Currently, planet earth is under many assorts of assaults and hazards. So, it is bleeding to death and nobody is asking quo vadis (Where are you marching?). Humans have brought it to its kneel for the peril of almost everything including themselves.
Currently, the world is facing global warming, natural calamities, which to me are manmade. For example, we recently evidenced the raise of cyclones, floods, pandemics, ferocious storms and wildfires, among many. Evidence shows that human activities, particularly carbon emissions are to blame. Again, who cares? Who is to blame?
The answer is that those with powers are to blame, mainly the so-called developed or industrialised countries, which — for many decades, have greedily and intentionally contaminated and polluted mother earth. Their arrogance, greed, ignorance and myopia, among others, are to blame.
Instead of taking reasonable actions to remedy the looming dangers by being accountable, industrialised countries are coxing underdeveloped countries to carry their cross under what I call environmental origin sin that involves those who are responsible for the sin and those who are not.
The refusal to learn from the obvious will cost the earth more than any sane person can tell or imagine. The doomsdays are on our door weightily smiting though we pretend to downplay them, once again, for our peril if we can’t home in on a realistic solution. In this piece, I point at one of the root causes of our self-inflicted tragedy shall we go on with business as usual at these unusual times.
My culprit today is actually capitalism, among others. I must state that capitalism is my chief culprit since, for many years, has forced the world to destroy mother earth under its mantra of consumerism. Capitalist countries toppled governments that seems not to toe the line globally.
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After its triumph over communism in 1989, thanks to the fall of the Berlin Wall, its neoliberal polices became the only bull in the stable, especially after China embraced it doggedly and ploddingly replicated it. That is why those in Africa who think China is going to help them are making a big goof. No capitalist’s good or bad. A capitalist seeks to make a killing even by killing or torturing. You can take this to the bank.
Why am I accusing capitalism of destroying the world shall it not be cut to size or decolonised? The first reason revolves around its disregard of humanity by allowing a person to exploit another under the disguise and drive of profit.
Under capitalism, one is allowed to colonise, enslave, exploit even genocide others provided that doing so should not touch on the interests of big capitalists in the West.
Under capitalism, everybody is allowed to harm mother earth if doing so guarantees him or her to make the almighty dollar.
Refer to how many natural forests are decimated globally to supply the ever-demanding and overdemanding capitalist free market under the guise of investment.
Currently, the amazon is vanishing. Many endangered spices are now perishing for the same myopic and suicidal reason.
Many lakes and rivers have been polluted for the same reason. Multinational companies in conjunction with local corrupt elites are behind this destruction, mainly in the countries endowed with sources of resources of values. At national and international levels, one’s allowed to get away with murder.
Refer to how our former colonial monsters are still hounding us even after assaulting and gazumping us for decades during slavery, colonisation and now neocolonialism aka neoliberalism.
Can anybody tell me why countries that colonised and enslaved others have never been brought to book to, at least, admit their criminality and redress their victims thereof?
Moreover, victimised countries were incredibly cheated by being given their “independence” after the superstructure found that running colonies was more expensive than using proxies in many offices of presidents in their ex-colonies.
Can we call African countries independent while they have always been dependent since the day they got their so-called independence? Is it demeaning African countries to assert that their so-called independence's a decoy for the big criminals to keep on lord it over them?
If this is the case, then why Africa has always been dependent and poor while it is told it is independent? Why African countries have always been the exporters of raw materials and consumers of processed goods from the same raw materials as if they are occupied by animals? Here comes another poison of capitalism.
It thrives on extractivism and consumerism whereby materials of value have ever since colonial times been extracted from ex-colonies, manufactured massively by ex-colonial masters aka industrialised countries and exported back to where they are taken from to be sold at exorbitant prices.
Through this chicanery, criminals even richer despite making a killing and capital during slavery and colonialism are now called donors while they actually are robbers.
In producing massively, we’re poisoning mother earth in the name of development, industrialisation, demand and supply of even unwanted materials such as toys and fake hair, toxic items, weapons, among others.
Our factories, for decades, dumped a lot of toxic materials to our lakes, rivers and oceans for our peril.
Mother earth’s choked to death by our planes, factories, cars, greenhouses, satellites and others and we just do business as usual for our peril.
Then we come to the second killer instinct of capitalism. This is none other than business or busyness. In the name of business, capitalism keeps people busy toiling to make a dollar.
To crown it, those who toil hard aren’t called toilers or servants even slaves but middle class. Middle class in the middle of exploitation uh?
To push them in a snare, the middle class is always told that it needs purchasing power to develop the country but not themselves. It is encouraged to show off the money it gets through extravagance instead of thinking about what it consumes and the dent it creates on mother earth.
Here, you’ll see people invest in oil guzzlers for show-offs thinking they’re smart. Are they smart or stupid? To make the ruse work, some corrupt governments in poor countries sitting on humungous resources of value are given aid.
Capitalist bosses allow the official of such dependent governments to abuse the aid and loans their countries get from their masters.
Small, big and mega corruption become another rule of the game. They consume even more for the peril of the world.
While the middle class is busy with showing off, a few billionaires purchase private jets they use to traverse the world either hunting for leisure or even sending their pilots to buy pizza and wine from other countries or pick up some prostitutes as they burn gas and increase global warming.
Despite this selfishness and huge carbon print, governments don’t make them pay for their mischiefs through heavy taxation.
What’s more, from where I sit, capitalism doesn’t create anything. Instead, it reaps where it didn’t sow — from nature. Refer to how we’re depleting everything to supply capitalism free market. Is it free market or free fall destruction of mother earth?
While this has been ongoing, capitalist institutions killed Indigenous knowledges that used to protect environment by harvesting nature sustainably; and thereby save the world from itself and now from capitalism.
Those who think this rationale’s hooey, please tell me: how “traditional-cum-primitive” societies were able to live from time immemorial without harming environs up until there came capitalism.
How were they to live without begging and living on handouts up until they’re colonised.
This speaks to the fact that Africa still has a lot to offer to address the problem at hand and thereby redress mother earth. Actually, this is a rare skill that colonisers killed.
However, Africa can still salvage this knowledge and extend to others. For example, Africans used to consume according to the need but not luxury as they became after being colonised politically and culturally.
A simple example’s that there’s no tourist hunting wherein animals are killed for fun! Tourists pays millions of dollars to decimate our animals.
Ironically, we fail to understand the fact that the dollars we’re given are churned by machines while our animals take a long time to be delivered and reach maturity. Guess what?
Once all of our precious animals are gone, we’ll be forced to either buy from them or go see them in their zoos. The almighty dollar — the God of capitalism — has blinded many to think that it can make them rich while in the long run, makes them poorer and poorer, especially due to the fact that they are losing priceless species just for papers.
Now that we know what we’re into, what’d we expect for our arrogance, greed, ignorance and myopia?
Pandemics are now rife, after we’ve encroached on animals that used to live with their viruses in their habitats not to mention natural calamities such as floods, famines heatwaves, weather volatility, wildfires not to forget human-inflicted tragedies such as global warming, economic slumps, poverty and resource-based violent conflicts that will wreck many innocent and unsuspecting lives, especially in the so-called third world or pauperised countries that capitalism created while in actuality it’s the first world of resources that run the world.
A long story short, when the world threw doors open to capitalism, didn’t know how to shut them shall need arise. Again, in this self-annihilation, nobody will survive.
Will we die together like fools or survive together as humanity? Are we mentally bankrupt so as to die together as fools? For, Mother earth’s but the boat on which we’re all boarding though in different classes. Shall it sink, we all will. Then, what’ll we do? Abandon or abolish capitalism or perish. It is that simple. You don’t need to have a PhD in natural resources, economics, finance or astrology to comprehend this.