Thursday, January 20, 2011

A Nuremberg Trial for Speculators is Necessary: An Interview with Jean Ziegler

The Latin American alternative news site ADITAL has many interesting items, and I was inspired to translate this piece with Jean Ziegler, the first time I am hearing of him.  The 
piece is also in honor of my late Dad´s birthday, Marcio Rego-Monteiro, who worked at the U.N. years ago before passing away from cancer.

An international diplomat with the U.N., Ziegler published the work "The Hatred of the West," a criticism of the capitalist system dominated by Europe and the U.S.A.  The reporting is by Guillaume  Fourmont Madrid and was published originally at the site Publico.es, 12/29/2010. The translation is by Moises Sbardelotto. 
        Let no one be deceived by his very official role as member of the U.N. Consultative Commission on Human Rights.  Behind his university professor´s eyeglasses, the Swiss Jean Ziegler (b. Thoune, 1934) is a revolutionary.  He likes to provoke and raise his voice in ways his diplomatic colleagues do not hear spoken in the corridors of international organizations. 
        For example: "A child which dies of hunger nowadays is a murder victim."  For another: "We are democracies, but we practice a foreign policy fascism."  Ziegler is an advocate who argues in every phrase with numbers or citations of great intellects, such as this cry of pain by the anti-colonialist poet Aime Cesaire: "I live in a holy wound / I live in an obscured desire / I live in a long silence." 
       This wound is spoken of in Ziegler´s last book, The Hatred of the West (Ed. Peninsula), a title which holds the industrialized countries responsible for the ills of the world.  The writer does not lose hope and aspires to a revolution to end the cannibal order of the world."  On the cover of the work, the letter "i" in the word for hatred is drawn as a bomb with a detonator.  Only one second is portrayed as remaining before the bomb will explode.  
The interview follows.  

Is the world really going that badly? 
      Never before in history ha an emperor or king had as much power as that wielded by the oligarchy of financial power currently.  It´s their pockets that decide who livesand who dies.  Twelve billion people could eat, twice the current world population.  However, every five seconds, a child under 10 years of age dies of hunger.  That is murder!

Is that where the hate that you talk about comes from?  Why do they hate us?
     It is necessary to distinguish between two types f hatred.  One, first of all, is pathological, such as as that of Al Qaeda, which murders innocent people with bombs.  However, nothing justifies that violence, nothing!  My book does not deal with that issue.  I am referring to a meditative hatred, which seeks justic and compensation, which calls for tinkering with the structural system of the world that is dominated by capitalism. 

Haven´t we learned anything throug the crisis? 
     Lessons?  It is worse than ever: these speculator bandits who instigated the crisis and the breakdown of the Western system are now attacking products like rice and wheat.  There are thousands more victims now than before.  These speculators need to be put in the spotlight and in the hot seat.  A Nuremberg trial needs to be conducted for them!  

Sir, you work at the U.N.  Don´t you believe in the role of the international community?
      The mere fact that the internatinal community is conscious of world problems is positive.  The Millenium Objectives are not being met, but I´m not a skeptic. 

Don´t you think, at any rate, that the West is only interested in the West and maintain the Third World in poverty intentionally?
     Of course!  However what is needed is not more donations, but to rob less.  In Africa, you can find European products more inexpensive than local products, while people are worked too death. The hypocrisy of the Europeans is barbaric!  We create hunger in Africa, but when the immigrants arrive on our shores in boats we send them away.  To put an end to hunger, there has to be a revolution!

In the West?  Is that possible? 
     Civil society has woken up.  There are movements like ATTAC, Greenpeace, and ohers who make radical critiques of the world order.  In the West, we have democracies, but we practice a foreign policy fascism.  Nonetheless, nothing is impossible in a democracy.  "The revolutionary needs to be able to hear the grass growing." as Karl Marx said.

In your book, sir, you mention that the Bolivia of Evo Morales is an example.
     It is an excellent case.  For the first time in history, the Bolivian people have elected as president one of their own, an indigenous aimara.  Moreover, in six months they expelled the private companies which had been keeping all the benefits of the country´s energy resources.  The government, with these millions in earnings, launch social programs, and Bolivia is now a flourishing, and above all sovereign, State.  Look, I am not ingenuous, but in Bolivia the wounded memory of the people has been converted into a political fight with an insurrectionist identity.

In other words, Morales deserved the Nobel Peace Prize more than Obama did?

       Of course!  Obama´s Nobel was ridiculous; it was a marketing operation.
Didn´t Obama bring any hope with his election?
       To see a black face as the President of the United States on the cover of the major magazines was incredible, mostly because the great grandfather of Obama´s wife was a slave.  However, that was just a symbol. The North American empire is three things: the arms industry, Wall Street, and the Zionist lobby.  Obama knows that to touch any of those three is death.  As such, he won´t do that.  Hope comes from civil society.  If we create a planetary alliance of all the emancipatory movements, from the West to the South, then we will have a world revolution, a revolution capable of ending the cannibalistic order of the world.
    

10.01.11 - MUNDO

‘É preciso um Nuremberg dos especuladores'. Entrevista com Jean Ziegler
Letra

Guillaume Fourmont *

Adital -
Diplomata internacional na ONU, Ziegler publicou o ensaio El odio a Occidente, uma crítica ao sistema capitalista dominado pela Europa e pelos EUA.

A reportagem é de Guillaume Fourmont Madrid, publicada no sítio Publico.es, 29-12-2010. A tradução é de Moisés Sbardelotto.
Que ninguém se deixe enganar pelo seu cargo muito oficial de membro do Comitê Consultivo do Conselho de Direitos Humanos da ONU. Por trás de seus óculos de professor de universidade, o suíço Jean Ziegler (Thoune, 1934) é um revolucionário. Ele gosta de provocar e gritar o que os seus colegas diplomatas não ousam dizer nem nos corredores das organizações internacionais.
Um exemplo: "Uma criança que morre de fome hoje em dia é um assassinato". Outro: "Somos democracias, mas praticamos um fascismo exterior". Ziegler é um argumento que argumenta cada frase com números ou citações de grandes intelectuais, como esse grito de dor do poeta anticolonialista Aimé Césaire: "Vivo em uma ferida sagrada / Vivo em um querer obscuro / Vivo em um longo silêncio".
Dessa ferida, Ziegler falar em seu último livro, El odio a Occidente (Ed. Península), um título que responsabiliza os países desenvolvidos pelos males do mundo. O escritor não perde a esperança e aspira a uma "revolução para acabar com a ordem canibal do mundo". Na capa do seu ensaio, a letra "i" da palavra ódio é uma bomba com detonador. Resta só um segundo para que ela exploda.
Eis a entrevista.

O mundo vai tão mal assim?
Jamais na história um imperador ou um rei teve tanto poder como o que a oligarquia do poder financeiro possui na atualidade. São as bolsas que decidem quem vive e quem morre. Doze bilhões de pessoas podem comer, o dobro da população mundial. Mas a cada cinco segundos, uma criança menor de 10 anos morre de fome. É um assassinato!
É daí que vem o ódio do qual o senhor falar? Por que nos odeiam?
É preciso distinguir dois tipos de ódio. Um, primeiro, patológico, como o da Al Qaeda, que assassina inocentes com bombas. Mas nada justifica essa violência, nada! E o meu livro não trata disso. Refiro-me a um ódio meditado, que pede justiça e compensação, que chama a romper com o sistema estrutural do mundo, dominado pelo capitalismo.
Não aprendemos nada com a crise?
Lições? É pior ainda: esses bandidos de especuladores que provocaram a crise e a quebra do sistema ocidental atacam agora produtos como o arroz e o trigo. Há milhares de vítimas a mais do que antes. É preciso sentar esses especuladores na cadeira. É preciso realizar um Nuremberg para eles!
O senhor trabalha na ONU. Não acredita no papel da comunidade internacional?
O mero fato de que a comunidade internacional seja consciente dos problemas do mundo é positivo. Os Objetivos do Milênio não se cumpriram, mas não sou uma pessoa cética.
Não acredita, no entanto, que o Ocidente só se interessa pelo Ocidente e que mantém o Terceiro Mundo na pobreza de propósito?
É verdade! Mas não se trata de doar mais, mas sim de roubar menos. Na África, podem-se encontrar produtos europeus mais baratos do que os locais, enquanto que as pessoas se matam trabalhando. A hipocrisia dos europeus é bestial! Nós geramos fome na África, mas quando os imigrantes chegam às nossas costas em balsas os mandamos embora. Para acabar com a fome, é preciso uma revolução!
No Ocidente? Isso é possível?
A sociedade civil se despertou. Há movimentos como Attac, Greanpeace e outros que fazem uma crítica radical da ordem mundial. No Ocidente, temos democracias, mas praticamos um fascismo exterior. Embora não haja nada impossível na democracia. "O revolucionário deve ser capaz de ouvir a grama crescer", disse Karl Marx.
Em seu livro, o senhor fala da Bolívia de Evo Morales como exemplo.
É um caso exemplar. Pela primeira vez na história, o povo boliviano elegeu como presidente um deles, um indígena aimara. E, em seis meses, expulsaram as empresas privadas que ficavam com todos os benefícios das energias do país. O governo pode, com esses milhões ganhados, lançar programas sociais, e a Bolívia é agora um Estado florescente e, principalmente, soberano. Veja, não sou um ingênuo, mas na Bolívia a memória ferida do povo se converteu em uma luta política, em uma insurreição identitária.
Em outros termos, Morales merecia mais o Nobel da Paz do que Obama?
Claro! O Nobel de Obama era ridículo, era una operação de marketing.
Obama não trazia consigo nenhuma esperança?
Ver uma cara negra de presidente dos Estados Unidos na capa de grandes revistas foi incrível, principalmente porque o bisavó da esposa de Obama era um escravo. Mas é só um símbolo. O império norte-americano é três coisas: a indústria armamentícia, Wall Street e o lobby sionista. Obama sabe que se tocar em algum dos três está morto. E não vai fazer isso. A esperança vem da sociedade civil. Se conseguirmos criar uma aliança planetária de todos os movimentos de emancipação, do Ocidente e do Sul, então haverá uma revolução mundial, uma revolução capaz de acabar com a ordem canibal do mundo.
 * Publico.es

http://www.adital.com.br/site/noticia.asp?lang=PT&cod=53392

2 comments:

  1. A Nuremberg Trial for speculators?

    Speculation was not the root cause of the problem that cause oil prices (and food prices) to rise in 2008 and 2011. Speculation was an EFFECT of the problem. The root cause is that the food and energy systems are operating pretty much at capacity. This is a "limits to growth" issue.

    When demand approaches the maximum capacity of the system, the price becomes volatile. That is one of the consequences of queuing theory. It's like going to a store around Christmas time when the number of customers approaches the maximum number of cashiers available to process them. The length of the queues becomes chaotic; sometimes there will be no one in line, but at busy times you may have to stand in line for a half hour or more. Same thing with oil and food: if we are at or close to capacity, the price of oil and food will become highly volatile.

    So the real question is why are we approaching the maximum capacity of the system? In the case of oil it's because we are at or past "peak oil." In the case of food it's because of two things: (1) biofuels, but to an even greater extent (2) meat consumption. Eliminate biofuels and meat consumption, and the immediate problem of food prices will go away. As our eco-system degrades we will have further crises down the road, and it is conceivable that even with everyone vegan we might have people starving. Vegetarianism is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for dealing with the problem.

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    Replies
    1. Certainly ecological constraints are an essential issue, I would agree in part. My agreement continues partially in the case of biofuels. Growing corn or other plants for fuel raises various moral questions about priorities.

      Nevertheless, peak oil is a question in which my view diverges in accordance with the additional externalities of a techno-ecological neoclassical economics philosophy. Peak oil's supply based concerns pale in comparison to the costs incurred by and urgency of dealing with pollution, toxic to and otherwise degrading peoples' health and the environment's healthy functioning.
      Moreover, environmental pollution is not just a question of technology. Both technology and practices exists to make all or many processes green or less toxic. Electric cars were sabotaged around 2000 as detailed in the documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? Wind power was developed by artisans, individuals, and co-operative/partnership enterprises first in Denmark, then Germany, with important grassroots efforts in the UK. Significant corporate/government efforts in Spain and the US demonstrate other lessons and differences from the other grassroots models. The recent awarding of the Right Livelihood Award to Ursula Sladek for EWS, a co-operative partnership and community-oriented renewable energy company in Germany demonstrates the problems summed up by economist David Ellerman as transaction cost barriers and social power relations barriers.
      The 2008 "sub-prime" crisis was made possible by corporate lobbying over the previous decades removing the Glass-Steagall Act and other maneuvers discussed by William Greider in his The Nation article Establishment Disorder with reference to NY Times investigative journalism.
      Neoclassical economics has externalized various fundamental social and economic costs, and often privatized benefits, while ignoring basic political economic relationships and the laws and policies which structure many economic incentives. Those laws and policies also reflect social power relationships, not absolute scientific economic laws.
      Nuremberg trials might be appropriate, but certainly will not be sufficient nor the short term priority. The good guys, the social/solidarity/ecological grassroots and community activists and entrepreneurs don't have enough power yet.

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