|
|
Natural disaster
Political earthquake
ON 26 DECEMBER, a colossal earthquake under the sea off
Sumatra caused devastation in the region and sent powerful shock-waves, tsunami,
across the Indian Ocean. The rapidly moving, lethal waves smashed without
warning onto the shores of 13 Asian and African countries, causing phenomenal
destruction, especially in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The impact of the
tsunami was absolutely catastrophic, a human tragedy on an unimaginable scale.
Over 226,000 were most likely killed, at least another
500,000 injured. Perhaps five million are homeless as a result of the
destruction. Millions are now struggling to survive amid the devastation,
desperate for food, clean water, medicines, shelter.
The tsunami also claimed the lives of at least 5,000 people,
mostly tourists, from 45 other countries around the world. The high casualty
rate among Western tourists, especially when the tragedy unfolded over the
Christmas/New Year holiday, intensified media coverage in Europe and North
America. People everywhere were stunned by the scale of the destruction and
suffering – and immediately responded with an unprecedented flood of donations,
offers of active assistance, and general expressions of human solidarity. The
generosity of workers, including poor pensioners and the homeless, was in sharp
contrast to the tardy response of capitalist governments, especially Blair in
Britain and Bush in the US.
The cataclysmic events around the Indian Ocean, moreover,
have dramatically opened the eyes of millions of ordinary people in the West to
the appalling conditions of everyday life faced by the majority of people in the
poor, under-developed countries. This mood of sympathy and solidarity is a
powerful counter-blow to the racism and xenophobia whipped up by right-wing
politicians and the far right in recent years.
‘Natural’ disasters?
THE SUMATRA EARTHQUAKE and resulting tsunamis were a natural
disaster – so how can anyone be blamed for the death and destruction? But if the
tsunami had occurred in the Pacific Ocean, there would have been far, far fewer
deaths – in fact, they may well have been minimal. Countries around the Pacific,
led by the US and Japan, have a sophisticated earthquake and tsunami warning
system, with procedures to give coastal populations advance warning of
approaching tsunamis. When the economic and strategic interests of advanced
capitalist countries are at stake, no expense is spared.
In fact, scientists at the tsunami warning centre in Hawaii
detected the Sumatran earthquake and realised there was a danger of major
tsunamis. However, the centre did not use the World Meteorological
Organisation’s global telecommunications system to contact Indian Ocean
countries because the "protocols were not in place". (Independent on Sunday, 16
January) According to officials at Unesco, which runs the system, "we do not
have an agreement for passing the information on" for tsunamis in the Indian
Ocean. One reason behind this is that some governments have objected that
possible false alarms and unnecessary evacuations would hit their tourist trade.
This is despite the fact that the Indian Ocean has some of the world’s most
heavily populated shores.
After the disaster, government representatives meeting at a
special Unesco conference in Kobe, Japan, have agreed to establish a network of
deep-sea censors and a regional communications system. It is proposed that this
should be operational by mid-2006, and will cost $30 million (£16m). However,
there are competing plans, with powers like the US pushing their own proposals.
Moreover, some aid agencies "fear that other objectives, such as reducing deaths
from more frequent natural disasters such as floods, typhoons and drought, may
be overshadowed by last month’s tsunami and that the conference itself may yield
nothing concrete". (Guardian, 20 January)
An Indian Ocean warning system will clearly be too late for
those who perished on 26 December. Many, probably a majority, could have been
saved if a warning system had been in place. During the 1990s, scientists
participating in the UN group, the international coordination group for the
tsunami warning system in the Pacific, pushed for an extension of the system to
the Indian Ocean. One Australian scientist, Dr Phil Cummins, presented "evidence
that an Indian Ocean tsunami was inevitable, though unpredictable in terms of
timing, and posed a grave threat to many countries". In October 2003, at a
meeting of the UN tsunami group in Wellington, New Zealand, Cummings "pushed for
formal expansion of the international network into the Indian Ocean" but his
proposal was rejected on the grounds that it was beyond the "terms of reference"
of the Pacific group. (Andrew Revkin, How Scientists and Victims Watched
Helplessly, New York Times, 31 December 2004)
The number of ‘natural’ disasters occurring internationally
has been rising sharply – from about 100 a year in the early 1960s to around 500
a year in the early 2000s. (Andrew Revkin, The Future of Calamity, New York
Times, 2 January) Earthquakes and tsunamis have not necessarily become more
frequent, though deforestation and devastation of the environment have increased
the incidence of both flooding and drought. Every year, disasters now affect
over 200 million people, two thirds of whom live in underdeveloped countries
where poverty and the rotten social system makes them more vulnerable. Last
year, even a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report questioned the term
‘natural’ disaster (UNDP, Reducing Disaster Risk, February 2004). The human
impact of earthquakes, cyclones or floods, and so on, varies enormously between
rich and poor countries.
The effects of earthquakes, for instance, make this clear.
In advanced capitalist countries, as on the west coast of the United States and
in Japan, technology is used to ensure that most buildings can withstand major
quakes. Money is spent on emergency planning to minimise the effects of quakes,
through suspending public transport, for instance. On the other hand, many
vulnerable cities in underdeveloped countries are ‘rubble in waiting’. In
December 2003, an earthquake (6.8 on the Richter scale) destroyed the city of
Bam in Iran, killing over 30,000 people. A more violent shock (8.0) on the
Japanese island of Hokkaido in September 2003 merely caused a few injuries. An
earthquake in Algeria (6.2) in May 2003 killed over 3,000 people, while a more
violent quake (7.0) that shook northwest Japan in the same month killed no one.
Tehran is approximately the same size as Los Angeles and is
located on similar geological fault lines. It is estimated that a 7.5 quake in
Los Angeles might kill 50,000 people, but in Tehran, a similar quake would kill
over a million.
Hit by catastrophe, rich and poor are just as unequal as in
every other area of life.
Imperialist manoeuvres
COLIN POWELL ANGRILY rejected the charge from Jan Egelund,
head of UN humanitarian operations, that the US, which initially offered only
$15 million and then $50 million, was stingy. Yet Bush was spending around $40
million on his inaugural celebrations. Blair’s government initially offered only
£1 million. Under massive public pressure to give adequate and generous support
to the those affected by the tsunami, the US, Britain and other advanced
capitalist states quickly increased their promises. There was, as one
commentator put it, a tsunami of hypocrisy as governments tried to outbid one
another in ‘generosity’. Judging by previous performance, however, it is
doubtful that anything like these amounts will actually be sent to the regions
concerned. After the Bam earthquake in Iran in 2003, for instance, governments
promised over $1 billion aid – yet so far, only $17 million has actually been
paid.
The total amount of government and private disaster aid now
promised is in excess of $8 billion. Even this, pales in comparison with the
vast amounts being spent by the US on the war in Iraq – currently over $4.5
billion a month. The US superpower’s military budget now exceeds $400 billion a
year.
Emergency aid was desperately needed for survival by
millions around the Indian Ocean in the form of food and water, shelter, medical
treatment, medicines, etc. People also need cash and supplies to replace houses,
fishing equipment, and other means of life. But it was clear from the beginning,
that the governments of the region were incapable of organising effective relief
operations. Even under ‘normal’ conditions, the region’s infrastructure is
completely inadequate, especially in the rural and coastal areas. Governments
are linked to ruling elites, to capitalist landlords and the tops of the
military, and are incapable of responding to the needs of workers, poor farmers
and small traders. At every level, politicians and bureaucrats are corrupt,
through and through, and will divert aid money and steal relief supplies to
enrich themselves. Inevitably, they will attempt to take control of
reconstruction funds in order to increase their wealth and power.
The workers and poor farmers are the only force which can
direct relief and reconstruction in the interests of the people. Relief aid
should be directed by elected councils of workers, without any discrimination
between different ethnic, religious, caste and other groups. Similarly,
reconstruction should be under the control of elected workers’ councils, to
guard against corruption and ensure rebuilding meets the needs of workers and
other toilers. This demand has been raised in Sri Lanka by the United Socialist
Party (section of the Committee for a Workers’ International). Inevitably, this
class approach points to a more fundamental transformation of society.
While proclaiming its humanitarian aid mission, US
imperialism is hypocritically seeking to exploit the disaster to strengthen its
strategic position in the Indian Ocean. Moreover, regional governments – in
Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India – are all manoeuvring to turn the
situation to their advantage.
After its loss of prestige in Iraq, US imperialism attempted
to recover some of its ‘soft’ power. "The US-led war in Iraq was highly
unpopular, particularly among Asia’s vast Muslim population", commented the
International Herald Tribune. "Playing a leading role in the current crisis –
more money, more debt relief – could bolster US businesses… given Asia’s
economic potential and the countless millions of dollars in profit executives
can expect to earn here, more aid may be in order". The US aid effort,
commentated the San Francisco Chronicle (6 January) is a "crucial weapon in a
battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims in Southern Asia and in much of the
rest of the Muslim world".
Kudos gained by the US from its aid effort, however, will be
short lived. From the start, it was obvious that US military support for the
relief operations of regional regimes is aimed at strengthening the long term
strategic presence of US imperialism in the region. After supporting governments
whose stability has been threatened by the disaster, the US will later be
requesting reciprocal favours, especially for bases and facilities.
In both Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the tsunami struck regions
where there has been a prolonged struggle for independence, by the Aceh people
in Indonesia and the Tamils in the north of Sri Lanka. When disaster struck
there was, in both cases, spontaneous cooperation between the contending
communities in a common effort to save lives and provide relief. In both cases,
however, the governments immediately tried to militarise the relief operation,
using it as a cover to attack the forces fighting for independence. In Sri
Lanka, the United Socialist Party has played an outstanding role in opposing
militarisation of relief, demanding workers’ control of relief and
reconstruction, and striving to maintain class unity against ethnic divisions.
Reports from Sri Lanka and analysis of the situation in
Indonesia can be found on the CWI’s website:
socialistworld.net
Debt hypocrisy
THE TSUNAMI DISASTER turned the spotlight on the ‘normal’
everyday conditions of the affected countries – a slow-motion tsunami, not a
natural shockwave but the unbearable pressure of capitalism, which continuously
extracts profit and interest payments from the labouring poor. The extent of the
exploitation is measured by the debt crisis, which arises from indebtedness to
private banks, Western governments, and agencies like the World Bank, which
operate on behalf of global capitalism. Between them, five of the affected
Indian Ocean countries owe $300 billion in foreign debts. Their annual
repayments amount to around $32 billion, more than ten times the tsunami
assistance currently promised.
Shamed by the worldwide public attention being focused on
these debts, the main creditor countries have been forced to declare a
moratorium on debt repayments for the Indian Ocean countries. But what use is a
temporary reprieve? Western banks, governments and international agencies should
immediately cancel all outstanding debts of underdeveloped countries.
Strangulation by debt does not merely affect the countries hit by the tsunami
disaster. All underdeveloped countries are affected. Altogether they are forced
to repay $230 billion a year to the advanced capitalist countries.
There is a flood of statistics now. "In the next hour",
writes Kevin Watkins, director of UNDP Human Development Report, "more than a
thousand children under five will die from illnesses linked to poverty. Half of
them will be African – a death toll equivalent to two tsunamis a month".
(Guardian, 17 January) Reviewing the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, a new
report states: "Sub-Saharan Africa, most dramatically, has been in a downward
spiral of Aids, resurgent malaria, falling food output per person, deteriorating
shelter conditions and environmental degradation". (Investing in Development,
UNDP)
The UN’s solution? Major Western aid donors should increase
aid as a share of their national income from the current miserly 0.23% to 0.44%
in 2005 and a magnificent 0.54% by 2015. In reality, there is little chance of
such an increase actually taking place. But even if there were a substantial
increase in aid, it would not transform the conditions of the masses in the
underdeveloped countries – without a fundamental change in the structure of
society.
Western aid is always provided on terms aimed at creating
more favourable conditions for the multi-national banks and corporations, to
create new fields of investment and expanding markets. Undoubtedly, the advanced
capitalist countries exert pressure to ‘modernise’ on the national capitalists
of the underdeveloped countries. The promotion of neo-liberal policies, however,
has never deterred the Western powers from collaborating with military
dictatorships and repressive regimes, as in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.
Nor has the West succeeded in eliminating corruption, or ‘crony capitalism’,
which is endemic to capitalism everywhere.
Despite the benefits of many individual aid projects,
Western aid in general serves to strengthen the neo-imperialist grip of the
Western powers over the semi-developed and poor countries. The problems of
economic backwardness will only begin to be solved when the working class and
other oppressed strata overthrow their oppressors and take society into their
own hands. Only then, through socialist policies and in collaboration with the
working class of the advanced countries, will real progress be possible.
Social transformation
"THE LEVEL OF need exposed by the tsunami demonstrates that
humanitarian generosity, however admirable and necessary, is not a long-term
solution", writes Ignatio Ramonet, The World Turned Upside Down (Le Monde
Diplomatique, January 2005). "Emotion is no substitute for policy. Each new
disaster reveals in detail the structural suffering of the poorest, who are the
everyday victims of the unequal, unfair distribution of the world’s wealth. If
we really want to reduce the destruction caused by natural disasters, we must
look for permanent solutions, including the compensatory redistribution of
resources to benefit all of the planet’s population".
Ramonet is correct in pointing to the need for a structural
solution. But within the framework of capitalism, his call for "compensatory
redistribution" is completely utopian. Moreover, the policies he proposes are,
compared with the chasm of global inequality, extremely limited. "To build a
fairer world", he says, "it seems necessary to establish an international value
added tax. The idea of a global tax levied on foreign exchange transactions (the
Tobin tax), on arms sales or on the consumption of non-renewable energy…" The
imperialist powers will never agree to a tax on arms sales. On the other hand,
the burden of any tax on the consumption of fossil fuels, were such a measure
ever to be adopted, would ultimately fall on working-class consumers. Regarding
a Tobin tax, it cannot be ruled out that in the future, under conditions of
world economic crisis, capitalist governments could impose a tax on foreign
exchange transactions, especially to placate public anger at speculative
activity. Any such taxes, however, would be raised by the capitalist class of
the major economies according to their own methods and for their own purposes.
During the post-war upswing, when there were relatively high
levels of taxation in the advanced countries, with a limited redistributive
element, there were historically high levels of social spending. While raising
the living standards of many sections of workers, such spending did not
eliminate the class differences within capitalist society. Moreover, Keynesian
or ‘social market’ policies were adopted by the capitalist class under pressure
from the Stalinist states of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which
constituted a rival social system, not socialist, but based on the planned
economy. Since the collapse of the Stalinist states, capitalism has swung back
to the free-market model, once again sharpening the class polarisation of
society. In this period of a global neo-liberal offensive, there is no prospect
of a global redistribution of wealth being achieved through reformist taxation.
There can be no long-term, ‘structural’ solution on the basis of capitalism.
The tsunami catastrophe highlights the need for socialist
economic planning on a world scale. Natural resources and the means of
production must be taken out of the hands of multi-national corporations and
global banks and nationalised under democratic workers’ control and management.
Only then will the needs of the overwhelming majority of humanity be satisfied,
and the environment protected for future generations.
Commenting on the upsurge of solidarity and financial
support for those hit by the tsunami, Timothy Garton Ash refers to the
development of "moral globalisation" with "citizens of rich countries
identifying with people far away and see[ing] themselves as having some moral
obligation towards them". (What Will Be Left? Guardian, 6 January) "The
‘imagined community’ of strangers to whom we feel some ties of obligation is no
longer confined to our own nation state… There are compelling reasons… for now
aiming at an imagined community of the world".
Undoubtedly, there was a remarkable heightening of
consciousness about the injustice of the global economic system – though Garton
Ash appears oblivious to the long tradition of working-class internationalism
and solidarity transcending the boundaries of the capitalist nation state. But
in the response to the tsunami, Garton Ash sees a strengthening of the last
remaining "project of the left": "To be on the side of the poor, the oppressed
and the exploited today must mean to attack the greatest inequality of our time
– between the rich North… and the poor South". After the tsunami of spontaneous
solidarity, "what will be left?" It will be, he says, the "oldest, boldest dream
of the left" – that men and women will be brothers and sisters the world over.
The disaster, as Garton Ash observes, aroused strong
feelings of international solidarity, especially among young people. But the
political thinking of many has already gone beyond his leftish humanitarianism.
Many are angrily questioning the capitalist order and beginning to look for an
alternative form of society. They are increasingly looking towards socialist
ideas, because socialism (based on workers’ democracy and economic planning)
still offers the only coherent, viable alternative to capitalism. The solidarity
of those moving in this direction is not with the ‘poor South’, which includes
the capitalist tyrants and exploiters of the region, but with the region’s
workers, poor farmers and the dispossessed. In collaboration with the working
class of the advanced countries, they will provide the forces to transform the
planet.
|