Haiti, the Aftermath

It has been more than two weeks since the massive earthquake measuring 7.0 on Richter scale hit Port au Prince, the capital city of Haiti. Still, the situation is not under control; relief has still not reached people, the rubble is still not removed, there is no food, electricity or communications and people are still dying. Unofficial sources estimate that the number of people dead may finally top over 300,000. Because there are hardly any earth moving equipments/machinery, people remained under the rubble for days (as long as 15) before they were pulled out by other people by hand, most of them dying. The survivors many times kept themselves alive by drinking blood of the corpses around them. People are still removing the rubble with their hand. There are tents everywhere in the city and the place looks like a massive refugee camp. It looks nothing less than a war-ravaged country. This unbelievable destruction occurred in large parts due to very poor infrastructure, poorly constructed buildings and lack of any government support. Contrast it with Loma Prieta earthquake that struck San Francisco in 1989, which was also about a 7.0-magnitude quake. Although it killed scores of people and caused millions of dollars in property damage, the relatively high construction standards in the city kept the devastation much lower than what will be in Haiti.

‘Doctors without Borders’ say the number of amputations that had to be performed was massive and it has created a generation of amputees. The doctors say that if the relief material, medicines, first aid equipment (which was lying in the Port-au-Prince airport) had reached them even 5 days after the earthquake they would have been able to save a lot of amputations. But the UN, the western agencies were worried about ‘security’ and ‘riots’ that ‘might’ occur if they went in with aid to people. The UN aid workers said there were several parts of the city designated as ‘red zones’ and they had to get special security clearance and an escort to go to those places. The US sent in troops in thousands to control any ‘unforeseen’ event instead of relief workers and specialists who can handle such situation. President Barack Obama promised a paltry aid of 100 million; compare it with 30 billion he proposed just to escalate the troop level in Afghanistan. The relief effort has been completely militarized with the complicity of the UN. It is not hard to figure out that under these dire situations what is more needed; escalation of troops or more relief workers and infrastructural support. The UN refused to interact with common suffering people creating an acute problem of aid distribution thereby letting people die in need of aid and relief. Even the buildings that stand have cracks and can collapse any time. The devastation caused by these so-called ‘relief agencies’ is heart-wrenching.

Port-au-Prince is a dismal sight one would ever see but not far from there, in Léogâne, just 10 miles away from Port-au-Prince, the epicenter of the quake, the situation is even more pathetic. Léogâne, suffered as much destruction on its own scale as Port-au-Prince. But unlike Port-au-Prince, there was hardly any sign of foreign relief workers or relief agencies in Léogâne. People with their own camaraderie were helping each other, removing the rubble with hand, pulling out people under the rubble and providing whatever aid they could to injured and dying people. The relief workers were again afraid of coming here due to possibility of ‘food riots’. Here, the aid was air-dropped sporadically at some places. This treatment incited a very just fury and indignation among people who screamed at choppers to not treat them like dogs. The so-called ‘relief’ in Haiti has proven to be a display of most inhuman and apathetic racism. No visual or print media covered Léogâne except the alternative media ‘democracynow’. The sympathy on the faces of mainstream western media is not only appalling but nauseating. They do not make even the slightest reference to the recent past which shows how Bill Clinton and George Bush are respectively responsible for destroying Haitian economy and democracy in modern times. This is a perverted, spineless and pliant media that is largely pro-establishment and has either no sense of history, or purposefully doesn’t refer to it or is filled with the morons of highest order.

Foreigners who have lived in Haiti describe Haitians as the most non-violent, peace-loving and generous people in the world. Despite rampant poverty, Haitians are always willing to share whatever they have. It is this character of Haitians that has shown tremendous restraint, will to survive, camaraderie and patience in the face of this tremendous calamity. The essential public services, hospitals, communication, transportation, water, electricity, sewage and other basic amenities are still not functioning despite all kinds of governmental non-governmental agencies there. Haiti has the highest concentration of non-governmental agencies per capita but there is hardly any action that is required. The aid still largely remains dumped at the airport. The people are still languishing on the streets and dying, now due to lack of the most basic human necessities like food, drinking water and hygiene. Red Cross fears the outbreak of disease causing even further problems because of the stench and the squalor that exists in affected cities.

The country will take decades now to recover from this destruction and loss of lives. This opens doors to ‘disaster capitalism’ where business hawks swoop in to take as much advantage as possible and force most destructive contracts for reconstruction. Recently, it was only due to large-scale protest that the IMF dropped the conditions of loan to Haiti, which included laying off workers, privatizing natural resources and other destructive measures. The aid from these institutions come not as grants but as loans with strings attached, designed to cripple the countries further economically. The US has already moved thousands of troops in Haiti and if history is any indication the troops are there to stay thus controlling Haiti in coming decades. As Kim Ives of Haiti Liberté says, the epicenter of this disaster was in Washington. He also reports that the public sector industries for flour, cement and communications among others were systematically destroyed under Washington’s influence and support of corrupt dictators. Now, Haiti imports flour and currently has food crisis. It’s déjà vu in Haiti.

The Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics this year start on February 12th in Vancouver-Whistler in British Columbia, Canada. Along with its preparations on a grand scale and massive advertising, the event is increasingly getting marked by protests against it where the protesters are demanding not to hold Olympics on the stolen native land. The peaceful protests against these Winter Olympics are being dealt with the usual police brutality. The protests are however not being reported by the mainstream media. The threat of land-grabbing and displacement of natives is very real and is not only true for the natives but also for the urban-poor who too would get displaced. Historically, all native land in Canada has been acquired by the government (Canadian or colonial British) by some treaty with the natives. British Columbia has a unique position in this regard. The natives in British Columbia historically have no agreement or treaty with the Canadian government (or prior colonial British government) to give away their lands; consequently, the only way to take that land is by force. The natives as a result are being forced out of their lands to create the venue for the Winter Olympics. This is being achieved largely through contracts given to private corporations. The corporations are not only driving indigenous people out of their homes but are also causing considerable damage to the environment. The profit-making goes without saying; the exploitation during sporting events like the Olympics is usually veiled by the fanfare associated with the event and it goes relatively unnoticed in the outside world. "The history of the Olympics is one rooted in displacement, corporate greed, repression, and violence", states the Olympics Resistance Network (ORN), a coalition of native rights and anti-poverty groups. Canada is following the pattern. It was among the four countries (the other three are the US, Australia and New Zealand) that voted against the against the 2007 United Nations resolution to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ambassador John McNee of Canada had said his country was disappointed to have to vote against the Declaration, but it had “significant concerns” about the language in the document. Still the UN adopted the historic resolution, which is not binding but is considered as a big leap in restoring ancestral lands, resources and traditional way of life to 370 million indigenous people around the world.

Winter sports are expensive, they usually require a lot of gear, training to play and people who play it usually come from the rich sections of society. The pattern is easily extendable to the tournament of winter sports like the Winter Olympics, where the participation is mostly from rich countries of global north. The club is exclusive; the sports included in the Winter Olympics (like alpine skiing, luge, figure skating, skeleton etc.) are not played by most countries in the world. The participation is mainly from North America and Western Europe. The only exceptions are China and a couple of Eastern European countries like Ukraine, Belarus and Estonia. The very concept of the Olympics of including and spanning all continents as represented by its symbol is absent in spirit from the Winter Olympics. The Olympics promote harmony through sports bringing all races and people of the world together in a single event. The Winter Olympics is pre-dominantly white. It should be called some other sporting event rather than ‘Olympics’; like ‘International Winter Sports Contest’, ‘Winter Games’ or better still ‘NATO Sporting Event’. It has come to be an event for rich nations and a particular race (one would hardly ever see an African American on a ski slope). Holding it at the expense of indigenous people by forcibly taking away their lands makes it even more appalling.

Other than the issue of natives and its exclusive character, the Winter Olympics pose the critical issue of environment. To make it an attractive tourist place, the landscape is being changed dramatically. The expansion and construction of highways, bridges, ski-resorts, hotels and Olympic venues have already destroyed a lot of land and mountains. The untouched mountains are essential to the survival of people, but a sharp increase in the development of ski-resorts has contributed to severe damage of the eco-system. Despite their portrayal as being eco-friendly, ‘low-impact’ tourism ski resorts cause large-scale ecological destruction to the mountain habitat. Most ski-resorts also use fake snow that contaminates the land and nearby water. The provincial government of British Columbia is willingly funding and giving away contracts worth billions of dollars to corporations for developing the infrastructure which essentially means greater resource exploitation, mining, logging, extraction of natural gas etc. All of this is being done on stolen native’s lands, subsidized by the government to attract investments and in turn give the corporations millions in profits.

Meanwhile the funding for social services, healthcare, education etc. is being severely cut down. This is yet another manifestation of misplaced priorities of the governments around the world.

Haiti, the Disaster

At around 5 pm on January 13th, a massive earthquake measuring 7.0 on Richter scale hit Port au Prince, the capital city of Haiti. Within 3 days more than 60,000 people were reported dead with over one third of the population of Haiti rendered homeless. The city looks like an ancient ruin with the infrastructure of the city and the surrounding areas was completely razed to ground. The essential public services, hospitals, communication, transportation, water, electricity, sewage and other basic amenities totally collapsed. It was reported that there was no means to get the aid from the airport to people. The people languished on the streets and died not only due to the occurrence of natural calamity but also due to lack of most basic human necessities like food, drinking water, hygiene and basic shelter. The catastrophe in human terms is massive and its repercussions incalculable. The Presidential palace collapsed and the President of Haiti went missing for about 3 days, leaving the country rudderless amidst utter chaos and tragedy. It is a rare sight to see the head of a state who usually commands supreme privileges in his country languish on streets. It shows that the disaster caused due to the earthquake have much deeper and profound causes. The scale of devastation and loss of lives is far greater than if an earthquake of a similar intensity had hit an advanced western country. Haiti is repeatedly dubbed as the poorest country in the western hemisphere; but instead of feeling a benign pity for such a country let us pause for a moment and think why it remained so poor in this so called ‘fast-developing’ world? And what consequences a country faces being impoverished and extremely poor like Haiti. Humans till date have no control over natural disasters like an earthquake, but they have certainly mastered and developed technologies to minimize destruction under such calamitous situations. The disaster in Haiti again opens the question of rich and poor, exploiter and exploited and the way the history has shaped the world making some parts of the world extremely poor and some parts extremely rich. An earthquake of similar intensity in the western advanced world would not kill nearly as many people or destroy the place as it did in Haiti.

Haiti is part of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean where Christopher Columbus started his first massacre and exploitation of native Indians. With flourishing slave trade and massacre of native population, Haiti soon became dominantly populated with black slaves; but was also the first country to witness a successful slave rebellion against the French colony. The story goes back to 1804 when enslaved Africans expelled their French masters and declared the first black independent republic. The US or any other white country refused to recognize the new republic, until Lincoln finally granted recognition in 1862. When French were forced to leave Haiti, they put a military blockade around Haiti demanding reparations for loss of profits, resources and cheap black labor. Haiti has thus been the victim of colonial exploitation since centuries but its back was broken by the financial doom it suffered when the US invaded and conquered it in 1915 to keep tabs on its ‘investment’ (Citibank took over Haiti’s debts by buying its central bank) and ruled it as its own country till 1934. During this period the US diverted nearly 40% of Haiti’s resources to the US, bringing profits to its banks and financial institutions. The control of Haiti’s finances was maintained until 1947 completely crippling the country. To get a perspective, imagine living on 40% less salary than you currently get. Haiti, being already poor struggled to survive. Since 1957 the US propped and supported corrupt dictators, supplying them with firepower to subdue the common mass while the US corporations had a free run in exploiting and ruining country’s resources. It was only in 1986 that Haiti became free of its corrupt and brutal dictators due to massive popular uprising against it. Still covert operations against Haiti remained in place. As recently as 2004 under President Bush, the popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti (for the second time) was ousted from Haiti.

The poverty of Haiti and the disaster it faced needs to be looked in this perspective. Haiti has survived under such brutal excesses of the ‘advanced nations’ who are now scrambling together to get some token humanitarian help. It is ironic and insulting then to the people of Haiti when President Obama announced President Bush and President Clinton to head Haiti’s relief program. President Clinton pushed for the neo-liberal policies in Haiti which contributed to further impoverishing of Haiti. The neo-liberal policies in Haiti resulted in complete destruction of the agrarian and self-sustaining society. A vast majority of people live on less than $2 a day whereas a tiny, extremely wealthy capitalist class enjoys and controls most of the resources. The country has no public service, equipment, machinery or manpower to pull out its people buried under the rubble. A vast number of deaths occurred not due to tectonic movements but due to the lack of most basic infrastructure of relief and help in the country. The death toll continued to rise even a couple of days after the tectonic shocks hit Haiti. Unlike wealthy countries, good seismic building codes were never enforced in Haiti for strong and durable buildings with which the scale of disaster would have been far less.

The systemic destruction of Haiti’s economy leading to a vast population extremely poor has attracted numerous non-governmental agencies in the country. Haiti is now ridden with non-governmental and UN agencies which perform some basic public services in some parts of the country. The administrative infrastructure is virtually absent; it could never develop under the corrupt regimes and self-serving dictators. However, in the wake of this disaster, the agencies were busy securing the safety of their own personnel and did not get into action till very late. The food, medicines and other humanitarian aid remained at Port-au Prince’s airport with no means to transport it to the suffering people. It is only after a few days that the US choppers started dropping relief material in the affected areas. However, this cannot be taken without skepticism. A very critical danger pointed out by Naomi Klein (author of ‘Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’) is that the US might take it as an opportunity to make ways for its corporations for rebuilding Haiti securing contracts worth billions of dollars. So any relief offered by the US has a potential danger of being seen as an investment by its government and corporations, thereby again bleeding Haiti for recovering the investments and reaping profits out of this tremendous human catastrophe.

As we join hands in aiding Haiti and helping the country stand on its own feet again, we should also try to prevent the ‘disaster capitalism’ from taking its roots in Haiti which would be a more subtle force but can bring destruction far greater than any natural calamity.

Amendment to Democratic Process

The term ‘democracy’ is derived from the Greek word (dēmokratía) which means “power to the people”. The word was coined around 500 BC when there were popular uprisings in Greek cities demanding freedom, equality and equal access to power. Thus democracy puts power in the hands of the people which they exercise to elect representatives to govern them. The elected representatives in turn are supposed to carry out the ‘will’ of the people and fulfill their demands and aspirations. This correlation to people in governance (unlike other political systems) has led to its wide appeal and acceptance world over. In India democracy is vibrant and firmly entrenched in its socio-political system, with people electing governments at regular intervals. However, this system of representation and election is extremely susceptible to corruption and can soon result into oligarchy if proper tabs are not placed on it and people do not actively monitor it. Unfortunately, democracy has not evolved to be self-correcting and free from corruption. Today, the election which is the core democratic process has largely failed to provide governments that honestly address the basic needs and aspirations of the people. The corruption by money and muscle power in the election process has more often than not relegated people to choosing from candidates who can hardly qualify as representatives of the people. Such candidates who are basically self-serving rarely have any interest in addressing the needs of the people and see the office as a money-minting place. Barring a few exceptions, the Indian polity has largely produced representatives/leaders of this genre. It is not hard to see then why the ground realities for a majority of the people haven’t changed much since independence.

The development has been compartmentalized and concentrated mainly in urban India which proves to be good money-making center for corporate houses and politicians. Despite over 60 years of independence and being the largest democracy in the world, India still reels under terrible corruption, social and economic inequalities, increasing gap between rich and poor and a lack of most basic necessities like healthcare, basic amenities, education etc. for most people. This is rampant in rural India where two-thirds of the population resides. Over the years, the elected representatives of democratic India have made only miniscule efforts to correct these problems. The media which was supposed to keep tabs on the functioning of democracy and inform people about it has degenerated from its role of the fourth state and a pillar of democracy to a mere entertainer and a panderer to sensation. Today mainstream media can be characterized as regressive, corporatized and pliant to government dictates. When ironically ‘revolution’ is not in the offing and left forces and movement seem in shambles what choices do we have? Can we strive for a true democracy free of money and corruption?

In the very least, the government can be pressurized to make the democratic process more representative of the people (what it has ceased to be) and insulate it from the effects of money and social ladder. The process should be made available to people who are genuinely interested in the common welfare irrespective of their economic or social status. Democracy is exercised by the people by casting votes and electing representatives in their constituencies. The process of collecting votes, counting them and declaring a candidate elected is conducted by a body of the administrative machinery, the Election Commission. In India the independence of the Election Commission is crucial for democracy to function and its constitution was a big step forward in fair democratic process. However its role is limited to conducting elections freely and fairly. It is beyond its powers to control the choices, the prejudices and the biases that enter into the process much before the actual casting of votes. The candidates/parties with more money-power usually do aggressive campaigning and sweep the voters with their own agenda. The voters in general are hardly ever able to hear alternate voices or choices they might have. More often than not the parties with money generate their funds through illegal and coercive means. That money is then mostly spent by parties in campaigning for elections and propping their candidates. Quite often business houses contribute to party funds in expectation of a favor when the party or their candidate comes to power. This initiates a cycle of corruption where the elected representative now tries to recover the money through local administration by pressurizing it, and also contributes to passing of laws favorable to businesses. In this entire cycle, people are invisible, absent and nowhere in priority. Their status is reduced to a mere tool that is exploited by the candidates/parties to get to power. It is no surprise that ultimately people bear the brunt of this corruption in the democratic process; as the local administration in turn takes money from the people in form of bribes and through other illegal means to satiate their political masters. This chain and access of money has made political aspirants (and also government bureaucracy) to see politics as a career instead as a service to people.

This vicious cycle of money is seen as an investment by a majority of political candidates and parties. This cycle needs to be disrupted. Party funds should strictly be generated through donations of people supporting the party and its cause, and should be restricted to only maintaining the day to day affairs of the party. The money spent by parties on elections and campaigning distorts the democratic process. To make the process fairer, money needs to be taken out of the equation. For that the role of the Election Commission or an equivalent body needs to be expanded to conducting canvassing for elections in addition to conducting the actual elections. This implies making campaigning through party or personal funds effectively illegal. Instead of taking the whole constituency as hostage during the elections, canvassing should be restricted in venue and time decided by the Election Commission. The time frame for canvassing should be fixed and the place for canvassing should be any pre-designated place in the constituency as decided by the Election Commission. A pre-designated place can be any open place, a play ground, campus ground, parks or other open space in the constituency selected by the Election Commission for canvassing. All canvassing by candidates should be done at this pre-designated place under the purview of the Election Commission which will make all infrastructure arrangements at this venue. Making this structural change, effects of money in the election process can be neutralized and will make candidates, parties on par in real terms.

The fallout of this can be numerous candidates coming out for contesting elections. If at all this happens, where the number of candidates becomes unwieldy (the possibility of having hundreds of candidates is quite unlikely), then too, the Election Commission can step in to screen the candidates by conducting a primary election. The Election Commission can ask for a one page manifesto from candidates, publish it and distribute it among the electorate. The manifestos of candidates/parties can be distributed through local newspaper distribution channels or can be made available at public places, schools, common grounds etc. The voters can then choose top few candidates in the primaries based on the manifesto and agenda of each candidate. Literacy can become an issue in several parts of the country and in such places representative of local administration can read the manifestos to voters at the pre-designated place. Once the final number of candidates is decided after the primaries, the pre-designated places in the constituencies can be used for organizing addresses of candidates to the people. The Election Commission should ensure that each candidate gets equal number of time slots to address the voters. On similar lines, television channels (government or private, national or local) and radio stations should be asked to allot a certain fixed time free of charge for candidates for canvassing. It should be made mandatory for the media to participate constructively this way in the election process.

Preserving democracy is not only the onus of the government but is also the duty of the people to preserve it by actively participating in it. Having primaries will not only give candidates a level playing field but will also allow greater participation of people in the democratic process thereby giving them a greater control over the election process and who they elect. Candidates incarcerated on criminal charges should be barred from elections until they finish their prison terms. The manifesto and primaries should however be able to eliminate such candidates automatically. The relative anonymity in the process of primaries should also prevent election violence and killings of rival candidates. Still, election violence is an extremely critical issue that should be dealt separately, still under the purview of the Election Commission. The final candidates after the primaries should be given adequate police protection until the final elections to prevent them from violence from other parties/candidates. In remote places, where booth capturing is rampant and there is not adequate police force to prevent it, reinforcement should be done from other constituencies or else local people should be empowered and armed by local administration to prevent such incidents from happening.

This amendment can be a step forward to eliminate the flaws in the existing democratic process. The democratic process needs to be reformed in a way such that only most selfless people, committed to common welfare are attracted to politics and work for the betterment of one and all. There is a long way to go but history has taught us that civil and just societies are formed only after continued struggles and rights are obtained slowly and in parts. The crucial thing is to continue working towards the humane and just world and not give up in the face of tremendous hurdles posed by capitalist and bourgeois ruling class.

The Human Crisis

On December 18th 2009, the most significant and biggest United Nations Climate Change Conference COP15 (15th Conference of Parties) in Copenhagen, Denmark came to a close. The venue of the conference at Bella Center witnessed representatives from government, business and civil societies spanning 192 countries around the world. It was a continuation of the international efforts initiated at the “Earth Summit” in 1992 in Rio, which was attended by 172 countries and resulted in the first international agreement to limit emissions of greenhouse gases: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In 1997 the convention was expanded to include the Kyoto Protocol, which for the first time set binding targets for the greenhouse gas emissions of 37 industrialized countries by 2012. These targets amount to an average decrease of 5% against 1990 levels over the five-year period 2008-2012. The Protocol placed a heavier burden on developed nations under the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” For the years following 2012, the 13th annual conference of member countries (COP13) in Bali came out with the Bali Action Plan aimed towards a new agreement to be negotiated at the 15th annual conference COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. Through COP1 held at Berlin in 1995 to COP 14 held at Ponzan in 2008, technical details were resolved; responsibilities for each country, penalties/sanctions for non-cooperating countries, and modes for further actions were worked out. The meetings were often marked by vehement political discussions triggered by the US stand on climate change and its complete rejection of Kyoto protocol. The US remained the single biggest hindrance in all climate talks, especially since President Bush came to power.

Given this brief background, COP15 was an effort to create common ground to further substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions, explore methods of changing the way the world uses fossil fuels and possibly moving away from them significantly in the coming future. Since the UN adopted its convention on climate change in Rio in 1992, global carbon emissions have risen by 30 percent, a disturbing trend that the UN wants to reverse. COP15 was held to address this dire situation by coming up with some effective and immediate action plans. The goal of the UN is that by 2050, CO2 emissions, the principal greenhouse gas (other greenhouse gases are water vapor, ozone, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride and methane) should be halved compared to their 1990 levels. It also wants the planet to be no more than two degrees centigrade warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution (a period between the 18th and 19th century). COP15 was supposed to bring the member countries together into a binding agreement like Kyoto Protocol to achieve these goals.

UNFCCC recognizes that the developed countries are principally responsible for the current high levels of green house gases in the atmosphere, as a result of more than 150 years of industrial activity. It also notes that, “Carbon dioxide is responsible for over 60 per cent of the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’ (warming of earth’s surface and lower atmosphere). Humans are burning coal, oil, and natural gas at a rate that is much, much faster than the speed at which these fossil fuels were created. This is releasing the carbon stored in the fuels into the atmosphere and upsetting the carbon cycle, the millennia-old, precisely balanced system by which carbon is exchanged between the air, the oceans, and the land vegetation. Currently, atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are rising by over 10 per cent every 20 years.” UNFCCC is essentially saying that we will have to depart from the culture of burning fossil fuels sooner than later. It is not hard to see which country burns the most fossil fuel.

The consequences of a warmer planet can be seen and felt from the melting polar ice caps to the drying sub-Saharan Africa. In countries such as Kenya, as the desert expands, the chances of nomadic farmers finding water for their cattle shrink and hence their main source of sustenance is threatened. In a country where famine threatens up to 10 million lives, crop shortages have devastating effects. In countries like Kenya, Cameroon, Swaziland, Malawi, Benin etc. indigenous people are solely dependent on forests which are quickly disappearing. Famine, drought, scarcity of water and food, and dying livestock constantly threaten these countries. In other countries like Nigeria, Zambia, Uganda etc. many coastal cities will disappear by 2050. Famine can soon be a threat to India too, with its melting Himalayan glaciers and shifting monsoon patterns. As in Africa, the Indian subcontinent can soon have climate refugees with rising hurricanes in coastal areas and flash floods in the Himalayan regions that have already contributed to the migration of a significant percentage of the local population. Further from mainland, Island nations like Tuvalu, Maldives, New Caledonia, Soloman Islands, Samoa and others in the Pacific and Indian oceans will be virtually wiped out from the face of the earth before the turn of this century if the biggest polluters like the US do not pledge to cut down their emissions by 40% from 1990 levels. 80% of Maldives has an elevation less than 3 feet above sea level and the island nation of Tuvalu has a maximum width of only 5km; the threat of extinction for these countries is more real than one can imagine. The same threats exist for the Phillippines, Fiji, islands of Hawaii, many other island nations in the Pacific Ocean and archipelagos north east of Australia. Even the US faced the devastation from Katrina, and recent snowfall in Oklahoma and Dallas, which shows that no country is isolated from climate change. The environmental group Germanwatch issued a report ranking the countries hardest hit by extreme weather based on socioeconomic data. For 2008, Burma topped the list, followed by Yemen and Vietnam. The United States ranked fifth, higher than any other industrial nation.

For the UN, these desperate times called for drastic measures that it had hoped to put in place in Copenhagen. However developed, emerging and under-developed economies did not all agree on targets. The biggest polluter in the world, the US, contributes to 25% of the total emissions with only 5% of the world population. Despite this disproportionate statistic, the US has offered to cut emissions by 17% from 2005 levels which translates to only 4% from 1990 levels, a target matched by Canada. Along similar lines, the EU offered 20% with Russia and Japan offering up to 25% of 2005 levels. The world’s second biggest polluter, China, said it will reduce its “carbon intensity” – or the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of GDP – by between 40-45% compared to 2005 levels by 2020. Similar to China, India says it will reduce its carbon intensity, while Brazil offered a 20% cut from 2005 levels. This shift from 1990 levels to 2005 levels was initiated by the US significantly lowering the bar. Also, the US offer was the least despite being the biggest polluter; China being the second biggest polluter still offered much higher cuts. Then there was the issue of who is going to pay for it. China, India, South Africa and Brazil came together to demand that richer countries share their green technology or pay poorer nations to develop their own. Ecuador which is sitting on a rich gas reserve demanded a compensation to ‘keep the oil in the soil’. Miguel Lovera, the chief negotiator for Paraguay who has played a key role in negotiations over the world’s rainforests, pushed for a deal for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). African, Latin American and small Island nations had more stringent demands of capping the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, over 40% cut in emissions from the US from 1990 levels, and reparations for the damage done to their country, environment and people. They said they are suffering the consequences of a problem they did not create; and hence have a just demand for compensation from industrialized rich nations who created this problem for their own unbridled development. Scientific studies which are unanimous in their opinion show that the current goal of capping temperature increase to 2 degrees and the non-binding proposals by each country, will culminate to a 3-3.5 degree temperature rise in Africa, spelling disaster and wreaking havoc in the African continent which already has climate refugees. In the first week of the conference, the developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that showed that world leaders were to be asked the following week to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chair of the group of 132 developing countries known as G77, condemned the leaked document. These are only a few examples of disagreements among nations showing a clear rich-poor nation divide and global north and global south divide. As a result, the countries could not come to an agreement and the talks failed.

The failure to achieve a binding agreement among the nations of the world not only shows a deep crisis to save our planet and ourselves, but it also has very profound implications that need to be carefully considered and acted upon. The Copenhagen talks amply displayed the global feudal order existing in the modern world. The so-called ‘world leaders’ showed extreme apathy and callousness not only towards a dying planet, but also towards fellow human beings whose lives are deeply entangled with the health of our planet. The talks were a tug of war between more than a hundred nations on one side and a few rich ones on the other and the result was quite predictable. It’s almost a consensus that the US single-handedly sabotaged the climate conference by flatly refusing to make any significant contributions. It constantly tried to circumvent, shirk and deny the historical responsibility of putting maximum greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, accepting which translates to justice for several countries especially small island nations whose very survival is on the line if the emissions are not controlled in the near future. There was hope in the international community that President Obama might take a different stand and propose a meaningful cut in emissions, but he brazenly reiterated the stand of his administration and climate negotiation team. In fact, just before leaving the UN climate summit, Barack Obama said to his own small White House press corps, “We will not be legally bound by anything that took place here today.” The ‘hope’ was shattered. President Obama has proved himself to be a “brown sahib” of colonial India.

As the ‘leaders’ of the world converged in Copenhagen, the civil societies, climate activists and hundreds of other dissidents were barred from entering the premises and their voices were shut out by police crackdown on the most peaceful, legitimate and humane demonstrations. Prominent active organizations banned from the conference were Greenpeace, Friends of Earth, Network to Protect Rainforests, League of Island Nations, African Wildlife Foundation etc., organizations that have waged the struggle to reverse climate change for decades. Several protesters were apprehended by Danish police merely on suspicion and were released long after the conference ended. Governments are supposed to represent the people, but in practice they act exactly opposite with hardly any exception. The rich nations stooped to horse-trading and ‘dinner-deals’ in ‘green rooms’ with several developing nations’ leaders to give away as little as they could. A significant example is Ethiopia, which was persuaded by France to reduce their demand from 100 billion in reparations to a meager 1 billion. Australia did everything possible to persuade the island countries around it to cut back their demands. It is rumored that China cut a deal with the US for emissions. The conference was marred with such incidents and the voices of the people largely remained unheard.

To register their presence just across the street from Bella Center, civil societies, climate activists and organizations held their own alternate people’s climate summit called Klimaforum09. Thousands joined and its massive meetings (at times swelling to 100,000) were addressed by veteran climate activists like Vandana Shiva from India who said, “it is time for the US to stop seeing itself as a donor and recognizing itself as a Polluter, a Polluter who must pay”; Koomi Naidu of Greenpeace; Nigerian Environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of Earth who said, “the Global North Owes a Climate Debt to Africa” and has campaigned against Shell Oil’s presence in the Niger Delta for nearly two decades; Sarah James, a longtime advocate for the Gwich’in people in Alaska (with the Indian-born photographer Subhankar Banerjee, who has spent years documenting life in the Arctic) said, “erosion, fires, depleting knowledge of land by people as well as animals has generated a tremendous crisis for survival”. Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai who started the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya mobilizing women to plant millions of trees was also present. Activists from the Pacific island of Hawaii (Kwai) see themselves as an illegal part of the US and blamed the US for bringing the island nations to the brink of survival. Rajendra K. Pauchauri, chair of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN) commented that the offer for a cut for emissions is at least some progress from the Bush administration which had completely refused to recognize climate change. He also said that if people could give up eating meat just once a week; that would be a significant contribution (7-8%) to the reduction of greenhouse gases. A group of international climate justice activists are still on a prolonged hunger strike. Even before the conference began, protesters took to the streets in Belfast, Glasgow, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and London. The largest protest was in London, where the organizers of the ‘Stop Climate Chaos’ protest estimated the crowd total to be 50,000. Participants in the march included Britain Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, actor Peter Capaldi and former BBC weather presenter Michael Fish.

Latin American, African and even Asian countries openly lambasted the US stand and criticized it in strongest terms. Hugo Chavez from Venezuela summed it up by saying that if it were banks in need, President Obama would have very willingly shelled out trillions; but when the lives of people are on the line and countries are on the verge of extinction, it is of least concern to President Obama. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa commented on President Obama: “He is now a Nobel Laureate—become what you are”. Prime Minister Mohammad Nasheed of Maldives, one of the frontline countries in this conference, made an emphatic and impassioned appeal for climate change promising carbon neutrality for Maldives by 2050. Fifteen-year-old Maldives climate ambassador Mohamed Axam Maumoon on his message to the world said, “On the basis that you know what you are doing is wrong and you can see that the victim is begging for mercy…would you commit murder?” Bolivia’s chief climate negotiator, Angelica Navarro said “Twenty percent of the population has actually emitted more than two-thirds of the emissions. And as a result, they have caused more than 90 percent of the increase in temperatures. We are not begging for aid; we want developed countries to comply with their obligation and pay their debt.” The appeals and cries for help went on and on. The Philippines were so vocal for climate change measures that the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had to pay a visit to the Philippines to pacify them (the US invaded the Philippines in the last century and established and supported an unpopular dummy government for years). After the conference, the Swedish minister openly lambasted the US as the sole culprit for failed climate talks and a constant hurdle to humane and just climate solutions. The other Scandinavian country Norway also faces intense crisis for its indigenous people and their lands affected due to oil extraction.

It was nearly 25 years ago that Bill McKibben founded 350.org to educate and mobilize people to put pressure on governments to address the issue of climate change. The number 350 represents the amount of safe CO2 in the atmosphere in terms of parts per million (ppm). We are already at 387. If the emissions continue to increase at this rate, we will be at 770 by the turn of the century and the earth will be virtually unlivable. The cooler [and industrialized] global north will obviously be the last to be affected. This shows that the industrialized nations were aware of their wrongdoings and its possible impacts for a long time and still took no action and continued to splurge energy and resources thereby putting more CO2 in the atmosphere. However, the indigenous people of the extreme north (Alaska and Arctic region) put forth their extreme conditions where melting of glaciers has ruined their lives and source of food. The nations suffering the most today (African and Island nations) are not the ones that put such dangerous levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. These nations are therefore perfectly justified in demanding climate reparations from industrialized nations. The EU and other rich countries more or less agree to this concept, but are willing to offer monetary aid and transfer of green technologies only if the US took the lead. As expected, not only did the US not take the lead of any kind, but it also bullied other countries to agree to its terms in which each country (basically the US itself) will conveniently decide upon its own emission cuts [suiting them] and will contribute to a 100 billion dollar fund generated from public and private sources by 2020. It also refused to commit or put anything on the table unless its irrational demand was accepted. The overall offer from rich countries was only 10 billion.

It’s a human crisis. It’s a struggle to survive, a struggle to save populations from going under, a struggle between global north and global south, a struggle to save the planet and prevent countries from going extinct. Bolivian president Evo Morales directly blamed this crisis on capitalism and demanded an end to capitalism which according to him is reckless industrialization and pursuit of a ‘better life’. He advocated living well rather than living ‘better’, which by its very definition and connotation is at the expense of others. The fight for climate justice is a fight for social justice, it’s a fight of poor against rich, it’s a fight for equitable distribution of wealth and resources, it’s a fight for a permanent end to the exploitation of people and resources, it’s a fight to work for the welfare of the people and not industries and adopt green lifestyles irreversibly. Unfortunately, the onus to take the lead in this fight is on the most powerful nation in the world, which happens to be the single biggest contributor to emissions. Such world domination by a single nation i.e. the US has been unprecedented in history and so the task for the rest of the world to force the US to change its ways becomes extremely daunting. It’s a unipolar world now, where the sole superpower is extremely aggressive, hawkish and a threat to humanity.

The unipolar moment dawned with the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. With the Soviet deterrent gone, the US suddenly acceded to being the only imperialist superpower in the world. Although some might naively think that moment to be the end of the cold war and end of NATO, which was primarily formed to counter USSR during the cold war, nothing of that sort happened. On the contrary, NATO expanded quickly to eastern Europe dishonoring its pledges to Gorbachev for non-expansion. As it is not hard to guess, the key player in this expansion was the US and it extended his hegemony rapidly. With the collusion of the EU, the US can now intervene in other countries’ affairs without fear of any repercussions. In the current unipolar world order, the US is not likely to face situations like the Cuban ‘missile crisis’ that occurred during the Kennedy presidency. As early as ten years ago, the US considered ‘green’ to be the new ‘red’ scare. Jeff Luers, an environmental activist, was arrested in Oregon, US ten years ago on charges of arson in which he and his fellow activist set fire to three trucks without hurting anybody to draw attention to climate change. He was sentenced to twenty-two years in high security prison. The sentence was later cut down to ten years by an appeals court and Jeff Luers was recently released. This shows extreme apathy within the US government and its institutions for the environment and climate change. This is important in the context of climate change. This attitude and apathy gave a free pass to neo-cons operating in the US and its allies (basically rich countries) to expand their operations unhindered into other countries, plunder and exploit resources and people, and thereby bring the world closer to destruction while reaping enormous profits and obscene lifestyles for themselves. The exploitation of resources, people especially in the global south is horrifying. Most delicate eco-systems such as the Amazonian basin, Niger delta, rainforests, and fishing waters have been polluted and destroyed by the corporations of the rich countries in their unbridled extraction of oil and other natural resources. The way for such massive atrocities was paved by wars and proxy wars on fraudulent reasons like security where popular governments were overthrown and proxy governments, hugely unpopular but favorable to the US, were established. It was a suitable condition for ‘businesses’ to grow and expand thereby destroying earth and its indigenous people. Oil companies provide the most chilling and horrendous examples in African and Latin American continents. It is no surprise that Africa with its much of eco-system destroyed bears one of the severest brunt of climate change with no adequate rain, drought, flood, disease and dying livestock.

It is the glaring work of neo-cons that has brought the world and the human race to a near disaster. It’s the neo-cons that control policies in the US and accordingly the US wages wars to gain access to new markets and resources and thereby contributing to destroying our planet. According to Karl Marx, given the material conditions and the plight of the people, especially workers, where survival becomes a daily struggle should have culminated in a world-wide spontaneous revolution. But that did not happen. The workers of the rich countries extracted some benefits from the capitalist class and thereby contributed to the fragmentation of what could have been a plausible world-wide movement. Other than the contribution of the labor movements, the benefits were obtained largely in part due to the destruction of competitive industries in other countries like Japan and Germany during World War II. The workers in the poorer and less privileged countries continued to suffer and re-distribute wealth to capitalist class and workers of the rich countries who became beneficiaries of the imperialist system. However, these benefits don’t last forever. The current economic recession in most industrialized countries especially the US, triggered by the financial sector in their reckless pursuit of profits did not hit the ‘banking and business elites’ but rather the common people. The government quickly stepped in to bail out the rich capitalist and financial class leaving the workers and common people in a lurch with a significant number of them losing their jobs and homes. Wringing benefits from the capitalist class is not a permanent solution for the perpetual welfare of the working class as when the inherently unstable (as Minsky noted in the early 60s) bubble of capitalism bursts as it did now and many times earlier, the working class will be the first to suffer the consequences. The rising unemployment especially in the automobile sector in the US amply demonstrates this. The workers of the auto sector enjoyed decent and comfortable lives in the last century mostly due to protectionism from competition from other countries. This allowed the owners to make bad and risky decisions solely for profit thereby ruining the industry. In the long run the people who suffer are the workers and not the owners and the business and financial class. It is in this retrospective that it becomes crucially important to see beyond immediate benefits. The future of most people in the world is intricately linked through common welfare. It is not possible to sustain perpetually at the expense of other people. It is this stark fact that people world over especially people of rich countries must realize to unite in solidarity to reverse the most ugly profit making juggernaut of the capitalist class. Marx described such a phenomenon as ‘internationalism’ in terms of unity of labor movement around the world where national boundaries are blurred for common and universal good. The current crisis calls for such unity of action and that is the only means to achieve universal and sustained welfare of people and planet.

The solidarity of nations displayed at Copenhagen is the only strong silver lining to this failed conference. This is quite unprecedented on the stage of world affairs and with right efforts can have profound implications. The failed climate conference has once again thrown a rare and tremendous opportunity for people world over to unite and fight for climate justice, which is actually fighting for social and economic justice. It translates to demanding structural changes in the way the economies are run; and making a clear and definite break from the market and capitalistic economy which is essentially exploitative. It is burying the concept of ‘business as usual’ and the ‘free market’ myth which is simply a tool for the rich nations to intrude into other countries to access and exploit their resources. The ‘free market’ historically has never really existed. One need not be an intellectual to comprehend this when one’s daily life is a witness to inhumane and degrading living conditions, worsening day by day and hope for a secure future getting slimmer. The ruling class the world over, whether elected by people or not, by far have given in to the neo-cons and have very rarely represented or fulfilled the aspirations of people. The so-called ‘world leaders’ have again proved this to be true at COP15 where the modern feudal lords prevailed and destroyed the conference.

The progressive left forces in the world remain the only hope for humanity, but they continue to be terribly divided. It is of extreme urgency that they join together with all other progressive and active forces of climate justice and form a world-wide alliance. A lack of unity in purpose among progressive forces has given a stupendous advantage to the neo-cons who were united and clear in their objectives of turning the workforce into serfdom and exploiting the planet for reaping enormous and relentless profits for themselves. The neo-cons instituted a pseudo-democracy with token and farce elections which are meaningless and offer no real choices to people. It’s a momentous point in the history of mankind, for people to join hands and fight together. It is also a great responsibility for people of rich countries, especially the US to pressurize their governments to address climate change and hence social justice; justice for one and all, justice for the citizens of the world. A real democracy, communism and socialism will all converge to a single point if the will of the people and their welfare world-over becomes the primary focus in the socio-political process. That is the only way of achieving climate justice and a means to survive. BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) together with G77 need to put economic pressure on the US and the EU to change their ways. Transferring of green technologies has limited relevance; it’s the political will propelled by the people that needs to come into action to stop this catastrophe.