Naeem's Blog

Top three headlines in Al-Jazeera English TV the other day were the Pakistan turmoil, the clashes in Mogadishu between Ethiopian troops and Somali insurgents, and the anti-government protests in Malaysia.

I think enough has been said about Pakistan, so I won't rehash it here.

The tensions in Somalia have been simmering for quite some time, ever since the Ethiopian troops occupied the country and forced out the Islamic Courts.

Although the recent tragedy, where over 80 people have been killed, was sparked by the repugnant act of the dragging of slain Ethiopian troops, the root cause of the problem is the anti-Ethiopian sentiments held by most Somalis.

And in Malaysia, the non-violent protests by opposition groups led by Anwar Ibrahim are calling for fair elections and the removal of corrupt officials.

Looking at these three together, one common theme really stands out.

Not the call for democracy or the introduction of Sharia or the end of martial law or bringing back the Khilafa.

The common theme, and its true all across the South, is the call for self-determination. This is not about democracy. This is about self-determination, period.

Democratic elections are not enough. The government must genuinely reflect the best interests of the people, politically as well as economically, not the interest of foreign powers and multinational corporations.

South American countries have learned this lesson (you really need to read Naomi Klien's latest article "Latin America's Shock Resistance"):

"Latin America’s new leaders are also taking bold measures to block any future US-backed coups that could attempt to undermine their democratic victories. Chávez has let it be known that if an extremist right-wing element in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz province makes good on its threats against Morales’s government, Venezuelan troops will help defend Bolivia’s democracy. Meanwhile, the governments of Venezuela, Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia have all announced that they will no longer send students to the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation)–the infamous police and military training center in Fort Benning, Georgia, where so many of the continent’s notorious killers learned the latest in “counterterrorism” techniques, then promptly directed them against farmers in El Salvador and auto workers in Argentina. Ecuador, in addition to closing the US military base, also looks set to cut its ties with the school. It’s hard to overstate the importance of these developments. If the US military loses its bases and training programs, its power to inflict shocks on the continent will be greatly eroded.

The new leaders in Latin America are also becoming better prepared for the kinds of shocks produced by volatile markets. One of the most destabilizing forces of recent decades has been the speed with which capital can pick up and move, or how a sudden drop in commodity prices can devastate an entire agricultural sector. But in much of Latin America these shocks have already happened, leaving behind ghostly industrial suburbs and huge stretches of fallow farmland. The task of the region’s new left, therefore, has become a matter of taking the detritus of globalization and putting it back to work. In Brazil, the phenomenon is best seen in the million and a half farmers of the Landless Peoples Movement (MST), who have formed hundreds of cooperatives to reclaim unused land. In Argentina, it is clearest in the movement of “recovered companies,” 200 bankrupt businesses that have been resuscitated by their workers, who have turned them into democratically run cooperatives. For the cooperatives, there is no fear of facing an economic shock of investors leaving, because the investors have already left.

Chávez has made the cooperatives in Venezuela a top political priority, giving them first refusal on government contracts and offering them economic incentives to trade with one another. By 2006 there were roughly 100,000 cooperatives in the country, employing more than 700,000 workers...

In 2005 Latin America made up 80 percent of the IMF’s total lending portfolio; the continent now represents just 1 percent–a sea change in only two years."

Its time the rest of the South learn the same lesson.

From Somalia to Georgia to Pakistan to Myanmar to Malaysia, the fundamental call of these peoples is the determination of their own fate.

Self-determination:
1. Determination by oneself or itself, without outside influence.
2. Freedom to live as one chooses, or to act or decide without consulting another or others.
3. The determining by the people of the form their government shall have, without reference to the wishes of any other nation, esp. by people of a territory or former colony.

Let the people decide their own fate, not only politically, but also economically (referring to IMF, the World Bank, the Washington Consensus, etc.).

Side Note: Speaking of Malaysia, check out their new Muslim car, equipped with a Qibla compass, a special place to store the headscarf (otherwise known as the glove compartment), and space to pray in the trunk (just kidding).