The new year: Equations and expectations

The whole world has tried to take a fresh breath on the first morning of the New Year 2006 but eventually found smell of blood and fire, bombs and drugs, pollution and destruction. We cannot forget last year's human tragedy and inhuman barbarity of many power lords including super mighty US lords in many parts of the world including Iraq; plunder, genocide, deprivation, deception all haunt the world in the New Year.

The year 2005 ended with Hong Kong ministerial of WTO that again showed global hegemony in a vulgar scale. Bangladesh, despite its least developed status, pay duties on their export to the US 15 times more than developed country like France. The OECD countries pay 5 times more in subsidizing their big agro farms than what they offer for the whole 'third' world as so-called foreign aid, about 1 billion US dollar a day.

WTO does not talk about armaments but that is where most of the resources go. Every year about 900 billion US dollar is spent for armaments and war in the world. It is worth noting that more than 50 percent of this spending on destruction comes from the USA, where people die from Hurricane, lack of health care and also more than a 1000 are being killed in a year from firearms shooting. Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans of the USA showed that taking care of people's lives and security do not primarily depend on resource but on the priority and nature of the State and institutions.

According to the UNDP estimate, only 1 percent of expenditure on armaments is needed to ensure safe water for everybody in the world. What a cruel world we are living, hundred times of the amount necessary to make a world much safer go for destruction. That happens because that is a trillion dollar business, business of arms, business of water. It is not therefore surprising to see increase of people in poverty and deprivation along with growing resources.

In Bangladesh, a peripheral country in global capitalist setting, a dazzling skyline along with ugly rampant poverty has developed side by side. Development projects endorsed by the succeeding governments along with hypocrite elite and sponsored by the global lords, e.g., the World Bank and IMF turned the economy from mills to malls, created affluence of the few and poverty of many, polluted air and water, evicted people from land, caused havoc to natural resources , gave birth to 'black' economy and non-stop violence. Security measures offered by the USA, secret agreements with the USA and many multilateral agencies in fact increased insecurity of people and vulnerability of the economy. Killing people in 'crossfire' in 'anti-terrorism' drive continued with terrorism and bomb blast. Religious, racial intolerance increased in every way. While Bush justifies genocide in the name of divine order, establishment of divine law becomes a tool of regimentation in Bangladesh too.

International oil companies in Bangladesh showed that their mission of profit not only goes against the optimal utilization of energy resources, rather it turned the natural gas resources as liability for the people and country. The Economist (December 24 2005-January 6, 2006) showed that similar things had happened in many weak countries around the world. Big blowouts in Magurchara and Tengratila in Bangladesh also showed corporate greed as well as inability on the one hand, and government's role as nothing more than extension of greedy foreign companies on the other. There are other similar and worse offers in the pipeline, if those can take place, we will find the 2006 much more vulnerable.

The year 2005 ended in Bangladesh with the news of killing of a garment worker by beating by officials from factory management and three poor brown sugar manufacturers by the police. In a country like Bangladesh, premature death and killing of various nature draw little attention, the State or elite civil society give a damn to these insignificant incidences. For them this is insignificant because they are used to see and accept millions of people dying prematurely from hunger and hunger related diseases, curable diseases and problems caused by lack of shelter, not to say about violences.

So many people are being killed in countries like Bangladesh for faulty design of vehicles or garment factory building and non-monitoring of the authority year after year. The year 2005 witnessed hundreds of people drown and die in the river (February) and again hundreds of garment workers killed for building collapse (April). Former chief economist of the World Bank and the secretary of US treasury Lawrence Summers once estimated that value of lives of people depends on their earnings. This type of outrageous worldview helps ruling elite and global agencies like the World Bank or IMF to shut eyes to these premature deaths, in fact killing, of the poor.

Bangladesh has now PRSP, so-called poverty reduction strategy paper to attain MDG or millennium development goal. Actually, the PRSP is nothing but compilation of policies and strategies that had created sustainable poverty instead of sustainable development in the country. In that consideration, PRSP does not seem to be actually a paper of poverty reduction. The hue and cry of MDG is nothing but to keep people restrained from dreaming of far better possibility. In fact, the MDG goals stand far behind than the objectives attained by even resource poor and 'aid' free Cuba. The possibility and potential of the world is much bigger than the MDG tries to show us.

People around the world are gathering against all these after finding the destruction behind mask of 'development', genocide behind 'liberty', poverty creation behind poverty reduction, disempowerment behind empowerment; they are gathering to create another world free from corporate hegemony. There lies the possibility of having a new year, a better year.

The year 2006 may become really new if we would be able to see beyond the line set by global and local lords, breaking down corporate spectacles, and to strengthen struggles at different levels to have a development vision where people, not profit, stand in the centre.

Anu Muhammad is Professor, Department of Economics, Jahangirnagar University.