Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Tag: Haiti

Serpents in paradise

03.03.2024 /

I have been, and am still, stunned by the sadism of the Israeli government and its military — as well as by the US, UK, and German governments’ enthusiastic endorsement of genocide. Good heavens, what a bunch of psychopaths makes up the top echelons of our western societies! The events in Gaza recently prompted Craig Murray to write that he had now understood that his “belief in some kind of inherent decency in the Western political Establishment was naive.”

Bush was once the laughing stock of the world when he ranted about the potentially “nukiller” country, Iran’s, being part of “the axis of evil”. I’m afraid I’m tempted to backslide to that particular Bushism. No adjectives in any dictionary I know of can adequately describe the depravity of the acts being carried out in Gaza with energetic western support.

Meanwhile, however, many other issues go unheeded. Take for instance the current troubles in Haiti, a failed state since the USA finally broke that country’s back in 2004.

The extraordinary idea nurtured by successive US governments that they may – indeed must – play the role of Global Top Gun is absolutely mind-boggling. The oddest thing of all is that most citizens in NATO countries don’t seem to mind. Not for nothing are US citizens taught the US catechism: “We are the biggest and the best.” Not for nothing have the rest of us been force-fed Hollywood films night after night, decade after decade.

Most US Americans don’t know, of course, what damage their country wrecks everywhere it goes, and are therefore completely innocent, because corporate media is not “free” to tell them. Nor is the UK mainstream media (MSM) free to tell its citizens. Or the Norwegian MSM, for that matter. There are, admittedly, a few independent sources of journalism, but we are instructed to consider them Russian propaganda outlets and their journalists are – we are told – conspiracy theorists.

So aggressively opposed are our governments to freedom of information, that they are even willing to dismantle fundamental principles of Democracy (with, e.g., the Patriot Act in the US and, in the UK, the National Security Act of 2023 and the updated Official Secrets Act.) Moreover, the Julian Assange case illustrates just how far the UK is willing to go in order to block exposure of UK/US crimes against their own and other countries’ citizens. His case is, from a legal point of view, a travesty of the British legal system, which turns out to be no more committed to justice than judiciaries in countries with which Western countries do not care to be likened.

On Friday last, the new Workers Party of Britain won a resounding electoral victory in a by-election in Rochester. Quoth George Galloway, a politician who stands up to the ignominious leadership of the Labour Party (and you will find his words all over Google): “Keir Starmer – This is for Gaza!“

So that was the good news, not that the dying people of Gaza will know of it, I’m afraid.

The bad news is that Galloway’s party, which could in theory rally quite a large proportion of badly deceived British voters, will be hounded by the MSM and government spokespersons and will be the butt of ceaseless defamation campaigns, the first of which started the moment his victory was announced.

As for Haiti, the US is not the only country to have defiled what must once have been a land of milk and honey. The French economist Thomas Piketty writes in Chapter 6 of Capitalism and Ideology about the blood money exacted by the French Government from its former Haitian slaves between 1849 and 1915, after which the “debt” was taken over by the USA which occupied (and virtually again enslaved) Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and continued to demand payment from its victims until 1950! (My translation of the titles of the two relevant sections in Piketty’s book is France: the double abolition of 1794-1848 and Haiti: When slavery is converted into public debt,) They explain the background of Haitian demands towards the French government.

Actually, you don’t have to read those two sections (though I do recommend that you read the entire book), but you really should read the excellent article in Responsible Statecraft: “From coup to chaos: 20 years after the US ousted Haiti’s president”. It explains how the US with its visceral loathing of Articles 25 and 26 in the Declaration of Humans Rights plotted and organised the demise of the extremely popular and democratically elected Aristide.

In the article you will also find a link to the story of how the Haitian slaves heroically defeated and drove away their French owners and how they, the former slaves, subsequently had to pay the former owners (and later also the USA) compensation for loss of property, i.e. them – the former slaves.

For many countries all over the planet, the USA has been and is still the serpent in Paradise (I’m expanding on the above referenced Bushism). USA does believe in some human rights, such as the right to chose between Scylla and Charybdis during elections, provided, of course, the voters chose the candidate previously groomed for them by the USA (e.g. Guaido in Venezuela). This last proviso does not, admittedly, apply to NATO countries (on which the USA occasionally has to rely for its nefarious military operations all over the planet, currently off the coast of Yemen). USA also believes in the right to carry a gun, though I’m uncertain as to where in the Declaration of Human Rights that right is enshrined.

So you see, there has never really been any reason to suspect the upper echelons of society of even a sliver of what Craig Murray calls “decency”. We have just been docilely led by the nose.

Not liberty

11.12.2022 /

Lets take a look at Haiti.
(Cf. Thomas Piketty, Capitalism and Ideology, Chapter 6).

Slavery was abolished for the first time in modern times, not in England, but in Haiti, and by former slaves.

In 1780, there were 470,000 slaves in Haiti (90 % of the total population). They rebelled in 1791 and, not surprisingly, their French owners fled. Haiti was free. To cut a very long and painful story short, the rebels (i.e. former slaves) had to resist repeated attacks by the French army until they agreed, in 1825, to pay compensation to their former owners for their liberty. The payment demanded by France on behalf of their owners amounted to 2 % of France’s national income, 300 % of Haiti’s national income.

What with interest rates and the French banks’ commissions, Haiti (a population of, I repeat, former slaves) annually paid 5 % of the country’s national income from 1849 to 1915. Nevertheless, the French banks found payment lax, and begged the USA to intervene. The USA kindly agreed to occupy Haiti from 1915 to 1934 to “restore order”, which they did, killing thousands and more or less reintroducing slavery.

Haiti’s debt to the former slave owners was finally settled in 1950. For 125 years, the former slaves and their offspring had been paying for their freedom!

Thus, Haiti never had even the remotest chance of becoming a proper nation. No wonder the country is still struggling!

***

You might argue that this all happened a long time ago and that things have changed for the better. Have they?

A US company is just now suing Guatemala for “failing to protect” its (the US company’s) illegal gold mining activities. The company demands 400 million USD to cover lost investments and “future earnings”. https://inequality.org/research/guatemala-mining-lawsuit/

Now, Guatemala is one of the countries to which the USA has devoted particularly loving care and attention, not least since 1944 when the then dictatorship was replaced with a social democratic government. The new government’s popular reforms were:

disliked by the United States government, which was predisposed by the Cold War to see it as communist, and the United Fruit Company (UFCO), whose hugely profitable business had been affected by the end to brutal labour practices. The attitude of the U.S. government was also influenced by a propaganda campaign carried out by the UFCO. (Source: Wikipedia as at 07/12/2022)

Quoting Chomsky, in What Uncle Sam Really Wants, 1993:

In 1954, the CIA engineered a coup that turned Guatemala into a hell on earth. lt’s been kept that way ever since, with regular US intervention and support, particularly under Kennedy and Johnson.

…

…

Under Reagan, support for near-genocide in Guatemala became positively ecstatic. The most extreme of the Guatemalan Hitlers we’ve backed there, Rios Montt, was lauded by Reagan as a man totally dedicated to democracy. In the early 1980s, Washington’s friends slaughtered tens of thousands of Guatemalans, mostly Indians in the highlands, with countless others tortured and raped. Large regions were decimated.

To substantiate Chomsky’s opinion of Montt I’m including a few figures from the International Justice Monitor:

The short 17 months in which Ríos Montt ruled Guatemala were the most brutal of the conflict. Human rights organizations estimate that 10,000 people were killed in the first three months of his government alone. During the first eight months of his government, … more than 400 indigenous communities were destroyed.

Not until May 10 2013, was he finally found guilty of genocide and sentenced to 80 years’ imprisonment, but the verdict was vacated by the constitutional court, presumably due to pressure from you know who.

Speaking of Chomsky, I should add for the record, that he admitted that

the United States was not, however, lacking in compassion for the poor. For example, in the mid-1950s, our ambassador to Costa Rica recommended that the United Fruit Company, which basically ran Costa Rica, introduce “a few relatively simple and superficial human interest frills for the workers that may have a large psychological effect.” Secretary of State John Foster Dulles agreed, telling President Eisenhower that to keep Latin Americans in line, “you have to pat them a little bit and make them think that you are fond of them.”

More quotes from What Uncle Sam Really Wants:

We’ve [i.e. the USA] consistently opposed democracy if its results can’t be controlled. The problem with real democracies is that they’re likely to fall prey to the heresy that governments should respond to the needs of their own population, instead of those of US investors.

Throughout this process, the US press followed Washington’s lead, selecting villains in terms of current needs. Actions we’d formerly condoned became crimes. … The press also began passionately denouncing human rights violations that previously didn’t reach the threshold of their attention. .

If you want a global system that’s subordinated to the needs of US investors, you can’t let pieces of it wander off. It’s striking how clearly this is stated in the documentary record – even in the public record at times. Take Chile under Allende. Chile is a fairly big place, with a lot of natural resources, but again, the United States wasn’t going to collapse if Chile became independent. Why were we so concerned about it? According to Kissinger, Chile was a “virus” that would “infect” the region with effects all the way to Italy.

What Uncle Sam Really Wants was published in 1993, and those of you who have lived all your lives in the USA may not even believe its descriptions about US activities in Nicaragua, Panama and el Salvador. But here in Europe the events referred to in the book were known at the time.

You may want to believe that things have improved since 1993. Maybe they have, though I very much doubt it. With Julian Assange behind bars, the cowed Western press has been brought to heel and obediently trots alongside its masters. Their job is no longer to expose but to justify US activities, and to kowtow to US global leadership, whatever that leadership may involve. So we don’t know, do we, what is going on behind the scenes.

I conclude by adding two items from today’s news (i.e. 7 December 2022):

The Biden administration told a US judge last week that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, should be granted immunity in a civil lawsuit over his role in the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. That decision effectively ends one of the last efforts to hold the prince accountable for Khashoggi’s assassination by a Saudi hit team inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. (Source: Guardian)

The United States is opposed to the International Criminal Court’s proceedings against Israel, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said after Al Jazeera filed a legal brief asking the Hague to include the shooting death of its veteran Palestinian-American correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh within its larger investigation against the Jewish state. “When it comes to the ICC, we maintain our longstanding objections to the ICC’s investigation into the Palestinian situation,” Price said told reporters in Washington in response to a direct question about Abu Akleh’s death. (Source: Jerusalem Post)

Rule-of-law, US style, as usual.

Hvor er humoren min?

16.01.2010 /

Jeg har forsømt meg. Denne siden har jo vært forlatt i flere måneder. Saken er at jeg har mistet humoren min. Vekk. Sporløst forsvunnet. Jeg leter febrilsk i utgåtte bukse- og jakkelommer, saumfarer bilen, stolseter og vesker, men til ingen nytte. Og hvordan skal jeg vel skrive om den fryktelige katastrofen på Haiti uten humor? Men jeg klarer ikke med min beste vilje finne snev av komikk blant alle de blågule, støvete kroppsdelene man visstnok mer eller mindre snubler i på den gudsforlatte øya. Her er det ikke en gang noen å skylde på, ingen å bruke som skyteskive; det var jo bare en naturkatastrofe, og den var ikke en gang en klimabetinget.

Skrekkelig. Punktum. Ikke uten grunn har Nordmenn og andre nå overgått seg selv i sin iver etter å sende penger til den døende øya. Rart med det der: Det er først når en er død eller døende at man blir verdsatt. Kunstnere, musikere, vitenskapsmenn, øyer, dyrearter, … Hvem hadde vel peiling på hvor for eksempel Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala og Honduras var før USA satte landene på kartet ved å ødelegge dem? Enn Malvinene, som snart blir aldeles borte?

Det er sikkert mange millioner mennesker som for tiden starter dagen med å felle ekte tårer i morgenkaffen sin, idet de tar inn over seg mer enn de orker av grufulle “siste nytt fra Haiti”, før de har rukket å pansre seg med sminke, klaprende hæler og gelatinfriserte pigger, og før de i biler dyre som hus åler seg inn til sentrum. Av dem er sikkert omtrent en halvpart trofaste fotsoldater i meg-megere-megest armeen. Dette med “omtrent en halvpart” svarer til den andelen av vestens land som stemmer på politiske meg-megere-megest partier. I virkeligheten er det enda flere som prioriterer meg-megere-megest fanesaker og som derfor er skyldige.

Fanesaker som ikke er “meg-megere-megest” er, for eksempel: reell og effektiv utviklingshjelp (til forskjell fra lammende utviklingshjelp). Hvilket politisk parti ville komme til makten med en slik fanesak?

Norge er medlem i IMF. IMF ga Haiti nådestøtet på 80-tallet. Etter IMF-“hjelpen” de fikk, ble landet så dysfunksjonelt at vi andre rett og slett har sett helt bort fra det. IMF har mange andre katastrofer og tragedier på samvittigheten, og IMF er, som sagt, også Norge. Nå vil IMF slå kloa i en annen øy, Island, og det er ikke overraskende at befolkningen der viser manglende takknemlighet. Ville du vært takknemlig om du ble pålagt å betale en astronomisk gjeld som ikke var din, i all fremtid og i alle overskuelige slektledd?

Skyldspørsmålet for Norges del gjelder likevel først og fremst medvirkning, hva IMF-forbrytelser angår. For i IMF er det USA som legger premissene. USA skal visstnok være et demokratisk land, men valg i USA avgjøres av media. I så måte er ikke USA alene, men det som er spesielt med USA er hvem som eier media, og hvordan innhold i media avgjøres av kapitalsterke interessgrupper. Vi kan begynne med Murdoch, og det faktum at Murdoch imperiet eier mellom 60 og 80 prosent av media i USA.

Murdoch-pressen fremstiller noe så uskyldig som allment helsevern som et kommunistisk komplott, mens de samtidig krever at finansinstitusjoner må reddes, nettopp med skattebetalernes penger. Ja, det er egentlig litt komisk, og det er i det hele tatt mye komikk ved USAnsk såkalt demokrati. Men jeg klarer ikke finne humoren min, så jeg lar det temaet ligge så lenge.

Det jeg i stedet finner er avmakt. Hvem trenger vel sensur når pressefriheten er et langt mer formidabelt verktøy for å påvirke våre sarte sjeler? Av alt som trykkes i USA er det mye systemkritikk som er langt krassere, velformulert og grundig dokumentert enn hva selv de mest ihuga USA-kritikerne på denne siden av Atlanteren kunne ha produsert. Men hvem hører dem? Fox News og Rush Limbaugh former folkemeningen som voks. Nå har Murdoch kjøpt opp også Wall Street Journal. Og Rush Limbaugh mangler sannelig ikke humor!

På vår side lammes vi av at vi har, jeg har, nesten nesegrus beundring for vår utenriksminister. Beundring er helt klart en hemsko for den frie tanke. Man spiser av hånden til den man beundrer og overser at han nok kunne ha kjørt en hardere linje i alle de sakene som er, påstår jeg, av absolutt overordnet betydning for hele kloden. Ikke bare er de av overordnet betydning, de er være-eller ikke-være-saker: Klimaspørsmålet, kakedeling mellom nord og sør og midtøstenkonflikten.

Jeg kan sitte midt på Time Square med plakat på magen. Jeg kan ta med samme plakat til Røde Plass. Jeg kan kaste meg ut fra et tak på Karl Johann med et silkebanner med det berømte sitatet “Gjør noe. Gjør mer”. Men det vil ikke hjelpe. Ingenting vil hjelpe. Så jeg skjønner godt at enkelte individer går bananas når avmakten overfor noe de opplever som aldeles fryktelig overvelder dem.

Nei, det som trengs er humor. Øredøvende, uforskammet, respektløs og rammende humor. De gamle sovjetrusserne var flinke til slikt. Michael Moore likeså. Nå kom jeg forresten på hvor jeg mistet min humor. Jeg brukte et grønt handlenett i Spania, et norsk “miljønett”. Med det fikk jeg agitert for “saken”, en av sakene, altså. I butikkene spurte man hva som sto på det, og jeg tegnet og forklarte: “…plastikkposer … nedbrytbar … søppel … gjenbruk” osv. Men ett eller annet sted la jeg igjen nettet. Og der ligger humoren min. I Spania, altså.

Nå gjenstår det ikke mer for meg enn å stille meg opp i nærbutikken her i Norge, med rødt kors på armen og bøsse i hånden og mitt mest bedende tårevåte blikk. “Gi Haiti en verdig begravelse”. Om noen år vil jeg igjen stille opp i samme butikk: “Gi Island en verdig begravelse.” For land etter land blir en verdig begravelse snart det beste vi kan håpe på.

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