Over at SociologyInFocus.com, I just posted a piece on the 2011 Rugby World Cup (RWC) and its contextualized place in New Zealand society. The piece examines the RWC accounting for:
its own status as an entity driving consumerism
the typical notions of gender in sport, and
how the RWC has masked the global "Occupy Movement" present in Auckland
Developing conspicuous consumption...
Hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity anyone?
Drug use and sex work are topics that tend to evoke high emotion in the general public. Viewed as victimless crimes by some, others note that victimization is an integral component of international systems where people are trafficked as contemporary slaves in robust drug and prostitution rings.
Aljazeera’s People & Power recently produced an outstanding two-part series on human trafficking that focuses on global connections between Italy and Nigeria. Titled “The Nigerian Connection,” the first piece examines an Italian community, Territorio di Castel Volturno, where Italian and Nigerian Mafia’s compete for supremacy of the local organized crime scene, as the second piece turns to Nigeria.
In sociology and the broader social sciences, globalization is hot topic that refers to the increasingly efficient connections facilitating economic exchanges across the global landscape. This includes everything from legal modes of communication (e.g., the internet), to money exchange industries (e.g., Western Union, typical banking corporations), to the trafficking of drugs and human beings, provided these transactions cross international borders.
While globalization has existed for centuries, today’s international exchanges occur much faster, and illegal exchanges frequently transpire under the radar of law enforcement, that is unless corrupt law enforcement agencies are directly involved in the trafficking. Conservative figures estimate that approximately 27 million people are trapped as slaves in a given year, more in absolute number than at any time in the 18th or 19th century. Most are forced to work in the agricultural sector, though slaves are also forced into drug trafficking, sex work, and industrial tasks.
Kevin Bales, author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, defines slavery as the total control of one person by another for purpose of economic exploitation. Bales argues that overpopulation in low-income countries has created an increasingly large and vulnerable labor class. An extremely exploitable proletariat, this class is treated by greedy and corrupt capitalists as disposable. Bales further notes that contemporary slavery is characterized by seven qualities that distinguish it from slavery in centuries past:
1. Legal ownership of slaves is avoided
2. Slaves can be purchased at very low cost (for as low as US$90, see here)
3. Slavery yields high profits since slaves are inexpensive
4. Due to overpopulation, the world has a surplus of potential slaves
5. Slaves are disposable, replaceable because of the global surplus
6. Being disposable, slaves have a short relationship with slavers
7. Ethnic differences between slavers and slaves are less important (it is not uncommon to see slavers and slaves from the same ethnic group)
Most of today’s slaves are tricked into slavery through debt bondage – the individual pledges him/herself against a loan of money tied to an inflated cost of transportation to a new country, where the individual will presumably work in a conventional, legal job. However, upon arriving in a new and unfamiliar place, the workers are forced into slave-based jobs with conditions that make it virtually impossible to pay off their debts, escape, or seek help from legal authorities (e.g., passports are taken away).
Watching Aljazeera’s two-part documentary, one can clearly see the seven qualities Bales presents that characterize modern-day slavery, as well as how globalization is facilitating slavery tied to prostitution.
Part I (25 minutes):
Part I offers additional insights into important sociological concepts. For instance, cultural norms are corrupted in order to control the Nigerian female prostitutes via a “Juju oath” that women are forced to take prior to leaving Nigeria (@16 minutes; and @ 12:00 minutes in Part II). This oath is used to control the women while enslaved in Italy. Patriarchy is also clearly evident, as systems are established that privilege men over women. With the prostitutes being predominantly female and without official paperwork, laws are established that further criminalize them. Though prostitution is legal in Italy, sex workers can be arrested (by mostly male police officers) if they do not have residency papers, which obviously these women lack since they are forced to work off the books (@ 17:30 minutes). Note also the comments by the nun regarding a male market (@ 22:30 minutes) that keeps the industry flourishing. Part II shifts to Nigeria’s economic deprivation and internal corruption that fuels an exploitable slave class.
Part II (25 minutes):
Returning to one of Bales’s key points, Part II displays how agents in Nigeria are often Nigerians themselves, who trick young Nigerian women into sexual slavery (@ 5:00 minutes). This further demonstrates the decreasing status of race and ethnicity as rigid markers in the slavery system. Mass poverty is also highlighted as a contributor to the human trafficking machine, with one third of the population in this Nigerian state living on less than $1 per day (@ 7:50 minutes). As such, becoming a human trafficker of one’s own people emerges largely out of economic desperation, while globalization and global stratification provide the distant places of hope that seduce poverty stricken Nigerians into deceit. Part II closes by exploring the illegal trafficking of Nigerian babies (@ 18 minutes).
The two videos provide for excellent pieces on discussions surrounding globalization and contemporary slavery.
Kobe Bryant is the most popular basketball player in China, but there is no denying that basketball in China was given a colossal push when Yao Ming made it to the N.B.A.'s Houston Rockets and quickly emerged as a star player. In an interesting article in The New York Times, Jeremy Kahn refers to Ming's impact in China as a "Yao Ming Moment" -- the point when Ming served as a catalyst who invigorated a critical mass of Chinese basketball fans that would not just follow Ming, but become fans of the N.B.A. in general.
With a critical mass of Chinese now playing basketball and firmly following the N.B.A., the league is turning to the world's second most populated country, India, in hopes that the sport's relatively inexpensive structure will eventually stimulate an "Indian Yao" and new mass market:
... basketball’s popularity could grow rapidly in India because of the sport’s relative simplicity and the fact that a court can be created almost anywhere one can hang a hoop. This gives it an advantage over soccer and cricket, which require open fields. Basketball also requires little specialized equipment.
A core part of the N.B.A.’s expansion strategy in India is increasing grass-roots participation, based on the belief that people who play basketball are also more likely to follow the N.B.A. The league also knows that the more Indians who play basketball, the more likely it is that one day an Indian player will be good enough to make the leap to the N.B.A. — an event that could vastly expand the league’s popularity in the world’s second-most-populous nation.
Considering the N.B.A. a global business, it is important to illustrate how players are constructed as international symbols, used to further the capitalist culture. As explained in Robbins's (2011) Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, the capitalist culture, or consumer culture specifically, divides people into three distinct statuses, which each have separately defined roles in perpetuating mass accumulation:
Capitalists - encourage the accumulation of profit
Laborers - encourage the accumulation of wages
Consumers - encourage the accumulation of goods (p. 11)
But there are what Robbins refers to as "sandpainters," who truly orchestrate society's obsession with mass consumption.
...every society has its sandpainters, those individuals who are given or who take responsibility for representing the universe to others and who have the power to define those elements that are essential for others in locating and defining their identities.... In capitalism, the sandpainter works in churches, synagogues, or mosques, and in theaters, in front of television sets, at sporting events, or in the shopping malls that reaffirm the vision of abundance central to the consumers' view of the world. Contemporary sandpainters...create a vision of the world designed to maximize the production and consumption of goods. (p. 13).
In this case, the N.B.A. executives who begin their early marketing stages in India are the "sandpainters" who hope to find their first symbolic Indian basketball player that will turn basketball into a perceived need for that critical mass of Indian boys and young men -- the potential consumer group. More from The NY Times article:
A core part of the N.B.A.’s expansion strategy in India is increasing grass-roots participation, based on the belief that people who play basketball are also more likely to follow the N.B.A. The league also knows that the more Indians who play basketball, the more likely it is that one day an Indian player will be good enough to make the leap to the N.B.A. — an event that could vastly expand the league’s popularity in the world’s second-most-populous nation.
As the N.B.A. sandpainters take their early steps, building a perceived need for basketball among Indian boys and young men through the development of the first Indian star with mad basketball skills, a few questions are worth asking. Is the N.B.A. truly trying to spread the game for the sake of community development? Or, is it about developing the next big market that will purchase Kobe's and LeBron's jerseys?
Saw this excellent example of how community advocates can re-construct discriminatory cultural artifacts from the mainstream over on Sociological Images.
The Guardian has a story up about police in Bangladesh who reportedly beat workers in response to their demand for back pay and fair wages. As can be seen from the story's main picture, some of the reportedly abused workers are children.
Witnesses said at least 30 people, mainly workers producing garments for global brands, were injured. Pictures showed children apparently being beaten. Ten policemen were also hurt.
Although there has been violence for several weeks, today saw workers erecting barricades, pelting police with stones and attacking cars. Police described the fighting as the worst yet seen.
Children under the age of 14 are banned by law from working, but campaigners say many can still be found in the sprawling factories. Hundreds of teenagers took part in running battles with police today.
[...]
Many of the rioting workers are employed by plants which make ready-to-wear garments for sale in western high street stores.
"We worked for them," shouted one striking worker. "They are doing business and making money, but not paying us."
(Emphasis added).
As noted above, there is a direct link between the less than attractive (to put it mildly) working conditions and private clothing companies from the west -- but what companies??? Reading through the rest of the story, one ultimately gets the sense that this is an isolated domestic issue, impacted solely by Bangladeshi institutional conditions, not global business connections.
The garment industry accounts for more than 80% of impoverished Bangladesh's £10bn annual export earnings, according to commerce ministry data. The minimum wage, which is set by the government, was introduced in 1994 but remained unchanged despite soaring food prices until 2006.
[...]
The report cited a survey released last month by the Bangladesh Factory Inspection Department which showed that almost 15% of employers did not pay their workers on time between January and May. Many other factory owners did not pay overtime, while several continued to pay less than the government's minimum wage.
The garment industry accounts for about 40% of Bangladesh's total industrial workforce. Campaigners say wages have been cut by 20 to 30% recently in a country where almost half the population is already living below the poverty line.
Low levels of unionisation and organisation have meant protests that are chaotic but difficult for the police to predict or break up. Raids by protesters on well-known factories are frequent occurrences. Owners have hired their own gangs to protect their production lines.
In looking at the institutions mentioned in this story, they are all likely Bangladeshi: the "government" sets the minimum wage; the "Bangladesh Factory Inspection Department" ostensibly oversees working conditions in factories; the "factory owners" are likely middle managment contractors hired locally by the true corporate owners who are probably located back in high-income countries; "campaigners" would be grass-roots activists in Bangladesh that help with local "unionisation"; and finally, the "owners" (again, locally contracted middle management) hire local "gangs" to protect the factories.
It is as if the central corporate entities back in the west who truly drive the garment industry do not even exist, and therefore hold no responsibility in creating these oppressive, violent working conditions. Who are these companies? Why not name them? Are they not an important entity in this story and others like it around the world?
Here's the kicker line from the story: "Factory owners argue that the unrest risks frightening away western clients who need reliable deliveries." The irony in this statement is sickening. All that matters to the local factory owners is making sure Bangladeshi employees keep the peace (i.e., remain passive while being exploited) so that rich western clients don't take their business elsewhere. The western oppressors at the top of the food chain remain physically removed from the violence, exonerated from improving working conditions, revered by those in Bangladesh with the most power, and invisible in readers' eyes.
ESPN's SportsCenter had a very interesting pice on LeBron James tonight, "Courting the King: Nike's Influence" (note: I don't think these links or videos last that long). I've blogged before on Nike's slave-like practices in the global economy, and I'll get to that later.
The ESPN piece discussed how James's Nike marketing team intends to expand his global influence, specifically now in China, where as the piece states, approximately 300 million people play basketball -- about the same size of the entire U.S. population! Here's the video (while it lasts):
What this piece illustrates is the globalization of sport, of American popular culture, and further, how American companies will take their products (in this case the "LeBron James brand") overseas to the biggest market. That's not saying anything terribly insightful. It's basic capitalistic business I suppose.
However, as China continues to grow as the next global super power and its population is increasingly seduced by an American-like consumer culture, we will see further unethical business practices by transnational corporations (TNC), like Nike. And it's not just the U.S. With China's economic influence across Asia and Africa, we can expect to see more of their TNCs riding their own and others' consumer culture into outrageous profits.
Update 6/22/10: Benjamin Barber's influential essay published in The Atlantic magazine, "Jihad vs. McWorld," provides a strong theoretical backdrop to Nike's push for the "LeBron James brand" to go global.
All national economies are now vulnerable to the inroads of larger, transnational markets within which trade is free, currencies are convertible, access to banking is open, and contracts are enforceable under law. In Europe, Asia, Africa, the South Pacific, and the Americas such markets are eroding national sovereignty and giving rise to entities—international banks, trade associations, transnational lobbies like OPEC and Greenpeace, world news services like CNN and the BBC, and multinational corporations that increasingly lack a meaningful national identity...
As stated quite clearly in the preceding video, from the Nike perspective, it is crucial that James win an NBA championship, not so much to cement his status as an NBA legend, but so that he can become the most effective (i.e., marketable) global icon. By eroding national boundaries through this version of pop culture, Nike creates "LeBron wannabe's" across the world, who will buy his signature shoes, jerseys, headbands, t-shirts, and so on. The production of all those goods will pose the bigger problem.
Those who support major sporting events going to various locales often argue the events will bring in international money via tourists and build a long-term infrastructure that supports the local economy. That might be true for locales that are already well off, but for regions that are hurting, the sporting events do little if anything in the form of long-term sustenance. The 2004 Olympics were held in Greece, and look at Greece now.
The Independent has an insightful piece up titled, "The ugly truth about the beautiful game," which documents the problematic dimensions of the World Cup being held in a vulnerable country, with beneficiaries being wealthy industries outside of South Africa:
...radical Sowetan columnist Andile Mngxitama said all Fifa is giving Africa is a month-long feel-good episode which will do little, long-term, to change perceptions or economic realities. "The World Cup is a colonial playground for the rich and for a few wannabes in the so-called South African elite," he argued. "Whereas in the past we were conquered, the South African government has simply invited the colonisers this time."
Additionally, World Cup organizers are doing more for countries outside of the African continent:
In the light of low international take-up of tickets, Fifa and its sponsors have organised "Fan Fests" with large screens in major European cities. But none are planned for the African continent outside South Africa. Fifa general secretary Jerome Valcke said television rights had, however, been offered free to national broadcasters in most African countries. "Municipalities in African capitals are free to organise large screens for fans," he said.
There are few signs that the South African World Cup has rubbed off on the rest of the continent. In the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, restaurateur Tegenaw Gashaw said his television would be switched on but that it always was anyway, for the English Premiership. "We are proud to know the World Cup is being hosted in an African country but we worry, because of South Africa's terrible reputation for crime, that it is all going to go wrong and do more harm than good for the continent."
I've written before on the ways that major sporting events can increase crime and exploitation in host cities. Really, major sporting events, such as the World Cup and Olympics, are indicators of globalization where big business gets what it can financially out of a particular locale temporarily, and then bails out after the hoopla is over, or where higher-income countries strong-arm lower-income countries into agreeing to long-term, oppressive labor contracts for their assistance in funding short-term sporting events.
Al Jazeera has done the best job of illustrating this phenomenon as it relates to the 2016 Summer Olympics, which will be held in Rio, in this 2-part series:
And for another great piece on exploitation through soccer specifically across Africa, watch this Al Jazeera video:
I caught this add for The Polynesian Cultural Center earlier today. It was displayed at the Koolina Resort over on the West Side of Oahu.
One can't help but notice how Hawaii and its natives (i.e., Polynesians) are utilized by corporate entities in the global economy. What is the not so subtle subtext within this add regarding race, "primitive" culture, and the casual diffusion (or consumption) of that culture?
Are the "natives" learning or adopting mainstream, corporate, American, white culture? No, one might assume that is not what can or should happen in this context. Rather, while on vacation, it's the leisurely western tourists who can appropriate the "native culture" temporarily and play out their subdued primal instincts. In fact, this is their right, given that they have the means to pay for this luxury, and the native population is dependent on their capital.
Upon return from vacation, wealthy tourists can go back to their more advanced, sophisticated and refined lives, while the natives stay back in vacation-land to serve new tourists and seduce them with their primal performances (sarcasm). Clearly, Polynesian culture is denigrated into a tourist-based commodity for wealthy tourists to consume at their will and on their terms.
Building off my previous post on the commodification and appropriation of Hawaiian culture within the context of a global economy, one can clearly see how hula has been utilized by foreign cultures in the following three videos:
See, below, how Japanese nationals have taken the Hawaiian art as their own in this sexualized version, revamped for profit:
And not surprisingly, local Japanese (born/raised in Hawaii) are complicit in an industry that passes around the Hawaiian culture as something that can be freely passed around:
And then there is the typical Waikiki version incorporating its corrupted version of hula into a tourist-driven economy:
For a more accurate history of hula in Hawaii and the Pacific, go to PacificNetwork.tv, or at least watch these very interesting videos, below, which show hula and its connection to war and provide an explanation of gender stratification:
It is pretty disheartening how the international community only cares about crime and exploitation when a major sporting event is on the horizon. Keeping athletes and those who come to watch safe in the host country is clearly of greater importance than addressing the root causes of crime that occur in marginalized areas of the world. That, unfortunately, has become glaringly evident as next year's World Cup, being held in South Africa, and the 2016 Summer Olympics, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, approach.
It appears that areas of South Africa are now being "cleaned up" so that tourists are not bothered by the homeless. Clearly, potential tourists, their income, and the country's image are defined as more important than South Africa's own marginalized citizens. What actually occurs remains to be seen. As seen in the Al Jeezra YouTube video, below, homeless may simply be driven out of the area, housed temporarily in camps, or given short-lived employment. But again, the important points here are, (1) the homeless situation is only being addressed with the World Cup approaching, and (2) no root causes of homelessness are being addressed.
Additionally, South African officials are considering decriminalizing prostitution, not entirely with the intent of enhancing the safety of sex workers, but to improve "entertainment venues" for foreign tourists (from the BBC):
Durban's municipality said Germany had many adult entertainment centres during the World Cup in 2006, which were very popular with visitors.
It said while prostitution was illegal in South Africa, it could not ignore the fact that the sex industry thrives during major events like the World Cup.
To address this, entertainment centres such as strip clubs and escort agencies would be located in special areas where they would be safe and easily accessible.
Calls are growing for South Africa to legalise prostitution ahead of next year's football World Cup in an effort to limit HIV infection among millions of fans visiting the country for the tournament.
There is rhetoric focusing on the health and safety of sex workers.
In January, MP George Lekgetho called for prostitution to be legalised during the tournament.
"It is one of the things that would make it a success," he said.
He told parliament that it would help cut incidences of rape.
The BBC's Mpho Lakaje in Johannesburg says his suggestion was met with derision by other MPs. But a group representing sex workers welcomed it.
"We would support any legalisation of sex work, particularly during the 2010 World Cup," Nicola Fick from the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Task Force (Sweat) told the BBC.
However, others note that legalizing prostitution does not stop the harm of women and girls, but rather increases their violent victimization. Furthermore, as noted with the piece on homeless in South Africa, it is only with the World Cup coming up that this issue matters, and nothing is being discussed that would help to ameliorate the root causes of sexual exploitation (poverty and patriarchy).
Finally, in the context of the World Cup, these articles' headlines are evidence enough of who and what is defined as important (incoming tourists and the host country's reputation) and who is not (the poorer South African citizenry):
The same short-term, iron-fisted and often corrupted policies are escalating in Rio de Janeiro where the 2016 Summer Olympic Games will be held (from NPR):
...could the arrival of the 2016 Olympics do more harm than good for Rio de Janeiro's poorest residents? It could depend, in part, on how the Brazilian government plans to beef up security in advance of the Games?
Security crackdowns in Rio de Janeiro have often amounted to police raids on the sprawling shantytowns, home to a third of the city's population, where drug traffickers have ensconced themselves. The resulting gun battles have killed scores of innocent bystanders — predominately poor and working-class residents of the favelas — thus contributing to the stunning 2,069 murders that happened in Rio last year.
[...]
Certainly, Rio won't be the first Olympic city to resort to such measures — even liberal Vancouver is trying to force its homeless into shelters in advance of the 2010 Winter Games, and China made no secret of its repressive crackdown in the lead-up to last year's Olympics. But Rio de Janeiro's history of using ham-fisted tactics to combat violence makes me worry that the city's working poor will end up in the crosshairs in run-up to the Games.
Major sporting events are part of the global economy. They frequently command so much international attention and incoming revenue that governments will pander to foreign countries that have enough wealthy residents who will fly in and spend money in hotels, restaurants, and retail stores (or even in criminal ares, e.g., prostitution). This governmental pandering, however, comes in the form of defining the foreign tourists and their money as more important than the local "deviants." The emerging justice policies reflect this viewpoint.
Globalization now follows a rigid pattern in Hawaii due to the island chain's geographic isolation and the degree to which Hawaii has become entrenched in a tourist-dependent economy. Stewart Firth (2000) in his essay, "The Pacific Islands and the Globalization Agenda," relies on a definition of globalization provided by Bairoch and Kozul-Wright:
a process in which the production and financial structures of countries are becoming interlinked by an increasing number of cross-border transactions to create an international division of labor in which national wealth comes, increasingly, to depend on economic agents in other countries...
Firth then adds:
Globalization is characterized by huge increases in flows of capital across the world, rapid growth in trade, the emergence of new kinds of trade in services, a technological revolution in communications that makes the globe itself the site of operations for major companies, and the growing influence almost everywhere of market forces.
There is much more to Hawaii's state in the global economy than that driven by global market forces. In addition, there is a long history of cultural appropriation and exploitation. As Haunani Kay-Trask argues in her outstanding essay, "Lovely Hula Hands: Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture," (see From A Native Daughter) the relationship between the international tourist industry and those who work in it is analogous to that between a pimp and prostitute:
The pimp is the conduit of exchange, managing the commodity that is the prostitute while acting as the guard at the entry and exit gates, making sure the prostitute behaves as a a prostitute by fulfilling her sexual-economic functions. The victims participate in their victimization with enormous ranges of feeling, including resistance and complicity, but the force and continuity of the institution are shaped by men.
Focusing specifically on the tourist industry's commodification of the hula, Trask adds:
The first requirement is the transformation of the product, or the cultural attribute, much as a woman must be transformed to look like a prostitute, i.e., someone who is complicitious in her own commodification. Thus, hula dancers wear clown-like make-up, don costumes from a mix of Polynesian cultures, and behave in a manner that is smutty and salacious rather than powerfully erotic. The distance between the smutty and the erotic is precisely the distance between Western culture and Hawaiian culture. In the hotel version of the hula, the sacredness of the dance has completely evaporated while the athleticism and sexual expression have been packaged like ornaments. The purpose is entertainment for profit rather than a joyful and truly Hawaiian celebration of human and divine nature.
Trask, however, does not chastise those indigenous persons who partake in their own exploitation, noting that tourism has essentially become "the only game in town" by which many Hawaiians can make a decent living. And as Firth notes, the general populace has built up an ideology that supports globalization, or in the case of Hawaii, the tourist industry.
When people challenge tourism, they are challenging Hawaii's central revenue producing mechanism. As such, they are said to be challenging business investment, public school improvement, and a higher standard of living. Tourism in short, runs the show; the global market runs Hawaii, not Native Hawaiians.
And it's been external investment that has driven up the cost of living in Hawaii for local and indigenous residents. John Fischer comments on how this has caused the homeless population (largely indigenous Hawaiians) to skyrocket:
The median cost of a single family home on Oahu, as of the third quarter 2006, is $635,000. (Honolulu Board of REALTORS®, October 18, 2006) The median cost of a condominium is $315,000. Even on Oahu's less well-to-do Leeward Coast, the median cost of a single family home is $365,000. and a condominium $ 179,000. None of this is to infer that many such residences are even available for sale.
However, while Fischer criticizes foreign "investment" that ultimately supports outside capitalists (and not indigenous peoples), he goes on to state tourism is the answer that will help local residents and the indigenous population, thereby buying into the globalization ideology, or at least the tourist-driven ideology:
The real root of the problem are people like you and me - mainlanders who either move to the islands or buy property in the islands driving up the cost of housing each year and driving more and more locals into economic hardship. Many, if not most, of these mainlanders are independently rich or retired rich. They are consumers of society, not contributors to society. Most never work in Hawaii. They depend on others to service their needs.
People ask me why I don't move to Hawaii. For me, it's a matter of principal. Hawaii does not need more mainlanders investing in or moving to the islands. Visit Hawaii. Spend your money. Don't move there.
For a humorous, but insightful look into how tourism exploits the native culture, see The Rock's skit from Saturday Night Live (of note, "The Rock," Dwayne Johnson, grew up in Oahu and is half Samoan). It conveys many of the messages expressed by Trask -- that tourism not only prostitutes culture, but that tourists also appropriate it as their own since the Hawaiian culture is built into a service-based economy, which therefore must be generous and welcoming (put on that big smile!), even if it marginalizes native peoples, perpetuates crime, poverty, and homelessness.
The collective violence that occurred in the western Sudanese region of Darfur drew significant international attention. Unfortunately, a key contributing factor to the violence in Darfur that few people are aware of is climate change.
As different ethnic groups lost crops and the Sudanese government worked in tandem with militia groups (the Janjaweed) in attacking non-Arab tribes over a battle for scarcer resources, genocide ensued.
As this Los Angeles Times article explains, the same pattern could be on the horizon in Kenya, where the necessary elements are in place that frequently lead to horrific forms of inter-ethnic violence -- scarce natural resources, over-population, corrupt government, a lack of international intervention, poverty, and a proliferation of small arms.
Tribes that lived side by side for decades say they've been pushed to warfare by competition for disappearing water and pasture. The government is accused of exacerbating tensions by taking sides and arming combatants who once used spears and arrows.
The aim, all sides say, is no longer just to steal land or cattle, but to drive the enemy away forever.
It's a combustible mix of forces that the United Nations estimates has resulted in at least 400 deaths in northern Kenya this year. Moreover, experts worry that it's just the beginning of a new era of climate-driven conflict in Africa.
And as noted previously, prolonged, intensified inter-ethnic clashes over dwindling resources could be turning into a pattern across Africa, even though climate change is largely understood to be a problem driven by high-income countries. More from the article:
Africa is no stranger to conflict: The continent has been rocked by war, ethnic hatred, post-colonial border disputes and competition for resources, including oil and diamonds. But as the deserts encroach in Sudan, rainfall declines in the Horn of Africa -- a 15% decrease is predicted over the next few decades -- and fresh water evaporates in the south, climate change is transforming conflicts and kicking old tensions into overdrive.
"Climate change amplifies and escalates vulnerability," said Achim Steiner, director of the U.N. Environment Program. "It doesn't mean that conflict is inevitable, but it's much more likely."
And finally, easy access to small arms exacerbates the problem. Not surprisingly, the United States produces the highest number of weapons in the world, a good portion of which make it into the black market (see HERE).
But conflict is perhaps the most alarming symptom. Violence is becoming deadlier thanks to population growth and the proliferation of arms. Thirty years ago, a few dozen tribal warriors with spears might have clashed at a water hole. Today rural communities are armed with AK-47s and even national armies are jumping into the fray.
[...]
Most climate-related conflicts in Africa have been localized, but experts warn that "climate wars" between neighboring countries could be on the horizon.
"If there will be any wars, they will probably be over water," said Odingo of the climate change panel.
It's globalization at its worst. The whole article is an important and engaging read; check it out.
Simon Creek has an insightful article up dissecting this year's Southeast Asian Games: "Little Laos awaits its big moment." From a symbolic interaction standpoint, the article exemplifies how this and other international sporting events serve as proclaimed evidence that the host country is prepared to make its mark in the international economy.
This is not just a sports event, but probably the biggest state extravaganza in the country's history since the Lao People's Democratic Republic [LPRP] gained independence from France in July 1949.
[...]
Despite the difference in scale, there are parallels to the Summer Olympic Games held in China last year. Just as Beijing leveraged the event to proclaim China's emergence as a global power, the games in Vientiane represent a regional coming-out for the Lao one-party state, a symbolic culmination of the over three decade-long "revolutionary struggle" for independence and development under the LPRP.
Perhaps more importantly, the piece also details how other Southeast Asian and East Asian countries have used these Games as an avenue to expand their industrial base across borders. With Laos unable to finance the Games themselves, it appears more powerful countries have taken advantage of Laos's underprivileged position in the region. This in effect allows countries like China to broker their way onto Laotian soil.
Most symbolically, perhaps, Laos is able to host the games only through massive assistance from its larger, richer allies in the region. The Chinese Development Bank has provided financing for the US$100 million main stadium complex, which is being built by Chinese contractors on the outskirts of the capital, Vientiane.
A Vietnamese company has built the $19 million athletes' village and Thai funds have been used to refurbish the existing National Stadium. Dozens of smaller financial agreements with countries like Japan and South Korea will provide everything from training to tracksuits.
There are good reasons for these countries to contribute their patronage. First is the simple commercial benefit. In return for building the stadium, Chinese developers were reportedly granted 1,640 hectares of prime land near the That Luangstupa, the national symbol, on which to develop a "Chinatown" complex in Vientiane. The Vietnamese company that funded the athletes' village is opening a wood-processing factory and hotel in Laos.
Second is regional influence. Thailand, Vietnam and China have long competed for influence in Laos. While socialist Vietnam has held political sway since the 1975 revolution, China has aggressively expanded its economic presence and soft power in the region, and some in the government, notably the Chinese-educated Somsavat, have increasingly turned to the regional giant.
One can see here the strategies more powerful countries use when hoping to nudge transnational business onto less powerful countries' land. The symbolic power of the sporting event is used by higher-income countries to spread their economic infrastructure across borders (note the link between symbolic interaction and conflict theory).
Once this year's Southeast Asian Games and all the hoopla are over, one has to wonder how Chinese, Thai, South Korean, and Japanese economic expansion into Laos will affect the Laotian people. History suggests, not so well.
Sports have been used as a tool of assimilation by western powers for centuries. The following stories show vastly differnt approaches to the way that baseball is being diffused across the global landscape.
Let's just say there is little more to this story than the combination of reality television and capitalist greed, an opportunistic mix of popular culture and the pursuit of...Major League Baseball dollars. According to the story, sports agent, J. B. Bernstein co-founded a company that then started a reality TV show called the "Million Dollar Arm," set in India. Participants competed to win $1 million based on who could hurl the fasted baseball pitch and then throw three pitches of at least 90 miles per hour.
Two javelin throwers came out on top and have since been awarded contracts with a Pittsburgh Pirates minor league team. From the story's transcript:
MARTIN (interviewer): So J.B., let's start with you. What gave you the idea to travel halfway around the world from here to look for baseball players in India? It's not like there's a shortage of players on this hemisphere.
Mr. BERNSTEIN (interviewee): No, definitely not. I think in looking at India, I'm looking at the fact, you know, they have over 300 million men under the age of 25 and 100 percent of them pretty much play cricket in some form. So they're used to throwing a baseball-sized object. And because there is not a big pro sports scene in India, it just seemed that there had to be a lot of natural athletes out there.
The question was, does the age-old saying everybody says you can't teach speed - If I can have a guy who throws hard, I'll teach him everything else - well, that's the one thing we put to the test with, you know, one of the top coaches and it seems to have worked out.
[...]
MARTIN: So you're looking for basically, you're looking for the Yao Ming of India. You can find a new talent pool, but you figure you can also build an audience for baseball in India?
Mr. BERNSTEIN: Definitely. Yes, through following these guys, I think, you know, that's a great model, the Yao Ming-NBA model, and yeah, if we can create that artificially in India with baseball, I think we could see a similar type of...
MARTIN: So there was no romance in this for you. There was no - this was just a business thing?...No disrespect, but it wasn't like you were, like, oh, you know, the romance of the American pastime.
Mr. BERNSTEIN: No, well, I am a baseball fan more than anything. So yeah, I mean, there's certainly, I think, always a personal element to me with baseball. But yeah, I mean, there's no doubt this was a business decision that, by the way, everybody thought was stupid.
This is a classic example of hybridity where transnational capital (prize money, television production, and the actual players) moves back and forth between the United States and India. In the process, various forms of cultural interchange and cultural production are bound to emerge across multiple borders.
Of course in this story, we get the American perspective since the interviewer is American (African American), the first interviewee (notably the one I quote) is the American sports agent, and two additional interviewees are the Indian athletes (initially javelin throwers, turned minor league pitchers). Still, as pointed out by Michel Martin, one can't help but notice the capitalist desires expressed in this global exchange -- an American capitalist aims to find the next "Indian Yao Ming" superstar that will generate big bucks via the massive populace (i.e., potential audience/consumers) that is India. Capitalized multiculturalism at its finest.
Then we have a much different story of baseball and assimilation in Cambodia...
Cambodia is an unlikely place for baseball. There is severe poverty, lingering post-war trauma, and rampant human trafficking. Children are more likely to work or rummage through the fetid muck of the Steung Meanchey dump than go to school or play.
But for the past seven years, Joe Cook, a Cambodian refugee, has been teaching the game in his homeland, building Cambodia's first ball field. Last year, he even managed to put together a national team. In March, they finally won their first game, playing a short series against a team from Vietnam. Considering the violent history the two countries share, just playing the game was an accomplishment beyond any scorecard.
The story details how Cook (previously Jouret Puk) lost family to the Khmer Rouge, escaped Pol Pot's regime with his remaining family, lived by eating crickets, frogs, and tree bark, before making it to refugee camps in Thailand, the Philippines, and eventually ending up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he learned to play baseball. It is a fascinating story of human suffering and resiliency.
The story also sneaks in an abrupt, jolting example of how common and casual human trafficking is in present-day Cambodia.
In 2002, Cook's older sister Chamty, who he thought had perished, called from Cambodia. After years of brutality in the labor camps, she had been released in 1990 and used the Internet to track down members of her family. Cook agreed to reunite with her in Cambodia.
As a way of honoring him, Chamty wanted to travel to the airport to meet him. But the transportation costs were more than she could afford. She made a difficult decision. So as not to lose her brother again, she sold her son to traffickers.
"When I arrived and found out, I was devastated," Cook says, choking up, "She didn't understand that I could've met her anywhere. I never would've wanted her to do that." The first thing he did was buy back his nephew, Chea Theara, for $86.
From there, the author (John Perra) delves into Cook's efforts to build and sustain baseball in Cambodia. Unfortunately, we do not get further information on the unique ways that American baseball is modified to work in Cambodian culture (see here for baseball's cultural reproduction in additional cultural contexts).
However, we see that the globalization of baseball is not limited to greedy capitalist ventures (though those pursuits may dominate its international diffusion). In this case, baseball's introduction to Cambodia can be traced to genocide, refugee camps, international migration, and online networking. Stuart Hall might suggest the "feel good" nature of this multicultural story may influence readers to forget the significance of the killing fields and ongoing human trafficking.
From a story linked up on AsiaOne.com -- “Get an Aussie hubby for $10K.” The story explains how high-income, professional women from Singapore can dish out a fee to have access to men from Australia looking for marriage.
When most marriage consultants are helping men to find foreign brides, one company in Singapore has come out with a blue ocean strategy, only for women.
In view of the rising number of unmarried women in the republic, the company has an ideal package to offer.
The company is matching up its clients with Australian lifetime partner and is charging a fee of S$10,000 (RM24,540) for each successful match.
The men, aged between 30 and 60, and mostly from Brisbane.
“So far, we have paired up about 30 couples,” he said, adding some of the men they introduced were professionals such as lawyers and engineers.
Most of the local clients were career women aged between 20 and 50.
“We also have Chinese women who are working here as well as single mothers who are accompanying their children studying here,” he said.
He said Singaporean women had high expectations of their prospective husbands. They wanted men with a stable income and to look decent.
A few comments. First, this represents the theoretical position of “co-option,” where a smaller number of women are able to utilize the same types of leverage as men in constructing gendered relationships. In short, some women enter the men’s world but must play by the same rules. Thus, the gendered relationships don’t exactly shift since the structure remains the same.
However, this story also has a few twists that illustrate further male privilege in the global marital building business. Even when higher-income women use men’s tactics to purchase access to potential marriages from overseas, these Singaporean and Chinese women appear to be pursuing men who will advance their collective economic advantages. Thus, the women and men are on equal footing economically and likely educationally.
This is drastically different from western men who purchase access to meeting women for potential marriage from lower-income countries. As documented in the Asian American Studies literature, western men frequently marry women from low-income countries who are disempowered once in their new “home,” lacking adequate language and educational skills, and virtually no social-networking connections that would help these women know where to turn if being abused.
Thus, when men are in essence purchasing poor, foreign women for marriage, there tends to be a more deliberate effort to perpetuate race and gender power imbalances. In these cases, the globally constructed marriage is on far less equal footing.
Then another story from Southeast Asia, covering a stepfather who chained his stepdaughter as a prisoner because he did not approve of her boyfriend. From AsiaOneNews:
KUCHING, MALAYSIA: A 20-year-old woman has lodged a police report against her stepfather for keeping her in chains in the house.
The girl claimed that her stepfather, a foreign national, and her mother took her away from the boyfriend's house at Kampung Rampangi in Santubong and forced her to return to their home in Bandar Baru Semariang on Friday night.
The couple then shackled her legs with chains to prevent her from leaving the house. He secured the chains with a padlock.
The ever-growing inter-cultural relationships that emerge with globalization are clearly ridden with power inequalities, influenced by patriarchy manifesting across stratified countries, class groups, and within families. [Photo courtesy of AsiaOneNews.com].
Thinking back to those old school days of Asian American Studies, I just don’t recall the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 being intended to operate this way. From an article in the USA Today:
Unions representing teachers in Louisiana have filed a complaint with state authorities alleging that a Los Angeles recruiting firm broke the law by holding more than 350 Filipino teachers in "virtual servitude" in order to hold onto their jobs in five Louisiana parish school systems, including New Orleans' Recovery School District.
The complaint, filed Wednesday by the Louisiana Federation of Teachers and its parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), alleges that Universal Placement International charged Filipino nationals about $15,000 apiece to get jobs — more than 40% of some new teachers' salaries in a few Louisiana parishes — and required that they pay 10% of their monthly salary for two years to keep them.
[…]
"This is the kind of exploitation that we have read (about) in history books and taught our students — the fact that teachers would be subject to it in the United States in the 21st century is just totally and completely immoral," says AFT President Randi Weingarten. She notes that the allegations still have to be investigated, but says that, if true, it'd be "mind-blowing that a recruiter could actually get away with this. Even if it was an isolated incident, it would be horrible, but my hunch right now is that it's not isolated."
In Louisiana, many of the Filipino teachers told union investigators that they were required to rent housing provided by Universal, which sublet apartments at a profit. The complaint also alleges that Universal threatened to "take them back to the airport for a return flight to the Philippines" if teachers questioned the contract terms.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 shifted Asian American communities’ demographics tremendously. The act increased immigration by easing back on prior restrictions. Current immigrants present in the United States could use the family reunification clause to bring over relatives. A greater percentage of political refugees would be admitted. And potential immigrants with particular job skills lacking in the United States were given preference.
It is through this latter clause that we still see teachers and nurses from foreign countries (including the Philippines) migrate to the United States in higher numbers. Unfortunately, this story also shows that time doesn’t necessarily change occupational exploitation. Should these allegations be true, it appears the open and overt contract labor injustices (extortion through stolen wages, threats of heavy debt, deportation back to the Philippines, and actively exploiting populations from poor countries) from 19th and 20th century United States just aren’t dying out.
Also listen to this NPR podcast on the story HERE.
Globalization occurs on many fronts. In our global society, there are related economic and militaristic arrangements, both of which benefit high-income imperialist countries more than they do those in the developing stage. Additionally, international economic and militaristic arrangements affect climate change and cultural interchange. Again, in this system, those countries that spread their systems profit disproportionately in the global matrix.
As has been noted across the news, Manila (capital city of the Philippines) and its greater metropolitan area has recently been struck by typhoon Ondoy, resulting in mass flooding and thus far, 141 deaths/37 missing. Unfortunately, the rippling effects of this disaster will be all the more devastating for the country. From a financial standpoint, early estimates show that the flooding will cost the Philippines colossal amounts in repair of infrastructure and insurance claims.
Perhaps worse, the flooding will have lasting effects in terms of hospital costs and impending disease, in particular for those families who live(d) in shanty town-type housing that is highly prevalent across Manila’s greater metropolitan area. Due to typhoon Ondoy, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Philippines has likely increased in the hundreds of thousands, and undoubtedly, poorer families will be more susceptible to disease due to a lack of health insurance and generally poorer health.
Climate Change and Economic Imbalances
While it is impossible to know if typhoon Ondoy is a direct result of climate change or not, IRIN reported in July of this year that the Philippines was one of the top 12 countries in the world at greatest risk of environmental disaster coming at the hands of climate change (specifically storms):
The World Bank has made a list of the five main threats arising from climate change: droughts, floods, storms, rising sea levels, and greater uncertainty in agriculture. Four of the world's poorest nations top the list of the 12 countries at the highest risk.
[…]
The Philippines, a middle-income country in Southeast Asia consisting of over 7,000 islands, leads the list of nations most in danger of facing frequent and more intense storms. In 2008 it was one of three countries hit by the most disasters, according to the Brussels-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters.
The above referenced report essentially called it here, noting further that climate change will affect the poorer countries of the world more so than those countries that are ultimately causing adverse environmental shifts.
The assumption that free trade and the development of industry in middle-income/developing countries benefits all of society relies on a capitalist ideology, which professes that accumulating more and more and more is a good thing. Incessant accumulation can best be accomplished by exploiting vulnerable populations, in particular those outside of one’s immediate locale; it is at this stage where the most money is made (lowering production costs).
However, once tangible products are available for sale, a second key for capitalists is to manufacture a cultural desire for those products that exceeds what the labor force can afford. Thus, the concept of credit becomes all the more important -- people from all socio-economic groups will defer to creditors to pay for material items now, but pay back creditors more later, or pay the eventual punitive consequences.
The real point here, however, is that high-income countries (e.g., Japan, United States, Germany) plant factories overseas to lower production costs, justified through the capitalist ideology that they are “helping” low-income countries industrialize, a so-called natural progression in society. But what if those countries do industrialize? Won’t they likewise want to then shift to a service/technology-based economy?
This means they will have to locate poorer countries where they can build factories and exploit new minority workers. It will be a never ending disastrous cycle of human and environmental exploitation … never ending that is, until there is no one and no place left to exploit. But that wouldn’t change the capitalist ideology; it would just mean new forms of exploitation must be created.
More to this end, the Philippines exemplifies a classic example of manufactured international dependence in our capitalist world. As I blogged about previously, international industries rely heavily on Filipino/a contract laborers who remit enormous amounts of money back home annually. This system is applauded by some key governmental officials. But in reality, the system fosters dependence, a lack of internal motivation/innovation, and family breakup.
Militaristic Paternalism
Additionally, the United States maintains a system of militaristic governance in the Philippines, currently defended through the ideological fear of terrorism. A history of colonial policies and practices has intensified the marginalization of Muslims in the Philippines’ southern region of Mindanao. Marginalization of course cultivates extremism (based on both religious fundamentalism and/or poverty). From a September 25, 2009 New York Times article:
Last month, after consulting with the Philippine government, the United States decided to extend the operation of its force in the southern Philippines, known as the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines and composed of 600 elite counterinsurgency soldiers. The announcement drew angry responses from left-leaning politicians and news media; American officials declined to be interviewed for this article.
Since establishing the task force in 2002, the United States has provided the Philippines with $1.6 billion in military and economic aid. Much of that, including $400 million from the United States Agency for International Development, has been funneled into Mindanao in the southern Philippines, where Abu Sayyaf and another Muslim separatist group operate.
[…]
The Americans have also been directing development assistance here, including building roads, bridges and buildings; improving cellphone service and encouraging local businesses; training teachers and wiring schools for the Internet; and providing temporary medical and dental clinics.
However, the sentiments concerning U.S. military intervention and presence are not all positive, nor should they be based on America’s militaristic history in the Philippines. More from this same NY Times article:
“Peace here in Basilan is so elusive,” Mr. Furigay said, adding that poor governance created an environment in which groups like Abu Sayyaf grew. “Most of our leaders in Basilan are not really sincere. Most of them are holding their positions just to enrich themselves.” He said that because Abu Sayyaf’s leadership had been decimated, the group’s members were now motivated by “grievances.”
“There’s little ideology,” he said, estimating that Abu Sayyaf’s core members numbered fewer than 20 in Basilan.
That assessment was shared by other islanders, including those less welcoming of an American presence. Al-Rasheed M. Sakkalahul, Basilan’s vice governor, estimated that only 10 were longtime, ideologically driven members. But he said they were able to mobilize about 100 supporters in a conflict.
“All the rest are ordinary bandits, even civilians without any training on how to handle firearms,” Mr. Sakkalahul, 52, said at his office in Isabela. “They join Abu Sayyaf so they can divide ransom money from kidnapping victims.” He said that given those circumstances, he was skeptical of the American force’s presence here and complained that he had not been given facts about the mission. “You are my visitor in my house,” Mr. Sakkalahul said. “You just enter my house without even knocking on my door. What is your purpose in coming?”
Perhaps America’s real interest in maintaining military operations in the Philippines and other developing countries lays in a more clandestine industry that mixes private capital with international militaristic objectives. See below:
As can be seen, contemporary imperialism manifests in multiple forms, relying on governmental complicity/corruption from numerous countries, public fear, and capitalist ideology. The results of this complex web are likewise multiple, exhibited through economic dependence/exploitation, deference to external military operations, and an increased potential for natural disasters.
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