Tafadhali
09-29-05, - 07:31 PM
August 19 2005
Global Predators
I am sick of hearing the term, Globalization. It is the most misused word in the modern vocabulary, spit out as if it is a self-defining term, with no explanation necessary. Globalization is made to seem like the weather, an inevitable act of God or nature. And it is also treated as a new phenomenon, as if the globe had previously been an assortment of autonomous patches of ground. This is nonsense.
The world was knitted together by force of arms centuries ago, when the Europeans conquered and colonized Asia, Africa and the Americas – for their own benefit. The textile industries of India were destroyed, and the Chinese hooked on opium, for Britain’s benefit. Africa was depopulated, its interior plunged into centuries of chaos, for the benefit of Europeans and white Americans. Ninety-five percent of the population of the Americas was wiped out, their civilizations destroyed. Many tens of millions of people were sent on a global voyage to slavery, not just Africans, but also including Indonesians headed for South Africa, and indentured Indians to the New World. The United States was conceived as a vast white empire, and by 1900 had stretched its tentacles into the Caribbean and across the Pacific Ocean. The relentless European and white American expansion was a horror of globalization, spearheaded by European and American armies and navies, and exploited by corporations. Globalization is nothing new, and it was never a natural phenomenon, like the weather.
Neither is the most recent economic and cultural phenomenon that is called globalization. What we are really witnessing is a consolidation of multinational corporate and financial control over the global economy. The rich are reorganizing the planet for their own benefit, once again. There is nothing natural about it. If it were, there would be no need for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the General Agreement and Trade and Tariffs, or for NAFTA and CAFTA and all the other agreements forced on weaker nations through military and economic duress. Make no mistake about it: colonialism and conquest spawned the original globalization. Neo-colonialism has given birth to the current variation.
European and American exploiters, murderers and enslavers always pretended that their global aggressions were inevitable – a natural occurrence – and that therefore, no one was guilty of crimes against humanity. The descendants of those who profited from the first wave of globalization, are now in a position to dictate to the rest of the planet the terms of the current global reorganization. They also pretend that global corporate rule – which is really what is meant by globalization – is inevitable. Go with the flow, they say. It’s the natural order of things.
We must tell them they are wrong, that the natural order of things, the arc along which humanity is traveling, is national self-determination, not corporate domination; it is toward social justice, not a global race to the bottom. The first globalization, by white armies and business interests, was triumphant for centuries. This one must be defeated. For Radio BC, I’m Glen Ford.
courtesy of Radio BC
Global Predators
I am sick of hearing the term, Globalization. It is the most misused word in the modern vocabulary, spit out as if it is a self-defining term, with no explanation necessary. Globalization is made to seem like the weather, an inevitable act of God or nature. And it is also treated as a new phenomenon, as if the globe had previously been an assortment of autonomous patches of ground. This is nonsense.
The world was knitted together by force of arms centuries ago, when the Europeans conquered and colonized Asia, Africa and the Americas – for their own benefit. The textile industries of India were destroyed, and the Chinese hooked on opium, for Britain’s benefit. Africa was depopulated, its interior plunged into centuries of chaos, for the benefit of Europeans and white Americans. Ninety-five percent of the population of the Americas was wiped out, their civilizations destroyed. Many tens of millions of people were sent on a global voyage to slavery, not just Africans, but also including Indonesians headed for South Africa, and indentured Indians to the New World. The United States was conceived as a vast white empire, and by 1900 had stretched its tentacles into the Caribbean and across the Pacific Ocean. The relentless European and white American expansion was a horror of globalization, spearheaded by European and American armies and navies, and exploited by corporations. Globalization is nothing new, and it was never a natural phenomenon, like the weather.
Neither is the most recent economic and cultural phenomenon that is called globalization. What we are really witnessing is a consolidation of multinational corporate and financial control over the global economy. The rich are reorganizing the planet for their own benefit, once again. There is nothing natural about it. If it were, there would be no need for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the General Agreement and Trade and Tariffs, or for NAFTA and CAFTA and all the other agreements forced on weaker nations through military and economic duress. Make no mistake about it: colonialism and conquest spawned the original globalization. Neo-colonialism has given birth to the current variation.
European and American exploiters, murderers and enslavers always pretended that their global aggressions were inevitable – a natural occurrence – and that therefore, no one was guilty of crimes against humanity. The descendants of those who profited from the first wave of globalization, are now in a position to dictate to the rest of the planet the terms of the current global reorganization. They also pretend that global corporate rule – which is really what is meant by globalization – is inevitable. Go with the flow, they say. It’s the natural order of things.
We must tell them they are wrong, that the natural order of things, the arc along which humanity is traveling, is national self-determination, not corporate domination; it is toward social justice, not a global race to the bottom. The first globalization, by white armies and business interests, was triumphant for centuries. This one must be defeated. For Radio BC, I’m Glen Ford.
courtesy of Radio BC