Susan George (political Scientist) - Career

Career

Throughout her career, George has been an antiwar activist as well as criticising what she saw as acts of corporate greed. At a time when women were not often allowed places of power in any organizational hierarchy, George established herself as a leader in the antihunger movement.

She became a political activist in response to France's war in Algeria and U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The Vietnam War "was this sort of gateway to understanding what America could be, which is to say something quite negative, which I had not understood at all when I lived there. I had accepted the usual propaganda."

In 1967 she joined the Paris-American Committee to Stop War (PACS). In 1973 PACS was forcibly dismantled by the French government. She then collaborated with the directors of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., to form a new NGO devoted to social justice. The Transnational Institute (TNI) opened its doors in Amsterdam, the Netherlands that same year; George remains a fellow at TNI and also serves as its board chair.

She became assistant to the director of an NGO, the American Centre for Students and Artists, in 1969. This sparked the interest of the CIA who had already been looking into P.A.C.S.

In 1971 she began working with the Front Solidarite Indochine, a group that organized antiwar lectures and protests in France. During this time she started public speaking.

In 1974 she attended the World Food Conference in Rome, Italy where she felt that corporate agribusiness representatives dominated the proceedings.

In 1976 her first book was published: How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for World Hunger.

In 1984 she had an active role in organizing the World Food Assembly, a meeting held in Rome, Italy.

From 1990 to 1995 she served on the board of conservation group Greenpeace International, as well as that of Greenpeace France.

She opposed the OECD's proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in the 1990s, and the ill-fated "Millennium Round" objectives of the World Trade Organization at Seattle in 1999.

From 1999 to 2006 she was vice-president of ATTAC France (Association for Taxation of (financial) Transactions to Aid Citizens) and remains a member of the scientific council. She was awarded the title of honorary president in 2008.

In 1999 she also participated in the Helsinki Process.

In 2004 she supported John Kerry for president. She canvassed for Kerry in Pennsylvania, but wrote for OpenDemocracy.org (November 3, 2004), "we all thought had a very good chance, even though everyone admitted it was hard to get really enthusiastic about him.... The man isn't the most charismatic ever to walk the earth. But at least he's not a proto-fascist or a go-it-aloner, and that's what we seem--apart from a last-minute miracle--to be stuck with now. With four years clear ahead of him and no re-election to worry about, I fear Bush and the ghastly neo- con/neo-liberals around him will now go on the rampage. They can continue with impunity their attacks on the Constitution and on hard-won freedoms..."

2006: attends Table of Free Voices conference, held in Berlin, Germany, in September

2008: appeared in the documentary film, The End of Poverty?

Susan George is president of the Board of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.

Susan George is also a Patron of the international development charity, Tools for Self Reliance.

She is on the advisory board of CEO, the Corporate Europe Observatory.

She has acted as a consultant to various United Nations specialised agencies and is a frequent public speaker, particularly for ATTAC groups, trade unions, and environment/development non-governmental organisations in many countries.