New Colonialism Emerging WHITHER BEIJING? [page 2 of 2]
The Big Question
One author calls these two groups the One-Third World (rich nations)
of economically developed countries and the Two-Thirds world (Third World)
of the poorer countries. Using his terms we would say that the One-Third World suggests that the
increase in population in the Two-Thirds World is the problem and should
be corrected there. Thus, the One-Third World suggests that the increase
in population is the most important factor, whereas the Two-Thirds World
says that it is the increasing demand of the One-Third World for resources
and raw materials that is the major cause of environmental problems. The vast majority of the world's resources are consumed by the One-Third
World--only a small percentage are used by the Two-Thirds World, which represents
more people. For example, with the average person in the United States consuming forty
times the energy of the average person in India, the effects of the lives
of the U.S. population would be equivalent to ten billion Indians. At the
rate that the people of India use energy, ten billion of them could live
in the U.S. Ten billion is more than ten times the present population of
India. (from "People vs. the World: a View from another Window,"
Friends Journal, November 1993. Author Aziz Pabaney is a member of Bombay
(India) Quaker Meeting. Much of the historical data in his article is from
an article by Winin Pereria, co-author of the book Asking the Earth, Earthscan,
1991). The First World countries as a whole import more food than they export,
meat, for example. Much of the imported meat comes from South America and
Africa, where peasants are being displaced from their land by beef-producing
companies and wealthy cattle herders. As a result rain forests are chopped
down and turned into pastures for cattle. Today most of Europe imports thousands
of items from the tropics. All of this represents an awful overload of European
and North American carrying capacity. The First World countries have been
taking all the resources from the Third World. (Aziz Pabaney, "People
vs. the World.") The impression given to the public is the opposite. At the time of the Cairo conference last year and since then, Protestants,
dissident Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus, African traditional religions and
even the head of the National Council of Churches have been quoted in papers
like the Washington Post as calling upon the "global South" to
curb excessive consumption of the earth's global resources. (Counterpunch,
Sept. 1, 1994). We recall the reaction of the Brazilian feminists at the international conference on the environment when the U.S. feminists told them to stop having so many children because the Third World is using up too many resources! Enraged, they responded: You are using the vast majority of the resources, not our poor babies.
The preliminary document of Beijing wants to tie all aid to women of
the third world to sterilization, abortion and contraception. Economic aid
will be refused to those who refuse to be committed to no more children
(e.g., Grameen Bank loans, which also are given at very high interests rates,
up to 50%). Imagine the chagrin of an Italian missionary nun who received support
from the United Nations and simply wants to give the proverbial glass of
water in the name of the Lord to a woman. She must first get the poor women
committed to either sterilization, abortion or contraception before she
can give the glass of water in the name of Jesus. Some Anglo women tell us that the Latin American women just love to be
sterilized. We find this hard to believe of the women we know. (There might
be a grain of truth if one is speaking of a mother of many children). However,
such remarks remind us of gubernatorial candidates and statements comparing
rape to a rainy day--"sure you can't do anything about it, so just
lie back and enjoy it," or those who quote poor women as saying, "I
just loves to be raped." If we still believe in logic, it is not hard to see how the fear of some
of us of a new colonialism is a reality. We are frightened to death. Listening to Third World women is very upsetting. "In the past," Latin Americans and Africans tell us, "you
came to us and gave us the Bible and took our gold and our land and made
us slaves. Now you have taken and continue to take our resources and rape
our land, and you want us to commit genocide (No more babies). You even
want us to give the Bible back to you and give up our values and religion.
You want to trade our inheritance for a bowl of porridge." Angry Latin Americans attack us, saying, "The conquistadors of colonial
times came with their swords and took the lives of many of us as well as
our land and resources. The new conquistadors came with their technology and low salaries to
set up factories with conditions as bad as Charles Dickens described, all
in the name of progress. Now we have First World conquistadors with their scalpels ready to eliminate
our race completely with the slogans: "sterilization or starvation." We are told by hostile Latin Americans that they are uncomfortable with
this new Yankee imperialism, with missionaries who proselytize, albeit very
suavely, their poor women. They know George Orwell's 1984 doublespeak: "We want to help you with factory jobs and industrialization and
technology," at $.37 per hour. "We want to give you reproductive rights," which means we are
taking away your reproductive rights. "We want to give you a choice," which means you must follow
our choice or we stop all aid. "We want to give you freedom from Islamic and medieval oppression,"
which means we are the new hierarchy--we know what is best for you. "We want to bring democracy to you," which means follow the
wants of the First World. "We want you to be in charge of your bodies," which really
means we the First World are in charge of your bodies. As a matter of fact,
from a Christian perspective, one cannot really say, "It's my body--for
it is instead a temple of the Holy Spirit. It escapes us--how we are to explain why Mary Smith of St. John's Episcopal
Church and active in Planned Parenthood, who lives in a house that could
house eighty people can dictate to Third World women how they are to live--so
Mary can carry one using up the world's energy and resources. Oppose New Colonialism
Now it appears that we have returned to colonialism. U. S. government documents contain much information about coercive population
control programs imposed on other countries. Many of these programs, which
involve rewards and punishments to get workers to agree to be sterilized
in Asia, Latin America and Africa, are tied to employment. In Indonesia,
women were forced to have intrauterine devices (IUDs) inserted by the threat
of forcible evacuation of their villages to outer islands. Some IUDs were
inserted at gunpoint or women were dragged to police stations and IUDs were
forcibly inserted. In other countries IUDs are inserted in women without
their knowledge under the guise of other medical procedures. There have
been many questions raised in the U.S. about IUDs and safety and women's
health. According to Elizabeth Liagin, writing in Studies in Prolife Feminism,
Vol., No. 2, Spring 1995, in all of these cases local authorities were trying
to meet the requirements for financial aid from the West. Liagin states
that the U.S. has also provided financial assistance to employment-based
programs, euphemistically called "family planning" programs in
Brazil, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Ghana and a number of
other countries. It is significant that Amnesty International USA, an impartial human
rights group, recently reported that in Catholic villages 200 miles north
of Beijing, offenders of the "one-child" China policy for families
have been jailed, tortured, and heavily fined. They report that "detainees
were beaten and tortured to accelerate the payment of fines. Some were reportedly
hung upside down, other received electric shocks on their tongue with electric
batons or live wires... single women detained to make families pay fines
were beaten and sexually abused. Amnesty International reports that Catholic women in China are being
forcibly given abortion-inducing drugs as late as the eighth and ninth months
of pregnancy. The U.S. government has committed $50 million a year to the United Nations
Population Fund, which participates in these coercive policies, and the
Clinton administration has stated that compulsory abortion or involuntary
sterilization are not, by definition, political persecution. And yet, the Nuremberg Tribunal defined forcing a pregnant woman to submit
to the killing of her unborn child a "crime against humanity."
Are we to set aside the Nuremberg trials? Not only are these coercive policies not seen as a violation of human
rights by many in the First World, but they are being adopted ostensibly
to help women. As the Holy See has recently said, The Beijing preparatory
document reflects a "Western model of promoting women that doesn't
sufficiently take into account the values of women in most countries around
the world." We are awaiting the response of the ACLU in regards to tying the reception
of aid to sterilization and abortion. We apologize for the stand we take. But we are convinced, with many others,
that 50 Years is Enough! It is too long that institutions like the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the countries of the First
World have been controlling the destinies of the poor countries. We apologize for this unpopular stand. We have many more friends who
accept abortion and sterilization than those who do not. We know many people
who are blissfully unaware of any responsibility for the incredibly low
wages paid by companies of First World countries to women in the Third World.
We are totally committed to environmental issues. We feel, however, that
we cannot put the burden on the people of the Third World, but focus on
the polluters. We must not put the burden on the backs of poor women who consume so
little. We hope and pray that the Beijing conference will reaffirm the dignity
and human rights of all women and families.  |
