The Media, The People, And Why Nobody Can See The 'Invisible Hand'
By Max Kantar
05 May, 2007
Countercurrents.orgIf you read the news this past week, you would've learned that unprovoked 'thugs' armed with dynamite and guns attacked Chevron oil workers in the Niger Delta, Nigeria.
Mark Twain once said that "he who does not read the newspaper is uninformed. He who reads the newspaper is misinformed." More than 100 years later, his words couldn't be more true....
Ever since Nigeria's 1974 'independence,' transnational oil corporations like Shell and Chevron have been extracting oil from the Niger Delta whilst amassing enormous profit along the way. As one of the most bio diverse and natural resource rich nations in Africa, Nigeria would logically be an obvious target for the centers of capitalist dominance; the United States government and corporatocracy, World Bank, and IMF, to coerce and entice national 'leaders' with lofty projections of economic growth and promises of prosperity through mass construction of infrastructure and oil extraction intervention.
These international corporate contracts serve as a glowing example of the unexplainable, so called miracles of economic growth. Aside from a few elite families, the privatization of Nigerian oil in U.S. form has wreaked havoc on the local, and essentially, national population of Nigeria. American Oil companies are supported by, or are supporting, depending on how you look at it, the Nigerian military whose chief responsibility is to protect corporate oil interests by repressing the people's resistance and dissent to conditions put upon them by corporate exploitation.
Nigerians have been witness to gross environmental catastrophes in the Niger Delta, begetting the suppression of many people's means to survival through fishing and agriculture destruction. People have been displaced from their homes to make way for oil extraction, and the water supply in several areas has been destroyed. People are starving, thirsting, and medically neglected, all as a direct result of capitalist oil interests. Social spending is out of the question when the capitalist powers that be, demand debt repayment as the foremost priority. Given Nigeria's rich oil supply, it is amazing for it to continuously exist as one of the world's most impoverished nations. But alas, it is easy to see why the people of Nigeria are not reaping the
benefits of their national resources.Developing nations all over the world in Latin America, Southeast Asia, The Middle East, and Africa are being subjected to this economic imperialism by the centers of global capitalism. Multinational corporations, with the political support of (most often) the United States government, create plans and conjure up statistics that give commitment to and illusion of incredible social and economic growth. Multimillion and billion dollar loans are granted by international banks to carry out these grand plans that will undoubtedly enslave the country with perpetual debt. Debt for the less developed country serves as a great asset to the most developed nations such as the United States, who then has a free license to exploit labor and steal resources, as well as establish permanent military outlets and bases.
Those who refuse to play this game will endure similar fates like that of the Panamanian leader, Omar Torrijos, or in an even worse case, the Iraqi public. Large-scale military operation only exists to protect capitalist interests for the elite and to ensure global dominance. First world citizens are won over by their megalomaniacal governments by being told that those who resist oppression from the corporate driven market are evil communists, terrorists or 'hate us' for our 'freedom and democracy.'
Massive foreign and banking investment is rampant in resource rich underdeveloped countries, yet with no avail to the people as a whole, who do not sign these contracts, but pay the debt and its devastating marginal costs incurred by them. The World Bank and IMF so hopelessly continue to pretend to be institutions promoting 'economic growth' and fighting poverty, but yet they only serve to inflict (and profit from) debt and enforce it, for personal gains and empire maintenance and expansion.
In the age of neoliberal globalization, Nigeria is hardly the only country 'puzzled' by down spiraling poverty in the midst of the magical wonders of free trade agreements and classical economic growth principles. Yet, we have seen this show before; the wealthy are privy to ever increasing profit while the poor absorb the debt and remain, at best, stagnantly impoverished.
Ironically, the 'invisible hand' remains nowhere to be seen.And as for the so called 'thugs' who kidnaped and attacked Chevron oil workers in the Niger Delta? They were individuals from an organization called the "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta" whose membership base is made up completely of indigenous, poor people resisting the atrocities inflicted by the coporatocracy and its military backers. They are committed to an armed struggle to put the Niger Delta's oil in the hands of the people in an attempt to establish and solidify a base of economic stability and acceptable living standards for the population.
Don't let the capitalist media outlets or big neoliberal words about 'growth' and 'free trade' leave you misinformed about our role in the world, as Americans. If we don't like it, we can change it.
Max Kantar is an undergraduate of Sociology at Ferris State University. He can be contacted at [email protected]
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