Chowk-e-Bay Roz GaraN and Globalization

RE: SADHNA 37 and 39

Thanks Sadhna for those links. I checked the contents through your link #37 and found it excellent. I will go over the articles during the weekend and let you know about my comments later. I couldnt check NYTimes link yet since I forgot my password.

Thanks again and best regards.

Gymno # 36

Although I do agree with the spirit of your post that the destiny of Third World lies in their own hands yet we cannot ignore the external factors. Both external and internal factors influence the direction that a nation follows. It takes an almost infinite number of IFs to be self reliant. For example, if you live in a bad neighborhood what chances do your childern have to turn out to be good. Slim. Similarly, the foreign and home policies of TWCs were never free of the colonial influence since their so-called Independence. First it was communism and now it is Neo-colonialism aka Globalization which dictates the destiny of a TWC. Yes, TWCs have an option to resist this form of Globalization. This article, however, was intended to explore the neo-colonialism and not the options that they have. It was not possible in those few lines. The last paragraph of the article, however, urges them to take a stand.

Regards

By the way if you see a homeless person on the street, it is not necessarily because of the bad choices that he made in life.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/08/biztech/articles/07neco.html
An Unwritten Tenet of U.S. Trade Policy
By ANTHONY DEPALMA

Gymnosophist#36

I am glad that you brought the issue of China in a positive light.

The reason for their success was their belief in themselves and non interference by Western powers. Still western powers cannot interfere in its affairs. Compare that with Russia, when the last nail in its coffin was put by large amount of aid by IMF and World Bank and OPEN Economy which resulted in massive transfer of Wealth to West from Russia. And Russia as a country is a poor country with massive amount of debt and if it tries to take independent action, sword of IMF is put at its neck.

Another country which is arising from ashes of war is Iran. I am very optimistic about its future because of huge amount of investment in human resources and independent approach.

WHOEVER ASKED ABOUT COUP AGAINST ZIA#

When election of 1977 were held. Bhutto won with a huge majority (even if we take off 28 seats on which rigging were alleged).

During the PNA movement, Dollars were poured for people to get out. Bhutto on record told that behind the PNA movement was America. And he openly challenged Cyrus Vance and White Elephant etc etc.

When there was a solution to the problem between PP and PNA with a fresh election, Zia made the coup.

In any future election, Bhutto would have won with overwhelming majority.

So it is not the love or hate of America for Democracy or Dictatorship ): but, it did not want Bhutto back, the mastermind of Islamic Bomb, the Leader of TWC etc etc.

Check out this for some related reading material and links:

http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/govern/smnr.html which carries particularly one paper called `Democracy and Conflict:Solution or Problem`

Sadhana

Am I the only one to think that this is a slightly different version of ``A Third World Crow and A First World Wren``? There Udayakumar was ranting about the World Bank and the IMF and here the author is blaming the First World and its approach to various issues for the troubles of the Third World. Both are looking for external scapegoats for the internal problems of the third world countries whereas the real problems are lack of education, lack of transparency in governmental processes, and corrupt oligarchies that combine business, military and the bureaucracy (in various permutations) to exploit the common man.

If you take India, the combination is the bureaucracy and the businessmen. The bureaucracy stifled economic growth by its License Raj which the businessmen exploited by paying off bribes to get licenses (and protected markets) for specific industries. If the Indian bureaucrats ever figure out how to prevent an Indian from programming in his house (hovel or hut), there would be no IT industry in India. These are the same people who aproved limited import of screwdriver technolgy for computers in the 1980s. The result is, to this day, there is no hardware industry worth its name in India. Look at the number of computers in mainland China or the booming export-oriented hardware industry in Taiwan.

But this is not the first time the common man had stymied the bureaucrats. When they imposed limites on the size of textile mills, many people bought small powerlooms and installed them in their households and turned out T-shirts. Unfortunately, what can be done in knitting, weaving and programming does not work in steel-making or building cars. Thus, manufacturing is forever doomed in India. If people disgusted with the 1954 model Ambassador today turn to Honda and Ford, can anyone blame them?

The situation in Pakistan is much worse because the military muscle is overtly part of the oligarchy. Thus force could be brought to bear on the civilian population if it gets too unruly.

Why blame the West for our own shortcomings? If China advanced in the last 50 years despite horrendous mistakes, that is because they were mainly self-reliant. The Soviet Union helped the for the first 12 years or so but the Chinese were willing to learn and to stand on their own two feet. It didn`t get them too far but they had their own oil, coal and iron ore so they were not destroyed by the oil shock of 1971. Nor did they export labor like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh did to the Middle East so the 1991 US-Iraq war didn`t affect them to the same extent. But with trade with the West (even though their primary exports for a long time were practically handicrafts) they were able to earn foreign exchange. And by keeping their labor costs low, they were able to get foreign companies to invest in factories in China. Why are we talking about a Social Contract for labor when none exists in the Worker`s Paradise called China?

On the other hand, even the Chinese don`t allow their children to work in factories so why are we complaining if the West wants to abolish child labor? Would we rather have our children stitching soccer balls or weaving carpets because their small hands make for tighter knots? Aren`t children being sold into virtual slavery by parents who are not told the real working conditions? Is the West wrong in protesting that?

Just the other day, Mansanto announced that its golden rice with beta carotene genetically spliced into it will be made available for reserachers in Third World countries without payment of royalties. If in fact the golden rice provides a reasonable quantity of Vitamin A, many million cases of blindness can be prevented. Is this bad? On the other hand, the governments in developing countries are unwilling to fight the patenting of their own plant genetics by letting the Americans get away with patenting turmeric, neem and basmati (in the case of India alone). Whose stupidity is this?

Next time you can say, ``The fault is in our stars`` and bemoan your fate as decreed by Brahma or Allah.

KRashid,

{{When Z.A. Bhutto tried to unite Muslim world and he was a popular leader, Kissinger told him pointblank that he will make Bhutto into an example of loath. America funded heavily in election in 1977 and when could not achieve its objective, OKayed a coup by General Zia.}}

I`m very curious where you got this titbit of information.

Are you saying the CIA bought Zia to power?! To my recollection (mind you, it could be wrong), Carter & other Western leaders denounced the coup. When the Soviet Union invaded Afganistan, Carter very grudgingly gave Pakistan military aid of $400 million, which Zia promptly called ``peanuts``. Its only when Reagen came to power, he turned on the aid spigot to the tune of many billions of dollars & made Zia the ``most allied of all allies``.

krashid #29
I donot deny interference in internal affairs of many countries by powerful outside interests.

``America funded heavily in election in 1977 and when could not achieve its objective, OKayed a coup by General Zia.``

But I still ask, who accepted the money and such interference such as in your example 1, Pakistanis or someone else? Were/are these Pakistanis who accepted/accept foreign dictates among those who are poor and at the edge of starvation? Thats wrt `politics`.

Wrt civic order: Is it a Western conspiracy if Karachi or Ahmedabad had riots? Is it a Western conspiracy if judges and bureacrats in either country undermine the state apparatus by taking bribes or public services are hopelessly inefficient or villages donot have water or electricity or roads despite money being set aside for it?

About social environment: was it a Western dictate to implement Hudood ordinances and endless self-defeating amendments to the Pakistani Constitution? Is it a Western dictate that the rural landless are lesser citizens because they are at the mercy of their landowner patrons and that religious types and their fatwas can easily make life miserable for citizens in rural areas and the urban poor?

Civic order and internal environment influence viability and productivity as well as general sense of direction of a country, these factors are in TWCs` own hands, I still contend.

Urstruly #31
You say ``It is the (unjust)chokehold on Third World economy and politics that is preventing them to progress``. My reply to krashid can answer this comment, too.

Your point about the CNN programme and psychological globalization by the Western media. Noone stops a TWC from setting up its own TV stations and beaming their own PointOfViews and matters of local interest. Western media sell what goes down well in the West, if there were better choices for the consumer in TWCs, the `market` would force the Western media to be more responsive to the points you mention in their region-specific programming.

Sadhana

Urstruly#30

I thought, Islamic Salvation front won the local bodies election of some sort with overwhelming majority, and was poised to win general election, when elections were cancelled.

RE: Sadhna, Fairdinkum, KRashid, sager

Sadhna:
My last response#31 was to you post #28 and not 24. I regret the error.

Fairdinkum:
I prefer to cook Haleem instead of Sabzi. Haleem takes maximum items to cook as compared to any food in the world. You put everything in a pot and shake and shake and shake...... until everything in it turns into a unform paste. The metaphor of Haleem may be applied to my posts and article too. I just try to cover all my bases. Its an old habbit that I picked when I was sharing my boarding with SM Law College Students. However, this article was meant to be with an``In-your-face`` attitude. By the way rigid ideas are the easist to fry.

Sager:
Thanks for you input. The future seems to be bleak right now but I assuer you that the Human Society is not meant to be an ant colony where queens, soldiers, and workers are born to be as such and they die as such. Human society definitely is meant to be more.

Similarly, an individual is not just meant to be a drone in the bee-hive. We will prevail and we will grow.

KRashid:
THanks for your valuable input. We usually forget elected Prime Minister Dr. Mussadiq of Iran who was assasinated by CIA and Shah replaced him with their CIAs help.

It is also on record how one of US President (Linden B. Johnson?) publically uttered that ``Cut him (Ayub) to his actual size when Ayub wrote his book ``Friends, not Masters``.

RE: Sadana # 24

Dear Sadhna!
The last thing I wanted to come out of this article was the idea that it was meant for West bashing. That is the reason I tried to connect “those” dots so painstakingly. (Fairdinkum: That might answer one of your questions). But I guess nobody is perfect. Let me assure you again that this article was not meant for West bashing and that is the reason I tried to avoid mentioning US directly, as bg#1 had noted in his post.

We must try to focus all our attention to the Neocolonialism a.k.a. Globalization which is the real culprit. We the people of Third World are not alone in this perception. There are voices of concern from with in West that are against this version of Globalization. Consider for example, the violent protests at the WTO conferences. It is worth noting what happened at Seattle last winter. There was an article in TIME that analyzed the anatomy of the protesting body (printed sometime during Seattle conference). That article is worth reading. I will write a short note about that article in a separate post. Please visit the following site which is one of many voices in West that oppose neo-colonization:

www.iacenter.org/

Your contention about Russian economy is also “incomplete”. I suggest that you (as a matter of fact everyone who visited this post) should read an excellent article written by Zeemax titled “International Monetary Fund (IMF), Friend or Foe”-Jan 24, at Chowk. The link to that article is:

www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?zeemax_jan2400

That describes in detailed how Russia and some other Pacific Island nations were beguiled into the trap of IMF (and who was actually pulling the chords in that puppet show).

It will really be myopic to suggest that everything that West does is wrong. For example, ILO, as you mentioned, turned out to be a great organization to protect the rights of workers throughout the world. However, it is debatable what were the circumstances under which this Organization was formed. Was it to counter the influence of Communism in the world workforce? It doesn’t matter much now because the idea turned out to be beneficial for the humanity as whole.
Again we must concentrate and focus on the imminent future called Globalization because the life in the Third World is gonna get very hard if it already has not.

Your next contention that was, who is preventing TWC to go ahead and achieve their national goals. Sadhna! It is the (unjust)chokehold on Third World economy and politics that is preventing them to progress. You should re-read the Political and Economic Globalization sections of the article that describe only SOME of the methods that are choking TW to breathlessness. Neo’s may adopt measures as extreme as some of the incidents that Krashid mentioned in his post. The examples are infinite. It is time that we recognize the face of devil and treat him as such.

Best reagrds
and thanks for being critical.

RE: Krashid#29

A minor correction in your point no. 3 i.e. Islamic salvation Front had already won by well over 97% majority vote in general election when Army refused to hand over the government and annuled the election results-that were conducted under its own supervision.

Sadhna, I will point out the power of money or capital, which you are ignoring.

Although you can blame the poor for his plight, but in the last analysis, it is not them who are to blame.

You have asked, who have stopped the third world countries to take their destiny in their hands. I will give you concrete examples, so that you can judge.

1- When Z.A. Bhutto tried to unite Muslim world and he was a popular leader, Kissinger told him pointblank that he will make Bhutto into an example of loath. America funded heavily in election in 1977 and when could not achieve its objective, OKayed a coup by General Zia.

2- When Arbakan won in Turkey, he was toppled in a few months because of his trips to third world instead of first world and his reforms.

3- When Islamic Salvation front was poised to win the election in Algeria. Those elections were cancelled, army was put in charge and Islamic salvation front was suppressed.

4- Americans are very active against Taliban in Afghanistan. The only regime which were secular in Afghanistan were Communists. And America instigated Jihad against secularist.

5- CIA according to its own documents is involved in manipulating elections in other countries and sometimes even killing. Like Allende in Chile.

6- America is supporting all Arab dictatorships, but only dictators who are BAD are Ghaddafi of Libya and Castro of Cuba.

If third world countries take up arms like Islamic Salvation Front, it is Jihad and is bad.

If third world countries elect leader like Bhutto he is secular and heretic and is bad. If third world countries elect Arbakan, who does not care about west he is removed. If Mohatir Muhammed refused the dictation of IMF, a movement is launched against him.

How do you want to take the destiny of third world people to be in their hand, when their hands are already tied. And if they somehow try to free their hands their hands are cut.

Sorry if repeat post.
Urstruly #25

First, re` your article. While the dots connect in some fashion, its hard to see every single dynamic in the world as a New Order conspiracy toward colonization. The developed world is looking after its own interests like anyone else, only with better-oiled wheels. Its also incumbent on TWCs to wake up and learn to look after THEIR own interests, internal and external, jointly or seperately. What prevents them from doing so?

(and what prevents them from thinking up original handy terms for their own movements/philosophies , Gentle Earth Age/Equalization before Competition/All are welcome to the party no dress code:-))

For one thing, the indebtedness of some countries has been due to their own internal disorder. For eg, how can it be part of an e-globalization conspiracy against the Russians that the Russians themselves mismanaged and blew away the loans they took and precipitated the crash that followed?

I find a similar problem(that of choice) with the argument about religious groups in your reply. Just the availability of ready money wouldnot force any group to collect arms and intimidate the neighbourhood and local politics, there is a human/social choice that every human being or group can make. For eg, does anything prevent any Arabic/Islamic/TW country from passing laws for better empowerment, justice and civic order for their people? Does it require money?

And even with a wealth of Islamic philosophy behind them, if the religious groups in your third category are wholly defined by resistance toward neo colonist `interest payments` and control of wealth, what makes them lily white compared to `capitalists` who are doing the same thing but atleast look after their own people and take the trouble to articulate some democratizing rules/norms even if biased? Are biased norms better than no norms?

For eg, if there were no tradition of forums like say ILO/whatever for collective bargaining or discussion, where would these things even be discussed among many competing participants and actions taken, much less be written about? In contrast, take the OIC. If it were a more effective body, wouldn`t it help accomplish a lot more in the Islamic world on behalf of the interests of its own citizens?

It is in context of this `social/political choice of every group` that I brought up Arab/foreign funding of `ideology` and education. Its the same with the functioning of NGOs, its a choice Pakistanis can make. How is there a question of imposition as in the colonization paradigm? And its sad if paranoia were to be the only usable/useful driving factor among TWCs societies.

Another example, if political parties on the subcontinent(or even in the US) choose to be bankrolled by foreign money, don`t blame the foreign donors alone and call it merely `colonization` by the New Order. Call it also short sighted expedience of those recipients who donot care to take charge of their own destiny and donot care to drop the mindset of the colonized.

Sadhana

Sadna #23

That was a really short notice…you are worse than………..well, I won’t say :)

Urstruly,
I got really confused, and tired reading your classification of religious groups…. it was the same feeling it get when I cook fresh vegetables…baffled? Let me elaborate….:) Ok, may be another time.

As for abolishing religion from the face of the earth, I never said that!? Did I? What I meant was we should work towards getting rid of institutionalised religion… I ain’t against religion as such… aap kuyn chaahtay hain keh amma ghar main na ghussnay dayn aur hamari biwi rukhsati say pehlay hi talaq bhijwa dayn?

And what is Islamic economic system? I didn’t know that such a thing existed… If you are referring to the half-cooked ideas of interest free economy, and zakat as an alternative to social security system, waghira waghira, then I am afraid, they don’t work in this day and age…

And one more thing, your article and subsequent responses, indicate that you are quite rigid in your views… Your style of analysing an issue, leaves very little room for debate. For example; you didn’t discuss the alternative view point to make your argument tread a more logical path… presenting your argument while letting the reader know about the alternative approach(es), gives the reader a balanced view of things, and leaves a lot of room for discussions, and debates….warna aisay lagta hai keh jaisay koi hathora mar kar keh raha hai keh bus aisa hee hai joo main keh raha hoon..

Accha ab dobara say parhta hoon aap ki classification of religious groups…baad main sabzi bhi pakani hai :)

Take care!

Yours truly,
Fairdinkum