11 3 / 2013
"
Further, though, the TOMS campaign — like the million shirts — misses the fundamental point that not having a pair of shoes (or a shirt, christmas toy, etc.) is not a problem about not having shoes. It’s a problem of poverty. Shoelessness, such as it is, is a symptom of a much bigger and more complex problem. And while donating a pair of shoes helps shoelessness, it does not help poverty.
Things like jobs help poverty. Jobs making things like shoes, for example. But TOMS doesn’t make its shoes in Africa, it makes them in China where it’s presumably cheaper to make two pairs of shoes and give one away than it is to get people in a needier community to make one pair of shoes.
The result of this setup, as Zizek explains most succinctly, is that on a big-picture level, TOMS (and other buy-my-product-and-donate companies) are busy building the exploitative global structure that produces economic inequality, while on the other hand pretending that supporting them actually does something to fix it.
It doesn’t. It just gives people shoes.
"
The 7 Worst International Aid Ideas (via stfuconservatives)
false generosity at its finest
(via bare-life)
21 2 / 2013
18 2 / 2013
“As teachers, we must understand the history of American education. It has never been the goal of the American educational system to interrupt the cycle of poverty, alleviate crime, or equalize society. The educational system, like the criminal *in*justice system, is a billion dollar industry.”
-Monique Redeaux
(via maria-grazia)
12 11 / 2012
نہ رب سے بھی کوئی شکایت کی: Colonialism in Puerto Rico
I remember, back in the start of the last elections, reading on the Internet about citizens of the United States being in disbelief at finding out that Puerto Rico is a colony. Crazy questions popped up, such as “Since when?!” “Are they going to be a state?!” “Where’s…
(via bare-life)
29 9 / 2012
Democrats and U.S. Labor Delusional About Latin America | Alberto Ruiz
The Democrats just put out their platform on Latin America, and it demonstrates only the loosest connection to reality. Thus, while praising the “vibrant democracies in countries from Mexico to Brazil and Costa Rica to Chile,” as well as “historic peaceful transfers of power in places like El Salvador and Uruguay,” the Democrats continue to point to Cuba and Venezuela as outliers in the region in which the Democrats plan “to press for more transparent and accountable governance” and for “greater freedom.” Of course, it is their Platform’s deafening silence on critical developments in the region which says the most about their position vis a vis the Region.
Not surprising, the Democrats say nothing about the recent coups in Honduras and Paraguay (both taking place during Obama’s first term) which unseated popular and progressive governments. They also say nothing about the fact that President Obama, against the tide of the other democratic countries in Latin America, quickly recognized the coup governments in both of these countries. Also omitted from the platform is any discussion of the horrendous human rights situation in post-coup Honduras where journalists, human rights advocates and labor leaders have been threatened, harassed and even killed at alarming rates.
As Reporters Without Borders (RWR) explained on August 16, 25 journalists have been murdered in Honduras since the 2009 coup, making Honduras the journalist murder capital of the world. In this same story, RWR mentions Honduras in the same breath as Mexico (a country the Democrats hold out as one of the “vibrant democracies” in the region) when speaking of the oppression of journalists and social activists, as well as the general climate of violence which plagues both countries. As RWR stated, “Like their Mexican colleagues, Honduran journalists – along with human rights workers, civil society representatives, lawyers and academics who provide information – will not break free of the spiral of violent crime and censorship until the way the police and judicial apparatus functions is completely overhauled.” And indeed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 38 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992, and it has been confirmed in 27 of these cases that the journalists were killed precisely because they were journalists. Meanwhile, in Mexico, over 40,000 individuals have been killed due to the U.S.-sponsored drug war – hardly a laudable figure.
Of course, in the case of Honduras, and Paraguay as well, things are going fine for U.S. interests post-coup, with Honduras maintaining the U.S. military base which President Manuel Zelaya, overthrown in the coup, had threatened to close. Similarly, in Paraguay, one of the first acts of the new coup government was agreeing to open a new U.S. military base – a base opposed by Porfirio Lobos, the President (and former liberation Bishop) overthrown in the coup. The other act of the new coup government in Paraguay was its agreement to allow Rio Tinto to open a new mine in that country, again in contravention of the deposed President’s position. The Democrats simply do not speak of either Honduras or Paraguay in their Platform.
Instead, the Democrats mostly focus on their alleged desire to bring “freedom” to Cuba [and Venezuela]. [READ]
not coincidentally, american financial aid for the honduran military increased after the coup and has helped the government in its oppression of small rural communities fighting for land rights, a struggle that involves a wealthy drug-trafficking businessman the u.s. has ties with (which makes the democratic party’s stated commitment to combating “narco-traffickers” in central america all the more ironic). all this, of course, after the state department made up excuses as to why it wasn’t reacting to the honduran coup as it does when the same happens in other countries.
this was all done during the administration of a democrat. of course the democrats aren’t saying anything.
Just one correction, Paraguay’s overthrown president is called Lugo, not Lobos.
I was actually just looking that up before you mentioned it. I made the correction :).
(Source: theamericanbear)
12 9 / 2012
"
Over 1950-2001. countries with below-average aid had the same growth rate as countries with above-average foreign aid. Poor countries without aid had no trouble having positive growth.
This is a critical finding - the poorest countries can grow and develop on their own. Since foreign aid received does not explain these successes, perhaps they happened for entirely homegrown reasons. The Searchers among the poor can find a way toward higher living standards; they do not have to wait for the West to save them.
"
William Easterly providing empirical evidence - in The White Man’s Burden - debunking the poverty trap myth developed by Rostow and used by Jeffrey Sachs in his 2005 book The End of Poverty, to justify white saviorism:
“When people are … utterly destitute, they need their entire income, or more, just to survive. There is no margin of income above survival that can be invested for the future. This is the main reason why the poorest of the poor are more prone with becoming trapped with low or negative economic growth rates. They are too poor to save for the future and thereby accumulate the capital that could pull them out of their current misery.”
(via dreams-from-my-father)
(via bare-life)
07 9 / 2012
"But debt is not just victor’s justice; it can also be a way of punishing winners who weren’t supposed to win. The most spectacular example of this is the history of the Republic of Haiti-the first poor country to be placed in permanent debt peonage. Haiti was a nation founded by former plantation slaves who had the temerity not only to
rise up in rebellion, amidst grand declarations of universal rights and freedoms, but to defeat Napoleon’s armies sent to return them to bondage. France immediately insisted that the new republic owed it 150 million francs in damages for the expropriated plantations, as well as the expenses of outfi tting the failed military expeditions, and all other nations, including the United States, agreed to impose an embargo on the country until it was paid. The sum was intentionally impossible (equivalent to about 18 billion dollars), and the resultant embargo ensured that the name “Haiti” has been a synonym for debt, poverty, and human misery ever since."
(Source: bare-life)
06 9 / 2012
“Many Africans gain their perceptions of the Diaspora through a colonized, White Supremacist lens. I grew up in New York City for most of my life, first Queens and now Brooklyn, and I noticed, when I got older, a certain attitude among African classmates (particularly Nigerians and Ghanaians) who were trying so desperately to emulate pop images of what society deemed was an acceptable representation of “African-American Culture”. A lot of what entails Black American cultural influence on communities outside of Black America isn’t a 100% accurate portrayal of Black American culture at all. In fact, a lot of what I see counts as “Black American influence” on-Black American communities is actually a bunch of rubbish as well as cultural appropriation. I find it very telling that non-Black American people know more about “ghetto culture” and thugs and gangsta rap imagery and all of these other problematic images of Black Americans, but know nothing about Gullah-Geechee culture, Southern Negro folktales, Black American spiritual traditions, the History of Black American music. Africans will come to America with no knowledge of who Black American History whatsoever, and say some of the most horrifying things imaginable against us; classifying us as “uneducated”, “lazy”, “dirty”, “castaways”, despite our glaring, ongoing accomplishments. However, I understand where these sentiments come from. Blacks have forever been the pariahs of American society. All other groups, even Indigenous peoples (with which we have a long and complex history) have, one way or another, sought to elevate themselves above us because they knew that, in the system of White Supremacy, Black peoples were at the bottom. This is called Anti-Blackness, and it exists in Caribbean countries as well, especially those such as Trinidad and the Dominican Republic where a sizeable part of the population is non-African in origin.
When nationality is added to the mix, it becomes anti-Black Americanness. Black Americans, forever the caretakers of this society, have been in competition with other ethnic groups who immigrated here throughout its entire history, such as Italians, the Irish and European Jews, all of which “achieved Whiteness” by participating in the subjugation of Black Americans. Black Africans and Black Caribbeans also participate in this subjugation in various ways, but it’s essentially futile because they are Black peoples and cannot gain the graces and favors of White Society at all. I think it’s incumbent upon Africans to learn about the History of the African Diaspora, holistically, just as it’s incumbent upon the African Diaspora to learn about the History of Africa.”
(via bare-life)
01 9 / 2012
"Imperialism is evidently one such monster: Whenever it is chased off, it slips into another, seemingly benign, form in order to re-insinuate itself and ultimately smother its hosts. It used to be ‘civilising the savages’; now it comes as ‘development’."
In the early 1990s, when India needed a loan, the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) used the opportunity to impose constraints on its domestic policies. These ‘structural adjustments’, followed by India’s entry into the World Trade Organisation, remodelled the country’s economy to conform with the profit-making imperatives of international and domestic corporations. The result has been enormous wealth for a few – which has trickled down to an extent in cities and towns – but a disaster for rural areas, in which two-thirds of the Indian people reside.India’s forests and villages supply the land, water, minerals and other natural resources necessary for industrialisation, commodity trading, toxic waste disposal and corporatised agriculture. The poor are being robbed, often at gunpoint, of the very environs in which they live. “What we see is actually a well-disguised form of imperialism, sophisticated enough to leave room for the national … elite to share the spoils of exploitation with the dominant classes in industrialised nations,” explain economist Aseem Shrivastava and ecologist Ashish Kothari in their meticulously documented treatise.
(via mehreenkasana)
(via bare-life)
20 8 / 2012
The Obama problem: on why we still can’t talk about imperialism and race.
This is not a ‘DON’T VOTE FOR OBAMA’ post. Vote for him if you want, don’t vote for him if you don’t. Voting is a personal decision and people shouldn’t be browbeaten into being ‘proper citizens.’ As long as you aren’t voting for Romney or aren’t decrying Obama for dumb stupid and racist reasons, I have no beef with what you do in the ballot room.
This is not a post that apologizes for the brutality and the sins of the Obama administration. This is not a post that placates to the simplistic thinking of liberal, establishment politics. This is not a far-left critique that undermines what this administration has meant for women, people of color, and other marginalized folk— nor does it ignore the REALITY that bargaining with the establishment is essential for hundreds of million of people. This post also doesn’t misunderstand How Politics Work— when I say ‘Obama,’ I don’t mean the man, I mean the institution of the American presidency. One man cannot and does not do much.
What I want to do here is talk about the myopic way we criticize Obama and his imperial ventures, and the apologetic way we discuss his presidency w/r/t people of color. But the brunt of this critique is not on marginalized people who are responding to real changes in their life— whether good changes (affordable birth control) or bad changes (families getting deported, homes getting bombed).
It is more about the conceptual space where we interact with Obama and evaluate him as good/bad/unworthy/fantastic, and how we can better understand the limits of such a space.
(Source: bare-life)
