Who Shall Inherit
the Earth?
By Anwaar Hussain
The present chaos in the world is
painted by some as a struggle between dictatorships and democracy, yet
others have termed it a war between Christianity and Islam, calling it
a Crusade. There is neither any such struggle between democratic and
dictatorial forces visible anywhere, nor are there are any Crusades
going on. We are only witnessing a continuing saga of the Haves and
the Have-nots.
Regardless of cast, color, creed or national identities, the world is
divided into two main opposing social classes, the tiny Haves and the
massive Have-nots. The main driving force of modern history is simply
the struggle between these two classes. Religious polarization is
merely another tool in the hands of the Haves to keep the Have-nots
busy, heads down, in their myriad struggles lest they pause long
enough to behold their own emaciated selves and the folds of fat
around the frames of the slave masters.
The chief instruments of the Haves are state institutions, propped and
funded by huge corporations, through which they keep the Have-nots in
line while continuing to milk them. The teeming billions, groaning
under the yoke of their own labor, are frequently given strong doses
of patriotism---laced with enough religious fervor---to numb the
feelings of pain and keep the mills grinding.
Just in case any one doubted that the world’s population is divided
between a small fraction who own most of the wealth and the enormous
bulk who must work for them in order to survive, here are some facts.
According to a UNDP report, the net wealth of the 10 richest
billionaires is well above $130 billion, more than 1.5 times the total
national income of the least developed countries.
The WDM (World Development Movement) says that the causes of world
poverty are the policies currently pursued by governments and
multinational companies. It continues;
"Policies of governments and companies are keeping people
poor. Policies that ensure global trade benefits the rich, not the
poor - the three richest men in the world are wealthier than the 48
poorest countries combined. Policies that give increasing power to
multinational companies - for every £1 of aid going into poor
countries, multinationals take 66p of profits out. The powerful are
exploiting the poor to make bigger and bigger profits."
"More than 1.2 billion people – one in every five on Earth
– survive on less than $1 a day. During the 1990s the share of
people suffering from extreme income poverty fell from 30% to 23%. But
with a growing world population, the number fell by just 123 million
– a small fraction of the progress needed to eliminate poverty. And
excluding China, the number of extremely poor people actually
increased by 28 million." Hence "in Latin America and the
Caribbean, the Arab States, Central and Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan
Africa the number of people surviving on less than $1 a day
increased."
"Some 54 countries are poorer now than in 1990. Of the 54
countries with declining incomes, 20 are from Sub-Saharan Africa, 17
from Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),
6 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 6 from East Asia and the
Pacific and 5 from the Arab States."
"Poverty has increased even in some countries that have
achieved overall economic growth, and over the past two decades income
inequality worsened in 33 of 66 developing countries with data."
The evidence shows that not only has global inequality not been
reduced over recent years, but some recent research has argued that it
has actually increased (The Economist 26/04/2001). The Economist puts
it another way. It points out that, "This level of inequality
is equivalent to a situation where 66% of people have zero income, and
34% divide the entire income of the world among themselves
equally!"
As the earth’s resources continue to diminish fast, the greed of the
Haves has now reached a feverish pitch in direct proportion. In their
quest to siphon out the last of the riches from the earth’s bowels,
they will travel far with their false ideologies and insidious creeds.
Anyone hindering their feeding frenzy will be obliterated without a
second thought.
Take the saga of a resource-rich region of the world, for example. The
history of Middle East since the discovery of oil has evolved around
the lengths to which the UK and USA will go to maintain control of
this oil and to prevent any rival from gaining a foothold there. Mass
murder of Middle Eastern people, political coups, assassinations and
various stage-managed social upheavals have been but merely the cause
and effect of the plan to loot and plunder. The more the media
statements from politicians and their subsequent actions are analyzed,
the more apparent the monumental deceit and deliberate misleading
becomes.
Therefore, to think any more that the present Iraq war was foisted
simply to overthrow a brutal dictator and free the Iraqis or to stop
the spread of weapons of mass destruction is as naïve as it sounds.
It is being fought over a key energy source, oil, of which Iraq has
the second biggest reserves after Saudi Arabia. The chief aim is to
secure future supplies of such energy resources, essential to the
political and economic well being of the ruling elites. Period.
In other words, this war is no different from any of the wars that
have taken place in modern times. It's a commerce war. The greed of a
few is driven by the competitive struggle for profits between
corporations and states. Conflicts over sources of raw materials,
investment outlets, markets, trade routes, and strategic choke points
to control and protect these are the essential manifestations of the
gluttony of the few.
When the Haves judge that their "vital interest" is
threatened - e.g. needing to secure access to a key raw material,
trade route or military outpost - they go to war. Global greed of the
Haves, therefore, breeds war. Consequently massive propaganda
exercises are employed by the state to stoke the fears and anxieties
of the Have-nots regarding their material poverty and physical
insecurity to justify these wars.
The problem is further compounded by the fact that there are competing
gangs even among the Haves because of the natural rivalry of their
greed. Although secret organizations like the Bilderbergers
exist to minimize this competition and help share the loot equitably,
unquenchable avarice can be a dangerous thing. The real evil in this
world is thus caused by the adversarial gangs of ruling class hoodlums
who control all media outlets, and the ignorance of the Have-nots who
support them. The purpose-built divisiveness of class, race,
nationalism and religion by the ruling elites further strengthens
their cause. It is thus that the world is brought to the brink of a
blood-bath for possession of its precious assets.
In one sense, though, the present conflict may be called a Crusade.
Currently, the Muslims happen to be sitting on 70% of the world’s
energy resources, and the Christian West’s ruling elite are rooting
for the same. But if by some quirk of fate, a few alternate sources of
fossil riches were found out in, let’s say, Greenland or Iceland,
the Crusade would shift there faster than one can say the names of
these countries.
The only counter to this onslaught of the Haves then is a united world
community without frontiers based on all the Earth's resources,
natural and industrial, becoming the common inheritance of all
humankind and being used to satisfy people's needs rather than for
cutthroat profit.
It is by now a given that the present ruling elites propagate wars.
Therefore, to get rid of wars, the threat of wars and the constant
preparation for war represented by maintaining huge armed forces -
this class of blood suckers has to be got rid of. To break the yokes
around their necks, the Have-nots of the world have to combine their
energies. And while they are attempting that, they have to make sure
not to ally themselves with even a tiniest fraction of the Haves.
Carrying their Crosses wrapped in national flags, the Haves tend to
behave like yeast fermenting the entire milieu around them.
That voices were raised against the war, millions of voices, shows
that there is hope…..the hope that the Have-nots will one day
realize the potential for mutual dependence and support, the hope that
this is not merely wishful thinking and has tangible basis in material
reality rather than mere moral conjecturing.
The ultimate question, then, between the Haves and the Have-nots: Who
shall inherit the earth?
