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Of Economics And Other Demons

By Sarosh Ali

26 November, 2015
Countercurrents.org

Event after event forebodes an upcoming crisis. And the gargantuan scale it reveals keeps getting even larger. From villages to states to countries. What next ? The powers that may be, assume that the random frustrations of the lower rungs of society shall never be consolidated enough to provide an obstruction to their well directed assault on life and our planet. Or have they calculated it all ? People talk about future complex, intelligent machines that may turn against their own masters in the final nemesis. I have a feeling we may never reach that point. The guns and bombs and tanks and aircrafts are enough to meet this end. And as it is the environment is exploding, while we keep earning economic brownie points for our masters.

The projected immediate problem at hand is ISIS, a rebel organization that has taken root in Iraq and Syria, its gross human rights violation, and its feeding on the resultant global paranoia. The context is a war going on in Syria and the recent related terror attacks in Paris. One reality is that the war mushroomed from a civil uprising, a part of the Arab Spring, in 2011, which later became a civil war that created opportunities for ideological groups to come in. ISIS, with its roots in the Iraq war, made its presence felt in Syria only around 2013.

The involvement of foreign powers in the Syrian civil war has been there right from its onset. With Russia, Iran, Iraq on the side of the Assad-regime whereas U.S., France, Britain and their Middle-Eastern allies on the side off the rebels, the situation hints at something bigger at stake. Starting in the form of funding, supplying ammunition and strategic advice, it has transformed into direct involvement through air-strikes and on both sides. Though, both sides call for action to eradicate ISIS, it keeps growing by the day, while Syrian people keep fleeing their land due to airstrikes and destruction of amenities.

The U.S. spends about 2.5 billion dollars every year of taxpayers money for the war in Syria. A 7.7 billion dollars of that, since 2011, has gone to the weapons industry for arms sale. Russia spends a 1.5 billion dollars per annum and has sold weapons worth 3 billion dollars since 2011. The story with E.U. and other stakeholders is not very different. A good way to funnel taxpayers money to special interests. But, that is still not the end of the story.

The Syrian economy, that was growing at a healthy rate prior to the war (though with drought like situation for the lower strata), is plummeting down by around 20% every year since the war, and will not have much to offer on its own to the global powers. There must be something more to grease these economies.

Large oil and natural gas reserves have been found in the Persian Gulf in the shared region of Iran and Qatar. An efficient way to supply it to Europe and to monopolize its oil and gas market would be to transport it through pipelines. There are two major proposed pipelines. One is the Qatar to Saudi Arabia to Jordan to Syria to Turkey pipeline. And the other is the Iran to Iraq to Syria to Lebanon to Mediterranean Sea to Greece pipeline. Syria is the common denominator which increases its strategic importance. The cost of the pipeline itself may run into around 6 billion dollars. The future business opportunity this will offer plays a major role in the security of special interests on both sides. Powers from both sides want an ally government in Syria, in order to capitalize on this.

All powers are bombing various parts of Syria to supposedly get rid of the menace of ISIS, when the only way to do it is to cut it off economically, by checking the 2 million dollar that ISIS makes every day, selling oil from Syria and Iraq to various markets through Turkey.

Syrians starting with a population of 23 million in 2011, around 50% have become refugees, about 6.5 million within the country and 5 million internationally, mostly in the neighbouring countries. The unemployment has soared as high as 60% and the population living below poverty line is 75%. The various countries that they immigrate to, accept refugees based on the nature of their own economy that may grow based on the appropriate number of second class citizens as a resource. This avalanche was triggered just by a civil demand for democratic state of affairs and protection of human rights, before which the country was like any other country enjoying well accepted legitimacy.

If we now consider the case of India, it is a democracy and is not plagued by any global war. However, a study conducted in Germany suggests that about 50 million people have been displaced within India by development projects in the past 50 years. That’s like a war torn Syria for about 20 consecutive years. Most of these people eventually land up at the fringes of cities and towns, where they can’t even pay for a decent amount of resource like water, already highly subsidized for the well to do (based on the cost it takes to get it from the same development projects).

People living in their traditional ecosystems are also deprived of these resources for the development projects, originally meant for them, but that doesn’t actually trickle down to their level. The population in India living below poverty line amounts to 21%. 60% of India’s population depends directly or indirectly on agriculture for their livelihoods. They are either no or small land holders. Dams with Hydroelectric power generation mainly cater to domestic or multinational industrial undertakings and urban needs, depriving these people of their essential water.

Low caste and tribals constitute about 25% of India’s population. Many of them that rely on forests and river systems are deprived of these resources for dams, mines and industries. The existing law of Land Acquisition makes it easy for the government to make this transaction. Corruption is rampant. And there might be a reform in near future which would make it even more draconian.

The Indian military budget is about 40 billion dollars out of which 6 billion is spent on imports. More than 50% of the armed forces are engaged in containing internal security threat. These threats generally arise due to various separatist movements and insurgency in deprived regions. A cumulative drought like situation since 2011 prevails in many parts of the country affecting a huge chunk of the agricultural population. In a time like this government is slashing welfare schemes for the poor by 25%.

The democratic discourse in the country is mainly on topics of the ideologies from the fascist like right to the appeasing center, from the coarse grained idea of development to similar idea of welfare for the poor. These are just distractions. The finer details which are most important now and which may lead to a just solution, are conveniently pushed under the rug. The forking is only a small region at the surface of the discourse. Both contenders are equally conducive to the global masters otherwise.

In the late 1990s, Indian government (as directed by World Bank and IMF) started liberalizing the agriculture market by pulling back subsidies and loans from needy farmers. At such a time, the benefits of genetically modified(GM) seeds were projected. In subsequent years, these seeds, even though expensive, monopolized the seed market as farm saved seeds were illegal to use. Debts kept piling up at higher interest rates. After a decent yield for a few years, the yield started to drop and the main reasons were scarcity of water and degradation of soil. This is another aspect of globalization. The farmers may be poor but they are a huge number in India to be a market on their own. About 250,000 have committed suicide since 1997.

The above two examples stand out quite well in the present economic and political narrative of the world. Let us now look at another example of a country that is passing away as nobody notices. Mongolia is a spacious country with the population of 3 million. In fact, it is the most sparsely populated country in the world. It is also one of the fewer countries left today where a major part (40%) of the population still pursues a traditional nomadic-pastoral lifestyle. It became democratic in 1990 and the government embraced a free-market economy. Still, about 38% of the total population is economically inactive. Owing to livelihood losses due to resource degradation, there is a major rural to urban migration taking place.

The Gobi desert is expanding at the rate of 10,000 sq.km every year. The countryside becomes more and more inhabitable as the frequency of ‘dzuds’ (white death) -- a phenomena of summer drought followed by extremely cold winter storms -- increases. Another factor of livelihood loss is the dying of large number of livestock due to extreme weather. Almost half the population now resides in the capital city of Ulan Bator, half of which live in the ‘ger’ (felt tent like houses) districts, where temperatures sometimes fall down to as low as -40 degree celsius. They burn coal to keep warm. The same coal is also used to generate power for urban and industrial setups. Ulan Bator is the world’s second most polluted city.

The population of Mongolia have a firm intention to stick to a traditional and sustainable lifestyle. But it is plagued with the resource curse. It has huge reserves of minerals (mainly copper and gold) the whole value of which is estimated to be 1.3 trillion dollars as opposed to Mongolia’s GDP of about 13.5 billion dollars. It is being projected that if all is utilized then every Mongolian can be a millionaire. But the policies of the mining interests (Russian, Rio Tinto, China) suggest they may even rob them of their many millennia long, non-surplus lifestyle. The major and long term factors such as desertification and dzuds are mainly due to climate change. But there is also a rapid degradation of water resources, grasslands and pollution levels due to the large scale mining, and its ancillary power generation from coal being taken place. Mongolia is one of the worst hit nations by climate change. The effect on health of children is appalling. The trend suggests Mongolia will be even more sparsely populated in the days to come.

The buzzword these days is ‘sustainability’ that is used very loosely by the mouthpieces of the powers that are. What they mean is sustainability of the economic conditions. It is an artificial construct, like money, which is like a bubble. And when it bursts we reset everything to start the same game again by bailing them out. It is only manifest in the real world by regulating institutions like the military. It is not that free a market after all. Globalization and wars fuel this bubble of economy which is all in the air. This economy won’t translate into life resources when needed. Climate change is a reality and a rise of 2 degree celsius will bring our whole planet into an irreversible fever. The actual thing we should look for is sustainability of life and our planet. For this, all of us who participate in driving the economy must question our master’s intentions. And we must brew the popular opinion towards a paradigm shift. Or evaporate quietly.

My name is Sarosh Ali. My educational background is in Theoretical Physics and I am also a Mathematics enthusiast. Presently, I am working as a freelance writer and an amateur ecologist. You can contact me at [email protected]

 

 



 

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