The growing poverty - 'fundamentalist violence' nexus
by Lynn Ockersz
Hopefully, the recent countrywide bomb blasts in hitherto,
comparatively trouble - free Bangladesh, coupled with explosions at two
food outlets in Pakistan's commercial hub of Karachi, associated with
Western food chains, KFC and Mcdonald's, would stir the Western powers
into recognising the need to ensure a better economic deal for the
poorer countries of the world, as they meet the rest of the UN
membership at the UN summit on Wednesday.
Activists from a Bangladeshi Islamic group take part in an
anti-terrorist demonstration in Dhaka, September 09. Bangladesh
police have seized a huge stockpile of explosives and detonators
from members of the banned Jamayetul Mujahideen as the country’s
Prime Minister proposed new laws to fight bomb attacks. Some 434
small bombs exploded in all but one of the country’s main towns and
cities on 17 August, killing three people and injuring over 100.
(AFP) |
The intellectual challenge facing the world's principal economic and
military powers would be to see the link between what is commonly
referred to as "religious fundamentalism" and the violence accompanying
it and economic deprivation or poverty. Unfortunately, the major powers
have apparently forgotten the lessons of history they sought to impress
on the rest of the world, in the immediate post - World War II years.
One of these is the Western-sponsored Marshall Plan of the late
Forties which enabled war-ravaged Germany to rebuild itself and recoup
its material and economic losses. The Plan was a model in post-war
international development cooperation, friendship and solidarity which,
also, very vitally, enabled Germany to recover from the wounds of war in
their many dimensions.
All too soon the lessons from this successful experiment in
development cooperation and international solidarity seem to be
forgotten, particularly going by the tragic hot spots Western military
aggression has opened-up in this part of the world - Iraq and
Afghanistan being cases in point.
It is hard to believe that the world's principal political, economic
and military powers have already forgotten the potential in economic
development cooperation to defuse latent and real international
tensions. What was good for Germany decades ago, is good for the
developing countries of today - many of which are mired in conflict and
war.
The persistence with which the West tends to ignore and gloss over
the positive outcomes of robust international development cooperation
and solidarity and succumbs to the use of the military option in the
Third World to resolve some its disputes with the latter, indicates the
application of double standards by the West.
That is, what is appropriate for a First World country - even if it
has been an antagonist in war - is inapplicable to the Third World, many
of which countries are post - colonial states. Just one issue which is
expected to figure prominently in the upcoming UN session would prove
the point.
This is the question of the cut off point for official development
aid, which was agreed upon by the Western world at the emergence of the
post-World War II global economic and political order, but which is yet
to be be complied with by a considerable number of Western powers,
including the US. The quantum of official development aid agreed upon
was just 0.7 per cent of a state's gross national product.
The US is continuing to balk at meeting this vital requirement, 50 or
more years after, along with the bulk of the Western bloc, despite the
serious implications growing world poverty has for the security of all.
Could it be that global poverty is being cynically winked at by the
West with the expectation that poverty-bred conflicts in the developing
countries could provide the big powers with the opportunity of
militarily intervening in the affairs of these countries, thereby
facilitating greater political and military control of the latter by the
Western military alliance?
This issue needs to be probed deeply by the Third World and its
backers on the world stage. Now as never before the developing countries
need to think and act unitedly to achieve their vital interests.
Besides achieving unprecedented solidarity in global fora, such as
the UN, the Third World needs to be in a position to impress on the West
the close link which exists between world peace and the achievement of
the Millennium Development Goals, for instance.
Continued failure by the West to see these links or deliberate
insistence by the West on ignoring them would only make the situations
in Iraq and Afghanistan more tragic and bloody. Fundamentalist violence,
which usually feeds on poverty and deprivation, now making its presence
felt in also Bangladesh and Pakistan, would spread further in chilling,
concentric circles. |