Do you trust the U.N. to force a massive increase in your taxes to provide themselves with the money to distribute amongst charities and organizations of the third world as they see fit? I don't! Obama does, or maybe he is trying to reduce America to a nation of beggars by relieving them of their hard-earned cash. What great judgement you and our great leaders have...my my....really thinking of the good ole US of A now, are we not?

The American economy is just about to be hit with a series of staccato hits likely to decimate it even further if Obama has his way. He is sponsoring something called the Global Poverty Act (S.2433) which is going to cost the American taxpayers $845 billion in the form of a global tax on all Americans. (remember this is in addition to what we already give) And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Yep, I would say it is the beginning of the end for any hope of economic stability, the end of the poor trying to make it to middle class...the end of the middle class....What great change!

America is already the most generous donor to the needy countries of the world, however the United Nations has decided that the U.S. isn’t giving enough. CNS commented back in February that two anonymous Conservatives were the only ones holding this disaster at bay. I wonder how they’re holding out now.

According to some conservative sources, this disastrous legislation could eventually force U.S. taxpayers to fork over as much as 0.7 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product — or $845,000,000,000.00 — on welfare to third-world countries.Well, I heard for many years that many of our so called 'great thinkers' and so called 'brilliant professors' suggest that in order to bring the rest of the world up...ya gotta bring America down.. One positive note here: we may not have to worry about people crossing our borders illegally..Heck it won't be any better here than there..What could be gained? oh I forgot...perhaps redistribution of our property?

Here’s what Phyllis Schlafly, conservative activist and founder of Eagle Forum, recently wrote:

“Obama’s costly, dangerous and altogether bad bill (S. 2433), which could
come up in the Senate any day, is called the Global Poverty Act. So what country's welfare are you interested in Obama?  Is this part of your glorious change? Me thinks you would like to be President of the World. It would
commit U.S. taxpayers to spend 0.7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on
foreign handouts…” <…>

“Time is of the essence because Senator Joe Biden, the Chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee just issued a report on the Global Poverty Act and it was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar on Thursday the 24th.

That means that time is of the essence as this potentially massive surrender of your hard-earned tax dollars to the third world may be close to a vote.

<…> Advocates of the Global Poverty Act are claiming that it does not really commit the United States to anything… that it won’t really cost anything… that it simply requires the President — in conjunction with the Secretary of State — to “develop” strategies to alleviate world poverty.In fact, Biden’s report incredulously states, “implementing S. 2433 would cost less than $1 million per year…” Yeah, right..we know you by now...we know how you get it done..don't think we are that stupid please.. Most of you are all lawyers right? Dang shame, we have to darn near be a Rocket scientist to dicipher your mumbo jumbo..

Technically he’s correct… after all, it doesn’t really cost that much to develop and formulate strategies…But such a cleverly worded contention begs the question: Why formulate or develop a strategy if there is no intention to follow through on that strategy? And what would it cost to actually follow through on a strategy to alleviate world poverty? Remember there are loopholes, my friends...

The Global Poverty Act intentionally gives no specific figures but it does contain clues, and those clues are stated repeatedly in the legislation’s reliance on the United Nations Millennium Development Goal.

Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media (says):

“The bill defines the term ‘Millennium Development Goals’ as the goals set
out in the United Nations Millennium Declaration… In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations to banning ’small arms and light weapons’ and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto
Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

<…>”Those U.N. protocols would make U.S. law on issues ranging from the 2nd Amendment to energy usage and parental rights all subservient to United Nations whims.”

“[T]he legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S. gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years… would amount to $845 billion ‘over and above what the U.S. already spends.’”

“The plan passed the House in 2007 ‘because most members didn’t realize what was in it.’ What a joke our leaders have become..and aren't most of these people lawyers? You would think they would spend a little more time to understand or at least recognize the lawyer speak..eh? Congressional sponsors have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that it would require.” Yeah, you like to just do it and then give us the bad news..

And, how would the United States pay for this $845 BILLION commitment? According to Kincaid, who published a report on the legislation; “A global tax will clearly be necessary to force American taxpayers to provide the money.” Let's see, gas is going up out the wazoo and groceries..well, what's the price of dog food made in China?..we can sit in the dark..wear heavy coats in winter...fan ourselves in summer..and heck..let's just stay home folks...no need to go anywhere..oh, a job you say...sorrreee...better get 2 more of them..surely we can each work 3 jobs...who needs sleep anyway? Oh drats forgot again...when we start giving the power away and they redistribute property, gather our weapons, maybe they have in mind to just house and feed us too...then no need to do anything except what they assign for us..whoopdedoo! JUST HERD THE SHEEP! Is that not what Communist countries did...assign several familes to live together and selected who would be educated in the field of the Governments choice? When we let the UN do what it would like to do..have the power it wants..at our expense..don't think for a minute that we are not far away from this that would sound insane to us.. Radical..yes..the Bill is radical! It does not serve American Interests...but then remember they are not serving American interests...They are into 'ONE WORLD DOMINANCE! Wonder if they have selected who is to run this vast empire?

 We have been in existence as the first country to exercise such a Radical (in the day) Republic. We have had a little over 200 years with this great experiment with Freedom for people to be as much in charge of their own lives as possible..We did not want a Monarchy! (Are we going to now have a UN Monarchy?) I kinda like it that way..don't you? When I make a mess of my life...well, at least it's my mess, I am the one responsible. As Truman is well known for his famous quote..'The Buck Stops Here'.

And that $845 BILLION global tax is in addition to our nation’s current Foreign Aid programs, which, in 2006, cost American taxpayers about $300 BILLION!

It Gets Worse!Here are some of the additional provisions of the Millennium Development Goal: Read very carefully....

a “currency transfer tax,” that is, a tax imposed on companies and individuals who must exchange dollars for foreign currency;

a “tax on the rental value of land and natural resources”;

a “royalty on worldwide fossil energy projection — oil, natural gas, coal”;

“fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels.” Just give us some more fees...yeah, that's right...we want to be a third world country...

a “standing peace force,” meaning a standing United Nations army that
might, in time, be large enough to force us to bend to its will;

a “UN arms register of all small arms and light weapons,” the beginning of
the end of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;

the “eradication of poverty” by the “redistribution [of] wealth and land”
– How do you suppose the United Nations expects to “redistribute” the land and the wealth? And what country do you think the third-world majority will go after first?

cancellation of “the debts of developing countries,”

“a fair distribution of the earth’s resources.” Who decides what is fair?

and “political control of the global economy.” Yeah, Let's just get rid of Soverignty and elections..

In other words, it’s a blueprint for a world government, owned and operated by the United Nations. One thing is clear: the Millennium Development Goal is a dagger aimed at the heart of America.

While the Global Poverty Act, as presently championed by its Senate supporters, embraces certain aspects of the Millennium Development Goal, one should wonder if some of our legislators also support land and wealth “redistribution.”<…>.

Dr. Jeffrey D. Sachs — a Columbia University economist — is monitoring the Millennium Development Goal for the United Nations.

In his 2005 report to Kofi Annan — based on the research of 265 “poverty specialists” — Sachs criticized the United States for giving only a mere $16.3 billion a year to alleviate global poverty. What was it the Saudi's gave? what did the others give..US gives more than anyone...whoo hoo...don't believe those oil rich countries gave uno mucho..You forgot to include all the other aid Americans give..big boy!

He argued that we should spend at least an additional $30 billion a year. And Sachs has decreed that the only way to force the United States to commit that much money is to IMPOSE A GLOBAL TAX. Has Senator Obama — along with the other Senate co-sponsors — introduced the Global Policy Act at least in partial obedience to Sachs’ wishes?

Phyllis Schlafly claims:

“The Global Poverty Act would be a giant step toward the Millennium Goals of global governance and international taxes on Americans. Tell your Senators to kill this un-American bill.”

<…>And yes, just in case you think the massive amounts of your tax dollars that were wasted under the United Nation’s Oil for Food program were an aberration, and that such a thing could not eventually happen on a more massive scale were the Global Poverty Act to sneak through the Senate, Doug Powers, writing for WorldNetDaily.com made this observation:”Not long ago, Nigeria’s ‘anti-corruption commission’ — runner-up in the ‘oxymoron of the year’ competition, second only to ‘U.S. Senate Intelligence’ — found that past rulers of Nigeria have stolen or misused billions of dollars.”

“The commission discovered that the amount of money ‘missing’ adds up to all the Western aid given to Africa in four decades. Obama, Hagel and Cantwell want to throw more at them. Apparently they won’t be happy until there are trillions of our tax dollars stolen by crooked leaders and warlords.” Follow the Money Honey!

Unfortunately, the Global Poverty Act is still flying under the radar, but
not for long. There is hope. We know, and we can stop this vicious bill — provided we act RIGHT NOW!

Senator Obama’s Global Poverty Act has already passed the House (many Members unfortunately voted in favor of it without carefully noting exactly what was in it)  So what else is new? I wonder if they ever consider consequences or just show up occassionally for their pet projects? and President Bush may very well sign it!

That’s why it must be stopped, and it must be stopped NOW!

Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Fax messages to President George W. Bush and each Member of the Republican Leadership of the United States Senate.

Let them know in no uncertain terms that you are watching and you will not tolerate massive United Nations style giveaways that are passed in the dark of night — or in broad daylight for that matter. Tell them that putting us on the road to give billions to petty tyrants and dictators is NOT a solution to poverty.

This bill can come up for a vote at any time. Demand that our conservative legislators do whatever it takes — a filibuster if necessary — to stop this bill dead in its tracks.

http://www.cfiflistmanager.org/globalpovertyactbe.html

Center for Individual Freedom
113 S. Columbus St., Suite 310
Alexandria, VA 22314
703-535-5836
Fax:703-535-5838

Hattip to  Aurora of The Midnight SunAurora's link OBAMA TO SIGN OVER BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO THE U.N.

Sarcasm Angie

 Return to the 60's.. It is very well done. Just click on the link below and enjoy....some interesting facts too.

 http://objflicks.Com/TakeMeBackToTheSixties.htm 

Take a look at this statement from David Wisnia, senior VP of distribution and sales of Star North America and Europe:

International Networks is the leading aggregator of ethnic language programming in the U.S. and we are thrilled to have them represent five of our Indian channels to MSOs across the country. We look forward to increasing our distribution to cable homes across the U.S. so that more South Asian viewers can enjoy top-rated entertainment from back home.

It is abundantly clear that this exec, and arguably those at Comcast, conceive of South Asian viewers as remaining connected to their "home," as viewers who can speak Hindi, Tamil or some other Indian language. Why are South Asian-Americans being defined primarily in South Asian terms? I would argue that there are three elements at work here.

First, we need to acknowledge the limits that marketing discourse imposes on distribution and programming decisions. The failures of MTV-Desi and AZN, one would imagine, have added to industry lore that such niche channels simply do not work. Besides, there is a very well-etablished tradition of marketing and advertising executives (including many who are of South Asian descent) who work hard to define ethnic difference.

Second, and perhaps the biggest challenge for the industry, is the problem of content. Why would a company seek to invest in original program production when it is clear that audiences are already watching programs from various television channels via YouTube and even by borrowing tapes of saas-bahu serials from a local desi grocery store. It is, without a doubt, financially more prudent to enter into a deal that brings in top quality content.

Third, and more broadly, this new definition of "ethnic" television that ties migrant populations to their "home" (the where are you really from question) completely ignores second and third-generation desis. South Asian Americans are now caught between two powerful nationalist imaginaries: an American television/marketing industry that is struggling to think beyond old notions of "community," and an "Indian" television industry that includes desis but doesn't need to worry about those desis who do not understand Hindi or Tamil or, for that matter, might not be "desi" in these very limiting ways.

Concerned with policies and political issues, one of Athena's spiritual cries for our generation is "globalization." The history of globalization is rooted in the marriage of religion, trade, armies, industry, technology, agriculture and banking. Before the Silk Road, long before 1492, people began to link together disparate locations on the globe into extensive systems of communication, migration, and interconnections. This formation of systems of interaction between the global and the local has been a central driving force in world history. Whoever controlled trade controlled the powerbase.
Global means the expansive interconnectivity of localities -- spanning local sites of everyday social, economic, cultural, and political life -- a phenonmenon but also a spatial attribute -- so a global space or geography is a domain of connectivity spanning distances and linking localities to one another, which can be portrayed on maps by lines indicating routes of movement, migration, translation, communication, exchange, etc.
Globalization is the physical expansion of the geographical domain of the global -- that is, the increase in the scale and volume of global flows -- and the increasing impact of global forces of all kinds on local life. Moments and forces of expansion mark the major turning points and landmarks in the history of globalization
The globalization debate has rightly been called the grand ideological battle of the 21st century. New World Order globalization is equivalent to cultural imperialism. It has pitted student activists against corporate heads, union members against environmentalists, Mexican peasants against officials of the International Monetary Fund. Their main concern: the lack of citizen participation in decisions of international economics and trade policy. Their main enemy: institutions and corporations that work outside of the purview of democratically elected governments.
In essence, globalization is redrawing the old ideological lines of the cold war. No longer do people debate the merits of capitalism and communism. Rather, issues such as international trade, corporate power, national economic sovereignty, human rights and the transformation of indigenous cultures have moved to the center of the debate. And if there is new geopolitical line to be drawn it cuts not the East from the West but the North from the South.
What is "globalization" and why should anyone care about it? There are a lot of different answers to this question, depending on whom you ask. The dominant view among people who write and speak about the issue is that globalization is an inevitable, technologically driven process that is increasing commercial and political relations between people of different countries. For them, it is not only a natural phenomenon, but primarily good for the world, although it is recognized that the process produces both "winners and losers."
There is a much deeper skepticism about the process among the general population. Most Americans believe that trade had reduced U.S. jobs and wages through Offshoring. This widening gap between elite and public opinion is striking, because it is not difficult to imagine how economic globalization might lower living standards for the majority of people in the United States. The idea that increasing competition from low-wage imports would drive U.S. wages downward seems only logical.
The fact that the real wage of the typical American worker has actually fallen over the past 25 years, as the economy had become increasingly globalized, is also an indicator that something is wrong with the process of globalization. According to traditional economic theory, wage and salary earners gain from more open trade, because they get cheaper consumer goods. But it is clear, according to universally accepted measures of wages and salaries in the United States, that for most employees these gains from trade have been more than canceled out by other forces that have pushed their pay downward.
Debate within the economics profession has yet to influence the agenda of the major policy makers or corporations, who continue to strive for increasing globalization. Who gains and who loses from this process? We can define globalization as an increase in trade and capital flows across national boundaries.

What does the balance of payments include? It is divided into two parts: the balance of trade, and what economists call the current account, because it includes more than just trade—things like foreign interest payments and transfers. While "current account" is the proper term, many people use "trade balance" and "current account balance" interchangeably, since trade is the biggest item in the current account.
The second part of the balance of payments is called the capital account. This measures the purchase and sale of assets across national boundaries. A simple way to distinguish between the two accounts of the balance of payments is that the capital account measures international investing, borrowing, and lending—whereas the current account measures just about everything else.

The international balance of payments accounting is very similar. If we import more than we export, we must either borrow or sell assets internationally, in order to finance that trade deficit. That means we are adding to our foreign debt. (This is not to be confused with our national debt, which is owed mainly to people and institutions here).
Horrific, unsustainable debt burdens raise the question of whether some countries might be better off just defaulting on their debt—that is, refusing to pay it—even if they were punished by international banks and investors. The answer to this question depends partly on how one evaluates thegains that they get from international trade and investment—i.e., increasing globalization. Is globalization progress? Nearly all of the experts and journalists who write about this subject would answer at least a qualified "yes" to this question.
For some, there is a natural progression from the medieval fiefdoms of Europe to the nation-state, to the increasing importance of international institutions such as the UN or the IMF. Others are in less of a hurry to build the institutions of world government, but nonetheless see the increase in trade and commercial relations between countries as a step forward for humanity. And almost everyone views the process of globalization as inevitable in any case, flowing naturally from advances in communications, transportation, and other technological changes.
It is certainly possible to imagine a world in which globalization could raise the standard of living for the majority of the world’s people. It could increase the size of markets and the efficiency of production, allow countries who are short on capital to borrow from those who have a surplus, and even break down some of the barriers and prejudices that have contributed to military conflicts in the past. But the historical record of the current era of globalization is quite another story.
As noted above, the typical wage earner in the United States has suffered a decline in real wages since 1973. It is important to recognize that this decline is at least partly a result of a choice to pursue a particular form of globalization. Our political leaders have chosen to negotiate, over a period of decades, a set of rules that has thrown U.S. workers into increasing competition with much lower-paid counterparts throughout the world. This has had the effect, not surprisingly, of lowering wages for most Americans.
The latter set of problems has been recognized, to varying degrees, by pro-globalization economists and policy-makers. However, these people tend to emphasize the benefits or potential benefits of globalization. For trade, they rely on a simple but abstract economic theory: the principle of comparative advantage. This theory asserts that all countries are made better off by moving toward freer trade. The idea is that different countries are relatively more efficient at producing different things. On this basis it is easy to demonstrate that the world can benefit if each country specializes in the production of those goods that it can produce most efficiently and trades with other countries who do likewise.
There are a number of problems with this theory when it is applied to the real economy. First of all, even the theory itself does not assert that everyone in each country is made better off through reer trade. There are "winners and losers," and the theory only predicts that for the entire country the gains outweigh the losses.In other words, there is a profound bias against any kind of national economic development strategy.
The obvious problem with this application of the theory of comparative advantage is that it rules out most of the strategies that the developed countries of the world have used in order to attain the standard of living that they enjoy today. The extreme case can be seen in Russia, where industry has been practically dismantled under IMF supervision since the demise of the Soviet Union. The country now produces almost nothing but energy. In the process, Russia’s economy has shrunk by more than half in just a few years, and they have suffered an increase in poverty and declines in life expectancy that are historically unprecedented, in the absence of war or natural disaster.
Indeed, critics of globalization would argue that the experience of the last two decades—in which the architects of the global economy have increasingly re-crafted the economies of most of the world towards their ideal of unified international markets—has been a failure by almost any measure of economic performance. And there is no reason to assume that institutions that are controlled by a small group of people from one or a handful of high income countries would adequately represent the interests of the world’s poor and working people.
For the most prominent policy makers and writers on this topic, "reform" is synonymous with the opening of markets, privatization, and reducing the role of government in the economy. Indeed this has become the standard definition of reform in the media. For most of these people, the recent economic turmoil is just a bump in the road toward a more integrated world economy and the social progress that it promises. They generally favor increased regulation for "emerging market" banking and financial systems, as well as greater "transparency"—that is, better information for investors.
In the United States, whose government has been the most powerful advocate of the current form of globalization, measures to ameliorate the worst excesses of the global economy—either here or abroad—will most likely not be warmly received. If history is any guide, proponents of such changes throughout the world will be dismissed as "trying to turn the clock back," "protectionists," and worse. And, as often happens in the real world, some of their leaders or followers—as in Malaysia or Russia today—will have right-wing or authoritarian ideologies attached to them.
But this does not mean that their pro-national, regional, or local economic development policies are misguided. Or that the men who have been working overtime to "write the constitution of a single, global economy" are right. Restructuring of global politics and economics that may prove as historically significant as any event since the Industrial Revolution. This restructuring is happening at tremendous speed, with little public disclosure of the profound consequences affecting democracy, human welfare, local economies, and the natural world.
So far, globalization policies have contributed to increased poverty, increased inequality between and within nations, increased hunger, human displacement, increased corporate concentration, decreased social services and decreased power of labor vis-a-vis global corporations. It looks like Zeus, (the ruling economic geopolitical power), will continue to have a huge headache, until the wisdom of Athena can be born or spring forth. It seems unlikely to be found in the current form of New World Order. If the mytheme prevails, some form of Hephaistus, some technology, will split the whole situation wide open for a new truth to emerge. Could it be cyber-culture?

For those of you that have been dumbed down by Pepsi-Cola, Flu shots or under the Chem-trails too long it may be moot to read this.  Globalization under the New World Order has the game in hand.  Financial control is done. Get ready for depression. The food and water shortages will follow. This will keep you in line. If it doesn't the coming UN world police state will enforce it with zealous pleasure.

Never utter the word liberty, freedom, peace or God again or you shall be detained for corrective programming to include chip implantation, mind control and house arrest.  Turn off the TV as state programming will be constant reaffirmation of the NWO and it's supreme idea. 

Prepare for population cutbacks. Make sure you are a worker or become part of the Eugenics - Euthanasia phenomenon.  The mysterious diseases that will require your equally mysterious based pharmaceutical therapies.  Should you remain, be prepared to birth children for the state. These youngsters will be required to replace the aging army. That is of course after they are tortured, sexually abused and controlled by mind control drug techniques by the elite scientific Nazi's who filtered out of Germany under Soviet, Israeli, European, Canadian and American authorities to do their glorious grand work.

Watch them watch you in every aspect of your meaningless existence.  If you want to pray, do it standing and with your eyes open.  The election we are supposedly voting this year is a stacked deck and it won't matter in the grand game.  The next elections are controlled and any dissent of it's results will not be tolerated.  You will vote based upon a candidates promise you provide you Soylent Red to go with your Soylent Green. And yes it will be re-constituted human protein. MMMM good.

If we need medical care in order to get back on the job, you will get the care you need plus a booster shot to re-enforce the NWO programming. But you will get Jello too!  Never forget that they are your mommy, daddy, teacher, adviser and friend. We know we will never forget that right?   What is crime?  Only that committed by the NWO personnel and elite knights that govern regions.  The Kings and Queens will rarely be seen except on statues which you will be expected to keep clean and bow to during your very limited travel.

Recreation will be FEMA style camps where we will go for games. They will include gladiator type combat bouts and demeaning human-animal acts for the pleasure of our governors and their cabinets.  There will be some baubles and small gifts for those who show the right attitudes. It may be a grape or cherry. "Die like Christians", "Act like a Donkey" and the "Naked Oil Race" will be some of the favorite fare there.

Just another bad dream come to fruition?

Last Saturday the day finally came. I watched all four hours of Pangea Day on the edge of my chair - that feeling of connection in the moment was palpable for me. I sensed that I was part of something special and greater than myself. I knew that millions of people around my planet were watching the exact same thing as I, at the exact same moment as I. The power of it all was more subtle than I expected. Instead of a big emotional wave, it was like a light bulb flicking on. I felt not just like I'd become more aware, but a need within to not let that awareness fade, as it so often does. It's easy to say you'll do or think this and that in the middle of a big event, but it's keeping it going during your every day life that's the real goal.

I strongly urge everyone to go to Pangea Day and watch as much of the entire broadcast as you can. (It starts off with an intro from Bishop Desmond Tutu - this is big time shit.) But I also wanted to share my five favourite shorts from the day:

1. "Pale Blue Dot" words by Carl Sagan (Earth)

I feel a tad guilty putting this one as my #1 since it wasn't an official submission, but the genius of Carl Sagan simply can't be ignored. His words, famously recorded by Carl himself in 1990 after he NASA used the Voyager 1 spacecraft to take a picture of Earth from more than 4 billion miles away. Written for the public unveiling of the photograph, his words are succinct and endlessly powerful. The heart of a poet, the mind of a scientist...

2. "J'Attendrai Le Suivant (I'll Wait For The Next One)" by Phillipe Orreindy (France)

My jaw literally dropped at the end of this one. I felt everything all at once. Seriously, every emotion ever. I don't want to be any more specific because then I'll give something away.

3. "¿Por Qué Le Hago? (Who I Do It)" by Pablo Olmos Arrayales (Spain)

This made me cry. You'll see why...

4. "The Americana Project: Cuba" by Topaz Adizes (USA)

The explosive authenticity of this short was so real that I honestly can't figure out if it's scripted or reality, or maybe it's a mixture of both. Pure, visceral emotion that could only be born out of generations of family and cultural struggle.

5. "More" by Mark Osbourne (USA)

Amazing animation and a beautiful story, this didn't at all turn out the way I originally thought it was going to.

"Why?" Years after September 11, we are still looking for answers. Internationally renowned Islamic scholar Akbar Ahmed knew that this question could not be answered until Islam and the West found a way past the hatred and mistrust intensified by the war on terror and the forces of globalization. Seeking to establish dialogue and understanding between these cultures, Ahmed led a team of dedicated young Americans on a daring and unprecedented tour of the Muslim world. Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization is the riveting story of their search for common ground.

From the mosques of Damascus to the madrassahs of Karachi to the homes of Jakarta, Ahmed and his companions met with Muslims from all walks of life. They listened to students and professors, presidents and prime ministers, sheikhs and cab drivers, revealing Muslim hopes and frustrations as the West has never heard before. They returned from their groundbreaking journey with both cause for concern and occasion for hope. Rejecting stereotypes and "conventional wisdom" about Islam and its encounter with globalization, this important book offers a new framework for understanding the Muslim world. As Western leaders wage a war on terrorism, Ahmed offers insightful suggestions on how the United States can improve relations with Islamic nations and peoples. Written with equal parts compassion and urgency, Journey into Islam makes a powerful case for forming bonds across religion, race, and tradition to create lasting harmony between Islam and the West. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future survival of the United States as a world leader, for the individual who faces the painful changes of globalization, and for the very future of our planet.

DOWNLOAD NOW:

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Glancing back over the syllabus it’s clear enough we didn’t exhaust the possibilities-- but who can really blame us with a topic as capacious as Contemporary Culture? For those with unslaked appetites, consider reading David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity, now in its 25th or 26th printing. You’ll be hard pressed to find a more interesting or influential account of the period in which we live. Also, Robert Hughes’ entertaining and enlightening BBC series The Shock of the New, available on dvd and youtube, traces the development of modern art from Impressionism to Pop. Remember when we talked about visual representations of space, comparing medieval paintings to Picasso? I ripped that from him, as well as a few ideas from Stephen Kern’s The Culture of Time and Space. 

How about Globalization? Well that’s a long story. But here’s the jist: 

About 12,000 years ago small bands of hunter-gatherers arrived at what is now known as Tierra del Fuego, completing a journey first begun by African hominids a million years before. We can think of this as the pre-history of globalization. As some of these pioneers settled, their material lives were transformed. They began to create other methods of subsistence such as agriculture. As their nascent societies coalesced, labor was divided and political authority centralized. Artisans, bureaucrats, and priests developed their crafts. The symbolic domain of human experience in terms of art and language expanded. These were vital social technologies that would lead to increased exchange and interaction between different people. Roughly 9 or 10 millennia later writing was invented in Egypt, China and Mesopotamia. Around the same time the inhabitants of Southwest Asia conceived the wheel. The first age of Empire arrived, linking disparate tribes and linguistic groups across vast expanses of space. Of these premodern agglomerations one of the most impressive was the Chinese Empire (221 BCE) which lasted 1,700 years and embarked on an incredible succession of discoveries in the areas of philosophy, engineering, astronomy and chemistry. Yet it was the standardization of cart axles which probably produced over a longer term the profoundest effect on Chinese society: an increase in trade. The fabled Silk Road was one crucial conduit for trade among many, stretching over 5000 miles and linking China to Africa and Europe. With trade came economic and cultural exchange, migration and intermarriage-- the dissemination of religious doctrine, new technologies and microbes. Urban centers grew. Regions were integrated. Cultural and economic activity intensified. With the advent of the caravel, the nations of Western Europe began a period of heightened commerce and exploration which eventually resulted in the opening of what were then known as the antipodes: a new world.

Miranda: O, brave new world, that has such people in’t!

Prospero: ‘Tis new to thee.

Without American gold and silver, Europe would likely have stagnated. And, as Jared Diamond phrases it, without guns, germs and steel none of that gold could have been taken from its indigenous ‘owners.’ By the late 18th century an intercontinental web of trade linked Europe, littoral Africa, parts of Asia, the Americas and much of Oceania. 

to be continued...

Hail the financial cartels! Hail the Grand Oligarchs of the North! Thus spoke Zarathustra.

They came, they saw, they looted…and got unpunished. This is the fact of all facts, the ‘praxiological core’ (to use a philosopher’s thesis here in Manila), of the oligarchy’s gargantuan looting of the public purse everywhere. “We are children of Zeus, reside in Olympus, and are beyond the Law,” said they.

Let’s go back to the subprime bubble in the USA, and the post-bubble burst stage. As soon as the housing bubble began in the aftermath of the recession in the USA (2001-02), I was among those analysts who were alarmed at the flawed strategy that the US state officialdom to shore up an ailing economy.

The strategy was no different from the dot.com speculation of the previous years. So much propaganda hype was done to intensify the tenor of the dot.com revolution, which led to massive financier speculation in this sector. Result: the bubble burst, almost bringing the entire US economy down with it in 2001.

Seemingly unmindful of the bad economics that took place, the fed and monetary authorities permitted the bubbling of another sector, housing this time, to ‘prime up’ the ailing economy, coupled with ‘tax cuts’. I’m sure if Franklin Delano Roosevelt were alive yet, he will be squirming at the terribly flawed strategy and would prefer to just die pronto rather than see voodoo economics destroy his nation in the short run.

Bubbles burst in due time, and so the oligarchic game is that before the burst happens, fatten your purse in as rapid a manner as possible. The derivatives market is the best purse fattener, all other instruments being secondary.

Soon enough, the bubble did burst, and banks across the Atlantic (USA, EU) squirmed the most over the bankruptcy-inducing crash from the burst. Horror of all horrors, once mighty financier groups such as Bear & Stearns got badly bankrupt overnight, was sold for cheap dirt price, and simply evaporated.

And to add horror to the horrors, no oligarch or exec was ever jailed for that crime of massive looting of the consumer purse. Holy Maria!

My God! Oligarchs are the Holiest of all Hollies! We ordinary consumers are the filthy pariahs, the Damned Outcastes who are treated as mere members of an amorphous ‘Eater class’ by the Holiest. Hail the Oligarchy!

[Writ 13 May 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN) is an armed revolutionary group based in Chiapas, one of the poorest states of Mexico. Their social base is mostly indigenous but they have some supporters in urban areas as well as an international web of support. Their main spokesperson is Subcomandante Marcos (currently a.k.a. Delegate Zero in relation to the "Other Campaign"). Unlike other Zapatista comandantes, Subcomandante Marcos is not an indigenous Mayan.

The group takes its name from Emiliano Zapata, the anarchist commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution, whose forces were colloquially known as the Zapatistas. The EZLN see themselves as his ideological heirs.

In 1994, they declared war "against the Mexican state."

Some consider the Zapatista movement the first "post-modern" revolution: an armed revolutionary group that has abstained from using their weapons since their 1994 uprising was countered by the overpowering military might of the Mexican Army. The Zapatistas quickly adopted a new strategy by trying to garner the support of Mexican and international civil society. They try to achieve this by making use of the Internet to disseminate their communiqués and to enlist the support of NGOs and solidarity groups. Outwardly, they portray themselves as part of the wider anti-globalization, anti-neoliberalism social movement while for their indigenous base the Zapatista struggle is all about control over their own resources, particularly the land on which they live.

Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, also Delegado Cero (Delegate Zero) in matters concerning the Other Campaign, describes himself as the spokesman for the Mexican rebel movement, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

The nick-name "Marcos" is the name of a friend killed at a military road checkpoint. It is not, as presumed, a nominal acrostic of the communities where the EZLN first rose in arms: Las Margaritas, Amatenango del Valle, La Realidad, Comitán, Ocosingo, and San Cristóbal

The Mexican government alleges Marcos to be one Rafael Sebastián Guillén Vicente, of Tampico, Tamaulipas. Born in Mexico to Spanish immigrants, Guillén attended high school at Instituto Cultural Tampico, a Jesuit school in Tampico, where he presumably became acquainted with Liberation Theology. Guillén later moved to Mexico City where he graduated from the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), then received a masters' degree in philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and began work as a professor at the UAM, after which he left. While Marcos has always denied being Rafael Guillén, Guillén's family are unaware of what happened to him and they refuse to say if they think Marcos and Guillén are the same person or not. Guillén's family is deeply involved in Tamaulipas politics. Guillén's sister, Mercedes del Carmen Guillén Vicente, is the Attorney General of the State of Tamaulipas, and a very influential member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the party that governed Mexico for more than 70 years. During the Great March to Mexico City in 2001, Marcos visited the UNAM and during his speech he made clear that he had at least been there before.

Like many of his generation, Guillén was radicalized by the events of 1968 and became a militant in a Maoist organization. However, the encounter with the outlook of the indigenous peasants of Chiapas transformed the Marcos' ideology and he has embraced an approach to social revolution that has important parallels to the revisionist Marxist ideals of Antonio Gramsci, which were popular in Mexico during his time at the university.

When asked about his first days in Chiapas in the documentary A Place Called Chiapas, Marcos said:

Imagine a person who comes from an urban culture. One of the world’s biggest cities, with a university education, accustomed to city life. It’s like landing on another planet. The language, the surroundings are new. You’re seen as an alien from outer space. Everything tells you: “Leave. This is a mistake. You don’t belong in this place.” And it’s said in a foreign tongue. But they let you know, the people, the way they act; the weather, the way it rains; the sunshine; the earth, the way it turns to mud; the diseases; the insects; homesickness. You’re being told. “You don’t belong here.” If that’s not a nightmare, what is?

Also in this documentary by Nettie Wild, one is allowed to listen to the powerful rhetoric of the Zapatistas. This is conducted in Spanish, not the native Mayan tongues. With only his eyes and pipe being visible he addresses the film maker: "It is our day, day of the dead". Marcos reveals the Zapatista belief that he is a dead-man and so are the Zapatistas,

In the mountains of Chiapas, death was a part of daily life. It was as common as rain or sunshine. People here coexist with death, death of their own, especially the little ones. Paradoxically, death begins to shed its tragic cloak, Death becomes a daily fact. It loses its sacredness. You see it as someone you sit down with at the table, like an old acquaintance. You don't lose your fear of death, but you become familiar with it. It becomes your equal. Death, which is so close, so near, so possible, is less terrifying for us than for others. So, going out and fighting and perhaps meeting death is not as terrible as it seems. For us, at least. In fact, what surprises and amazes us is life itself. The hope of a better life. Going out to fight and to die finding out you're not dead, but alive. And, unintentionally, you realize you are walking on the edge of the border between death and life. You're walking on the edge of the border between them.

The Mayans speak of Marcos as "the man with pale skin [who] came to Chiapas twelve years ago". A Mayan woman and matriarch featured in the documentary says of him,

We don't see his face like we see ours. Ours we see clearly, but his stays covered. We can't see him. Whatever the poor eat, he eats. When he's here, is he going to eat better food? What we eat, he eats. We eat vegetables, he does too. We don't believe he's from the city. We can't believe it.

The Mexican government has speculated that Marcos is a professor of philosophy and communications. Marcos' response is that the Zapatista movement is more about ideas than bullets. In an interview he says to reporters about their struggle and faceless opponent,

The only way to get their attention is to kill or be killed. If you ask us what's going to happen in the near future, we have no fucking idea. Sorry for using the word 'idea.' We are ready to go to war or move on to peace.

Much of his writings – articles, poems, speeches and letters – have been compiled into a book: Our Word is Our Weapon. In 2005 he wrote a novel called Muertos incómodos (The Uncomfortable Dead), in conjunction with crime writer Paco Ignacio Taibo I

This words and this videos are our tribute to the last of the eroes.

politics, life, news, mexico, usa, disinformation, revolution, ezln, chiapas, war, globalization, corporation, free-market, liberties, freedom, genocide, human-rights

A very interesting article on the translation industry. I particularly liked this bit: "It's a good business these days with everything going global," explains Lori Ann Elzerman, founder of Expert Language Services in Rochester Hills (Michigan, USA). "With the slowdown of the U.S. economy, companies are trying to sell their products abroad."

We also learn about the languages where business is growing: "Arabic, Asian languages such as Chinese, Korean and even Vietnamese are becoming more popular. Eastern European such as Czech, Hungarian and Polish is on the rise as well with the automotive companies going there"...

and "Indian-based languages such as Hindi or Urdu are coming up as well"

This article clearly shows that if you really know where and how to look, there is no dearth of opportunities for you as a translator. And the future of translation is bright!

Enjoy!

A.M. Sall

P.S. Click here to download your copy of "The Insider Guide to The Strategic Marketing of Translation Services", the book no translator/interpreter in his/her right mind should even think of going without :-). Or maybe you’d rather take a look at the Free Preview first? This is the book you’ve been waiting for so impatiently: it’s here NOW. And did I mention I'm now working on the 2nd edition, which will be much more complete, but also with a higher price (yes, there's going to be a price rise!). Now here is the deal: if you get the book now (at the current price), you'll get the 2nd edition for free. So why wait any longer…!?

*******

Subscribe to Translator Power and successfully market your translation/interpreting services either by Email or if you prefer the feed, just look on your left and make your choice!

In recent months, peer-to-peer lending sites such as Prosper and Virgin Money USA have introduced student loans or started marketing existing offerings to families looking for college funds. Others, including startups GreenNote and Fynanz, are focused exclusively on making college loans. Analysts say the sites are benefiting from the confluence of trends—a growing acceptance of peer-to-peer lending and fallout from the credit crunch, which has caused lenders who account for more than 20% of the market for private student loans to stop lending.

The general idea is to facilitate loans between students, on the one hand, and either Good Samaritan friends and relatives, or strangers intent on investing in alternatives to stocks, bonds, and certificates of deposit...

As the competition among bidders intensifies for a piece of a loan, the interest rate a student will have to pay declines.

Focus on the last sentence. As I wrote in a prior essay, the Internet and free trade have essentially consolidated all local and national markets into a single, global one. The market is infinite. Increased competition raises quality and lowers prices, and now this is effecting student loans. Due to the skyrocketing cost of higher education, most students have no choice but to take out government and private loans if they want to attend college. Now they will benefit from increased competition.

If only the same logic could be applied to health care. Why, again, is it illegal for Americans to purchase their expensive medicines from Canada, where prices are cheaper? Oh, I forgot: The government bowed to pressure from the pharmaceutical industry. So much for free markets.

Gurry won by a single vote (!) over Brazil's José Graça Aranha, signalling that while the widely discredited former director Kamil Idris may be gone, the organization remains divided between those who favor the position of the G8 countries and those who prefer the pro-development leadership of the Brazilian delegation in recent years.

Both Gurry and Graça Aranha were WIPO insiders and both have strong reputations as credible, professional public servants.

Unfortunately, the IP Watch story does not include any additional data on the breakdown of the vote. (At the moment, I'm not sure whether such information can become public).

Export climbed 5.2% through this year's Q1 over the year-ago quarter. Overall GDP is up only 2.5% over the same period. A large part of this has been the weakening dollar--as the dollar gets cheaper, the price of US goods and services goes down as well....which brings us to the latest trade report for March released Friday--it seems as if the trend has changed--export dropped off sharply--which falls well in line with our expectations that the dollar will soon strengthen.
Source

• by Anup Shah
• This Page Last Updated Wednesday, October 25, 2006

• This page: http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Rwanda.asp.
• To print full details (expanded/alternative links, side notes, etc.) use the printer-friendly version:
  • http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Rwanda.asp?p=1

During the horrific genocide in Rwanda, 1994, the Rwandan media played a major part in supporting, or creating an atmosphere to sanction the terrible human suffering that ensued. A detailed report from Human Rights Watch in 1999, looked into how the killing campaign was executed, using oral testimony and documentation from a wide variety of sources. It explained how this was planned for a long time and how the international community was aware of what was going on yet ignored it, and were even present during the systematic killings.

“At least half a million people perished in the Rwandan genocide,” the report notes. “Perhaps as many as three quarters of the Tutsi population. At the same time, thousands of Hutu were slain because they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.”

But one issue about the whole tragedy was how it was portrayed in some of the mainstream media of some western countries. The genocide was often attributed to ancient tribal hatreds. However as Human Rights Watch notes, “this genocide was not an uncontrollable outburst of rage by a people consumed by ‘ancient tribal hatreds.’” Instead:

This genocide resulted from the deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power. This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then, faced with RPF success on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few powerholders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They believed that the extermination campaign would restore the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war, or at least improve their chances of negotiating a favorable peace. They seized control of the state and used its machinery and its authority to carry out the slaughter.

— Leave None to Tell the Story; Genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch, March 1999

Richard Robbins, professor of anthropology at the State University of New York also agrees, saying “If we examine cases of purported ethnic conflict we generally find that it involve more than ancient hatred; even the ‘hatreds’ we find are relatively recent, and constructed by those ethnic entrepreneurs taking advantage of situations rooted deep in colonial domination and fed by neocolonial exploitation.” The case of Rwanda is instructive he adds. In his book, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism (Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 2002), pp. 269-274, he looks at some of these deeper political and modern causes of the genocide in Rwanda, a summary of which is provided here.

Perhaps there is no better case than Rwanda of state killing in which colonial history and global economic integration combined to produce genocide. It is also a case where the causes of the killing were carefully obscured by Western governmental and journalistic sources, blamed instead on the victims and ancient tribal hatreds.

A country the size of Belgium, with a population of 7 million people (overpopulated according to most reports but Belgium supports over 10 million people), Rwanda experienced in 1994 one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century. Some 800,000 people, mostly but not exclusively Tutsis, were slaughtered by the Hutu-run state. Contrary to media and many government reports, the genocide was the result of Rwanda’s political and economic position in the capitalist world system. It involved such monetary factors as its colonial history, the price of coffee, World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies, the global interests of Western nations, particularly France, the interests of international aid agencies, and Western attitudes towards Africa (Shalom 1996).

— Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 2002), p.269

The Rwanda area had been dominated by hunter gatherers (the Twa) since 1000 A.D. Hutu speakers began to settle in the area, with farms and a clan-based monarchy that dominated the Twa. Around the sixteenth century, new immigrants from the Horn of Africa, the cattle-raising Tutsi arrived and set up their own monarchy. Hutu and Tutsi were a type of class distinction, rather than based on physical differences. Tutsi were typically more dominant and controlled wealth such as cattle, while Hutu were without wealth and not tied to the powerful. But, people could move from being Hutu, to Tutsi, and the other way round, depending on their wealth and status. In addition, inter marriage was not uncommon, and power was attainable by both groups.

“When the Germans assumed control of the area after the Berlin Conference of 1884” as Robbins goes on (p. 270), “they applied their racist ideology and assumed that the generally taller, lighter-skinned Tutsis were the more ‘natural’ leaders, while the Hutus were destined to serve them. Consequently the Germans increased Tutsi influence.”

As Human Rights Watch also detailed, revisionist history was written by the Europeans:

Because Europeans thought that the Tutsi looked more like themselves than did other Rwandans, they found it reasonable to suppose them closer to Europeans in the evolutionary hierarchy and hence closer to them in ability. Believing the Tutsi to be more capable, they found it logical for the Tutsi to rule Hutu and Twa just as it was reasonable for Europeans to rule Africans. Unaware of the “Hutu” contribution to building Rwanda, the Europeans saw only that the ruler of this impressive state and many of his immediate entourage were Tutsi, which led them to assume that the complex institutions had been created exclusively by Tutsi.

Not surprisingly, Tutsi welcomed these ideas about their superiority, which coincided with their own beliefs. In the early years of colonial rule, Rwandan poets and historians, particularly those from the milieu of the court, resisted providing Europeans with information about the Rwandan past. But as they became aware of European favoritism for the Tutsi in the late 1920s and early 1930s, they saw the advantage in providing information that would reinforce this predisposition. They supplied data to the European clergy and academics who produced the first written histories of Rwanda. The collaboration resulted in a sophisticated and convincing but inaccurate history that simultaneously served Tutsi interests and validated European assumptions. According to these accounts, the Twa hunters and gatherers were the first and indigenous residents of the area. The somewhat more advanced Hutu cultivators then arrived to clear the forest and displace the Twa. Next, the capable, if ruthless, Tutsi descended from the north and used their superior political and military abilities to conquer the far more numerous but less intelligent Hutu. This mythical history drew on and made concrete the “Hamitic hypothesis,” the then-fashionable theory that a superior, “Caucasoid” race from northeastern Africa was responsible for all signs of true civilization in “Black” Africa. This distorted version of the past told more about the intellectual atmosphere of Europe in the 1920s than about the early history of Rwanda. Packaged in Europe, it was returned to Rwanda where it was disseminated through the schools and seminaries. So great was Rwandan respect for European education that this faulty history was accepted by the Hutu, who stood to suffer from it, as well as by the Tutsi who helped to create it and were bound to profit from it. People of both groups learned to thinkof the Tutsi as the winners and the Hutu as the losers in every great contest in Rwandan history.

The polished product of early Rwando-European collaboration stood unchallenged until the 1960s when a new generation of scholars, foreign and Rwandan, began questioning some of its basic assumptions. They persuaded other scholars to accept a new version of Rwandan history that demonstrated a more balanced participation of Hutu and Tutsi in creating the state, but they had less success in disseminating their ideas outside university circles. Even in the 1990s, many Rwandans and foreigners continued to accept the erroneous history formulated in the 1920s and 1930s.

— History, Leave None to Tell the Story; Genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch, March 1999

After Germany’s defeat in World War I, Belgium took over colonial control, intensifying the split between Hutu and Tutsi “by institutionalizing racist doctrines.” Bullet-pointing Robbins mostly (p.270):

• They replaced all Hutu chiefs with Tutsis and issued identity cards that noted ethnic identity, making the division between Hutu and Tutsi far more rigid than it had been before colonial control. Human Rights Watch also noted this:
  

  The very recording of the ethnic groups in written form enhanced their importance and changed their character. No longer flexible and amorphous, the categories became so rigid and permanent that some contemporary Europeans began referring to them as “castes.” The ruling elite, most influenced by European ideas and the immediate beneficiaries of sharper demarcation from other Rwandans, increasingly stressed their separateness and their presumed superiority. Meanwhile Hutu, officially excluded from power, began to experience the solidarity of the oppressed.

  — History, Leave None to Tell the Story; Genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch, March 1999

• The Belgians also gave the Tutsi elite the responsibility to collect taxes and administer the justice system.
• The Tutsi chiefs used this new power granted them by Belgian rule to gain Hutu land. However, excluding the wealth and status of Tutsi chiefs, the average financial situation of Hutus and Tutsis was about the same.
• Both groups were subject to the harsh colonial rule of Belgium in which forced labor was common, taxes were increased, and the beating of peasants by Belgian colonists became standard practice.
• Furthermore, the colonial rulers transformed the economy, requiring peasants to shift their activities from subsistence or food crops to export crops, such as coffee.
  • Coffee production had the effect of extending the amount of arable land, since it required volcanic soil that was not productive for other, particularly food, crops.
  • As we shall see, this had far-reaching consequences and would contribute to the conditions that precipitated the genocide.

The colonial break for freedom also had its effects as former colonial powers played off Hutus and Tutsis between each other:

• Tutsis campaigning to break from colonial rule in the 1950s meant that Belgium started to favor Hutus more so because Belgium believed they would be easier to control. The Belgians began replacing Tutsi chiefs with Hutu.
• “In 1959, when clashes between Hutu and Tutsi broke out,” Robbins writes, “the Belgians allowed Hutus to burn down Tutsis houses.” (p. 270)
• Furthermore, “Belgians allowed the Hutu elite to engineer a coup, and independence was granted to Rwanda on July 1, 1962.”
• Anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 Tutsis were killed in violence preceding independence, while some 120,000 to 500,000 fled the country to neighboring countries such as Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). From there, Tutsi guerillas engineered raids into Rwanda.
• Within Rwanda, Hutu rulers established ethnic quotas limiting Tutsi access to education and government employment.

A military coup d'état in 1973 bought Juvenal Habyarimana into power, promising national unity. He did this by establishing a one-party state, totalitarian in nature. Yet, “foreign powers appreciated the fact that Habyraimana ‘ran a tight ship,’ even requiring all Rwandans to participate in collective labor on Saturday.” (p. 271). Many reforms were also put in place, such as modernizing the civil service, making clean water available to virtually everyone, raising per capita income, and seeing an inflow of money from Western donors.

Some projects, however, “often imposed by multilateral organizations, were fiascoes and probably contributed to Hutu-Tutsi enmity” Robbins adds. For example,

In 1974 the World Bank financed a protect to establish cattle ranches over an area of 51,000 hectares. The bank hired a Belgian anthropologist, René Lemarchand, to appraise the project; he warned that the Hutu were using the project to establish a system of patronage and spoils that served to reduce the size of Tutsi herds and grazing areas and to increase Tutsi economic and political dependence on the Hutu, and that the project was aggravating Hutu-Tutsi conflicts. Lemarchand’s warnings were ignored.

— Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 2002), p.271

But more economic woes would result in more social problems, in particular the coffee price collapse:

Soon, whatever progress Rwanda was making to climb out of the pit of its colonial past was undermined by the collapse of the value of its export commodities—tin and, more important, coffee. Until 1989, when coffee prices collapsed, coffee was, after oil, the second most traded commodity in the world. In 1989, negotiations over the extension of the International Coffee Agreement, a multinational attempt to regulate the price paid to coffee producers, collapsed when the United States, under pressure from large trading companies, withdrew, preferring to let market forces determine coffee prices. This resulted in coffee producers glutting the market with coffee and forcing coffee prices to their lowest level since the 1930s. While this did little to affect coffee buyers and sellers in wealthy countries, it was devastating to the producing countries, such as Rwanda, and to the small farmers who produced coffee.

— Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 2002), p.271

The cheap coffee is good for consumers, but for producers, such a quick drop had a devastating effect. “If you are a coffee consumer,” continues Robbin, “especially one who likes the new premium, freshly roasted varieties, you will pay between eight to ten dollars per pound. Of that, fifty to seventy cents represents the world market price of which thirty to fifty cents goes to the farmer who produced the coffee. The remainder goes to mid-level buyers, exporters, importers, and the processing plants that sell and market the coffee. For Rwanda, the consequences of the collapse of coffee prices meant a 50 percent drop in export earnings between 1989 and 1991.”

The elite suffered from this too, which required additional means to maintain power.

The sudden drop in income for small farmers resulted in widespread famine, as farmers no longer had income with which to purchase food. The consequence for the Rwandan state elite was just as devastating; the money required to maintain the position of the rulers had come from coffee, tin, and foreign aid. With the first two gone, foreign aid became even more critical, so the Rwandan elite needed more than ever to maintain state power in order to maintain access to that aid.

Maintaining access to aid, however, particularly from multilateral organizations, required agreeing to financial reforms imposed by those organizations. In September 1990, the IMF imposed a structural adjustment program on Rwanda that devalued the Rwandan franc and further impoverished the already devastated Rwandan farmers and workers. The prices of fuel and consumer necessities were increased, and the austerity program imposed by the IMF led to a collapse in the education and health systems. Severe child “malnutrition” increased dramatically, and malaria cases increased 21 percent due largely to the unavailability of antimalarial drugs in the health centers. In 1992, the IMF imposed another devaluation, further raising the prices of essentials to Rwandans. Peasants up-rooted 300,000 coffee trees in an attempt to grow food crops, partly to raise money, but the market for local food crops was undermined by cheap food imports and food aid from the wealthy countries.

— Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 2002), pp.271-272

While economic collapse was looming, military threats emerged from a group of Tutsi refugees known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). “While the economy was collapsing, the RPF … invaded the country to overthrow the Habyarimana regime. Thus the state was confronted with crisis from two directions: economic collapse precipitated by the fall in coffee prices and military attacks from Tutsi who had been forced out of the country by ethnic rivalries fueled by colonial rulers.”

The Habyarimana regime was able to parley the invasion by the RPF into more foreign aid. Former colonial powers were to still have a part to play in the events that then unfolded.

The French, anxious to maintain their influence in Africa, began providing weapons and support to the Rwandan government, and the army grew from 5,000 to 40,000 from October 1990 to mid-1992. A French military officer took command of a counterinsurgency operation. Habyarimana used the actions by the RPF to arrest 10,000 political opponents and permitted the massacre of some 350 Tutsi in the countryside.

In spite of increased state oppression and the French-supported buildup of the armed forces, in January 50,000 Rwandans marched in a prodemocracy demonstration in Kigali, the country’s capital. Hutu extremists in Habyarimana’s government argued to crush the opposition on a massive scale, but instead, he introduced democratic reform and allowed the political opposition to assume government posts, including that of prime minister. However, he also authorized the establishment of death squads within the military—the Interahamwe (“those who attack together”) and the Impuzamugambi (“those with a single purpose”)—who were trained, armed, and indoctrinated in racial hatred toward Tutsi. These were the groups that would control most of the killing that was to follow.

— Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 2002), pp.271-272

By now, various human rights groups were warning of the existence of these death squads. However, the limited response by the international community gave Rwandan extremists the belief they could get away with massacres. As Human Rights Watch adds:

From 1990 on, influential donors of international aid pressed Habyarimana for political and economic reforms. But, generally satisfied with the stability of his government, they overlooked the systematic discrimination against Tutsi which violated the very principles that they were urging him to respect. They discussed but did not insist on eliminating identity cards that showed ethnic affiliation, cards that served as death warrants for many Tutsi in 1994.

When the Rwandan government began massacring Tutsi in 1990, crimes that were solidly documented by local and international human rights groups and by a special rapporteur for the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, some donors protested. At one point, the Belgian government went so far as to recall its ambassador briefly. But none openly challenged Rwandan explanations that the killings were spontaneous and uncontrollable and none used its influence to see that the guilty were brought to justice.

In addition, the lack of international response to the 1993 massacres in Burundi permitted Rwandan extremists to expect that they too could slaughter people in large numbers without consequence.

— International Responsibility, Leave None to Tell the Story; Genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch, March 1999

Various propaganda techniques were being used by Habyarimana’s inner circle, such as setting up a radio station (“a potent source of power in a country that is 60 percent illiterate,” Robbins notes (p.272)) to denounce attempts at peace between the government and the RPF, while also inciting more hatred. “Acts of violence against Tutsis increased,” as Robbins continues, “after the president of neighboring Burundi was killed in an attempted coup by Tutsi army officers. Hutus were incited to kill Tutsis, and the RPF responded by killing Hutus: some 50,000 peasants were reported killed, slightly more Tutsis than Hutus.”

The shooting down of a plane which killed Habyarimana provided the final step to start the genocide:

As Habyarimana continued to negotiate with the opposition under international pressure to reach a settlement, his plane (a gift from President Mitterrand of France) was shot down, killing him and everyone on board. Within an hour of Habyarimana’s death, roadblocks were put up throughout Kigali as militia and death squads preceded to kill moderate Hutus, including the prime minister, whose names were on prepared lists. Then the death squads went after every Tutsi they could find, inciting virtually everyone in the civil service to join in the killing. The Hutu extremists set up an interim government committed to genocide. Yet, even when it was clear to most people that the genocide was orchestrated by an authoritarian state, journalists as well as U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali would characterize the slaughter as “Hutus killing Tutsis and Tutsis killing Hututs.” Building on Western stereotypes of savage Africans, Mayor Ed Koch of New York City, characterized the genocide as “tribal warfare involving those without the veneer of Western civilization.”

As long as the killing could be characterized as interethnic violence, the core states, whose actions had created the situation for the killings and whose economic policies precipitated the violence, could distance themselves from the conflict. U.S. and European leaders, in fact went to great lengths not to use the word genocide, for to call it genocide may have required military intervention as agreed on in the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948. It wasn’t until months later, after some 800,000 Tutsis had been killed, that government leaders in the West began to acknowledge the genocide.

— Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, (Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 2002), pp.272-273

As Human Rights Watch also adds to Robbins points above, major powers did not act when they knew what was happening, in advance:

The Rwandans who organized and executed the genocide must bear full responsibility for it. But genocide anywhere implicates everyone. To the extent that governments and peoples elsewhere failed to prevent and halt this killing campaign, they all share in the shame of the crime. In addition, the U.N. staff as well as the three foreign governments principally involved in Rwanda bear added responsibility: the U.N. staff for having failed to provide adequate information and guidance to members of the Security Council; Belgium, for having withdrawn its troops precipitately and for having championed total withdrawal of the U.N. force; the U.S. for having put saving money ahead of saving lives and for slowing the sending of a relief force; and France, for having continued its support of a government engaged in genocide. In contrast to the inaction of the major actors, some non-permanent members of the Security Council with no traditional ties with Rwanda undertook to push for a U.N. force to protect Tutsi from extermination. But all members of the Security Council brought discredit on the U.N. by permitting the representative of a genocidal government to continue sitting in the Security Council, a council supposedly committed to peace….

Faced with escalating costs for peacekeeping operations, the U.N. staff and members wanted not just success [to offset the failure in Somalia just a few years earlier], but success at low cost. Demands for economy, loudly voiced by the U.S. and others, led to the establishment of a force only one third the size of that originally recommended and with a mandate that was also scaled down from that specified by the peace accords. Peacekeeping staff had proposed a small human rights division, which might have tracked growing hostility against Tutsi, but no money was available for this service and the idea was dropped.

Belgium, too, wanted to save money. Although it felt concerned enough about Rwanda to contribute troops to the force, it felt too poor to contribute the full battalion of 800 requested and agreed to send only half that number. Troops from other countries that were less well trained and less well armed filled the remaining places, producing a force that was weaker than it would have been with a full Belgian batallion.

As preparations for further conflict grew in February 1994, the Belgians were sufficiently worried by the deteriorating situation to ask for a stronger mandate, but they were rebuffed by the U.S. and the United Kingdom, which refused to support any measure that might add to the cost of the operation.

The concern for economy prevailed even after massive slaughter had taken place. When a second peacekeeping operation was being mounted in May and June, U.N. member states were slow to contribute equipment needed for the troops. The U.S. government was rightly ridiculed for requiring seven weeks to negotiate the lease for armored personnel carriers, but other members did not do much better. The U.K., for example, provided only fifty trucks.

— International Responsibility, Leave None to Tell the Story; Genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch, March 1999

Declassified documents from the U.S. show that the U.S., contrary to their own claims otherwise at the time, knew of the coming genocide, but chose not to do anything about it. Many critics have long said the U.S. knew about this and as Radio Netherlands also commented:

Declassified US documents show that evidence of an impending genocide was in general circulation well before the slaughter began. The hundreds of pages of material, released this week by a research group at George Washington University called the National Security Archive, indicate that US officials not only knew what was going on but also chose not to use the world “genocide” because that would have obliged them to intervene.

“The documents confirm what was already known,” says Rwanda researcher Alison de Forge of Human Rights Watch, “but the fact that it is from a US source and that it is in writing will seem more impressive to some Americans.”

— Rwanda Genocide: What The US Knew, Radio Netherlands, August 23, 2001

Human Rights Watch’s description of how the major powers reacted and explained the situation to the world is worth quoting at length:

From the first hours after the killings began, U.S., Belgian, and French policymakers knew that Tutsi were being slain because they were Tutsi. [General] Dallaire [commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force] delivered that same information in a telegram to U.N. headquarters on April 8 [1994]. Early accounts by journalists on the spot also depicted systematic, widespread killings on an ethnic basis. The simultaneous selective slaughter of Hutu opposed to Hutu Power complicated the situation but did not change the genocidal nature of attacks on Tutsi and, in any case, killings of Hutu diminished markedly after the first days. Given the pattern of killings, given previous massacres of Tutsi, given the propaganda demanding their extermination, given the known political positions of the persons heading the interim government, informed observers must have seen that they were facing a genocide.

They knew, but they did not say. The U.S. may have been the only government to caution its officials in writing to avoid the word “genocide,” but diplomats and politicians of other countries as well as staff of the U.N. also shunned the term. Some may have done so as part of their effort at neutrality, but others surely avoided the word because of the moral and legal imperatives attached to it.

Instead of denouncing the evil and explaining to the public what had to be done to end it, national and international leaders stressed the “confusing” nature of the situation, the “chaos” and the “anarchy.” After a first resolution that spoke fairly clearly about the conflict, the Security Council issued statements for several weeks that left both the nature of the violence and the identity of its perpetrators unclear. Secretary-General Bhoutros Bhoutros-Ghali spoke of the genocide as if it were a natural disaster and depicted Rwandans as a people “fallen into calamitous circumstances.”

Some policymakers could not get byeond the old cliches, like one official of the U.S. National Security Council who described the genocide as “tribal killings,” an explanation echoed by President Bill Clinton in June 1998 when he talked of “tribal resentments” as the source of troubles in Rwanda. In a similar vein, an adviser to French President Francois Mitterrand suggested that brutal slaughter was a usual practice among Africans and could not be easily eradicated. Other diplomats, more up to date, promoted the idea of a “failed state,” ignoring all indications that the Rwandan state was all too successful in doing what its leaders intended. They seemed unable to dissociate Rwanda from Somalia, although the two cases had few points of comparison beyond their common location on the African continent. Most journalists simply exploited the horror and made no effort to go beyond the easy explanations. A leading columnist for the New York Times even managed on April 15, 1994 to put the new and the old cliches in the same sentence, referring to a “failed state” and to a “centuries-old history of tribal warfare.”

— International Responsibility, Leave None to Tell the Story; Genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch, March 1999

Yet, as professor of economics, Michel Chossudovsky notes, the U.S. had strategic and economic motives in Central Africa, and “Washington’s objective was to displace France, discredit the French government (which had supported the Habyarimana regime) and install an Anglo-American protectorate in Rwanda under Major General Paul Kagame. Washington deliberately did nothing to prevent the ethnic massacres.” If true, this would suggest that France, Belgium and America have a lot of blood on their hands, too. In addition, this might also shed light on some hostilities and differing stances in the U.S.’s build up to the war on Iraq (2002-2003). There, France and Belgium (who Chossudovsky also mentions), along with Germany were strongly opposed to an invasion. It is commonly believed that they had their own interests in Iraq. It would be a long time before historians will eventually uncover whether this was another “great game” between powers being played out at the expense of other people.

It is interesting to note how various leaders and elite of the “core states” as Robbins calls them, referring to the colonial and imperial past which created a European-centered world system, almost continue, subtly, the beliefs and old stereotypes common to that era. Whether this attitude itself had a bearing on the lack of response or not, is hard to tell, but that it was used as justification or reason for slow action or uncertainty while also simplifying the complex causes provides a glimpse at how certain world issues are explained or understood in the mainstream.

The genocide only ended when the RPF eventually defeated the Rwandan government’s armies and took control of the country. But fleeing Hutu elite used radio broadcasts to incite fear in Hutu that chose to remain, saying that they faced retaliation and reprisals from returning Tutsi and RPF forces. As a result millions of Hutu fled Rwanda ending up in refugee camps in various bordering countries and as Robbins describes (p.273), “becoming a country in exile for the Hutu extremists who fled with them, using their control over the fleeing army to maintain control of the Hutus in the refugee camps.” Some 80,000 Hutus died in cholera epidemics in the camps. It was a couple of years later, in 1996, that Hutus began to return, when the RPF formed a government of reconciliation.

The Human Rights Watch report has a lot more details on the events at the time of the killings. The Propaganda section of the Human Rights Watch report, for example, provides some in-depth analysis of how the media in Rwanda was used and played a role in the genocide, and how propaganda was employed in a variety of ways.

Coming to terms with the genocide has not been easy for the Rwandan people. A tribunal was set up in an attempt to bring perpetrators of the crimes to justice. However, the decimated judicial system was unable to cope with the immense number of people accused of participating in the gross human rights violations—some 100,000.

The UN Security Council was asked to assist, resulting in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. This tribunal could only practically try the most prominent suspects and so a traditional community justice system known as gacaca, originally for settling disputes and minor offenses, and used alongside official justice systems, was established with some 11,000 community courts to try lower level crimes.

Three important features of this approach included

1. Rewarding those who confess by halving their prison sentences (leading to over 60,00