Colonialism is alive and well

Here's an abstract of a posting I wrote in a Malaysian cyber forum, called ethos. I was answering to the question of colonialism. I hope you would find it stimulating and perhaps you would like to say a thing or two yourself.

http://www.ethos.com.my/community/forumset.asp
Date: June 23, 1999 11:07 PM
Author: Zafom (zafom@yahoo.com)

Colonialism is alive and well.

First, to Kevin. I believe your question deserve attention. Without referring to establihed ideas on the issue, I would try to develop an understanding, with room for growth and counter argument. What is 'colonisation' in post cold war era? It doesn't have to be in the form of foreign party landing on the shore of a nation, and taking over control. Who would be stupid enough to do this anyway, now we have 'world police' and all that. In an age where national borders play a diminishing role, why bother so much about borderlines and flags?

From political point of view it can be in the form of puppet regime. Manipulation of a nation's power through a'puppet'. This can happen beyond the control of any international organisations because most of the deals will be behind closed doors. And they haven't decided, if anyone convicted, what category of crime would it be.

From the economic point of view, I would like to propose a disturbing hypothesis. That I believe it is inevitable, in the current trend of globalisation, a form of nations enslaving will have to happen. And this would be mainly done by leading capitalist nations - the G7 (now G8). Before I am being branded as paranoid let me justify my claim. to do so we have to dive into the basics of modern economy (cursorily, anyway). The modern economic philosophy emphasize mostly on growth. In the definition of economic progress, one has to grow, increase. Figures of GDP, GNP indicates economic status of a nation. The higher the better. The role model for this at the moment is The US. With well orchestrated display of 'american dream' and way of life, every nation on earth is on hot pursuits of it. So, theoretically there will be a time when every nation achieve the same figures and enjoy the same comforts that come with it.

This is the biggest fallacy of all time. Firstly, we have to remember, the planet earth is a finite body. Indefinite growth is impossible, even if it has only one nation on it. Secondly, to have one U.S.-like nation, we have to have an array of developing nations and even more number of 'third world' nations to support it, to supply it with resources, natural- petroleum, cheap labour, and hungry market to pay for their products. these slave nations perform as their 'national farm' where they will harvest the fruits.

Let us examine the case of 'foreign investment'. A developed nation finds its cost of labour, land keep rising and finds it difficult to maintain a viable industrial business climate. However, there are other nations whose cost of living are lower that it become ecomomically viable if they transfer their capital to these countries and exploit their cheap labour supply, cheap land and natural resources. What will happen consequently is initially most pleasing. Foreign capital will start flowing into these countries and the economies start to grow, rapidly. (This is what happened to malaysia since the rush of industrialisations). However, the foreign capitalists will start to worry when these economies keep rising that in the end, the labour and land cost will not be economic anymore. The servant nations start to stand on their feet that they would need less of the capitalist products , since they will have better industrial technologies. So another fear is the shrinking of market.

However, they have a back-up plan that would work just nicely, that is currency exchange and stock market. We have to remember that the current world trading depend heavily on US currency, and more or less so on other G7 members'. So, for a start, they have the advantage. It would be easy for anybody to understand what would happen if the currencies of other nations slump. The current attack on east-asian currency set them back about twenty to thirty years. Phew... So the capitalists would have a few more decades of lucrative exploitation.

I have to admit that the above hypotheses is antagonistic in nature. Oversimplification could not be avoided in detecting the dynamics of the issue. I would like to point out that the above is not THE POLICY of G7. Of course there are calls for more ethical economic policies even from within G8. Japan and Germany had shown greater humanistic concern. Also the recent London Demonstration during G8 summit shows this realization. The 'currency attack' is not an official attempt by the giants, but by individuals within the system, who had to react that way due to the nature of the whole business.

What is needed I believe (sorry, this is moving away from 'colonization') a new philosophy of economy, of living, based on humanity, sharing, responsibility. This is where a REAL New World Order is needed. Having said the above. I had not answered fully to Kevin's Question, 'colonization', but I hope this explained part of it. That my contention is, colonization in this era takes the form of economic manipulation. The colonizers don't have to worry about the nationalism of nations, because, as long as there's no barrier for capital and currency movement, all is okay for them. Wallaahua'lam.

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