Privately educated still take most top jobs

Although, this article is highlighting a report on British education system & the resultant employment prospects from the private institutions of that education system, this can easily be extended to everywhere around the world.

Private schools, colleges, & universities in US & Canada are similarly regarded as producing highly talented individuals, who then are employed in top jobs. Although, there are no private universities in Canada, yet, but the cost of education in public universities is skyrocketing, & obtaining that education is becoming a luxury for many. The pricier the degree, the more respect it earns from the industry.

It's the same case in developing countries, like Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, India, Pakistan, etc. Private education system has merely become the profit-making tool for a few industrialists. Public education system has been eroded or the industry sector doesn't favour the graduates of those. Graduates of private education system are highly regarded in the industry, & even there, the more expensive the degree (i.e. IBA & LUMS), the more respect the grad earns, & hence, obtaining that top spot in the industry becomes that much easier.

Of course, this disparity will continue on, even if the private education system starts taking in students on the basis of merit. The reason being that the graduates of these top private schools have strong alumni networks in the top tiers of industry, who pull their fellow graduates up, while leaving behind the graduates of public education system. This "networking" will continue on. Coupled this networking issue in the developed world with the not-so-strong financial situation of the immigrants there, & you can see that immigrants & their children do not make it to the top tiers of the industry in the developed world.

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https://www.rt.com/uk/333491-private-education-top-jobs/

Individuals educated at private schools continue to land the majority of top jobs in leading fields, including law, politics, journalism and the arts ... .

Results published by the Sutton Trust ... show that while the previous decade has shown “small signs” of narrowing inequality levels, often more than 70% of top jobs are given to those who were privately educated.

Only 7% of British youngsters attend private school, but the study showed that 74% of judges and 71% of high ranking military officers attended fee-paying schools.

In journalism, 51% of top print writers were privately educated, as well as 61% of doctors.

Respectively, only 12% of military chiefs were educated in comprehensive schools, and 22% of doctors attended grammar schools. Only one-fifth of leading journalists had a state education.

In politics the gap has narrowed, the report found, with 32% of MPs having attended a private school. But when examining the Tory cabinet, some 50% of the ministers went to independent schools, compared to 13% in Labour’s shadow cabinet.

The report also examined the prevalence of Oxford and Cambridge universities among top ranking positions, and found that alumni from the famous academic institutions were more likely to take high positions.

In law, Oxbridge graduates make up 74% of the top positions, with 54% of journalists having also attended the two universities.

Some 47% of the Conservative cabinet also attended Oxford or Cambridge, more than 10% higher than the shadow cabinet, which features 32% Oxbridge graduates.

The arts is also not exempt from the privately educated/Oxbridge bubble, with award-winning actors and actresses 50% more likely to have had a private education than pop stars. A total of 42% of BAFTA winners were awarded to fee-paying school attendees.

Sir Peter Lampl, chair of the Sutton Trust, said the report showed a need for more social mobility.

“Our research shows that your chances of reaching the top in so many areas of British life are very much greater if you went to an independent school.

“As well as academic achievement, an independent education tends to develop essential skills such as confidence, articulacy and teamwork, which are vital to career success.

“The key to improving social mobility at the top is to open up independent schools to all pupils based on merit not money... as well as support for highly able students in state schools.”

'Massive' rich-poor gap in German society

One of the major reasons for the increase in hatred towards refugees & immigrants in the Western world & the populism politics is that these Western countries are not taking care of their own citizens but their politicians are trying to pander to refugees & immigrants for their votes.

Charity begins at home & the rising poverty levels & joblessness is breeding more hatred towards those people who look different from the majority. Be it the Trump-led GOP or Afd in Germany or any number of political parties in Canada, US, or Europe, at the end of the day, those parties are increasing their popularity by going after these homeless, unemployed, poor people.

The social exclusion, economic inequality, unemployment, & poverty are increasing all over the Western world & will keep increasing until people come out on the streets & violently topple their respective sitting governments. Before the situation worsens to that point, governments need to tackle these social issues head on before it's too late (but, believe you me, they won't).

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https://www.dw.com/en/massive-rich-poor-gap-in-german-society/a-19067611

Germany's Paritätische federation, which represents 10,000 social welfare groups, warned ... that nearly one in six of Germany's residents remained at risk of being trapped in relative poverty.

The term used across the EU refers to anyone, child or adult, who lives on less than 60% of the medium income as measured statistically. In Germany, that threshold is 917 euros ($1,015) per month for a single person and 1,192 euros ($1,310) for a single parent with a child under six.

Experts said the results overall continued to point to massive inequality in German society, despite glowing data such as ... that export-driven Germany last year recorded its highest federal budget surplus since reunification, and despite its taking in 1 million refugees.

One in six below poverty line

In its latest summary, based on figures from 2014, the Paritätische said 15.4 of the population nationwide was stuck below the poverty line.

That was down a slight 0.1% on the level measured it 2013, but still up significantly on the 14% measured ten years ago, it said.

Highlighting child poverty, the federation said 19% of Germany's youngsters lived in relative poverty. Half of these were children living in a single-parent household.

And, at 15.6%, poverty among pensioners had for the first time risen above the nationwide average.

One in five Ruhr residents impoverished

Relative poverty had climbed to a record 20% in North Rhine-Westphalia's Ruhr district, once the motor of German heavy industry and now the scene of economic and urban redevelopment efforts.

Among Germany's 16 federal states or "Länder", poverty risk had declined in the city-state of Berlin and Mecklenburg-East Pomerania in northeastern Germany, the Baltic coast region that was once part of communist East Germany.

Despite record employment, poverty had not declined, said Dorothee Spannagel, a social expert who analyzed poverty trends for the trade union-affiliated Hans-Böckler Foundation.

She told the German news agency DPA that the gap in Germany between poor and rich continued to widen.

Spannegel said the so-called low wage sector involving menial jobs had become disconnected from overall economic gains. In addition, there had been a surge in individuals earning from their capital investments.

'Massive break" in equality

She pointed to 2013 data from the federal statistics office, showing that more than half or nearly 52% of net assets in Germany were owned by just 10% of the population.

In a glaring contrast, half of Germany's population of 81 million owns only just over one percent of assets.

"That is a massive break in equal opportunity," said Spannagel, adding that an individual's chance of making it ahead had diminished and the risk of falling into poverty had grown.

In the 1980s, the risk of falling from the middle income milieu into poverty had been around 12%, she said. Since 2005, the risk had risen to 16%.
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From football to property and beyond, inequality is the mother of all crises

Inequality does indeed affect us all, both physically & mentally. It's foolish to say that the poor people are happier than wealthy people. No, poor people are not happy because they have to work that much more to earn just enough to fill theirs & their children's stomachs. Then, there are education costs, housing costs, utilities, healthcare costs, & now, even the clean, drinking water costs money. Add the social exclusivity of poor people & their families due to their poverty & the life of the poor person is just hellish.

To develop & provide sustainable resources to everyone equally, the wealthy & the poor, every country needs to invest in its infrastructure & economic policies. Although, the writer of this opinion post takes a simplistic view that if Netherlands can increase taxes, & also spread its tax net, to help out the vulnerable sections of its own populations, then everyone else can, it is pretty much impossible to do that without proper practice of faith & religion.

How will religion help in alleviating poverty & instituting equality among the populace? Netherlands is a small Scandinavian country with a much smaller population than many developing countries, like Pakistan, India, Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria, Kenya, Thailand etc. It is also a pretty much a homogeneous population, very much unlike many other developing countries around the world. Still, it's impossible to eradicate inequality because the rich control the political policy-making machine.

This eradication, or at least, alleviation of inequality, can only happen through ethical people in governments & policy-making area. Increasing taxes or spreading the tax net far & wide may help in increasing the government coffers but won't help much if that money is once again ends up in the pockets of rich executives & wealthy citizens of the country, or politicians loot that money. So, how does the general public ensure that government is full of good, ethical people? And even after identifying such honest people, can the general public act rationally enough to bring them to power & stick by them, while, they increase taxes on rich people, & use those taxes to upgrade the horrible situation the general public is living in? Remember, all this will take time, whereas, the general public will want to see substantial major changes as soon as possible.

Only ethics can help there, & ethics comes through religion. Ethical & religious people will need to become leaders & consider government coffers public money & hence, need to be spent on them.

Besides ethics & religion, huge changes in electoral policies need to be implemented. These kind of substantial changes to alleviate poverty & inequality need a good & long time frame, like a decade or more, easily. But, in most democracies, even when they are stable, a government & leader has about a few years, anywhere from 8 to 10 years to finish his / her work. Of course, that has to be done, if & when, opposition parties are silent & happy with what the government is doing (then, what's the point of the opposition party?). But, these fundamental economic & social changes can easily take couple of decades to meaningfully show any changes in the system.

So, inequality indeed adversely affects a major portion of the general populace, but alleviating or eradicating inequality requires a lot more work than simply changing the tax system (even that is huge work in itself).

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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/feb/08/football-property-prices-beyond-inequality-mother-of-all-crises-tax-lilianne-ploumen

Inequality affects all of us. I live in Amsterdam, where house prices are now rising so sharply that ordinary, hard-working people don’t get a look-in. In London, it’s been like that for years. Whole neighbourhoods are unaffordable. Century-old football clubs have become the playthings of billionaires.

And the trend continues. More and more of the world’s wealth is in the hands of fewer and fewer people. I believe that tolerating this growing inequality will go down in history as humanity’s biggest mistake since communism.

People are essentially social animals. They can inspire each other, but they can also frustrate and discourage each other. And that’s what gross inequality does. It unravels the very fabric of our societies. It robs people of decent jobs and decent pay. And it robs them of their sense of purpose and self-worth.

In developing countries, the gap between rich and poor is far bigger. And it isn’t merely a technical issue, it is the result of political choices. Inequality is truly the mother of all crises. Whether it is conflict, climate change, economic stagnation or migration flows, inequality is always a major underlying cause.

Last autumn, the UN adopted new global goals. One of the main targets is to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. To achieve that, economic growth must stay at the level it had for the past 10 years and its benefits must be far bigger than average for the poorest 40%.

The challenge we face is summed up in the slogan: “Leave no one behind”. The smartest policy here is to invest in the poorest of the poor. If we don’t, there is no way we will defeat extreme poverty by 2030. Which means we won’t generate the economic growth needed to achieve the other global goals. And we won’t reach our climate goals either.

“Leave no one behind” is also a moral imperative. In the past 25 years, globalisation has helped the world make spectacular progress on poverty. But at the same time we’ve allowed large groups to lag behind, and an even larger group to fall by the wayside completely. One of the main causes is exclusion. Whether it is on the basis of gender, religion, disability or sexual orientation, entire groups are being left out.

The mantra that no one should be left behind offers hope of a much-needed correction. It means managing globalisation properly. It means ending the unbridled power of elites. If realised, it would mean everyone could finally benefit from – and participate in – global development.

We know how to make this happen. Last year, we analysed Dutch policy to see how we could contribute more to inclusive development. It resulted in a plan of action worth €350m (£269m) that we are now putting into practice.

The plan consists of 20 measures across two areas. The first involves generating work and income for African women and young people with poor future prospects. The second consists of 10 measures to prompt robust political dialogue with developing countries on inclusive growth and development.

That dialogue is crucial, because resistance to change is often strongest precisely where change is needed most. In many poor countries, elites cling stubbornly to wealth and power until conflict, death and destruction are inevitable.

But the most powerful weapon against inequality is tax. Governments have to fight tax avoidance and tax evasion. My country has initiated the renegotiation of 23 tax treaties. We’ve proposed anti-abuse provisions to ensure that the Netherlands is no longer an attractive option for companies that want to avoid taxes. And we now forgo tax exemptions on goods and services provided under official development assistance.

At the same time, we need to broaden the tax base in the developing countries, which often rely on consumption taxes that make the poor pay a higher proportion of their income in tax than the rich. These countries need a progressive tax regime. And for that they need assistance in administering and collecting more complex forms of taxation, such as income and wealth taxes.

Taxation is not a popular subject for politicians. But it deserves far more attention. A recent study, by Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and Nattavudh Powdthavee, brings further proof that higher taxation equals more happiness.

For many developing countries, the tax burden is still 10-15% of gross domestic product. According to the UN, they’ll have to raise collection to about 20% just to be able to finance their share of the global goals. In Scandinavia, the average tax burden is more than 45%. I wish the same for every country! Provided the money is spent well, of course.

So we have our work cut out. To the super rich, I say: trickle-down is dead. To the elites and the kleptocrats in poor countries, I say: there’s a limit to how high you can build the gates around your communities. The time has come to pay. Make sure the payment is in taxes.

Money from thin air: British breezes sells for £80 a pop in China

There was a time when basic necessities of life were free for all, Then, healthy food became something to be purchased. Then, rather recently, clean drinking water became the next necessity of life to be sold & purchased, & now, bottled Air from UK & Canada going to cities that are suffering from pollution & smog.

Result of this: cheap food lacks proper nutrients & hence, increases the likelihood of illnesses like obesity, diabetes, heart problems, etc.; polluted & dirty water is available for free, but full of pollutants & harmful carcinogens in some cases, & now, poor people who lack enough money to buy bottled air, will be inhaling polluted air full of carcinogenic materials.

Next thing up for sale: life. If you want more life, buy more life.

Essentially, poor people will keep fighting for the mere scraps -- the necessary scraps to live -- while, the wealthy people will be able to buy everything to live; food, water, air, life ...

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https://www.rt.com/uk/331438-bottled-british-air-china/

A UK businessman is making a fortune selling British air to wealthy Chinese buyers for £80 ($115) a bottle.

Leo De Watts, 27, harvests fresh air from rural locations across the UK, including Dorset, Somerset, Wales, Wiltshire and Yorkshire.

His team use specially adapted fishing nets and run through fields to collect the breeze. The nets are left for 10 minutes to absorb the local aroma, before being bottled in 580 ml containers.

De Watts, who is from Dorset but now lives in Hong Kong, described his product as the “Louis Vuitton or Gucci” of fresh air.

Commenting on the difference between the areas where English air is harvested, he said: “I would say on the whole that Dorset air seems to pick up a few more scents of the ocean, as the breeze flows up the Jurassic Coast and over the lush pastures.

“Whereas air from the Yorkshire dales tends to filter its way through much more flora, so the scent captures the subtle tones of the surrounding fields, giving different qualities to the collection. We go up to a hilltop, for example, and collect all the products there which are all packaged and bottled up, sent to Dorset and then directly to China.”

De Watts said the Chinese demand for Great British gusts stems from the country’s terrible pollution problem, especially in urban areas.

“Our customers all have high disposal incomes and want to buy gifts for someone or someone wants to use it,” he said.

“There is a serious point to this though as Beijing, Zhuhai, and Shanghai are the major places where pollution is quite bad, whether it is the fault of the rest of the world or its China’s responsibility, we have a case of people living in smog.”

De Watts’ company Aethaer – the Greek word for pure fresh air – is one of at least two companies selling bottled air to China. A company from Canada is already selling bottled Rocky Mountain air to smog sufferers in Beijing and elsewhere.

De Watts admits he originally dismissed the idea as ridiculous.

“I saw a few reports of people importing bottles of air and thought it was a bit ridiculous myself, and then I thought about it,” he said.

“When someone bottled water everyone thought it was ridiculous, now you have Evian and Volvic – why not bottle air?”

Hector & the Search for Happiness, Quote 1

Similar to the advice Muslims have received in Islam that never compare your life with people who are above you (in social & wealth status) but always compare your life with people who are below you, so you may remain grateful to God (Allah).

We should never compare our life with other people, esp. wealthy people, because as soon as we start comparing our lives, we start losing our inner peace & gratitude, & become desperate to keep up with the joneses.

IMDB          Wikipedia          RottenTomatoes

The Deep State and the Power of Billionaires - David Cay Johnston on Reality Asserts Itself

If you are a regular reader of my blog posts, then you will know how I love to talk about how people around the world has a false notion of democracy & think that voting is democracy. Here, in the first part of this interview, the investigative reporter, Mr. David Johnston, talks about how instead of "one-man, one-vote" concept of a true democracy, the whole governmental system is rigged in such a way that the concept of democracy actually becomes "more wealth, more votes."

The naive, or perhaps, ignorant, public thinks that their vote matters. Before every election, the public is cajoled by the media to get out & vote because "your vote matters." Heck, I also vote in every federal & provincial elections in Canada, but I also keep in mind that my vote won't have much of an effect on the final outcome because the system has already decided who will be the next "puppet" or public "face" of the government. Most importantly, the policies of the government never change, or at least, not materially enough, to help make life any better for the poor & stricken public. The rich keep getting richer regardless of who comes in the powerhouse.

Another interesting thing to think, coming out from the interview, is how our education system churns out people who cannot think critically about their surroundings. They only care about their next paycheque. They don't care, or perhaps, trained to think about their own lives only. They are put into such a financial position that they are running from one errand to next, without ever having enough time to sit down calmly & think critically about their situation & the world around them. That's what the governments around the world want their citizenry to be & do; be a compliant little worker, who works like a machine, devoid of any critical thoughts.

One other thing Mr. Johnston briefly touched upon is that the people around the world equate wealth with virtue. Somehow, we still think that if someone is wealthy, then they must be pious & virtuous. Even most Muslims around the world incorrectly assume that if their fellow Muslim is wealthy, then he/she must be a pious person. Why? How so? Most wealthy people nowadays become wealthy by wrong means; be it morally wrong or legally wrong. They try to influence the economic & political policies of the government in their favour. They think that their wealth let them wield more power & votes over the government & the poor masses. Although, those poor masses are the ones who made them that wealth. Consequently, the poor masses stay poor, wealthy keep politicians in their pockets, & the political establishment keeps a facade of democracy on the actual face of oligarchy.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0byZ1Rl8-8

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: What does that do to your vision of America?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, it's very troubling, largely because it's not seen by most people and it's not held to any kind of account. And one of the flaws in our notion that we live in a democracy is that a very narrow group of people select who we get to vote for. Someone like Dennis Kucinich might have a lot of popular appeal, but he will never be a serious candidate for president, because those people who have a lot of money in this country are going to use the system to make sure he isn't there.

JAY: And the media.

JOHNSTON: That's right. President Obama--look at how closely he's identified with Wall Street. I chuckle every time somebody says he hates white people. Almost everybody on the staff is white in the White House--overwhelmingly white. He's an enemy of Wall Street. Really? Really? Zero prosecutions of the big bankers for what are well-documented frauds, including by the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission, whose report Congress paid for and then threw in the round file 'cause they didn't want to look at it?

JAY: Yeah, African Americans may have voted for him, but he is the Wall Street candidate.

JOHNSTON: He absolutely is. And everybody who gets to run is the Wall Street candidate.

And so the fundamental problem we have is, look, most people want to live their lives, and if they can have a reasonably decent place to live and a car that'll start in the morning and a job with a reliable income and they can have a dog if they want one, they're pretty much happy. Part of that is because our education system is designed to make sure that we produce nice, compliant factory and office workers. You can have a better conversation about politics, sociology, wealth, culture with the average waiter in rural Ontario or rural Hungary or rural France than with the average MBA in a suit sitting in the first-class section of an American airplane. Trust me, I've tested this. Alright? And so we live in a society where we just put blinders on to these things we don't want to see.

I mean, think for a moment about this use of drones to take out people who I have no doubt are serious enemies of the United States, but which also have taken out wedding parties and children. Just imagine (and this, I think, can happen with the technology): somebody puts a drone up and they want to take out me because I'm seen as a horrible person, and in the process they take out a whole bunch of children who happen to be standing nearby. Do you think that we would react to that by saying, oh, well, that's just casualty of war? So we aren't thinking very carefully and deeply about the long run.

And, Paul, the biggest observation that all this has made me come to is if you look at our policies in America today, whether they're economic policies, political or diplomatic policies, if you believe, as James Watt, Ronald Reagan's interior secretary, said, that we'd better use up all the resources quickly, because Jesus is coming back and he'll be really ticked off, all of our policies make sense. But if you believe human beings are going to be here for way beyond any period of time they've already been here, our policies don't make any sense at all. We need to be thinking about the fact that we're just stewards for the time that we're here, and we should be thinking about the great-great-great-great grandchildren none of us alive today will ever see.
...

JOHNSTON: And we also have this ideology that if you're wealthy, somehow that's virtuous.
...

JOHNSTON: ... So within this sphere there are fractious elements, different elements, people who have different and contending interests, people who have no interest in this but care a lot about that.

But nonetheless, yes, there is a power elite, as C. Wright Mills called it. It operates on its own interests and behalf. And it certainly doesn't like people like journalists.

So what do you see has been going on now since the beginning of the age of Reagan? Bumper stickers: "I don't trust liberal media". Really? You're going to trust Fox News, where I can document to you beyond question they just make things up, and they don't correct when they're wrong, and they knowingly mislead? I mean, I've made mistakes. Journalists make mistakes. When journalist make mistakes, we not only run corrections, but the Jayson Blair episode at The New York Times, where this sociopath got loose in the newsroom, 90 percent of what he did was inconsequential stuff, didn't cause any damage--lying, but inconsequential--Times ran a 14,000 word Sunday front page self-exposé. When The Philadelphia Inquirer found out its star political reporter was the mistress of the Democratic political boss of South Philly, they ran--I think it was 32,000 words exposing how they had missed this and not seen it. You ever seen that on Fox News? And yet they tell lies all the time.

And so you understand that an important element of the wealthiest class in America maintaining its position is making sure that most Americans do not think critically about these things, that we have two-income families who are having trouble getting by, so that they are devoted entirely to trying to hold their family together and they don't have the ability to be involved in political activities, to then make it hard to vote, to reduce the number of voting machines, to challenge people's right to vote, to make these robo calls, if you go to the polls and you don't have your ID, you'll be arrested sort of stuff that is nonsense, but people who don't know better are afraid. And it's very, very troubling. And, by the way, many of the very, very wealthy people that I know in this country--and I know lots of them--they are as troubled as you and I are about this. They're just not going to assault it frontally.
...

The Roots of Nigeria's Chaos

A good interview to highlight couple of the points I've been blogging about since last year:

1. When "terrorists" attacked France last year, I blogged that nobody is looking at the real reasons behind the motivations of why these young people became or did what they did. Of course, what they did was wrong, but why did they do it. Just blaming Islam for its "hateful speech towards non-Muslims" is not sufficient enough reason.

The reason I said was these youths were venting their frustrations after watching & suffering injustices, mostly because of discrimination; racial, linguistic, religion, ethnicity etc. They were lashing out at an unjust & unfair society. Of course, their way of lashing out or venting their frustrations was wrong. In the same vein, the "terrorist" groups operating in several other 3rd-world countries are also lashing out after suffering injustices; perceived or otherwise. Be they "terrorist" groups be Boko Haram or ISIS or Al-Nusra or Al-Qaida etc.

As this Nigerian activist explains that there is a huge imbalance of wealth in Nigeria, in the North & the South, & I would add on to it that imbalance, & the perceived injustice growing out of it, drove many to join an amalgam of these groups that are collectively called, Boko Haram.

2. Then, the Nigerian activist goes on to explain how US foreign policy, multinational oil companies, IMF, & World Bank supported corruption in Nigeria or came up with monetary policies which, in effect, further exacerbated the wealth imbalance in the country, which, in turn, created the current conditions of lawlessness & "terrorism".

As I have also blogged previously that the governments of developed countries, through their foreign policies & support of their multinational companies, effectively plunder & rob the developing countries of their natural & intellectual resources, which, in turn, create a wave of cheap labour force for their own countries (immigration) & create more wealth for their own companies.

The Nigerian activist stated how Nigerian economy & politics are heavily dependent & thus "shaped by multinational corporations. ... We are running an economy that is based, basically, on oil rents, collection of royalties and rents from oil production by transnational oil corporations. They have overbearing influence on the political development of the country and on the economy. ... And so right now the oil companies operate above the law, because the government would not do anything ... whatsoever to offend them or to make them lose their profit. And so they break the law with absolute impunity."

He then goes on to explain how the overbearing & devastating influence of IMF & World Bank hobbled & effectively disabled the Nigerian economy & economic development. "... the influence of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has also been very significant in dislocating the pattern of growth of the Nigerian economy and African economy generally that was visible between--in the early '70s through the early 1980s. And that, of course, happened through the introduction of structural adjustment programs that opened up the economy for dumping of products from the Global North, from North America, from Europe, from Japan, Australia, and then also killing local production, local industries, killing local agriculture, and, making these countries kind of dependent on ... foreign aid and stuff like that. So we've seen a situation where the negative influence of multinational corporation has played a very, very big role in keeping our nation from being on the right path of progress."

Ironically enough, we've seen the devastating impact of these structural adjustment programs within European Union, too, within the past 5 years or so. European Union was effectively made by richer countries of Europe (Germany & France) to basically push their products on to the poorer economies of Europe (Greece, Portugal etc.). So, while Germany enjoyed positive trade balances due to exports to these countries, it also effectively killed the industries of Greece (& negative trade balances due to heavy imports) & made it dependent on German imports. When economy tanked, there was nothing to support Greek economy & it nosedived disastrously.

So, yes, I concede that there are corrupt politicians in developing countries & there is widespread corruption. But, the corruption can be overtaken if developed countries of the Global North stop meddling in the internal affairs of those countries. Political & economic meddling hobbles & destroys any chances of progress developing countries have & effectively push them back further in the hole.

Since, the developing countries keep trying to climb out the hole but the walls are kept out of reach by developed countries, economic development & proper distribution of wealth never takes place. That, in effect, create the perfect conditions for wrong elements of the society to rile up the young population against their own & any foreign influences. Then, the Global North (or developed countries) label those people "terrorists" & try to root them out with any means necessary. That in turn create more chaos & destruction without actually solving the problem, since, the root of the problem was never looked upon, deliberately or otherwise.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbhjyhIDgxw

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Nigeria is in a state of semi-chaos. And the question I have, and I think most people following this story have, is: how did Nigeria get to a point where such events can take place?

Now joining us to help give some historical context to all of this ... is Nnimmo Bassey. He's a Nigerian architect, environmentalist, an author, a poet. He chaired the Friends of the Earth International from 2008 through 2012. He was executive director of Environmental Rights Action for two decades. And he now is the director of the Mother Earth Foundation.

So can you just give us quickly what's happening now on the ground in Nigeria and a little bit about who the Boko Haram is and what they represent?

NNIMMO BASSEY, DIRECTOR, HEALTH OF MOTHER EARTH FOUNDATION: As you said, Nigeria is undergoing very difficult times at the moment. But these had been building up over time. Usually in the past we had incidents of clashes over religious differences between the Muslims and Christians in the northern part of the country, but these were on-and-off incidents. But what we're seeing now is a sustained aggression by a diversity of groups who are generally grouped under the label Boko Haram. Boko Haram does not appear to be one single organization that has a command structure as such, but an amalgam of groups who share perhaps a philosophy of just wreaking destruction in the nation.

Nigeria gained political independence in 1960, but the structure was not perfect. And just as the nation was getting its act together, 6 years into independence, the military struck. ... the year after the military struck, Nigeria faced a civil war ... from a number of reasons. And when the Civil War ended in 1970, Nigeria wealth from oil revenue, crude oil revenue. And then, at that time, the military head of state said Nigeria had the problem of how to spend money, not how to make money. So that kind of settled the philosophy.

JAY: Before you get into the oil politics, 'cause I know it's such a big story, from after independence, 1960s and so on, it's at the height of the Cold War, and much of African politics, as I understand it, was shaped by the Cold War. What was the role of US policy in the development of the military dictatorship in Nigeria?

BASSEY: ... we had military rule in Nigeria from 1966 ... and this went on for about 3 decades, with just a little space of time that they left in 1979 and came back in 1983.

And also in this time, the US has maybe made a few noises against military dictatorship more generally. I believe the US was not really obviously against the governments in power. And, of course, Nigeria was a very strong frontline state against apartheid in South Africa at a time when US was ambivalent, the US was ambivalent about what was going on in South Africa. So it wasn't really a very smooth relationship all through this time.

But the military were not politicians, generally. They were just young man who grabbed power for whatever purpose. And they had to run the country down to the ground. And so what we're seeing now manifesting in the country now is a result of several years of misrule, both by politicians and by the military, and right now have been in meetings where the past military rulers go to great pains to explain that they cannot be to blame, because they always work with politicians. And, of course, with the local politicians, they also work with politicians from the US, from Europe, and from elsewhere.

But we had a situation where wealth has been concentrated in a few hands across the nation. If you look at statistics, right now the ... GDP, gross domestic product, is said to be growing at a rate of more than 6% per year, and just a couple of weeks ago the government announced: by recalculating the gross domestic product, Nigeria is now the biggest economy in Africa, bigger than South African economy.

But at the same time, what is not being told to the world, what is not being announced clearly, is that poverty is increasing rapidly also. So you have a situation where 70% of the population live in poverty, and then wealth is concentrated in a few hands. And in the northern part of the country, this disparity is much more sharper because of years of negligence, especially in educational sector, because some people ... manipulate the poor and the marginalized, children, especially, and the youth, into not obtaining suitable education, but just being put in a state where they have to depend on the rich for daily handouts and occasional days of festivities. And so you find in the northern part of the country very deep and desperate poverty besides incredible wealth here of a few people. And so over the years, this has built up. This has resulted in discontent, especially amongst the poor, young people.

And the problem generally across the nation has been that over--the years of military rule has made even the civilian politicians behave sometimes like--as if they were military overlords. And elections have not been fair and free most of the time. And politicians were very, very readily amenable to using political talks, some of whom have been armed with weapons. And if you look at the crisis that occurred in the South in about--around 2005 in the Niger Delta, in the oil fields, where militancy heightened, you find that some of the young people who were involved in this militancy had worked as help to politicians through elections, but they would not receive what they were promised at the end of the day. And so the politicians used to use and then dump them.

And a similar thing also occurred in the northern part of the country, but we are not in a position to say exactly how what has become the Boko Haram phenomenon grew, from what was the root. What is known is that the amalgam of groups generally operating under this name or under this nomenclature believe that anything Western must be rejected, especially Western education. And so they will fund a lot of attacks on schools, on public institutions, and then on the military, on whatever they feel would hurt the government.

But what has become very reprehensible is that over the past few months, these insurgents (as they're labeled these days) have concentrated on killing defenseless children, some in their sleep in their hostels, in secondary school hostels. They've recently ... abducted over 200 girls from a hostel in a school at Chibok in northeastern Nigeria. In Abuja about two weeks ago they set off explosions in a very densely packed motor park, a public transportation hall on the outskirts of Abuja, killing innocent workers and children who were either on their way to school or to their offices.

JAY: How much has the interests of big Western oil companies shaped the politics of Nigeria? I mean, you're talking about a handful of very, very wealthy, and in the north tremendous poverty, where all these events are taking place. But in terms of over the last decades, how much has Nigerian politics been shaped either by, you know, Western/American oil companies, and even directly with US CIA and such involvement?

BASSEY: Well, let me speak about how the Nigerian economy and politics have been shaped by multinational corporations. They've been very key in shaping the way politics has developed in the country and how the economy has grown. We are running an economy that is based, basically, on oil rents, collection of royalties and rents from oil production by transnational oil corporations. They have overbearing influence on the political development of the country and on the economy. In fact, the national budget of Nigeria has always been about ... what should be the benchmark of the price of crude oil. And so crude oil has been a determinant factor right from the early 1970s, when oil revenue became the major source of foreign exchange for the country. And so right now the oil companies operate above the law, because the government would not do anything ... whatsoever to offend them or to make them lose their profit. And so they break the law with absolute impunity.
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Now, because of the heavy dependence on oil revenue, as I said, these corporations have very heavy influence on politics. And rich people in the country are rich because they have a slice of oil revenue, not because they engaged in anything productive. And so we run a kind of voodoo economy, something that is more or less maybe beginning to change now because there are other sectors of the economy that are contributing to progress, and that is getting a bit more productive than before.

But as I say this, the influence of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has also been very significant in dislocating the pattern of growth of the Nigerian economy and African economy generally that was visible between--in the early '70s through the early 1980s. And that, of course, happened through the introduction of structural adjustment programs that opened up the economy for dumping of products from the Global North, from North America, from Europe, from Japan, Australia, and then also killing local production, local industries, killing local agriculture, and, making these countries kind of dependent on ... foreign aid and stuff like that. So we've seen a situation where the negative influence of multinational corporation has played a very, very big role in keeping our nation from being on the right path of progress.