For human society, the last few centuries have been one turmoil after another. In response, we are still searching—sometimes in a disciplined manner, sometimes not so much—for the ways and methods to rise, once again, as ourselves: as human. We continue our search on diverse fronts—in educational activities, charitable works, media organizations, and places of worship. If we had only been able to commit ourselves, centuries ago, to the knowledge from the Divine and the morality of love spread by the Infinite Light; if we could have committed to humanity’s destiny to eternity and turned to God, then we would stand today, without doubt, as the “inheritors of the world” and could have a say in maintaining its direction.

During a period when the world was immersed in darkness, the civilization introduced and the renaissance kindled by the believers enlightened the world. This was an outcome of their Divinely inspired knowledge and the morality of love they embodied in their time. If we are to expect a similar civilization or renaissance in the future, we need to know they are dependent on these very dynamics. Embracing knowledge from the Divine and “morality of love” was a gift of faith; however, the true worth of this gift was not grasped well enough, thus, at certain times, it failed to shine forth as bright as it could have. Instead, the materialistic worldview and crude power were mistaken for truth. To a great extent, this is still the case today.

The world, however, keeps spinning, and it is our hope that it will eventually reorient itself to the orbit that the Almighty has set forth. We can see that there are people among us who are more determined than ever to find their own essence and return to their true values. This is an attempt to revive our true human spirit.

During a rather unfortunate period, we have followed the rest of humanity down the rabbit hole of materialism only to demolish in our minds the essential values that make the humankind unique. As a result, we have not only dethroned humans from their status as the “most perfect creation” but also pushed them down to the level of any animal. Supposedly in the name of questioning old ideas, we disgraced humans and humanistic values. Alas, we were not even aware of what we were doing while committing this grievous mistake. We are still broken under the influence of that shock; standing at the crossroads, we cannot decide which way to go.

Yet, the human—this noble being—has inviolable rights. Our liberties are untouchable, and we are adorned with qualities that are more precious than every glorification and praise. In the words of the late poet Akif:

“Humankind; their nature is loftier than the angels
Therein hidden are the worlds, folded are the realms.”

Debasing humanity is mocking the ultimate purpose of being; holding humanity in contempt is tantamount to believing that the spirit of creation is worthless. The human is an exceptional being that is too sublime to be devalued and mocked; a human bears certain characteristics and qualities that cannot be compromised. The freedom of people cannot be taken away, and we cannot be subject to oppression. Humans cannot be tyrannized nor abused. All of these are insults to the meaning of humanity, injustice to the human spirit, and the greatest immorality.

Given the circumstances today, we need to once more revisit what we consider “human values.”

First and foremost, the sources of knowledge and our fundamental thoughts that make us who we are command us to respect humanity. These sources value humans above everything else as the best of creation and honor our free will, inviolable rights, and freedoms as the dynamics upon which we are supposed to weave our lacework of happiness, both in this world and in the next.  

Indeed, from the perspective of faith, divine knowledge, love, and spiritual delights planted in our potential, humanity is above the angels. Loving humanity is a manifestation of one’s connection to the Creator, and, of course, disrespecting humanity is a grave disrespect towards our Owner. The first thing, therefore, that we must do is give back to humanity the values that have been taken from us and work hard to raise new generations that will cherish and protect these values for eternity.

Secondly, the notion of community is also very important. We must foster communities around noble ideals to which feelings, thoughts, and spirits of individuals are rationally and spiritually committed. Morality, in its truest sense, will manifest itself when individuals become a part of such a prosperous and flourishing community. The morality or immorality of individuals who have secluded themselves from society is irrelevant (for the way they live is binding on themselves only). Islam, for instance, encourages living as a community and considers it a holy struggle to endure problems that may arise from it. After all, a truly moral society is one that promises bliss both in this world and the next and is comprised of individuals who, with their free will, dedicate their lives to lofty ideals. In such a society, the unifying power of faith, the softening effect of love, and the sublimity of purpose do not give way to wrongdoings caused by one’s ego; thus, immorality, which originates from egoism, cannot thrive.

The transcendent power of faith and living with a sincere purpose melts the individual’s specific characteristics into society. Though they are still true to themselves, they virtually become one with the community with which they attain such immensity and prosperity that come, as it were, by way of transforming from a mere drop into an ocean, from a single particle into the sun, and from nothing into everything. The road to existence passes through nothingness; wealth is fed by poverty; power opens up and sprouts in the arms of weakness; tribulation becomes a blessing; and gratitude transforms into a delightful zeal. Serving on this path is the noblest of duties and is for those whose sole purpose is to seek the good pleasure of the Creator; the end result is eternal bliss in the hereafter. Indeed, if this purest of pure thoughts is contaminated by even the smallest conflict of interest at a personal or group level, then the connections that bind both the individual and the community to the Divine will break. These disruptions will cause the individual—and eventually the community—to stray from the true path.

Yes, in a group which ties its every action to God, there should not be any mention of individual desires or personal ambitions and worries; nor should one have any ultimate goals and ideals that are not bound to eternity. A true community is a blessed gathering of individuals who have submitted themselves to the eternal. In the words of Bediuzzaman, they do for God’s sake, start for God’s sake, speak for God’s sake, and meet for God’s sake. They act within the domain of God’s good pleasure, by way of which every second of their lives expand as immense as the years, branding, as it were, mortal things with the seal of immortality. Indeed, all their endeavors are exceptionally genuine, pure, and directed towards that which is Eternal.

Not all crowds can be considered a community. In fact, in certain masses when individuals are opposed to one another, their multitude is a means of decrease, not increase, for they diminish the whole, just as fractions do to whole numbers when they are multiplied. Since the friends of God’s messengers were blessed with the spirit of a true community, they were able to fulfill what is expected of a powerful community, although they were small in number. Many individuals among them, like Abu Bakr and Umar—the two prominent companions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)—can be considered each as great as a community or a nation by their own credit; this would not be an exaggeration at all. Apostles of Jesus, the Messiah (peace be upon him), who were only a handful, can be considered more powerful than the most powerful of armies. Throughout all of history, groups that were small in quantity but excellent in quality have proved to be much more superior and fruitful than masses that were plenty in numbers.

Just as the love of morality is the most important way of disciplining one’s spiritual world, it is also the most significant component of stability and the most vital principle of harmony within a society. Truthfulness, ensuring security, being fair to all, honoring one’s word, engaging with others with confidence and respect, and commitment to spirituality—these are the essences of morality and the fundamental dynamics of the soul.

The understanding of morality we inherited—excluding perhaps the shiny rubbish of the last few centuries—is essentially a very rich and strong one. It can carry us forward from where we are now if we can lead our lives according to this understanding. Then we will automatically overcome many of our societal problems; then, we will be able to think more clearly, work more efficiently, and walk at a faster and more harmonious pace, making up for the time we have wasted. If we can accomplish this task, the future of our society will be brighter, more vibrant, and more colorful than ever.

Scientific psychology corroborates these truths and lays bare the inescapable responsibility to know and manage the self (C.G. Jung, 1957). Knowing and accepting realities about ourselves positively offers a platform for personal growth and development, and further permits cathartic motivations for transcending flaws. While religions approach the path to transcendence differently (e.g. based on organic time and place), each testifies to human dignity that is capable of finding safe passage through the contradictions of life without compromising the safety of others.

Religious and secular histories reveal tragic outcomes for humanity when these responsibilities are ignored. The current neoliberal, capitalist ideology, which was systemized by economic theorist Milton Friedman, externalizes, or factors out, human and environmental damage, for these interfere with the profit principle. His open defiance of social responsibility not only shows a separation between the rational mind and rational heart, but clears the way for nullification of the universal human rights principle and bows to nefarious economic warfare waged between groups.

Within earlier historical memory, power’s unwillingness to analyze the subjective and blame the objective played-out on the global stage with catastrophic consequences. Between 1914 and 1945, the world was at war with itself. Yet, national leaders and their people denied their own failed-policies, and chose to violently project responsibility onto others (Fromm’s, 1973). Analyses of Europe’s part in the atrocities of WWII illuminate a reoccurring historical fact: non-defensive wars are often complicated and motivated by un-dealt with personal projections of a nation’s leaders and its peoples. At the heart of humanity’s violent history lie legions of self-denials and self-failures, too colossal to list. Perhaps more ironic than the irresponsible projections themselves is the denial of responsibility, as expressed in the question: where was God?

With the beginning of the West’s wars in the Middle East, in 2003, human rights experts recognized that the topic of human rights was off the table, a frightening but conscious decision that reconfirms the warnings of sages and prophets: human history is a history of choice.

A catharsis for the events of 1914 – 1945 was the establishment of the Bretton Accords, which established international institutions aiming to prevent future crimes against humanity. The sets of principles laid out in the accords sought to mandate individual rights of vital protections, by humanizing finances, employment, and governance. Rights of human security were embedded within a constellation of personal, social, economic, and political rights. The United Nations, which signed the 1948 Convention on The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, agreed to this universal principle, and applied it clearly to the subjugated children and women of the global patriarchy by creating the special conventions: Rights of the Child and The Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

While many nation-states embrace moral responsibility to ratify conventions for universal human rights, many UN representatives continue to face non-ratification resistance at home. While the new, global power-brokers of trade and finance systemically and tactically block universal human rights, the global under-privileged are taking their arguments to the streets. Taking responsibility to occupy their own policies is a response validated by scholar Noam Chomsky (Occupy, 2012, p.89) and reflects the Jeffersonian idea of democratic action. Taking possession of rights far exceeds passive verbalization.

A watershed of responsible self-action is being witnessed around the globe: workers are organizing to buy-back their closed factories; students organize to undermine dictatorships and corrupt governments; sexually exploited children are naming criminal-priests; women are fighting the slave-trade; independent journalists air photos of government backed genocides and externally organized coups; neighbors take video of real-time police brutality; independent filmmakers document corporate damages; veterans bow to their own shame and expose military atrocities; whistle-blowers expose mass government fraud; and high-ranking bank officials make tragic, but telling testimonies against system-exploitation by committing suicide. While these examples reflect an existing depth of global darkness, self-responsible action affirms our awareness of our right to live change and change living.

Considering our ever changing universe and the human capacity to re-imagine new life, it is possible to more clearly understand the discreteness of the great religions which direct responsibility to each individual. By means of self-awareness, self-responsibility and self-regulation, we each hold the best possibilities for peaceful co-existence and the preservation of human rights.

June Dayle Jelm, PhD in International Relations, is a Professional Mediator specializing in Domestic Violence in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Civil society has yet to define and accept broader human rights … The struggle goes on, building on those who went before us, for the benefit of those who come after us.

The 50th anniversary of President John Kennedy’s assassination this year is poignant for those of us who were well along in high school or had begun college when we heard the news that awful Friday afternoon. We still remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the word came. I was in the locker room in the seminary dormitory with some classmates when a friend ran in to tell us. First came shock; then, hopeful denial. The television, however, confirmed the unbelievable reality. The next three days we rarely budged from in front of the television – not until the state funeral had ended.

Kennedy was, for many of us, the promise of our generation. His eloquence, humor, and charm captured our idealism, as certainly as his call-to-action inaugural address – “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” – inspired us to build our communities and bring our country further along the path of democracy. He urged us to reach out to the world. The Peace Corps, which Kennedy proposed at the University of Michigan during his campaign, captured our imagination.

Tragic history has a way of deadening dreams, and casting youthful idealism upon its ash heap. We strove to resist that trajectory and continued to push our energy forward in the civil rights movement, and those movements that followed … for women, the environment, and peace.

Many of my generation answered the call, and, with the help of Lyndon Johnson’s masterful implementation, and expansion, of Kennedy’s ideals, joined the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or the War on Poverty. Others of us dedicated ourselves to other visions of civil society. Some of us were brutally tortured to death. Many were beaten bloody at lunch counters and on buses, or had snarling dogs set upon them. Terroristic violence even killed four little girls at Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama.

We endured the pain of the unimaginable assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and strove with grit to keep the dream alive and steady the course, despite the odds set against us.

Of course, we were not alone. We were building on the shoulders of the other generations in our time, and marching with them. All of us were honoring the legacy, lives, and struggles of those who had gone before us and now rested in peace. But it was Kennedy’s clarion voice that called us younger folks forth.

I myself ended up in the farm workers movement, following the leadership of César Chávez, and eventually moved into broader human rights efforts.

As I look back fifty years, I have learned that the struggle is so much more difficult than what we had seen through our idealistic-tinted glasses. I still cannot bear to watch the anniversary replays of President Kennedy’s assassination, and this year is even worse.

But there is never a moment that I don’t feel a stirring deep within my heart when I watch his inaugural address or listen to his speeches calling upon our “better angels,” as another assassinated president, Abraham Lincoln, did a hundred years earlier.

It is with the same stirring of heart that I watch the next generations so passionately pick up the struggle to make the dream real.

When I look back, I also see other formative people and events that helped move me in this direction. I have learned from this that everything we do well in life has a good impact on others and that we can always learn from the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Probably the person who influenced my life the most was my grandmother. She was an intensely devout Christian, who practiced every day what she believed. She gave her money to the poor, visited people in the hospital, doted on her grandchildren, helped my parents support our family of six kids and send us to Catholic school, and prayed and went to Mass every day. My grandmother lived a life of compassion, tolerance, and justice. In her late eighties, she was on a picket line, supporting the United Farm Workers’ grape boycott.

Another important epoch in my life was the eight years in seminary, high school and college, studying to be a priest, even though I eventually chose a different vocation to which I felt called because it offered a more activist role in human rights work; after a stint in graduate school studying philosophy, I went on to become a lawyer.

But my time in the seminary gave me a good liberal arts education and taught me discipline, spirituality, philosophy, and grounded me in Catholic social justice teachings. It was the era of Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. Pope John was much like John Kennedy: he “opened the windows” of the Church and challenged us to bear witness to the Gospel in community life in new ways; to help build civil society, in effect.

And, in my later years, coming to know and work with people in the Hizmet movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen gave me yet a broader, more ecumenical vision of the world, and offered the opportunity of collaborating with people of the Islamic faith to help build civil society. This experience further deepened my own spirituality.

Few of us involved in human rights, I venture to say, are without a spiritual basis for our work. Like all generalizations, mine is surely excessive; but it does capture the point that very many human rights advocates remain in their work because of their spirituality, which comes in all shapes and sizes. As the Christian monk and mystic Thomas Merton warned, without spirituality, we find ourselves caught up in the frenzy of activism and overwork, which overwhelms us.

While in law school, I worked summers with migrant farm workers in Michigan, the vast majority of whom came from the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, along the border with Mexico. It was the era of César Chávez, who galvanized the country around issues of justice, decent pay and working conditions for field laborers.

So it was that I ended up in the Valley and worked there for ten years, helping to support farm worker organizing efforts and undertaking other human rights endeavors. It was an amazing way to witness that people living in poverty had great personal wisdom and an amazing sense of family and community.

Eventually, my work brought me to Austin, Texas, and the Texas Civil Liberties Union.

In 1990, two of us located free office space in a benefactor’s community building and began the Texas Civil Rights Project. Over the years, through the help of many generous people and organizations, TCRP has grown to a staff of 38 people in five offices: El Paso, South Texas, West Texas, Houston, and Austin.

TCRP handles the full panoply of civil rights issues, including: voting, free speech and assembly, economic justice, jail and prison matters, police misconduct, discrimination, and disability. For 23 years, the Texas Civil Rights Project has been a tireless advocate for racial, social and economic equality for low-income people, through its education and litigation programs.

Some of the achievements of the TCRP staff include:

• Handling more than 3000 legal cases for poor and low-income people
• Developing a vigorous VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) legal program for abused immigrant women in rural Texas that includes our unique “Circuit Rider” component and counseling and support services provided by a MSW supervisor and social work interns
• Publishing twelve Human Rights reports on issues such as hate crimes, Title IX rights of girls in high school, and the death penalty, and seven “self-help” legal manuals, on matters like veterans rights, disability laws, and prisoner rights
• Conducting community and lawyer trainings for more than 50,000 persons
• Publishing more than 400 opinion editorials in Texas newspapers
• Giving more than 500 speeches and talks on civil rights to diverse groups (such as school conferences, law enforcement trainings, and senior citizen organizations)

Due to the tireless advocacy of many TCRP employees, jails in Texas counties now do much more in preventing inmate suicide, providing interpreters for deaf prisoners, protecting vulnerable inmates from sexual assault, and administering HIV medications.

TCRP set the national model in ballot accessibility for blind voters and has led more than 30 regional compliance campaigns in Texas under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Thanks to our intrepid staff, businesses, churches, and courthouses in Texas are much more accessible to elderly and people with disabilities, as are government programs.

TCRP’s Title IX programs on sexual harassment and equal sports opportunities have helped make rural middle and high schools more hospitable for young women, and respectful of them, and opened up the prospect of athletic scholarships to college for them. Our Safe Schools project works with community groups on anti-bullying programs for students and our “Equality under the Law” campaign addressed “benign” discrimination against African Americans and Hispanic Americans in banks, restaurants, motels, and other public accommodation.

Efforts to help South Asian, Muslim, and Arab citizens, permanent residents, and students who fell victim to post September 11th discrimination included filing a suit against a major airline and enlisting Texas attorneys to represent, on a pro bono basis, individuals who were questioned by the FBI.

TCRP worked with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) to help create single-member school board districts and assisted in redistricting the Texas Legislature and congressional districts so as to protect the voting and representational rights of minority citizens.

We assisted the NAACP is persuading the U.S. Department of Justice to audit the Austin Police Department and make more than 200 changes, including its use of force practices in the city’s minority communities.

TCRP joined with the American Jewish Congress in one of the first court cases in the country to challenge the constitutionality of government funding of a religiously-orientated job training program that used the Bible as an employment text and proselytized its trainees.

And we are a leading voice in raising questions about the fairness of Texas’ death penalty scheme, and the possibility of executing innocent people. So, too, are we an intrepid advocate of traditional civil liberties, such as free speech and assembly, due process, and equal protection under the United States and Texas Constitutions.

Our work that I’m proudest of dealt with:

• Ending secret collection of and research on blood of all babies born after 2002 
• Directing 480 suits under the Americans with Disabilities Act and related enforcement campaigns
• Challenging grand jury discrimination against Mexican Americans, women, and poor people
• Eliminating the statutory exclusion of farm and ranch laborers from the Texas workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation laws
• Extending the Texas Equal Rights Amendment to minority voting and redistricting
• Establishing a habeas corpus mechanism to review claims of innocence for persons sentenced to death
• Winning the right of blind voters to cast secret, adapted election ballots 
• Banning mandatory polygraph testing of state employees (and establishing privacy as fundamental right under the Texas Constitution)
• Protecting United Farm Workers Union members from retaliatory employment termination
• Securing the right of blind people to use dog guides in public accommodations 
• Seven McAllen police brutality class actions suits that reorganized the department

The most recent and profound personal development, as mentioned earlier, was coming to work with hizmet. It started with one of the movement’s interfaith dialog trips to Turkey and eventually led to writing a book on the eight-year-long political trial of Fethullah Gülen, which ended successfully and actually helped the process of more deeply democratizing Turkey.

International human rights law had always been a passion, and it was an honor to write on a subject that no one else in the world had written on. In subsequent trips, I met so many people in hizmet and was always singularly inspired by their good deeds, hard work, amiability, and commitment. It reminded me that people from all walks of life and faiths are struggling for democracy and human rights.

There remains much to do, of course. Human rights is a life-long struggle; it is painstaking to build civil society. As Eugene Debs, the renowned American labor organizer, said, every struggle for human rights is lost, and lost, and lost, before it succeeds. Indeed, many people have given their lives over the years, and suffered enormously to help make the world a better place for its people.

Civil society has yet to define and accept broader human rights, such as the right to employment, the right to a social and economic safety net, the right to medical care, the right to participate in community’s cultural life, the right to adequate standard of living, and the right to an education. The struggle goes on, building on those who went before us, for the benefit of those who come after us.

Eleanor Roosevelt put it well in her remarks at the United Nations in 1958:

Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Such has been the journey of those of us inspired by John F. Kennedy all those years ago. It has been an incredible blessing to “labor in the vineyard” with so many good and decent people; they have contributed to my own growth as a person. I hope and pray that I have given back to them a portion of what they have given me. That, after all, is what living in the human community is all about:

We make a living from what we get.
We make a life from what we give.
What we have done for ourselves dies with us.
What we have done for others and for the world is immortal.
MaryAnn Evans

Harrington is founder and director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit foundation, promotes civil rights and economic and racial justice throughout Texas, for low-income people. He is author of Wrestling with Free Speech, Religious Freedom, and Democracy in Turkey: The Political Trials and Times of Fethullah Gülen.

Islam is a universal religion, and the significance it gives to rights is inclusive of all creation. The comprehensive Islamic perspective on the safeguarding of rights benefits not only people, but also animals as well.

Concerning this issue, it is easy to provide many examples dating right back to the time of the Messenger of God, peace and blessing be upon him. Once, while resting on his return to Medina after a military campaign, some Companions saw a bird’s nest and took the chicks out. The mother bird appeared at that moment, and upon seeing her chicks in their hands, she started circling above them in the air. Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessing be upon him, was worried as soon as he became aware of the mother bird beating its wings in grief and ordered the Companions to return the chicks to the nest (Abu Dawud, Adab, 164). The Prophet’s concern in this incident alone is enough to show that Islam is an all-embracing system that has unequivocally guaranteed the fundamental rights of every living creature; such an all-inclusive concept of rights is beyond the reach of any other system.

As attested in an authenticated hadith, one who dies while protecting his life, intellect, property, lineage, or religion is considered to be a martyr. Accordingly, striving peacefully for the preservation of these basic rights is also accepted as a form jihad. Today, indeed, it is a fact that the preservation of these five universals has established the principles of Islamic canon law and the foundations of the modern law on human rights. First and foremost, Islam calls on Muslims to preserve the religion. Muslims are also responsible and accountable for upholding all other universal principles.

Consequently, Islam approaches human rights in accordance with these basic principles and holds every human being accountable for preserving and maintaining these inalienable rights.

It is only in Islam that human beings are favored with being the vicegerent of God on earth and in which they are delegated to make use of the resources through the vicegerency that has been granted to them. And again, it is Islam that recognizes the right to free enterprise and free activity alongside the right to security and to maintain a family. Islam, therefore, recognizes the inalienable rights and the true dignity of every individual, and guarantees human beings all their rights in perfect compliance with human nature.

For example, the Qur’an explicitly asserts that taking the life of one human being is the same as taking the lives of all of humanity: “He who kills a soul unless it be (in legal punishment) for murder or for causing disorder and corruption on the earth will be as if he had killed all humankind; and he who saves a life will be as if he had saved the lives of all humankind” (Maeda 5:32). It is impossible to see this degree of sensitivity on the issue of rights in any other religion or in modern law. Islam takes the issue so seriously as to equate the killing of one person with the killing of all of humanity. The Qur’an draws our attention to the event that took place between the two sons of Adam, whose names are mentioned as Cain and Abel in the Old Testament, and informs us of the recompense awaiting the first murderer in human history in the following verse: “His carnal, evil-commanding soul prompted him to kill his brother, and he killed him, thus becoming among the losers” (Maeda 5:30).

In another chapter, the Qur’an emphasizes that the eternal punishment of hell is the recompense for one who kills another unjustly: “Whoever kills a believer intentionally, his recompense is Hell, to abide therein. And the wrath and the curse of God are upon him, and a dreadful penalty is prepared for him” (Nisa 4:93). It should be noted that Ibn Abbas and some scholars of the Tabiun (the generation that followed the Companions) deduced from the word halidan being used in the verse that eternal punishment is the recompense of the murderer, the same as that for those who deny God. This signifies Islam’s stance on human rights, which has evolved out of such essentials.

Other developments supported this trend, the most important being:

The invention of the silicon chip (1958-59). Subsequent improvements have so miniaturized computer components and compressed data that data transmission is now practically instantaneous. When combined with Web browsers, search engines, and the Internet, access to financial and other data can be exploited to its full potential. The U.S. Congress’ approval of Internet commerce and the falling prices of home computers and phone calls was a boon for transnational corporations (TNCs). Now they can micromanage their far-flung operations, direct money to the best economic opportunity, avoid taxes and financial losses, cripple unions and labor gains, skirt environmental legislation, and find other “creative” ways to increase profits.

The deregulation of financial capital (1973). This was signaled by abandoning the Bretton Woods system of fixed currency exchange rates, which had been maintained by America since 1944 and supported by its adherence to the gold standard, in favor of letting the market determine a currency’s value. Now that governments could no longer control the outflow of national currency, TNCs were free to move it as they wished.

Breaking the large banks’ and insurance companies’ monopoly on providing financial loans. With the rise of the bond market in the late 1960s, securitization of home mortgages in the 1970s, and “junk bonds” and the securitization of the international debt market in the 1980s, the current phase of globalization quickly blossomed.

These developments opened once-closed markets to millions of individual investors and mutual fund managers whose first concern is profit. As a result: “Not only can investors now buy and sell stocks and bonds from all over the world, not only can they now do that buying and selling from their home computers, but Internet brokerage sites are now giving them-for free-the information and analytical tools to make those trades, without ever having to call a broker. The more people do that, the more they will demand more information and analyses about different economies and companies, and the more easily they will move their money around, punishing the bad performers and rewarding the good ones.”¹

The underlying philosophy of increasing profits meshed nicely with a firm belief in social Darwinism. Developing and then applying “economic” Darwinism was a logical outgrowth. Just as individuals and species survive by adapting and becoming stronger, so companies survive by means of rapid adaptation.

This can take the form of corporate mergers or understandings, paying lower wages to and providing few if any benefits for overseas workers, and justifying everything in terms of increased efficiency. A new vocabulary has emerged for such activities: downsizing, outsourcing, streamlining, business restructuring or re-engineering, cost rationalization, retrenchment, redundancy, rationalization, risk minimization, profit alignment …

Benefits and Drawbacks

Those who dream of vast legions of Chinese consumers assert that globalization will make China a more open society. First, they say, Beijing’s official monopoly on information will end because foreign and local investors must have access to the Internet. Internal dissident groups can use it to contact sympathizers and publicize their causes at home and abroad.² Second, as China is drawn further into the world community, Beijing will have to adhere to international business law and treaties on workers’ rights, working conditions, fair payment, and so on. It also will have to adjust to globalization’s driving economic philosophy of neo-liberalization, which means liberalizing the economy, privatizing state-owned businesses and utilities, opening the financial and banking sectors, establishing transparency and accountability, and providing accurate financial data. Supposedly, such reforms will counteract China’s tendency to put politics and ideology above all other concerns. Third, those Chinese who work with foreign investors will learn about democracy, individuality, personal responsibility, human rights, governmental accountability, and how people in other countries actually live. In addition, foreign investment will open up new opportunities for Chinese entrepreneurs and those who want to improve their lives. They might even be paid above the normal hourly or daily wage, and thus can send money home to help their families.

Such arguments can be applied to many developing countries with only slight variations. These arguments sound great and really do have some merit, but reality sometimes does not conform to theoretical expectations. The following examples are by no means confined to the countries mentioned.

In Mexico, economic development is concentrated in Mexico City and along the northern border with America. The agricultural sector is largely ignored, despite the large numbers of people involved in it. Looking for debt relief, foreign investment, and entrance into the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), the government gutted Article 27 of its constitution, which made all communal land belonging to indigenous communities off-limits to foreigners and TNCs. It had to do this because America and Canada want access to Mexico’s untapped wealth, most of which is under indigenous-held land. The result was the Zapatista uprising on January 1, 1994, which continues to enjoy wide support, and a host of problems that drove the 71-year old ruling party from power in 2000.

In northern Thailand, villagers untouched by Bangkok’s modernization and development can see how their urban counterparts live thanks to television. Hoping to reap some of the benefits, some families sell their daughters to Bangkok’s brothels. Large sectors of Thai society and the government silently support this, finding an easy way out of this moral dilemma by saying that it is the girls’ karma. The result is an out-of-control AIDS epidemic and a booming sex-tourism business based upon the unbelievable exploitation of young women. Neighboring Cambodia has the same problem, while many Russian women see prostitution as the key to the good life.

In Ecuador, Amazonian Indian tribes and other affected peoples sued Texaco in an American court (1993) to force it to clean up the contamination it left behind. Texaco, which no longer operates in Ecuador, dumped “4.3 million gallons per day of toxic oil waste water over a period of 20 years … [but] claims the dumping caused no appreciable damage.” It also left behind more than 300 open waste pits contaminated with heavy metals and other carcinogenic compounds. “In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs cite a wave of deadly cancers, skin lesions, birth defects and other abnormalities among the areas indigenous peoples, and massive die-offs of plants, crops, and animals from air and groundwater pollution as well as poisonous “black rain.” In some villages near polluted water sources, the rate of cancer is 100 times higher than the historical norm.” The case has yet to be resolved.³ There are similar problems with Shell in Nigeria, Nike in Indonesia, Union Carbide in India, and Rio Tinto in Papua New Guinea.

Areas of Concern

Agriculture. The Green Revolution of the 1960s globalized agriculture and introduced the concept of “cash crops.” It also brought the promise of higher crop yields, reduced malnutrition, and rural development. However, along with it came traditional crop varieties and farmers displaced by agribusiness and hard-currency-earning cash cops, expensive imported fertilizers and pesticides, increased land distribution inequity, foreign corporate patenting of seeds and crop strains developed by local farmers over the centuries, and the diversion of financial and natural resources to agribusiness.

All of this undermined local agriculture, a devastating blow to indigenous farmers. Even worse, the Food and Agriculture Organization says that about 75 percent of all plant species have become extinct. In more than 80 of the 154 countries surveyed in 1995, this loss was attributed to “the spread of modern, commercial agriculture and the introduction of new varieties of crops.”⁴

Medicine. On February 1, 2001, America threatened to complain to the World Trade Organization about Brazil’s national and highly successful AIDS treatment program. By producing local and cheap generic drugs and delivering them for free, Brazil has halved its AIDS victims’ death rates and substantially reduced treatment costs. On April 19, 2001, after a protracted battle in South African courts, several pharmaceutical TNCs dropped their quest to block the South African government’s plan to import cheap generic drugs to treat its AIDS victims. Cilpa, an Indian company that produces cheap generic drugs for AIDS victims, routinely faces pressure from pharmaceutical companies and their governments to cease and desist.

In each case, the charge is the same: violation of the intellectual property and patent rights held by Western pharmaceutical companies. That these same companies are among the richest in the world, and that their clients are among the poorest countries in the world, is rarely mentioned. Prices have been reduced as a result of such negative publicity, but many victims in Asia and Africa still cannot afford the medicine they need to survive.

In the Amazon, researchers have discovered many plants and herbs with medicinal value from the indigenous peoples. However, most of them sell the data to the large pharmaceutical companies and both become rich. The Amazon’s people do not benefit; in fact, their situation deteriorates as even more TNCs descend upon them.

National Sovereignty. The rise of 24-hour computerized and almost instantaneous financial transactions and currency speculation makes it hard to know who is in control. Governments face an impossible situation: “Central banks and elected governments [are] regularly compelled to choose between [their obligations to domestic economies and the new force of the global market] … This was often a ‘no win’ choice for political leaders since yielding to the market’s idea of ‘sound economic policy’ frequently required them to depress their own economies, increasing unemployment or cutting social spending.”⁵

George Soros, perhaps the best known of all individual and institutional currency speculators, has humbled governments with this strategy. Working together, they humiliated the Bank of England in 1992 and destroyed Europe’s Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1993. Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamad blames Soros for the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98. No individual currency speculator can do much on his or her own, but when big players like Soros begin to move, others jump on the bandwagon. The results show who is really in charge of a nation’s economy and, to a certain extent, social policy.

Structural adjustment programs (SAPs) are another controversial matter. In the 1980s, America began tying its aid to World Bank and IMF economic prescriptions and reforms (reducing inflation, promoting exports, meeting debt-payment schedules, and decreasing budget deficits) and to facilitating increased American trade and investment.

However, they generally entail “severe reductions in government spending and employment, higher interest rates, currency devaluation, lower real wages, sale of government enterprises, reduced tariffs, and liberalization of foreign investment regulations…. But while government balance sheets may improve, SAPs have failed to establish a base for sustainable, balanced economic development … [and] have bankrupted local industries, increased dependency on food imports, gutted social services, and fostered a widening gap between rich and poor.”⁶

In addition, they tend to keep poor countries in debt, for new loans are needed to pay off existing debts and to qualify for future loans. Despite this, they remain the usual “cure” for countries seeking international financial aid and investment. This could change if anti-SAP protests continue, and if demands that lending institutions become more transparent and make allowances for social policies succeed.

Political Development and Human Rights. Decades of Western investment in oil-rich Middle Eastern and resource-rich African countries appears to have strengthened dictators of all persuasions. Instead of supporting human and religious rights in Chinese-occupied Tibet and Sinkiang, not to mention in China itself, American business interests persuaded Washing-ton to grant China permanent normal trade relations on September 19, 2000. Thus, China’s violations of human, labor, and religious rights no longer has to concern the American business community. Unfortunately, this seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

Conclusion

Global capitalism, based upon unfettered consumerism and the idea that continued profits through continued growth leads to ultimate happiness, now runs the world’s economy: “The culture-ideology of consumerism is the set of beliefs and practices that persuades people that consumption far beyond the satisfaction of physical needs is, literally, at the center of meaningful existence and that the best organized societies are those that place consumer satisfaction at the center of all their major institutions.”⁷

If this is true, human unhappiness is sure to increase. Poor people viewing the “real” lives of the rich through foreign television programs or movies see a lifestyle and possessions forever beyond their rich. Workers face constant job insecurity. Rural migrants in cities have their hopes dashed when they cannot find jobs. The media report the rise of sweat-shop and child labor, environmental devastation, a loss of corporate accountability and responsibility to their home bases, a hollowing of hard-won labor gains by threats of relocating overseas, and declining taxes as TNCs juggle their books.

Even those who benefit cannot feel secure. Their job might be outsourced in the interest of higher profits, abolished by corporate streamlining, or lost because they cannot acquire new skills fast enough. Shareholder dissatisfaction can destroy their companies, and job-related demands upon their time can make a normal family life and friendships impossible.

In sum: “Given their narrow premise, market economists never attempted to calculate all of the collateral damage that could also be attributed to the liberalization of finance-the capital investments destroyed when viable factories were abruptly abandoned, the economic output lost when economies grew more slowly, the public welfare costs from rising unemployment or declining wages, the instability for companies and nations caused by the sifting money values.”⁸

Economic globalization does have its good and bad points. But its emphasis on always-increasing profits as the way to ultimate happiness and meaning in our lives is misguided, for how can what is transient give lasting satisfaction? It has nothing to offer those who fall behind but dreams that will be fulfilled “sometime in the future.” And one day they will demand the fulfillment of those dreams…

Footnotes

1. Thomas L Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization (New York: Anchor, 2000), 71.
2. China’s first “cyber-dissident” was tried in Shanghai on December 4, 1998, “on charges of subversion for having given the addresses of 30,000 Chinese computer users to VIP Reference, a journal that Chinese dissidents publish in the United States.”
3. Ibid., 68.
4. Cristobal Bonifaz and Joseph C. Kohn, “Amazon Tribal Leaders Blast U.S. Judge For Blocking Texaco Pollution Case,” 31 May 2001. Online at: www.amazonwatch.org.
5. The State of the World’s Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Chapter 1: “The State of Diversity,” (Leipzig: 1996). Online at: http://web.icppgr.fao.org/ wrlmap_e.htm.
6. William Greider. One World, Ready or Not (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 242.
7. Carol Welch and Jason Oringer, “Structural Adjust-ment Programs,” Foreign Policy In Focus, vol. 3, 3 (Apr. 1998). Online at: www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/ vol3/v3n3sap.html.
8. Leslie Sklair, The Transnational Capital Class (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2001), 4-5. 8 Greider, One World, 250.

Other References

• Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California, 2000.
• Barnet, Richard J. and John Cavanagh, Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
• Korten, David C. When Corporations Rule the World. 2d ed.
• Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2001. Madeley, John.
• Big Business, Poor People: The Impact of Transnational Corporations on the World’s Poor. New York: Zed Books, 2000.