Siah
24-04-05, 02:54
DANGER
By Eduardo Galeano
ALTERCOM, April 2005
Power eats fear. Without the demons it creates, it would lose its sources of justification, impunity and fortune. Its Satans (Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or the next ones) actually work like the hen with the golden eggs: they lay fear. What should we send them? Executioners to kill them or doctors to take care of them? Fear entertains them and distracts their attention. If it weren’t for the services they give, the obvious would be unmasked right in front of everybody: as a matter of fact, power looks at itself in the mirror and frightens us by telling us what it saw. Danger, danger, yells the dangerous one.
Patriotism is a privilege for those who are in command. When it is practiced by those who receive orders, is it then reduced to mere terrorism? For example, are the suicide acts of despair carried out by Palestinians evicted from their country and the national resistance attacks against foreign troops occupying Iraq merely terrorist acts and nothing more?
The upside-down world names things backwards. Power, masked, denies common sense. If not, could there be any doubt that the current Israel government practices terrorism, State terrorism, and spreads madness? As this government devours more and more lands and as it inflicts more and more humiliation on the Palestine people, it causes more criminal replies. And those attacks, which kill innocent bystanders, become the pretext to kill many more innocent bystanders and to commit as many atrocities as they could come up with. If there were any remnants of common sense in the world, it would be unbelievable that Ariel Sharon can do what he's doing with complete impunity, as if it were the most natural thing to do: he invades and riddles with bullets other people's territories; he builds a wall that makes Berlin's -a sad memory- look like kid stuff to shield what he usurps; he publicly announces that he's going to kill Yasser Arafat, a Head of State democratically elected by his people; and he bombs Syria, knowing that the United States will veto -as usual- any censure from the UN Security Council.
It so happens that, in this world, countries and people are quoted on the Stock Exchange and their value depends on the geography of power. How many innocent people were blown to pieces, for no apparent reason, in the last Iraqi war? The winners haven't had time to count their victims, civilians who existed and who no longer exist, because they have been too busy looking for the mass destruction weapons which never existed nor exist. Therefore, there are no official numbers. However, the most serious unofficial estimates have counted at least seven thousand seven hundred dead civilians, many of them children, women, and elders. How much are those lives worth? In proportion to the population, the number of Iraqis killed equals ninety four thousand US citizens. What would have happened if the invaded country had been the invading country? The American victims of such carnage would still be the perpetual subject of the media. However, the Iraqi victims only deserve silence. It's only too well known that stealing was the only motive for this massacre, carried out in cold blood. But the serial killers continue to say that they did what they did in self-defense and they're not in jail or sorry. Crime pays: from the heights of power, they threaten the world with new achievements, lying about dangers, inventing enemies, planting panic.
President Bush loves to quote Apocalypses but it would be more practical to quote the news shows, which are more accurate and say more or less the same thing. That horrifying Biblical text, a prophecy told in past tense, was a bit exaggerated and incorrect in its numbers, but you must admit the fact that news in today's world resemble it a lot. Apocalypses said: “By the great Euphrates River one-third of the men were killed, by fire, smoke and brimstone.” And, it also says: “One-third of the land was burnt, one-third of the trees were burnt, and all the green grass was burnt. One-third of the living creatures in the sea died. Many people died because of the waters from the rivers, which had become bitter.” The author, St. John -or whoever it was- attributed these catastrophes to divine rage. He had never heard of smart bombs or carbon dioxide or acid rain or chemical pesticides or radioactive waste. And, he could never imagine that consumer society and the technology of devastation would be even more terrible than God's rage.
Bombs against people, bombs against nature. How about the money bombs? What would become of this model of a world -enemy of the world- without its financial wars? In more than half a century of existence, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have exterminated a much larger amount of people than all the terrorist organizations that exist or have existed in the world. They have very powerfully contributed to make the world like it is today. Now, this world, boiling with outrage, frightens its authors. “The World Bank, Apostle of privatization, suffers from a crisis of faith,” the Wall Street Journal remarked. In a recent report, the Bank discovers that the privatization of public services, imposed by its officials and continued to be imposed on weak countries, isn't exactly a heaven-sent manna, especially for the poor who are left to their fate. Alarmed by the consequences of their acts, the Bank now says the poor should be consulted and that the poor “would have to supervise private investments,” although it doesn't explain how they could carry out such a task. And the poor also worry the Monetary Fund, which has spent its life choking them: “Social inequalities must be reduced,” says the director of the Fund, Horst Köhler, after thinking about the problem. The poor have no idea how to thank such attention.
These organisms which practice financial dictatorship in the democratic order are not in the least democratic: in the Fund, five countries decide everything; in the Bank, seven do. The rest do not have a say in anything. Neither is trade dictatorship democratic. In the World Trade Organization a vote is never taken although voting is foreseen in the statutes. The planet's colonial organization would be in danger if the poor countries, which make up the overwhelming majority, could vote. They're invited to the banquet to be eaten. National dignity is a non-profitable activity destined to disappear, like private property, in the underdeveloped world. But, when dignitaries get together, that's a different story. That happened in Cancun, recently, in the WTO meeting: the rejected countries, the ones who are lied to, joined in a common front, for the first time after many years of loneliness and fear. And the meeting was a flop, summoned, as usual, so that the majority would exercise its right to obedience.
It's happening everywhere: it turns out that power isn't as powerful as it says it is.
Eduardo Galeano is a Uruguayan journalist and writer, author of The Open Veins of Latin America, Our Song, nights and Days of Love and War, The Walking Words, and The Book of the Hugs, among others.
By Eduardo Galeano
ALTERCOM, April 2005
Power eats fear. Without the demons it creates, it would lose its sources of justification, impunity and fortune. Its Satans (Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or the next ones) actually work like the hen with the golden eggs: they lay fear. What should we send them? Executioners to kill them or doctors to take care of them? Fear entertains them and distracts their attention. If it weren’t for the services they give, the obvious would be unmasked right in front of everybody: as a matter of fact, power looks at itself in the mirror and frightens us by telling us what it saw. Danger, danger, yells the dangerous one.
Patriotism is a privilege for those who are in command. When it is practiced by those who receive orders, is it then reduced to mere terrorism? For example, are the suicide acts of despair carried out by Palestinians evicted from their country and the national resistance attacks against foreign troops occupying Iraq merely terrorist acts and nothing more?
The upside-down world names things backwards. Power, masked, denies common sense. If not, could there be any doubt that the current Israel government practices terrorism, State terrorism, and spreads madness? As this government devours more and more lands and as it inflicts more and more humiliation on the Palestine people, it causes more criminal replies. And those attacks, which kill innocent bystanders, become the pretext to kill many more innocent bystanders and to commit as many atrocities as they could come up with. If there were any remnants of common sense in the world, it would be unbelievable that Ariel Sharon can do what he's doing with complete impunity, as if it were the most natural thing to do: he invades and riddles with bullets other people's territories; he builds a wall that makes Berlin's -a sad memory- look like kid stuff to shield what he usurps; he publicly announces that he's going to kill Yasser Arafat, a Head of State democratically elected by his people; and he bombs Syria, knowing that the United States will veto -as usual- any censure from the UN Security Council.
It so happens that, in this world, countries and people are quoted on the Stock Exchange and their value depends on the geography of power. How many innocent people were blown to pieces, for no apparent reason, in the last Iraqi war? The winners haven't had time to count their victims, civilians who existed and who no longer exist, because they have been too busy looking for the mass destruction weapons which never existed nor exist. Therefore, there are no official numbers. However, the most serious unofficial estimates have counted at least seven thousand seven hundred dead civilians, many of them children, women, and elders. How much are those lives worth? In proportion to the population, the number of Iraqis killed equals ninety four thousand US citizens. What would have happened if the invaded country had been the invading country? The American victims of such carnage would still be the perpetual subject of the media. However, the Iraqi victims only deserve silence. It's only too well known that stealing was the only motive for this massacre, carried out in cold blood. But the serial killers continue to say that they did what they did in self-defense and they're not in jail or sorry. Crime pays: from the heights of power, they threaten the world with new achievements, lying about dangers, inventing enemies, planting panic.
President Bush loves to quote Apocalypses but it would be more practical to quote the news shows, which are more accurate and say more or less the same thing. That horrifying Biblical text, a prophecy told in past tense, was a bit exaggerated and incorrect in its numbers, but you must admit the fact that news in today's world resemble it a lot. Apocalypses said: “By the great Euphrates River one-third of the men were killed, by fire, smoke and brimstone.” And, it also says: “One-third of the land was burnt, one-third of the trees were burnt, and all the green grass was burnt. One-third of the living creatures in the sea died. Many people died because of the waters from the rivers, which had become bitter.” The author, St. John -or whoever it was- attributed these catastrophes to divine rage. He had never heard of smart bombs or carbon dioxide or acid rain or chemical pesticides or radioactive waste. And, he could never imagine that consumer society and the technology of devastation would be even more terrible than God's rage.
Bombs against people, bombs against nature. How about the money bombs? What would become of this model of a world -enemy of the world- without its financial wars? In more than half a century of existence, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have exterminated a much larger amount of people than all the terrorist organizations that exist or have existed in the world. They have very powerfully contributed to make the world like it is today. Now, this world, boiling with outrage, frightens its authors. “The World Bank, Apostle of privatization, suffers from a crisis of faith,” the Wall Street Journal remarked. In a recent report, the Bank discovers that the privatization of public services, imposed by its officials and continued to be imposed on weak countries, isn't exactly a heaven-sent manna, especially for the poor who are left to their fate. Alarmed by the consequences of their acts, the Bank now says the poor should be consulted and that the poor “would have to supervise private investments,” although it doesn't explain how they could carry out such a task. And the poor also worry the Monetary Fund, which has spent its life choking them: “Social inequalities must be reduced,” says the director of the Fund, Horst Köhler, after thinking about the problem. The poor have no idea how to thank such attention.
These organisms which practice financial dictatorship in the democratic order are not in the least democratic: in the Fund, five countries decide everything; in the Bank, seven do. The rest do not have a say in anything. Neither is trade dictatorship democratic. In the World Trade Organization a vote is never taken although voting is foreseen in the statutes. The planet's colonial organization would be in danger if the poor countries, which make up the overwhelming majority, could vote. They're invited to the banquet to be eaten. National dignity is a non-profitable activity destined to disappear, like private property, in the underdeveloped world. But, when dignitaries get together, that's a different story. That happened in Cancun, recently, in the WTO meeting: the rejected countries, the ones who are lied to, joined in a common front, for the first time after many years of loneliness and fear. And the meeting was a flop, summoned, as usual, so that the majority would exercise its right to obedience.
It's happening everywhere: it turns out that power isn't as powerful as it says it is.
Eduardo Galeano is a Uruguayan journalist and writer, author of The Open Veins of Latin America, Our Song, nights and Days of Love and War, The Walking Words, and The Book of the Hugs, among others.