12-31-2004, 07:42 PM
On Sunday the 26th December at 8am local time, deep below the Indian Ocean, Allah (swt) -by His divine decree -ordered the seabed to violently shake. And by His (swt) command the shaking of the earth set in motion mighty waves to roar across the sea at speeds of up to 500kmph and heights of 10s of metres until the surging tides slammed into coastal towns and cities across the continent. The waves hit India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Siri Lanka, Thailand, Burma and several countries on the East coast of Africa causing a colossus of destruction and demolition.
Tens of thousands of lives have been lost and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes and left vulnerable to disease and hunger.
Indeed, it is Allah (swt) alone who is the one who instructs the earth and the sea as He wishes, and it is He alone who takes life, and it is He alone who provides for his creation. The magnitude of this event should serve as a reminder to all those who witness it – that Allah (swt) is the almighty and all-powerful and the only one worthy of worship.
And by the grace of Allah (swt), Muslims and non-Muslims all over the world have been humbled by the forces that easily overwhelmed man. Many have been reminded of man’s dependence on his creator and how he exists only by Allah’s (swt) leave and His mercy.
At the same time we witness those who continue to surpass in their arrogance and their evil. Western powers have wasted no time in making great speeches of grief and concern and grand announcements of how they will rapidly make great strides to assist the disaster stricken people of the Asian earthquake.
However, it is important that some greatly significant facts/quotes are considered when viewing this ‘Hollywood’ display of humanity by Western governments.
Human disaster is not a new phenomenon –It is estimated that one third of all human deaths –some 18 million people a year (majority women and children) are due to poverty related causes such as starvation, diarrhoea, pneumonia etc which could be treated quite cheaply and easily.
The UN’s 2003 Human Development Report has demonstrated that the era of globalisation has accompanied such levels of poverty with a widening inequality gap, where the richest 5% of the world’s people receive 114 times the income of the poorest 5%.
The global capitalists system and concentrated the wealth in a few hands with nearly half the world’s population living on less than US$2 a day consuming a mere 1.25% of the world’s global product.
In 1998, the IMF, the World Bank and other international agencies loaned Indonesia (one of the victims of the earthquake) more than US$50 billion. But with the bailout came stringent restrictions. The IMF-imposed austerity measures which exacerbated the crisis. Between 1997 and 1998, according to the World Bank, the number of Indonesians living in poverty had doubled.
Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs speaking at the World Bank, Washington stated: “The IMF starts with the truth that budget deficits should remain small in order to preserve macroeconomic stability. Then it demands budget austerity of impoverished countries to the point where those countries can't even keep their people alive. In addition, the IMF has repeatedly insisted on debt servicing that exceeds the combined spending of the health and education ministries.”
A senior aid official in a meeting on development cooperation in Addis Ababa in February 2004 commented. “Donors are playing a dangerous game. You come with inadequate amounts that are highly conditioned and fundamentally unreliable, then you insist on negotiating as though you are a valuable partner, then you are surprised that these governments don't trust you”
Conclusion
It is sickening to see the Western governments, particularly the US and the UK who have from their own initiative created a humanitarian disaster of greater proportions in Iraq, suddenly make great claims that they want to help the disaster stricken in the world.
Over the last few decades Western governments have shaped the global capitalist system to ensure that the world’s wealth concentrates in their own hands, and have used tools such as the world bank and IMF to consolidate poverty and famine in the poorest countries.
The countries affected by the aftermarth of this earthquake have long prior to this been suffering great poverty and famine and have therefore been unable to effectively respond to such a disaster. However as opposed to rushing to their aid when witnessing their permanent stare of poverty, it was the West who drove them to famine by means of the global capitalist system and using tools such as the IMF and world bank.
Therefore when Western governments rush to help disaster stricken countries – it is little more than hypocrital lip service – as the cause for the permanaent humanitarian disaster in the thrid world is the West itself.
Only a complete upheaval of the global capitalist system and independence from the West will lead the third world to an alleviation from their continual situation of poverty and suffering.
by Asif Dawood
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