OUTLOOK Magazine
Jun 16, 2008
Opinion - The Paupers Arrive... Late For The Banquet
In a world on the brink, a hyped tale of Asian economic miracle is irrelevant
JEREMY SEABROOK
Jeremy Seabrook is the author of Refuge and the Fortress: Refugees in
Boasting by the leaders of
"The East is rising," announced former Prime Minister Tony Blair on April 3, sounding more like a reincarnation of Chairman Mao than a converted Catholic anxious to harness religion to his version of 'progressive' politics. Foreign secretary David Miliband also spoke of "the transfer of economic power to the East", while in January this year, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown acknowledged that between India and Britain, there now exists "a relationship of equals" (what this implied for the relationship until now remains in shadow).
The captivating story with which the West now enchants India and China promotes new stereotypes, quite different from earlier versions, which figured supplicants in one case and Red fanatics in the other; mired in backwardness, casteism and stagnation or stultified by the conformism of grey tunics and intense regimentation. The begging bowl now lies broken, and the skinny hands lately held out for charity now skip nimbly across the keyboards of world-class technology.
Naturally, all this is music to the rulers of India and China. Characteristic of this new relationship was the rapture of press reaction in
Hyperbole? Exaggeration? Perhaps. But it is true that
The story is that
This should not be taken at face value. The praise heaped upon
Is it true that
What does it mean, that former imperial possessions and dependencies are beating us at our own game? If it really is 'our' game, then does not the eager participation in it of China and India suggest they have succumbed to a form of development from elsewhere, that their own indigenous traditions, the potential of something unfolding from within their cultures, have failed? Does it not imply acknowledgement that the western 'game' (if such it is) is truly superior to anything that these ancient civilisations (to quote another flattering designation widely circulated in the western media) could possibly come up with? Does this suggest capitulation to the wisdom of sometime overlords and masters? Or is it true that the economic rules devised in the West are indeed universal, and correspond to something deep in the DNA of humanity, which the West simply 'discovered', much as it 'discovered'
It would seem so. The pattern of development has been laid down in advance; and the West has insisted there is no alternative. China and India obligingly pursue the pattern followed by Britain in the early 19th century, of breakneck industrialisation. But whereas we tore recklessly through the resources of our own modest landmass and then plundered those of whole continents, they are being urged to pause and do something different. The world cannot support existing levels of pollution, the Carbon-dioxide poured into the atmosphere from the great industrial plants, mines and power stations in their countries. More than this: when the West industrialised, the violence and exploitation led to fierce resistance, the birth of trade union and labour movements. Governments were compelled to make concessions, to set up the welfare state and health service, to give guarantees against destitution. But where governments in Europe were compelled—however reluctantly—to intervene, those of
It doesn't add up. "Become like us", is the message, "but not in the way that we became as we are now." It is almost as though the West is revising its own 'errors' by proxy, in a strange re-run of other people's history, that has left the biosphere to the ravages of unchecked industrialisation and the people to the injuries of unbridled economic forces. Or have
So who is beating whom? Even if the wager proved possible, and
In a world of prodigality and poverty, of excess and exiguity, and a system that violates the elements that sustain life, if
To realise the promise that a whole world can be remade in our image would require resources beyond imagination. Competition is doubtless an effective driver of achievement, but when we have made a wasteland of the earth, tainted its evaporating waters, rendered its air unbreathable, swollen its seas and drowned its cities, who then will be the victors and who the vanquished?
If western praise for 'Asian tigers' is exaggerated, perhaps this is because we are sufficiently acquainted with the fate of real tigers to know what we are talking about.
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Sign the Petition : Release the Arrested University Teachers Immediately : An Appeal to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/university_teachers_arrest.htm
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Daily Star publishes an interview with Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/news/daily_star/daily_star_MM.pdf
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MM site is blocked in Islamic countries such as UAE. Members of those theocratic states, kindly use any proxy (such as http://proxy.org/) to access mukto-mona.
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Mukto-Mona Celebrates 5th Anniversary
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/5_yrs_anniv/index.htm
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Mukto-Mona Celebrates Earth Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Earth_day2006/index.htm
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Kansat Uprising : A Special Page from Mukto-Mona
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/kansat2006/members/
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MM Project : Grand assembly of local freedom fighters at Raumari
http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm
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German Bangla Radio Interviews Mukto-Mona Members:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/german_radio/
Mukto-Mona Celebrates Darwin Day:
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/Darwin_day/index.htm
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-Beatrice Hall [pseudonym: S.G. Tallentyre], 190
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