Facing
the Issues
by Diane
Rae Schulz
Recognizing
the modern face of imperialism - No longer
regal, just everyday exploitation
In
the last couple of months it has been
impossible for me to stop thinking about the
horror of multinational corporations and the
harm they are perpetuating on the Earth and
Her children, particularly on women. At least
the effects of the consummate greed of
"globalization" has finally inspired a
grassroots resistance movement with a huge
input of female energy. The statistics on the
increasing level of women's poverty globally
are bleak, not only because the majority of
"women's work" is unpaid labor, but also
because women are highly underpaid,
particularly non-white women. The stark
reality is that 50% of the earth's
population, practically speaking, owns and
controls nothing, with the rare exception of
a few North American and European women.
Globalization aids and abets the existence of
poverty. We are often blind to the fact that
this newest of patriarchal masks is simply
Business As Usual for the white male elite
who have been calling the shots since the Age
of Exploration, Exploitation and Colonization
beginning in the 15th century. Let's go back
500 years to get a better understanding of
how our current world economic situation is a
result of imperialism.
The
nation states of the Holy Roman Empire of
Europe had financed the expensive, and often
disastrous, Crusades against Islam during the
Middle Ages, especially Spain and Portugal's
final routing of the Moors who had occupied
their lands from the 8th century on. Royal
governments were, therefore, hungry for ways
to refill their coffers. The Turkish Empire
blocked their access to the ancient trade
routes to the Eastern riches of China and
India, and the trip around the tip of Africa
was long and dangerous, so the promise of a
Western sea route was of great importance. No
one of course was aware of the Americas, but
when the early conquistadors sent home
shiploads of gold from this "New World", the
race was on. Colonization began, first by
Spain and Portugal, quickly followed by the
rest of Europe.
After
splitting from the British empire in the 18th
century, the white male elite of our budding
young nation carried out their God-declared
and God-protected "right" to every land and
every body they could invade, conquer and
exploit. "Manifest Destiny" did not stop at
the borders of the new country, but
presupposed the "rightness" of United States
business interests to own and control land
and people in Mexico, Central America, the
islands of the Caribbean and South
America.
Nineteenth
and 20th century history of Latin America
reveals a consistent "El Norte" pattern of
exploitation by business interests backed up
by military presence and the manipulation of
corrupt local leaders, a pattern that
continues to the present day. Most of us
don't think of Puerto Rico as an exploited
American colony, but that's exactly what it
has always been. For an in-depth account of
the facts, I recommend a new and very
insightful book, Harvest of Empire: A
History of Latinos in America, by Juan
Gonzalez, a child of Puerto Rican immigrants,
and an authority on Latin America.
Exploitation
has not been limited to the Western
hemisphere, however. Oil companies have long
been involved in the Middle East, operating
by currying favor with corrupt leaders, and
when that fails, blatantly bombing countries
whose governments don't cooperate. The Gulf
War and the bombing of Somalia are recent
examples of our government's backing of big
business interests under the guise of
protecting democracy.
Nawal
El Sa'adawi, a well known Egyptian feminist
activist, has lectured and written
extensively on the subject of globalization's
effects in Africa and the Middle East,
particularly addressing Structural Adjustment
Policies (SAPs), the newest name coined by
the World Bank and International Monetary
Fund for the Same Old Game of imperialist
exploitation.
SAPs
require that the government of any country
accepting a loan from the World Bank
restructure their economy to assure that the
loan is paid off as quickly as possible. The
debt-burdened country must then allow
multinational corporations to operate within
the country with relative freedom from
accountability for environmental results like
toxic waste or for the conditions under which
people work. The country turns from a rural,
diversified economy where women are respected
as small farmers, and extended families help
to take care of the children, to one of rapid
industrialization and urbanization. The local
culture is completely disrupted; those
minimal social services that may exist are
curtailed in favor of repaying the foreign
debt, and people are forced into low-wage
plantation and factory work to survive.
Certainly a concern such as day-care for
children is never addressed.
In
a 1997 collection of her speeches, The
Nawal El Sa'adawi Reader, the author
explains, "Countries in our region and in the
South generally are subjected to what is
called 'development'. Development is not
something we choose. It is dictated to us
through local governments dominated by...the
World Bank, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade (GATT)....From 1984 to 1990 the
application of structural adjustment policies
(SAPs) in the South led to the transfer of
$178 billion from the South to the commercial
banks in the North.
"Today
we live in a world dominated by a unipolar
power, by one superpower which is the USA.
The USA dominates the United Nations, the
World Bank, IMF, GATT, SAPs, etcetera....The
problems facing the South are rooted in the
North, problems like increasing poverty, low
commodity prices, the huge debt burden,
unequal trade agreements....It is known that
90 per cent of transnational corporations are
based in the North...Five hundred of these
corporations have almost complete control of
the world economy."
We
now have an out-of-control monster with which
to contend. The story of Dr. Frankenstein and
his creation is a quaint moral tale compared
to the real, smoke-belching, forest-eating,
life-destroying monster that patriarchy has
unleashed upon society. We are beginning to
understand the severe poisoning of our own
nation, and we can ill afford to let the
tentacles of the beast of modern technology
strangle the life-blood out of the entire
planet. We are responsible as citizens of the
country that gave birth not only to
democracy, but, at the same time, to the
economic forces which destroy it.
We
need to hear the voices of the rest of the
world crying out to us and together find a
way to live together in mutual respect. We in
the North consume 70% of the world's
resources. Let's keep telling "the good ol'
boys" that what they're doing just doesn't
work for the health and well-being of the
planet. When we speak up, like the thousands
of mothers at the Million Mom March, like
Julia Butterfly and the women of Clayoquot
(see
video review,
this issue) for the ancient forests, or like
the anti-globalization protesters in Seattle,
Washington D.C., Windsor, Ontario and all
around the globe, we are speaking Truth to
Power. And the Truth can set us free. Blessed
Be.
<<<Contents
<<<Back
>>>Next
