We live in a world that’s been turned upside down for the benefit of a few already privileged big shots. It is a hostile place for billions of people across continents, for other species inhabiting the land, the sea and the air, and for what is called the plant kingdom. Its life-sustaining environment is being poisoned by man-made chemicals and what we like to think is development. We live in a world with a ravaged soul but most of us take it in our stride most of the time. Thank God there are those who resist, for the silver lining of hope still shines because of them.
There are times when the ugliness of the world created by those running it overwhelms me; the manufactured wars of plunder couched in humanitarian lies, the millions of innocent lives sacrificed at the altar of greed. It is depressing indeed that billions of dollars are used to corrupt fragile minds with hatred and to arm them with tools of violence. It is even more depressing that intelligent minds are willing to believe in lies and repeat them for their miserable pieces of the poisonous pie. They serve as the nuts and bolts in the corporate machine. In the media, they create a discourse of distraction. Happily they ride the empire’s bandwagon to hell.
It’s not just the deceptive wars which are ravaging the soul of humanity. It is also the poisoning of the bees and the birds for the sake of higher yields, high-tech harvests that cripple the farmers and spread disease. It is also the pseudo-science of GMOs and Big Pharma that push their half-baked inventions down the throats of unsuspecting consumers and patients. It is the trillions of tons of effluents polluting our fresh water streams and rivers, even underground water, so that some industrialists could make more money while the poor who depend upon that water suffer.
The fact that the voiceless poor are being displaced, robbed, oppressed and exploited is glossed over in the name of development. Their misery is buried under statistics of exports, growth rate and GDP. Those who are supposed to speak for them and to represent their interest are too busy climbing ladders to higher and higher privilege-clubs. They don’t believe their trickle-down rhetoric but keep repeating it to give people false hope. They’d like the poor to believe that salvation lies at the feet of their god of market democracy. Round and round the democracy bush, they’d like everyone to go.
It is the job of these peddlers of power dressed as people’s representatives to keep the broken myths of neo-liberal economics intact. They demonize the public sector and would like to divide the economy amongst themselves, their relatives and friends, cronies and front-men, in the name of efficiency. Providing for public welfare is not their duty but a favor they throw as kings, like crumbs to their subjects. For petty shares, commissions and kickbacks, they open up the doors of countries they are meant to serve for corporate plunder. They are the instruments of a globalized economy in which the poor are allowed subsistence if they are lucky.
The silver lining is that the charade of the empire, its princes and courtiers, is being exposed, and more and more people are connecting more and more dots. People with a conscience and integrity, yes they still exist, are blowing the whistle and writing books. While there might not be a concerted global effort yet, people are finding ways to resist the injustice and barbarity of the prevailing order, through established forums like the courts and on the streets. All over the world, groups and associations are challenging the lies and self-sustaining communities are cropping up.
Another important development is the convergence of these pockets of resistance. The Green groups fighting for the environment are finding common ground with the Left fighting for the poor. The organic farmers, minority groups, feminists, the unemployed and the homeless, the teachers and nurses, white-collar workers and blue-collar workers, the nuts and bolts in the heartless corporate machine, are coming together. The Syriza party that won the recent elections in Greece was a coalition of various such groups. The Podemos party which is expected to win the coming elections in Spain is similar. They might not have their act together yet, but they represent an emerging coherence among the resistance.
The same can be said about the China-Russia nexus which is pushing the world towards multi-polarity. It challenges the unilateralist badmashi of the evil empire that runs our world, and it has provided an impetus to the global resistance against imperial barbarity. Smaller countries trying to shield themselves from the greedy claws of the empire are gravitating towards this emerging pole. Though the new pole does not have all the answers to the savagery of the contemporary world order, it would at least slow down the military adventurism in and invasion of sovereign countries by the Nato combine, something that has brought death and destruction to huge chunks of our world.
Eventually, the worldwide resistance must address the deeper malaise embedded in our notions about a version of development that has no respect for our natural environment and other life forms that inhabit the earth with humans, development that does not recognize the importance of distribution of resources and looking after the weaker sections of our society. For it to be able to turn the world right ride up, the resistance must debunk the bible of neo-liberal economics and its canons of endless export-led growth and unsustainable and unjust patterns of globalization. It must break the monopoly of modern knowledge and its exclusive claims of being valid. It must question the core of hyper-materialism, its denial of the human spirit and the soul that permeates our planet, binding all life together.
The journey might be long, but it has certainly begun. The good news is that the pieces of a humane world order are all within our reach. All we need to do is put them together.