In the words of the Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H):
"Should one of you see evil activities, he should change them with his hand. If he cannot do that, he should change them with his tongue. And if he cannot do that, he should change them with his heart."
This is a humble reflection that I wrote on the night before Eid, the festival marking the end of Ramadhan.
I always hesitate celebrating on any joyous occasion such as Eid, or Christmas and especially on New Year�s Day for each year brings more devastation and misery in the world, more nuclear bombs and murders, on large and small scales. Each year we forget thousands, even millions of people on Earth, literally buried beneath the din of continuous mass media coverage and the cyclical nature of our lives; the anguished, the deprived, oppressed masses of the world...
Below is just a reflection, not an accusation or a lamenting prose...it is merely what I think and want to share with other every time I sense happiness in our closed society.
It is estimated that 790 million people in our world right now are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes, one person every two seconds. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five. Famine and wars cause about 10% of hunger deaths, although these tend to be the ones that are hear about most often. The majority of hunger deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. Families facing extreme poverty are simply unable to get enough food to eat. There are 1.2 billion poor people in developing countries who live on $1 a day or less. In developing countries, 91 children out of 1,000 die before their fifth birthday. By comparison, in the United States 8 children in 1,000 will die before turning five years old. These facts are not exhaustive. These numbers are changing daily, increasing at an alarming rate.
The population of the world is skyrocketing, although it has been considerably controlled but the figures are still terrifying. Click here: increase to see how fast it�s increasing. Refresh it every second and see the numbers change. As it is growing today the population of the world will increase by 10bn in just 50 years' time. Within half a century, it is likely to have two-thirds as many people walking the earth. Think of it as a lack of space. Will the vast acres of inhabitable land such as the Sahara or Siberia be converted into habitable places? Probably not. Most probably a bludgeoning of the cities will occur, spawning new Mega-cities. The beginning of which can be witnessed in the gigantic urban sprawl happening around every major city in the world. The day isn�t far when the entire metropolitan area, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will become a single, monolithic entity: a mega-city. On the other side of the world, Karachi and Hyderabad enveloping the entire province of Sindh in Pakistan creating another mega-city. Pick a city, pick a country, a similar patter emerges. Think about the traffic and hubbub of city life becoming a norm in the entire country. No more countryside; only sub-level farms or agricultural factories. No more open parks or lakes for refreshment; everywhere swarms of people pushing others for private space. Not a pretty sight!
An estimated 3 million people die each year because of air pollution; this figure represents about 5% of the total 55 million deaths that occur annually in the world�land, water and other types of pollution all have similar disastrous results. Global warming is bringing drastic change in the atmosphere. It snows now where it never did; it rains where it really shouldn�t and it�s getting hotter where there should be cold and its getting colder where it should be hot. The ecosystems cannot keep up with our refuse; they�re committing suicide. Unfortunately, if they go, so will we! If they are disrupted we better get ready for a disruption in our lives as well. Suppose there aren�t any lizards left to eat flies and mosquitoes, then we better get used to wearing protective suits soon. Suppose there aren�t any frogs left to devour lizards, then we better get our boots ready for incessant stomping. Suppose there aren�t any snakes left to swallow frogs, then we better develop a stronger immune system to survive snakebites and so on...until we will back to where we started, competing with nature for our rightful space on Earth.
The world's corporate industry, who�s search for �new markets� is an open season for global companies to hunt down any possible third world man, woman, and child to toil for the creation of their products. Somehow it translates into being beneficial for the third-worlder, who always remains on the verge of starvation. The transitional economies of the Third World are unable to compete with the global corporate governance, cunningly labeled as �Globalization�: A process in which the rich and powerful are exploiting the poor masses of the world to the full extent. Integrating the world into a dystopian economic system where only those who are able to trade, trade and reap its benefits, where as those unable to trade remain only as producers. Confronted with modern life, many societies today suffer when they become part of the world economy, often torn between the potential for wealth and the life they've been living for centuries. Shell, Amoco, Nike, Marlboro, and other great businesses have been responsible for civilizing �primitive� cultures. Indeed, a neo-colonial process where false promises and baseless treaties of mutual cooperation and benefit are signed, while the reality isn�t much different that the East India Company fooling the petty nobles of the Indian Sub-continent.
Sadly, rather than the realization of this fact we find that the transformation of individuals into consumers is complete...all that remains is for us to have bar codes imprinted on our necks, neatly cataloguing our interests, our flow of income each month, our spending habits; where we fit in the "target market." Wasting money in charity or for the sake of knowledge is unfashionable, even ridiculous for whatever there is to know is on good old TV! Furthermore, the consumers and industries we are directly responsible for stabilizing, continue to eat up natural resources, clear cutting, flooding or building upon the original territory of native people, replacing the grand traditions of yesteryear with the mechanical organization of today. A �mechanization� that develops a society where students are products and propagators of the status quo; the teachers are tools and universities are factories pumping new models each year to keep the foundation of the cruel, neo-colonial condition strong.
Worst of all, in our world the maddening race for nuclear armament is increasing as if it will somehow improve the condition of the coming generations. Rather than savoring our planet and working to heal the wounds we are causing it, we are constantly stockpiling bombs for our children to extinguish any trace of living things on Earth. A single nation in the world realizes that it must take the higher moral ground and stop other nations from developing WMD, while it cradles the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and blinds the world in accepting its moral superiority; proving it by punishing 4000 innocent civilians on the other side of the world for a crime they did not commit.
ENOUGH OF LISTING PROBLEMS!
WHAT ARE THE SOLUTIONS???
Should we run out in the streets with clubs and homemade Molotov cocktails and start rampant anarchy? Should we abandon our lifestyles and try to imitate our forefathers by living in the forests and surviving by farming alone? Should we accept it as God�s wrath and blame the atheists and agnostics; or should be blame those who have true faith in revealed religions?
For those who answer yes to the above questions, it is no shame to say that they are either intellectually immature or are bent on acting upon their impulses alone (No offense intended).
The first and foremost fact that must be understood is that there is a corporate system governing the world and responsible for its problems. A corporation or a number of them can be found anywhere in the world, influencing the governments and the conditions of all countries. Yes, the greater fault lies on the corrupt governments of the Third World, but how will there be any change if these corrupt governments are supported and supplied by the West and its cronies: the corporations. Not a single country can make a move without their consent. Hence, a corporate run world can be seen easily through the mist of war and capitalist utopias propagated by the spokespersons of these corporations, i.e. the media.
The proof?
Hunger in the world is mostly caused by natural events, such as drought, earthquakes etc. but the inability of our modern civilization to provide sufficient calories to the dying is not the fault of nature, but of the corporate system that governs the world. It cannot and most of the times does not want to �waste� money on feeding far away, forgotten people; who�s existence does not bring any �profit.� The inability to stabilize the population of the world rests a great deal on ignorance and poverty. The corporate governance of countries is unable to deal with them for the greater the number of poor, the greater the number of cheap labor. Regretfully, pollution control is a minor headache for the Third world teeming with undernourished, unemployed degenerated masses but the corporate system ignore it also because it simply will not flower into greater production and consumption. The razing down of illuminated cultures of the past into machine-like modern systems is very beneficial to the corporate structure and is therefore in full bloom nowadays. The assembly, distribution, and usage of weapons is sponsored greatly for all corporations can cash-in by their purchase. The Military-Industrial complex, which is highly favored by the corporations, might one day encompass all countries. A greater portion of the world is already in its grasp, but it is true to say that we will prove George Orwell right if one day every nation will need to expend their arms after a year or so.
This sums up the problem.
How do we challenge it then? How do we make a difference?
If we begin a violent revolution to collapse the corporate system, it will surely lead to the collapse of all that we hold dear in the world. It must be remembered that our 'stabilized' world is a house of cards. Misplace one and the entire structure comes tumbling down. There is a lot of good in the world. Several non-governmental agencies such as Amnesty, Oxfam, UNICEF and other are keeping a great population of the world alive while surviving in the corporate system. Individuals such as Nelson Mandela, Dr. Abdur Sattar Edhi and others are aiding the world by their continuous efforts to rid poverty and ignorance while living in the corporate system.
The right answer is that the cards must be changed. The house must not be destroyed! Rather than imposing impossible economic demands on the third world to �catch-up� to the West, they must be allowed the right to become self-sufficient; to trade with the world as they deem best. The flaws existing in the corporate system must be fixed and a goal to replace corporate with humanitarian must be made.
The next question is: how can any of us, parents, teachers, workers, IT professionals, doctors. Engineers, entrepreneurs, students, etc. striving towards our goals and attempting to acquire certain stability in our lives challenge the corporate system?
To answer this we must figure out the �power-source� of the corporate system.
What follows will be extremely offensive to all of us for our lives are structured around this �power-source� of the system.
As mentioned before, Capitalism is based on the production and consumption of materials. Products, such as clothes, toys, cars, and even food are prepared in factories, then are distributed to stores, and eventually we all go shopping and buy them. Once these products are sold there is a demand for newer ones and hence the factories keep working, we keep buying, the workers have their jobs and everything is fine!
But who is reaping the most benefit from this production-distribution-consumption cycle?
Yes, we all have jobs, there aren�t that many unemployed people, the entire structure seems to be balanced, seems to be fine. But we seem to forget that the population of the world is increasing at an alarming rate, as mentioned above. How can we possibly accommodate thousands of new jobs every year? The answer is to create more factories. But then if we have more factories then we also need to buy more. This is where we are right now. We buy more than we need. The greater number of factories are not necessarily employing everyone for there are still millions of unemployed in the world but it does provide sustenance to a great number. However, the paramount flaw in this is that it demands all of us to become consumers. Even when we have every possible need of ours fulfilled we are forced to buy and buy as much as we possibly can. Isn�t it true to say that a time comes when we really do not need to buy anything? We look around our house, our room and we have everything we need, but there is a certain urge to buy new clothes, or a new car or anything we cherish but do not need. Human desire is limitless, we want to buy everything nice and this is what�s taught to us in the Capitalist sense that buying is living. We have to grow up to buy a house, a car, and unfortunately a good life. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with buying but excessive buying, constantly pondering what to buy with our salaries to such an extent that we desire new jobs just to afford a new car or house that we really do not need.
Why is this feeling inside of us? It has been miraculously indoctrinated into our psyches by certain �brain-washing� techniques, such as the bombardment of the rich or materialists as better people by Western culture outlets such as movies, books, and especially the global media. In every channel there are constantly advertisements of beatific people wearing brand-name clothes and driving latest cars, owning the most technological gadgets, etc. which eventually leads us to believe that it is natural to buy brand-name clothes, buy the latest car and to own the most technological gadget. Movies, which are indeed a great influence on societies, also present that consumerism, the frantic acquisition of materials is natural, is good. Unfortunately, the alternative that is presented to the corporate system is that of �communism.� A society where materialism is condemned to death and people become merely pieces of machinery in a dystopian robotic society. Not only that Capitalists but also the �socialists� and other �anti-capitalists� are to blame for rather than presenting a better alternate; a moderate, realistic economic system and life-style they presented the other extreme, of inhuman totalitarian control of even the basic necessities.
And who are the ones profiting most from consumerism? True, there are thousands of people employed on petty salaries with no benefits, and new materials are readily available to consume but who works the least and still live in extreme opulence?
The answer is obvious! All those who are at the top of the hierarchy! The CEO�s, Presidents, Managers of the corporations and also those who greedily leashed on to them for a piece of the exploited cake.
Hence, the crux of the problem is consumerism. It is the �power-source� of the global corporate system responsible for the world�s problems. We keep frantically buying whenever we have enough money; we wait for special �sale-days� when things are a little cheaper and waste our hard earned money on (pardon the expression) shit that we don�t need! While the controllers of the world amass more wealth and the exploitation of the Third World and the destruction of Earth continues.
(PLEASE, do not confuse consumerism with consumption which is in every sense a natural human attribute. We obviously need the essentials of life such as clothes, a car, a house etc. What this argument is referring is to excess.)
If we follow this thesis, there is only one way left to challenge the corporate system without collapsing the entire, precious structure of the world. There is really only one front left. There is only one war remaining. There is only one superstructure standing which must be chiseled down by the people.
This war is one of the Intellect. Today, the smartest and the cleverest, wins. We have to be smart! We have to be clever! We must wisely learn to disagree with the system and not obey its demands of consuming materials at a feverish pace.
Moreover, If there is to be any serious change, it must begin from within us! We must change! Everyone of us, each person no matter where in the world must refuse consumerism. We should be moderate in our spending and shun consumerism at every level. It is no longer possible to raise a rebel army and declare war upon the system of the world. The corporate system has encased the world to such a degree that without realizing it, all of us are oppressed and �brain-washed� into being consumers. It is no foolishness to proclaim that: The race to buy products, to identify ourselves with and to continuously pursue materials even when our needs are fulfilled is responsible for the world�s problems.
Let us begin the new-year with a resolution to be wise and rebellious. Let everyone hear our dissent. It must be must be voiced as loudly as possible.
The world must hear the other side of the corporate story. People must learn that not all students are mechanical, brainwashed propaganda artists; that teachers are not tools and that universities are not factories! Those of us who hold different opinions and beliefs should not be ridiculed as �tree-huggers� or �anarchists.� In a time when the only power left to people is to complain quietly with the status-quo and to acquiesce with it as quietly also, it is imperative to shake the foundations of the world system by yelling our concerns everywhere possible.
There are great hurdles in this path and like all past challenges that the human race has faced, this one is full of predicaments also. It must be dealt with patiently and intelligently, so as not to lose track of reality and slip into an ambiguous world of rhetoric, where demagogues and power mongers manipulate peoples� basest feelings for their own selfish benefits.
Let us put an end to consumerism! Let us change the cards, shape our world so that there aren�t people starving or fighting for lack of space, so that the ecosystems remain as they are, so that nations are self-sufficient and equal economically and otherwise, so that nuclear weapons and military industrial complexes are not essential for survival for WMD=MAD, (Weapons of Mass Destruction) = (Mutually Assured Destruction).
There is much left to be said, such as what�s an alternative to the corporate system? How can we survive without buying and where should we spend our money? And many others, but for now this is enough; you will definitely hear from me again answering these and other questions.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! AND ALL THE BEST FOR THE COMING YEAR!
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