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Role of women in fostering culture of peace
Some current thoughts on the Chinese mining sector
Politics of oil, world security and globalisation
The loneliness of Noam Chomsky
Role of women in fostering culture of peace
Najma Siddiqi
Peace is a state of mind and physical environment that creates a sense of security in individuals or in a society. It is a basic human need without which no one can lead normal life. In the absence of peace other basic human needs like food, shelter, healthcare, education, participation in social decision-making, etc cannot be assured. Not only wars and physical violence, but also extreme forms of discrimination between human beings negate peace. This means peace is not only absence of war or violence. It has many dimensions. There are such human needs as personal safety, minimum economic security, equal access to opportunities, freedom of choice, etc. Peace is also necessary at national and international level. For example, national sovereignty and security is dependent on peaceful coexistence with the neighboring states. The denial of individual human needs combined with fear, anxieties and insecurities produce social cleavages, which generate social conflicts. At worse situation, cross border conflicts between nation-states prevail; as a result, human miseries increase and progress is regressed. This implies that peace is a pre-requisite for both individual and national development. It provides an enabling environment for progress and development.
In the absence of peace women suffer most
Women and children are the worst victims in a situation of war, civil unrest and social disorder. Absence of peace constitutes serious threats to women’s security, by giving rise to systematic violation of their human rights. In developing countries where women live in extreme poverty and social subordination, any kind of threat to peace makes women more likely target for aggression and discrimination. This is particularly true in South Asia where due to economic inequality, internal disorder, political instability and armed conflicts, women and children become objects of social anger and exploitation. They lose source of livelihood and sometime forced to flee to other countries illegally; thus they are subjected to further persecution through harassment and sexual exploitation. It may be mentioned that In South Asian region the recent nuclear tests in two neighboring countries have increased the concern for peace.
Although promotion of peace is a popular political, academic and social issue, the root cause, that it, the issues of gender domination, exploitation, patriarchy and sexism which cause a distorted social order are overlooked. Unfortunately, because of the male dominated social and political structure, in most of the developing countries women are mostly excluded from national decision-making processes that lead to peace, in spite of the fact that women contribute to conflict resolution and reconciliation. This means that political empowerment of women is necessary for peace-building. For sustainable peace-building it is essential to reform the socio-economic and political structures that paves the way for real democracy in which women can undertake advocacy programs. In peace building process, democratic participation, respect for human rights and a gender sensitivity are crucial elements. It is be noted that the spirit of love and cooperation is instilled in the human mind when there is economic, social and political stability. This means that in the absence of minimum economic security, gross social injustice predominates, peace is likely to be in jeopardy. Economic and political exploitation by the stronger of the weaker leads to various forms of violence. The absence of exploitation is a precondition for the presence of peaceful environment. Absence of equity, justice and fairness in the society may jeopardize sustainable peace. Discrimination based on economic status, ethnicity, sex, religion, birth, etc. threatens peace. Therefore, all forms of discrimination are to be eliminated or minimized in order to ensure peace. In general, the rich discriminate against the poor. This discrimination is much more pronounced against women. Women in general are socially, economically and politically more discriminated than their poor male counterparts. In many societies, women do not have equal access to opportunities for self-development. In a male-dominated society, the girls and women are treated as lesser persons. This tends to perpetuate social injustice and imbalance, which in turn threatens peaceful living. This means that there are many obstacles for women to overcome in fostering the culture of peace.
One way to remove such obstacles is to bring the women into the mainstream of the society. They must not be allowed to remain marginalized. This problem can be resolved at least partly by empowering them through education and economically gainful employment. If more and more educated and economically empowered women can be brought to mainstream politics, they should be able to participate effectively in social decision-making, and in turn possibly contribute more to promote peace. In the absence these, the role of women in fostering culture of peace will falter
UN initiatives and women’s peace-building roles
In 1986, the United nations celebrated the International Year of Peace, which created a platform to explore the concept of peace from women’s perspective. In the Decade for Women Nairobi Conference, the issue of peace was discussed in its varied context which mirrored women’s need for involvement in the critical issues in achieving peace. In the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA) women and armed conflict was identified as one of the critical areas of concern for equality, development and peace. The PFA emphasizes that all government should create opportunities for women to participate in all forums and peace activities at all levels, particularly at the decision making levels. The largest international peace Conference in history was held in May, 1999 in the Hague. Participants including women leaders from about 80 countries attended the conference. The conference stressed on the role of women in peace building . It also launched several key strategies of which the Global Campaign for Peace education was one . The global campaign for peace education states that the culture of peace will be achieved when citizens of the world understand global problems, have the skills to resolve conflicts and struggle for justice non-violently; live by international standards of human rights and equity; appreciate cultural diversity, and respect the earth. Such learning can only be achieved with systematic education for peace. The urgency of such education was acknowledged by the member states of UNESCO in 1974 and reaffirmed in the Integrated Frame work of action on Education for peace, Human rights and democracy in 1994.
In August 1999 A seminar on “Women’s vision-A Culture of Peace was held sponsored by UNIFEM in which Women from South Asian activists and women parliamentarians attended. The Asia Pacific Regional NGO symposium on “Asia –Pacific Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace For the Twenty First Century”, was held in Thailand in September 1999. These conferences suggested several important strategies to achieve culture of peace emphasizing the role of women in building peace. The proper implementation of CEDAW Convention has also been stressed by UN to eastablish human right which can reduce violence and establish peace. . It was stressed that the culture of peace requires the participation on both men and women and which can bring together the intellectual and moral solidarity of human kind. Human solidarity can only be expressed with the full participation of women and taking into account women’s particular experiences and needs.
The role of women in fostering peace
From the above we can say that women can play a very significant role in peace building. In fact the culture of peace cannot be established without the participation of women. It can start at home where women as mothers sisters and wives can play significant role in inculcating the message of peace in the family.. The idea of practicing and promoting peace can be imbibed in the mind of a person during her/his childhood by the parents, siblings and neighbors. It is believed that women are more peace loving that their male counterparts. Although there are exceptions, women in general play a balancing role in reducing family feuds and violence in general. It is generally believed that women take more sympathetic, and compromising view to social or family problems. They demonstrate more flexibility and loving attitude. They can therefore be the role model for fostering peace, beginning at the family, provided enabling environment is available.
As women and children are the worst victims of violence and terror the women must raise their children in peaceful environment. For normal growth and development of a child, right from its birth, a family must be in peaceful condition. Peaceful condition prevails when the adult members of the family, particularly mothers who primarily rear the children are not subjected to abject poverty. This implies that empowering women economically is a pre-condition for women to become the role model for fostering peace. Beside, loving relation between husband and wife and daughters and fathers can promote peace. In addition, the neighborhood environment is also important. If the neighbors believe in and practice the spirit of love expressed in effective cooperation between the people in the neighborhood peace will prevail. To foster such cooperation, women as mothers, wives, sisters and neighbors can play an important role. This is however an ideological orientation which women must get at their childhood.
The creation of culture of peace must be addressed with priority at all levels of society, and education is the main vehicle to carry this message. In South Asian regions most woman have little access to educational institutions. The international aid agencies, the concerning government, the NGOs and Women organizations and the Civil Societies must work together through networking to increase women’s access to education. Women must initiate lobbying strategies with the respective government to ensure that all curriculum and textbooks are free of communal, racial bias, prejudice, refrain from stereotyping and propagate a culture of gender equality. Special measures should be taken to promote literature and other media that inculcate spirituality from all culture. The education system should be pressed to adopt measures to modify social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women. Women must build a strong peace lobby through peace information and action networking with active NGOs to monitor that education of children and youth in schools, colleges, training institutions incorporate peace at all level . The women activists must encourage the civil society to incorporate and promote the values of respect for diversity, nonviolence, and cooperation to build a culture of peace.
. Women’s humanitarian role in fostering culture of peace should be emphasized. Beside an extensive program to develop leadership among the women activist must be undertaken. The leaders can mobilize social capital including international support to foster peace. The peace Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has made this point very clearly.
Prof. Najma Siddiqi teaches at the Jahangirnagar University
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Some current thoughts on the Chinese mining sector
S. J. Noumoff
China has entered a new phase in virtually every aspect of its economic, social and political life. Among those that have received scant attention until recent years is the mining sector. I raise this issue neither as a mining engineer, nor as a technical specialist on capital markets, but rather as an academic who has explored the changing flows of China’s public policy for more than four decades, with my first visit thirty-two years ago. For the past few years I have served as an advisor to the Yunnan Bureau of Mines in their efforts to develop a regional strategy.
In the mining sector, as in virtually all other walks of life, China is struggling for operationalisation and meaning of the dual concept of “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, and “market socialism”. What is abundantly clear is that the previous form of a planned command economy revealed deep flaws and is no longer the guiding policy. The struggle for new meaning has exhibited, and I dare say will continue to, uncertainties and experimentation. This I fear is inevitable, and requires from the rest of the world virtually Solomonic patience. Is the wait worth it? If we use as a benchmark in answering this question the “Mining 2002” Conference data, the answer should be self-evident:
(1) China possesses 156 mineral varieties with proven reserves, at a value in 2001 of $57.87 billion, with more mines than the rest of the world combined.
(2) Between 1999 and 2001, 48 large deposits were unearthed, 69 medium size and 116 small size, with copper, silver, tin, potash and uranium in the large to super-large category.
(3) Current development priority targets include: petroleum, natural gas, iron, manganese, copper, zinc, lead, aluminia, sulphur, phosphor, low grade gold and uranium.
(4) China’s resource appetite will increase exponentially, with the projected doubling of her GNP between 2000 and 2010.
(5) It is also essential to note that while China is ranked first in the world in the production of coal, steel, zinc and cement, and second in non-ferrous metals, she also is the world’s leading importer of copper, second in iron ore and third in aluminia, resulting in a minerals balance of payments deficit of $14.442 billion in 2002.
(6) As a collateral issue of opportunity is the infrastructure for mineral transport, as south China currently imports coal owing to an inadequate transport system from the coal producing province of Shaanxi in the north.
While this macro picture provides a sense of the broad issues in evaluating the interface of China’s mining sector with the global community, it is essential to turn to some of the problem areas. Prior to addressing these, however, it is essential to note that if these problems are to be properly addressed, they must be achieved recognising the general mutuality of benefit.
The most successful general model in insuring mutuality that I have been able to come up with to date, is what I have called “the dual bridge”. Its basic characteristic requires a Chinese client who associates with a Chinese team who by extensive contact or by living or studying outside knows both the Chinese reality and simultaneously has some direct knowledge of the non-Chinese world. On the supplier side, be it capital, services or hardware, the supplier links up with a non-Chinese who is intimate with the non-Chinese world, but by extensive exposure, or working or studying in China, has an equivalent knowledge of China. These two interlocutors are the pillars of the bridge, who, because of their extensive knowledge of each other’s worlds, are capable of sorting out in a sensitive manner the wide variety of problems that do invariably arise.
Problems in recent years from the non-Chinese perspective can be summarised as follows: data access, transparency of rules, decisions of site allocation, taxes and duties, property rights and their transferability, the prospect for shifting items from the protective and confidential category to the open category, the rights of the licensee, level and complexity of the approval processes, rights of appraisers, consequences of devolving power to the provincial level, cost/benefit ratio of extraction, both physical and human, and impact of World Trade Organisation (WTO) obligations.
Many of these issues are well on the way to being addressed, or at least recognised as problems, although they are in their early stages of implementation. Again a high degree of patience is required. A likely combination of old habits, concern for bureaucratic “turf”, fear of the new and their unpredictable consequences, and self-serving interpretations of policy, while retarding the process, should prove to be merely bumps in the road. This guarded optimism is based on the premise that in the final analysis the prospect of increased productivity combined with its impact on career advancement, will drive the process.
It is essential to note that the reform in the mining sector is only four years old, with the establishment of the Ministry of Land & Resources and the organisation of the China Geological Survey. While the mission of the latter is the establishment of a comprehensive world class integrated accessible data system at the central government level, the devolution of mining rights granting authority to the Provincial, municipal and county levels, introduces an area of tension. It has been pointed out that the international price for major metals has, at times been driven down, by competition between Chinese units for a larger share of the export market.
While it is not clear how successful has been the transfer of the 1.1 million geological workers to local levels organised as enterprises, it is clear that moving personnel closer to potential mine sites is an excellent initiative. If the devolution experiment of the Academy of Sciences is any indication whereby cadres were sent to local governments as scientific advisors indication, some success will accrue. Of course many central cadres are not thrilled with the new assignment, seeing it somewhat akin to the xia fang and “rustication” movements of earlier times. The amenities of urban life still retain their magnetism. There is a downside, however, to devolution. Given the past record of local areas willingness to share only their success, while refusing to share failures, a national learning curve will likely be significantly retarded. The tradition of holding periodic “sharing of experience conferences” on, for example, DFI over the past two decades, has not prevented units in one part of China from repeating mistakes made in other parts of the country. The “small kingdom” mentality is far from being abandoned. Smaller units may also be prone to “bending the rules”, for example, in the environmental area, as well as the temptations of under-the-table concessions.
What ultimately emerges will have a distinctly Chinese character, a point made clear by Shao Juenian’s comment that China will employ the experience of other countries as a reference. [emphasis added] A heretofore neglected concern for environmental impact has also come very much to the fore, as evidenced by the use compensation tax in the coal industry, and the implementation of a policy for land reuse. Yet from discussions with Chinese colleagues, it is clear that serious problems remain in the proper treatment of waste water, waste residue, waste gasses, dust, smoke, and sulphur dioxide discharges, among others.
Among the other issues raised earlier, the “sunshine” operation is aimed at providing a higher degree of transparency than heretofore existed; licensees now have the clear and exclusive right to exploit and transfer their mining rights site, read sell; some previously closed minerals, such as borax and celestite have been opened; tariffs are to be reduced in conformity with WTO obligations; all Provincial governments now assign mining rights via bids on thirty-seven minerals, with some authority transferred to the municipal and county levels; assessment estimations are open to non-Chinese firms; a unified tax system is being implemented; and royalty and fees can be waived in priority areas of development. On the other hand, there remains some hemorrhaging, with the continued practice of what one colleague has referred to as “predatory mining” which extracts ore as rapidly as possible in total disregard for either the conditions of the miners or the ecological devastation of the area.
There remain, however, some outstanding issues that warrant attention. Among the most pressing is the nature of technology. It is clear that the global trend is to seek ever more sophisticated technologies that reduce the ratio of labour in the production process, increase scale and efficiency, followed by increased profit. As valid as this may be in global terms, it may not be in conformity with the actual conditions of many mineral deposits in China, where circumstances are not ideal. The global investor will obviously seek maximum return in as short a timeframe as possible. A useful example of the contradiction was brought to my attention in 2000 in the context of bauxite deposits, not in China but in Viet Nam, which arguably has the largest currently known deposits. I was asked by a member of the Prime Minister’s office to inquire from ALCAN as to their willingness to exploit the deposit. The response from a Senior ALCAN vice-president was quite specific: [to paraphrase] We first are committed to developing Australia, followed by India, and possible by 2030 we will get around to Viet Nam. From ALCAN’s perspective a perfectly rational decision, from the Vietnamese perspective, they experienced postponed opportunity. Parenthetically, during the days of the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance {COMECON}, missions from Eastern Europe visited Viet Nam, were impressed by the bauxite reserves, and left with no follow-up action.
My purpose in describing this event is to draw out the fact that local conditions and development priorities for a 3rd World country are at times in conflict with international market forces. Broadly speaking the choices are two-fold: either to wait out the situation until local deposits are determined by international standards to be worthy of exploitation, or develop the mineral reserves employing indigenous resources. Vietnam lacks the $1+ billion necessary to bring their ore to market, while China’s situation can be seen as different. Clearly the matrix of issues which are factored into an investment or development decision are complex, with ore quality, scale, market proximity, reliable power, and available technology being among them. In the case of China she will not wait. Once the work of the Geological Survey has achieved critical mass, attention will be devoted to prioritisation, drawing in as much foreign capital and technology as possible, to be followed by either adapting or developing appropriate technology in partnership or alone.
While it. may ultimately prove to be an atypical experience, China’s current domination of the global magnesium market may be instructive. China’s adoption of the Lloyd Pigeon Method of batch production, a simple high quality system developed during World War II at the National Research Council of Canada, proved to be so successful that a state of the art magnesium plant of NORANDA in Québec, with a projected output of 17% of global production, at a cost of US$1.2 billion, was closed in June of 2003 in the face of Chinese competition. Based on recent discussions with mining and ore engineers, it is my understanding that the Pigeon Process is adaptable to lithium, strontium, and scandium. The Chinese have, in fact, taken over the world market for strontium from the Canadians. This is a low volume product with a high value added. While to date, to my knowledge, there are no known deposits of scandium in China, this is less important than the fact that an adaptation of a 50+ years old process proved to be highly competitive.
Are there other extractive and processing technologies which have been abandoned elsewhere, but remain suitable when adapted for China’s actual conditions? This latter phrase, actual conditions, which is normally employed in such a casual and oft-repeated way, includes a myriad of issues, requires a bit of deconstruction for the purpose of this discussion. In addition to the ore quality/quantity, location, availability of energy and transport, proximity to processing, capacity to absorb labour, nature of technology, and global demand, there is the issue of projected domestic needs. China is becoming increasingly dependent on imports of iron, copper, aluminium and petroleum at a current price of over US$100+ million in foreign exchange. Notwithstanding a cost/benefit calculation which would dictate deferring domestic production, owing to the relatively low cost of imported ore, finished or semi-finished goods, it is essential to point out that China continuously strives to increase its relative productive autonomy in order to insure that its interface with the global system provides it in the long run with, what I have described elsewhere as, “asymmetrical equality”. While the global industry may technologically leap ahead, China, constrained as it is by its actual conditions, will pursue a gradual policy of incremental technological upgrading. While remaining informed about the cutting edge technology, and applying it where appropriate, the priority must be on intermediate level technologies suitable, for example, to low grade ores, or atypical layering of deposits. Much of China’s mineral resources are syngenetic, requiring appropriate technologies which will maximise efficient and environmentally friendly usage. China’s familiarisation with the cutting edge technologies are more than likely to be from its overseas mining investments in Australia, Brazil, India, Peru and Zambia.
A collateral issue linked to the concept of “China’s actual conditions” is recognition that abstract notions of efficiency must be scrutinised through a somewhat new prism. Efficiency in the terms ‘high-tech” is relative to what exists. In the case of the latter, it has meant, over years of observation, any technologies that were above the level of China’s existing technology. In the case of the former, it is relative to broader policy objectives conditioned by natural, human and technology resource availability. In other words, at a given point in time what might be inefficient in Tokyo, Paris or Los Angeles, may be judged as efficient in China. The starkest example of the problem may be derived from the comparison in 1997 of labour productivity for coal between the U.S. and China; 173 t/miner in the latter, and 11,900 t/miner for the former. While there is no question that China will strive to increase her nominal efficiency, she will not abandon coal mining on the sole basis of efficiency.
As stated above, China will address these requirements in partnership with the global industry, or alone should that be required. If we trace the trajectory of China’s policy of technology acquisition in sectors that have been targeted, there is little doubt of the outcome. In sum, this pattern reveals the following steps; importing, joint-venture development, joint R & D centre collaboration, independent spin-off R & D, domestically developed patentable processes, resulting in cutting edge globally competitive market entry. While timing varies from one economic sector to another, as a process this holds at least up to the point when “asymmetrical equality” is achieved.
The push for relative autonomy is impacted further by actions such as those initiated by Japan in mid-June of 2003, when it reduced by 20% steel exports to China in order to keep prices from falling. Clearly actions of this sort reinforce China’s need not to become hostage to external market forces.
As a final comment permit me to draw attention to a new regional initiative in the mining sector. As part of the broader plan for the development of a China-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional Free Trade Zone, aimed at increasing regional leverage, some discussions have been held over the establishment of a regional capital market, based in Yunnan. While its exact form is uncertain, there is evidence that current extra-regional investors in the mining sector have extracted concessions that have disadvantaged the regional actors. The mix of various investment instruments will await future discussions, but they may include a range from individual concessions to an intra-regional blended exploration mutual type fund. The key guiding principle for this initiative to be successful is its essential mutuality of benefit. Some lessons have been learned from the 1977 regional financial crises, evidenced by remarks of former Premier Zhu Rongji during his visit to the region in early 2002. Yunnan province is likely to play the pivotal role, as evidenced by events such as the Thai-Yunnan Trade and Investment Fair held on June 16, 2003. Thai Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jayusripitak, before leaving for the Fair, announced in Bangkok that it was part of Thailand’s strategy of linking China to the ASEAN region, a position echoed by Yunnan’s Governor, Xu Rongkai.
In conclusion, a number of central issues remain on the mining horizon:
[1] China’s need for augmenting its natural resource development, from mine to finished product, is very much a high priority.
[2] All mining and upstream technologies must be understood in the context of China’s actual conditions, which now include environmental impact.
[3] An intermediate term objective is to reduce the minerals balance-of-payments deficit by the deepening of internal production and marketing.
[4] Foreign investment is essential to accelerating the process in the mining sector, but mutuality of benefit must be the guiding principle. Self-evidently, the further behind China is in extracting and refining a given mineral resource, the greater the profit potential for the external investor.
[5] Substantial attention must be paid to technology in conformity with China’s employment needs, which in turn will temper conventional understandings of efficiency.
[6] Substantial opportunity exists in mid-range technology adaptation and development.
[7] The outlook of investors may warrant some reconfiguration, given the prospect of the development of a regional capital market.
[8] Substantial opportunity exists in the infrastructural support sector.
[9] A “one stop shopping” principle should be adopted at both the central and provincial levels to facilitate coordination of all procedures required by a foreign investor.
Some years ago I proposed to authorities in Beijing the organisation of para-governmental, somewhat arms-length specialised institutes. These were to be clearly distinguished from “line” institutes that were affiliated with and designed to serve various ministries or other state organs. This para-government structure was foreseen as being free from the responsibility of meeting day-to-day demands, and concentrating on broad issues and policy alternatives. I am inclined to again offer this proposal in light of the current circumstances. It may be useful to organise a National Mining Institute, with its terms of reference to prepare working papers focussing on the practical application of agreed to abstract principles. This institute would obviously not be capable of setting state policy, but rather can open up a wider range of discussions. Take for example the issue of “appropriate technology”; what does it concretely mean? While few would differ as to the usefulness of the phrase, are there specific applications to one group of minerals, but inapplicable to others? To properly answer this question a multi-disciplinary team of experts is required, both Chinese and foreign, with the capacity to draw in mining and machinery specialists, economists, environmentalists and social scientists. Of equal importance is the need to evaluate the proper mix in the distribution of authority between various levels of government. To this list we can add, among others, methods of capitalisation, mining management, road, rail and pipeline transport networking, and the legal and property rights frameworks. There are no predetermined models, but rather assumptions that can be verified only in their application. This may imply the need for mini-test projects of leading alternative policy options. The output of such an institute would facilitate the continuous fine tuning of the national plan. A priority item on the agenda of such a body would be the preparation of a national survey on geological disasters, for example, landslides, ground sinking, induced earthquakes, and gas explosions in various locations, with the collateral damage of destroyed farmland, forests and vegetation.
As a final remark I would like to observe that the decentralisation of power to the provincial, municipal and county levels, should be understood as a means to re-energise local initiative empowering communities to both contribute to national wealth and directly benefit from their own efforts. The appropriate level at which decisions are made is seen to be in conformity with, what has been called the appropriate “unit of accounting”, a not very well understood concept outside of those who specialise in China’s bureaucratic terminology. What it means is that at a given point in time, the size of the decision making unit should be consonant with actual conditions of ability, level of training and awareness, and can change as conditions change. The greatest danger is the temptation of heretofore neglected areas to seek shortcuts to their own enrichment. This is a temptation that must not be encouraged. In the long run the achievement of higher rates of growth, combined with greater social equity, will serve well those who participate; the Chinese most directly, and laterally those external forces who contribute to the process.
Dr. S. J. Noumoff, Professor of Political Science at McGill University, Montréal, Canada, presented this paper at the Kunming Seminar, 28 August-1 September, 2003. His e-mail address: sam.noumoff@mcgill.ca
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Politics of oil, world security and globalisation
Muzammel Huq
No other single industry has affected 20th century civilisation more profoundly than the oil industry and it will continue to do so, at least during the first half of the 21st century. The 20th century was nearly half over when the nuclear age began, and more than two-third over when the computer revolution swept the world. Throughout the 20th century, the most inventive hundred years that humanity has seen, oil was the great enabler and the most of it came from the Arab world or the Gulf region.
The oil industry began in 1859 when the price of a barrel was $10. In 1865, 7,000 barrels (1 barrel = 42 US gallons) were produced daily, of which 6,800 barrels a day was produced by the US, and by 1895 world oil production stood at 284,000 barrels a day. Until 1906 the Standard Oil Company (USA) dominated the oil industry. In 1945, 7.1 million barrels were produced every day and in 2001, on any given day, 60 millions barrels were produced.
In 1895 there were 300 cars in the USA, in 1905 there were 78,000, in 1910 459,000, in 1914 slightly over 1.7 million, in 1945 there were 25 million cars and by 1950 the total was 40 million, an increase of 60% within 5 years. As a result, by 1947 the consumption of oil in the US was already approaching 2 billion barrels a year, which was almost equal to the whole world consumption at the time. Thus America was consequently having one of its periodic nightmares about running out of indigenous oil, and started to follow a policy of conserving its national stock. As a consequence the US became, for the first time in its history, a net importer of oil in 1948. And it may be recalled that the year 1948 coincided with the creation of the state of Israel with strong backing from the Truman administration, the administration which devastated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by dropping atom bombs in 1945, thus becoming the first nation to use weapons of mass destruction, and that too just when Japan was about to surrender.
For decades since 1948 (when for the first time the USA started to import oil from Iraq and other Gulf states) US presidents have been coming up with plans to deal with the fact that one day they will run out of this key resource of oil. Since September 11, 2001, Washington’s rallying cry has become “freedom from foreign oil”. But there was no explanation of where the US might realistically find so much oil. There was no recognition that any crisis in the USA would be inextricably linked to energy supplies and demand everywhere in the world. The global view in 1991 suggested no supply crisis in 1991. There is a lot more oil worldwide now than in the 1970s. At the end of 1981 the proven reserve was 678.7 billion barrels as against 1,050 billions barrels at end of 2001.
Energy is fundamental to the domestic prosperity and national security of any country. In fact, the complex ties between energy and national interests have become tighter over time. The advent of gobalisation, the growing gap between the rich and poor, the war on terrorism and the need to safeguard the earth’s environment are all intertwined with energy concerns.
At the end of 2001 the total proven resources of world oil stood at 1,050 billion barrels, of which 85 billion barrels, i.e. 8.1%, is located in the OECD countries. OPEC’s share is 818.8 billion barrels, 78% of the world total. On the other hand, the OECD countries consumed 47,471 billion barrels, 62.4% of the total world consumption of 75,291 billion barrels. The USA alone consumed 25.5%, compared to 21.7% by total Europe, 4.8% by the former Soviet Union, 5.9% by the Middle East, 3.3% by Africa and 27.7% by the countries of Asia and Pacific.
The profound change that took place during the last two decades of the 20th century and the visible challenges of the 21st century urgently demand that the world community should recognise the crucial role of energy in a globalised world where development, human security and environmental issues will be adequately safeguarded.
Global energy scenario
Energy is a resource of vital importance to national and international economic and military security. In the latter half of 1973, the uneven distribution of this finite resource was suddenly brought home to all countries.
The “oil crisis” of 1973 focussed attention on the seriousness of the energy problem and also demonstrated the urgent need for studies of the role of energy, and the risks the shortage of energy would entail.
The discovery in 1859 in the US of a new source of energy, oil, marked the beginning of a new era in the history of mankind. The exploration of oil soon became a necessary prerequisite for large-scale industrialisation and for achieving the way of life desired by modern cultures. However, this new energy source was not limited to peaceful use; its military importance was quickly recognised. The use of oil substantially contributed to changing the process of war, opening up hitherto unknown dimensions of strategy on the ground, in the air and under the seas.
Since oil is one of the resources considered to be of vital importance to the economic and military security of nations, it seems natural that a shortage of oil will pose a great potential threat to national and international security. The primary effort of a country faced with insufficient oil for its requirement is therefore likely to be directed towards eliminating the risk of shortage. In other words, decisions regarding national and strategic security will be increasingly influenced by a host of considerations related not only to the potential indigenous energy supply but also to the geographic location and expected availability of foreign sources of supply.
The fact that large oil reserves are found only in a few areas of the world make these areas very important to the whole system of international relations. The oil-rich countries will therefore be the focus of intense interest from a number of co-operating and competing parties in the foreseeable future. Changes in the political, military or economic structure of these countries will have repercussions not only for the countries themselves and their neighbours but also for a wide range of oil-importing countries as well. Moreover, there is the possibility that the oil importing countries themselves might directly or indirectly initiate or try to prevent such changes in the petroleum exporting countries. The use of military force in such a situation is bound to happen.
The future development, at least during the first quarter of 21st century, will be decided by the nature of policies adopted by the different interest groups involving the petroleum exporting countries, petroleum importing countries and the multinational oil companies. As these policies are pursued, a complex pattern of co-operation and competition among these three groups will emerge. The competitive forces could well try to predominate over each other to a dangerous extent, since national security interests will supersede those of global responsibility.
The transport of oil in increasingly large tankers involves risks of hostile attack, sabotage or accidents. The same applies to oil rigs and oil installations in general. The protection of such installations and means of transportation is most likely to be a contributing factor to another spate of the arms race.
Most countries foresee an increasing demand for oil for the growth of national economies, implying growing reliance on imports. The brunt of this demand will fall primarily on the Middle East because of the limited possibilities of finding adequate reserves elsewhere and the technological difficulties and other constraints of developing them.
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Western energy interests have been seeking to exploit the massive untapped oil and natural gas reserves in the former Soviet Republic of Central Asia. Since 1997-98, starting with a few millions, the amount of Western investment in the region has jumped to $10 billion. The world energy giants have stepped up their commitment to the Caspian region, which has the last undeveloped clusters of oil fields on earth. Major investors include Halliburton, BP, Chevron, Texco Corporation, Exxon, Mobil Corporation. Of these BP alone plans to invest $12 billion in the region over the next 8 to 10 years. Central Asia is a region of 74 million people, a mix of Turkish, Mongol, Persian and Slavic strains.
The Western world hopes to lessen their dependence on Middle Eastern oil through increase of production in the non-OPEC countries. But so far, from 1991-2002, the strategy did not work out as planned. It may be noted that in May, 2001 Western troops arrived in Central Asia for the first time since the time of Alexander the Great. This is seen both in the region and outside as an attempt by the Western powers, particularly the USA, to carve out a new sphere of influence.
Oil crisis may increase even further as a consequence of increased demand. This market factor will adversely affect economic development in many countries, particularly those that are both oil-poor and less developed. And these effects may also became a serious domestic issue in the developed countries, particularly Western Europe and Japan, since a slow-down of economic growth will diminish the possibilities for increasing economic and social benefits to the greater portion of the population, thus creating political unrest.
The petroleum exporting countries have a variety of incentives for restricting their oil production to prevent a fall of oil prices. Their interests in conserving a non-renewable natural resource favour the policy of limiting the rate at which they will make it available in the market.
A change in the traditional distribution pattern could also be the result of a deliberate policy by one or several petroleum exporting countries under foreign domination, aimed at excluding some country or countries from oil supplies to the benefit of others, for political or other reasons. By using unprecedented military power the US has now propelled itself into the centre of the world oil market, both as consumer and arbiter, with the possibilities of resulting disadvantage to countries outside the “coalition of the willing”.
Energy security of countries and regions
The USA is the dominant oil-consuming country; it consumes more than 30 per cent of the world production. Indications are that it will continue to increase its consumption. This year (2003) the US will import about 60 per cent of its oil, and the US Energy Information Agency expects that foreign dependence will rise to about 70 per cent in 2010 and continue inching upwards thereafter.
Western Europe as a region, compared to the US, lacks most of its muscle in dealing with the problems of oil security but it consumes about 21.7 per cent of world consumption. North Sea oil reserves will not significantly affect the global situation (2%) of world reserves. Economic and military security of Western Europe will primarily depend on continued substantial imports from the ME and North Africa, particularly Libya.
Japan is in a worse situation than Western Europe. Its economic growth depends almost entirely on imported oil, mainly from the Middle East. On the other hand, Japan has certain advantages: a solid technological and commercial base for developing strong interdependent relationships with Middle East countries, including trade in competitively priced manufactured goods. Ultimately Japan’s energy security will continue to depend to a high degree on its cooperation with the US.
Russia has apparently little to fear for its energy security and supply in the foreseeable future.
China is among the more favourably placed countries in terms of secured energy supplies. It is the 3rd largest coal-rich country in the world. China’s present level of technology is not sufficient for a major effort to exploit both on- and off-shore oil deposits. To a large extent China’s future oil potential depends on its preparedness and ability to attract Foreign Direct Investment.
Asian LPG demand overtook North America’s in 2002, a trend that has been evident since 1990. Similarly, LPG demand in Latin America has overtaken demand in Western Europe. LPG demand in Asia reached 55 million tonnes in 2002, up from 30 million tonnes in the region in 1990 and 53 million tonnes in 2002 for North America. This trend will continue through 2005. Informed sources predict that by 2005 Asian and American demand for LPG is likely to reach 65 and 60 million tonnes per year respectively.
The trend has been driven almost entirely by China whose demand in 2002 was 14 million tonnes. By 2005, Purvin & Gertz predict, Chinese LPG demand will reach 16-18 million tonnes a year and will make up about 40% of all Asian demand.
Historically, LPG demand in Japan has dominated the region, and by 2005 China’s LPG demand will be equal to that of Japan.
Developing countries
They can hardly be considered as one region with respect to oil security. India, with a population of nearly 1 billion and with limited oil resources, is in a comparatively weaker position. Bangladesh, compared to many Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries, is not so much at a disadvantage because of the availability of natural gas. The recent rise in oil prices will be disruptive to our already problem beset programmes of economic advancement. Not only will oil cost considerably more than before, but, even more importantly, essential products made from oil will have to be imported from advanced Western countries at a higher rate, as they will pass on part of the increased costs of their own imported oil to us. The advanced countries will also be less inclined to pursue beneficial aid programmes.
Military use of oil
Very little information exists, however, on the magnitude of the energy consumption of global defence establishments, both with regard to how energy-intensive defence industries are and to the needs for actual maintenance of defence systems both under peace time and war time conditions. Any interest in making efficient use of energy will most probably result in a more intensive study of the energy requirements of different kinds of industries, materials and products which will be relevant also in assessing the proportion of energy resources made available to the defence establishments and defence industries.
If the various industrial sectors are examined, it becomes clear that the basic steel industry is a great consumer of energy. For example, this industry spends about twice as much as the next largest user, i.e. the petroleum refineries. During the Korean War and the Vietnam War the US’s total military use of petroleum amounted to about 8% of total US consumption. It is now important to make a detailed estimate of how much oil the US Department of Defence and the defence industries require to make projections about military use of oil and its implications for global economic security. During World War II the US military forces consumed 33% of the total US consumption. If the global economy is slowed down for lack of fuel then justification for military use of oil, in quantities above a certain portion, will come under considerable debate. It should be noted that foreign oil, mostly from the Gulf region, provided 48% of the total US military oil consumption in 1972. 20% of the oil bought by the US Department of Defence was used overseas.
The main use of petroleum for military purposes has been to provide mobility both for operational demands and for transport of personnel and cargo to and from countries and military bases. Excluding nuclear energy, oil represents about 72% of the total energy requirements of the US Department of Defence, which uses 63.7% for aircraft operations, and 15% for battle ship operations. Concerning the use of oil in peace time, the US Department of Defence stated that after a peak in 1969, military oil requirements in 1972 had levelled off at 750,000 barrels a day following the phasing out of military operations in South-East Asia. This was about 5% of total US consumption. In 1974 the US Air Force used 54.6%, the Navy 35.8% and the Army 9.6%. This could be compared to a total (industrial, commercial, domestic and military) consumption by India of 460,000 barrels per day.
The tight oil supply situation (1973) as a result of restriction by some Arab countries impacted even on US routine military operations around the world. In November, 1973, there were reports that the Philippines, Japan and Singapore had restricted their supplies to US forces in the Far East, which forced the US Department of Defence to draw upon its war time reserves of oil in the Pacific to supply the South Vietnamese and Cambodian armed forces with a minimum daily requirement of fuel. Another indication of the strained situation was reports that the Danish government had asked its NATO partners to bring their own oil to the NATO exercise. In November, 1973, since Denmark was not able to supply NATO units with engine fuel during the exercise, it is therefore not surprising that efforts to control and secure energy sources are particularly vigorous in the defence establishments. Since 1974 all efforts to develop weapon and weapon systems which are less oil dependent in their development, production and use, has not to date succeeded. The efforts to develop alternative sources of energy to replace oil has also not yet succeeded. Although some increased production of oil has been possible in non-OPEC countries, the amount does not make any significant difference in the world oil market. The energy problem associated with the production and use of tanks, aircraft and most naval ships led to the development of chemical and biological warfare.
In a situation of world shortage of energy, the use of energy for military purposes will come increasingly under question. There is a moral dimension involved here. Oil is not renewable, so the “beating of swords into ploughshares” is not applicable. A politically more stable and just world would reduce the need for all nations to achieve security through military means, thus releasing considerable amount of oil now used for military activities for more productive purposes.
Immediate consequences of Iraq war
The role of markets is frequently neglected by political observers and political scientists, while the political setting of events and the importance of power are frequently overlooked by economists.
Between 1972 and 1975, the annual balance of payments deficit of the oil-importing LDCs climbed from $5 billion to $30 billion and between 1978-1981 soared from $27 billion to $85 billion. In effect, a country like Bangladesh had to export five times the previous volume of its commodity export in order to earn the dollars to buy a barrel of oil.
The interaction of economics, politics and resource demand can cause sharp changes in the price of oil. For most of the 1990s, oil ranged between $14 and $19 per barrel. By the end of 1998 it reached a 12-year low of less than $11 per barrel. By the spring of 2000, OPEC production cuts of 7%, the Asian economic recovery and the booming American economy caused prices to rise to more than $32 per barrel.
At the moment, both the USA and Russia would probably try to sideline OPEC as the arbiter of the world oil price. A collapse in oil price due to growing crisis in the Gulf region may soon lay bare the divergent interests of both Washington and Moscow. Russia needs high oil prices to keep its economy afloat whereas the USA and other oil-importing countries like Bangladesh will benefit from lower oil price. Oil and gas account for two-fifths of Russia’s export. The Iraq war and political division within NATO has cast a long shadow over the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. In Nigeria, sectarian violence periodically interrupts oil production. A scheme by Venezuela to increase its share of world oil production triggered a collapse in oil prices and ushered in the leftist government of President Hugo Chavez. In 2002, labour strikes aimed at unseating Chavez resulted in the increase of oil price to more than $30 per barrel. So if oil prices drop below $18, Washington and Moscow will discover that they have very different interests.
Through a network of oil concessions and cartel arrangements, the oil majors maintain a dominant position in the world market. This enables them to determine pricing and production policies. Given the current situation in the Middle East, they are most likely to consolidate their position on a much more firm footing initially in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and then in Iran. Now they have been provided with the opportunity to set both production quotas and prices at will as if Gulf oil is originating from Texas. The oil majors now control 65% of the world’s crude oil, 55% of oil production, 75% of refinery capacity and 80% of privately owned oil tanker capacity.
Nobody yet knows how the present situation in Iraq will affect the world oil market and how the uncertainties in the region could be neutralised as it was done after the last Gulf War. The aftermath of the Iraq War is most likely to provide the greatest challenge to the UN system and all other multilateral agencies as to how and who would benefit, either from the falling price of oil or from its increasing price.
Conclusion
Oil is a limited and unequally distributed resource. World trade is still virtually dependent on oil for transportation by land, air and sea. Half of the oil produced in the world is used for transportation alone. This is in spite of the fact that the growth of the major Western economies during the past two decades has been less energy intensive. The global economy, as it stands today, has been built on a foundation of inexpensive, plentiful oil and if that foundation is disrupted, the global economy is most likely to collapse. There is no escaping the fact that until other energy sources and technologies are developed as a substitute for oil, there will be enormous demand on the existing resource of oil by nations aspiring to secure supplies to meet demands which will take on gigantic proportions when the security and well-being of the total world population is taken into account. While these demands may stimulate cooperation between certain categories of nations, they will certainly also harbour the seeds of tension and conflict among them. Several patterns of conflict are already apparent in the post-9/11 world.
One such pattern of confrontation, a military one, has already begun between the US-led oil importing countries and the oil exporting countries of the Gulf region that are two opposing interest groups. The inability of the petroleum exporting countries of the Gulf region to act unitedly during the recent occupation of Iraq has clearly demonstrated their weakened state of affairs. Although the oil price is still high, the Gulf states, with the exception of Iran, are losing control over their oil. The extreme danger they are now facing is obvious. Furthermore, in the serious confrontational situation in the immediate future, where other economic, social, political and strategic interests are involved, the already diminished cohesive force of OPEC is most likely to be eliminated. The oil importing countries, led by the US and their oil giants, will act as a united interest group against the petroleum exporting countries of the Middle East. This situation will certainly initiate tremendous pressure by the populations of the countries of the Middle East to pursue policies to benefit their own peoples, thus fuelling more confrontation.
The combination of the crisis in the Middle East centring on Iraq and the Arab-Israeli problem in the changed climate will demand a new relationship between the US, EU, Japan, Russia, China and India.
One can assume that the most oil-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, with Iraq (under US military occupation), will be most coveted by industrialised countries, particularly France and Germany. But they will certainly face the US in combination with the multinational oil companies that it controls, forming a powerful economy and military alignment. Left out of such alignments will be the less fortunate countries, a fact which will contribute to a widening of the existing gaps of economic wealth in the world. In addition, such a system will also inevitably lead to undesirable competition between groups of wealthy nations in the rush for the best possible bilateral deals in an increasingly globalised world. This is likely to be a process in which traditional considerations for trade and arms transfer policies might easily be set aside.
The negative effects of such developments can be reduced if future policies give higher priority to the need for global cooperation and global responsibility, i.e. non-competitive solutions. One solution could be the creation of institutional forums for ensuring reasonable levels of global oil security, particularly for the less developed countries. Since 9/11 the world has rapidly moved towards an era that has presented governments and people with unprecedented problems of adjustment and global responsibility. Steps must be taken within the framework of global governance to adjust to a post-9/11 and post-Iraq situation.
Muzammel Huq is General Manager, Grameen Bank and a former Senior Research Scholar, Oxford University, Member, International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), London, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), White Hall, London, Guest Lecturer, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and Visiting Fellow of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, Norway.
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As a could’ve been gook, and who knows, perhaps a potential gook, hardly a day goes by when I don’t find myself thinking — for one reason or another — ‘Chomsky Zindabad’.
The loneliness of Noam Chomsky
Arundhati Roy
“I will never apologise for the United States of America — I don’t care what the facts are.”
— President George Bush Sr.
Sitting in my home in New Delhi, watching an American TV news channel promote itself (“We report. You decide.”), I imagine Noam Chomsky’s amused, chipped-tooth smile.
Everybody knows that authoritarian regimes, regardless of their ideology, use the mass media for propaganda. But what about democratically elected regimes in the “free world”?
Today, thanks to Noam Chomsky and his fellow media analysts, it is almost axiomatic for thousands, possibly millions, of us that public opinion in “free market” democracies is manufactured just like any other mass market product — soap, switches, or sliced bread. We know that while, legally and constitutionally, speech may be free, the space in which that freedom can be exercised has been snatched from us and auctioned to the highest bidders. Neoliberal capitalism isn’t just about the accumulation of capital (for some). It’s also about the accumulation of power (for some), the accumulation of freedom (for some). Conversely, for the rest of the world, the people who are excluded from neoliberalism’s governing body, it’s about the erosion of capital, the erosion of power, the erosion of freedom. In the “free” market, free speech has become a commodity like everything else — justice, human rights, drinking water, clean air. It’s available only to those who can afford it. And naturally, those who can afford it use free speech to manufacture the kind of product, confect the kind of public opinion that best suits their purpose. (News they can use.) Exactly how they do this has been the subject of much of Noam Chomsky’s political writing.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, for instance, has a controlling interest in major Italian newspapers, magazines, television channels, and publishing houses. “The Prime Minister in effect controls about 90 per cent of Italian TV viewership,” reports the Financial Times. What price free speech? Free speech for whom? Admittedly, Berlusconi is an extreme example. In other democracies — the United States in particular — media barons, powerful corporate lobbies, and government officials are imbricated in a more elaborate, but less obvious, manner. (George Bush Jr.’s connections to the oil lobby, to the arms industry, and to Enron, and Enron’s infiltration of U.S. government institutions and the mass media — all this is public knowledge now.)
After the September 11, 2001, terrorist strikes in New York and Washington, the mainstream media’s blatant performance as the U.S. government’s mouthpiece, its display of vengeful patriotism, its willingness to publish Pentagon press handouts as news, and its explicit censorship of dissenting opinion became the butt of some pretty black humour in the rest of the world.
Then the New York Stock Exchange crashed, bankrupt airline companies appealed to the government for financial bailouts, and there was talk of circumventing patent laws in order to manufacture generic drugs to fight the anthrax scare (much more important, and urgent of course, than the production of generics to fight AIDS in Africa). Suddenly, it began to seem as though the twin myths of Free Speech and the Free Market might come crashing down alongside the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.
But of course that never happened. The myths live on.
There is however, a brighter side to the amount of energy and money that the establishment pours into the business of “managing” public opinion. It suggests a very real fear of public opinion. It suggests a persistent and valid worry that if people were to discover (and fully comprehend) the real nature of the things that are done in their name, they might act upon that knowledge. Powerful people know that ordinary people are not always reflexively ruthless and selfish. (When ordinary people weigh costs and benefits, something like an uneasy conscience could easily tip the scales.) For this reason, they must be guarded against reality, reared in a controlled climate, in an altered reality, like broiler chickens or pigs in a pen.
Those of us who have managed to escape this fate and are scratching about in the backyard, no longer believe everything we read in the papers and watch on TV. We put our ears to the ground and look for other ways of making sense of the world. We search for the untold story, the mentioned-in-passing military coup, the unreported genocide, the civil war in an African country written up in a one-column-inch story next to a full-page advertisement for lace underwear.
We don’t always remember, and many don’t even know, that this way of thinking, this easy acuity, this instinctive mistrust of the mass media, would at best be a political hunch and at worst a loose accusation, if it were not for the relentless and unswerving media analysis of one of the world’s greatest minds. And this is only one of the ways in which Noam Chomsky has radically altered our understanding of the society in which we live. Or should I say, our understanding of the elaborate rules of the lunatic asylum in which we are all voluntary inmates?
Speaking about the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, President George W. Bush called the enemies of the United States “enemies of freedom”. “Americans are asking why do they hate us?” he said. “They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”
If people in the United States want a real answer to that question (as opposed to the ones in the Idiot’s Guide to Anti-Americanism, that is: “Because they’re jealous of us,” “Because they hate freedom,” “Because they’re losers,” “Because we’re good and they’re evil”), I’d say, read Chomsky. Read Chomsky on U.S. military interventions in Indochina, Latin America, Iraq, Bosnia, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. If ordinary people in the United States read Chomsky, perhaps their questions would be framed a little differently. Perhaps it would be: “Why don’t they hate us more than they do?” or “Isn’t it surprising that September 11 didn’t happen earlier?”
Unfortunately, in these nationalistic times, words like “us” and “them” are used loosely. The line between citizens and the state is being deliberately and successfully blurred, not just by governments, but also by terrorists. The underlying logic of terrorist attacks, as well as “retaliatory” wars against governments that “support terrorism”, is the same: both punish citizens for the actions of their governments.
(A brief digression: I realise that for Noam Chomsky, a U.S. citizen, to criticise his own government is better manners than for someone like myself, an Indian citizen, to criticise the U.S. government. I’m no patriot, and am fully aware that venality, brutality and hypocrisy are imprinted on the leaden soul of every state. But when a country ceases to be merely a country and becomes an empire, then the scale of operations changes dramatically. So may I clarify that I speak as a subject of the U.S. empire? I speak as a slave who presumes to criticise her king.)
If I were asked to choose one of Noam Chomsky’s major contributions to the world, it would be the fact that he has unmasked the ugly, manipulative, ruthless universe that exists behind that beautiful, sunny word “freedom”. He has done this rationally and empirically. The mass of evidence he has marshaled to construct his case is formidable. Terrifying, actually. The starting premise of Chomsky’s method is not ideological, but it is intensely political. He embarks on his course of inquiry with an anarchist’s instinctive mistrust of power. He takes us on a tour through the bog of the U.S. establishment, and leads us through the dizzying maze of corridors that connects the government, big business, and the business of managing public opinion.
Chomsky shows us how phrases like “free speech”, the “free market”, and the “free world” have little, if anything, to do with freedom. He shows us that, among the myriad freedoms claimed by the U.S. government is the freedom to murder, annihilate, and dominate other people. The freedom to finance and sponsor despots and dictators across the world. The freedom to train, arm, and shelter terrorists. The freedom to topple democratically elected governments. The freedom to amass and use weapons of mass destruction — chemical, biological, and nuclear. The freedom to go to war against any country whose government it disagrees with. And, most terrible of all, the freedom to commit these crimes against humanity in the name of “justice”, in the name of “righteousness”, in the name of “freedom”.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has declared that U.S. freedoms are “not the grant of any government or document, but...our endowment from God”. So, basically, we’re confronted with a country armed with a mandate from heaven. Perhaps this explains why the U.S. government refuses to judge itself by the same moral standards by which it judges others. (Any attempt to do this is shouted down as “moral equivalence”.) Its technique is to position itself as the well-intentioned giant whose good deeds are confounded in strange countries by their scheming natives, whose markets it’s trying to free, whose societies it’s trying to modernise, whose women it’s trying to liberate, whose souls it’s trying to save.
Perhaps this belief in its own divinity also explains why the U.S. government has conferred upon itself the right and freedom to murder and exterminate people “for their own good”.
When he announced the U.S. air strikes against Afghanistan, President Bush Jr. said, “We’re a peaceful nation.” He went on to say, “This is the calling of the United States of America, the most free nation in the world, a nation built on fundamental values, that rejects hate, rejects violence, rejects murderers, rejects evil. And we will not tire.”
The U.S. empire rests on a grisly foundation: the massacre of millions of indigenous people, the stealing of their lands, and following this, the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of black people from Africa to work that land. Thousands died on the seas while they were being shipped like caged cattle between continents. “Stolen from Africa, brought to America” — Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier” contains a whole universe of unspeakable sadness. It tells of the loss of dignity, the loss of wilderness, the loss of freedom, the shattered pride of a people. Genocide and slavery provide the social and economic underpinning of the nation whose fundamental values reject hate, murderers, and evil.
Here is Chomsky, writing in the essay “The Manufacture of Consent,” on the founding of the United States of America:
‘During the Thanksgiving holiday a few weeks ago, I took a walk with some friends and family in a national park. We came across a gravestone, which had on it the following inscription: “Here lies an Indian woman, a Wampanoag, whose family and tribe gave of themselves and their land that this great nation might be born and grow.”
‘Of course, it is not quite accurate to say that the indigenous population gave of themselves and their land for that noble purpose. Rather, they were slaughtered, decimated, and dispersed in the course of one of the greatest exercises in genocide in human history...which we celebrate each October when we honour Columbus — a notable mass murderer himself — on Columbus Day.
‘Hundreds of American citizens, well-meaning and decent people, troop by that gravestone regularly and read it, apparently without reaction; except, perhaps, a feeling of satisfaction that at last we are giving some due recognition to the sacrifices of the native peoples...They might react differently if they were to visit Auschwitz or Dachau and find a gravestone reading: “Here lies a woman, a Jewess, whose family and people gave of themselves and their possessions that this great nation might grow and prosper.”
‘How has the United States survived its terrible past and emerged smelling so sweet? Not by owning up to it, not by making reparations, not by apologising to black Americans or native Americans, and certainly not by changing its ways (it exports its cruelties now). Like most other countries, the United States has rewritten its history. But what sets the United States apart from other countries, and puts it way ahead in the race, is that it has enlisted the services of the most powerful, most successful publicity firm in the world: Hollywood.
‘In the best-selling version of popular myth as history, U.S. “goodness” peaked during World War II (aka America’s War Against Fascism). Lost in the din of trumpet sound and angel song is the fact that when fascism was in full stride in Europe, the U.S. government actually looked away. When Hitler was carrying out his genocidal pogrom against Jews, U.S. officials refused entry to Jewish refugees fleeing Germany. The United States entered the war only after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. Drowned out by the noisy hosannas is its most barbaric act, in fact the single most savage act the world has ever witnessed: the dropping of the atomic bomb on civilian populations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war was nearly over. The hundreds of thousands of Japanese people who were killed, the countless others who were crippled by cancers for generations to come, were not a threat to world peace. They were civilians. Just as the victims of the World Trade Centre and Pentagon bombings were civilians. Just as the hundreds of thousands of people who died in Iraq because of the U.S.-led sanctions were civilians. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a cold, calculated experiment carried out to demonstrate America’s power. At the time, President Truman described it as “the greatest thing in history”.
‘The Second World War, we’re told, was a “war for peace”. The atomic bomb was a “weapon of peace”. We’re invited to believe that nuclear deterrence prevented World War III. (That was before President George Bush Jr. came up with the “pre-emptive strike doctrine”. Was there an outbreak of peace after the Second World War? Certainly there was (relative) peace in Europe and America — but does that count as world peace? Not unless savage, proxy wars fought in lands where the coloured races live (chinks, niggers, dinks, wogs, gooks) don’t count as wars at all.
‘Since the Second World War, the United States has been at war with or has attacked, among other countries, Korea, Guatemala, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan. This list should also include the U.S. government’s covert operations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the coups it has engineered, and the dictators it has armed and supported. It should include Israel’s U.S.-backed war on Lebanon, in which thousands were killed. It should include the key role America has played in the conflict in the Middle East, in which thousands have died fighting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. It should include America’s role in the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, in which more than one million people were killed. It should include the embargos and sanctions that have led directly, and indirectly, to the death of hundreds of thousands of people, most visibly in Iraq.
‘Put it all together, and it sounds very much as though there has been a World War III, and that the U.S. government was (or is) one of its chief protagonists.’
Most of the essays in Chomsky’s For Reasons of State are about U.S. aggression in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It was a war that lasted more than 12 years. Fifty-eight thousand Americans and approximately two million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians lost their lives. The U.S. deployed half a million ground troops, dropped more than six million tons of bombs. And yet, though you wouldn’t believe it if you watched most Hollywood movies, America lost the war.
The war began in South Vietnam and then spread to North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. After putting in place a client regime in Saigon, the U.S. government invited itself in to fight a communist insurgency — Vietcong guerillas who had infiltrated rural regions of South Vietnam where villagers were sheltering them. This was exactly the model that Russia replicated when, in 1979, it invited itself into Afghanistan. Nobody in the “free world” is in any doubt about the fact that Russia invaded Afghanistan. After glasnost, even a Soviet foreign minister called the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan “illegal and immoral”. But there has been no such introspection in the United States. In 1984, in a stunning revelation, Chomsky wrote:
‘For the past 22 years, I have been searching to find some reference in mainstream journalism or scholarship to an American invasion of South Vietnam in 1962 (or ever), or an American attack against South Vietnam, or American aggression in Indochina — without success. There is no such event in history. Rather, there is an American defence of South Vietnam against terrorists supported from the outside (namely from Vietnam).’
There is no such event in history!
In 1962, the U.S. Air Force began to bomb rural South Vietnam, where 80 per cent of the population lived. The bombing lasted for more than a decade. Thousands of people were killed. The idea was to bomb on a scale colossal enough to induce panic migration from villages into cities, where people could be held in refugee camps. Samuel Huntington referred to this as a process of “urbanisation”.
(I learned about urbanisation when I was in architecture school in India. Somehow I don’t remember aerial bombing being part of the syllabus.) Huntington — famous today for his essay “The Clash of Civilizations” — was at the time chairman of the Council on Vietnamese Studies of the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group. Chomsky quotes him describing the Vietcong as “a powerful force which cannot be dislodged from its constituency so long as the constituency continues to exist”. Huntington went on to advise “direct application of mechanical and conventional power” — in other words, to crush a people’s war, eliminate the people. (Or, perhaps, to update the thesis — in order to prevent a clash of civilisations, annihilate a civilisation.)
Here’s one observer from the time on the limitations of America’s mechanical power: “The problem is that American machines are not equal to the task of killing communist soldiers except as part of a scorched-earth policy that destroys everything else as well.” That problem has been solved now. Not with less destructive bombs, but with more imaginative language. There’s a more elegant way of saying “that destroys everything else as well”. The phrase is “collateral damage”.
And here’s a firsthand account of what America’s “machines” (Huntington called them “modernising instruments” and staff officers in the Pentagon called them “bomb-o-grams”) can do. This is T.D. Allman flying over the Plain of Jars in Laos.
‘Even if the war in Laos ended tomorrow, the restoration of its ecological balance might take several years. The reconstruction of the Plain’s totally destroyed towns and villages might take just as long. Even if this was done, the Plain might long prove perilous to human habitation because of the hundreds of thousands of unexploded bombs, mines and booby traps.
‘A recent flight around the Plain of Jars revealed what less than three years of intensive American bombing can do to a rural area, even after its civilian population has been evacuated. In large areas, the primary tropical colour — bright green — has been replaced by an abstract pattern of black and bright metallic colours. Much of the remaining foliage is stunted, dulled by defoliants.
‘Today, black is the dominant colour of the northern and eastern reaches of the Plain. Napalm is dropped regularly to burn off the grass and undergrowth that covers the Plains and fills its many narrow ravines. The fires seem to burn constantly, creating rectangles of black. During the flight, plumes of smoke could be seen rising from freshly bombed areas.
‘The main routes, coming into the Plain from communist-held territory, are bombed mercilessly, apparently on a non-stop basis. There, and along the rim of the Plain, the dominant colour is yellow. All vegetation has been destroyed. The craters are countless....The area has been bombed so repeatedly that the land resembles the pocked, churned desert in storm-hit areas of the North African desert.
‘Further to the southeast, Xieng Khouangville — once the most populous town in communist Laos — lies empty, destroyed. To the north of the Plain, the little resort of Khang Khay also has been destroyed.
‘Around the landing field at the base of King Kong, the main colours are yellow (from upturned soil) and black (from napalm), relieved by patches of bright red and blue: parachutes used to drop supplies.
‘The last local inhabitants were being carted into air transports. Abandoned vegetable gardens that would never be harvested grew near abandoned houses with plates still on the tables and calendars on the walls.’
(Never counted in the “costs” of war are the dead birds, the charred animals, the murdered fish, incinerated insects, poisoned water sources, destroyed vegetation. Rarely mentioned is the arrogance of the human race towards other living things with which it shares this planet. All these are forgotten in the fight for markets and ideologies. This arrogance will probably be the ultimate undoing of the human species.)
The centrepiece of For Reasons of State is an essay called “The Mentality of the Backroom Boys”, in which Chomsky offers an extraordinarily supple, exhaustive analysis of the Pentagon Papers, which he says “provide documentary evidence of a conspiracy to use force in international affairs in violation of law”. Here, too, Chomsky makes note of the fact that while the bombing of North Vietnam is discussed at some length in the Pentagon Papers, the invasion of South Vietnam barely merits a mention.
The Pentagon Papers are mesmerising, not as documentation of the history of the U.S. war in Indochina, but as insight into the minds of the men who planned and executed it. It’s fascinating to be privy to the ideas that were being tossed around, the suggestions that were made, the proposals that were put forward. In a section called “The Asian Mind — the American Mind”, Chomsky examines the discussion of the mentality of the enemy that “stoically accept[s] the destruction of wealth and the loss of lives”, whereas “We want life, happiness, wealth, power”, and, for us, “death and suffering are irrational choices when alternatives exist”. So, we learn that the Asian poor, presumably because they cannot comprehend the meaning of happiness, wealth, and power, invite America to carry this “strategic logic to its conclusion, which is genocide”. But, then “we” balk because “genocide is a terrible burden to bear”. (Eventually, of course, “we” went ahead and committed genocide any way, and then pretended that it never really happened.)
Of course, the Pentagon Papers contain some moderate proposals, as well.
Strikes at population targets (per se) are likely not only to create a counterproductive wave of revulsion abroad and at home, but greatly to increase the risk of enlarging the war with China and the Soviet Union. Destruction of locks and dams, however — if handled right — might...offer promise. It should be studied. Such destruction does not kill or drown people. By shallow-flooding the rice, it leads after time to widespread starvation (more than a million?) unless food is provided — which we could offer to do “at the conference table”.
Layer by layer, Chomsky strips down the process of decision-making by U.S. government officials, to reveal at its core the pitiless heart of the American war machine, completely insulated from the realities of war, blinded by ideology, and willing to annihilate millions of human beings, civilians, soldiers, women, children, villages, whole cities, whole ecosystems — with scientifically honed methods of brutality.
Here’s an American pilot talking about the joys of napalm:
‘We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow. The original product wasn’t so hot — if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off. So the boys started adding polystyrene — now it sticks like shit to a blanket. But then if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning, so they started adding Willie Peter [white phosphorous] so as to make it burn better. It’ll even burn under water now. And just one drop is enough, it’ll keep on burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorous poisoning.’
So the lucky gooks were annihilated for their own good. Better Dead than Red.
Thanks to the seductive charms of Hollywood and the irresistible appeal of America’s mass media, all these years later, the world views the war as an American story. Indochina provided the lush, tropical backdrop against which the United States played out its fantasies of violence, tested its latest technology, furthered its ideology, examined its conscience, agonised over its moral dilemmas, and dealt with its guilt (or pretended to). The Vietnamese, the Cambodians, and Laotians were only script props. Nameless, faceless, slit-eyed humanoids. They were just the people who died. Gooks.
The only real lesson the U.S. government learned from its invasion of Indochina is how to go to war without committing American troops and risking American lives. So now we have wars waged with long-range cruise missiles, Black Hawks, “bunker busters”. Wars in which the “Allies” lose more journalists than soldiers.
As a child growing up in the state of Kerala, in South India — where the first democratically elected Communist government in the world came to power in 1959, the year I was born — I worried terribly about being a gook. Kerala was only a few thousand miles west of Vietnam. We had jungles and rivers and rice-fields, and communists, too. I kept imagining my mother, my brother, and myself being blown out of the bushes by a grenade, or mowed down, like the gooks in the movies, by an American marine with muscled arms and chewing gum and a loud background score. In my dreams, I was the burning girl in the famous photograph taken on the road from Trang Bang.
As someone who grew up on the cusp of both American and Soviet propaganda (which more or less neutralised each other), when I first read Noam Chomsky, it occurred to me that his marshalling of evidence, the volume of it, the relentlessness of it, was a little — how shall I put it? — insane. Even a quarter of the evidence he had compiled would have been enough to convince me. I used to wonder why he needed to do so much work. But now I understand that the magnitude and intensity of Chomsky’s work is a barometer of the magnitude, scope and relentlessness of the propaganda machine that he’s up against. He’s like the wood-borer who lives inside the third rack of my bookshelf. Day and night, I hear his jaws crunching through the wood, grinding it to a fine dust. It’s as though he disagrees with the literature and wants to destroy the very structure on which it rests. I call him Chompsky.
Being an American working in America, writing to convince Americans of his point of view must really be like having to tunnel through hard wood. Chomsky is one of a small band of individuals fighting a whole industry. And that makes him not only brilliant, but heroic.
Some years ago, in a poignant interview with James Peck, Chomsky spoke about his memory of the day Hiroshima was bombed. He was 16 years old:
‘I remember that I literally couldn’t talk to anybody. There was nobody. I just walked off by myself. I was at a summer camp at the time, and I walked off into the woods and stayed alone for a couple of hours when I heard about it. I could never talk to anyone about it and never understood anyone’s reaction. I felt completely isolated.’
That isolation produced one of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time. When the sun sets on the American empire, as it will, as it must, Noam Chomsky’s work will survive.
It will point a cool, incriminating finger at a merciless, Machiavellian empire as cruel, self-righteous and hypocritical as the ones it has replaced. (The only difference is that it is armed with technology that can visit the kind of devastation on the world that history has never known and the human race cannot begin to imagine.)
As a could’ve been gook, and who knows, perhaps a potential gook, hardly a day goes by when I don’t find myself thinking — for one reason or another — “Chomsky Zindabad”.
Arundhati Roy is the author of The God of Small Things. This essay was written as an introduction for the new edition of Noam Chomsky’s For Reasons of State.
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