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From Nairobi's the Nation: G8 Choir of Hypocrisy And Humbug |
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by Mutuma Mathiu via P. Riismandel
(No verified email address) |
21 Jul 2001
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A commentator from the Nation newspaper in Nairobi, Kenya, comments on the G8, noting the hypocrisy of world leaders, especially Bush, also wishing he were on the streets with the demonstrators. |
G8 Choir of Hypocrisy And Humbug
The Nation (Nairobi)
OPINION
July 22, 2001
Posted to the web July 21, 2001
Mutuma Mathiu
The rich are holding one of their meetings in Genoa, Italy. And it reminds me of an incident when I was a little guy. One day, one of the boys I used to sit near in class was accused of having broken into the sports store and stolen I don\'t know what. You will remember that in those days walking in a certain manner was such a serious crime that it would require a whole clan of teachers to cane the offender. Theft was so outlandish a crime, it is today\'s equivalent of taking a gun to school and shooting the matron.
The investigating officer in this particular atrocity was none other than my English teacher, the inimitable Mr Mariene, a fierce, bearded, handsome if shortish fellow who used to strike terror into my heart not just because he was known to be liberal with the cane, but also because of the keen edge of his wit.
So, in his investigations, Mr Milosevic Hitler Mariene, summoned me and another of my buddies for interrogation in the holy of holies - the office of Shaka The Zulu, our headmaster. I was a little guy and little guys are a little vain about their integrity and dignity, in my experience.
I was so injured by the injustice of being associated with theft, that I was sweating, shaking and my cheeks were more bloated than normal with indignation. I stuttered and stammered and my protestations of innocence were all garbled and made no sense. Then Mr Mariene fixed me with his fierce stare and growled: \"Speak like a man.\" The look of outraged, impotent fury and my perfect apoplexy must have have been very eloquent indeed.
It is the same outraged, impotent fury that many people feel at this annual ritual of the G8. As a matter of fact, 100,000 people - wish I was there - have descended on the city, and they aren\'t there to see the sights.
They have gone there to rush the steel barricades and the 15,000 Carabinieri and troops. The rich have built a steel cage behind which they will issue high-sounding humbug, a word of which they will not mean.
The G8 meeting of course will be hanging on every word of American President George Bush, \"the leader of the Free World\". In the agenda is the environment, debt and Aids, among others. The Americans say that the rest of the world is unfairly accusing their President of being an incoherent, little-travelled Houston doodle. They may have a point there.
But it was Mr Bush who went back on the promises America made at Kyoto to cut greenhouse emissions and make the earth safe for humanity. Mr Bush says he will not sign on to anything that could hurt the American economy. That is the kind of view that European sophisticates are dismissing as little-town nonsense. A man taking the broader view would see that when Earth is rendered uninhabitable, Americans, along with other earthlings, will die. Besides, destroying the environment is not good for any economy.
And Mr Bush does come from Texas. Houston, the state capital, is one of the most polluted cities on earth. There, oil is king, pollution is seen as a symptom of growth and wealth. I refuse to believe that Mr Bush\'s views have nothing to do with his association with the free-polluting, industrial culture of his home town.
Making noises about poverty
It is also expected that Mr Bush and his rich cronies will make all the appropriate noises about poverty. In doing that, they will obviously refuse to see the point that their philosophical adversaries will be making: Though globalisation (or global capitalism) has worked wonders for trade and creation of wealth in G8 countries (with perhaps the exception of Russia), it has not done the same for those who most need prosperity - the world\'s poor.
Because they want to do everything possible to safeguard the economic interests of their people, G8 leaders will refuse to see that the concentration of riches in a few countries and the deprivation of the majority, especially where that majority is so desperately poor that putting food on the table is a daily crisis, is not a good basis for a new world order. It is a recipe for disorder.
The kind of disorder that is seen at the Immigration counters in Western airports and the burgeoning trade in human beings. Where the poor do not get footloose and head for the West, they sit back in impotent, eloquent fury and look at the oily smiles of well-fed middle aged men mouthing platitudes.
mutuma (at) nation.co.ke
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See also:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200107210063.html
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