SOROOR AHMED lashes at the Western powers who have acted as great exploiters and proves that their present clout in different fields is not due to their hard work or ingenuity but their unethical manipulations and economic exploitation.
The expression ‘development’ has become a great misnomer. We often end up calling the international money-lenders, the industrialists, the CEOs, investors, etc. as hard-working, enterprising, efficient, honest, development-minded when the fact is that many of them are great manipulators, fixers, money-launderers, modern-day mahajans and exploiters. On the other hand we do not waste time in condemning the poor as lazy, unimaginative, corrupt and criminal-minded when the fact is that poor men and women – some of them in family way – toil in agricultural fields, work on construction sites and in mines in adverse conditions and odd hours, labour much harder, more sincerely and honestly than the white-collared cheats of global repute. Perhaps we are still living in the British times when certain tribes, castes or communities were sweepingly declared criminals as the government was not interested in improving their lot. Today the government, as such, may not be saying so but a dominant section of ruling class certainly feels that certain sets of people deserve to be dumped as they are idle, wicked, and incorrigible.
Individually too we have seen how crooks and cheats have in no time emerged as big industrial magnates. There is one very respectable gentleman in the Indian industry who used to work in a bank but had to quit following some charges. He floated his own non-banking financial company and with the help of money accrued from interest became rich overnight. Then he set up a chain of industries and has now emerged as a media baron of the country. At present he is often rated with the most enterprising corporate bosses of the country.
Globally too the G-8 – better to call it Gang rather than Group of Eight – countries are rated as industrially the most developed nations of the world. Ironically China , whose growth rate has been hovering around 10 per cent for the last so many years, is not in this elitist club, though neighbouring Japan is. Tottering Russia , which is now trying to regain its past glory, became its eighth member, a few years back. Earlier this group was called as G-7.
A couple of G-8 countries – the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia are its members – may be no match to China yet the latter has not been considered fit to join the group as it is still to master the fine art of exploitation. The day China starts indulging in all the shady international monetary dealings and transactions and gets involved in money-begetting-money business – with the help of Shylockian interest rate – it will be inducted into this club.
An objective study of at least three hundred years would reveal as to how the scientific exploitation helped western countries emerge as great economic powers. The non-western global powers of the same period lacked the knack of subtle exploitation though they were almost on par, and in some respects, even ahead of the West.
The western countries do not possess any magic wand. It is not that only the people of the West were hard working and imaginative and rest of the world was sleeping. This is sheer nonsense propagated by the West and thoughtlessly spread by the people of Third World themselves. Take the case of the construction of Shah Rah-e-Azam, which the British named Grand Trunk Road, by Sher Shah, who just ruled for five years, more than 460 years back. Even today we have not been able to build East-West Corridor or any other highway in such a short time when we already have basic infrastructure and latest technology. How in such a small time hills were cut and jungles cleared and hundreds of bridges constructed over so many rivers – some of them very devastating and turbulent – remains a mystery – mystery because the British did not let the world know the scientific achievements of other nations as after occupying India they wreaked havoc with history and plundered and manipulated all the records.
Even in the 19th century, when the Muslims were having the worst of their time, the crumbling Ottomans got rail routes built all over the empire. There was direct train service from Turkey to the city of Madinah and even Baghdad .
What is true is that while the West knew the art of earning money by any means, fair and foul, the East lacked these dubious qualities. The art of lending money to poor countries and recovering the loans at astronomically high interest rates bled many a better-placed country white. The West has now so much money that it can invest it like water in any field: defence, scientific research, sports, entertainment and even in fomenting trouble elsewhere. On the other hand take the example of a developing country like India – not of any underdeveloped African country. About one-fourth of our annual income comes in the form of international loans and the same amount goes every year for paying interest.
If a country is prepared to dance to the tunes of the West then there is no problem. It will end up becoming Japan , South Korea , Taiwan , Singapore or Thailand , etc. It is not that the war-torn Japan became the global power just because of the sheer hard work. Only Maulana Wahiduddin Khan believes in it. Japan emerged as a great economic power after its surrender to the United States . Even before the World War-II it was a regional power but that too because it adopted the western strategy of exploitation.
The post-war Japan did not have any army for decades and the Americans used to serve the purpose. Till recently Japan was as good as the 51st state of America . The story of South Korea , Taiwan , etc is more or less similar. Japan emerged as a major power in the motor-vehicle industry during the Korean War of 1950-53. The Americans needed heavy trucks, jeeps, armoured cars and other vehicles for war. They started getting it built in Japan from where the whole war was fought as it was difficult to bring it from far off United States . The presence of the American army for so many years, besides, the generous American aid in lieu of the assurance to work as a frontline base against Communist Soviet Union and China , helped Japan revive its economy. The Western power provided it with the opportunity and asked it to join the elite club of money-lenders and launderers to loot the world and become rich and richer.
And once you are rich there is no problem. You can invest in any sector without any risk. It is only the naïve and ignorant lot who believes that Japan , South Korea , Taiwan , or even Thailand developed because of sheer enterprise and hard work. Once any of these countries tries to assert itself independently it will be brought down to its knee by economic manipulation as has often been done by the pre-dominantly white imperialist powers.
If we have not learnt from history, it is our folly. The liberal West would never let anyone rise if it tries to assert itself. As long as you are serving their purpose it is all right.
Not to speak of the arena of politics, education, scientific advancement, economy, etc. even in the field of sports they would not allow any Third World country to excel on its own. While none of the cricketing greats of the subcontinent – Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Vishwanath, Kapil Dev, Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Zaheer Abbas, Arvind De Silva or Arjuna Ranatunge – has ever been appointed coach of any White country, we love to appoint second rated Bob Woolmer or John Wright and third rated Dave Whatmore as coaches. No doubt Greg Chappel was a great batsman, but ponder a moment and see how he and Woolmer deliberately destroyed Indian and Pakistani cricket teams respectively. We won 1983 World Cup without any coach yet today in spite of having great players we are down in the dump just because of treacherous acts. Australia and England may not mind much in losing to each other – notwithstanding the Ashes tussle – but they would not allow any team from the subcontinent to excel. Chappel wants to confuse the Indian batting and bowling line up by constantly changing players. Why not he goes to Australia and does similar experiments and spoils his own team before 2007. He is a Darrel Hair in the fraternity of coaches. He has a definite agenda. We will have to understand it.