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Democracy In A Full World

By Srestha Banerjee

02 March, 2011
Countercurrents.org

The “Arab Spring” protests in the past weeks as observed from Tunisia to the ongoing one in Libya, has stirred up a lot of discussion about dissent and democracy. Democracies being a fundamental tenet of modern society certainly makes it a cause to look up to expectantly, but two other statistics that are coming up alongside in the media regularly, are making it difficult to rejoice the rebellion in isolation. The two statistics I'm referring to are the rise in oil and food prices.

The wave of protests and political turmoil in nations across the Arab world has put a "fear premium" on oil prices, a commodity whose supply and demand now lie on a delicate balance following its use and abuse, and the price of which has been on a rising graph. For the first time since October 2008, oil prices have reached $100 a barrel (Mouawad and Krauss, 2011).

Just before the series uprising in the northern African and middle-eastern nations, another affair which continued to make headlines for quite sometime was the spike in global food prices. Rises in the price of several food commodities has been primarily attributed to increased consumption, tight supplies, unpredictable weather patterns, and crop diversion for biofuel. According to a report published by FAO and as indicated in the following figure, prices of many food commodities have been rising steadily since the middle of 2010 (FAO, United Nations, 2011).

 

Figure: Food Commodity Price Indices (Adapted from FAO, 2011)

The insurgences and demonstrations across the Middle East , directed toward governments in the region, has been attributed to a number of factors among which rising food prices have been indicated as to be a significant one. Now the rising oil prices in the global market following the unrest in the “ epicenter of global oil production” ( Mouawad and Krauss, 2011), can further contribute to the soaring food prices, given the preponderance of industrialized agricultural practices around the globe, the transportation of food commodities and the interlinking of economies. And unfortunately a “cause” that kindled the rebellion possibly will also be its side-effect in the near future, sensed not only in the region it originated, but far across borders.

Thus, as much as we remain cheerful about “people's power”, I wonder how long the cheer can be continued in face of such challenges of a full world! Will the joy of liberty in certain nations translate into woes of suffering of some others, where riot only means people's struggle to secure means for everyday sustenance! Well we will know better as events unfold. But one thing is certain, as much as the dominance of dictators is questionable in a today's world, without socio-economic stability an d assurance of basic resources; the sustenance of democracy becomes equally questionable.

References:

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. 2011. FAO Food Price Index. Accessed February 25, 2011 . Available at http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/

Mouawad, Jad and Krauss, Clifford. Feb 27, 2011 . Tremors from Libya Contribute to Oil Price Cycles . New York Times. Accessed February 27, 2011 . Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/business/global/28oil.html?src=busln

Srestha Banerjee is a PhD in Environmental from University of Delaware, Center for Energy and Environmental Policy and currently engaged on a project with Delta Institute, a Chicago based non-profit.

 

 

 

 


 




 


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