When Indian defense minister Rajnath Singh declared on record, in parliament, that China is illegally occupying 38,000 sq. kms of land in Ladakh 1 and eyeing further 90,000 sq. kms in Arunachal Pradesh, which China calls as South Tibet, India had made it clear to the world, about the expansionist designs of China and to which India is ready to fight it out. It may be considered that only a day before Rajnath Singh address, it had come out that China was laying optic fiber cables to boost communications in Pangong Tso, Ladakh 2 ‘which would provide forward troops with secure lines of communications to bases in the rear’. This was yet again a provocation to India. Pangong Tso is the place where the latest flare-up happened on August 29, 2020. Ironically, all this had come only four days later to when foreign-ministers of both the countries had signed a joint-declaration in Moscow.
An immediate retort to all what Rajnath Singh had said, came in The Global Times 3 , which said ‘India hurts itself with border belligerence’. The tone of the article was with all war connotations ‘ If India were to wage massive armed clashes or even war with China and Pakistan simultaneously, no country would likely help India apart from conditionally providing some weaponry,’ in order to inferiortise the Indian side. The article also makes sufficiently clear that China and Pakistan are raring to jointly-go ahead with India. India, however, is clearly wary of China as Rajnath Singh, in another statement claimed that China is not honouring customary alignment of boundary with India. Rajnath also said that ‘the alignment has not only been defined by treaties, but has been maintained historically. However, China believes that the border is not defined, he added and warned that any serious situation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is bound to impact bilateral ties’ 4. The Voice of America 5 however, had been skeptic as just after the joint-statement occurred, a report in it clearly pointed that despite the deal there were challenges ahead for India as voices emanating from China was exhorting for war-preparedness.
The joint-statement had surely added more woes to India which is already strained by what all has happened in Ladakh is the last five-months. A befitting article, by Praveen Sawhney, editor for Force Magazine in The Wire 6 has elaborated that the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is no more as such and from now onwards it would only be the border-area, as there hasn’t been any reference of LAC in the joint-statement which straightaway means that India has already acceded parts of Ladakh to China. Sawhney has warned India for the coming days, ‘The existing heightened threat of ‘forces-in-being’ will continue to increase with time as the PLA brings in new disruptive warfare capabilities into the theatre. India should bear in mind that such formidable war-fighting capabilities with new concept of operations are not needed for a mere border war. Having won the Ladakh round from an ill-prepared India, without a fight, the PLA has further entrenched itself in an area which is going to be the likely site of a future bigger conflict’, he wrote in his article, as ‘China had said that it abides by the November 1959 LAC which was mentioned by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai to Jawaharlal Nehru’. Hence, after the Moscow meeting a loss-loss situation ( sic) is what tends to become the fate of the India side. There are no more questions to be raised for April 2020 status quo ante, which was to abide by what had been decided between the two in 1993, but now the clock has been turned to 1959.
As a measure-up to what Rajnath Singh had said in parliament China has gone ahead to issue a ‘level two’ warning and alert, which is the second time to have happened since 1987, informs South China Morning Post on September 16, 2020 7 . The article tells that ‘PLA raised combat readiness after exchange of gunfire ( of August 29 2020) and that Chinese commanders increased alert level to second-highest possible for the first time in troubled region since 1987. The increase, to second level, meant more weapons and troops were deployed to the front line, and training exercises were ramped up for commanders, officers and soldiers, The last time such a high level was employed by troops in the restive region was in 1987, when a skirmish in the Sumdorong Chu valley pushed the two sides to the brink of war. The PLA has four grades of combat readiness. The first level is used only when military leaders are convinced an armed conflict is inevitable. The PLA (has) mobilised more troops and weapons systems to the Line of Actual Control [the formal name for the disputed China-India border] in preparation for the worst. “The PLA’s JH-7 bombers at frontline airports are loaded with weapons, indicating they are ready for action, and one of the obvious signs the border air force is under second-level combat readiness. “I am afraid the confrontations might become a regular thing, and turn the LAC into another Kashmir,” said Andrei Chang, the magazine’s editor-in-chief. It is worthy to point that that Kashmir seems to have entered the lexicon of the Chinese expression.
As a mark of the preparation China has deployed its 10,000 troops of the south bank of Pangong Tso and 50 battalions in Ladakh LAC , the total troops being 52,000 and similar has been the mirror-deployment from the India side, informs The Economic Times on September 16, 2020 8 . Each battalion has 1000-1200 soldiers. The situation is now eyeball-to-eyeball is real action and it has now come to light that while Jaishankar and Wang Yi were sitting across the table as many as around 100 rounds ‘each’ were fired from both the sides at Pangong Tso 9 , which of course happened for the first time in 45 years and the situation had to be cooled-down as meetings of the highest level were underway but now with the meetings all done, what is in store?
Rajnath Singh declaration is also for the nation to get prepared for the coming days and China took a serious note of it and raised its ‘alert level’ as there is a news that China has deployed one of its most dangerous JH-7 attack aircraft against India 10 tells a report from The Week on September 16, 2020. The JH-7 is one of the PLA Air Force’s main ground-attack aircraft, which is optimised for low-altitude missions. What in actuality and reality has flared-up China is the strategy of India to make its ferocious Special Frontier Force comprising of Tibetan fighters answer the Chinese in the same coin, and this is precisely why Rajnath Singh has played-up the 90,000 sq. kms of Arunachal Pradesh, which is to play the Tibet card, as it is this SFF is which compatible to fight ‘equally’ in the mountainous terrain of Arunachal Pradesh or in Ladakh. This is actually a double-edged weapon as Tibetans, whose forefathers had fled China in 1959, are now to fight those who scuttled them. Therefore, to blunt the Indian moves, China seems to be gearing up its momentum towards all the seven-sister states of the North East.
India and China seem equally poised for a ‘worsening situation’ as to world wait for it with bated breath, although there are still some inputs, that both the sides do not want war.
The writer is a former Uttar Pradesh State Information Commissioner. He writes on international politics.
References:
1-https://countercurrents.org/2020/09/indian-defence-minister-admits-in-parliament-that-china-has-occupied-38000-sq-kms-of-land-in-ladakh/
2-https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/china-laying-cables-to-boost-communications-at-ladakh-flashpoint-report-2295302#:~:text=Two%20Indian%20officials%20said%20Chinese,at%20resolving%20a%20standoff%20there.
3-https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1200916.shtml
4-https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/china-not-honouring-customary-alignment-of-boundary-with-india-rajnath-singh/story-weDflNtNJrAnn5dp3n8DkO.html
5-https://www.voanews.com/south-central-asia/challenges-remain-despite-deal-india-china-border-spat
6-https://thewire.in/security/india-china-ladakh-pla-lac-border-areas
7-https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3101663/china-india-border-dispute-pla-raised-combat-readiness-after
8-https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/china-deploys-10k-on-south-
bank-of-pangong tso/articleshow/78137294.cms#:~:text=in%20Ladakh%20LAC-,China%20deploys%
2010k%20troops%20on%20south%20bank%20of%20Pangong%20Tso,battalions%20stationed%
20in%20Ladakh%20LAC
9-https://indianexpress.com/article/india/before-russia-pact-indian-chinese-troops-fired-100-200-rounds-on-pangong-north-bank-6597650/
10-https://www.theweek.in/news/world/2020/09/16/china-raised-alert-level-on-india-border-bombers-ready-for-action-report.html
In a 2017 article, I asked what might a future India look like and concluded that, if current neoliberal policies continue, there could be dozens of mega-cities with up to 40 million inhabitants and just two to three hundred million (perhaps 15-20% of the population) left in an emptied-out countryside. And it could also mean hundreds of millions of displaced rural dwellers without any work.
The policies referred to have not only continued but have been given a massive boost in the form of three parliamentary bills: The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.
The ordinances were issued by the Modi-led government in June and (according to official rhetoric) seek to create barrier-free trade for farmers and allow them to enter into agreements with private players prior to the production for sale of agri-produce.
Some have commended these bills, claiming they will completely ‘liberalise’ the farm economy, leading to greater flexibility and efficiency and offering freedom and choice to farmers and buyers of produce. Others claim they effectively serve to impose the tenets of neoliberalism on the sector, finally clearing the way to restructure the agri-food sector for the benefit of large commodity traders and other (international) corporations: smallholder farmers will go to the wall in a landscape of ‘get big or get out’, mirroring the US model of food cultivation and retail.
As reported in the Economic Times, the Congress party chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said his party will fight the government “tooth and nail” on this issue:
“These three draconian ordinances are a death knell for agriculture in India. They will subjugate the farmer at the altar of a handful of crony capitalists….”
He added that farmers would not be able to get a remunerative price for their crop under the current system of minimum support price and that his party will join with other parties to put up a joint opposition to the draconian ordinances of the BJP government aimed at:
“Subjugating the farming community and abolishing the livelihood of crores [tens of millions] of people who are aligned with the grain markets and other market systems”.
The proposed legislation will mean that mandis – state-run market locations for farmers (overseen by Agricultural Produce Market Committees) to sell their agricultural produce via auction to traders – can be bypassed, allowing farmers to sell to private players elsewhere (physically and online), thereby undermining the regulatory role of the public sector. In trade areas open to the private sector, no fees will be levied (fees levied in mandis go to the states and, in principle, are used to enhance market infrastructure to help farmers).
This could incentivise the corporate sector operating outside of the mandis to (initially at least) offer better prices to farmers; eventually, however, as the mandi system is run down completely, these corporations will monopolise trade, capture the sector and dictate prices to farmers.
Another outcome of the proposed legislation could see the unregulated storage of produce and speculation, opening the farming sector to free-for-all profiteering for the big players.
Randeep Surjewala argues that the three ordinances are also a direct attack on the federal structure of India (farming and mandis come under the jurisdiction of states), but the government did not even consider it appropriate to consult them before promulgating the ordinances.
Sitaram Yechury, leader of the Communist Party of India, tweeted:
“No amount of propaganda and spin can conceal such destruction of India and it’s economy. Withdraw these ordinances handing over our agriculture to multinational agribusinesses, further ruining our ‘annadaata’, demolishing India’s food security.”
The proposed legislation will enable transnational agri-food corporations like Cargill and Walmart and home-grown billionaire capitalists like Gautam Adani and his agribusiness conglomerate and Mukesh Ambini and his Reliance retail chain to decide on what is to be cultivated, how much of it is to be cultivated within India and how it is to be produced and processed. From seed to field to plate, the corporate take-over of the food and agriculture chain will be complete.
Smallholder and marginal farmers will be further forced out and those remaining in the sector will be squeezed, working on contracts for market-dominating global seed and agrochemical suppliers, trader, distributors and retail concerns. Industrial agriculture will be the norm (with all the devastating externalised health, social and environmental costs that the model brings with it).
It may make some wonder who is actually determining policy in India when hundreds of millions of ordinary people could lose their livelihoods. Instead of pursuing a path of democratic development, the Indian government has chosen to submit to the regime of foreign finance, awaiting signals on how much it can spend. The imperatives of global capital require nation states to curb spending and roll back interventions and support mechanisms so that private investors can occupy the arena left open. And this is exactly what we are seeing in agriculture.
Foreign capital and sections of India’s billionaire class are working to displace the prevailing agrifood model and recast it in their own image. Tens of millions of small-scale and marginal farmers are already suffering economic distress and leaving farming as the sector is deliberately made financially non-viable for them.
The Modi administration is fully on board with the World Bank’s pro-corporate ‘enabling the business of agriculture’ and other such policies aimed at further incorporating nation states into the neoliberal fold, while equating neoliberal policies with ‘development’. Other recent policies will also serve to accelerate current trends in Indian agriculture as we see with regard to the Karnataka Land Reform Act, which will make it easier for business to purchase and consolidate agricultural land (leading to landlessness and urban migration).
Both ongoing and proposed ‘reforms’ are ultimately about ‘liberalising’ agriculture to further ease the entrance of foreign agribusiness interests and serve the needs of India’s home-grown billionaires. The Modi government is predictably facilitating what could eventually lead to a trillion-dollar (value of the Indian economy according to Modi’s former associates at APCO Worldwide) corporate hijack of India three steps closer with the ‘ordinances’.
By bringing the full force of liberalisation to the farm economy and in the process fundamentally restructuring Indian society (around 60% of the population still rely on agriculture for their livelihoods), any remnants of economic sovereignty and sovereign state status will be hollowed out and India will become a fully incorporated subsidiary of global capitalism and its fundamentally flawed and exploitative food regime.
Of course, many millions have already been displaced from the Indian countryside and have had to seek work in the cities. And if the coronavirus lockdown has indicated anything, it is that many of these ‘migrant workers’ have failed to gain a secure foothold and were compelled to return ‘home’ to their villages. Their lives are defined by low pay, insecurity and callous treatment by the government.
It raises the question: what does the future hold for the hundreds of millions of others who will be victims of the dispossessive policies of neoliberal capitalism?
Colin Todhunter is an independent writer
Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction (published in 2014) reminds us that mass extinctions are not a novelty in Earth history;[1] and also that there have been some survivors of each of the five mass extinctions of the geological past. In fact, primates were survivors of the last (i.e., fifth) mass extinction—termed the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, and having occurred about 66 million years ago—and it is those primates that are our ancestors.
More recently, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has stated that:
Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history—and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely . . . .
And:
The Report finds that around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history.
In short, scientists, worldwide, are now in agreement that we are in a “sixth extinction” period!
A question that arises relative to that “1 million” figure is:
Will our species be among that 1,000,000 number?!
In addressing that question here, let me begin with a report published about a year ago in BioScience, titled “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency,” and signed (to date) by “13,658 [scientists] from 156 countries.”[2] Among the statements made in that report are these:
Scientists have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat and to “tell it like it is.” On the basis of this obligation and the graphical indicators presented below, we declare, with more than 11,000 scientist signatories from around the world, clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.
An immense increase of scale in endeavors to conserve our biosphere is needed to avoid untold suffering due to the climate crisis (IPCC 2018).
To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live, in ways that improve the vital signs summarized by our graphs.
That last statement follows from their earlier statement that “The climate crisis is closely linked to excessive consumption of the wealthy lifestyle. The most affluent countries are mainly responsible for the historical GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions and generally have the greatest per capita emissions (table S1).” Although I agree with the statement that “we must change how we live,” I find that statement somewhat surprising, for two reasons:
- I would have expected them to write, rather, that we need to shift away from the main culprit associated with the global warming problem—our use of fossil fuels.
- Although changes in “how we live” have been the norm since the Neolithic Revolution (that began about 12,000 years ago), most of the societal changes that have occurred since then have not been the result of consciously-made plans. Rather, they have resulted from technological developments, for example. And, it appears that there is a direction in human history,[3]—which suggests that there are “forces” in operation that will make it difficult—even impossible!—to counter that direction!
For that reason, although, in this brief paper, I make a proposal that is consistent with the changing how we live “command,” I harbor virtually no hope that my proposal will ever be acted on. Certainly I—as one who is 80, in poor health, and lacking in financial means—lack an ability to act on the proposal.
Because I see a direction in our history, one not seen, evidently, by those many scientists who have signed the BioScience report[4] and see that direction as being downward (!), their suggestion that “we must change how we live” strikes me as naive—and gives me reason to believe that our species is doomed!
But that’s not the only reason I have for believing that. There are at least three other reasons, I believe, for being pessimistic about the human future.
First, there has been both “media silence” about global warming,[5] and “climate change denial” about it. As an example of “media silence”: Several years ago I sent an email to the lead meteorologist at one of the local television stations here in Milwaukee, asking why I never heard any of the weather reporters there mention “global warming” in their reports. Surprisingly, I did receive a response, it being that they were forbidden to do so!
Now if a huge segment of our adult population is either ill-informed or misinformed about global warming, there will be little pressure put on our “leaders” to address the problem. And there hasn’t been!
Second, though, one wonders if it would have mattered if the media had been informing the public honestly about global warming and the threat to our continued existence posed by it. A primary feature of modern societies is the presence of diversions. What makes their presence necessary is that modern ways of life are unnatural[6] and, therefore, require coping behaviors on the part of their “inmates”! The various diversions that exist in our society not only help many of us, at least, to cope with modern life, but serve also to divert our attention away from “events” occurring in our society that may have great relevance for our current well-being, and future survival! The global warming now occurring having importance for both (the wildfires still occurring in the West illustrating the first of those two points). Thus, there’s good reason, I believe, to think of the many diversions that exist in our society as being a factor that will “help” (!) doom our species.
What may be the most important reason, however, for believing our society to be doomed is the fact that we now live in an oligarchy—so that what the public thinks and wants no longer matters! So that even if the public were well-informed about global warming, and even if the diversions that exist in our society were not diverting the attention of the public away from important matters, the fact that we are now an oligarchy would be the determining factor in dooming our species!
That we are now an oligarchy was a conclusion reached in research published a few years ago (title: “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens”), by researchers at Princeton and Northwestern Universities, using “a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues,” and involving the use of multivariate analysis. That research:
indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
A discussion of the study is given in this article.
What is the relevance of this for global warming? Naomi Klein, e. g., has referred to the two facts (i.e., the occurrence of global warming and fact of oligarchy) as a “catastrophic coincidence”! She states:
we have not done the things that are necessary to lower emissions because those things fundamentally conflict with deregulated capitalism, the reigning ideology for the entire period we have been struggling to find a way out of this crisis. We are stuck because the actions that would give us the best chance of averting catastrophe – and would benefit the vast majority – are extremely threatening to an elite minority that has a stranglehold over our economy, our political process, and most of our major media outlets. That problem might not have been insurmountable had it presented itself at another point in our history. But it is our great collective misfortune that the scientific community made its decisive diagnosis of the climate threat at the precise moment when those elites were enjoying more unfettered political, cultural, and intellectual power than at any point since the 1920s.
Note that Klein implies that our global warming is now “insurmountable,” because of the dominating “elites” and the “reigning ideology” that they foster, and which protects them!
What Robert J. Burrowes would add to that is that
the global elite has been able to control much of the funding available for climate science research and a great deal of the information about it that is made widely available to the public, particularly through its corporate media. For this reason, the elite wields enormous power to shape the dialogue in relation to both the climate science and the time frame.
And:
The elite will use any means – including psychological manipulation, propaganda issued by its corporate media, national educational institutions, legal systems and extraordinary military violence – to achieve this outcome whatever the cost to life on Earth.
In short, the global elite is so insane that its members believe that killing and exploiting fellow human beings and destroying the biosphere are simply good ways to make a profit. Of course, they do not perceive us as fellow human beings; they perceive and treat us as a great deal less. [[7]] This is why, for example, the elite routinely uses its military forces to attack impoverished and militarily primitive countries so that they can steal their resources.
That the ruling oligarchy—a global one, Burroughs notes—assumes, at least tacitly, that if and when our species goes extinct, they will be spared, is to demonstrate insanity, as Burroughs so rightly wrote! The oligarchs seem to be so “wrapped up” in their various machinations that they have no interest in how humans are impacting Earth System! Nor any knowledge about it, for that matter!
Because of that, and because Earth—being a system—will “fight back,” I expect that critical “tipping points” will soon be crossed, global warming will then begin to “feed on itself” (i. e., increase without human “help”), and be, then, impossible to stop—so that our species will then join the 1,000,000 other species “slated” to go extinct soon.
The reason why it’s so important to know the precarious position that our species is in at present, is that someone “out there” may come to know this, and become motivated to do something to try to stave off our extinction. Let us hope that that’s the case, and that those efforts are successful!
Frankly, though, I have little confidence that this will happen! (:
Alton C. Thompson reside in the “garden city” of Greendale, WI
[1] Scientists “estimate that at least 99.9 percent of all species of plants and animals that ever lived are now extinct.”
[2] The brilliant—and honest!—leader of the “Trump cult” in effect challenged that conclusion on September 14, 2020. Scientific American magazine appears to agree!
[3] As Eugene Linden, for example, argued 41 years ago in his Affluence and Discontent (pp. 63 – 178), that direction being downward!
[4] See my History is Against Our Species!
[5] By the way, “global warming” is preferable to “climate change,” one reason being that the latter term has had political overtones.
[6] Anthropologist Alan Barnard recently wrote that we humans “have been designed to live, by hunting wild beasts and by collecting wild plants.” In Hunters and Gatherers: What Can We Learn From Them (2020), p. 56.
[7] There’s also their thievery!
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Root Cause:
I don’t know if it is right to attribute this to the education system and societal values but the most important thing that is sought after in life is ‘career’ and ‘money’. Because let’s face it, it is only after possession of this that you can afford the most sought after livelihood, you can enrol your child into the most expensive school (apparently good education is expensive), get your dream car (Is it Audi or Merc?), sponsor that most awaited dream holiday to Greece, celebrate your daughter’s fifth birthday anniversary in The Taj, buy your son a RTR 200 after he managed to clear his 10th grade, fund your ward’s higher education (Ivy leagues, IIMs etc.) so that he can make something for himself- a six figure salary package, a promising career, name and fame. Finally his salary package will make him eligible to find love and her dowry will make them eligible to get married.
There is a feeling associated with ‘possession’ of these consumerist vanities and that feeling is ‘gratification’, ‘happiness’, ‘pride’, and ‘societal acceptance’. We all are working to realize ‘true happiness’ and if a person is raised within these value systems, it won’t be a shock that he will make ‘choices’ that will help him attain this ‘vain happiness’. No matter what the ‘cost is’.
The choices available to him comes down to employment or entrepreneurial opportunities in extraction industry- gold, iron, coal copper or other mineral mining, quarrying, oil and gas industry or related industries like automobile industry, FMCG, pharmaceutical industry, power industry, manufacturing, logging, textile, plastics, construction, weaponry, nuclear etc or in the service sector created to facilitate uninterrupted operations of the aforementioned industries, namely Big 4 accounting firms, consulting firm, marketing, IT firms, graphic designing, banking, share markets, banks, entertainment etc. Organizations are run by people and the sole objective of these organizations is to create value and profits for their shareholders, for themselves. And they are doing it pretty well. No matter what the ‘cost is‘.
Understanding Cost:
Lesser is the operational expenses, more is the profit an organization can make. And the techniques an organization uses to reduce operational expenses are somewhat similar to what East India Company used to do. It doesn’t matter if you are a CEO or manager from a premium management institute (IIM, XLRI, ISB etc.). The techniques like bribing of bureaucrats, land encroachment, overutilization of land and water resources, complete disregard for environmental and safety norms, ecocide- destroying ecosystems or harming the health and well-being of a species, bonded labour, child labour, and in some cases even slavery. Even if a reputable organization is not committing these atrocities by themselves, they might be supporting it by purchasing raw material or services from suppliers who are engaged in it. For example Hershey, Nestle, Mars -who allegedly procure cocoa beans harvested by children (Hershey, Nestle and Mars won’t promise their chocolate is free of child labor
“Anything for moolah” – CEO’s anthem
Can you name one ethical organization? Are you associated with any profit making organization that gives prior importance to interests of community, people and ecology before its own profit? Can you do the same? What is the limit to profit? Is profit at the expense of ecocide justified? All the big names you can think from oil exploration and refining industry, beverage manufacturers, FMCGs, social media etc. have exploited or are exploiting environment, natural resources or the rights of local/indigenous community for their own profits. It’s no wonder that average pay package of CEO of the largest US firms is $17.2 million. And a CEO has to justify his salary, has to persistently create value for its shareholder, beat the competition and increase the annual profit percentage. In order to do so has to incessantly work to acquire more of people’s land, resources and also their ‘spirits’ and ‘health’.
A prevalent truth:
And it is a prevalent truth, the situation is sordid. We can respond in absolute dismal or abysmal shock but that just validates our ignorance. A nation’s judicial system which is installed to protect the rights of minorities, to oversee that interests of all communities are protected and to ensure there is no bullying by rich and powerful corporation is often found to be lopsided towards the high-powered. Rich corporate have lot of resources- money, power and influential political contacts at their disposal. Nation’s best lawyers and legal firms are known to represent these goliaths against the persecuted, under resourced and suppressed communities. Seeking justice in the present legal framework is bit cumbersome, harassing and dreadful for the latter. A nation’s legal process characterised by inordinate delays, lawyer’s exorbitant fees, travelling expenses, and on top of that a looming threat to life is enough to break spirits of even the most determined of the plaintiff. The aftermath i.e. complete acquittal of the culprit (a prominent actor of Bollywood), a paltry punishment that too after decades of wait (Bhopal gas tragedy), endorses the immoral actions, encourages the malicious behaviour and makes persecuted accept the intolerable status quo.
Understanding our role:
It is important to understand our role in the present status quo. Ignorance is the greatest virtue, but it comes at a ‘cost’- it makes us accomplice. After all we are the consumers, the employees, the employers, service provider, the beneficiaries, the decision makers, the entrepreneurs, the CEOs, the law makers, the law keepers, the culprits and the persecuted.
It is important to understand that no matter what side you are on the present growth model, the policies, the opportunities and the banking system renders us partners in crime. You might not support the malevolent activities of the corporate or you might have waged a war against climate change, exploitation of indigenous communities or the atrocities committed against inexpressible flora and fauna, but the ‘choices’ you are making are annihilating the very same cause.
The choices come down to ‘funding’ and ‘contribution’. Every organization needs ‘money’ to be in operation. The funds are obtained via loans, investments, initial public offerings (IPOs)/shares and selling of products/services. If the same funds are utilized to confiscate resources and ultimately lives, then not only the corporation but the sources of aforementioned funds are equally culprit. The contribution can be in the form of involvement, either at the capacity of customer, business partner, and banking partner or as an employee. If we are purchasing any product that is unethically sourced, or investing in a firm which is confiscating the rights of ecology or carrying out immoral operations by ourselves (employee), then the contributors are equally culprits.
“Means are as responsible as the end”.
The choices:
But what if we don’t want ‘guilt’ of ecocide on our conscience? What’s the alternate path? The only path I could envisage is to be more informed about the choices we are making:
- To become more conscious of the decisions in terms of investments or purchase. May be the next time you are out for buying groceries you can opt for organic alternatives, or purchase products that comes with a green certification, or purchase only from organizations, co-operatives that operates on the principle of fair trade. You can refrain from purchasing products that are bad for the environment like plastics, cosmetics with microbeads, oxybenzone laden sunscreens, wet wipes etc or try to use products/services cautiously like fossil fuels- LPG, natural gas, power, and gasoline.
- To become more conscious of the organizations we are part of. Let’s look at the profile of an organization before choosing to be a part of it. Let’s choose the organizations on the basis of morality and not on packages. Let’s not keep any kind of professional relationship with any organization engaged in unfair or immoral trade practices. And most importantly let’s not defend misdeeds of such corporations in front of law. Let’s keep our principles and maintain our integrity.
- To divest from ‘culprit’ organizations. Let’s refrain from giving ‘more power’ to such organizations. Even a single share we possess of these organizations makes us an accomplice in wrongdoing. In the past, ‘divestment’ was instrumental in ending an age-old iniquitous practice of racial segregation- ‘apartheid’. Presently, it is giving impetus to the fight against climate change which is corroborated by the fact that hitherto April 2020, a total of 1,192 institutions and over 58,000 individuals representing $14 trillion in assets worldwide had begun or committed to a divestment from fossil fuels.
These choices will not only affect the financial standings of the culprit firms but will also spur investments in green fund, that is imperative to assist developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change As more and more people start to resonate with the cause, the profit will start to dwindle and the culprit corporations will have no other alternative other than to undergo metamorphosis or transform into a green and an ethical organization.
This will lead to creation of plethora of green jobs. Now a person who is raised with capitalist values will have a choice to work in a malefactor firm or to work towards development of society. And the people if given a choice, will choose to survive on a path of least harm.
“Less hand that destroys the environment means more hands preserving it”.
Ankit Goyal is Co-Convenor of Eco-Socialist Front. e-mail: ankitgoyal_009@yahoo.com
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On September 2, the Israeli government approved a proposal that allows the military to indefinitely withhold the bodies of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli army. The proposal was made by the country’s Defense Minister, Benny Gantz.
Gantz is the main political rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also serves the role of the ‘alternate Prime Minister.’ If Netanyahu does not renege on the coalition government agreement he signed with Gantz’s Blue and White Party last April, Gantz will take the helm of Israel’s leadership, starting November 2021.
Since his official induction to the tumultuous world of Israeli politics, Gantz, supposedly a ‘centrist’, has adopted hawkish stances against Palestinians, especially those in Gaza. This way, he hopes to widen his appeal to Israeli voters, the majority of whom have migrated en-masse to the Right.
But Gantz’s latest ‘achievement’, that of denying dead Palestinians a proper burial, is not entirely a novel idea. In fact, in Israel, bargaining with corpses has been the modus operandi for decades.
According to the Defense Minister’s logic, the withholding of bodies will serve as a ‘deterrent against terror attacks.’ However, judging by the fact that the practice has been in use for many years, there is no proof that Palestinians were ever discouraged from resisting Israel’s military occupation due to such strategies.
The new policy, according to Israeli officials, is different from the previous practices. While in the past, Israel has only kept the bodies of alleged ‘Palestinian attackers’ who belonged to ‘terror groups’, the latest decision by the Israeli government would extend the rule to apply to all Palestinians, even those who have no political affiliations.
Aside from Gantz’s attempt at shoring up his hawkish credentials, the military man-turned politician wants to improve his chances in the on and off, indirect negotiations between Israel and Palestinian groups in Gaza. Israel believes that there are four soldiers who are currently being held in Gaza, including the bodies of two soldiers who were killed during the devastating Israeli war on the besieged Strip in July 2014. Hamas has maintained that two of the four soldiers – Hadar Goldin and Shaul Aaron – are, in fact, still alive and in custody.
For years, low-level talks between Hamas and Israel have aimed at securing a deal that would see an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for the detained Israelis. By withholding yet more Palestinian bodies, Tel Aviv hopes to strengthen its position in future talks.
The reality, however, is quite different. The Israeli army has not been returning the bodies of Palestinians who are accused of attacking Israeli soldiers for months, which includes all Palestinians, regardless of their purported political affiliations.
Undoubtedly, withholding corpses as a political strategy is illegal under international law. Article 130 of the Fourth Geneva Convention clearly states that persons who are killed during armed conflicts should be “honorably buried … according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged.”
The Israeli Supreme Court, however, which quite often rules contrary to international law, resolved on September 9, 2019 – exactly one year before the Israeli cabinet’s decision – that the army has the right to continue with the practice of withholding the bodies of dead Palestinians.
While Israel is not the first country to use the dead as a bargaining chip, the practice in Israel has lasted as long as the conflict itself, and has been utilized in myriad ways with the intention of humiliating, collectively punishing and bargaining with Palestinians.
During Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’ (1976-1983), tens of thousands of Argentinians ‘disappeared’. Students, intellectuals, trade unionists and thousands of other dissidents were killed by the country’s regime in an unprecedented genocide. The bodies of most of these victims were never recovered. However, the practice largely ceased following the collapse of the military junta in 1983.
Similar ordeals have been inflicted by other countries in many parts of the world. In Israel however, the practice is not linked to a specific military regime or a particular leader. The ‘desaparecidos’ of Palestine span several generations.
To this day, Israel maintains what is known as the ‘cemeteries of numbers’. Salwa Hammad, a coordinator for the Palestinian National Campaign to Retrieve Martyrs, estimates that there are six such cemeteries in Israel, although Israeli authorities refuse to divulge more details regarding the nature of these cemeteries, or exactly how many Palestinian bodies are buried there.
The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center estimates that 255 Palestinian bodies are buried in these cemeteries, 52 of them being ‘detained’ there by Israeli authorities since 2016.
In the ‘cemeteries of numbers’, Palestinians are known, not by name, but by a number, one that only Israel can cross-reference to the actual individual who is buried there. In 2011, the body of Hafez Abu Zant was released after being held in one of these cemeteries for 35 years, Bernama news agency reported.
According to Hammad, “If the remains are in a ‘cemetery of numbers’, we get it back in a black bag – some bones, some soil and maybe their clothes.”
Following the Israeli cabinet’s approval of his proposal, Gantz bragged about his ability to apply “an extensive policy of deterrence since entering office”. The truth is that Gantz is merely posturing and taking credit for a protracted Israeli policy that has been applied by all previous governments, regardless of their political orientations.
If Gantz is truly convinced that holding dead Palestinian bodies – while maintaining the Israeli military occupation – will bring about whatever skewed definition of peace and security he has in mind, he is sadly mistaken.
Such policies have proven a complete failure. While Palestinian families are absolutely devastated by this hideous practice, the detention of corpses has never quelled a rebellion, neither in Argentina nor in Palestine.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
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