Decoding India's Caste System...And Maybe Our Own.

Just Another Word for Structured Inequality?

"The caste system in India is a system of social stratification, which is now also used as a basis for affirmative action Historically, it separated communities into thousands of endogamous hereditary groups called Jātis which is synonymous with caste in contemporary usage. The Jātis were grouped by the Brahminical texts into four categories or varnas: Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. Certain groups, now known as "Dalits", were excluded from the varna system altogether, ostracized by all other castes and treated as untouchables. Strongly identified with Hinduism, the caste system has been carried over to other religions on the Indian subcontinent, including Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism."

Endogamy:  Marrying within your group, clan, caste.

Exogamy:  Marrying outside your group, clan, caste.

"Almost every statement of a general nature made by anyone about Indian castes may be contradicted."  D.D. Kosambi, 1944.  Yep. That about covers it.  Indian scholars themselves cannot agree, much less the greater population.  And outsiders tend to view the caste system as some kind of static phenomenon, taking the viewpoint of India as "stereotypical [and] tradition-bound."  Yet it appears to operate more radically...more fluidly if you like, according to the greater or lesser fortunes of the state and society in general.  Meaning really, that Indians themselves frequently alter the definition to fit the situation at hand. Gosh....imagine if that happened here? 

This caste system goes back a long ways (maybe 5000 years), and is remarkably similar to early Roman social/class/spiritual belief structures of that time, only in India's case, wrapped tightly to the scriptures of Hinduism.  Yet even here, vast disagreement exists on origin and purpose, further complicated by our friends the British, who remodeled India's caste system (colonial period) as an aid to both administering the British Raj and as a tool for social control. But...and a big 'but' here; these systems were highly practical where basic survival was a daily challenge to establishing static, permanent communities.  A little like the goals of the 'socialist state,' whereby each person had a purpose (caste), in the greater community.  However, once money (gold, whatever), replaced value as the currency of the realm -- versus individual contribution, the system became abusive and cooperation for the common good went obsolete.  Ha...maybe Lenin should have spent a little quality time in Bombay.     

Basically, the castes are split 3 ways -- ranked accordingly from the old Brahman texts:

1st.  Judicial and priestly.

2nd.  Military and war.

3rd. Production, agriculture, crafts and commerce.   However, others argue that the origins as defined in Krishna add one more:

4th. The 'untouchables.'  ('Untouchables dealt with sewage and dead animals...including people.)


Course, as usual, Britain's meddling had backfired by the 1920's, actually forcing the Raj to introduce many 'affirmative-action' type programs, most aimed at elevating the social/economic status of the more oppressed groups; especially the Dalits.  (We're hearing a lot about this group lately.)  But it was also a tool of division, used frequently in American foreign policy-making, particularly during the Cold War years.  By putting minority populations in a position of power, the resulting group-to-group antagonism deflected attention from the real enemy:  the colonialist and imperialistic powers. Course, eventually the locals caught on anyway. However, below is one interpretation of how this system was/is structured: 

• Strict segmentation of society, with the various groups being rigidly defined and membership of them determined by birth.
• A hierarchical system that defines a ranking place for all of the castes
• Limited choice of occupation, which is enforced within a caste as well as by other castes. A caste might follow more than one traditional occupation but its members would nonetheless be constrained to that range
• The general practice of endogamy, although in some situations hypergamy is acceptable. Endogamy applies to the various sub-groups within a caste itself, preventing marriage between the sub-groups and sometimes imposing an additional geographical constraint, that one can only marry a person from the same gotra and the same place
• Restrictions on dietary and social interactions that defines who could consume what and accept from whom. As with marriage arrangements, these restrictions apply at sub-caste level, not merely at the caste level
• Physical segregation in, for example, villages. This is accompanied by limitations on movement and access, including to religious and educational areas and to basic facilities such as supplies of water. Again, this segregation applies at sub-caste level as well as at the higher level
• 
  

The Big Picture

Safe to say that the British really mucked up Indian culture and traditions.  Aside from manipulating the caste system, they also socially re-engineered the entire region via population transfers; i.e., separating Hindu from Muslim in one of history's largest forced migrations, which resulted in the formation of two new nations in the process: Pakistan and East Pakistan, later re-named Bangladesh.  And following independence, all three were subjected to Soviet and US imperialism, all in the name of the new Cold War politics.  And yes, this plays heavily into the vacillating geo-political tensions and perceived loyalties throughout this region:  India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, both mutually suspicious, both facing immense internal pressures; Pakistan, as close to a failed state as a country can get and still claim marginal functionality.  And yes, this plays into the equation, particularly with US foreign policy, the case for human rights usurped in favor of...well, it's getting tough to tell anymore.  Billions in American corporate interests re-arranging Indian society, Pakistan holding the keys to Afghanistan's back door, the current Indian prime minister on the State Department's 'dislike' list. Nothing as simple as it might seem.  Yet the macro picture must be considered along with the micro, because in the case of these two countries, the stakes are higher than most.

Closer to Calcutta

However, to be fair, the British did conduct an extensive and thorough ethnographic analysis of the entire region; material still in extensive use today.  Sure, it also served equally as a tool of manipulation, but for an area as large and diverse as the Indian sub-continent, the demographic research has proved invaluable over time. [Side-note: One of Britain's contributions to the developing world was rail systems. In India, this transportation network was extensive.  Yet here, on the trains, Indian's ignored the caste system completely, choosing transportation over cultural prejudices.  A lesson learned much later in the US.]    

So how does religion/spirituality play into the caste system?  Good question and to be frank, one I can't really answer logically, at least not in a western-trained mind.  However, a clue or two might be found in the words of two pivotal characters in India's fight for independence.  First, Dr. B.R. Ambedker, India's first Prime Minister following independence.  He was also an 'untouchable.'  

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar

"Ambedkar, was born in a caste that was classified as untouchable, became a leader of human rights in India, a prolific writer, and a key person in drafting modern India's constitution in the 1940's . Ambedkar wrote extensively on discrimination, trauma and tragic effects of the caste system in India."

"Ambedkar described the Untouchables as belonging to the same religion and culture, yet shunned and ostracised by the community they lived in. The Untouchables, observed Ambedkar, recognised the sacred as well as the secular laws of India, but they derived no benefit from this. They lived on the outskirts of a village. Segregated from the rest, bound down to a code of behaviour, they lived a life appropriate to a servile state. According to this code, an Untouchable could not do anything that raised him or her above his or her appointed station in life. The caste system stamped an individual as untouchable from birth. Thereafter, observed Ambedkar, his social status was fixed, and his economic condition was permanently set. The tragic part was that the Mahomedans, Parsis and Christians shunned and avoided the Untouchables, as well as the Hindus. Ambedkar acknowledged that the caste system wasn't universally absolute in his time; it was true, he wrote, that some Untouchables had risen in Indian society above their usually low status, but the majority had limited mobility, or none, during Britain's colonial rule. According to Ambedkar, the caste system was irrational. Ambedkar listed these evils of the caste system: it isolated people, infused a sense of inferiority into lower-caste individuals, and divided humanity. The caste system was not merely a social problem, he argued: it traumatised India's people, its economy, and the discourse between its people, preventing India from developing and sharing knowledge, and wrecking its ability to create and enjoy the fruits of freedom. The philosophy supporting the social stratification system in India had discouraged critical thinking and cooperative effort, encouraging instead treatises that were full of absurd conceits, quaint fancies, and chaotic speculations. The lack of social mobility, notes Ambedkar, had prevented India from developing technology which can aid man in his effort to make a bare living, and a life better than that of the brute. Ambedkar stated that the resultant absence of scientific and technical progress, combined with all the transcendentalism and submission to one's fate, perpetrated famines, desolated the land, and degraded the consciousness from respecting the civic rights of every fellow human being.  According to Ambedkar, castes divided people, only to disintegrate and cause myriad divisions which isolated people and caused confusion. Even the upper caste, the Brahmin, divided itself and disintegrated. The curse of caste, according to Ambedkar, split the Brahmin priest class into well over 1400 sub-castes. This is supported by census data collected by colonial ethnographers in British India."

Worth noting here that Ambedkar took his beliefs so seriously that he converted to Buddhism -- bringing many Dalit followers into the Buddhist faith.

And of course, the words of Mahatma Gandhi:

  

Mahatma Gandhi

In his younger years, Gandhi, disagreed with some of Ambedkar's observations, rationale and interpretations about the caste system in India. "Caste," he claimed, has "saved Hinduism from disintegration. But like every other institution it has suffered from excrescences." He considered the four divisions of Varnas to be fundamental, natural and essential. The innumerable subcastes or Jātis he considered to be a hindrance. He advocated to fuse all the Jātis into a more global division of Varnas. In the 1930s, Gandhi began to advocate for the idea of heredity in caste to be rejected, arguing that "Assumption of superiority by any person over any other is a sin against God and man. Thus caste, in so far as it connotes distinctions in status, is an evil."

Many scholars argue that the caste system is inherently embedded in Hindu religious practices, particularly the teachings of samsara, dharma and karma, yet as mirrored by the British colonial use of caste as a social engineering tool, is it not too far afield to assume that the Indians themselves are not just as culpable?  After all, according to ancient texts, no untouchable could possibly gain a leadership position in India, yet three have become Prime Minister.  Further, what are the current conflicts, including this pogrom against the Dalits -- particularly the women -- really about?  To this author, as limited as my knowledge is...doesn't smell of religious or sectarian fault lines, but rather another glaring example of a rising social inequality throughout the world -- the same blame-game we play in America whenever and wherever immigration enters the conversation.  Those with the least power, the limited voice always make the best targets in tough times.  And the times promise to get tougher.

Literacy and Economics:

Here it gets a little sticky.  When British rule ended in the 1940's, the literacy rate throughout India stood at 12%. Today is stands at 74% (2011); excellent progress considering the obstacles, but still 10 points below world averages.  There is also a gender-gap disparity of about 20% -- men over women. And too, a geographic void between rural and urban populations, aggravated by this caste system.  A system that finds greater credence in rural areas, where folklore, superstition and the role of subsidence agriculture have traditionally played a greater role in societies. [More on the ag. issue later.]* 

[Dark green indicates highest growth]

Movement on educational improvements in these rural areas is frequently hamstrung by these discriminatory beliefs, causing both low enrollment and an extremely high (52%), drop-out rate. (2005 figures)  India too, is a land of strong stereotypes, particularly surrounding gender, contributing greatly to the wider gap between educational opportunities afforded men over women.**  And if that's not enough, the old traditions of family-based agriculture in India tend to value brawn over brains -- a common theme in much of the developing world.  Flawed?  Perhaps not.  But the alternative has proven to be even more disruptive to Indian society.

[Orange indicates lowest literacy rates]

Anyone else notice a disturbing parallel?  Yes, as one of our past president's once exclaimed, "It's the economy, stupid!"  

Two things are at play here. The first deals with the massive schism between rural and urban life in India.  In urban areas, the PhD has all but replaced the caste system.  Much can be said on this matter, but technology-export from the US and Europe has played a huge role in the upward mobility of those in the south of India. Certainly not the case elsewhere, and as I said earlier, literacy rates weigh-in heavily in this social system, for they use the old tenets of ancient Hinduism as a doctrine against the upward mobility of those 'sanctioned' as inferior.  But then, nothing new or remarkable here really.  Take away the tools of education, the access to knowledge and the drones will labor on.  We sort of invented the concept clear back in the 1920's. Only today, we call it the corporation.

Convergence:

*Talked about this issue in some previous blog postings.  Stole the term from Christian Parenti's book, [Tropic of Chaos].  It is basically when multiple issues 'converge' in one spot and metastasize from many small and seemingly unrelated diseases, into one very large and potentially fatal tumor.  Again, note the two maps above -- then the drought map shown here:  On a macro level, much of the tension between India, Pakistan AND Afghanistan is rooted in water issues; aka, Khashmir. Glacial run-off feeds the rivers of all three. As Parenti says, "Without the river (Indus), Pakistan's stock of groundwater and impounded reserves would only last a month. No river, no country.  And atop the river sits the enemy, India: Huge, economically dynamic, politically democratic, internationally respected and atomically armed."  Add one more element: the monsoons have been disrupted for a decade or more and the glacial fields are retreating -- drastically in most cases.  And as I noted in previous blogs, the impact of neoliberalism on agricultural production in the Global South has virtually destroyed traditional farming in these regions, along with arable land. [See Convergence, Parts I-III]

What does that have to with caste?  Simple. Caste is no longer a religious/cultural issue in India, but instead an economic one wrapped in the arms of marginal literacy, a rising urban opulence (fueled by the tech-servicing industry), dwindling basic resources and now, climate -- which in turn fuels migration from the land to the cities, where these ancient and obsolete traditions find new credence as the 'have-nots' rub hard against those that 'have.'  And the government is reluctant to address the problem:

[Parenti]: "As India's weather patterns have become more disjointed, so too have its economic policies shifted rightward to effectively abandon the peasant farming class and create greater inequality."  The result?  "The Maoist fire burns not only due to drought but also because of free-market government policy."  Yes, in northern India and Nepal, drought has caused a re-awakening of both the far-left and the fundamentalist right. (Hold that thought for a moment or two.) And yes, the statistics bear out the correlation between drought/privation and the rise of insurgency activities throughout the world, such reactions about as basic and primal as they come.   

Maslow's Hierarchy

I bring up Maslow's little pyramid because throughout the developing world, the top three take some pretty heavy trudging to even come close to fruition.  That same trend is occurring in this country, though for the most part, we remain well-insulated. Well, some of us anyway.  However, in this current convergence of multiple issues, the foundation -- the most basic premises of life are under almost relentless siege. And that brings me to a rather startling conclusion:

Religious Fundamentalism 

What happens when civilization, however we choose to define it, begins to unravel? Regression.  Without a tangible or definable future, we always look back to the past -- the times of security, safety...the bountiful harvest of nostalgia.  We yearn for it, as the questions were so much more basic, the answers seemingly so simple.  God, family, dinner.  Not chaos, deprivation and violence.

Fundamentalist ideas grow out of fear and uncertainty and serve to fuel radical, yet simplistic solutions.  And because we created a world that chooses money over value, today's societies fracture along the fault-lines of economic mobility.  Take that to the most basic levels: sustenance over starvation; the earth itself collapses under the strain. And it is an equal opportunity plague.  It honors no borders, claims no favorites.  India or America...little difference in this ongoing struggle.   

Caste?  It is no longer just a tradition of the Hindu world...it is a global fact of life.            

**Gender stereotyping is NOT confined to women's roles within India society. Men too, find their identity wrapped around outside expectations in the community, duly noted in the burgeoning number of suicides among male Indian farmers over the last decade or more. 

Mere thoughts here...on a very, very complicated world. 

  

   

The Convergence....Part III

Migration:

An inevitable fact of history. War, famine, drought, persecution, jobs...all put people on the move.  And when populations migrate, they rub against other populations, such friction creating the seeds of resentment, fear and very often violence.  Yet these great herds of humans will not accede to the artificial barriers of states, nations or tribes, because survival itself demands otherwise. Yes, the zebra will go to water knowing full well that the lion haunts the shoreline.  It is inevitable; it is the core nature of life itself.

Who made this thing we call the Global South?  Better yet, why was this new geography created out of what had managed to marginally co-exist for centuries?  One could say that it was a resource hunt, an imperial land grab, the first of many prolonged proxy wars, the arrogance brought forth by the crown of authority -- a doctrine sanctified by some benevolent god?  Monotheism as a sword of salvation for a pagan world?  Or, simply greed, ideology, power.  The sustenance of the empire.       

The countries of Africa, South America, much of Asia and by extension, even the rancorous states of America, are little more than the jagged lines of a surveyors map.  Most are not nations by strict definition, but a cobbled-together conglomerate of tribes whose only common denominator is the misfortune of being conquered by this or that European power.  And of course, once colonialism ended, imperialism and hegemony showed up on the block, under the new banner of Cold War dogmatism. New promises wrapped up in the same shallow assurances; ultimately, the same sorry trail of deceits and lies.   And as always in the underdeveloped south...the real force of the natural world at work; too often ignored as somebody else's problem.  Until now.  

[Parenti}:  "Britain's 2006 Stern Review estimated that between 200 and 250 million people would be uprooted by climate change.  That is 10 times the current number of refugees in the world.  Let that sink in for a moment. Bangladeshi academic Atiq Rahman had it correct when he warned, "Millions of people will be moving.  No amount of nuclear submarines will be able to stop that."  Another report estimated there are 214 million international migrants in the world today.  "If this number continues to grow at the same pace as during the last 20 years, international migrants could number 405 million by 2050."" 

Some scholars put the figure at over 1 billion.  Don't believe it?  While climate change denial remains a popular political ploy in the north, particularly in the US, military planners in Europe, the US -- even Australia, have been developing strategic-level contingency plans since the late 1980's.  They see the future as little more than insurgency versus counterinsurgency -- at the core: food, water and climate change.  Already, in places like Brazil, northern India and the Staans, even northern Mexico, continued droughts and flash floods have people migrating to urban centers.  In Brazil's largest city, Rio,these wanderers literally creating a state within a state.  And Mexico?  Estimates indicate that 2/3 of those attempting to enter the US illegally (legally apparently not an option), are farmers and pastoralists from the northeastern region -- victims of the same continuing weather cycle plaguing Texas, Oklahoma and much of the lower midwest.  The north's solution to a problem they basically created?   

     The Armed Lifeboat:

[Parenti]:  "However, another type of political adaptation is already underway, one that might be called the politics of the armed lifeboat: responding to climate change by arming, excluding, forgetting, repressing, policing and killing.  One can imagine a green authoritarianism emerging in rich countries, while the climate crisis pushes the Third World into chaos...."    "This sort of "climate fascism," is politics based on exclusion, segregation, and repression, is horrific and bound to fail.  There must be another path.  The struggling states of the Global South cannot collapse without eventually taking wealthy economies down with them.  If climate change is allowed to destroy whole economies and nations, no amount of walls, guns, barbed wire, armed aerial drones, or permanently deployed mercenaries will be able to save one half of the plant from the other."  

A little hysterical?  Actually it isn't.  Check the US/Mexican border. It is NOT about cartels and random terror merchants.  Then ask yourself why we have private gulags in operation in the American southwest -- mostly filled with poor farmers.  And why does a country founded on migration fill the talk-show airways with xenophobic hate:  all aimed at the migrant?

Alexis  de Tocqueville

[Parenti]:  "A central trope in this embittered carnival is the specter of immigration.  Xenophobia and smug nationalism are old American traditions.  Tocqueville found it back in 1835: "Nothing is more annoying in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans.  A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and [in] that he is absolutely refused.""

And as this author has often said, "Patriotism is the last vestige of the scoundrel."  Why?  Simple. For a country founded on the notion of rejecting oppression in all its shapes and forms -- who then spent ten-years composing flowering prose and grand ideals; further, called that document law, and then abruptly became the new English Lord to the rest of the world.  And if one criticizes this grand hypocrisy, as either domestic or foreigner, they are quickly condemned as an unAmerican heretic of the first order.  

[Parenti]: "Border militarization, the paramilitary immigrant roundups, the largely privatized ICE detention network -- it is all human rights abomination.  But it is also politics as ideological spectacle.  When the government treats innocent brown people as criminals, it lends respectability to racism.  Native-born people, particularly white people, get the message and feel invited to catharsis via tribal solidarity, especially during hard times."  

Please read that paragraph twice.  

Violence:  

Much is written, debated and speculated about Third World violence, this notion of terrorism (invented by us);* gangsterism, narcoism...religious fundamentalism, sectarianism and on and on. Yet oddly perhaps, a paradox exists in defining the root cause(s) for it.  Very often, shared calamity is confronted by a broader cooperation found in a shared experience -- a rallying of the troops to confront a common enemy, be it man or nature.  But in this new arena of mass migration,what is more often occurring is the 'have nots' being pressed hard against the 'haves.'  The slums of Rio, in Brazil, overlook the great hotels and white-sand beaches of luxury.  Hispanics longingly stare across the vast fences of the US/Mexican border; opportunity almost palpable on the breeze. Indians from the northeast wander south in search of a new life only to be confronted by the new palaces built in the shadow of technology-servicing's new oasis.  The inequality is the grinding truth of this current age.  And as the migration accelerates, the state withdraws -- by choice, by frustration, by a simple lack of resources to cope with an overwhelming tide of people on the move.  And social cohesion breaks down on both sides...leading all down the path of blame.  Ordinary people now little more than the enemy within.

(*Believe Cornwallis used the term to describe the behavior of colonial militias during the American Rebellion.) 

[Parenti}:  "Civilization is in crisis, though the effects are not yet fully felt.  The metabolism of the world economy is fundamentally out of synch with that of nature. And that is a mortal threat to both."   

And the author's sentiment is neither new, nor radical. Karl Marx noticed this 'metabolic rift' with nature as well:  "Capitalistic production collects the population together in great centres, and causes the urban population to achieve an ever-growing preponderance.  This has two results.  On one hand it concentrates the historical motive force of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth, i.e., it prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing."  But of course Marxism too failed, for almost simultaneously, it clashed with both industrialization and the inherent ambitions of man.

So once again, we face a test of wills over the future direction we choose to take on an issue that is shared by all.  Does that will exist?  Probably not. 

Agree or disagree...the book deserves a read.  More than that, it deserves some careful thought by those of us with nowhere left to go.

AFTER the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience.
                                                                                    ---T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland  330

Convergence...The Green Revolution, Part II

The Green Revolution:

Notes on Christian Parenti's, "Tropic of Chaos."  First though, a few thoughts on definitions.  Parenti refers frequently to what is known as economic neoliberalism. What is it?  Well, try this:

Neoliberalism is an extreme form of economic liberalism whose advocates support for economic liberalizations, free trade, open markets, privatization, deregulation, and shrinking the size of the public sector to allow the private sector to take on a more active role in the economy. 

Okay, two things here. First off is the unsavory habit in this country of hijacking certain words as all-encompassing descriptors.  Liberal, or for that matter, conservative are prime examples. Bad news. They are not always nouns. Both words act as quantifier or relevator [sic] to some other 'thing.'  As in: "I enjoy a liberal amount of Whiskey in my Irish Coffee, yet I am conservative about how many I consume."  Or, "In America, we live in a liberal democracy."  

The second issue is how neoliberalist policy is executed in the agricultural sector, particularly in the developing world where existing systems are often based on sustenance farming, NOT as an extension of the corporate sector.  And it is here, in this arena, that The Green Revolution was born.  And no, in this case, Green was NOT about sustainability, though it did have roots in the the philosophy of a kind of nationalized self-sufficiency in food stocks.  But it quickly morphed into an entirely different sort of animal. 

The theory has most often been attributed to Walt W. Rostow's 1960 theorem: "The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto."  Aha! What a title indeed. Still, it was in line with American foreign policy of the day, in 'containing' communism, rather than going to war over it, though that took a turn for the worse in October of 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  But of course, that was a different sort of 'global warming' altogether.

Theory turned to action when William Gand, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) first embraced the 'industrialization' of agriculture through the use of high-yield variety seeds, synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides and extensive groundwater-dependent irrigation systems. And of course the World Bank jumped on board since this was seen as another avenue of debt-mitigation for borrower countries, as well as a cash crop to accelerate growth in the industrial sector.  Feeding locals wasn't really the idea, but creating an export market certainly was. Which is how in many areas of the Global South, King Cotton replaced indigenous food crops. However, this high-intensity approach to agriculture created one more nasty little bug:  increased output yielded increased debt. And do remember, global climate change was just an amusing thought in 1970.  

And too, as in Part I, increased yields were immediately followed by rather drastic downturns in production, requiring more scarce capital to even approach status quo production levels. And as liberalization approached neoliberalization -- and climate issues showed up in real time -- these new economic policies were shifting capital resources (investment in logistics and infrastructure like irrigation) away from public-sector venues to private, for-profit corporate structures.  Added to this was deregulation throughout these agrarian systems as agriculture evolved into agri-bizz.   American farmers have had plenty of experience with this phenomena, but have also managed to stay afloat, in many cases by generous government subsidies, increased demand by overseas markets and plain old political clout. All three missing in the Global South. [Parenti}:  "This shift....removed from agriculture many legal protections and government subsidies -- including public credit and public investment in irrigation.  In response to the relative withdrawal of the state, farmer's took on more expenses themselves and, in turn, had to raise capital wherever they could -- that meant from moneylenders.  The more farmers turned to private moneylenders, the more they were under pressure to grow more cotton.  And the more cotton they grew, the lower the prices sank."  And as Parenti alluded to earlier in his book, cotton wasn't edible and the moneylenders controlled the seed crop in order to insure collateral.

But let's back up a minute.  Enter Rachel Carson, circa 1960.    

Rachel Carson

"Silent Spring."

In the late 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation, especially environmental problems that she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. The result was Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to the American public. Silent Spring was met with fierce opposition by chemical companies, but it spurred a reversal in national pesticide policy, led to a nationwide ban on DDT for agricultural uses, and inspired an environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Course, DDT didn't disappear. It just moved out of sight -- into the developing world. Carson's book was the opening salvo in the environmental wars that have been waged over the ensuing decades  -- some battles won, many others lost.  Perhaps overlooked in this assessment is that most victories took place in the developed world: the US and western Europe up until the 1991 dissolution of the USSR, which among other things, showcased the horrific environmental damage wrought by unregulated state-driven industry.  In fact, East Germany was so degraded and polluted that Bonn didn't want it back.  They rightly assumed that detoxifying East Germany would likely bankrupt the West German government.

But of course, Carson's premonitions found no voice in the Global South, which quickly became a dumping ground for anything outlawed, banned or considered dangerous to human health or water resources here. And now, some fifty years later...many of these issues have simply escalated in their level of urgency, to the point where water itself is on the endangered list.    

One theme resounds throughout this book: what Parenti refers to as "mitigation and adaptation."  Which means first cutting carbon-dioxide emissions, then adapting agriculture to the new realities.  And while I remain pessimistic about the first, I readily embrace the second, for the Earth itself is subject to the strict rules of evolution -- meaning the wheel always rolls forward   -- action and reaction. Mitigating now will not return us to any previous level.  That is wishful thinking at its most ludicrous extreme. However, serious action now (mitigation) will reduce the level of adaptation needed later.  A bad compromise perhaps, but the only one available.

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding beside you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

                        ___T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Part III:

Migration, Violence and the Armed Lifeboat

Didn't work for the Han Chinese, so why do we think it will work here....?

Convergence....in the Tropic of Chaos-- Part I

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of the stony rubbish?  Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water.

                                             ---T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Climate Change and the Politics of Violence

No, this is not a book review, but rather a meeting of similar minds on a topic that is often posited as a one-issue notion on impending doom.  Well, the doom seems real enough, but it is also become trigger for incredible degrees of violence, both regional and internationally. Christian Parenti (a journalist) has connected a few extremely uncomfortable dots, along with the greater relationship to our 20th century role in the history in what we euphemistically call the 'developing world.'  It is well-cited, written in a journalistic/academic fashion -- more importantly it contains many primary sources;  semi-literate farmers and pastoralists in those regions now living daily with the opening salvo of a planet under siege.  Their voice is valuable because they know nothing of science, have never even heard of 'global warming,' yet they all readily acknowledge that something is terribly wrong.  This is 'boots on the ground' reporting.

But first off, a little lesson about Cold War politics vis a vis The Great Game:   

From Parenti:    "The Cold War sowed instability throughout the Third World; its myriad proxy wars left a legacy of armed groups, cheap weapons, smuggling networks and corrupted officialdoms in developing countries.  Neoliberal economic policies -- radical privatization and economic deregulation enforced by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank -- have pushed many economies in the Third World -- or, if you prefer, the Global south -- into permanent crisis and extreme inequality.  In these societies, the state has often been reduced to a hollow shell, devoid of the institutional capacity it needs to guide economic development or address social crises."

"Sometimes these forces have worked together simultaneously; at other times they have been quite distinct.  For example, Somalia was destroyed by Cold War military interventions.  It became a classic proxy battleground..  Though it underwent some limited economic liberalization, its use as a pawn on the chessboard of global political struggle caused its collapse.  The same holds true for Afghanistan, which was, and still is, a failed state.  It never underwent structural adjustment but was a proxy battleground.  On the other hand, Mexico,the north of which is now experiencing a profound violent crisis, was not a frontline state during the Cold War, but it was subject to radical economic liberalization"

"Between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer lies what I call the Tropic of Chaos, a belt of economically and politically battered post-colonial states girding the planet's mid-latitudes.  In this band, around the tropics, climate change is beginning to hit hard.  The societies in this belt are also heavily dependent on agriculture and fishing, thus very vulnerable to shifts in weather patterns. This region was also on the front lines of the Cold War and of neoliberal economic restructuring.  As a result, in this belt we find clustered most of the failed and semifailed states of the developing world."

                                                   Yes, 'failed states.'  

   From this other author:   "The end of the first round of the Nuremberg trials marked the opening salvo of the Cold War, and for the next 40 years America supported a host of despots, dictators and barn burners for the sole purpose of stacking the UN against the Soviet Union and China.  All this human energy consumed over an ideological debate mutually reinforced by over 50,000 nuclear devices.  Agreeing to disagree had never been explored with this much at stake.  A living, breathing hell restrained only by words – the interpretation of a single sentence in a difficult conversation.  Diplomacy with a loaded gun.  Percussion and repercussion crammed into a single chamber."

     "And so began the “Great Game.”  The pimps of Washington, Moscow and later, Beijing began the arduous task of buying the prettiest girls in the countryside.  Some were from Africa, others from Central and South America  – the best were to be found in the Middle East and southern Asia.  Even comely girls were welcome if the address was right.  Location, location, location.  All they had to do was like us…for now anyway."

    "We gave them gifts.  Bridges without roads, airports without planes, great reservoirs without pumps, pipes or water.  We even picked new enemies for them, started their wars, sold them the guns.  If they lost, we walked away.  If they won, we sent them a bill.  The payback was simple.  Plough your sorghum, raise beef  – we’ll buy it at under market value, sell it to a third party.  Maybe sell it back to you.  What?  Can’t afford it?  Well, go back to eating sorghum.  Oh.  Plowed under, huh?  Well, how about a nice bridge?"

     Turned out the old girl wasn’t as pretty as everybody thought and most bridges, pipelines and air strips weren’t edible."  

And then the climate begins to collapse.  The decades of the Cold War 'sowed', in Parenti's words, "instability throughout the Third World...." -- worse yet, a glut of small arms that have fed the forces of insurrection, both large and small throughout these regions.  Ethnic rivalries? Tribal wars?  Opposing political ideologies at work here?  These are popular notions in western media circles, but the answer is much closer to home:  economics, or quite frankly, the price of bread and the water to wash it down with it.  Especially that water. 

So the IMF, World Bank and USAID enlist...yeah, you guessed it:  Monsanto.  For you see, this economic neoliberalism wasn't designed to lift the masses from their sustenance existence, but rather (as pointed out above), to enlist them in the joys to be had by adopting western ideals as a bulwark against this egalitarian monster known as socialism.  Trouble was, most of these farmers, pastoralists and fishermen weren't nearly as interested in politics as they were about feeding their dependents...and perhaps, just staying alive another day. 

From Parenti: [India]:  "The farmers of Telangana all grow genetically modified Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton, a product of the agricultural giant Monsanto.  The new cotton became available a few years back.  Although advertised as not needing pesticides, it does.  At first it boosted output and incomes, but after a few years, incomes fell and the new cotton became a curse.  Its roots penetrate deep into the soil, sucking up all the nutrients.  Before long the farmers need large amounts of artificial fertilizer -- and that means taking loans.  Scholars call this the "vicious cycle of chemical agriculture.""

""We know that after three or four years, the land will be dead," said Linga Reddy Sama, whose family are Hindu migrants rather than of the local tribal Gond people.  The farmers in these villages know they are mining the soil, extracting and exporting its nutrition in the form of cheap cotton. While their crops decline, their debts increase.  And in the worst of cases, farmers are killing themselves.  This is the catastrophic convergence at the local scale of specific crops and actual families."

So...the ideas was....?  The idea was to import the American approach to agriculture as a way to boost production within India.  The trouble is that this neoliberal approach failed to take into account that Indian farmers lacked the technical sophistication for it -- not to mention the supporting infrastructure, including adequate access to water resources.  This added huge expenses for the farmers and with no regulatory policy in place, they quickly depleted available sources. [Parenti]: "These private coping strategies require private capital -- often at exorbitant rates.  Now, when crops fail or wells run dry, which is becoming more common due to climate change, farmers cannot repay their debts.  By the late 1990's, many farmers had run out of options -- they were too far in arrears to borrow more, too broke to produce crops.  For thousands, the only escape from this debt trap came in the form of suicide. -- often by swallowing pesticides.  According to data from the National Crime Records bureau, 150,000 Indian farmers killed themselves between 1997 and 2005." 

Why cotton?  [Parenti]; "Soon cotton became one of the main crops.  Now the issue was no longer food security but instead victory and profit on the international commodity markets."

And as sick as it sounds...cotton wasn't edible.  The money lenders controlled the crop choices and the seeds.  And even as the value of cotton yields dropped dramatically, they viewed the crop as collateral on the farmer's debt to them.  Yeah....we taught them well.

In Part II -- What you don't really want to know about "The Green Revolution."

  

Somewhere outside Paris...I think.

Can-Can!

You could say it is history. Art, music, dance...a frenzied celebration of life itself -- yet this irrepressible spectacle came to me in a dream...a very, very surreal trip through my subconscious.  And the song refuses to go quietly away.  But first, what is this all about:

The cancan first appeared in the working-class ballrooms of Montparnasse in Paris in around 1830. It was a more lively version of the galop, a dance in quick 2/4 time, which often featured as the final figure in the quadrille.^[2] The cancan was, therefore, originally a dance for couples, who indulged in high kicks and other gestures with arms and legs. It is thought that they were influenced by the antics of a popular entertainer of the 1820s, Charles Mazurier, who was well known for his acrobatic performances, which included the grand écart or jump splits—later a popular feature of the cancan. At this time, and throughout most of the 19th century in France, the dance was also known as the chahut. Both words are French, cancan meaning "tittle-tattle" or "scandal", hence a scandalous dance, while chahut meant "noise" or "uproar." The dance did cause something of a scandal, and for a while, there were attempts to repress it. Occasionally people dancing the cancan were arrested but it was never officially banned, as is sometimes claimed. Throughout the 1830s, it was often groups of men, particularly students, who caused the most outrage by dancing the cancan at public dance-halls.

Ah, but the dream...

A bombed-out theatre...one wall missing, exposing a landscape of ruin draped in a cloak of black smoke. The smell of cordite in the stale air of another aftermath -- an image cast in the black and white starkness of a time worth forgetting. Some seats remain, occupied tonight by Hitler, Fat Goering and few lesser, though equally vicious SS men. To Hitler's left...two empty seats; the third occupied by a pouting little man: Napoleon Bonaparte, hand thrust down his pants, as if searching for some thing remembered, but lost.

On stage are the dancers, 24 in all, donned in petticoats and skirts, their faces painted with the grotesque false-smiles of a suicidal clown. To their left, the band...men in tattered and muddy tuxedos...clothes that seem to have been worn by bigger men.  They all look like John Cleese tonight, but their eyes are empty, as if all life had scurried out the back of their heads. Above them stands a small man in a black military uniform. He has on small round glasses and holds two brass cymbals that dwarf his physical stature. He feigns some critical importance -- the leader of this orchestra, yet he only sees the backs of these men...or perhaps what used to be men.  

There are many horns in this ensemble.  Kettle and bass drums...accordions, lots of accordions and three great tubas.  And quite abruptly, the small audience demands this show to start.  And so it begins...

The cymbals crash and the short, familiar song begins...la, la, la la la, boom, boom, oompa, la, la, la, la la la....boom.  The performance begins slowly, perhaps reluctantly, the feet light, the legs kick low...the arms like the wings of a long-crippled swan. But then the cadence seems to shift...sublimely, though quietly intent...as if a gentle thief had tip-toed into this darkened room to awaken the suffocated child trapped inside each of these reluctant dancers. Women denied, girls who never played...lives set aflame by the vulgar ambitions of the these morbid puppeteers in the front-row seats.  Men who assume...yes assume. Much it would seem of late.  And suddenly, the blood forces its way back into the bodies of these women, determined -- no, demanding to nourish anew: the muscle, sinew and bone necessary to carry this dance forward. To resist, to deny...to say, "No more..."   

And like the sweeping sickness born by some invisible plague, the infection spreads. With each new stanza, the volume rises, the notes fly faster, the feet hit the ground harder.  The stage begins to exhale the decades-old dust from the floorboards, milling around the dancer's heads in great, grey clouds -- the cymbals crash...boom! The band is on its feet; chairs and music stands kicked to the ground. The women stomp their feet -- so hard that Hitler bounces in his chair. A wry smile adorns Napoleon's lips.  Sweat rolls down the face of the bandleader...he is losing control.  Yet the dance goes on...la, la, la....la la la...boom!  Fat Goering can no longer resist. He is on his feet, clumsily shaking his enormous belly and stamping his feet to the rhythm...up and down the row he goes...the Fuhrer looks furious...the band gets louder.

Behind the stage, elephants appear, moving their enormous heads back and forth to the cadence of the kettle drums.  Monkeys fill the rafters, flamingos and storks take to the floor, wings outstretched, top hats in hand. A troupe of mice with banjos joins in and behind the dancers, horses with great feathery plumes on their headstalls join in the dance. And louder and louder the women's feet slam the ground. And now the musicians are on the move...doing a Cab Calloway number up and down the runway....and still these women dance on...in sheer joy, in love...in a mad celebration of a new and frightening kind of defiance.  And all fear seems to vacate the room, the mortar and brick itself basking in the bright light of  'new management.'

Pigs fly, cows hum along...Hitler rocks back and forth in his chair, in the rhythm of tormented anguish...his bandleader has fallen off the stage.  Yet, the musicians play on, for they know this song well now.  Napoleon wears a broad smile...he has perhaps finally conquered something.  So he stands, nods to the dancers and quietly walks out -- through the great hole in the wall; into the rubble of a sunlit day.  On stage, color is creeping back into the room....subtly, like a spring flower about to experience that first summer.   Blue, then bright white and finally a deep red.  La, la la la....la, la, la...boom. And the dance goes on...     

  So, that was my night...whew! Must have been that Thai peanut sauce. Oh, Akroyd and Belushi were stage-right and the drummers were actually Maori warriors.  And rumor has it that Stalin was in the back of the theatre drunk. Now if can just get this song out of head!      

     

Time to abolish gang violence...no, not those gangs!

No, Not These Folks...

No, not these folks either...though they

 definitely had the right idea.

These folks actually.

I suppose what I am saying here is an end to nationalism as a viable system on a planet under siege.  Do I seriously assume that such thinking is viable?  No.  We seem to covet these stolen identities as being sacred to who or what we are, regardless of the fact that we all share a common history, a single planet and one gene pool.  We bleed red, we are all dependent on the same sustenance...we all share the impermanence of life.  And apparently, that is never quite enough for some.

And yes, I'm well aware of the Bilderberg Conspiracy.  One of many that takes a wrong assumption, seasons it with hysteria and then serves it up with a glass of Holy Water. But more on that in a minute.  The first question is 'just what is a gang?'

Well, for one thing, they are nothing new. They primarily grow to fruition in those sections of a society that have/feel/are marginalized.  Meaning, they are trying to establish a home away from home. Sometimes by choice, more often driven to a new land by economic hardship, violence, prejudice -- aka, forced dislocation.  And in most cases, the welcome mat was yanked long before their arrival....most often by the last bunch that showed up; trying to escape the same famine, violence and hate. But then, how quickly we tend forget our own migratory history once we have regained the comfort of the hearth. 

Gangs are merely tribes.  They look out for their own as all tribal systems do.  They seek comfort in familiarity of customs, language, food...even music. They seek to protect their own in a hostile environment; to find food and shelter -- make a living in an economy and society that is determined to block any form of social mobility.  And they are determined to defend their community -- violently, if necessary.  And very often, crime becomes the only job left to them.

Now before you blow a righteous gasket, consider your own 'historical gang' in time:   
Yep....New York's Irish immigrants facing down the indignation of white Protestant Americans; folks that didn't exactly come to America through the front door either.  And just like them, the eastern Europeans, the Italians, the Chinese, Russians...ad nauseum. Denied access to the mainstream (respectable) avenues of commerce, they created opportunity through the lucrative channels of gambling, bookmaking, bootlegging, drugs...in effect, supplying the less glamorous amenities to those very white Protestants who vigorously campaigned for their deportation.  Hypocritical?  Well sure...this is America after all.  

So then, what is a nation?  First off, realize that a nation and a country are not the same animal. Africa if full of countries that share no common internal sense of nationality. The same is true for much of central Asia, South America...even large nation/countries like Russia and China.  Almost all were created by external forces and have actually existed on paper for less than 200 years.  Hardly the stuff to create a sense that some kind of mutual identity holds even an ounce of validity.  Even America itself is little more than a country in the miserable throes of puberty -- an experimental democracy that has yet to endure the test of real time.  

So, on to conspiracies. The Bilderberg Group:
    

In 2001, Denis Healey, a Bilderberg group founder and, for 30 years, a steering committee member, said: "To say we were striving for a one-world government is exaggerated, but not wholly unfair. "There will always be people who believe in conspiracies, but things happen in a much more incoherent fashion... When people say this is a secret government of the world, I say that if we were a secret government of the world we should be bloody ashamed of ourselves."

In a 1994 report Right Woos Left, published by the Political Research Associates, investigative journalist Chip Berlet argued that right-wing populist conspiracy theories about the Bilderberg group date back as early as 1964 and can be found in Phyllis Schlafly's self-published book A Choice, Not an Echo,^[38] which promoted a conspiracy theory in which the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger group, whose internationalist policies would pave the way for world communism.^[39] Paradoxically, in August 2010 former Cuban president Fidel Castro wrote a controversial article for the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma in which he cited Daniel Estulin’s 2006 book The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club,^[40] which, as quoted by Castro, describes "sinister cliques and the Bilderberg lobbyists" manipulating the public "to install a world government that knows no borders and is not accountable to anyone but its own self".^[35]

As Shakespeare once lamented, "much adieu about nothing."  This was a group that was formed originally in Europe.  To understand their thinking, you must understand Europe in the context of the last century.  A hundred revolutions, two world wars, the rise of Bolshevism, fascism and mass genocide...and at the heart of the matter, nationalism.  But not the kind associated with the false and selective pride found in a long history, but the kind that says, "We're better," or maybe, "It's all your fu**** fault!"  And of course, that's when the cemeteries get pressed for space.

Later came the reluctant acceptance of the European Union, albeit primarily an economic tool to address the domestic and international commerce issues inherent in small states suddenly tossed head-first into a newly globalized economy.  But the consolidation also occurred during a period when the world witnessed the first of many, global environmental insults: Chernobyl.  The first salvo in the continuing dissolution of national boundaries as a viable defense against a neighbor's transgressions -- intentional or otherwise.    
                                            Or perhaps worse yet: the collapse of the Soviet Union. Little known or publicized here was the collapse of the SU's borders, meaning that a steady stream of commodities, including radioactive materials simply left the country for parts known and unknown.  Industrial sites, poorly maintained in better times, were simply abandoned as newly unpaid workers simply walked off.  East Germany was so contaminated by chemical and industrial wastes that even Bonn didn't want it back, despite the German public's outcry to reunify the German state.  And of course even now, in this new century, the issues of climate, resources (basic as food and water), over-population, competition for energy sources; even arable land have completely broken down the old notions that, "it is somebody else's problem."  Today, "somebody else's problem" now has the ability to destabilize the geo-political landscape of entire regions -- perhaps even an entire continent.  

The bottom line is that the environment is everybody's problem; concurrently every body's responsibility.  One planet, one mutual future as a viable specie, or perhaps another as merely a random curiosity left behind on a dead planet.  

I sometimes hear the familiar retort:  "Hell, I'll be dead anyway, so who gives a shit?" Course, that is half true.  No, not the 'dead' part' -- the 'who gives a shit part?'  And I guess that might ultimately be the epitaph to our brief stay in the Milky Way.  "They just didn't give a shit."   Hmm.