II. IMF, WORLD BANK AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF POVERTY

The extremists are already in power. They have turned much of the world into a military garrison and an economic purgatory(Parenti 1989:6)

In 1955 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was ratified leading eventually to the development of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. The benefits of these organizations for the most part have accrued to international banks and transnational corporations. They imply a supervision of 'Third World' countries. The conditionalities of the WTO have given a new legal setting to the relationship between the West and the Third World.

The elite in the 'Third World' countries that accept funds from the agencies mentioned above agree to sell their sovereignty, by accepting conditions for economic restructuring and policing to ensure compliance by the West (Chossudovsky 1997:35). Debtor nations have to give up their control of fiscal and monetary policy and Western institutions dictate their financial budgets and the working of their Central Bank. Thus every debtor country has a nominal government having even less power than subject local governments of the colonial era.

Democratic Loans: One of the first big loans that the World Bank made was on August 7, 1947. It was given for reconstruction to the colonialist government of the Netherlands. The Dutch had just sent 145000 troops to crush the anti-colonialist uprising in the East Indies. In 1966 the Bank in defiance of the United Nations continued to lend money to Portugal [and its colonial domination of Angola and Mozambique) and South Africa (and its apartheid). At this time in history the Bank was not profitable and had few lenders in outside regimes fighting wars. This however was to change in the late 1960 and early 1970s.

Loaning Out Poverty: The boom in the oil prices in 1973 and the US recession forced the loaning of money to the Third World at close to zero (sometimes negative) interest rates. This money was used to purchase U.S and Western imports, resulting in economic growth in the West and the creation of over 2 million jobs (Alexander 1996:114). Just like a modern day credit-card company that makes borrowing attractive by a short period of low interest lending, at the end of which the rate jumps to unreasonable levels, the U.S suddenly increased interest rates in 1979.

The total outstanding debt of developing countries was $62 billion in 1970; increased to $481 billion in 1980 and in 1996 stood at over $2 trillion (Chossudovsky 1997:46). By the middle of the 1980s, the poor countries of the world were giving more in debt servicing to the rich West than was being received in the form of all inputs (loans, foreign investments and aid).

Banks and institutions that set up shop in poor minority communities in the United States similarly drain the community of their resources. The same system is at play with its predictable pattern of winners and losers. Chinyelu presents a case study of the Freedom National Bank that was established in 1964 in Brooklyn to serve as a community institution for providing loans to African Americans for home purchase and small business establishment:

Freedom National collected $50 million in deposits from their two Brooklyn branches, yet woefully made only three mortgage loans, totaling a mere $130,000 to Brooklynites seeking to purchase homesIn other instances, members of the bank's management board pushed through unsecured loans, either for themselves or for their friends, some of which were not repaid (Chinyelu 1999:84-85)

The loans that were given by the bank and the IMF came with strict conditions. They were policy-based. In the beginning of the 1970s, the Peterson Report in the United States recommended to  establish a framework of principles, procedures and institutions, that will ensure the effective use of assistance funds and the achievement of US national interests (McNeill 1981:52 (12)). The 'weighted' vote of the United States and the West in decisions is comfortably placed in such institutions, to guarantee decisions in their favor.

From 1970 to 1980, the flow of investment capital from the United States to the Third World amounted to about $8 billion. But the return flow from the Third World to the United States in the form of dividends, interest, branch profits, management fees, and royalties was $63.7 billion. Together (1989 figures), all multinational corporations and banks in the world take as much as $200 billion every year from the Third World Nation. (Parenti 1989: 13; Monthly Review 1983:37; Political Affairs, July 1982:37- all quoted by Parenti)

Consumers know that credit-card companies are happy if you make the minimum payments on your credit cards thereby maximizing the profits of their company via interest and late-fees. Now imagine if they had the liberty to "force" you to use the convenience checks that they mail you, and also dictate where you do the spending- this is a close approximation to how the World Bank and IMF operate with 'Third World' countries. If your debt becomes unmanageable, you have to work to pay off the debt, whether you like your current job or not, otherwise you risk falling through the security net.

The IMF and the World Bank have devised a way to be even more profitable than the credit card companies. They dont require the poor countries to pay back the principal (at the moment) as they realize that most of them cannot, even if they wanted to, so they just require the periodic payment of the interest on the loans. This is called debt-servicing by rescheduling debt payments.

However, apart from being extremely profitable, resulting in a net flow of capital from the 'Third World' to the West (poor people feeding the rich) it gives the rich industrial countries of the West complete control over the national economic policies of these countries. There are tight conditionality to these loans, and deadlines to their implementation in the debtors economy. The changes that these institutions require are not based on the implementation of an investment program or project; they are policy changes that affect the entire economy and especially the majority population in these countries, those that are the most deprived. The names and terms of the loans explicitly suggest the objectives. They are called structural adjustment loans (SAL), or Sector adjustment loans. The IMF calls part of its loaning facilities Systematic Transformation Facility (STF).

On paper, the loans are contingent upon Macro-economic stabilization and structural reforms. By Macro stabilization, the IMF-World Bank requires a country to devalue its currency, liberalize its prices and snip and cut the countrys budget, called austerity measures. This is required of countries whose GNP is less than General Motors or the Ford Motor Company. Fifteen percent of the worlds population living in the Western industrial countries is responsible for nearly 80 percent of world expenditure (UN World Report 1998). Yet the same people, who spend the most, want to promote austerity in the Third World. These Ghetto Lords enforce the following

i) Currency devaluation: This is almost universal in the IMF-World Bank policy agenda. A devalued currency almost overnight sends the 'Third World' economy in question into a price hike. Imports become more expensive while exports of the country become cheaper to the West, through the reduction of the dollar price of labor cost. The extra dollars that the government earns or saves are supposed to be used for debt servicing i.e. recycled back to the West. The effect of devaluation is that the domestic price of food and medicine and public services- common necessities- goes up almost overnight. Thus the poor are made poorer. Those who have saved all their lives lose the real value of their money in a matter of hours. However, commodities and raw materials required by the rich countries of the West become cheap to them but expensive for 'Third World' home consumption and lead to a booming economy in the West with a 2.2 percent inflation rate, compared to the double digit inflation in the Third World.

By 1983,the money collected by foreign banks in the form of interest payments on Third World debts was three times higher than their profits on direct Third-World investments (Parenti 1989:27)

After adopting the 1991 IMF plan, the price of rice in India rose 50 percent in six months and the real-earnings of the textile industries fell by 60 percent due to inflation. This directly affected the lives of over 60 million people. Adding to the misery were the reduced wages of rice-paddy workers, around $0.57 for a days work. This amount, 0.57 cents, contrary to popular opinion is not a fortune in India. Adjusted for cost of living (purchasing power) differences, it could buy only $2 worth of goods in America. A monthly salary of less than $50, if they were in the US (Alexander 1996:109). Can anyone survive on $2 a day in the United States However, the Indian government didnt care because most of these low-wage workers were of the untouchable class. At best they needed controlling and austerity similar to the view of the West towards the 'Third World'.

After the flood in Bangladesh in 1991, which killed over 140,000 people, the IMF enforced its devaluation program. The retail price of rice went up by over 50 percent causing a famine and killing tens of thousands of people on paper. The real number was much higher, as the emergency food, being appropriated by indigenous officials never reached the starving masses (UN World Report 1998).

ii) Anti-inflationary program: However, after causing inflation via devaluation, the IMF wants the government to enact an anti-inflationary program.

The IMF method of attacking inflation is to cut demand and put a tight control on the money supply. However, devaluation, which was the real cause of inflation, is ignored. Contraction of demand implies that public expenditure is to be controlled. The only way government expenditure can be controlled is to lay off public employees or to cut social service programs.

This has a double effect. It cuts government spending as well as private consumption spending. If people dont have jobs they spend less on consumption. Therefore, money is freed to service the debt while people live at near starvation levels. Global consumption expenditure has grown at an average of 3 percent since 1970, however in the poorest of the 'Third World' countries it has fallen dramatically. Both public and private consumption per capita in Africa has fallen over 20% since 1980.

Another way expenditure can be controlled is to cut investment and infrastructure building. Thus projects like public utilities and water are stopped midway. Thus bubonic plague in India in 1994 was directly attributed to the IMF structural reform program of 1991 which cut spending in that sector. Out of 4.4 billion people in developing countries, 60 percent lack access to sanitation and nearly forty percent have no access to clean water and a quarter have no housing (UN World Report 1998). About 17 million die of curable infectious/parasitic diseases like Malaria and Diarrhea etc. Yet the "noble" dream of the World Bank according to their web site is "a world free of poverty."

There is yet another way that demand can be reduced and that is to reduce foreign imports. However, the IMF-World Bank agenda strictly forbids any control on trade. Not only this, imports from the West are forcibly encouraged by quick disbursing policy-based loans (Chossudovsky 1997:53) for importing consumer goods and food from rich countries. Not only is the debt enlarged, it earns extra profit for the West as more of the devalued currency has to be used to pay for the same amount of imports.

The devaluation discussed above causes a short-term boost to the 'Third World' economy by increasing exports. The Wests control of the governing bodies of Third World nations ensures that the profit from this, what is left after debt servicing, goes to overseas bank accounts, in the West [by making the free movement of foreign exchange one of the conditionalities of loan provision in many countries]. The short-term boost however is over soon. Devaluation by the other 'Third World' countries, all fighting for crumbs from the masters table soon restore the balance of trade to the former level, leaving the country poorer and the misery greatly magnified. This sets a viscous cycle of misery with riots, government overthrows, and near-war situations in many of these countries.

iii) Separation of Central Bank from politics: One of the conditions of the IMF is that the debtor nation separates the Central Bank from all political power. Thus the IMF and not the government of the country control the money supply and money creation. Therefore the economic development or non-development is now directly in the hands of the foreign power, the IMF and the World Bank, with its decision vote in the hands of the United States and its Western European allies. The influence is such that the heads of many of the Central Banks are former senior officials of the International Financial Institutions (IFI), and sometimes receive salary supplements from these creditors (Chossudovsky 1997:58).

iv) Public Expenditure Review: The IMF-World Bank monitors all public expenditure by the government through its Public Expenditure Review (PER). It has required that certain vulnerable groups be targeted but overall the state reduces its expenditure on such things like health and education. ). During the 1980s, spending on education in African IMF countries fell by 25% according to the UN Commission on Africa (Alexander 1996:127).

The reduction of expenses on social services, which were small to begin with, is not a one-time demand by the IMF and the World Bank. They require a moving target approach. Once the target is reached, a further reduced target is set for the next period, causing a further cutback in public spending. At the same time, spending on the military industry, especially where the sellers are the western firms is never discouraged. The major part of the expenses of many of these nations is on arms import. In NATO countries, military spending fell by 33 percent between 1987 and 1996, however in South Asia, it increased by 13 percent and in some countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, by over 35 percent (UN Human Development Report 1998).

These arms were imported in the major part from the West. It is therefore expedient for the West to keep situations in these countries at a 'near war' level. The 'conflicts', that are kept alive in many of these countries have already been decided upon by the United Nations [Kashmir and Palestine is the case in point] but are deliberately ignored by Western powers that seek to benefit from the status quo. In keeping with this contradictory policy, certain other United Nations resolutions are forcibly extracted and executed with lightening speed in the "Desert Storm" fashion.

In the 1970s Somalia was almost self-sufficient in food and Vietnam had a 90% literacy rate. After they allowed the West to implement Structural Adjustment in their economies, we saw that Somalia was starving and enrollment in Vietnamese schools dropped by over 25% in a short period (Chossudovsky 1997).

v) Investment in infrastructure: In controlling expenditure, ceilings are placed on all expenditures of investments. The state cannot choose or employ its own public to build infrastructure. Though the Public Investment Projects (PIP), the IMF-World Bank become brokers of all investment projects in the Third World country. It is required that competitive bidding among select international firms are the criteria. International firms are employed which charge large amounts of money in management and consultation fees [intellectual property rights].

A huge proportion of the debt is used for such technical assistance. Thus once again, no capital is sent and a few numbers are added to the computer totals. The money changes hands in the same block of rich Western countries who compete for contracts to build. Locals are kept out of the planning process but local laborers do most of the building at marginal wages. Thus the external debt is enlarged, and local resources are not used for developing technical expertise but for basic raw labor, as against planning science.

Another way the IMF-World Bank stunts domestic growth in the poor nation is by controlling the price of fuel and utilities. The price often inflated several hundred percent, force many manufacturers into bankruptcy by fictitiously increasing the cost of manufacture and internal transportation. Thus imports from the West appear as the only alternative. The East India Company achieved a similar motive in colonial times when it imposed internal-transit duties on local manufactured goods, thus aborting a newly forming industry. The same is happening today in Sub-Saharan Africa where local farmers cannot transport their produce to urban areas for sale (Chossudovsky 1997:63).

Yet another way employed by the IMF-WB to reduce investment [in the domestic economy to keep it at a resource providing, non-manufacturing level] is the deregulation of domestic banking and the free entry of foreign banks in the market. The government is not allowed to give subsidized loans, and a strict control of money creation together with other economic requirements of the IMF-WB, drives up interest rates to unreal levels. It becomes impossible to borrow money to invest in industry as its 'opportunity cost' is too high. It would thus be more profitable to keep that money in interest-earning accounts. This encourages non-investment and an inflow of black money (money that has escaped taxation) and dirty money (illegal trade) into the 'Third World' money market.

The advantage of this is temporary for the domestic economy, which gets short-term relief in debt servicing. After a short gain there is a huge loss, as the elites in these countries, after laundering this money, send it to the West, whereas before it couldnt be sent as it was out of the system. Therefore, there is a double-exit of capital from the poor country. The exit that occurred when the funds were used for debt servicing and the exit that followed shortly thereafter in the form of laundered money sent to Western banks.

The IMF-WB policy encourages money laundering on a global level, where it suits the interest of the West. Where such laundering doesnt suit them (or is channeled back to the domestic economy), worldwide bank chains like the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) are forcibly shut down, and their funds appropriated.

On a local scale, writing about the Freedom National Bank in Harlem, Chinyelu (2000) states:

Earlier in 1990, when Freedom National was having problems, a much larger bank in Boston, The Bank of New England, was in a similar situation. However, the federal government made an effort to sustain the Bank of New England by depositing public funds in the Bank, while a the same time sharply cutting back similar deposits at the Freedom National Bank, thus hastening the collapse of this small minority owned institution. Equally disturbing was the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation willingness to cover the Bank of New Englands $3 Billion in uninsured deposits, while not willing at least initially to cover Freedom Nationals $8 to $10 million in uninsured deposits (Chinyelu 1999:85).

vi) Removal of Import Quotas: The policies that encourage Western imports at the detriment of the developing domestic industry is further strengthened by the insistence of the IMF-World Bank that import quotas and tariffs be reduced if not eliminated. This has two effects; i) It leads to an increase in luxury goods being imported into the domestic economy, thereby resulting in a further outflow of capital to the West from poor countries and ii) a reduction of custom duties to the domestic government which could have been spent on education, health and other public services. Most of all however, this increase in spending is not due to a good economy but is sustained on either short-term export gains by devaluation [discussed above] or on adjustment loans" i.e. further debt [also discussed above].

vii) Privatization of Enterprises: Another policy advocated with a vengeance [by threat of cutting off funding] by the IMF-World Bank is the privatization of state owned enterprises. In the best scenario for the West, the most profitable 'Third World' ventures are bought in exchange for debt servicing by Western firms. In this regard, Citibank has been doing a lot of shopping overseas. In most cases these transactions are just on-the-book. There is no transfer of capital to the poor country. The debt number is reduced by a small amount on a computer in the West and ownership of a key industrial player in the 'Third World' is transferred to Western ownership. The profits from this venture are now, instead of being invested in the domestic country, being sent to the West; in the case of Citibank, to the US. The poor country has gained nothing in the process. Since the mid 1960s history has shown that the debt number that went down slightly in that computer in the West has gone up more than 3200 percent, as poor countries got buried in forced debt.

Another privatization venture enforced by the IMF is the privatization of land by issuing land titles to farmers. The income so generated would help the debtor country pay off the interest on the loans taken from IFIs through the IMF-WB. However, this displaces traditional farmers, many of whom find themselves without land to grow food, almost overnight.

viii) Domestic Tax reforms: These have been the agenda of the IMF-World Bank as well. They have insisted that a domestic sales tax be applied on common necessities. The burden of this tax invariably falls on the lower and middle class consumers who are already under the burden of reduced real wages and inflation [caused by IMF devaluation]. The contradictory nature of this policy is revealed when these agencies insist that tax breaks and tax holidays be given to foreign investors. Those investors who will cause a slight reduction in a computer number and will send most of the domestic growth abroad.

Not only has empirical evidence shown the disasters caused by the IMF-World Bank on an almost universal scale, especially in Africa and Asia, the IMF and World Bank have acknowledged their failures [without a change in policy, however]:

Although there have been a number of studies on the subject over the past decadeIn fact it has often been found that the programs are associated with a rise in inflation and a fall in the growth rate (IMF Staff Papers 37:2:1990, p196, p222- as quoted by Chossudovsky 1997:69).

Conclusion & Solutions:

We live in a world where imperialism consigns hundreds of millions of people to lives of misery and oppression and where the shadow of nuclear death is cast upon us all, a world where the pursuit of profit is destroying the ecological conditions of life itselfThe people of this country and other nations are increasingly become aware of this. The people know that nuclear weapons bring no security to anyone and that interventions on the side of privileged autocracies and reactionary governments bring no justice. They also seem to know that they pay most of the costs of the arms buildup and imperialism(Parenti 1989: 203)

As we saw above, legislation based solutions are extremely limited in the results they can get given institutionalized racism, which I have argued is the cause for the continuing exploitation of the Third World by the West.

The clearest historical/empirical proof of this is the discriminatory treatment of non-white colonies compared to the white settler-states like Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. In these countries, the White minority was allowed complete control over domestic resources and was free to invest the surplus in the local economy and protect their local industry from being devastated by forced-exchange.

The British invested in infrastructure in these 'settler' countries and money was loaned at rates that followed local banking rates, and thus were not unusually inflated or exploitive. Wholesale killing of the non-white indigenous populations by the white settlers also restored a favorable population-resource ratio in most of these countries. Since there was no forced production in these settler-states and they were allowed protectionism (Fieldhouse 1999:19) and the freedom to choose their own economic policy, the products they chose to specialize in were products similar to those in the West and thus were more profitable and less susceptible to price fluctuations (Fieldhouse 1999: 130-162). The fact is that Britain treated these settler states as an extension of Britain and not alien like its Asian and African colonies:

As its base, the white settler society construct refers to the intention of colonial administratorsan overseas extension or replica of British society. Hence the dominant culture, values and institutions of the society mimic those of the mother country...(Ed. Staliusis et al 1995:97).

We similarly saw that after the emancipation of African Americans after the Civil War in the United States, the ideology that justified racism to the Western mind, persisted and resulted in a condition for the group that was little different than the informal colonization of the emancipated colonies after "independence". The dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Japan and not on "white" Germany reveals the same ideology

Bonner F. Fellers, General MacArthur's military secratary and chief of his psychological warfare operations, stated before the war with Japan ended:

"The war with Europe was both political and social, the war in the Pacific was racial." (as quoted by Dower, John W 1999:286).

Fellers described (in an internal memorandum dated June 17, 1945) the civilian bombings of Japanese cities as, "one of the most ruthless and barbaric killings of non-combatants in all history." (as quoted by Dower, John W 1999:286).

The same ideology, as we saw above, exists today with a change in terminology.

Recently, Harvard professor and poverty expert William Julius Wilson suggested in, The Bridge over the Racial Divide (2000), that a broad based coalition be formed that discusses both white and black poverty matters and is non-race based [to attract the white majority].

On paper it looks like a noble cause but in reality it doesnt deal with the source of the problem. It is a dangerous idea as it delays the addressing of real problems and tactfully serves as a tool of the elite in maintaining the status quo.

The very assumption that a non race based coalition is needed to motivate action implicitly recognizes that white America is indifferent to the plight of black America unless their own concerns are addressed, in such a coalition. The problems of the Third World have never been solved by such seemingly broad based coalitions. The United Nations, the IMF, the World Bank all have noble aims on paper and are seemingly broad based, yet the problems and the poverty of the Third World has only increased through most of their history. Small problems were addressed but the broad issues remained unsolved due to an exploitive racist ideology.

Conditions in the "Third World" that are perpetuated by the global capitalist system result in an oppositional "terrorism culture". Selective empirical evidence of injustice perpetuated by the West, to the followers of such an "oppositional" culture reinforce their own "Robin Hood" standing. Similar conditions in the inner cities lead to an oppositional "code of the street" and perpetuates street crime. Similar to the oppositional culture that capitalist alienation and drugs nurture and tolerate (Anderson 1999: 111). Elijah Anderson in his ethnographic study, The Code of the Street (1999) states:

The emergence of an underclass isolated in urban ghettos with high rates of joblessness can be traced to the interaction of race and prejudice, discrimination and the effects of the global economy. These factors have contributed to the profound social isolation and impoverishment of broad segments of the inner-city black populationIn their social isolation an oppositional culture, a subset of which is the code of the street, has been allowed to emerge, grow and developA larger segment of people are now not simply isolated but even more profoundly alienated from the wider society and its institutions." (Anderson 1999:316)

1. New ideology:

If a lasting, just solution to the continued subjugation and periodic genocide of a majority of humankind is to be found, we need a new ideology. An ideology that demonstrates, in theory and action, the one community of humankind. Malcolm X witnessed such unity in Mecca during Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage.

By emphasizing the common, non-hierarchical origin of humankind, under one creator God (Koran 4:1), the Koran constructs a society where illogical ideas of superiority are not only considered ignorant, they are looked upon as a major source of evil in the world.

The psychologist, Erik Erkison stated that our cultures create, pseudospecies, i.e. false categories of race and nation that destroy our sense of ourselves as one species thereby encouraging hostility and violence. This explains how easy it becomes for the West, to justify to its culture the systematic genocide of millions of non-white people (as quoted by Zinn 1990:40). Such a justification is not possible if ideology is based exclusively on a constitution that says:

O humankind! Be careful of God who created you of a single essence(Koran 4:1)

O humankind! We have created you male and female and divided you into nations and tribes for identity. The best of you in Gods sight is the one most (socially) aware (Koran49: 13)

And of God's signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the differences in your colors and languages. Indeed in this are signs for those who have knowledge (Koran 30:22)

You (men and women) issue one from the other (Koran 3:195)
Let not a nation deride a nation(Koran 49:11)

A common, equity based ideology is critical for generating a broad based collective identity that seeks transformative social justice. It is only under such an ideology that individual and collective identity frames can be brought into synchrony to reduce the potential for identity disputes (Stoecker 1995). Without a common justice based ideology, narrow issue frames would result in a movement that at best achieves small goals and either disintegrates or is co-opted by the elite before any meaningful social change. As a result, without a change in ideology, all calls for broad based coalitions like Wilsons Bridge Over the Racial Divide (2000) are bound to fail, like the IMF, UN and World Bank have failed in achieving transformative change in the world.

The history of every human conflict and resulting injustice can be traced to the selfish desire of groups leading to factionalism (Koran 6:65), based upon an ideology of superiority. Without ideological shifts, even the oppressed workers, when they get a chance, become oppressors as MichelsIron Law of Oligarchy makes clear.

Capitalism is designed to keep people apart through competition and individualism. The elite, taking advantage of the system and the market mechanism generated by Capitalism lock individuals in a race for survival, pitching one against the other. By reducing the worth of everything, including human relationships to their "money" value, Capitalistic ideology and a society projected by such an ideology produces the worst form of bondage possible. "Slavery" to material objects, in which the purpose of life becomes their acquisition. A "slavery" in which those who are enslaved don't even realize the depth of their bondage.

Malcolm X said, and herein lies the solution:

The Western worlds most learned diplomats have failed to solve this grave race problem. Her learned legal experts have failed. Her sociologists have failed. Her civic leaders have failed. Her fraternal leaders have failed. Since all of these have failed to solve this race problem, it is time for us to sit down and reason. I am certain that we will be forced to agree that it takes God Himself to solve this grave racial dilemma (Haley, 1973).

2. Access to the media and communication networks:

Formal controls alone do not change minds and attitudes. People discover over time that laws can be violated and avoided. Positive public relations, especially through the media can have an immense influence on peoples views. Black communities, which are among the poorest in this country, have lacked access to the media and effective public relations. Because of segregation, the majority of White Americans find out about Black Americans as well as the Third World through the media controlled by the elite who want to perpetuate and rationalize a culture of superior-subordinate relationships.

The media is a very powerful and effective tool. It has been effectively used by Israel to change the image common Americans have about Jews. By carefully portraying the Holocaust, they have monopolized world sympathy in their favor. Compare this to the much larger scale genocide of American Indians and Africans during the slave trade, which nobody hears about. So powerful is this persuasion via the media that it makes the world ignore the genocide of Palestinians by the once persecuted Jews.

3. Odious Loans:

Most of the loans given by the IMF-World Bank were odious loans. They were given to regimes supported by the West that were in most cases non-democratic. The people in these countries were never asked if they wanted the extra debt. Hence, the default of these loans and the complete writing off of these loans is justifiable (Danaher 1994). Not only did the regimes to which these loans were given, removed from office for corruption in some cases, they sent huge amounts of the same loans back to the West in terms of personal accounts and business and managerial contracts (McNeill 1981:54).

Thus, the people of the Third World should collectively, following the example of Mexico, refuse to make any payments on the loans (principal and interest). On the contrary they should demand the time adjusted compensation from the West for the rape of Third World resources by the colonial powers and for the free use of labor, unfair compensation and capital drain from the Third World during the colonial era and after.

4. Investment Banks, Cartels and Counter Trade Embargoes:

Cartels to control the price of primary commodities should be set up, so that the West doesnt gain an unfair advantage by its economic warfare on the Third World. The example of the 1970s where, if the Third World could collectively impose a defensive economic embargo against the West, should serve as a benchmark for the restoration of the balance of power in the world.

Third World poverty receives lesser attention in the West than a few cent rise in the domestic price of U.S gas, as was witnessed last summer. Unless the ideology of racism is replaced by a completely different, more humane ideology, the Third World should pursue de-linking from the Western economy, engaging the West only where it is beneficial to the masses of the Third World. This implies exiting all broad based coalitions that serve the interests of the West.

Regional investment banks in the Third World that cover certain blocks of countries should be established. The granting of loans to private domestic entrepreneurs based on the monitoring of their performance in the local economy should be envisioned.

Import subsidizing industries should be developed with maximum investment and protection. Trade within the Third World block should be encouraged as against Western imports. When these infant industries grow up, trade can be liberalized on equal, non-predatory terms with the whole world.

5. Investment in Education and Information Technology:

The Third World should make maximum investment in developing its media to control the media warfare by the West [controlled by a few elite-groups with vested interests]. The West's export of the culture of racism, under the false pretense of freedom should be intellectually challenged. Boards that deal specifically with media issues and the communications of ideas should counteract, and bring to public notice injustice done in the name of democracy and freedom.

The West developed in the major part due to information freely shared by Muslim merchants and the Islamic civilization. Science, Accounting, Mathematics and Algebra (including the number system), the philosophy of the Greeks, all came to the West through Islam (Alexander 1996:7 etc). The colonials, by non transfer of industrial knowledge, and the West nowadays by non transfer of equal technology, plays a game of technology warfare backed by a philosophy that,  an educated Negro (or Third World) is a dangerous Negro (or Third World) (W.E.B Dubois 1903: 71). Skill mismatch is the outcome of planned alienation, backed by a racist ideology.

Knowledge is nobodys property. New information gets its foundation on older information. It is nobodys right to block one level when the earlier level was not invented by him or her. Thus all intellectual property rights are illegal in the most part. Loops around barriers to education can be found if properly searched. The Third World in this information age needs to locate these loopholes. Persuasion resources should be directed towards the intellectuals so that they can see the right and wrong in issues based on justice. Such members will be the lifeline of the majority world if it is to survive in an age where information and knowledge are used as weapons because of racist ideologies, based themselves on a lack of knowledge.

6. Population-Resource Ratio:

Most countries, especially the poorest in Asia and Africa have a very unfavorable population to resource ratio. The population boom, as understood by sociologists, is not based on free-will choices but on a host of deterministic factors. These factors, like the lack of education or adequate diet are the direct legacy of colonialization in the case of the Third World and slavery, and institutionalized oppression in the case of the African American underclass. If the other problems are taken care of, population levels will overtime, automatically adjust as reflected by the Demographic Transition Theory.

Hopefully in the long run, we can all succeed together and in the perfect-world humanity can grow as one. If not, then history has shown that empires like the West, built and sustained upon human suffering, eventually crumble from within. Let us also hope that the masses in the West recognize this and change the agenda of the elite before the West self-destructs forcing history to repeat itself.

"Systems have passed away before you. Travel in the earth and see the nature of the consequence for the tyrants"
(Koran 27:69)

The value of every individual human life, man or woman, of whatever race, creed or religion, according to the Koran, is unsurpassed in world literature:

"Whosoever kills even one human being for other than manslaughter or mass destruction on earth, it shall be as if they had killed all of humankind and whosoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if they saved all of humanity (Koran 5:32).

NOTES

1.According to Wallerstein's World Systems Theory, the West or the "core" forces unequal political and economic opportunity on the poor nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the "periphery" (Schaefer & Lamm 1998:257)

2.The influence of the media is illustrated in a recent study done in Fiji. Within three years of the introduction of television in 1995 to the island, the number of female teenagers at risk of eating disorders nearly doubled. The "thin is sexy" image presented by the American media, made those who watched television heavily, 50% more likely to describe themselves as fat and 30% more likely to diet than those who watched it moderately (Kilbourne 1999:135). Thus the cultural ideal, for a woman, that had existed for centuries changed, following after a "superior" West.

3. Many of the private Christian Aid agencies put evangelism before aid management as they go about their business of converting the heathen. The International Christian Aid, working among Somali Muslims almost provoked riots. World Vision employees used the threat of withholding food supplies to force Salvadoran refugees into attending Protestant worship services (Hancock 1989).

4.Alexander (1996) notes that the ideology of 'Apartheid' in South Africa was, "rich with references to Christianity, and divine destiny" and a common belief about 'white supremacy' (Alexander 1996:233).

5.The Bible fails to impress an objective observer as a "moral" book because of its racist attitude towards all non-Jews, i.e. the Gentiles. Not only is this idea of race superiority explicit in the Old Testament, the "Pauline" Jesus [the Gospels were penned after Paul's epistles and were heavily influenced by his brand of Christianity] according to the New Testament called non-Jews, "dogs." A gentile woman following after him asked him for help and he replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and cast it before dogs (Mark 7:27)." Later the woman followed after him and begged him for the "crumbs". The same "crumbs" that the West hands out to the "Third World". Over time non-Jew got easily converted to non-white.

6.The use of alcohol to subjugate Africans and for acquiring slaves by the colonials, and for the subjugation of American Indians by the settlers is well documented. The fact that alcohol produces temporary "normlessness [i.e. anomie]" is a biological fact, as alcohol chemically targets the specific area of the brain involved in social control. The Bible states:"Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish and wine to those that are heavy of heart. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more(Proverbs 31:6-7)."

7.The IMF classifies countries in terms of "resource usefulness" to the West. In terms of murder and rape, the countries of the West are the 'least developed', however that is not the criteria that the West has dictated (Alexander 1996:80). From 1982 to 1990 the total amount of money transferred from the "Third World" to the West was around six times the amount of the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild Europe after World War II. How come the "Third World" isn't six times or even equally developed (Alexander 1996).

8.In the 1990s, U.S cities had an average 'segregation index' of 66.5%. This means that around 67% of blacks would have to move to make the neighborhood integrated [Massey & Denton 1996:222]. Christian churches are even more segregated than U.S cities [Griffin 1999].

The General Social Survey of 1998, conducted by the University of Chicago, reveals [despite the political incorrectness of advocating segregation], a full 57% of white Christians [Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, etc.] explicitly stated that they would not tolerate a different race in the neighborhood, compared to 28% of white Jews and 40% of white Buddhists. and 29% of white people with "no religion" [SPSS cross-tabulation, 1998, General Social Survey].

Abrahamson, Mark. Urban Enclaves. 1996. St. Martin Press.

Alexander, Titus. Unravelling Global Apartheid. An Overview of World Politics.1996.

Cambridge, MA. Polity Press.

56

Babbie, Earl. The Practice of Social Research. 6th ed. 1992. Wadsworth Publishing Co.

California.

Blau, Joel. Illusions of Prosperity: America’s Working Families in an age of Insecurity. 1999.

Oxford University Press. New York.

Bullard, Robert D. Dumping in Dixie.3rd ed. 2000. Westview Press. Oxford.

Chossudovsky, Michel. The Globalization of Poverty.1997. Zed Books Ltd. London.

Carlyle, Thomas. On Heroes and Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History- 1918-The Hero as a

Prophet. London.

Castells, Manuel. The City and the Grassroots: A cross-cultural Theory of Urban Social

Movements. Berkeley. University of California Press. 1983 [Chapter 17 & 18].

Delavignette. Robert. Christianity and Colonialism. 1964. Hawthorne Book Publishers. New

York.

Danaher, Kevin. 50 Years is Enough. 1994. South End Press. Boston.

Dubois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk. First Published 1903. Ed. 1995. Signet Classics, New

York.

Fieldhouse, D.K. The West and the Third World. 1999.Blackwell Publishers.

Fraser, Steven. Editor. The Bell Curve Wars. 1994. Basic Books New York.

Gans, Herbert. The War against the Poor. 1995. New York. Basic Books.

Griffin, Paul R. Seeds of Racism in the Soul of America. 1999.The Pilgrim Press. Cleveland.

Hadjor, Kofi Buenor. Another America. 1995. South End Press. Boston.

Heineman, Kenneth. God is a Conservative.1998. New York University Press. New York.

Hancock, Graham. The Lords of Poverty. 1989. Atlantic Monthly Press. New York.

Haley, Alex & Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Koran: Translation from the Arabic.

Kilbourne, Jean. Deadly Persuasion. 1999. The Free Press. New York.

Chinyelu, Mamadou. Harlem Ain't Nothin' But a Third World Country. 1999. Mustard Seed

Press. New York.

Macionis, John J. Society: The Basics. 3rd edition. Prentice Hall. NJ

McNeill, Desmond. The Contradictions of Foreign Aid. 1981. Croom Helm, London.

Massey, Douglas S & Denton, Nancy A. American Apartheid: Segregation and Making of the

Underclass. 1996. Harvard University Press.

Shariftz, Jay M & Ott, Stephen J (ed). Classics of Organization Theory ,5th ed. 2001. Harcourt.

New York.

Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. 1956

Rosenberg, Morris. 1968. The Logic of Survey Analysis. Basic Books Inc. New York.

Riley, John. Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. [retrieved 10/10/'00-

http://www.thehistorynet.com/NationalHistoryDay/2000/emancipation.htm]

Rodney, Walter. 1982. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Howard University Press,

Washington, DC.

Smith, Tom. The American Family. GSS 1998, University of Chicago.

Stasiulis, Daiva and Nira Yuval Davis. Editors. 1995. Unsettling Settler Societies: Articulations

of Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class. Thousand Oaks, California.

Stone, Clarence. Urban Regimes and the Capacity to Govern. 1993. Journal of Urban Affairs

Schaefer, Robert T & Lamm Robert P. Sociology. 6th ed. New York. McGraw Hill Companies.

Stoeker, Randy. 1995. Community, Movement, Organization: The Problem of Identity

Convergence in Collective Action. Sociological Quarterly.

Takaki, Ronald T. Reflections on Racial Patterns in America. 1982. Ethnicity and Public Policy,

University of Wisconsin (Pp.1-23).

Van Horne, Winston. Editor. Global Convulsions: Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism at the End of

the Twentieth Century. 1997. State University of New York Press. New York.