I foresee, with the price hike, not only the poor will suffer even more, but people will be in desperation. Crime rate will go up. People will be debt-ridden. Businesses will go bust. Families will have to work harder than they can handle.
Dr. Azly Rahman dr.azly.rahman@gmail.com
http://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2008/06/southeast-asian-financial-crisis-of.html
"…Profit increases capital./ Capital increases profit. More money means more schemes./ We can't be help up, we can't be interrupted ... Money must circulate./ Money must circulate/ Time is money./ Goods are money/ we call this economics..... If you disturb us/ Unemployed workers will bite their nails…"
-- from, Chorus of Machines, W.S. Rendra's The Struggle of the Naga Tribe (1975)
While quietly protesting and waiting for the gas price in New York City to go up to $4 per gallon, I have been obsessed with these ideas on Malaysia:
What if we only have a 4-day week selling our labor to the Malaysian state? What if the nation stays home, wears the sarong and work online? What if we boycott those foreign oil companies by boycotting their gas pumps twice a week by taking the public transport? What if we do this by September 16 and see what's going to happen?
PAKATAN RAKYAT PARLIAMENTARIANS TAKE NOTE.
What if we write to our Parliamentarians and ask them to pose all the 570 billion Ringgit questions to PETRONAS – all the questions we can think of in order for this national oil company to be fully nationalize – or rakyat-ize? Then we question the very foundation of the huge projects such as the Iskandar Malaysia that also allow the American company Halliburton to operate.
PAKATAN RAKYAT PARLIAMENTARIANS TAKE NOTE
What if we ask everybody to unsubscribe their ASTRO? To eat out less? To boycott the newspapers? To turn off the TV twice a week? To consume only what they need? To teach the nation to how Malaysian advertisers lie on TV?
RAKYAT TAKE NOTE
Economists – help us calculate the gains by staying home in sarong, working online, boycotting the petrol stations a few days a week, etc. What if we refuse to pay for those expensive foodstuff and go for the very basic, the bare minimum? What if we design a long-term plan to villagize ourselves and to build communes based on the ideology of the moral economy of the peasant society but equipped with facilities for organic farming, high-speed Internet access, good mini libraries, and meaningful communities to foster inter-ethnic understanding?
ECONOMISTS AND GREEN URBAN ARCHITECTS TAKE NOTE
What if we begin to notice the lifestyles of Malaysia's rich and famous and the powerful – especially those associated with the aristocrats and the ruling class and compare this with the lifestyle of the poor and the unknown and the pariah of the modern Malaysian capitalist system? What if we ban from our roads all the Jags, the Mercs, the Berms, the Hummers, the Maseratis, the Audis, the Bentleys, the Lamborghinis, the Rolls Royces, etc. – these gas guzzlers and symbols of conspicuous consumptions driven around by the aristocrats and the politicians and many a robber baron – so that we may make the poor happier and less tempted to be and to become like the rich and famous? What if we close down those signature golf courses, symbols of wastage of electricity and water? What if we get really angry at these images we compare and ask ourselves – why have we come to this point in history and what then must we do?
Aarghh… the poor will get poorer and angrier. The middle class is frustrated. These just can't take it. Can't the government feel the pain?
I foresee, with the price hike, not only the poor will suffer even more, but people will be in desperation. Crime rate will go up. People will be debt-ridden. Businesses will go bust. Families will have to work harder than they can handle. Children will spend less time with the their parents. Alongs will chase their lendees faster. Rich-quick ala the legendary Pak Man Telo, schemes will flourish. Online fraud ala Joe Nigeria will prey on Malaysians. Faith in religion will be the last bastion for the spirit to still be in one piece.
See what governments and economic systems can do to the soul? See what kind of system we have built as a continuation of the British colonial plundering-ideology? We though we could get out of it – but out of the frying pan and into the fire we were plunged into!
The question is: do we need oil change – or regime change?
If in the 1997 Southeast Asia Financial Crisis we saw the devastating "Tom Yum" effect, what are we seeing in this "Global Gassing-up" effect? That began with the first Father Bush Regime's invasion of Iraq?
It's very hot here in America. It's 90 degrees. Senator Obama is speaking on the radio. And I am thinking – the biggest culprit consumer of oil in the world is the United States Army. We go by miles per gallon; this arm of the Bush war- mongering machinery goes by gallons per mile!
Aargh… I am thinking of beloved Malaysia again. I'll wait and see if the price of gas will go down after September 16. It's hell for the Malaysian underclass these days. One nation in sarong, protesting – like the Burmese.
CURRENT REGIME TAKE NOTE.
YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO LOSE EXCEPT THOSE YOU HAVE CHAINED.
No comments:
Post a Comment