Of Migratory Birds, Recycling Roma, Palm Oil and Disappearing Deltas

Some interesting articles I came across in the past few weeks and thought I would share:

Article one is about the destruction of ancestral land and rainforest in Western Kalimantan in order to grow palm oil plants. The growing demand for palm oil products in India, China and Europe and which Indonesia is hoping to cash in on is having a negative effect on the native Dayak Kanayan people. I had posted about Borneo, palm oil and the Penan people in a previous post.

The second article is also about environmental degradation, this time in the Indus river delta region in southern Pakistan. Keti Bandar was once a thriving river port but it is now struggling to keep from being submerged and it appears as if it will go the way of another nearby town, Kharo Chhan, which in 1946 used to be part of the mainland but is now an island about 30 minutes’ boat ride from the shore. Significant irrigation infrastructure and over extraction of water are the causes cited by experts for this sad situation- displacement of people, dwindling poultry and livestock, sea intrusion, shortage of drinking water etc.

The third article is about a rare colony of flamingos leaving Camargue, a marshy region in southern France. The birds have nested on an artificial island in the delta of the River Rhone for thirty years but a strike at the local saltworks has meant that no saltwater from the Mediterranean has been pumped into the lagoon in which the island sits. The brine shrimp in the area and its relative safety provide ideal breeding ground for the flamingo. There is however hope for the flamingos as the saltworks and employees seem to be heading to a solution which will include conservation efforts.

Climate change is being blamed for a drop in the numbers of migratory birds visiting Britain each winter and is the subject of the fourth article.

Philosophy and Recycling in Albania is about the Roma community in Albania and their efforts at recycling and reusing scrap. One of the persons mentioned in the article is a chemist whose job is to assess the toxic levels of the country’s dumps but whose real passion is translating the works of Bertrand Russell from English into Albanian.

Of Colonialism, Partition and Legacies

I have an absolute hatred of colonialism and imperialism and I don’t mince my words about this. As far as I am concerned Europe’s imperialism and colonialism were brutal, exploitative, oppressive systems and there was nothing positive about it. There are apologists including from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East who try to point to supposed benefits of European domination such as education systems, infrastructure and governmental structures. The fact is that all those places that the Europeans went to possessed their own way of living, dynamic cultures and systems of governance and the only positives from the experience were felt by Europe who enriched herself at the expense of black and brown people and on their blood, sweat and tears. Obviously there were cronies and traitors who collaborated with the oppressors for a few pieces of silver.

All of this brings me to the date August 15th when the British formally ended their physical colonisation of India and two nations were born through a disastrous partition- India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan celebrated their 60th anniversary of independence on August 14th and 15th respectively.

60 years on, India rivals China and Brazil for the status of new economic power while Pakistan grapples with political unrest and economic stagnation. The central question that remains to this day is whether partition was the correct decision. It is a difficult question to answer.

Oppressed people inevitably rise up to fight their oppressors and it was no different in India. By the end of the 19th century, nationalist movements had started to become stronger and by the beginning of the 20th century were calling for the end of the British presence. The were organised largely along the lines of religion- Hindu and Muslim- with the Congress Party representing the majority Hindu population and the Muslim League representing the minority Muslims. British divide and rule policies which worked so well throughout its empire also reaped much success for them in India and allowed for their dominance.

The 1930s and 1940s saw increased calls by the Muhammad Ali Jinnah led Muslim League for a Muslim state to accompany the exit of the British and this was not helped by the non-reconciliatory position of the Congress Party which further convinced Jinnah and his party that a separate state was the only solution. The end of World War Two and the economic realities of Britain made it clear that the practical move for the British would be to grant India independence. The Labour Party won the 1945 elections and Lord Mountbatten was dispatched to India as the last viceroy in March 1947 with an agenda to transfer power as quickly as possible. The deadline for British withdrawal was brought forward from June 1948 to August 1947 and on August 15th, the British formally ended their rule of India. The months preceding the exit had witnessed all manner of discord, rioting, communal fighting and unrest and this only served to cement the British view that they needed to leave as quickly as possible.

Many historians have argued that this hasty withdrawal was one of the major causes for what happened next- the largest ever migration of people as 10 million Hindus and Muslims made the move into India/ Pakistan. Ironically, the borders of the new states were only announced on August 17th. They had been drawn up by a British lawyer, Cyril Radcliffe, who had no knowledge of local conditions and who used outdated maps and census information. Communities and families were cut into two and estimates put the figure of people killed in the resulting slaughter and riots at one million- a tragic loss of human life.

While both countries inherited ruined economies, poverty, social and economic malaise and instability, in 1947 it was obvious that India had gained much more than Pakistan from the partition. Pakistan was a state made up of two parts separated by India- West Pakistan and East Pakistan- and this logistical nightmare for effective governance would result in East Pakistan becoming independent Bangladesh in 1971 after a brutal civil war in which India intervened on the side of East Pakistan. Pakistan only inherited 17.5% of the colonial government’s financial reserves and by the time the army was paid, there was no funding remaining for economic development. Its economy was mostly agricultural and controlled by feudal elites while 90% of the subcontinent's industry, and taxable income base remained in India, including the largest cities of Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. The core of the Muslim League’s support was based in central north India- Utter Pradesh- and as such, those Muslims had to migrate westwards into Pakistan. This meant competition with local populations for access to resources and employment, a recipe for conflict.

The issue of Kashmir also erupted shortly after independence and resulted in a war between the two new states. Kashmir was a princely state with a Muslim population but ruled by a Hindu Maharaja who faced with an uprising at partition fled Kashmir and decided to cede it to India. Pakistani tribals moved into the area and clashed with Indian troops and this intensified into outright war. The war ended in 1948 and a ceasefire came into effect on Dec 31st, 1948. Kashmir was divided into two with the ceasefire line known as the Line of Control demarcating the pseudo-border. The UN Security Council called for a plebiscite in the region to enable the people there to determine their own future. While Pakistan claims that it in principle accepts a plebiscite, India has refused to agree to one. In 1989 an armed insurgency rose up against the Indian presence and it continues to this day. I visited Kashmir in 1999 for a few weeks during my four month trip to India. It is a beautiful place and it is so sad that the wonderful people there have had to live in the midst of political conflict. I am sure if they are given the chance, they would overwhelmingly choose to be an independent nation.

Jinnah’s death, ethnic and religious differences and the inability to agree on a constitution paved the way for a military coup in 1958 and since then Pakistan has mostly been ruled by the army. Indian secularists managed to gain an upper hand, a constitution was ratified and democratic elections were held in 1951, making India the world’s largest democracy. India has however not spared from ethnic and religious conflict and tensions between Muslims and Hindus and Sikhs and Hindus have often turned violent. While India’s economy continues to grow phenomenally, the disparities between rich and poor are extreme and in both India and Pakistan a large proportion of the population live in poverty.

A look at India and Pakistan today makes one wonder if all the bloodshed, suffering and billions of dollars spent on defence were worth it. On the one hand, an undivided Indian subcontinent would have been much more economically viable and definitely so for Pakistan and Bangladesh. It also is rather ironic that in 1947 far more Muslims were left in India than incorporated into the Muslim state. One wonders about the political strength of this combined Muslim body in an undivided India. While it would still be a minority bloc it would be much larger than what it is today. On the other hand, the violence met out to Muslims at different points since independence and most recently in Gujarat in 2004, the rise of Hindu fanaticism, the election of Hindu nationalists who view India solely as a Hindu country to government and events such as the destruction of the Ayodha mosque in 1992 seem to confirm the fears of the Muslim League for Muslims in a majority Hindu India.

It is a complex situation that historians will continue to grapple with and disagree about for years to come. What is most striking though is that while millions of people go hungry every day and lack access to basic health, water and education in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, billions of dollars are spent on arms and weapons.

Emancipation Day

Today, August 1st, is celebrated as Emancipation Day in many parts of the Caribbean. The day that the August 1833 Slavery Abolition Act came into effect for the British Empire. While the slaves were emancipated, under the terms of the Act they were to be indentured to their owners for a further six years to help ease the transition from slavery to free labour. The Act also stipulated that all slaves under the age of six were to be freed and that the slave owners were to be compensated 20 million pounds for the loss of their “property”. The apprenticeship system under which the slaves were to be bonded to their owners until 1840 proved to be a failure and was discontinued two years earlier in 1838.

Freed from bondage, ex-slaves throughout the Caribbean would form free villages and a dynamic peasantry that existed alongside and often in conflict with the plantation system. The abolition of slavery also saw the introduction of first Chinese and then Indian indentured servants to the region by the British Government. From 1838- 1917, approximately half a million Indians were brought to the Caribbean- predominantly to British Guyana and Trinidad but also to Jamaica and some of the Windward Islands- to toil on plantations and in conditions not exactly very different from those that existed during slavery.

The history of the Caribbean is one steeped in blood, tears, sweat and oppression. It is also a history of resistance, human will and survival in the face of extreme cruelty and barbarism. The institution of slavery, abolished 173 years ago, still continues to haunt the region- the social and economic realities in many parts of the Caribbean and the ownership of economic power is still linked to slavery and colonialism; the attitudes of people, the prevalence of social and economic hierarchies based on skin colour, the fact that concepts such as “good hair” and “pretty brown skin” still prevail and that people can still adamantly state that if not for slavery and colonialism they would still be “swinging around in trees in Africa” or “suffering in Africa” are an indication that the psychological shackles on some people need to be removed. Unfortunately, too many of our people are ashamed of the past or believe, in agreement with many of the descendants of the former slave masters, that we must “move on”. Ironically these same people are the first to speak about the Holocaust or other acts of genocide! I do not advocate dwelling on the past or focussing on the wrongs of the past to such an extent that an individual or society does nothing to improve their situation. However, I do advocate that people be taught their history and that in the same way other races, cultures, nations and societies ensure that their history is never forgotten, the descendants of African slaves should ensure that their story is never marginalised or ignored. As Marcus Garvery said, ‘A people without knowledge of its past history and culture is like a tree without roots’.

I posted a lengthy entry in March for the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain. It encompasses most of my views on the slave trade, slavery and abolition so I will cut this post short and not repeat what I wrote before.

Brixton Riots 1981

On April 11, 1981 the arrest of a black man sparked off three days of riots in Brixton, south London. Rioters fought police, attacked buildings and set fire to vehicles; over 300 people were injured and the damage amounted to approximately £7.5 million.

The riots shocked the UK but tensions had been building up for a while and finally boiled over. Brixton was (and still is) an area with a large minority population and especially West Indians. Half of all black men had no jobs and many young black men accused police of discriminating against them particularly through the unfair use of the “Sus” law which allowed police to stop and search anyone they suspected of planning to carry out a crime. While an amended Race Relations Act had become law in 1976 police forces were exempted from its provisions. The week before the riots, a special police operation called “Operation Swamp” had seen police stop and search over a thousand people under the “Sus” law supposedly in an attempt to crack down on street crime. The operation caused widespread resentment among the young men of Brixton who felt that they were being unfairly targeted and heightened tensions. On the evening of April 10th, a crowd had gathered to confront police after rumours of police brutality against a black man but they had dispersed. The following night, an arrest resulted in full scale riots.

Although the arrest of a man had sparked the riots in Brixton, high unemployment, deprivation, racial tensions and poor relations with police were not unique to Brixton. The next few months would witness a host of similar disturbances including in Manchester and Liverpool.

An inquiry was commissioned by the Government and headed by Lord Scarman. His report published in November 1981, stated that there was "no doubt racial disadvantage was a fact of current British life". He recommended that "racially prejudiced" behaviour be made a specific offence under the Police Discipline Code with offenders liable to dismissal. The report also led to the end of the “Sus” law, the creation of the Police Complaints Authority and police/community consultative groups and new approaches to police recruitment and training.

However, he concluded that "institutional racism" did not exist in the Metropolitan force and it would be another twenty years before the scope of the Race Relations Act would include the police. Ironically, eighteen years later, Lord Macpherson’s report stemming from an inquiry into the police investigation of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence by a group of white youths would arrive at a totally opposite conclusion: that the Metropolitan Police were institutionally racist.

The Brixton riots drew national attention to the situation of black people living in Britain and led to blacks becoming more politically active. However there were sporadic disturbances in the 1980s and 1990s and black people continue to face numerous problems ranging from discrimination, deaths in custody, racist attacks, poverty, unemployment and low academic achievement among boys. With the focus of Britain now on its Islamic population and particularly those of Pakistani origin, the challenges facing blacks have assumed even less importance.

200th Anniversary of the British Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade by Britain. Much has been written and will be written about the slave trade and slavery but I don’t think justice will ever be done to the topic until some people face the truth and are completely honest with themselves. Just as many have produced excellent literature on the subject, many have tried to reduce it to a certain epoch in history and as something to be forgotten. Of course it is easy for the descendants of the perpetrators of this crime against humanity to say this, for after all their riches have been made, their societies have industrialised on the blood, sweat and tears of African slaves and they do not continue to suffer from the negative legacy of slavery. Not to mention, the countries which benefited from slavery are fundamentally opposed to any mention of reparations. However, while these people are despicable, even worse are the revisionists, pseudo-intellectuals and apologists (many driven by right wing evangelical zeal) who attempt to shift the blame onto Africans, arguing that it was Africans who sold their people into slavery and then seek to paint a picture of humanitarian European acts to abolish the slave trade and slavery. I have nothing but contempt for people like this, especially when they are black.

However the truth is the truth and despite their endeavours to propagate lies and mislead people, these are some facts about the slave trade, slavery and colonialism:

The trans-Atlantic slave trade and the enslavement of Africans by Europeans are without doubt one of the worst cases of barbarism, cruelty and injustice in history and is a crime against humanity.

Europe and America industrialised and enriched themselves on the blood, sweat and tears of African slaves. Slavery and colonialism fuelled their economic growth for over three centuries and the exploitation, rape and pillage of the people and raw materials of the colonised lands served to underdevelop Africa.

Slavery has always been a part of human history and there was slavery in Africa before European slavery. However European slavery was a totally different type and there is no comparison between slavery in Africa and the Middle Passage, the total reduction of a human being to mere chattel and the sheer brutality and magnitude of the European system. Revisionists also like to point out somewhat triumphantly that Africans sold their brothers/sisters into slavery. This may have been true but it is nothing like the picture they paint. Slavery was a part of African customs but was not an integral aspect of the local economies and one of the first things my history books noted was that Europeans raided villages to obtain slaves. Obviously as time went on and the corrupt ways of the Europeans began to influence the local populations, slaves were brought to them, but as it stood, the European economies’ thirst for slave labour was fuelled by slave raids.

The slave trade and slavery were abolished mainly for economic reasons as brilliantly argued by Eric Williams in his seminal work, Capitalism and Slavery. Slavery as a form of labour had become unviable and hence it was abolished. The role of abolitionists like Wilberforce and Clarkson was important but has been rendered undue prominence to convey the impression that the Europeans in some great moralistic and ethical wave granted freedom to the enslaved. The fact is that if it had not become an economic liability to maintain the status quo, the British government would have never changed the system.

The role slave rebellions played in the end of slavery has also been largely ignored. The planters lived with the constant fear of slaves rebelling and of another Haiti. In the end it was better to agree to free the slaves than to live with this fear or worse to experience a rebellion.

Opposition to slavery did not necessarily mean being a Wilberforce. All those who died during the middle passage and all those who rebelled and resisted either passively or actively played a significant role which cannot be marginalised. There were also quite a few blacks who were involved in the “intellectual” opposition to slavery in the US and UK, such as Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglas and Olaudah Equiano (incidentally Equaino was first brought as a slave to Barbados). They wrote books, pamphlets, memoirs and give lectures but as is the norm, Wilberforce, Clarkson et al are afforded all the praise and attention.

Race and economics were the two primary reasons for European slavery and are so intertwined that they cannot be treated separately or one given prominence over the other. A desire for empire and riches was conveniently married to the belief in superiority and the quest to civilise the dark world. Greed, lust for power, notions of racial superiority, religious fervour and pure evil all merged and reinforced each other to enable and justify the oppression of fellow human beings.

Compensation and reparations, words that many regard as taboo, are very real issues which must be addressed. It is not only logical that Europe pays reparations but also moral: the wealth of Europe and America was gained on the basis of the exploitation, oppression, blood, sweat and tears of African slaves and on the rape and pillage of the raw materials of Africa and the developing world; there must be some form of compensation, plain and simple. The notion of reparations is not unique or new. Slaveholders in the US and Caribbean were compensated for the “loss” of their slaves; Haiti had to pay reparations to France for having the audacity to win independence; the Germans paid reparations after World War One and paid between 60 and 100 billion US dollars to Israel and the Jews for the Holocaust; banks and insurance companies and other institutions which benefited financially from the Holocaust are still to this day paying reparations. However, when black people speak about reparations, they are told that it is not possible after such a long period of time has passed, that they should move on, stop dwelling in the past etc. When one speaks of reparations, one does not necessarily mean cash payments to countries or individuals. For me, compensation is about international policies to reverse the negative effects of racism and slavery, partnerships between developed and developing countries to promote social and economic growth, investment to foster the human resources of developing countries, fair international trading rules, a transparent and democratic international economic and financial system and international relations acted out on the basis of morality and decency rather than economic greed and quest for power. I guess this is probably asking too much!

One of the lasting legacies of slavery and colonialism is the mental enslavement that still continues to negatively affect the way people think and act. The absolute dehumanisation of the slaves and the systematic destruction of religion, language and culture, creation of stereotypes and a hierarchy based on race and the denial of African history would serve to and continues to define Africa, the African diaspora and relations between and within races. The fact that concepts such as “good hair” and “pretty brown skin” still prevail and that people can still adamantly state that if not for slavery and colonialism they would still be “swinging around in trees in Africa” or “suffering in Africa” is an indication that the psychological shackles on some people need to be removed.

Despite all of this, the endurance of African slaves and their descendants in the face of everything they faced is amazing. Living in a world where they were at one point not even regarded as complete human beings, the people of the Diaspora have managed to create pluralistic societies (in the case of the Caribbean) and have contributed in every way to the world, from music, cuisine and culture to science, literature, politics and sports.

Alrighty, I began with the intention of just making a few points and instead have ended up with much more. I can’t help it! I like to write and if I get started about something I am interested in, it is difficult to stop.