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Dear FOTH Friends:
I have not followed
the current discussion on FOTH under the title of “All Secular Pakistanis need to unite”. I fail to see
why the Seculars need to unite? Why not all unite and work together, why
divide? What are the Seculars expected to accomplish after uniting? The
groups being addressed live in Canada which is already a
secular country. So what is this all about? I did read Dr.
Khalid Sohaill’s post #1, but it failed to
generate any enthusiasm for me to follow the discussion. I fail to see its
socio-economic impact on people in Canada. Also, I do not see its
possible application in Pakistan of today, while the country is going
through an economical upheaval and socio-political turmoil with religious
extremism left over from 1980s Soviet-Afghan war and now rejuvenated by the
Bush-Neocon ‘war of terror’.
A friend pointed out
post #58, by Mr. Joyce on an entirely different
subject, ‘imperialism’ and his own understanding (or misunderstanding) of
same. It is this post that prompted me to write.
Mr. Joyce has stated,
“Postings on FOTH talk about imperialism at every turn,
for some reason. I wanted to ask everyone, "What do you mean by it?
Where is your evidence?"
The dictionary
definitions of ‘imperialism’ essentially mean what I have written below. In
a nutshell it is:
[The policy
or actions taken by a nation in its own interests to influence other
nations through military or economic coercion].
I am not sure what have
the other contributors posted, but I think most would agree with the definition
I have presented. The reason some may have talked about imperialism ‘at
every turn’ (as Mr. Joyce has put it) as many of them may have had a first
hand experience of being at the receiving end of what is considered to be the
consequence of imperialistic hegemony.
When talking about
imperialism, I think Mr. Joyce is limiting him to the old classical use of
Japanese traditional style of referring to their Emperor’s government.
Describing postwar era
and American-Japanese relationship, Mr. Joyce appears to be exceedingly
patronizing towards America.
Some one from another planet, if reading Mr. Joyce’s post, would be obliged
to think that the Japanese should be indebted to the Americans for their
(Japanese) industrial development. The matter of the fact is that Japan had a
high percentage of highly educated workforce and nearly 99% literacy. To
make a comparison, the American literacy rate today is about 97%. Japan was
under American occupation after the WWII from 1945 to 1952. The country was
totally destroyed during the war, not to mention the complete obliteration
of two of its larger cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki used by the
Americans for the ‘field trial’ of their earlier crop of the nuclear bombs.
After WWII, the GNP data of the major countries involved in the war is
shown in the Table below. Note the rate of the rise of the Japanese GNP.
|
Year
1951
1955
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
|
Nominal GNP of Five Major
Nations,
1951-1980 (amounts in US$
billion)
|
|
Japan
14.2
22.7
39.1
88.8
203.1
498.2
1,040.1
|
USA
328.4
398.0
503.8
688.1
992,7
1,549.2
2,633.1
|
W.Germany
28.5
43.0
70.7
115.1
184.6
418.2
816.5
|
France
35.1
49.2
60.0
99.2
145.5
339.0
657.1
|
Britain
41.4
53.9
71.9
100.2
124.0
234.5
525.5
|
Taken From: http://www.jref.com/society/japan_postwar_economic_miracle.shtml
Most countries in the
world have some kind of natural resources; Japan has none, not even coal.
The Japanese society has a unique culture and work dynamics. A big change
that the Japanese went through as a nation after the war was that the
society opened up to the outside world.
[ Mr. Joyce may be well advised to read a book, titled: Theory Z,
by William Ouchi. Theory Z augments the classic
Theory X and Y, proposed by McGregor, a Socio-Psychologist in 1950s. Theory
Z describes the Japanese work force, their zeal and unique organizational behaviour and comparison with the American workers. The
book was published in early 1980s and may be out of print now, but some used
copied may still be available through the major book distributors such as
Amazon.ca/com etc.]
America
did extend assistance to Japan
as it did to W. Germany after the war but
the real motivation for it was to keep these technologically advanced
nations from joining the Communist bloc as the cold war had started the
moment the WWII ended. During the first winter after the war, the Americans
used dozens of DC3 aircrafts to supply coal to the Berliners to keep them warm
and grateful to America.
All this was done to keep them on their (American) side.
If one is looking for
examples of imperialism, especially the American imperialism, then, post
war American-Japanese or American-German relationship would be the wrong
places to look for such examples. One has to look for American imperialism
examples in Latin America, Iran
and Iraq.
There is a lot of information available in terms of books and articles
which have appeared on the subject during the last five decades. There is
ample of evidence of American imperialistic activities during this period. In
fact American imperialism is out of control ever since the demise of USSR. I
suspect others must have been referring to such examples when referring to
‘imperialism’. When talking about American imperialism, one cannot overlook
the imperialistic ambitions mischief of its side kick Israel.
The imperialism in the
present day environment will be of no value to America
merely by occupying a country such as Japan that has no natural
resources and does not have cheap labor. But the imperialism can be of
value if a country like Iraq
is occupied /controlled because of its huge oil deposits and cheap labor to
work on the oil wells.
Another
imperialism related story
which has been unfolding since 9/11 is American interests in Afghanistan and Pakistani province of Balochistan. The average citizens
of America
and its affluent allies, naively think that the
US/NATO forces are doing the world a big favor by spending its resources,
both in terms of material and human life, looking for Ossama
Bin Laden to save the world from him. In reality, America, using its military muscle is paving
its way into the central Asia to get
access to the Caspian region to make way for its oil/gas pipeline that it
has been dreaming for about 20 years. That is another example of today’s imperialism
in action.
It should be noted
that now a days, imperialists are not interested in expanding their physical
borders. Today, the imperialism is driven by economic and strategic needs.
Mr. Joyce has further
stated about Japan:
“The effect has been genuinely civilizing. Japan is a
more harmonious nation than it was under the old imperial system.
I wonder,
what does Mr. Joyce’s mean by “civilizing”? Are we to assume that Japan was
an uncivilized country, until the war took place? Most societies have
changed with time. Only 50 years ago, in some American states the whites
would not allow a black person to sit in the front of the bus, but now they
have elected one as their president. Also, they don’t have slaves now,
while one time, slavery was a big business. In fact the country is more or
less built with the slave blood and sweat. Similarly, Japan has
changed too. It’s the technology and man’s natural evolution along with the
technological development around the globe.
About Japan, Mr.
Joyce further adds:
It long ago joined the family of civilized nations, and America can
largely be thanked for that”
I am not aware if
there is a family of civilized nations, perhaps he is referring to those
nations which have been the imperialists during the last four centuries and
have been plundering the natural resources of those who were militarily
weaker and could not defend themselves. After acquiring affluence and
technological development at the cost of others, they may have now declared
themselves to be the ‘family of the civilized’. Perhaps, Mr. Joyce would
like to elaborate this point.
May I remind Mr. Joyce
that a few centuries ago there were highly developed societies in the
Middle East when the Europeans were hard pressed to collect fire wood to
keep warm, London England was a small town
occupied by feudal lords. Bristol, England was a small fishing village only
waiting for the New worlds like Americas
and Australia
to be discovered and the slave trade to begin to provide fuel to the imperialists machinery to colonize the world or a big
chunk of it.
About the Saudi
investments, Mr. Joyce has stated:
“the Great Satan has been sufficiently open
economically to allow foreign investors of
an alien and sometimes hostile culture to
own a huge slice of its insurance schemes,
its banks, its
construction companies….a huge slice of its very self”.
Everyone loves to see
investment money coming in from other countries, so the Great Satan is not
doing any favors to the Saudis. Iran’s Shah was another one who
had a few trillion dollars invested with the Great Satan. Where is this
money now? Would the Iranians ever see those investments again? By the way,
to add another example of imperialism, please read up on how CIA removed
the democratically elected government in Iran and installed a stooge,
the Shah. The story is interesting and full of intrigue. It is all about ‘imperialism’,
designed for economic benefits. To assure the security of supply of oil is
also an indirect economic benefit for the long run - a proactive action to
ensure for the future.
Sincerely,
Javed I. Chaudry
Jan 25, 2009
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