the hypocrisy of the united nations
taken from the class journal i was bitching about in my last entry... for anyone interested in globalization and the unethical spread of capitalism... how it is killing people and how the united nations doesn't care, but pretends to (which is worse in my opinion).
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The main thing I noticed about Tuesday's United Nations lecture is the contradiction and hypocrisy living within the Economic and Social Council. It's strange that UN advocacy groups and the World Bank/World Trade Organization are under the same organ, but yet perform very contradictory tasks. The work of Dr. Vandana Shiva immediately came to mind, and I had to go back and research a little before I wrote this.
According to Shiva, whose work primarily centers on ecological and sexual justice in India, agriculture employs about 70 percent of the working population in India, and about 84 percent of all economically active women. On the same hand, organizations like the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (although her 1993 work cites GATT), make it difficult, if not impossible, for rural Indian farmers (who are mostly women) to achieve a basic subsistence. Through "structural adjustment" programs, and under the banner of "free trade," multinational corporations--particularly those originating in the United States--are able to export tons and tons of grain (India's most widely produced crop and staple to the Indian diet) into the country and charge about 50 percent less than what local farmers' grain sells for; and as Shiva notes, "US foodgrain is cheaper not because it is produced more efficiently at less cost, but because despite high costs of production, US corporations and the US government can subsidize and fix prices" (Shiva, p. 234, Ecofeminism, 1993). Of course, local farmers do not enjoy nearly as much money in subsidies, and are even encouraged by the WB to eliminate them.
In this way, WB and WTO (formerly GATT) trade liberalization policies displace local farmers and make it impossible for them to compete with MNCs. The result is not merely poverty, though it is included, but starvation, famine and often, death. According to Shiva, the "conservative estimate" of free trade and "liberalization's" effects on India's food consumption indicates there will be 5.6 percent more famine than there would have been without these UN policies. Based on this estimate, she says, free trade will lead to 26.2 percent reduction in human consumption of agricultural produce (Shiva, p. 236).
These facts taken together with the United Nations' so-called "Declaration of Human Rights" and even the "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women," give light to a major contradiction existing within the United Nations' structure. Even stranger is that these two contradicting policies were cultivated in the same organ! This is the same as if human livers actually produced alcohol--the outcome of course is one defunct body. How can the United Nations draft global legislation protecting human rights in one room, while in the other drafting legislation that is literally killing people?
There is also a major discrepancy in the forms of enforcement of UN advocacy legislation and WB/WTO policies. Violators of human rights are...? Brought to the International Court of Justice if they feel like it? While, on the other hand, violators of WB and WTO polices are punished economically in the form of trade sanctions when powerful countries and MNCs refuse to buy their exports. Shiva cites an example dealing the Nigerian government back in 1988. When the Nigerian government imposed a ban on wheat imports on the grounds that they were depressing domestic food prices and reduced the production of domestic staples, the Cargill Corporation threatened to impose trade sanctions against Nigerian textiles (p. 237).
What seems evident in all these cases and examples are the true values underlying the United Nations' motivations. Money, profit and the rights of those already richer than they need to be are evidently more significant than local indigenous citizens and human rights in general. What we have here is a gloabl manifestation of all the unethical components hiding within the model of capitalism. Now, even on a global scene, capitalism has spread the end-all, be-all philosophy of monetary gain while sacrificing the livelihood of all who stands in its way. Shiva quotes Rudy Boschwitz, former Minnesota senator and spokesman of the Reagan farm policy, as saying, "If we do not lower our farm prices to discourage these countries now, our worldwide competitive position will continue to slide and be much more difficult to regain. This discouragement should be one of the foremost goals of our agricultural policies" (Shiva, p. 234).
The only way I can relate this back to my own life is the fact that organic and locally grown produce is always more expensive in my community and others around the country. This is of course making it more difficult for the average person to consume healthy foods; just look at the sky-rocketing rates of cancer, heart disease and obesity around the country. In this way, dirty capitalist practices are affecting the health of Americans as well, but killing us slowly. It will be more difficult to blame profit-hungry corporations for this, too, because Americans technically have the right to die.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The main thing I noticed about Tuesday's United Nations lecture is the contradiction and hypocrisy living within the Economic and Social Council. It's strange that UN advocacy groups and the World Bank/World Trade Organization are under the same organ, but yet perform very contradictory tasks. The work of Dr. Vandana Shiva immediately came to mind, and I had to go back and research a little before I wrote this.
According to Shiva, whose work primarily centers on ecological and sexual justice in India, agriculture employs about 70 percent of the working population in India, and about 84 percent of all economically active women. On the same hand, organizations like the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (although her 1993 work cites GATT), make it difficult, if not impossible, for rural Indian farmers (who are mostly women) to achieve a basic subsistence. Through "structural adjustment" programs, and under the banner of "free trade," multinational corporations--particularly those originating in the United States--are able to export tons and tons of grain (India's most widely produced crop and staple to the Indian diet) into the country and charge about 50 percent less than what local farmers' grain sells for; and as Shiva notes, "US foodgrain is cheaper not because it is produced more efficiently at less cost, but because despite high costs of production, US corporations and the US government can subsidize and fix prices" (Shiva, p. 234, Ecofeminism, 1993). Of course, local farmers do not enjoy nearly as much money in subsidies, and are even encouraged by the WB to eliminate them.
In this way, WB and WTO (formerly GATT) trade liberalization policies displace local farmers and make it impossible for them to compete with MNCs. The result is not merely poverty, though it is included, but starvation, famine and often, death. According to Shiva, the "conservative estimate" of free trade and "liberalization's" effects on India's food consumption indicates there will be 5.6 percent more famine than there would have been without these UN policies. Based on this estimate, she says, free trade will lead to 26.2 percent reduction in human consumption of agricultural produce (Shiva, p. 236).
These facts taken together with the United Nations' so-called "Declaration of Human Rights" and even the "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women," give light to a major contradiction existing within the United Nations' structure. Even stranger is that these two contradicting policies were cultivated in the same organ! This is the same as if human livers actually produced alcohol--the outcome of course is one defunct body. How can the United Nations draft global legislation protecting human rights in one room, while in the other drafting legislation that is literally killing people?
There is also a major discrepancy in the forms of enforcement of UN advocacy legislation and WB/WTO policies. Violators of human rights are...? Brought to the International Court of Justice if they feel like it? While, on the other hand, violators of WB and WTO polices are punished economically in the form of trade sanctions when powerful countries and MNCs refuse to buy their exports. Shiva cites an example dealing the Nigerian government back in 1988. When the Nigerian government imposed a ban on wheat imports on the grounds that they were depressing domestic food prices and reduced the production of domestic staples, the Cargill Corporation threatened to impose trade sanctions against Nigerian textiles (p. 237).
What seems evident in all these cases and examples are the true values underlying the United Nations' motivations. Money, profit and the rights of those already richer than they need to be are evidently more significant than local indigenous citizens and human rights in general. What we have here is a gloabl manifestation of all the unethical components hiding within the model of capitalism. Now, even on a global scene, capitalism has spread the end-all, be-all philosophy of monetary gain while sacrificing the livelihood of all who stands in its way. Shiva quotes Rudy Boschwitz, former Minnesota senator and spokesman of the Reagan farm policy, as saying, "If we do not lower our farm prices to discourage these countries now, our worldwide competitive position will continue to slide and be much more difficult to regain. This discouragement should be one of the foremost goals of our agricultural policies" (Shiva, p. 234).
The only way I can relate this back to my own life is the fact that organic and locally grown produce is always more expensive in my community and others around the country. This is of course making it more difficult for the average person to consume healthy foods; just look at the sky-rocketing rates of cancer, heart disease and obesity around the country. In this way, dirty capitalist practices are affecting the health of Americans as well, but killing us slowly. It will be more difficult to blame profit-hungry corporations for this, too, because Americans technically have the right to die.