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Among the key commodities such as grain, meat, oil, coal, and steel, China consumes more of each than the United States except for oil, where the United States still has a wide (though narrowing) lead. China uses a quarter more grain than the United States. Its meat consumption is double that of the United States. It uses three times as much coal and four times as much steel.

These numbers reflect national consumption, but what would happen if consumption per person in China were to catch up to that of the United States? If we assume conservatively that China’s economy slows from the 11 percent annual growth of recent years to 8 percent, then in 2035 income per person in China will reach the current U.S. level.

If we also assume that the Chinese will spend their income more or less as Americans do today, then we can translate their income into consumption. If, for example, each person in China consumes paper at the current American rate, then in 2035 China’s 1.38 billion people will use four fifths as much paper as is produced worldwide today. There go the world’s forests.

If Chinese grain consumption per person in 2035 were to equal the current U.S. level, China would need 1.5 billion tons of grain, nearly 70 percent of the 2.2 billion tons the world’s farmers now harvest each year.

If we assume that in 2035 there are three cars for every four people in China, as there now are in the United States, China will have 1.1 billion cars. The entire world currently has just over one billion. To provide the needed roads, highways, and parking lots, China would have to pave an area equivalent to more than two thirds the land it currently has in rice.

By 2035 China would need 85 million barrels of oil a day. The world is currently producing 86 million barrels a day and may never produce much more than that. There go the world’s oil reserves.

What China is teaching us is that the western economic model—the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy—will not work for the world. If it does not work for China, it will not work for India, which by 2035 is projected to have an even larger population than China. Nor will it work for the other 3 billion people in developing countries who are also dreaming the “American dream.” And in an increasingly integrated global economy, where we all depend on the same grain, oil, and steel, the western economic model will no longer work for the industrial countries either.

The overriding challenge for our generation is to build a new economy—one that is powered largely by renewable sources of energy, that has a much more diversified transport system, and that reuses and recycles everything. We have the technology to build this new economy, an economy that will allow us to sustain economic progress. But can we muster the political will to translate this potential into reality?

By Lester Brown

16 September 2011

Earth Policy Institute

Lester Brown is an United States environmentalist, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BBC Radio commentator Peter Day calls him “one of the great pioneer environmentalists.”

Copyright © 2011 Earth Policy Institute

In Tel Aviv, An Arab Spring That Ignores The Arabs

No one could have ever predicted that a single act of protest — the self-immolation of a desperate Tunisian street vendor — would unleash a tidal wave of collective resistance and rebellion throughout North Africa and the Middle East, threatening to topple regimes that had long been considered permanent political players.

But perhaps the most surprising outcome of this regional groundswell of protest was to be seen in Israel where Jewish protesters held up placards and shouted slogans declaring that the revolutionary spirit of Cairo’s Tahrir Square had come to the streets of Tel Aviv. The Arab Spring, it seems, has turned into the Israeli Summer.

But how do the ongoing protests in Tel Aviv relate to the larger regional turmoil? What do the protests say about the current state of Zionism, and what do they mean for the occupation of Palestine? To answer these questions, one might begin by turning to a rather unexpected source: Israeli pop culture.

Zionism escapes unscathed

In 1984, Israeli rock musician Shalom Hanoch released his bestselling album Waiting for Messiah. Located squarely within the rock tradition of protest, the album was graced by an audacious piece of cover art: an extreme close-up of a filthy ashtray, overflowing with garbage and cigarette butts. It is as appropriate a metaphor as any for the true poverty that resides at the heart of the good life, for the grime undergirding the glamorous.

Further solidifying the album’s protest credentials is its title track which tells the tale of the fabled Jewish Messiah, who at long last arrives on earth. But his appearance in the world does not come as a happy occasion. Upon seeing the sad state of affairs that greets him in modern-day Israel, the intrepid, young Messiah does not fulfill any prophetic dreams. Instead, he throws himself from a rooftop, committing suicide on the pavement of a Tel Aviv street. “The Messiah is not coming,” Hanoch intones, his raspy voice accentuating the guttural sounds of Hebrew. “The Messiah is not even going to phone.”

But is the message of Waiting for Messiah really all that radical? Before embracing the song as a musical manifesto of leftist rebellion and revolt, one should delve a bit deeper. The lyrics suggest that the grievances leading to the Messiah’s suicidal plunge are entirely economic. Specifically cited is the mishandling of the Israeli stock market. One may thus surmise that the Messiah too was an unlucky investor.

Absent entirely from this picture are the Palestinians. They are relegated to the shadows — marginalized, obscured and forgotten. Thus, an image of protest is cultivated even if the thing that clearly demands the most protest — the ethnocentric Zionist state and its accompanying occupation of the Palestinian people — is not mentioned at all. It is as though everything can be criticized except for precisely that which matters most. In this fashion, protest — even that of an angry rock anthem — functions to perpetuate the very status quo it purports to be against. At the end of the day, Zionism escapes unscathed.

Revolt against neoliberalism

The recent protests that have erupted in Israel should be understood in the exact same fashion. Stationed in a makeshift tent city on Tel Aviv’s swanky Rothschild Boulevard, the protesters’ demands are strikingly similar to those voiced by their Arab neighbors: affordable housing, cheaper food and gasoline, higher wages and an end to the deterioration of the country’s health and education systems.

According to prominent Middle East labor historian Joel Beinin, “The Arab awakening is in part a rebellion against the neoliberal development model, even if it is rarely named. The housing crisis in Israel is similarly a symptom of neoliberal policies” (“The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Arab Awakening,” Middle East Report Online, 1 August 2011). But while these economic problems have been exacerbated by Israel’s costly military occupation of Palestine and the government subsidization of illegal settler communities in the West Bank, the overwhelming tendency is to ignore these inconvenient facts and instead to treat the occupation as an entirely unrelated subject, as a “security issue” with no bearing on the protests whatsoever.

Thus, even though Hanoch’s album was released in 1984, it could have been recorded yesterday. Had its titular Messiah postponed his arrival on earth by 27 years and appeared in the hot Israeli summer of 2011, he would have still taken that rooftop dive and splattered his body on the streets below. Once again, the problem is the economy, and once again, the Palestinians are left completely out of view.

There are those who claim that addressing the Israeli occupation at this time would serve only to divide the protesters. Uri Avnery, for instance, has argued that even “bringing up the occupation would provide [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu with an easy weapon, split the tent-dwellers and derail the protests.” Avnery, who is a longtime fixture on the Israeli left, concludes that there is “no need to push the protesters” in this direction and that with patience, the protests will eventually turn against the occupation on their own, as if by magic (“How godly are thy tents? Who are these people? Where will they go from here?,” Counterpunch, 5 August 2011).

This view is not uncommon. However, the desire to delink the call for social justice from the occupation and to simply hope for the best is ill-conceived. The view that the unity of the protests must be maintained at all costs overlooks the crucial fact that a protest in Israel that does not also address the occupation is really no protest at all.

On Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard, the middle class demonstrators are thus attempting to wage an Arab Spring without any Arabs. While the tent city protest has been unusual in its size and in the wide degree of support it has received throughout the country, the urge behind it does not constitute a real challenge to the Israeli state. The protests represent a reaction against the economic injustices exacerbated by the Israeli government’s neoliberal policies, and as such, the broader framework of Zionism is entirely capable of absorbing the protesters’ demands.

Settlers embraced

Indeed, what is the Rothschild Boulevard rebellion but the latest manifestation of an old, Zionist dream? Like the pioneering Zionist settlers before them, the protesters today envision the creation of a welfare state in the land of milk and honey, where life is affordable, food is plentiful and the country’s rightful inhabitants, the Palestinians, are excluded from the discussion. They simply seem not to exist. The protesters do not want to disavow the Zionist dream; to the contrary, they want to implement it.

But a dream for the early Zionists was a living nightmare for the local Palestinians. When freedom for one people is achieved with the occupation of another, there is nothing to be celebrated. The Rothschild Boulevard rebellion departs in no way from this precedent. Without addressing the occupation, the protesters’ demands, at the very best, aim only to make life better for the occupiers, and the welcomed inclusion of members from the Ariel mega-settlement in the revolt, as reported by Max Blumenthal and Joseph Dana, should serve here as a grim warning (“How could the largest social movement in Israel’s history manage to ignore the country’s biggest moral disaster?”, Alternet, 24 August 2011) . It is the occupiers who stand to receive better health care, better education, higher wages, more affordable housing and all around better living conditions, and those living under the occupation receive nothing.

Conservative agenda

Thus, in this case, protest is not at all that radical. Like Hanoch’s earlier rock anthem, the image of radical protest conceals a rather conservative agenda. That is, protest functions within the predetermined parameters of the dominant social order. Rather than posing a threat to the Israeli state, the protests aim only to make life better for its Jewish citizens. They seek to improve the Zionist dream of building a social welfare state in a Palestine without Palestinians. What is really needed is for that dream and its accompanying system of apartheid to be dismantled entirely.

Thus, the various left-leaning supporters of the Rothschild Boulevard rebellion who defend the exclusion of the Palestinian issue in the name of Israeli unity have it all wrong. Unity does not mean coming together with occupation supporters and land-usurping settlers. Rather, real unity would mean crossing that much tabooed Jewish-Arab, Israeli-Palestinian divide. It would mean that the exclusive, ethnocentric dream of Zionism would have to be replaced by a democratic dream without segregation and apartheid. Economic justice predicated on ethnocentric exclusion is hardly a dream worth fighting for. When those Jewish Israeli citizens consigned to the bottom rungs of their government’s ladder of exploitation are ready to recognize that their true enemy is the same as the one terrorizing the occupied Palestinian people, then and only then will there be a unity in protest worth celebrating.

By Greg Burris

17 September 2011

The Electronic Intifada

Greg Burris is a former instructor at Istanbul Bilgi University in Turkey and a current graduate student in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

In Libya, Former Enemy Is Recast in Role of Ally

TRIPOLI, Libya — Abdel Hakim Belhaj had a wry smile about the oddity of his situation.

Yes, he said, he was detained by Malaysian officials in 2004 on arrival at the Kuala Lumpur airport, where he was subjected to extraordinary rendition on behalf of the United States, and sent to Thailand. His pregnant wife, traveling with him, was taken away, and his child would be 6 before he saw him.

In Bangkok, Mr. Belhaj said, he was tortured for a few days by two people he said were C.I.A. agents, and then, worse, they repatriated him to Libya, where he was thrown into solitary confinement for six years, three of them without a shower, one without a glimpse of the sun.

Now this man is in charge of the military committee responsible for keeping order in Tripoli, and, he says, is a grateful ally of the United States and NATO.

And while Mr. Belhaj concedes that he was the emir of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was deemed by the United States to be a terrorist group allied with Al Qaeda, he says he has no Islamic agenda. He says he will disband the fighters under his command, merging them into the formal military or police, once the Libyan revolution is over.

He says there are no hard feelings over his past treatment by the United States.

“Definitely it was very hard, very difficult,” he said. “Now we are in Libya, and we want to look forward to a peaceful future. I do not want revenge.”

As the United States and other Western powers embrace and help finance the new government taking shape in Libya, they could face a particularly awkward relationship with Islamists like Mr. Belhaj. Once considered enemies in the war on terror, they suddenly have been thrust into positions of authority — with American and NATO blessing.

In Washington, the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on Mr. Belhaj or his new role. A State Department official said the Obama administration was aware of Islamist backgrounds among the rebel fighters in Libya and had expressed concern to the Transitional National Council, the new rebel government, and that it had received assurances.

“The last few months, we’ve had the T.N.C. saying all the right things, and making the right moves,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s delicacy.

Mr. Belhaj, 45, a short and serious man with a close-cropped beard, burst onto the scene in the mountains west of Tripoli only in the last few weeks before the fall of the capital, as the leader of a brigade of rebel fighters.

“He wasn’t even in the military council in the western mountains,” said Othman Ben Sassi, a member of the Transitional National Council from Zuwarah in the west. “He was nothing, nothing. He arrived at the last moment, organized some people but was not responsible for the military council in the mountains.”

Then came the push on Tripoli, which fell with unexpected speed, and Mr. Belhaj and his fighters focused on the fortified Bab al-Aziziya compound of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, where they distinguished themselves as relatively disciplined fighters.

A veteran of the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets, Mr. Belhaj has what most rebel fighters have lacked — actual military experience. Yet he has still not adopted a military rank (unlike many rebels who quickly became self-appointed colonels and generals), which he said should go only to members of the army.

Dressed in new military fatigues, with a pistol strapped backward to his belt, Mr. Belhaj was interviewed at his offices in the Mitiga Military Airbase in Tripoli, the site of what had been the United States Air Force’s Wheelus Air Base until 1970.

Last weekend, Mr. Belhaj was voted commander of the Tripoli Military Council, a grouping of several brigades of rebels involved in taking the capital, by the other brigades, a move that aroused some criticism among liberal members of the council.

However, his appointment was strongly supported by Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the chairman of the council, who said that as Colonel Qaddafi’s former minister of justice he got to know Mr. Belhaj well during negotiations leading to his release from prison in 2010. Mr. Belhaj and other Islamist radicals made a historic compromise with the Qaddafi government, one that was brokered by Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, the Qaddafi son seen then as a moderating influence.

The Islamists agreed to disband the Islamic Fighting Group, replacing it with the Libyan Islamic Movement for Change, and renounced violent struggle. “We kept that promise,” Mr. Belhaj said. “The revolution started peacefully, but the regime’s crackdown forced it to become violent.”

Mr. Belhaj conceded that Islamists had no role in creating the revolution against Colonel Qaddafi’s rule; it was instead a popular uprising. “The February 17th revolution is the Libyan people’s revolution and no one can claim it, neither secularists nor Islamists,” he said. “The Libyan people have different views, and all those views have to be involved and respected.”

Forty-two years of Qaddafi rule in Libya had, he said, taught him an important lesson: “No one can make Libya suffer any more under any one ideology or any one regime.” His pledge to disband fighters under his command once Libya has a new government was repeated to NATO officials at a meeting in Qatar this week.

Some council members said privately that allowing Mr. Belhaj to become chairman of the military council in Tripoli was done partly to take advantage of his military expertise, but also to make sure the rebels’ political leaders had him under their direct control.

Many also say that Mr. Belhaj’s history as an Islamist is understandable because until this year, Islamist groups were the only ones able to struggle against Colonel Qaddafi’s particularly repressive rule.

After Mr. Belhaj and a small group of Libyan comrades returned from the jihad against the Soviets, they formed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and had a secret base in the Green Mountain area of eastern Libya, until it was discovered and bombed, and many of its followers rounded up.

Mr. Belhaj escaped Libya in the late 1990s and, like many antigovernment exiles, was forced to move frequently as Libya used its oil resources as a way to pressure host countries.

“We focused on Libya and Libya only,” he said. “Our goal was to help our people. We didn’t participate in or support any action outside of Libya. We never had any link with Al Qaeda, and that could never be. We had a different agenda; global fighting was not our goal.”

He said that America’s reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks led to his group’s classification as terrorist.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the rapprochement between Libya and Western countries led to the apprehension of several anti-Qaddafi activists, who were returned to Libya by the United States.

While Mr. Belhaj insisted that he was not interested in revenge, it is not a period of his life that he has altogether forgotten. “If one day there is a legal way, I would like to see my torturers brought to court,” he said.

Steven Lee Myers and Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington.

By ROD NORDLAND

1 September 2011

@ The New York Times

Our writer tests the mood on the ground in Gaza City

Outside the office of the senior Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum are two striking photographs of the Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his successor Abdel Aziz Rantisi, assassinated by Israel within three weeks of each other in 2004. They are a reminder of how dominant a part of the Israeli-Palestinian story Gaza has been over the past decade. This week, however, it is on the sidelines; its Hamas rulers are unrepresented in New York, and for once it is the moderate West Bank leadership which is the focus of Israeli and American vexation.

Which doesn’t mean that Hamas is happy. There is a certain symmetry between its reaction to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s application for UN membership, and that of the US and Israel. Like President Obama, the Islamic faction complains that UN resolutions will not resolve the conflict. Hamas has, like Israel, objected to Mr Abbas’s “unilateral” step.

There may even be an identity of motives between some in Hamas and some in Israel who oppose a two-state solution – a goal Mr Abbas wants enshrined in the UN resolution – because each regards the entire territory from the Jordan to the Mediterranean as its own.

The reaction of Hamas officials has varied somewhat, perhaps reflecting uncertainty as to how to respond to the UN initiative, not to mention the fact that the most popular man in Gaza, the Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, supports it. But Mr Barhoum claimed that Mr Abbas has fostered a UN resolution which recognises “our enemy” Israel, and in doing so has “cancelled the right of return” for the families of refugees who were forced from or fled their homes in what is now Israel during the war of 1948. This Mr Abbas denies, since the fate of the refugees is a core issue in any future negotiations with Israel.

But Mr Barhoum said that, while the two factions had earlier agreed to work together, “Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas] took this unilateral step without any consultation. There have been 14 UN resolutions in the past [on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict]. Why does he think that this time it will bring something?” On Mr Abbas’s goal of a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Mr Barhoum repeats the standard Hamas position that since 1988 it has been prepared to offer “a long period of truce because the occupation [Israel] needs security and we need independence.”

In Gaza, unlike the West Bank, there have been no demonstrations in support of the UN bid because of what Fatah says is a ban on them. But Mr Barhoum insists there was agreement last week with Fatah that there “was no need for demonstrations for or against”. Fatah officials have denied the existence of such an agreement. And Ahmed Yousef, a recently retired adviser to the de facto Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, talked of a “repression of freedom of expression” in Gaza, telling Voice of Palestine Radio that it came “when the world, especially Turkey and the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation,” supports Mr Abbas.

Ghazi Hamad, deputy foreign minister for Hamas also sounds more sympathetic to Mr Abbas’s motives. He says: “He went to the UN because after 20 years of negotiations he came to the conclusion that we have got nothing from them. In Hamas we support any effort in the UN or the international community to bring a Palestinian state.”

Mr Hamad wants a “new strategy”, not based on what he regards as a false choice between Hamas “resistance” and Fatah “negotiations”. But he does not gloss over the crisis posed by the split and argues that Israel is also in a deep crisis: “Israel lost major allies: Turkey, Egypt; they may lose Jordan. They feel more isolated.” Noting that Turkey, the Arab League, and the OIS have supported Mr Abbas’s initiative, Mr Hamad says that they can help to empower Mr Abbas by using their influence in Europe and the US. “But first he needs to go back and finish reconciliation.”

By Donald Macintyre

23 September 2011

@ The Independent

Imperial Delusions: Ignoring The Lessons Of 9/11

Ten years ago, critics of America’s mad rush to war were right, but it didn’t matter.

Within hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it was clear that political leaders were going to use the attacks to justify war in Central Asia and the Middle East. And within hours, those of us critical of that policy began to offer principled and practical arguments against aggressive war as a response to the crimes.

It didn’t matter because neither the public nor policymakers were interested in principled or practical arguments. People wanted revenge, and the policymakers seized the opportunity to use U.S. military power. Critical thinking became a mark not of conscientious citizenship but of dangerous disloyalty.

We were right, but the wars came.

The destructive capacity of the U.S. military meant quick “victories” that just as quickly proved illusory. As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq dragged on, it became clearer that the position staked out by early opponents was correct — the wars not only were illegal (conforming to neither international nor constitutional law) and immoral (fought in ways that guaranteed large-scale civilian casualties and displacement), but a failure on any pragmatic criteria. The U.S. military has killed some of the people who were targeting the United States and destroyed some of their infrastructure and organization, but a decade later we are weaker and our sense of safety more fragile. The ability to dominate militarily proved to be both inadequate and transitory, as predicted.

Ten years later, we are still right and it still doesn’t matter.

There’s a simple reason for this: Empires rarely learn in time, because power tends to dull people’s capacity for critical self-reflection. While ascending to power, empires believe themselves to be invincible. While declining in power, they cling desperately to old myths of remembered glory.

Today the United States is morally bankrupt and spiritually broken. The problem is not that we have strayed from our founding principles, but that we are still operating on those principles — delusional notions about manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, the right to take more than our share of the world’s resources by whatever means necessary. As the United States grew in wealth and power, bounty for the chosen came at the cost of misery for the many.

After World War II, as the United States became the dominant power not just in the Americas but on the world stage, the principles didn’t change. U.S. foreign policy sought to deepen and extend U.S. power around the world, especially in the energy-rich and strategically crucial Middle East; always with an eye on derailing any Third World societies’ attempts to pursue a course of independent development outside the U.S. sphere; and containing the possibility of challenges to U.S. dominance from other powerful states.

Does that summary sound like radical hysteria? Recall this statement from President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 State of the Union address: “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.” Democrats and Republicans, before and after, followed the same policy.

The George W. Bush administration offered a particularly intense ideological fanaticism, but the course charted by the Obama administration is much the same. Consider this 2006 statement by Robert Gates, who served as Secretary of Defense in both administrations: “I think the message that we are sending to everyone, not just Iran, is that the United States is an enduring presence in this part of the world. We have been here for a long time. We will be here for a long time and everybody needs to remember that — both our friends and those who might consider themselves our adversaries.”

If the new boss sounds a lot like the old boss, it’s because the problem isn’t just bad leaders but a bad system. That’s why a critique of today’s wars sounds a lot like critiques of wars past. Here’s Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assessment of the imperial war of his time: “[N]o one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over.”

Will our autopsy report read “global war on terror”?

That sounds harsh, and it’s tempting to argue that we should refrain from political debate on the 9/11 anniversary to honor those who died and to respect those who lost loved ones. I would be willing to do that if the cheerleaders for the U.S. empire would refrain from using the day to justify the wars of aggression that followed 9/11. But given the events of the past decade, there is no way to take the politics out of the anniversary.

We should take time on 9/11 to remember the nearly 3,000 victims who died that day, but as responsible citizens, we also should face a harsh reality: While the terrorism of fanatical individuals and groups is a serious threat, much greater damage has been done by our nation-state caught up in its own fanatical notions of imperial greatness.

That’s why I feel no satisfaction in being part of the anti-war/anti-empire movement. Being right means nothing if we failed to create a more just foreign policy conducted by a more humble nation.

Ten years later, I feel the same thing that I felt on 9/11 — an indescribable grief over the senseless death of that day and of days to come.

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center in Austin. He is the author of All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, (Soft Skull Press, 2009); Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007); The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege (City Lights, 2005); Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights, 2004); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang, 2002). Jensen is also co-producer of the documentary film “Abe Osheroff: One Foot in the Grave, the Other Still Dancing,” which chronicles the life and philosophy of the longtime radical activist.

By Robert Jensen

8 September 2011

@ Countercurrents.org

Historical Reconstruction Again?

And so, for reasons that are both complex and irritating, the past is being dragged into the present yet again; while we Malaysians bury our heads in the sand and neglect the future. By now most of us will be familiar with yet another controversy-in-a-teacup that has grabbed the headlines: namely the question of whether the events that took place during the attack on the police outpost in Bukit Kepong ought to be remembered as a historic event in the Malayan struggle for independence.

Unfortunately for all parties concerned it seems that the issue has been hijacked by politics and politicians yet again, as is wont to happen in Malaysia on a daily basis almost. More worrying still is how the manifold aspects of this event have been taken up selectively by different parties and actors to further their own arguments, while neglecting to look at the wider context against which the event took place. It is almost impossible to be truly objective when it comes to the writing and reading of history, and perhaps we can do away with that pretense. But for now perhaps some marginal notes on the matter might come in useful to clear the air a bit.

A. Was PAS pro-Communist?

One of the outcomes of this debate has been the resurrection of the old question of whether PAS (The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party) was pro-Communist at that point in its history. This seems an odd question to ask in the first place, as it seems incongruous for an Islamic party to harbour any real sympathy for Communism, which has always been seen as the bugbear to the Islamist cause. But it has to be remembered that when the Malayan Islamic party was first formed in Novermber 1951, many of its founder-leaders were anti-colonial nationalists who were keen to see the end of British rule in Malaya. Some of them were former members of the Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM) and also the first Islamic party in the country, the Hizbul Muslimin (that was formed, and almost immediately banned, in 1948)

PAS’s left-leaning days were at their peak during the Presidency of Dr Burhanuddin al-Helmy (1956-1969), who did not hide his opposition to British rule and who refused to negotiate a settlement with the British then. Dr. Burhanuddin was sympathetic to the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), whose anti-British sentiments he shared; but this does not mean he supported Communism as an ideology. PAS’s stand towards the MCP then (in the 1950s and 1960s) was thus a pragmatic one that was based on the same goal of rejecting British colonial rule. However, it has to be noted that PAS was equally wary of Beijing’s influence in the region, and there is nothing to suggest that the leaders of PAS would have ever accepted Malaya coming under Communist rule, albeit directly or indirectly, from Beijing.

B. Was the MCP a tool of Communist China?

That the MCP and its guerilla wing were against any and all forms of British colonial rule is simple enough to verify, and their record of anti-colonial struggle is there for anyone to investigate. The more difficult question to answer however is this: How independent was the MCP, and was it – as the British alleged – working to further China’s communist influence in the region then? The British were somewhat ham-fisted when dealing with the MCP, and it ought to be noted that the invention of the image of the MCP as a ‘Chinese threat’ was the work of the British colonial propaganda agencies then.

Here, however, a broader perspective on the matter might come in handy. Think of Malaya in the 1950s and envisage the region as a whole, as the Cold War was heating up. In Vietnam, Burma and Indonesia the Communists were gaining strength in numbers; and perhaps the biggest worry to Britain then (as to the departing French and Dutch colonial powers) was the possibility that all of southeast asia might turn Communist. Remember that this was the time when the region was called ‘the Second Front in the war against Communism’; and when the Western bloc was keen to ensure that Indonesia – being the biggest country in the region – would not come under the rule of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

In Indonesia, the PKI grew more and more powerful under the leadership of men like D.N Aidit, and was instrumental in developing the civilian para-military forces that later agitated for the destruction of Malaya during the ‘Ganyang Malaya’ (Crush Malaya) campaign. It was only after the failed coup of 1965 and the virtual extermination of the PKI between 1966 to 1970 that the Communist threat in Indonesia was contained, and ties between Malaya and Indonesia were normalised. It was against this background that the fear of the MCP – and the worry that it was backed by China – was articulated and developed in Malaya. While it is true that the MCP was anti-British, there is no evidence to suggest that it claimed the majority support of mainstream Malay-Muslims in the country, despite the presence of Malays in the 10th Regiment.

C. To negotiate or fight?

Perhaps the most contentious issue of all is whether the struggle for independence was really fought and won by the Leftists, Islamists or Nationalists in Malaysia. Here is where contingency steps in and one can only speculate.

The fact is that the security measures that were introduced during the declaration of the First Emergency (1948-1960) meant that almost all the left-leaning parties, trade union movements, workers groups etc had been eliminated or left feeble. Those who stood to gain from this were the conservative nationalists who opted instead to negotiate the terms of Malayan independence, and who negotiated on a number of issues including citizenship for the non-Malays etc. But no matter how one looks at it, the historical facts are that the left-leaning movements in the country were established long before the conservative-nationalist parties and movements. (The Malayan Anarchist party was founded in 1919, for instance; and the MCP in 1930. By contrast the MCA was only founded in February 1949.)

Of course we can speculate until the cows come home over the question of the many ‘what-ifs’ had the circumstances of the past were different. What if the MCP was not banned? What if the MCP was successful in its guerilla campaign? What if half the Malay population had supported the leftists, etc etc.

But in the event, as things turned out, the radical left was all but absent in the final stages of negotiation and it was the UMNO-MCA alliance that sorted out the final terms of Britain’s withdrawal from Malaya. Lets not be too sanguine about this: Britain did not ‘leave’ Malaya willingly, but was compelled to do so thanks to the destruction of its colonial economy in the wake of World War II. Its main aim then was to ensure that its capital investments in its former colonies would not be nationalised, as was the case in Indonesia when Sukarno simply confiscated all Dutch capital assets and nationalised them. Unsurprisingly, Britain wanted to ensure that its investments in tin and rubber were not lost in the wake of its withdrawal.

However we are left with several ponderables:

Malaya (then under Tunku Abdul Rahman) negotiated its independence on terms that were mutually beneficial to both sides. The British were not shot to pieces or blown to bits, and despite the loss of lives in the guerilla war the human cost was less than what was paid in Vietnam and Indonesia. Conversely, in the three countries where the anti-colonial struggle was led by the native armed forces – Indonesia, Vietnam and Burma – the army then came to power and dabbled directly in politics for decades to come. Had a similar war been fought in Malaya, could there have been a situation where a nationalist army would then come to power too, with generals and colonels taking over government as they did in Vietnam, Indonesia and Burma?

Which then brings us to the debate over ‘negotiation vs struggle’. Just take a flight to Vietnam or Indonesia and everywhere you will see statues of freedom-fighters, generals, colonels, guerilla leaders etc. Malaya’s first generation of leaders, on the other hand, had almost never fired a shot or stabbed anyone with a bayonet. But is that a bad thing? While I understand the value of patriotism and valour in the face of adversity; one also has to ask: if and when we are confronted by a departing adversary who wishes to negotiate the terms of withdrawal, should we negotiate or fight? I am personally bored by all this tostesterone-driven talk of macho deeds of heroism, and frankly hate any sort of violence. Looking to India, we ought to remember that while there were Indian nationalists who were prepared to fight the British militarily (like Subhas Chandra Bose), India’s independence was negotiated too – through passive civil disobedience and persistent resistance, rather than guns and grenades. The same could be said of South Africa, where Apartheid was brought to an end by claiming the moral high ground rather than to sink to the same level of guttaral violence like the regime’s.

SHOULD the Malayan nationalists have opted for negotiation or struggle then? Now quite honestly I do not see how this question can be answered objectively by anyone (even myself). What we can say, with some certainty, is that in the cases of the countries where local nationalist militias/armies did oppose the departing colonial powers the results have been military intervention, and subsequent military presence in politics. (The Indonesian armed forces during the time of Sukarno and Suharto claimed the right to be political, by virtue of its institutional history and its role in the anti-colonial war.) What then? Could Malaya/Malaysia have then become a militarised state? We simply do not know, and speculation beyond this is, simply, futile.

At the root of the present impasse in Malaysia seems to be the question of who writes our national history and who interprets/defines it. Perhaps one of the reasons why we keep returning to these debates time and again is the worry that our history has not been as inclusive as it ought to be. We cannot deny that in the end it was the UMNO/MCA alliance that won the terms of Malaya’s first independence in 1957. But we also cannot, and should not, deny the historical role played by other groups including the trade unions movements, the workers movements, the nascent vernacular press, the native intelligentsia, the cultural groups, the Islamists and the Leftists as well. ALL of them were part of this collective drama that we call our national history. And our national history has to be precisely that: a National History that mirrors the complexity and diversity of this complex thing called ‘Malaysia’.   My lament, as an academic by default, is that objectivity and balance have long since left the stage and gone flying through the window. Yet we should not forget that a lopsided, skewered and biased history is not simply an incorrect or incomplete record of our past; it would also be a broken legacy that sadly will be passed on to the generations to come. And that is not a singular loss to any one of us, but to all.

By Dr. Farish Ahmad Noor

13 September 2011

Dr. Farish Ahmad Noor is the Senior Fellow for the Contemporary Islam Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Nanyang Technological University (NTU).

Has the AU done too little, too late?

After months of deliberation, the African Union has recognised Libya’s new leadership – but many question its motives.

In a year when the world’s attention to global affairs has significantly focused on the African continent – from the Ivorian crisis, to the Arab Spring and the Horn of Africa’s drought – the African Union has played a less than dismal role.

In principle, the AU has a responsibility to protect, as Article 4(h) of the AU Constitutive act entrusts the organisation with a duty of care on humanitarian grounds, but in reality the AU has failed to act. After months of dithering, the AU officially recognised Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) in New York at an AU peace and security meeting held alongside the UN General Assembly gathering.

It would have been a little more than embarrassing for the AU to insist on non-recognition, while Mahmoud Jibril addressed the UN as Libya’s de facto leader.

Though it’s unclear to what extent international pressure forced the AU’s hand, it’s possible this was a strategic attempt to return to the global community. At an assembly where African states are asking for two permanent seats in the Security Council – South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon are non-permanent members – the AU has finally realised it has to play ball, otherwise African requests for membership would be ignored.

It would also seem hypocritical for the AU to stubbornly cling to non-recognition, while the Security Council, representing its permanent and non-permanent members, maintains a friendly policy towards the NTC.

Other than international concerns, the AU had already begun to warm towards the NTC on its own accord. Headed by President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, the AU High Level Ad-Hoc Committee on Libya met in Pretoria on September 14 and called for the establishment of a broadly representative administration as the main condition for recognition.

Previously assured that Libya and the NTC’s “strategic commitment to the African continent” remained a priority; the AU delegation considered the possibility of the NTC taking up Libya’s seat in the AU Peace and Security Council (AU PSC), “based on the exceptional circumstances in and the uniqueness of the situation of Libya”. This was a crucial, but belated step towards acknowledgment, and it will be interesting to see how the new Libya gets along with Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea – as both are Gaddafi-friendly members of the AU PSC.

Given the splits between pro-NTC states such as Egypt, Nigeria and Tunisia and the undecided South Africa – which has implicitly aligned itself with influential Gaddafi sympathisers; Zimbabwe, Algeria and Angola – it is likely the AU will struggle to maintain a unified and positive position on Libya.

Different strategies, same aim

The news of Muammar Gaddafi’s family crossing into Algeria and the expulsion of the Libyan ambassador to Zimbabwe was an expected twist in events. It’s expected, because it’s natural that the colonel’s political allies would protect his family in Algiers and protest the hoisting of the new Libyan flag in Harare.

It’s also unsurprising that Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Jnr of Guinea-Bissau, an old friend of Gaddafi, would offer to “welcome him with open arms”. Sharing an anti-imperialist, iron-fisted ruler-for-life ideology, these acts also reflect the feelings of the majority of leaders in Africa who have expressed reservation towards the Libyan government in waiting.

Of fifty-five African countries, twenty states have recognised the NTC. In a surprise move, Nigeria acknowledged the rebels, days before the African Union was due to meet in Addis Ababa over Libya in August.

There are several reasons for this, including wanting to appear on the right side of democracy, secure West African relations with Libya’s new leaders, and to appear progressive in front of the international community – not least because the throne left by Gaddafi is open for the taking.

While President Goodluck Jonathan may not have pockets as deep as Gaddafi, nor the intent to extend his influence through money, Nigeria is aware of the new possibilities to assert its status as a regional superpower in a post-Gaddafi Africa.

Though Nigeria may have fallen in line with influential Arab states in Africa; Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, has carved a different path.

Nervous about the potential impact if Libya were to split into sparring tribes, Bouteflika, like the AU, demanded that a tribally representative transitional government be formed as a key condition for Algeria to recognise the NTC.

Although Algeria took in Gaddafi’s family, Bouteflika was quick to promise there was no room at the inn for the Brother Leader, saying, “never did we consider the idea that one day Mr Gaddafi could come knocking at our door”.

Realising there is a new political reality in a post-Ben Ali, post-Gaddafi, post-Mubarak Maghreb, Bouteflika has maintained cordial relations with the NTC – and the AU’s change of heart on Libya may now push Algeria into welcoming the new neighbouring government.

This may be a good move, but it means external pressure on the NTC to form an inclusive and stable transitional regime is significantly reduced, especially now that the rebels have indefinitely suspended all plans to form an administration.

Shifting sands

With Gaddafi gone, Algeria will have the chance to flex its muscle, particularly in the Sahel and Maghreb regions where it has historically wielded a lot of power. Like Jonathan, Bouteflika’s plans are not to create a Gaddafi-esque United States of Africa – positioning himself as King of Kings instead of Libya’s former leader, but he is likely to take advantage of his good standing with the AU and try to gain more support for Algeria’s foreign policy.

For example, a stronger AU backing in Algeria’s role in Western Sahara’s war against Morocco’s military occupation, or, acting in self-interest, a more dominant position on the continent, may be of use to Algeria in gaining support in the regional war against al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM). This was the aim of the Sahel region anti-terrorism conference convened in Algiers earlier this month.

As Algeria has considerably less influence with the Arab League, it would not be surprising to see Bouteflika jostling for Gaddafi’s crown, along with the new Libyan regime – which stands to inherit a sea of profitable and bankrupt investments across the continent.

As for the AU, the Libyan revolution has shown that there is a deep crisis in its crisis management.

Initially, the AU refused to recognise the NTC because it was an unelected government, but when an unelected megalomanic launched an attack, killing thousands of his own people; the AU buried its head deep in the Sahara’s sands unwilling to chastise Gaddafi.

Although the absence of Gaddafi’s political and financial contribution to African politics will be keenly felt, the AU sends a message to the world that the ethic of responsibility to protect is interpreted as protecting one’s own.

The oft-repeated slogan “African solutions to African problems”, increasingly sounds more like feel-good, empty rhetoric than concrete philosophy and strategy. For months, the AU hawked around its roadmap to peace for Libya, despite the fact that, from the outset, the NTC and the heckling protesters of Benghazi had expressly rejected the plan.

Up until early September, Zuma appeared confident of the AU’s mediation efforts, claiming had the AU peace plan been followed there would have been far fewer Libyan casualties. However, by recognising the rebels, the AU has now inadvertently conceded the failure of its proposed strategy.

Whichever course Libya’s future relationship with the AU takes, it’s clear that the organisation’s limited resources and questionable political allegiances will hang over it like a rain cloud. If the AU, in all its anti-imperialist glory, failed to balance its principles of African humanity, sovereignty and responsibility to protect in the Libyan question or to raise funds for the Horn’s famine, future crises requiring international intervention will be dealt with in the same way – with the AU hovering in the shadows enacting its do-little policy, while others act – rightly or wrongly.

By Tendai Marima

23 September 2011

Tendai Marima is a Zimbabwean blogger and doctoral student at Goldsmiths, University fo London whose research interests include African literature and global feminist theory.

This article is part 3 from Chapter 6 of Richard Heinberg’s new book ‘The End of Growth’, published by New Society Publishers. This chapter looks at ideas for post growth economics.

Get the book now – Amazon, New Society, Kindle, Nook Reader

Access previous posts here.

Chapter 6, Part 1

Chapter 6, Part 2

After World War II, the industrial nations of the world set out to rebuild their economies and needed a yardstick by which to measure their progress. The index soon settled upon was the Gross National Product, or GNP—defined as the market value of all goods and services produced in one year by the labor and property supplied by the residents of a given country. A similar measure, Gross Domestic Product, or GDP (which defines production based on its geographic location rather than its ownership) is more often used today; when considered globally, GDP and GNP are equivalent terms.

GDP made the practical work of economists much simpler: If the number went up, then all was well, whereas a decline meant that something had gone wrong.

Within a couple of decades, however, questions began to be raised about GDP: perhaps it was too simple. Four of the main objections:

>> Increasing self-reliance means decreasing GDP. If you eat at home more, you are failing to do your part to grow the GDP; if you grow your own food, you’re doing so at the expense of GDP. Any advertising campaign that aims to curb consumption hurts GDP: for example, vigorous anti-smoking campaigns result in fewer people buying cigarettes, which decreases GDP.

>> GDP does not distinguish between waste, luxury, and a satisfaction of fundamental needs.

>> GDP does not guarantee the meaningfulness of what is being made, bought, and sold. Therefore GDP does not correlate well with quality of life measures.

>> GDP is “Gross Domestic Product”; there is no accounting for the distribution of costs and benefits. If 95 percent of people live in abject poverty while 5 percent live in extreme opulence, GDP does not reveal the fact.[1]

In 1972, economists William Nordhaus and James Tobin published a paper with the intriguing title, Is Growth Obsolete?, in which they introduced the Measure of Economic Welfare (MEW) as the first alternative index of economic progress.[2]

Herman Daly, John Cobb, and Clifford Cobb refined MEW in their Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW), introduced in 1989, which is roughly defined by the following formula:

ISEW = personal consumption

+ public non-defensive expenditures

– private defensive expenditures

+ capital formation

+ services from domestic labor

– costs of environmental degradation

– depreciation of natural capital

In 1995 the San Francisco-based nonprofit think tank Redefining Progress took MEW and ISEW even further with its Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI).[3] This index adjusts not only for environmental damage and depreciation, but also income distribution, housework, volunteering, crime, changes in leisure time, and the life-span of consumer durables and public infrastructures.[4] GPI managed to gain somewhat more traction than either MEW or ISEW, and came to be used by the scientific community and many governmental organizations globally. For example, the state of Maryland is now using GPI for planning and assessment.[5]

During the past few years, criticism of GDP has grown among mainstream economists and government leaders. In 2008, French president Nicholas Sarkozy convened “The Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress” (CMEPSP), chaired by acclaimed American economist Joseph Stiglitz. The commission’s explicit purpose was “to identify the limits of GDP as an indicator of economic performance and social progress.” The commission report noted:

“What we measure affects what we do; and if our measurements are flawed, decisions may be distorted. Choices between promoting GDP and protecting the environment may be false choices, once environmental degradation is appropriately included in our measurement of economic performance. So too, we often draw inferences about what are good policies by looking at what policies have promoted economic growth; but if our metrics of performance are flawed, so too may be the inferences that we draw.”[6]

In response to the Stiglitz Commission there have been increasing calls for a Green National Product that would indicate if economic activities benefit or harm the economy and human well-being, addressing both the sustainability and health of the planet and its inhabitants.[7]

One factor that is increasingly being cited as an important economic indicator is happiness. After all, what good is increased production and consumption if the result isn’t increased human satisfaction? Until fairly recently, the subject of happiness was mostly avoided by economists for lack of good ways to measure it; however, in recent years, “happiness economists” have found ways to combine subjective surveys with objective data (on lifespan, income, and education) to yield data with consistent patterns, making a national happiness index a practical reality.

In The Politics of Happiness, former Harvard University president Derek Bok traces the history of the relationship between economic growth and happiness in America.[8] During the past 35 years, per capita income has grown almost 60 percent, the average new home has become 50 percent larger, the number of cars has ballooned by 120 million, and the proportion of families owning personal computers has gone from zero to 80 percent. But the percentage of Americans describing themselves as either “very happy” or “pretty happy” has remained virtually constant, having peaked in the 1950s. The economic treadmill is continually speeding up due to growth and we have to push ourselves ever harder to keep up, yet we’re no happier as a result.

Ironically, perhaps, this realization dawned first not in America, but in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. In 1972, shortly after ascending to the throne at the age of 16, Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck used the phrase “Gross National Happiness” to signal his commitment to building an economy that would serve his country’s Buddhist-influenced culture. Though this was a somewhat offhand remark, it was taken seriously and continues to reverberate. Soon the Centre for Bhutan Studies, under the leadership of Karma Ura, set out to develop a survey instrument to measure the Bhutanese people’s general sense of well-being.

Ura collaborated with Canadian health epidemiologist Michael Pennock to develop Gross National Happiness (GNH) measures across nine domains:

Time use

Living standards

Good governance

Psychological well-being

Community vitality

Culture

Health

Education

Ecology

Bhutan’s efforts to boost GNH have led to the banning of plastic bags and re-introduction of meditation into schools, as well as a “go-slow” approach toward the standard development path of big loans and costly infrastructure projects.

The country’s path-breaking effort to make growth humanly meaningful has drawn considerable attention elsewhere: Harvard Medical School has released a series of happiness studies, while British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced the UK’s intention to begin tracking well-being along with GDP.[9] Sustainable Seattle is launching a Happiness Initiative and intends to conduct a city-wide well-being survey.[10] And Thailand, following the military coup of 2006, instituted a happiness index and now releases monthly GNH data.[11]

Michael Pennock now uses what he calls a “de-Bhutanized” version of GNH in his work in Victoria, British Columbia. Meanwhile, Ura and Pennock have collaborated further to develop policy assessment tools to forecast the potential implications of projects or programs for national happiness.[12]

Britain’s New Economics Foundation publishes a “Happy Planet Index,” which “shows that it is possible for a nation to have high well-being with a low ecological footprint.”[13] And a new documentary film called “The Economics of Happiness” argues that GNH is best served by localizing economics, politics, and culture.[14]

No doubt, whatever index is generally settled upon to replace GDP, it will be more complicated. But simplicity isn’t always an advantage, and the additional effort required to track factors like collective psychological well-being, quality of governance, and environmental integrity would be well spent even if it succeeded only in shining a spotlight of public awareness and concern in these areas. But at this moment in history, as GDP growth becomes an unachievable goal, it is especially important that societies re-examine their aims and measures. If we aim for what is no longer possible, we will achieve only delusion and frustration. But if we aim for genuinely worthwhile goals that can be attained, then even if we have less energy at our command and fewer material goods available, we might nevertheless still increase our satisfaction in life.

Policy makers take note: Governments that choose to measure happiness and that aim to increase it in ways that don’t involve increased consumption can still show success, while those that stick to GDP growth as their primary measure of national well-being will be forced to find increasingly inventive ways to explain their failure to very unhappy voters.

References

1. For expanded discussion of these points, see discussion of GNP in Arne Naess, Ecology, Community, and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1989).

2. William D. Nordhaus and James Tobin, Is Growth Obsolete?, Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper 319 (New Haven: Yale University 1971).

3. Unfortunately, the organization Redefining Progress seems to have become a casualty of the economic crsis.

4. Harvard Medical School Office of Public Affairs, “Happiness is a Collective – Not Just Individual_Phenonmenon,” news alert.

5. Jamie Smith Hopkins, “Putting a Dollar Figure on Progress,” The Baltimore Sun, September, 2010.

6. Joseph Stiglitz, Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, Report on the CMEPSP (September, 2009), p.7.

7. The phrase “Green National Product” is from Clifford Cobb and John Cobb, The Green National Product: A Proposed Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (Minnesota University Press of America, 1994), pp.280-281.

8. Derek Bok, The Politics of Happiness: What a Government Can Learn From the New Research on Well-Being (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010).

9. “David Cameron Aims to Make Happiness the New GDP,” The Guardian, November 14, 2010.

10. “Seattle Area Happiness Initiative”.

11. “ABAC Poll: Thai People Happiness Index Rose to 8 Out of 10 Points”, posted December 6, 2010.

12. “Coronation Address of His Majesty King Khesar, the 5th Druk Gyalpo of Bhutan,” November 7, 2008.

13. Cliff Kuang, “Infographic of the Day: Happiness Comes at a Price”, posted December 8, 2010.

14. Helena Norberg-Hodge, Steven Gorelick, and John Page, “The Economics of Happiness,” a documentary movie, International Society for Ecology and Culture, 2011.

By Richard Heinberg, 17 September 2011, Post Carbon Institute 

GOD OR GREED ? A  MUSLIM  VIEW

Summary of a Presentation at the Muslim-Christian Dialogue on Greed organised by the Lutheran World Federation and hosted by the Sabah Theological Seminary on 26^th of September 2011 in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

1. Greed is condemned in all religions.  Even in secular philosophies, greed is regarded  as a vice.
2. In the Qur’an, the embodiment of greed is Qarun (28:76-82; 29: 39) who was preoccupied with the accumulation of wealth and riches, and cared little for his fellow human beings or for God.

Greed is a vice in Islam because a) it is an act of stark selfishness; b) it distorts and perverts one’s character. It makes one vain and arrogant; c) it makes one overly materialistic ; d) it leads to the spread of corruption in society ; d) it is the antithesis of sharing and giving; and e) it undermines a person’s love for God and subverts values such as justice, fairness and compassion.

1. The repudiation of greed does not mean that one should renounce the life of this world.  Money is not an evil in itself. Islam allows for the ownership of property.  It prescribes rules for inheritance. Right through history Muslim societies have encouraged private enterprise and investment and recognised the legitimacy of reasonable profits.
2. But in the life of this world, there are limits that one should observe.  The concept and practice of limits is a fundamental principle in Islam.  Do not transgress the limits is an oft-repeated advice in the Qur’an.  It is linked to yet another principle, the principle of restraint.  Restraint helps to check and curb greed.  Restraint is the real meaning of the fast in the month of Ramadan.  Limits and restraint in turn lead to balance.  For it is only when everyone exercises restraint that there would be some equilibrium in society.  An equilibrium that guarantees each and every person his rightful place helps to establish the framework for justice.
3. When justice is central to society, greed will not find a foothold.  There are at least five injunctions and practices in Islam which underscore the significance of justice—- prohibition of interest (riba); the wealth tax ( zakat); the division of inheritance( faraid); the bequeathal  of personal wealth for the public good(waqf);  and charity ( sedaqah).  Underlying these injunctions and practices is a commitment to the equitable distribution of wealth and the reduction of social disparities.

It is significant that in the past this commitment did not in any way diminish the important role performed by the market in Muslim civilisation.  Huge markets flourished in some of the great centres of trade of antiquity, from Fez to Melaka.  But these were markets that were embedded in society, markets that by and large abided by the larger moral norms of Islam, including its prohibition on riba and on debt transaction.

1. This is why from the perspective of Islamic values and principles, what mars and mires the global economy and global finance today would be morally reprehensible. The ever widening wealth gap between the rich and the poor at the global level and within nation-states, the maximisation of profits as a credo, the transformation of money into a commodity for profit and the overwhelming power of speculative capital in financial transactions would contradict all that Islam stands for.  Most of all, it is the institutionalisation and the legitimisation of greed as never before in human history through a capitalist culture of acquisition, accumulation and conspicuous consumption that Islam would regard as the ultimate betrayal of God’s teachings.
2. How does one get out of the greed trap?  Perhaps one should begin with basics. Money should cease to be a commodity of profit. It should be a medium of exchange, nothing more; nothing less.  Its intrinsic value should be determined once again by the gold standard.  This will curb speculation and restore stability to the monetary system.  It will also eliminate debt transaction.   In such a system, there will be no need for interest or riba.  Private commercial banking will yield eventually to  public banks with mechanisms that ensure justice and fairness.  The Profit-and-Loss Sharing( Mudharabah) principle — and not the maximisation of profits— will guide these banks in their lending and investment policies.
3. Of course, reforms in the financial sector will have to be accompanied by far-reaching changes in the economy as a whole.  The public good rather than private gain will be the leitmotif of the economy.  Land, other natural resources, the supply of water and energy, highways, other forms of infrastructure, health care and education will all be part and parcel of the commons.  Cooperatives will play a major role in the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services.  Private business enterprises will be strongly regulated by ethical principles.
4. To sustain a transformed economy within an ethical framework, our underlying consciousness should also undergo a mammoth change. Justice, fairness, compassion, love, sharing, giving, restraint and balance will become central to the life of the individual and the community. For these universal, inclusive values to perpetuate themselves from generation to generation there has to be a psychological, emotional and intellectual anchor.  That anchor has to be a profound  consciousness of God.  It is God Consciousness that lays out the meaning and purpose of life, that determines the role and responsibility of the human being as vicegerent on earth, that affirms our collective commitment to all that is good and beautiful in this transient existence—- and therefore repudiates greed in all its manifestations.

10)   Islam and Christianity concur on this fundamental belief: that the human being cannot serve both God and greed at the same time.  If we choose God then we should declare war on those structures and attitudes that allow greed to breed in contemporary civilisation. As Muslims and Christians we should write, speak, organise and mobilise against greed.  In this monumental struggle we should work with people of other faiths and those who may not belong to a particular faith community.  The war against greed is putting into action God’s eternal message: Believe in God and do good.

Chandra Muzaffar

Kuala Lumpur

26 September 2011

THE Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial was to be dedicated on the National Mall on Sunday — exactly 56 years after the murder of Emmett Till in Mississippi and 48 years after the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. (Because of Hurricane Irene, the ceremony has been postponed.)

These events constitute major milestones in the turbulent history of race and democracy in America, and the undeniable success of the civil rights movement — culminating in the election of Barack Obama in 2008 — warrants our attention and elation. Yet the prophetic words of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel still haunt us: “The whole future of America depends on the impact and influence of Dr. King.”

Rabbi Heschel spoke those words during the last years of King’s life, when 72 percent of whites and 55 percent of blacks disapproved of King’s opposition to the Vietnam War and his efforts to eradicate poverty in America. King’s dream of a more democratic America had become, in his words, “a nightmare,” owing to the persistence of “racism, poverty, militarism and materialism.” He called America a “sick society.” On the Sunday after his assassination, in 1968, he was to have preached a sermon titled “Why America May Go to Hell.”

King did not think that America ought to go to hell, but rather that it might go to hell owing to its economic injustice, cultural decay and political paralysis. He was not an American Gibbon, chronicling the decline and fall of the American empire, but a courageous and visionary Christian blues man, fighting with style and love in the face of the four catastrophes he identified.

Militarism is an imperial catastrophe that has produced a military-industrial complex and national security state and warped the country’s priorities and stature (as with the immoral drones, dropping bombs on innocent civilians). Materialism is a spiritual catastrophe, promoted by a corporate media multiplex and a culture industry that have hardened the hearts of hard-core consumers and coarsened the consciences of would-be citizens. Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.

Racism is a moral catastrophe, most graphically seen in the prison industrial complex and targeted police surveillance in black and brown ghettos rendered invisible in public discourse. Arbitrary uses of the law — in the name of the “war” on drugs — have produced, in the legal scholar Michelle Alexander’s apt phrase, a new Jim Crow of mass incarceration. And poverty is an economic catastrophe, inseparable from the power of greedy oligarchs and avaricious plutocrats indifferent to the misery of poor children, elderly citizens and working people.

The age of Obama has fallen tragically short of fulfilling King’s prophetic legacy. Instead of articulating a radical democratic vision and fighting for homeowners, workers and poor people in the form of mortgage relief, jobs and investment in education, infrastructure and housing, the administration gave us bailouts for banks, record profits for Wall Street and giant budget cuts on the backs of the vulnerable.

As the talk show host Tavis Smiley and I have said in our national tour against poverty, the recent budget deal is only the latest phase of a 30-year, top-down, one-sided war against the poor and working people in the name of a morally bankrupt policy of deregulating markets, lowering taxes and cutting spending for those already socially neglected and economically abandoned. Our two main political parties, each beholden to big money, offer merely alternative versions of oligarchic rule.

The absence of a King-worthy narrative to reinvigorate poor and working people has enabled right-wing populists to seize the moment with credible claims about government corruption and ridiculous claims about tax cuts’ stimulating growth. This right-wing threat is a catastrophic response to King’s four catastrophes; its agenda would lead to hellish conditions for most Americans.

King weeps from his grave. He never confused substance with symbolism. He never conflated a flesh and blood sacrifice with a stone and mortar edifice. We rightly celebrate his substance and sacrifice because he loved us all so deeply. Let us not remain satisfied with symbolism because we too often fear the challenge he embraced. Our greatest writer, Herman Melville, who spent his life in love with America even as he was our most fierce critic of the myth of American exceptionalism, noted, “Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges; hence the conclusion of such a narration is apt to be less finished than an architectural finial.”

King’s response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a re-evaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens.

In concrete terms, this means support for progressive politicians like Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont and Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Los Angeles County supervisor; extensive community and media organizing; civil disobedience; and life and death confrontations with the powers that be. Like King, we need to put on our cemetery clothes and be coffin-ready for the next great democratic battle.

By CORNEL WEST

25 August 2011

@ The New York Times

Cornel West, a philosopher, is a professor at Princeton.