[THS] Blood Diamonds - Blood Oil - and Blood Food

[Peter Webster]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19840.htm

‘Blood Diamonds’ ‘Blood Oil’ and ‘Blood Food’


True commitment to stopping the war in Iraq requires a global human
rights strike, in which the working population of the world stops producing,
until the governments and the corporations realize that the voice of the
people does indeed matter.

By Pablo Ouziel

30/04/08 "MEO" -- - For a while now, I have been thinking about what
George W. Bush signifies from a socio-political perspective. Looking at the
world from the time of the ‘Big Bang’ of September 11th, 2001, until today
almost seven years later, one can clearly observe how monstrous our
human interaction has become. After much reading and analysis, I now
understand that September 11th was not the starting point of a new world
order, but to the contrary, it was purely the end of a specific human state
of affairs.

When one grows up in the west, our history books tell us stories about past
events in our world. As we grow up, those same stories shape the way in
which we look at the world around us. Once this history is indoctrinated into
our minds, it frames the scope of our objective judgment. This in turn,
leads to a very narrow analysis of our current reality.

As westerners we have the tendency to feel superior to the rest of the
human species. Somehow, we have come to believe that our crusades,
empires and colonization have led us to a higher understanding of
kindness, compassion, love and equality. As westerners, we seem to see
ourselves in a higher plane of collective awareness, intellectual and spiritual
attainment. I do not doubt for a single minute that in other cultures they
have similar prejudices, but I learned from an early age through Christian
scriptures, that one must look deep into his or her consciousness, in order
to identify mistakes and make corrections. Therefore, for me it is important
to focus only on the culture that I know, I live, and that I am an active
member of -- the western world, as defined by the politicians of the ‘Axis of
Good’ who govern us.

We are very comfortable in the west, all of us. Even the most deprived are
not as deprived as the whole of Iraq, and by the whole of Iraq, I do mean
everyone including the Al Qaeda terrorists, the international soldiers, the
Iraqi militias, the possible Iranian insurgents, the government officials,
doctors and nurses, contractors, private army operatives, NGO workers, the
rich, the poor, the women, men and the children. Nobody there is as good
as we are here. Iraq is just one of the many examples of places where the
whole population is on its knees as we in the west enjoy our ‘morally
evolved’ societies.

People in Haiti are eating mud cakes because of the soaring food prices, the
people in Gaza have no electricity, in Afghanistan, the only royal visit they
receive, is of a British prince dressed in military gear going to kill on Afghan
soil. In India, the farmers are committing suicide due to failed harvests of
genetically modified Monsanto crops. Around the world, people are rioting
because of lack of food or basic human necessities. Yet in the west, we can
move around freely, we can cross borders and fly our budget airlines from
capital to capital, observing the comforts of western existence. Organized
streets, clean cars, wonderful shopping malls, great monuments, everything
is civilized and could be admired, that is, if it was honest. But it isn’t, it is
morally wrong and deep down we all know it. We know it, but we just don’t
want to do anything about it, because we are comfortable. Only a very
small proportion of the population would truly change their position for that
of a person in Iraq. I suppose that is why we choose to keep Iraq as a
problem of our governments, and the terrorists whom must be eliminated
to protect us from ‘evil’.

As westerners, we feel that our commitment to morality and justice is
apparent once in a while, with an Anti-War demonstration scheduled in a
city for a particular day. We come out to the streets that day, all united, the
young ‘Che’ impersonator, holding hands with the 60’s hippy, the
businessman who inherited his mother’s company and is well established
within his city, the University professor who still holds faithful to her ‘liberal’
values, the working class family which feels that a one day revolution is
better than nothing, the yuppie banker, etc
 Representations of various
segments of our population are present at the event. It lasts a few hours,
there is music on the streets, the cameras are filming everything to air it
across the television channels of the world. Once the demonstration is over,
we all go back to our jobs, we have expressed our concern on schedule and
we should not disrupt the system of things any longer. After all, we all have
bills to pay, we all must take care of our families or simply ourselves, and
there is not that much we can do beyond demonstrations. At least that is
the sentiment, which seems to perpetrate from the tragic reality of these
events, which although well intended are not truly committed.

True commitment to stopping the war in Iraq requires a global human
rights strike, in which the working population of the world stops producing,
until the governments and the corporations realize that the voice of the
people does indeed matter. If we had the courage to do this, the power
would shift automatically from the politicians, bankers and corporations to
the majority of the population. This would have been unimaginable just
seven years ago, but with the advances in communication technologies and
the global mobility of the work force, a global change is plausible.

People in the west however, are generally not interested in change, at the
moment. Things are still good. We are having hiccups in our economies and
problems in our internal social systems, but these issues are not yet
affecting a large enough proportion of our population, in order to get us
united. Besides, most people are not fully aware of the connection between
the human strife in other countries and the policies of our governments and
growth strategies of global corporations. Right now, for most of the west, it
would be too cumbersome to focus honestly, on the cruelty which our
governments are perpetrating around the world to keep us from loosing our
mortgaged style of living.

As speculators are busy speculating with food and commodity prices,
causing instant death around the world and indescribable misery, creating
a market for ‘blood food’ and ‘blood oil’. We in the west will attribute this
failure to a few unwanted elements in our society. It is evident now, that if
the west attacks Iran, the western population will pinpoint the blame on
George W. Bush. He will then move on, and someone will clean up the
mess. The fact remains however, that George W. Bush is indeed serving the
interests of America and its allies. Unless the western population is willing to
lower its standard of living and cut down on its thirst for natural resources,
we are going to fight a perpetual war, defending our privileges and
exploiting the basic human rights of others.

For this war, George W. Bush is the right man. However, if we decide that
annihilating the rest of the world is not the way to go about it. We must
learn to cut back on spending, organize ourselves as tax payers, and begin
to demand disarmament from our governments, to pull them out of those
apparently “unwanted” wars. Until then, the diamonds in our stores will be
bloody, the food in our supermarkets will be bloody and the gasoline at our
pumps will be bloody. Washing our hands of the problem will maybe help
us in the short-term, but in the long term, we will see that just like in the
times of the Nazi’s, our collective hands are tainted with innocent blood.

It is time for the west to accept that although some might hate George W.
Bush’s style, he is fighting to guarantee our privileges and is a reflection of
our socio-political interests. Let us stop our double standards and begin to
look at our reality. A lot of people are dying hoping for some solidarity, yet
in the west, we are reluctant to accept responsibility for our cruelty to other
human beings.

Pablo Ouziel is a sociologist and freelance writer.