagonistic relations continue in the future. One possibility is that a more accommodating tone will become more of a feature of the relations between Northern Sudan and western governments as part of a strategy to encourage the government of Northern Sudan to accept secession and resolve the outstanding issues for negotiation. What such a change of tone might mean for the peoples of Darfur or the eastern regions of Sudan will be something to watch.

As for Southern Sudan, the new government will face quite extraordinary challenges. Southern Sudan is vast, has very little infrastructure – such as schools, medical fa cities and transport – and suffers the consequences of decades of war, displacement and economic marginalisation. In stark contrast, the expectations of its peoples will be immense. Managing these expectations and inspiring its peoples with a vision for the kind of society to which they aspire at the same time as conducting complex negotiations with the government of Northen Sudan will be a delicate balancing act.

Ian Leggett is former East & Central Africa Regional Manager for Oxfam, and former director of People & Planet.