In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

 

HUMAN TRAGEDIES ARE SURMOUNTING – WHAT TO DO?

 

[Shamim A Siddiqi, New York]

 

World is fast drifting towards total chaos and frustration. Leaving aside, its political turmoil, economic exploitation, racial and religious discriminations and ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, the scarcity of basic human needs and their availability to millions and millions masses around the five continents of the globe has become the matter of extreme urgency. More than a billion people, one fourth of human population do not get two square meals a day. The scarcity of drinking water around the world is, currently, the most challenging question before the so-called civilized world.

 

Drinking water constitutes only 0.09 % of the total water available on earth. The entire world depends on sweet water lakes, inland rivers and the water that lies under the ground and can be brought up through deep wells and the glaciers that are on the top of the high mountains. But this water is not accessible to millions without purification and making it fit for human consumption. In rivers it is polluted, from tube well, it is mixed with iron and other substances and from ponds and lakes it is contaminated and extremely harmful, especially for the children. As such, the poor, the needy living in Asia, Africa and Latin America are dying due to water-related diseases in thousands every day. A brief description of these alarming figures will tell the tale of surmounting human tragedies at an accelerated pace.

 

The World Body celebrated March 22 as World Water Day and published statistics that tell how the advanced people and the developed world have become callous and do not think even in their own interest that if the poor dies today who will provide the markets for their finished products.

 

* Currently, over 3, 900 children are killed due to water-related diseases every day;

* 1.1 billion people have no access to clean drinking water around the world’

* Diseases related to inadequate water sanitation kill 2 to 5 million people every year;

* The average distance that women in Africa and Asia walk every day to fetch water is six

   kilometers;

* Only 58 % children in sub-Saharan region drink safe water;

* 73 million working days are lost in India alone due to water-borne diseases.

 

It is a very horrible situation of the world that is fast marching ahead to live in space. If a society that cannot meet the basic needs of its inhabitants on earth has no right to “live” in the skies;  what right it has to exist and exploit the meager resources of the underdeveloped world by fraud and multinational corporation game plan to maximize their profits at the cost  of the poor and the needy? Compare to the USA where on average an American uses 100 gallons of water per day, with people around the world that hardly get 5 gallons of pure water a day to use. Water is not a scarcity any where but the underdeveloped nations lack the capital to make it worth drinking and so they are helplessly dying and the world stand simply watching as the silent spectator doing practically nothing to come to the rescue of the suffering humanity.

 

It is the moral obligation of each developed nation, especially the USA, to contribute at least a dime out of each dollar from their “ill-gotten” gains [wealth] that has been accumulated through imperialistic fraud, deception and dubious presentation of data to the poor countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Many thanks to John Perkins in narrating his own story for lifting the curtain of secrecy from this decades old game of exploitation on the part of the Corporate America in his marvelous book: “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” just published in January 2005. If the appeal of the UN goes unattended by these “thieves and open day light dacoits” to come forward and finance the multi-billion projects to help the underdeveloped word to fight against diseases like HIV, malaria and TB, water and food shortages, dearth of capital in building infra structure of the poor countries, they all in block should move UN to file a law suit against these usurpers in the International Court of Justice in Hague. These “looters” of the suffering humanity do not deserve any sympathy. They must pay back their “booty” in rebuilding the poor societies as grants and aids [not as loans]. If they put any kind of “ifs and buts”, the continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America must boycott their goods and services forthwith through adopting a Resolution in General Assembly.

 

That is the only way left with the “civilized” underdeveloped world to give a lesson to the “uncivilized” developed world  to give redress to the centuries old exploitation of the countries of three continent first in the name of colonization and imperial games and then in the name of “ loans for developments” to the underdeveloped countries. Equally, the rulers of the underdeveloped countries who fell easy pray to the treacherous game of exploitation through “misinformation” must be “caught and hanged” in the thoroughfares of each capital city as they were number one culprit to be entrapped by the Corporate America in close connivance of the Whitehouse & CIA for making their respective fortunes. They must not go unpunished.  This appears to be the only way to ameliorate the sufferings of human tragedies that are surmounting fast.

 

 

Shamim A Siddiqi

March 28, 2005