A great opinion piece by Yasmin Alibhai Brown.
A lot of it what she said I have been saying all along in my blog posts (June & July 2015), especially the ones about how the West is busy selling arms & weapons to the developing countries in Asia, Middle East, & Africa.
First, the Western countries looted current-developing countries through invasions, occupations, & wars. Then, they concede those territories to the locals but they still keep meddling in the internal politics of the regions of Asia, Africa, & South America. For them, it's a game of political chess to keep their superiority intact.
In the piece, the author, although, does concede that all the blame cannot be put on the shoulders of first world leaders, since a lot of the developing countries are ruled dictatorially by corrupt leaders. But whoever has read my previous blog posts may recall that I put the blame of those corrupt leadership on the first world leaders, too.
Those corrupt leaders of the developing world are propped up by the staunch support of the same first world leaders, who, so proudly, extoll the virtues of democracy, human rights, & free speech.
Saddam Hussein was a good friend of the American leadership. So was Bashar Al-Assad. So is current Saudi ruling family. And they are such good friends that American governments still censors the documents & reasons why Saudi royals were quickly shipped out of US, right after the 9/11 incident. UK government flies their flags at half mast at the death of Saudi King. Canada obliges to keep the sale of billions of $$$ of armoured vehicles secret, at the request of Saudi ruling family.
The main reasons the developed countries keep such despots in power in developing countries are:
1. developing countries keep transferring their financial wealth to these developed countries through arms purchases.
2. conditions in developing countries keep & stays horrible, so the intellectual brain drain starts to happen.
3. That intellectual brain becomes a "legal" slave in the West, working in jobs for which he/she is way overqualified but he/she works there because he/she needs money.
4. developing countries also lose their mineral & agricultural wealth (as mentioned in the piece, too)
All in all, this truth has to be spoken. Problem is that the majority of the population of the West either doesn't know or doesn't want to know how their governments have destroyed, & are still destroying, the developing countries. But ignorance is not the answer when comeuppance comes along.
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... . After years of ferocious migrant-bashing, the national psyche has been successfully reprogrammed: millions of our citizens truly believe that humans from the old Soviet Union, Africa, Asia & the Middle East are flocking to get at those gorgeous council flats & big, fat, state handouts.
So easy isn’t it? Just blame those who can’t answer back. Don’t think too deeply about why there is this movement of peoples & how they feel before, during & after they leave their homelands.
...
Most migrants carry that sense of loss, even those who went off voluntarily to seek better fortune. Those who have never felt the need or pressure to emigrate can’t empathise with them, for that would be a chink in their fortress mentality. Fear is a terrible thing. It depletes compassion.
To many Britons, the current crisis is disconnected from history, & from global geopolitics. Again, it is so much easier to think of “them” & “us”, & disregard Western culpabilities, past & present.
In 2011, David Cameron, on a visit to Pakistan, accepted that Britain was responsible for many of the world’s intractable problems. It was the first & only time I recall a British leader accepting that colonialism left fractures & stains which have led to discord & failed states. (Margaret Thatcher, as well as Tony Blair & Gordon Brown, extolled the Empire & the subjugation of millions.) Mr. Cameron was savaged by the right-wing press & Labour’s Tristram Hunt. Maybe that is why he never again spoke candidly about that history. Silence is the path of least resistance.
No, you can’t just blame white people for post-colonial chaos & failures. Since independence, leaders have almost all been incompetent, corrupt & callous. Dictatorships & one-party rule, profligacy & greed, have despoiled potentially productive nations, turning them into hopeless, dependent, unsustainable entities. But the case against old European imperialists is strong & indubitable.
Last week, one Drusilla Long had a letter in a newspaper about desperate & desperately unwanted migrants. She was raised in Ghana during British rule. “I believe [we should] return some of the immense wealth we all stole from these countries, such as gold, diamonds, etc, which we have long used to build up our own wealthy ‘fortress’ Europe,” she wrote.
Brave woman, saying the unsayable.
Then there is the continuing support this country gives to oppressive regimes, the arms we sell, & the wars we have launched in the past 20 years. Iraqis never chose to become resented refugees, nor did Afghans.
Libya is now the export depot for hungry, frightened, distressed people. The allies who bombed the place have gone & feel no obligation for the mess they left. Many ISIS insurgents are from Saddam Hussein’s old Baathist army. True, we did not intervene in Syria, but for decades Bashar al-Assad was propped up by us, as was his equally heinous father. Many of the migrants trying to get into Europe come from these places. They are hated perhaps because they remind us of our bad policies & actions. Are these then our noble British values?
When bigots tell me to go back to where I came from, I remind them I am here because the British government supported Idi Amin’s bid for power. A million or more black Ugandans fled or were killed. Some fled to the UK. Has Britain ever admitted this was a big mistake? ...
Among the flotsam & jetsam of wandering humans are “economic migrants” who are seen as the biggest threat of all. They, too, are victims of Western games & unending austerity measures. We know how that affects the vulnerable & should understand why people die trying to escape poverty.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) & World Bank have driven down spending on health & education across Africa & elsewhere. Developing world debt is used by the West to cut the cost of raw materials & steal resources. Privatisation is the condition for borrowing money. It stinks.
Anup Shah is the editor of the excellent www.globalissues.org. He writes about the unjust trading system. The West protects its interests & pushes poorer countries to supply materials, labour & goods at the lowest costs. To be a dumping ground, too.
The EU, IMF & World Bank must transform the system; our leaders need to tell more truths about the dispossessed. Xenophobia, withdrawal of welfare & gunboats won’t stop the tide of humanity coming to our shores. They come because they have no choice. But the West does.
A lot of it what she said I have been saying all along in my blog posts (June & July 2015), especially the ones about how the West is busy selling arms & weapons to the developing countries in Asia, Middle East, & Africa.
First, the Western countries looted current-developing countries through invasions, occupations, & wars. Then, they concede those territories to the locals but they still keep meddling in the internal politics of the regions of Asia, Africa, & South America. For them, it's a game of political chess to keep their superiority intact.
In the piece, the author, although, does concede that all the blame cannot be put on the shoulders of first world leaders, since a lot of the developing countries are ruled dictatorially by corrupt leaders. But whoever has read my previous blog posts may recall that I put the blame of those corrupt leadership on the first world leaders, too.
Those corrupt leaders of the developing world are propped up by the staunch support of the same first world leaders, who, so proudly, extoll the virtues of democracy, human rights, & free speech.
Saddam Hussein was a good friend of the American leadership. So was Bashar Al-Assad. So is current Saudi ruling family. And they are such good friends that American governments still censors the documents & reasons why Saudi royals were quickly shipped out of US, right after the 9/11 incident. UK government flies their flags at half mast at the death of Saudi King. Canada obliges to keep the sale of billions of $$$ of armoured vehicles secret, at the request of Saudi ruling family.
The main reasons the developed countries keep such despots in power in developing countries are:
1. developing countries keep transferring their financial wealth to these developed countries through arms purchases.
2. conditions in developing countries keep & stays horrible, so the intellectual brain drain starts to happen.
3. That intellectual brain becomes a "legal" slave in the West, working in jobs for which he/she is way overqualified but he/she works there because he/she needs money.
4. developing countries also lose their mineral & agricultural wealth (as mentioned in the piece, too)
All in all, this truth has to be spoken. Problem is that the majority of the population of the West either doesn't know or doesn't want to know how their governments have destroyed, & are still destroying, the developing countries. But ignorance is not the answer when comeuppance comes along.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
... . After years of ferocious migrant-bashing, the national psyche has been successfully reprogrammed: millions of our citizens truly believe that humans from the old Soviet Union, Africa, Asia & the Middle East are flocking to get at those gorgeous council flats & big, fat, state handouts.
So easy isn’t it? Just blame those who can’t answer back. Don’t think too deeply about why there is this movement of peoples & how they feel before, during & after they leave their homelands.
...
Most migrants carry that sense of loss, even those who went off voluntarily to seek better fortune. Those who have never felt the need or pressure to emigrate can’t empathise with them, for that would be a chink in their fortress mentality. Fear is a terrible thing. It depletes compassion.
To many Britons, the current crisis is disconnected from history, & from global geopolitics. Again, it is so much easier to think of “them” & “us”, & disregard Western culpabilities, past & present.
In 2011, David Cameron, on a visit to Pakistan, accepted that Britain was responsible for many of the world’s intractable problems. It was the first & only time I recall a British leader accepting that colonialism left fractures & stains which have led to discord & failed states. (Margaret Thatcher, as well as Tony Blair & Gordon Brown, extolled the Empire & the subjugation of millions.) Mr. Cameron was savaged by the right-wing press & Labour’s Tristram Hunt. Maybe that is why he never again spoke candidly about that history. Silence is the path of least resistance.
No, you can’t just blame white people for post-colonial chaos & failures. Since independence, leaders have almost all been incompetent, corrupt & callous. Dictatorships & one-party rule, profligacy & greed, have despoiled potentially productive nations, turning them into hopeless, dependent, unsustainable entities. But the case against old European imperialists is strong & indubitable.
Last week, one Drusilla Long had a letter in a newspaper about desperate & desperately unwanted migrants. She was raised in Ghana during British rule. “I believe [we should] return some of the immense wealth we all stole from these countries, such as gold, diamonds, etc, which we have long used to build up our own wealthy ‘fortress’ Europe,” she wrote.
Brave woman, saying the unsayable.
Then there is the continuing support this country gives to oppressive regimes, the arms we sell, & the wars we have launched in the past 20 years. Iraqis never chose to become resented refugees, nor did Afghans.
Libya is now the export depot for hungry, frightened, distressed people. The allies who bombed the place have gone & feel no obligation for the mess they left. Many ISIS insurgents are from Saddam Hussein’s old Baathist army. True, we did not intervene in Syria, but for decades Bashar al-Assad was propped up by us, as was his equally heinous father. Many of the migrants trying to get into Europe come from these places. They are hated perhaps because they remind us of our bad policies & actions. Are these then our noble British values?
When bigots tell me to go back to where I came from, I remind them I am here because the British government supported Idi Amin’s bid for power. A million or more black Ugandans fled or were killed. Some fled to the UK. Has Britain ever admitted this was a big mistake? ...
Among the flotsam & jetsam of wandering humans are “economic migrants” who are seen as the biggest threat of all. They, too, are victims of Western games & unending austerity measures. We know how that affects the vulnerable & should understand why people die trying to escape poverty.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) & World Bank have driven down spending on health & education across Africa & elsewhere. Developing world debt is used by the West to cut the cost of raw materials & steal resources. Privatisation is the condition for borrowing money. It stinks.
Anup Shah is the editor of the excellent www.globalissues.org. He writes about the unjust trading system. The West protects its interests & pushes poorer countries to supply materials, labour & goods at the lowest costs. To be a dumping ground, too.
The EU, IMF & World Bank must transform the system; our leaders need to tell more truths about the dispossessed. Xenophobia, withdrawal of welfare & gunboats won’t stop the tide of humanity coming to our shores. They come because they have no choice. But the West does.
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