It’s Not Always That Simple (Post 4)
It’s probably more complex than what you think.
Imperialism 101
Michael Parenti, author of “History as a Weapon: Imperialism 101”, points out how many exploited countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America are sometimes left with no choice but to rely on foreign investments to keep the country and its people going. Parenti explains how the imperialistic acts of western developed countries, like the United States and Europe hindered the prosperity of exploited countries through the exploitation of their natural resources. He furthers his argument and says with this distinction, there seems to be a need for developed countries to supply “aid” and help (a.k.a police over) these countries.
Parenti says imperialism is the act of “carving up whole continents while oppressing indigenous peoples and obliterating entire civilizations”. Back then, military men acquired and secured land for an imperial power. But now, the world thrives on the system of neo-imperialism in which developed countries are able to keep their control over exploited countries through businessmen in suits, the globalization of many corporations, and profiting or capitalizing over the land, labor, raw materials, and markets of other nations for their own enrichment.
How This Reading Deepened My Understanding?
Before I thought that Brazil’s president was the only bad guy, but it’s also the western developed nations that are to blame due to their imperialistic ideals. For this reason, many exploited countries like Brazil are reliant on foreign investments because it’s difficult for them to extricate themselves from this global capitalist sphere that roots from neo-imperialism. The author provides an example of the rainforests of Borneo in the South and states, “The [indigenous] people there lived contented lives. They hunted, fished, and raised food in their jungle orchards and groves. But their entire way of life was ruthlessly wiped out by a few giant companies that destroyed the rainforest in order to harvest the hardwood for quick profits. Their lands were turned into ecological disaster areas…” What happened to the Borneo rainforests is identical to the Amazon rainforests in Brazil, but instead of hardwood it’s gold, silver, and copper.
Similarly, the effects are the same and those are quick profits and turning many of the land into uprooted plots of land and gradient brown fields filled with mud and sedimentary rocks. The Amazon is full of life and indigenous people, so when we auction off a part of it or allow foreign investors to mine, there’s no knowing that the land maybe home to many indigenous people. Moreover, because of this the indigenous people are often neglected and the life in the Amazon is left disturbed, trashed, and torn.
Again, President Temer of Brazil relied on overseas investors because it’s supposedly a great opportunity to open up jobs for the Brazilian people. However, like any business or corporation, to make the most of their profit they need to cut their production cost and maximize profits.
The most common way of achieving that is producing or manufacturing the product overseas where there’s a cheaper labor market. Besides cheap labor, foreign investors like how overseas they can enjoy and take advantage of “direct subsidies, land grants, access to raw materials, light or nonexistent taxes, few effective labor unions, no minimum wage, no child labor or occupational safety laws, and no consumer or environmental protections,” as Parenti says. Countries like Brazil, is every developed nation’s paradise, and Parenti proves this by explaining how “profit rates [in exploited countries] are 50 percent greater than in developed countries.”
What Can Be Done? Is There A Solution?
Years of colonialism or imperialism left many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America shattered. Most of the burden should be on developed countries like the United States and Europe, because they paved the way for making neo-imperialism possible in the first place. We should also acknowledge that the Brazilian president might not be the only one at fault because pulling away from the neo-imperialistic cycle is difficult to be done.
The author of “History is a Weapon: We Are Power”, John Trudell, states how “we are a natural part of the Earth…[and] Earth is our mother.” What he’s trying to say is that we are indebted to Earth and mother nature, so whatever it offers to us isn’t owned by any person but only borrowed. However, I feel that the indigenous people are natural safe keepers of nature. They have a more expansive knowledge of nature than we do, and learned to co-exist with nature for a long time. So if we demarcate land for the indigenous we could protect the Amazon and natives, and possibly stop foreigners interests there.
Works Cited
Parenti, Michael. “History is a Weapon.” Imperialism 101, www.michaelparenti.org/Imperialism101.html.