PENANG, Jul 30 (IPS) – The Malaysian government is unveiling an economic master-plan that it hopes will “revolutionise” farming and transform the economies of four northern states.Planners say the blueprint will raise farmers’ incomes but activists are concerned that it will instead make them more dependent on a small group of large corporations, which could take control of the entire food production chain from seed to retailing. Full article: Big top-down farm revival powered by business
NCER: Who benefits more – Sime Darby or farmers?
Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi has launched the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) masterplan. The masterplan was designed by Sime Darby although the project will be implemented by a regional coordinating authority.But Sime Darby is not a disinterested party. It is eyeing the seed market and planning to produce patented “mother seed” for 10 popular crops, which it wants to sell, along with fertilisers, to the farmers. Not only that, it will buy the farmers’ produce, process it and market it via Tesco (in which Sime Darby has a 30 per cent stake).When I contacted Jeyakumar Devaraj for comment, he told me, “It boggles the imagination that the government has come to the stage of contracting out the planning for poverty alleviation to a corporation whose primary aim is to maximise profits for shareholders.”He said that smaller farmers could end up being pushed out or turned into agricultural labourers. Those who cannot afford to buy the expensive feed/fertilisers and don’t have economies of scale will end up losing their land. They might end up as casual labourers or be forced to move to urban areas.“It is the invasion of corporate capital into the agriculture sector. We can see what they have done to the plantations sector: they have brought in cheap foreign labour to suppress wages below the poverty line. The same companies are moving into the traditional peasant sector.”He pointed to how the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli had developed plantations on Orang Asli land in the Sungai Siput area, but these are being run by private contractors who prefer to employ Indians and Bangladeshi labourers for agricultural work, leaving the Orang Asli without their land and their work.Sarojeni Rengam of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) was also concerned. PAN’s experience of contract farming in other Asian countries suggests that the quality of the crops in the first two years would probably be acceptable. “But after that, the produce is often rejected or bought over at reduced prices” – the excuse being failure to comply with quality control standards. QC would also be used to justify “calendar spraying” according to the time of year rather than based on the actual pest problem.Farmers may be given credit to buy proprietary seeds, pesticides and fertilisers, but this would be deducted from harvest revenue. ‘’If the produce is rejected, the farmers would be caught in a debt trap and find it impossible to survive.’’Charles Santiago, for his part, said Sime Darby has identified the problems but the solutions have not been well thought out. “Controlling the seeds and and reorganising rice production based on agrobusiness models will not solve the systemic problems.”“What is clear is that Sime Darby, a government-linked company, has been given the opportunity to further its investments in the country. …(and) the parties who control the seed will also control the livelihoods of the farmers.”This is the article I wrote for IPS:
Watch out for the BN ad agencies’ election media blitz
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine, a pensioner, received an unusual phone call from a woman he didn’t know.From the way he described it, it sounded like someone from a market research agency was trying to gauge public opinion and sentiment. The woman asked him if it was okay if she took 20 minutes to ask a few questions.Among the questions:
- What do you think of the Northern Corridor Economic Region plan?
- Are you happy with your recent pension increment? (He replied no, he still finds it hard to cope with the rising cost of living.)
- What do you think of Penang Chief Minister Dr Koh’s performance?
- Who do you think would make a suitable successor?
- What do you think of Keadilan?
- What do you think of Anwar?
- Would you be comfortable with Pas ruling the country?
- Do you think Visit Malaysia Year will help the economy?
- Who do you normally vote for?
In this advertising and marketing game, voters are reduced to unsuspecting consumers whose minds should be moulded and manipulated into buying the “product.” In this game, the BN is the brand, the dacing is the brand logo, the tag line is “Excellence, Glory, Distinction”, and the emotion they are trying to create is “feel good”. The principal “product” is of course, Abdullah Badawi, and the product attributes highlighted are the images of him as an anti-corruption crusader fighting against formidable odds, a man who listens to the people, etc.
It worked, didn’t it?Now I am wondering who first thought of those tag-lines “Work with me, not for me” and “Cemerlang, Gemilang, Terbilang“. And was it any wonder that Abdullah focussed on combating corruption and reforming the police as the main planks of his programme.I wonder if the Barisan Nasional has already appointed its ad agencies for the coming election and if they have already begun their “market research” to find out the issues that matter to you and me so that they can better mould public opinion through their next election media blitz.
Unable to access Malaysia Today; Keng Yaik warns bloggers
What’s going on? I am unable to access Malaysia Today, the website that has shaken up Malaysia, from up here in Penang at 7.30 pm today. It’s been like that for a few hours now. (It was back online when I checked at 10.45 pm – but downloading pages inside is still kinda slow.)Meanwhile, I caught Minister Lim Keng Yaik, wearing his Multimedia portfolio hat, on the 8 pm news issuing a stern, blustering warning to bloggers. I didn’t quite catch what he was warning them about, but he looked suitably serious. It all looks ominous enough.Anyway, Mustafa and I have released a statement on the implications of the interrogation of Malaysia Today webmaster Raja Petra:
Charter 2000-Aliran is deeply disturbed by recent developments that could restrict the space for freedom of expression over the Internet and curb the democratic right of bloggers to air their opinions. It is especially worrying because the Internet is one of the few avenues left for concerned Malaysians to freely express views and gain access to information that is normally not carried in the mainstream media. Full statement: Raja Petra’s interrogation: Striking fear among bloggers?
How The Star watered down my water article
When I was invited by The Star to write a piece on water in June, I hesitated. Knowing how steeped The Star was in promoting corporate interests, I wondered whether the article I would write would emerge unscathed (without cuts).
My concerns were not unfounded. When I submitted my completed article, the first thing The Star editor asked me was whether he could drop the bit about YTL Corp. No reason given. I was dumbfounded. What I had said about YTL was public knowledge and had even been reported in the business press.
I was disappointed but reluctantly agreed, as I thought three lines wouldn’t make much difference to the overall thrust and tone of my article. In fact, it wasn’t the most critical of articles; it was rather tame, I thought. Still, I wanted to get the message across that corporations were attempting to profit from water and that water – the resources, related infrastructure and management – should remain firmly in public hands.
When the tame article was finally published, to my horror, I found that more bits and pieces had been left out to water it down further. Anything remotely critical of corporations had been left out. I expressed my displeasure to The Star’s editor in an email:
“I was a disappointed that more bits were left out than just the few lines on YTL that you had indicated. In particular, the reference to the comparison between Thames Water and the Sri Lankan water authority was important, I felt, to show that state-managed water authorities could do just as well, if not better, that private firms.
“So too the mention that civil society resistance had helped to slow down the water privatisation agenda, especially in the Malaysian case, the Coalition Against Water Privatisation.”
The editor apologised and tried to explain:
“I only took out the YTL part but the subs removed these paras because of space constraint. they had to fit into that hole. i hope u understand as a journalist that it is just not possible to use in full as much as we want to. possibly the subs could have taken out the less relevant parts and in this case a matter of judgement.”
I don’t buy that argument about space constraints.
From the way The Star edited (or rather chopped) my piece, I can deduce the following:
- Anything remotely critical of corporations will not see the light of day in The Star.
- You can talk about general stuff, but it is a big no-no to give specific examples that cast particular corporations or the private sector in a negative light.
- You cannot talk about how civil society protests – such as the campaign organised by the Coalition Against Water Privatisation – forced the government to back off on its direct water privatisation efforts.
- You cannot talk about how corporations are now adopting the indirect approach to water privatisation – away from the gaze of the public eye.
- You cannot give examples of how the public sector can actually perform more efficiently than private corporations if they are given the right resources.
- It is not polite to remind readers that the over-riding goal of corporations is profit maximisation at all costs.
I reproduce my article in full below with the omitted sections in bold. You be the judge.
Opinion
Wednesday June 13, 2007by Anil Netto
Water is essential for our survival. It is also a gift from God. Water resources therefore belong to all of humanity and no group or organisation can claim that it belongs to them, much less use it to seek profits at the expense of the people.
There was a time when no firm was interested in water. Those were the days when water was plentiful, relatively unpolluted, and not seen as a “commodity”.
But as “development” degrades catchment areas, as rivers become polluted and as industry consumes ever greater quantities of water, clean water has become increasingly scarce. With greater scarcity likely to lead to higher water tariffs, private corporations have been eyeing water as a potentially lucrative industry”.
Notice how the corporate sector has changed the terminology: water has now become a commodity vulnerable to the profit-motive.
But water is still a public resource belonging by right to all humanity. It is still essential to our survival.
What has changed though is that private firms have gone into the “water industry” – and many of them have got their hands burnt. Major multinational water companies suffered spectacular losses and failures in places such as Manila, Jakarta and Buenos Aires.
They now realise that the only money to be made is from water treatment and contracts for the supply of infrastructure. There is little money to be made from the distribution network. Many firms now realise it is not easy to make quick profits while keeping tariffs low and improving the management of water resources.
Certainly the water privatisation agenda has slowed and Malaysia has proved to be no exception. This is also due to civil society’s anti-privatisation movement – the Coalition Against Water Privatisation, in the Malaysian case – which has resisted the takeover of water management by private interests.
It is in this light that we should view the recent announcement by Minister of Energy, Water and Communications, Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, that no more water concessions would be given out.
The government says it is now open to the idea of state governments entering into joint ventures with those who have the expertise to improve water services to provide better services.
We should be wary this does not merely cater to corporate interests who are still eyeing the water “industry” and trying to enter through the back door – a sort of quiet “back-door privatisation”.
To be sure, multinationals and private corporations are now focusing on more stable markets with less risky contract arrangements. They are going into joint ventures with local partners and keeping a low profile to avoid public resistance to the takeover of water resource. New players are entering the field through private equity funds and water infrastructure contracts.
The big money is now in the infrastructure development and even the preservation of the eco-system. Notice how YTL won a RM1 billion contract to clean up Malaysia’s polluted rivers – with the first phase focussing on a 7 km stretch of the Klang River – without an open tender.
In the first place, before cleaning up the rivers, won’t it make more sense to go after those who are polluting them? Do we really need YTL to tell us who the main culprits are and can the firm really solve the problem of river pollution in the country?
There is little evidence to show that private firms are any more efficient in providing clean affordable water to the public. If anything, the record shows that publicly managed water resources can be just as efficient – if not more effective – than private corporations, if they are given the necessary financial and human resources and powers backed by political will.
A couple of years ago, the British-based Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) revealed in a study that the greater city of Colombo in Sri Lanka, where water was publicly managed, had a water leakage level of only 23 per cent compared to a leakage level of 35 per cent for the area of London covered by Thames Water plc, a huge multinational involved in water privatisation projects in developing nations.
The government now says it is planning to combine water supply and treatment to lower the cost and tariffs. This is nothing new. Weren’t the state water authorities doing this all along – combining water treatment and distribution – before the private firms came along and hived off the profitable water treatment part of the network?
We should also question the move to “corporatise” state water authorities. Running a water authority like a corporation has its plus points. The managers become more cost conscious and they will try to plug leaks as the bottom line will reflect on their performance.
But there are serious drawbacks. The over-riding goal of a corporation is profit maximisation. Apart from cost reduction, the other way to increase profits is boosting revenue. And the way to boost revenue is to try and get more people to consume more water.
But how to boost profits and conserve water at the same time? In a corporatised water entity, there is no incentive to promote water conservation among the public for that would eat into the bottom line and reduce profits. In the end, we end up with only lip service to water conservation.
This is a major reason why water authorities should not be run as corporations. Shouldn’t we be actively encouraging water conservation even if it results in reduced profits for the state water authorities?
A UN planning document is now trying to implement a Water Operators Partnership, which stresses transparency and accountability.
Instead of focusing on public-private partnerships, we should strengthen the public sector by exploring public-public partnerships. There is plenty of expertise in the public sector, even in Malaysia, where many state authorities can learn from the experience of successful authorities such as the Penang water authority, for instance. Communication among these state authorities should be improved and these partnerships should operate on a not-for-profit basis.
Unions and experienced water utility workers and managers must be involved and consulted in the quest to improve water resource management. People’s participation in water authorities must be encouraged through a participatory decision-making model before any major investments are made.
Public sector water authorities could also partner or enter into twinning arrangement with their foreign public sector counterparts to exchange ideas on best practices.
To reiterate, water is a gift from God, and the supply of this increasing scarce resource should be seen a as public service with all that entails, with no room for profiteering.
Anil Netto is a freelance writer and social activist based in Penang
Minimum wage more effective than NEP equity targets
As we all know, the two main prongs of the New Economic Policy are to wipe out poverty across the board and to restructure society so that no one ethnic group is stereotyped with a particular occupation – which in effect largely meant lifting the bumiputera community above the poverty line and into the ranks of the middle class.Now, wouldn’t it be great if there was a policy measure that could kill both these “birds” with one stone? Well, there is – but it is the one measure that the government is loathe to introduce and has dismissed out of hand. It is a minimum wage for all workers.A minimum wage would do wonders to reduce the poverty rate. Low-income workers would have to be paid wages that are above the poverty line. In fact, a minimum wage would be a far more effective tool in redistributing income in favour of the poor. And who are these poor? Many of them are economically disadvantaged Malays, who are supposed to be the main beneficiaries of NEP affirmative action policies aimed at reducing inter-ethnic disparities. A minimum wage would not only help to alleviate overall poverty, it would also uplift genuinely poor Malays across the board instead of concentrating wealth in a smaller group of bumiputeras who are the prime beneficiaries of the 30 per cent equity target. As the academic who spoke to me in my article for IPS below said, ”If the government is really serious about closing the inter-ethnic income gap, an effective way to do so would be to see that those at the bottom get a better income (through a minimum wage) — not screaming and shouting about shares in companies and ownership of commercial buildings, both of which are out of reach of the vast majority of the people.” Based on the law of supply and demand, we would have expected wages to rise as we neared full employment and as labour grew scarce. But there was a deliberate move to subvert the so-called “free market” by bringing in migrant workers, who are paid a pittance and who are more vulnerable to exploitation. You see, the so-called “free market” is only allowed to operate when it suits the interests of the corporate class.So why hasn’t the government introduced a minimum wage? Could it be that it is more interested in protecting the interests of investors and the corporate elite? But the academic also raised the following pertinent point: “Why is the government so concerned about the views of foreign investors on this matter, but not when it comes to, e.g., mandated shares in companies? Why is the government so solicitous over the privileges of the few, but not of the millions. Plus, what evidence is there that foreign investors come here because of wages – if low wages were a major concern, how come foreign investors are not rushing to Indonesia in droves?”He also pointed out that the share of wages in value-added in the manufacturing sector has dropped from around 30 per cent to around 20 per cent. “This means that workers have not gotten their share of the increase in productivity as measured by value-added per worker. This is one reason for the increased in inequality in the country.”But will a minimum wage affect small enterprises in the country?To this, the academic responded that we need to ask:(a) Does the government know how many small enterprises there are and what proportion of the total employed are in them?(b) Do we really want such low productivity-low wage enterprises in the sense that do they really contribute to the country’s development?(c) If it is deemed necessary to protect these small enterprises, couldn’t we design legislation to exempt specific categories on justifiable grounds (after all, there is the ICA, there are the turnover limits on the sales tax, etc.)?But will a minimum wage jeopardise the country’s economy? “The evidence that is in is that it won’t, if combined with policies that encourage a shift to higher productivity sectors and with training programmes for workers in these very low-wage jobs,” said the academic.Well, here is the article I wrote:
PENANG , Jul 17 (IPS) – Malaysia’s umbrella trade union body is pressing ahead with its campaign for a minimum wage despite the government’s stand that such a benchmark would put off foreign investors seeking a low-cost environment. The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) has stepped up its eight-year-long campaign, which would mainly benefit private sector workers, after the government awarded hefty pay rises to civil servants in May that lifted junior-ranking staff above the official poverty line. Full article: Forget investors, fix minimum wages – unions
Sir Humphrey, the OSA and Nathaniel Tan
There is a line in the hit political satire series “Yes, Minister” where the pompous Sir Humphrey explains the real reason for the archaic Official Secrets Act in the UK: “The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets, it is to protect officials.”Well, they say truth is stranger than fiction but sometimes satire has a ring of truth to it.And the way the Keadilan webmaster Nathaniel Tan was arrested – including the cat-and-mouse game the cops played with his lawyers – reminds me of another group of on-screen characters: the Keystone Cops.I have never met Nat before but, for the life of me, I can’t imagine what secret he might have revealed that could so endanger the security of our nation. I wonder what ol’ Humphrey would have made of it.So, come on guys, have a heart, let Nat go…And while you are at it, free all those ISA detainees in Kamunting unconditionally – there are close to a hundred of them, some of them in detention for almost six years – or charge them in court. They have suffered enough.And don’t forget all those others detained without trial – including migrant workers, asylum seekers and refugees held in immigration detention camps. Release them or charge them in court and allow them full legal representation. And for God’s sake, stop caning these poor people.Show us you have some sense of decency and fair play, some respect for basic rights.Otherwise, some people might think that Nat’s detention is, among other things, the opening shot in a larger crackdown against bloggers ahead of the coming general election. Not good at all for a government purportedly promoting a moderate approach to Islam.
Hidden world of clinical trials in Malaysia
Some years ago, I read a John Le Carre novel, The Constant Gardener, later turned into a motion picture, about the intrigue surrounding a multinational company conducting clinical trials on unsuspecting Africans who were used as guinea pigs to test a remedy for tuberculosis.In the Afterword to his book, Le Carre observed: “As my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realise that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard.”But that was not why I wrote this piece (below) on clinical trials in Malaysia though Le Carre’s story has remained in the deeper recesses of my mind. What prompted me though was a pamphlet from InvestPenang, the Penang state government’s investment arm, which slipped into my hands. The pamphlet was obviously not intended for ordinary Malaysians like you and me.From the language used, it was clear that the message was aimed at potential foreign BigPharma investors who might be interested in carrying out clinical trials in Malaysia, among other things. The pamphlet touted the country’s ‘‘ethnically heterogeneous” population and proudly claimed that ‘’Malaysians are still drug naïve”. I kid you not…
Everyone I called in the private sector seemed reluctant to divulge much information. It was as if there was an unwritten oath of secrecy behind such trials. Company officials and private hospital staff seemed to be well-schooled in the art of avoiding prying eyes.When I called up Pfizer’s top officials in Malaysia to ask if it was indeed true that Viagra was being tested on children with pulmonary arterial hypertension (high pressure in the blood vessels to the lungs), they were tight-lipped and reluctant to sing. Finally, posing as the parent of such a child, I was able to find out from Info Kinetics, the company carrying out the trials, that a dozen children are believed to be involved in the ongoing trials. I was told that the possible side effects of Viagra on the subjects include bluish vision similar ‘‘to the effect of (seeing through) a blue filter”, depending on the dosage given. In this piece for IPS, I tried to lift the cloak of secrecy that shrouds clinical trials in Malaysia.
PENANG, Malaysia, Feb 2 (IPS) – Eyeing the expanding market for clinical research in the region, Malaysia is trying to position itself as an ideal place for pharmaceutical majors to conduct clinical trials. But critics worry about weak safeguards and poor enforceability of existing regulations. Indeed, the local population’s lack of sophistication about clinical trials appears to be one of the selling points. Full article: Rat race on for clinical trials bonanza
“Hell, the whole Bakun Dam catchment is under logging”
I was shocked when I saw aerial images of logging access roads criss-crossing the Bakun catchment area and photographs of forests being cleared for conversion to plantations. Mind you, the aerial images are a few years old, so things could only have got worse. How could logging and conversion to plantations be allowed in and near the Bakun catchment area especially when billions of ringgit have already been pumped into the construction of the dam – not to mention the impact of deforestation on climate change.The degradation of the catchment area for the Bakun Dam in Sarawak will only worsen sedimentation in rivers flowing into the dam, cutting into its useful life span. That, in turn, brings into question the viability of a multibillion-dollar submarine cable to bring Bakun power to the peninsula – for which Malaysia is reportedly set to borrow RM9 billion from Japan. Do the investors and lenders know what they are getting into?These concerns are highlighted in a piece I wrote for Asia Times Online:
Recent reports of environmental degradation have cast a shadow over the viability of Malaysia’s US$2 billion Bakun Dam project and a related multibillion-dollar submarine cable system, which, if completed as proposed, would be the longest such electrical connection in the world. Full article: New doubts over Malaysia’s Bakun Dam
“Misfits” not invited to globalisation party
We can see them everywhere, if only we care to look more closely: the cleaners, the security guards, the check-out counter staff, the domestic maids, the exploited migrant workers – all trying to earn enough to make ends meet.
Increasingly, the lower-middle class too is being squeezed as wages barely keep up with the rising cost of living.
As neo-liberal economics and “free markets” take hold, the public is being converted from taxpayers entitled to decent public services to “customers” and “consumers”. The doctrine that is brainwashed into the minds of the public is “if you want quality service, you have to pay for it”. The concept of a progressive tax system (higher taxes from the rich to cross-subsidise the poor who pay minimal or no taxes) to finance essential services such as health care, water and education is tossed out of the window.
Instead, the government cuts taxes for the rich as well as corporation taxes for profitable firms. This is one of the ways the rich get richer and the gap between the rich and the poor grows wider.
That’s not all: the government often argues it has no money to fund essential services for the poor: no unemployment benefits, no money to build more shelters for the homeless, no money for critical care hospices in all major towns, no money to upgrade our under-funded and understaffed general hospitals.
In this excerpt from a piece I wrote for the Herald, I pointed out that corporate media propaganda bombards us with images of a utopian society in which people drink RM9 cups of latte while clicking away on their laptops using wireless broadband.
Fast cars, a borderless world, the sky’s the limit.
Except if you happened to be a “misfit”. Then, no matter how hard you try, such a world is simply beyond your grasp. You are dumped on the streets.
You see, corporate-led globalisation creates this image of a utopian world where our every desire is fulfilled (although other new desires are constantly being stirred – for that is how the huge corporations create demand for their ever-newer range of products).
But the problem is, although everyone can see these utopian images over the corporate media, not everyone can gain access into this utopian world or fulfil the desires that have been stirred.
That’s when we see people trying to take short-cuts – corruption, greed, the cutting of corners – while resentment at being left out simmers. The crime rate soars as some of those who are left out try to gatecrash into the utopian party. Sorry, not invited. Many of them land up in jail. Some turn to drugs and alcohol.
Soon the prisons and detention centres fill up with petty criminals, drug abusers, robbers, undocumented workers. On the other hand, the white-collar criminals in business suits – who may be involved in larger sums of corruption, theft and environmental destruction – rarely land up in jail. Perhaps they are more efficient in covering up their tracks and putting on a business-friendly face.
And so the rich and the middle-classes complain that the crime rate is worrying. They hire their own security guards, retreat into gated communities with high walls, and look over their shoulders while at ATM machines.
It’s a lot easier to blame the rising crime rate on “foreign workers”, isn’t it? But try connecting the neo-liberal globalisation dots and we might see a different picture.
Rommel, the NEP and the EU’s hidden agenda
When writing the piece below for IPS, I spoke to economist Charles Santiago, who told me that non-Malays are so tired of the discrimination under the NEP that many of them would support FTAs with the US and the EU. “But they have to keep in mind the larger implications of an FTA, which means that whether you are a Chinese, Malay or Kadazan businessman or woman, you will face stiff competition from TNCs who are technologically superior,” he warned. ”It will be a takeover of our businesses in the long run.””There is a hidden agenda here,’‘ he added. ”They (EU officials) are in effect saying, ‘You guys open up your economy so that our European investors can take over your market’.”Rommel’s salvo on the NEP is an opening shot across the bow as EU-Asean FTA negotiations get under way in Vietnam in July and perhaps reflects underlying frustration that Malaysia is holding out on signing a pre-agreement.But in many ways, the NEP vs FTA choice is a false option. We all know that the NEP is deeply flawed and divisive, based as it is on race-based considerations that only serve to entrench Umno in power through a politics of patronage.That does that mean we do not need a wide-ranging policy – call it what you will – to uplift the economic position of the many Malaysians – including ethnic minority and marginalised groups – who continue to be left out of “development”. A genuine and just affirmative action policy would be one based on need and socio-economic position – not race.It is naive to believe that an FTA would prove beneficial to Malaysia in the long-run. One need only look at Mexico’s experience with Nafta and the Mexico-EU FTA to discover that the promises of liberalisation and so-called “free trade” are illusory.In truth, (as we have seen with US/Nafta-led free-trade strategies in Central America), an FTA will deliver nothing favourable for Asean, the wider society or, most notably, the poorest within that society, the Glasgow-based political scientist and author John Hilley told me.Instead, those most immediately affected, in our case the Malays and non-Malays, have to recognise the false options of domestic protectionism versus open-door trading trade being promoted here – which he says is a contrived agenda which, in turn, has led to divisive positions on the NEP.So what is the alternative? “The real task, local, regional and global, is to reject the diversionary language of neo-liberal solutions and, as in Latin America, build alternative trading arrangements and coalitions that are about advancing the interests of people rather than big business and their political advocates,” Hilley stressed. In short, we need an economic framework that puts the interests of ordinary people over big business.
PENANG, Malaysia, Jun 27 (IPS) – Unexpected criticism of Malaysia’s race-based affirmative action policy by the European Union’s top envoy reveals underlying concerns that this could be a stumbling block to unrestricted market access for European multinational firms in the region, say analysts.Envoy Thierry Rommel’s remarks are being seen as the opening salvo ahead of talks for a free trade agreement (FTA) between the EU and the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) that begin in July. Full article: Trade fears fuel EU criticism of race-based policy
Locking ourselves in and throwing the key away
The comments by the head of the European Commission delegation to Malaysia, Thierry Rommel, have triggered a storm a controversy with a lot of attention focused on the New Economic Policy. He said the rationale for expressing his concerns over the pro-bumiputera affirmative action policies was in relation to FTA negotiations between the EU and Asean.It is the first time that the negotiations for the EU-Asean FTA have been highlighted in the media. And they signal disagreements behind closed doors over how to resolve NEP-related issues so that the FTA can be signed.Non-Malays and opposition leaders who have welcomed Rommel’s remarks are missing the point. To be sure, the NEP has many serious flaws, but it has also been a major stumbling block in the negotiations for FTAs, not only with the EU but also with the United States. FTA negotiations with the United States, for instance, have been bogged down over key issues such as NEP policies on government procurement and whether it should be open to foreign firms.
This impasse could be a blessing in disguise and buy us a little time. In this piece for the Herald in February, I argued that an FTA deal with major developed nations/blocs such as the United States, Japan and the EU would lock Malaysia into a system that promotes neo-liberal economics – liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation. And once we sign those agreements, we would be effectively throwing the key away.
Make no mistake, the US and EU are not interested in whether the NEP is discriminatory to non-Malays or beneficial for the Malaysian economy. Rather US and EU trade negotiators are more interested in making it easier for giant multinational corporations to enter the country and take control of the local economy, to flood the country with their goods. They want to entrench the rights of American and European investors ahead of the interests of the local economy including the SMEs. Instead of Malaysia becoming self-sufficient and promoting energy and food security, for instance, we will find ourselves increasingly locked into the vagaries of the unsustainable global economic system even as the very planet is threatened by global warming and rising sea levels.
…by signing an FTA, we would be locking ourselves into the global neo-liberal capitalist system and piggy-backing on the United States (and the EU). We would be saying “yes” to a future society ruled by multinational corporations, to a society where the income gap between the rich and the poor will grow even wider.Crucially, we will deny ourselves the chance to pursue alternative, more independent economic paths or visions. We will deny ourselves the opportunity to move towards “Small is Beautiful” – to decentralise the economy, to create self-sufficiency among local communities, to move towards traditional organic farming instead of large-scale pesticide-driven agro-business ventures.
Instead, we will be locked into a system that promotes economic growth ad infinitum. We will become more and more dependent on rapidly depleting fossil fuels. And when that runs out, we will start playing Russian roulette with nuclear energy. All the while, we will neglect research into cleaner alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power.
Of course, if we sign an FTA and go down the “free market” Malaysia Inc road, we will never question the wisdom of a system of perpetual economic growth that fails to reach the most marginalised communities.
…
Sadly, our economic planners think economic growth is the solution to all our woes. Even among many opposition politicians, there is this suffocating mindset. There is this glaring inability to think of alternatives to the corporate-led globalisation model that empowers huge firms while dehumanising workers.
At most, the politicians and economists might tinker with this model by trying to add a so-called ethical, humane dimension but they would never think of questioning it.
When we are faced with a water shortage, they ask individual Malaysians to conserve water. But they would never dream of asking corporations and businesses to save water – simply because “it does not compute”. The whole premise of our economic system is based on the assumption that market forces alone will be able to balance a mismatch between supply of and demand for resources through pricing. But what happens when the resources themselves run out or become degraded?At the end of the day, no matter how much you try to soften a deeply flawed, unjust economic model, the poor will continue to suffer and the earth will continue to be degraded and polluted. That is because the system is oppressive and designed to profit the corporations at the expense of ordinary workers and the environment. The system undermines the dignity of the human being while promoting the interests of capital. It is a system – propped up by corporate propaganda over the media – that is almost totalitarian in its lack of tolerance for dissenting views.
Death of a migrant worker
Malaysians are so riveted by the Altantuya murder case that they didn’t notice that another foreign national has died in Malaysia in mysterious circumstances. Well, I wouldn’t blame them as the news went unreported in the local media.Vipin V Nair was found hanged in a budget hotel room in George Town, Penang earlier this month. What drove a young man from India to take his life in a foreign land?Sadly, even if we had heard about it, I doubt if the news would have raised any eyebrows. After all, he was “just a migrant worker”. No big-time political intrigue, no political powerplay.But if we care to look deeper, we will see that many migrant workers are victims of exploitation, cheating and deception. Many parties stand to make a lot of money from the recruitment of foreign workers into Malaysia. Think about it: you have recruitment agents’ fees and other costs in their home countries, Fomema charges for medical tests, higher general hospital charges for medical treatment, annual foreign workers’ levies and of course low wages once they arrive here. That doesn’t include the bribes and extortion rackets that some foreign workers encounter along the way.Most of us look the other way and turn a blind eye to such exploitation and a deaf ear to their cries of anguish. After all, the attitude is as long as we can live in prosperity, why bother? Never mind if there are others who suffer in the process.Here is the story I wrote of Vipin and his friends and their experience in Malaysia:
PENANG, Jun 19 (IPS) – He died a lonely death in a budget hotel room in downtown George Town earlier this month, far away from home. The death went unreported in the local media and unnoticed by most Malaysians.But what drove this worker from India in his mid-20s to take his life, assuming there was no foul play? Undertakers told IPS that the death certificate indicated the cause of death as hanging. His body was sent home to India on June 10. Full article: Death of a migrant worker
Oil wars and nuclear nightmares
What happens when one day you go to the petrol station and find that there is no more petrol? One of the main worries in many countries these days is that the oil is running out.
All the while, political leaders and corporate tycoons will avoid addressing the principal issue that can slow down global warming and save fast-depleting oil and gas reserves. That is, they will avoid questioning our model of economic growth. For that would mean looking at corporations and the powerful influence they have in brain-washing entire populations that their activities are sustainable.
We are going down a road that is not sustainable and can only lead to darkness and chaos in the future. Let us do something about our wasteful lifestyles. Let us question the power and influence of corporations and the assumption of unending economic growth before the oil dries up and we are forced into a nuclear energy nightmare.
In this piece for the Herald in February, I argued that our economic growth model is seriously flawed:
Rather than turning to conservation and looking at other alternative sources of energy such as solar and wind-power, we are hell bent down the path of producing and consuming even more. That is not surprising given that our whole political-economic-corporate edifice rests on that basic assumption, which is never questioned, of annual economic growth ad infinitum.
Energy Minister Lim Keng Yaik says there is a need to diversify our energy sources, but that does not address the energy requirements of the next generation of Malaysians.
The scary thing is that more and more countries will be tempted to resort to nuclear energy when the oil, gas, coal and hydropower is not enough to meet people’s unquenchable demand.
Even in Malaysia, already we can hear talk of nuclear energy as a possible future source, although Lim dismissed the possibility of that in the immediate future especially in view of the surplus electricity from Bakun Dam in Sarawak. Plans are underway for surplus electricity from Bakun to be channelled via undersea cables to the peninsula while the rest will be taken up by energy-guzzling and polluting aluminium smelter plants in Sarawak. (That is another debacle, too long to go into in this piece.)
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Meanwhile, we see the United States already involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now they are sending 20,000 more troops to Iraq while the thump of war drums for a possible strike against Iran grows louder. Some analysts say that the US military will pretty soon be turned into a force to protect its energy security needs, including oil wells and pipelines around the world.
Alliances will be formed between countries to address their energy needs and countries will be forced to take sides. We saw how upset a top United States lawmaker was when he found out that a Malaysian firm was involved in a huge energy deal with Iran to develop offshore gas fields in south-eastern Iran and establish liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants. So upset was he that he called on the US administration to suspend discussions for a Free Trade Agreement between Malaysia and the United States. This just goes to show that by signing an FTA, Malaysia would be expected to fall in line with the United States not only in trade matters but also with larger US “strategic goals” anywhere in the world. Meaning, their enemies will become our enemies.
Size does matter: Small is beautiful
We are told Bigger is Better. Big Airports, Big Bridges, Big Corporations, Big Shopping Malls, Big Dams, Bigger Banks, Bigger Plantation Firms, Bigger Highways (oh, what a nuisance, the oil is running out though) and even Big Agriculture. And we measure our well-being by how much we earn (and consume) – as in Per Capita Income levels – and how much more we can produce (the Gross Domestic Product or economic growth rates). We rarely factor into the equation the damage done to the environment or the loss of scarce natural resources.
And everywhere people are working to feed the unquenchable System, which it turn feeds our materialistic and consumerist desires. As a result, many Multinational Corporations today are richer and more powerful than some of the developing countries.
We have talked a lot about this Big Neo-Liberal Economic System. It is a system aided and abetted by politicians and their cronies, who are driven by greed and corruption to further deplete the world of its resources.
The System is decaying, though. The Pax Americana world we live in is tottering, the US dollar highly vulnerable, due to the massive financial deficits in the United States. The dollar is only propped up by demand for US dollars from developing countries and their external reserves maintained in dollars, but that could change as more nations switch to the euro currency.
The housing bubble in the United States is bursting and this could lead to a sharp slowdown in the US economy, precipitating a crisis of sorts. In the Middle East, America is stuck in a quagmire and could worsen matters by taking some sort of military action against Iran, which could overstretch its armies. Faced with the twin threat of global warming and imperial overstretch, the US-influenced global Empire is about to come unstuck.
But what is the alternative to this Empire, you might well ask? In this excerpt from an article I wrote for the Herald, I tried to show that the only way out of the crisis facing humanity today is to adopt simplicity and renunciation as guiding principles in all areas of life and to use small local solutions wherever possible.
First of all, we have to be convinced that…a system based on materialism and greed goes against the basic principles of the Gospel (and for that matter, Buddhist teachings). Think of the call to renunciation (“Sell all your possessions and come, follow me”), simplicity (“The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”), and sharing of possessions (The Feeding of the Multitude).
We cannot rely on nation states or national politicians alone to significantly reform such a system – because for the most part, many of them are deeply mired in and compromised by the System. Maybe that is why many people in the developed world, sensing this, have withdrawn from politics, thus contributing to low voter turnouts at elections.
Concerned people and communities must act to bring about the change we want. But what sort of change do we want?
“Small is Beautiful”. That happens to be the title of a series a path-breaking books by Schumacher. No, not the Formula One driver, but E F Schumacher, an economist.
“Ever bigger machines, entailing ever bigger concentrations of economic power and exerting ever greater violence against the environment, do not represent progress: they are a denial of wisdom,” he observed. “Wisdom demands a new orientation of science and technology towards the organic, the gentle, the non-violent, the elegant and beautiful.”
“Man is small and therefore, small is beautiful,” he famously declared.
Heavily influenced by Buddhist economics from his travels to Burma, Schumacher believed that people needed good work to achieve holistic human development. “Production from local resources for local needs is the most rational way of economic life,” he said.
He was also greatly influenced by Catholicism. Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and the thoughts on distributivism by Catholic thinkers such as G K Chesterton resonated with Schumacher’s own thoughts on socio-economic justice. In 1971, Schumacher converted to Catholicism.
Today, people at the local level are beginning to stir. We can also see the signs of this “glocal” approach during the gathering of grassroots groups at the annual World Social Forums, also attended by Christian (including Catholic) groups involved in justice and peace work. At home, we saw it during the local protests against the Broga incinerator and PMPCIII’s call for a revival of basic local communities.
But for change at the local level to blossom, we also need local democracy, which requires elections to town and village councils, something we don’t have in Malaysia. Real local democracy would allow people to participate in the issues that concern them – very much in line with the CST principle of Subsidiarity.
Fudging the real causes of global warming
Although there is now belated recognition of global warming as a critical issue for humanity to grapple with, world leaders and the mainstream media are still fudging the real causes of global warming.
One likely reason for this smokescreen is that global warming has a lot to do with the system of corporate capitalism, which encourages consumption and infinite GDP growth. Many of us are so enamoured with “The System” because it gives us a false illusion of “progress” and comfort (though many others suffer or are exploited by this same system).
In this piece for the Herald, I observed that we are so locked into this system and its illusion that it prevents us from seeing that corporations and consumers are feeding off each other while seriously harming the environment.
The neo-liberal economic system also prevents our leaders from taking decisive action to protect the environment and its people. Instead, they spend a lot of their time protecting the interests of corporations and their corporate cronies.
“…the fundamental point is that, to reach their powerful positions in society, Blair, Brown and other western leaders have had to subordinate the planet’s future to the prerogative of global economic ‘growth’; or, to put it more honestly – to the bottom-line corporate expediency of endless profit benefiting privileged sectors of society,” observed the UK-based Media Lens group, which has produced some outstanding critical analyses of the corporate media. “Any would-be political leader determined to change the current patterns of production and consumption would barely get out of the starting blocks, never mind reach the finishing tape of real political power,” it observed.
This corporate-led system puts capital above labour, profits above people, and GDP economic growth above the environment. Under this system, corporations burn fossil fuels to obtain the energy needed to meet our rising levels of consumption. The corporations are also responsible for fuelling this rise in consumption through their aggressive marketing and promotion strategies and pervasive advertisements. And all the while, they clear the land and cut hills for “development”, pollute rivers with their chemical discharges, emit toxic fumes into the air, and burn more and more fossil fuels.
Even activists feel resigned, thinking that there is no way we can stop this kind of globalisation in its tracks. Sometimes they sigh, “Globalisation is here to stay; we cannot stop it, so what can we do?”
Yes, globalisation is here to stay. But let’s be specific. What kind of globalisation do we really want? Is it corporate-led globalisation that benefits a small fabulously wealthy elite group, widens the gap between the rich and the poor, fuels global warming and exploits workers? Do we really want to live in a world ruled by corporations?
Or would we rather have people-centred globalisation that promotes solidarity with the poor, harmony with Nature, holistic and spiritual growth, and respect for the rights of all?
As long as we do not tackle the real causes of global warming, so long will we have to deal with it apocalyptic results – death, illness, homelessness, famine, and misery.
Changing the model of globalisation will not be easy. But change it we must so that it does not exploit people and the environment. We have to work and struggle for it in our own way. Every little bit will count.
How corporate con-artists “cook the books” and engage in fraud
It is not difficult to “cook the books”, as most accountants will be aware.But what about the external auditors? They are supposed to be independent and professional, right? In theory. Far too often though, the partners of audit firms develop a cosy relationship with their clients, especially if the audit fee is substantial.In this article for Aliran Monthly, I discuss some of the common tricks used by financial con-artists and dishonest management/staff in committing fraud or engaging in “creative accounting”. This is by no means an exhaustive expose – just a sample to give you an idea how vulnerable most firms are to fraud and dishonest accounting.
Devious accountants can also manipulate financial results by bringing forward or deferring the recording of expenses in the accounts. Thus, a firm’s management is able to show a higher or a lower profit figure to suit its circumstances. It may want to show a lower profit figure – to save taxes or to provide a cushion for future years. Or it may want to disclose a higher profit figure for the year – to match overly optimistic profit forecasts that were issued earlier to entice investors to buy shares in the firm. This kind of unethical accounting practice is often cynically referred to as “creative accounting” or window-dressing. Full article: EXPOSED – Dark secrets of the private sector
Transmile’s RM333m shocker: Cooking the books in Malaysia
So a special audit of Transmile Group has discovered that its revenue for 2005 and 2006 may have been overstated by over RM500 million ringgit. Gulp! Let me say that again s-l-o-w-l-y: over RM500 million.And its pre-tax profit for 2006 of RM207 million may have been inflated by RM333 million – which means that its real bottom line should have been a pre-tax loss of RM126 million.Uh-oh, someone has been very naughty here. Cooking the books, it would appear. A fine work of “creative accounting”, indeed.And investment analysts have got egg on their face, expressing shock and horror at this turn of events. When news first emerged that something was amiss at Transmile after the firm failed to submit their audited account before the 30 April deadline, it seemed that the market consensus was that the bottom line was overstated by about RM50 million or so.But I knew something was seriously wrong when I first heard that the external auditors had refused to sign the declaration stating that the accounts showed a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the firm. That refusal should have sent up a wave of red flags. It simply couldn’t have been merely because of a book-keeping error, which could have been easily rectified.Auditors rarely refuse to sign the accounts – unless something is seriously, seriously wrong.The real question we should now ask is: how widespread is such dodgy accounting in Malaysia?Most accountants would be familiar with the tricks of the trade – “creative accounting”, they call it. This involves creating fictitious invoices and dummy sales contracts, for instance. You know, the stuff they don’t teach you in accountancy school. Basic book-keeping entries – such as credit sales, debit debtors – can do “magic” to your bottom line. Another common trick involves playing with provisions for doubtful debts and stock losses – or not making enough provisions.Accountants and management often have an intuitive feel for what kind of bottom-line the market (or their board of directors or key shareholders) is expecting. When their promotion prospects, stock option prices or bonuses depend on what kind of profit they deliver, devious management staff can easily “massage” the figures until they reach a “profit” that is within the range the market (or top management) is expecting. As for junior accounting staff, they often know when they see accounting entries or dummy invoices that are false or concocted. But they are usually too afraid to refuse to enter such transactions in the books for fear of losing their jobs.About a decade ago, I sent in an article to the journal of the Malaysian Institute of Accountants titled “My boss wants me to cook the books” or something to that effect. In that article, I discussed what accountants and other financial staff could do if ever they faced pressure from their bosses to manipulate the accounts or to put in false entries. The article was never published.Anyway, this is a piece I wrote a couple of days ago for Asia Times Online – before the preliminary findings of the special audit on Transmile were reported. You will see that Transmile is not the only firm to practise “fancy accounting”:
PENANG, Malaysia – Dodgy accounting at a handful of prominent listed companies has put the spotlight back on Malaysia’s financial reporting and corporate governance. Not only has it taken the shine off the stock market’s recent good performance, which is only now emerging from the doldrums of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, but it has cast a shadow over recent upbeat investor sentiment. Full article: Cooking the books in Malaysia
Constantine, Christianity and the values of Empire
Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity had a profound impact on history. The imperial values of the Roman Empire were pitted against the values of the Gospel, as expounded by Christ in the Beatitudes (Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek etc). That tension and contradiction has reverberated right down the ages. Many Christians, while on the surface subscribing to the teachings of Christ, were in reality taken up by the values of worldly empire, materialism and militarism rather than the renunciation, simplicity and non-violence that Jesus advocated.
Although we do not have the Roman Empire with us today, we have other superpowers. The values of Empire – and a global neo-liberal economic structure that favours the rich and the powerful – are still very much in our world. If at all there is an unseen global enemy, it has to be the unjust economic system that these powers nurture. It is a world ruled by a small group of fabulously wealthy elites who promise an utopia of worldly riches and bliss but instead oppress the poor and downtrodden even more.
In this piece for the Herald, I tried to show the impact that Constantine’s conversion had on Christianity and how the early dynamism was eaten up when Christianity became the religion of the Empire.
For the first couple of centuries after Christ, the early (Christian) communities were very much the Church of the Poor, sharing their possessions and working for the common good. “I have come to bring the Good News to the Poor,” were Jesus’ first words as he embarked on his mission. Since then, the message of Christianity has been widely seen as a critique of the rich and powerful.
Constantine’s conversion to Christianity had positive and negative implications for Christianity and the Gospel message. Constantine’s chief legacy was to ensure that the persecution of Christians ceased. Christianity, as the state religion, became more widely known to the farthest reaches of the Empire.
But Christianity also assumed some of the imperial trappings of the Roman Empire, though some laws were liberalised a little and Christian worship was tolerated. Much of the trappings of imperial power had nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus but everything to do with the quest for earthly power. Gradually, the Emperors turned Christianity into a religion of the rich and powerful while the Church confined itself to formalism and ritualistic legalism and basked in triumphalism.
Constantine unfortunately introduced the sword into Christianity – a prelude to the use of violence in the name of Christianity. He ironically and tragically put the cross – a symbol of Christ’s suffering and oppression – on the shield of the Roman soldiers, the majority of whom were pagans.
It set the stage for the abuse of Christianity to justify violence in centuries to come: the bloodbaths and torture during the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the conquistadors (the Spanish conquests that brought swathes of Asia and South America under colonial rule).
These were the dark eras in church history, for which the late Pope John Paul II, to his lasting credit, apologised. In a marked contrast to earlier ages when the church was allied to the superpowers of the day, John Paul earned the ire of the present day superpowers, the United States and its allies, when he rejected arguments in favour of the war on Iraq and condemned the US-led invasion in 2003.
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Other transformations occurred when Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. The reign of God, under which the early Christian communities believed they were ruled, was compromised as many mainstream Christians tried to conform with the values of the Empire and the reign of the Emperor.
Instead of the liberty they enjoyed as the people of God, there was the obligatory profession of an imposed religion. Instead of trying to detach themselves from worldly possessions and sharing their possession in solidarity with others, Christians were now content to perform the bare minimum ‘obligations’ to conform with the ‘natural law’.
As Antonio Gonzalez observes in his book ‘The Gospel of Faith and Justice’, (Orbis Books, a Maryknoll publication) the non-violence, great love for the community and the sharing of possessions, which was distinctive of the early Church, ceased to be practised widely. Instead, many began to regard these practices and way of life as the preserve of ‘superior’ Christians who opted for religious or monastic life.
World Bank should go with Wolfowitz
So Wolfowitz goes without being held accountable for his criminal scheming against Iraq.After I wrote the piece below, an academic friend told me, “Although he did have to step down, it was hardly a fall — guy walks away with that statement about acting in good faith, plus a golden hand-shake of a year’s salary. The girlfriend gets to keep her pay increase and the pension of USD100k.” Well, he has a point.Still, Wolfowitz’s gone, with his reputation in tatters. And, as an Indonesian activist told me when I was writing this piece, now that Wolfowitz is stepping down, it is time for people around the world to realise that the World Bank’s role is over. ”We must learn from Hugo Chavez that there is no development and democracy with the World Bank,” he stressed. ”I hope it’s not just Wolfowitz stepping down from the World Bank, but the World Bank must now ‘step down’ from our country (Indonesia) and the world.”
PENANG, Malaysia, May 21 (IPS) – Paul Wolfowitz’s fall from grace is symptomatic of the double standards and hypocrisy of the World Bank and strains the marriage between neo-liberal policies and militarism that he embodied, say activists and analysts. Wolfowitz, an architect of the war on Iraq, finally bowed to pressure after a favouritism scandal involving his girlfriend, ex-bank employee Shaha Riza. He is due to step down as Bank president on Jun. 30, three days after another key player in the aggression on Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, heads for the exit.“It’s a humiliating, and, for many, not unwelcome, fall for Wolfowitz who thought he’d found a respectable bolt-hole at the World Bank after his criminal enterprise in Iraq,” said Glasgow-based political scientist John Hilley, who has written on militarism and neo-liberalism. ”Yet, it’s a dark irony that he has gone down for engaging in cheap, nepotistic malpractice while his high crimes, the design and execution of mass terror in Iraq, go unpunished.” Full article: World Bank should go with Wolfowitz – Activists
“I don’t know anything about politics”
Some people complain when they hear sermons from religious preachers which they think are too “political”. Many feel uncomfortable when these preachers question the existing social and economic and even political order and the prevailing values of the day. Politics, they feel, has nothing to do with religion.
In fact, the sharpest critics of such preachers are those who have a conservative and narrow understanding of what it means to be a compassionate and concerned human being in a world where 2 per cent of the world’s population control half the world’s wealth. Others feel that politics is of no interest to them and they do not see how it is connected to their lives.
In Christianity, Jesus himself was “politically incorrect” in his sermons: the values he expounded – compassion, sharing of resources, love, justice – were sharply at odds with the values of the Roman Empire as well as the authoritarian local religious system of his time.
Here’s an anecdote about Burma’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, which I included in a piece I wrote for the Herald in December. (By the way, let’s add our calls for the release of Suu Kyi, whose term of house arrest will come under review on 27 May. This courageous freedom fighter has been detained for 11 of the last 17 years by Burma’s military regime, which is afraid of its own shadow).
Suu Kyi once wrote about a young woman who got up during a meeting and complained, “I don’t know anything about politics.” She asked the young woman why she was at the meeting then and the young woman began to explain why.
“I discovered that she (the young woman) knew everything about politics,” wrote Suu Kyi, in the foreword to the book “Burma – More Women’s Voices” (published by the Alternative Asean Network on Burma or Altsean-Burma).
“She did not know she was talking about politics. She talked about the fact that she was worried about her children’s education, she talked about insecurity of her husband’s job, she talked about the worry of constant inflation, she talked about the fact that people were afraid to talk freely on the streets. All these really were political matters but she did not realise that they were political matters. Which is why I say that women are very, very politically aware although they do not know it themselves.”