Environment, Globalization, and Genocide

The environment is the straight line link between globalization and genocide. The policies and practices of globalization institutions (such as the IMF and World Bank), and the practices of transforming nations for "participation" in a globalized free market capitalist economy, result in environmental destruction and the destruction of the peoples who live there. Whether it is global warming driven by "modernization" destroying the Arctic and the Inuit who live there, or the Tuareg and Fulani of Niger, or the devastation spreading across Africa, the practices and consequences of modern globalization wreak havoc.

Conservationist Michael Fay was quite blunt about these relationships in his interview with Sadia Lafti on the National Geographic sponsored Megaflyover of Africa to document the "Human Footprint" effects:

"Fay said he believed international aid to Africa must be transformed to preserve the continent's basic resources instead of extracting them for wealthy nations. Natural resources and conservation management should be part of the psyche of African governments and people worldwide to help make African countries more self-sustaining and so that the world won't keep seeing them as places of constant crisis, he said.

Fay said he had seen mass graves in AIDS-ridden South Africa as well as dehydrated and dead hippos at Katavi National Park in Tanzania, which he said was a result of the World Bank's rice-development efforts, which made money but took away water from wildlife.

...

"Darfur, in my opinion, was something we could have seen 30 years ago," Fay said, referring to the region in Sudan where more than 100,000 people have died and millions have been displaced during two years of fighting between black African tribes and Arab militias. Fay pointed to the ecological warning signs: limited habitable space, little productivity of goods and a heavy human "footprint.""

The "famine" in Niger is caused by refusal to give people free food, both by Niger's government and the UN, for fear of disrupting its new free market capitalism. The plight of the Tuareg and Fulani are linked to this and to the drought (global warming influenced?) that has left these tribes traveling hundreds of miles to find enough feed for their livestock. That has left 70% of their livestock dead. As is noted in Medical News Today:

"To these people, losing your animals is like losing your life-savings. Without their animals, they have no means of survival. Twelve centuries of nomadic culture are threatened with extinction if these people do not get long-term help to rebuild their livelihoods," said Natasha Kofoworola Quist, Oxfam's Regional Director for West Africa."

If there is a refusal to feed people when there is food available for fear of "disrupting" capitalist economics, then what is the likelihood of providing feed for the livestock of these tribes? None. So, the human influenced environmental catastrophe is worsened by the influence of globalization, resulting in the genocide of a people.

Eliminating the basis of survival for people is one of the "incentives" for "joining" the "global community." The reality of modernization is tremendously environmentally destructive. The requirements of globalization for nations to transform their economies into export economies (diverting and destroying land and resources in the name of "development") directly undermines people's ability to survive outside the "system," and for much of the world struggling to survive within it. In highly isolated groups like the northern Inuit, it means global warming destroying the environment they and their culture depend on. For those like the Tuareg and Fulani, it means death through manufactured disaster.

I believe that the destruction is intentional, or at least a known "cost" of the globalization process. The destruction of the survival base of peoples is a historic process of conquest. One example is the U.S. government's deliberate destruction of the buffalo as a way of eliminating the Plains tribes. Then "industry" stepped into the act. Buffalo hide was used for the belts that drove the machinery of the industrial revolution. Such practices remove people's ability to survive, and the cultures that they have. When the means of survival are removed, and much of the population dies as a consequence, then people are forced to move into the dominant paradigm to survive. The tribal peoples of the United States were forced onto reservations and dependence on the government's "aid" (which was frequently withheld and is still being withheld). So it will likely be with the Tuareg and Fulani as their way of life is undermined. Once the herds, and many of the people are dead, the survivors will move into the masses of the poverty stricken of Niger.

The prevailing ideology is that both "development" and "modernization" are the direction to go. In the U.S., and I image in most of the big global player nations, these peoples are living a backward and archaic life, and need to move into the 21st century "for their own good." Ultimately (if they are among the selected few), what will remain is the idealized dominant cultural memorial to a decimated people - a car or weapon named after them. The Tuareg have achieved such status with VW who explained the name of their 4x4 as "honoring" a fierce and proud people.

The decimation of indigenous peoples, like the rest of "nature" (with which they are categorized by "Western" culture), are just the cost of modernization. Transform them into what is "useful" and "profitable." It is better for "them" and better for "us." There is even less concern for genocide than there is for ecocide - even though the two are inextricably linked. However, "modern" peoples should see a warning in the extinction of entire peoples and ways of life. Those living closest to the earth are the first to feel the effects of its decimation, but the basis of life for everyone is being destroyed - it just takes a little longer to hit those who control the resources.

There is a sad irony in the fact that the path that has brought the world to this place is not recognized as a failed paradigm. As the world groans and peoples and cultures die, the decision is to plow ahead at all due speed. One can hope that people will rise up in time to change the path we are on, but that change is already too late for thousands of cultures. Hopefully peoples like the Tuareg and Fulani can last long enough to see that change.

Other articles on the famines effect on the Tuareg and Fulani.
8/16/05 BBC, Niger way of life 'under threat'

8/16/05 Scotsman, Famine threat to 12 centuries of traditional nomadic life, warns charity

Posted by rowan at August 21, 2005 8:59 AM | [eMail this article!] |