NewsCentralAsia, Asia
Aug 14 2004
Silence is Complicity – Responses to the Third World and Muslim
Holocausts
Dr. Gideon Polya
[This is the last part of the 5-parts series.]
United Nations demographic data from 1950 to the present have enabled
calculation of the `excess mortality’ (avoidable mortality) for every
country over that period – `excess mortality’ being defined as the
difference between the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths
EXPECTED for a decently-run, peaceful country with the same
demographics.
The results are startling and horrifying. The total post-1950 `excess
mortality’ has been 1284 million for the whole world, comprised of 54
million for European countries (Australasia, Israel, North America
and Europe) and 1230 million for the non-European countries. The
post-1950 `excess mortality’ of the Third World is estimated to be
about 1 billion and that of the Muslim world about half a billion.
The 1 billion Third World Holocaust and the half-billion Muslim
Holocaust constitute the greatest crime in human history and demand
immediate international action. Crucially required international
actions over this immense crime can be summarized simply as
Cessation, Acknowledgement, Apology, Amends and Acceptance of
non-repetition – acronym CAAAA. The acronym CAAAA is appropriately
the mournful cry of the crow, the near-universal, black scavenger of
the dead.
Cessation of global mass mortality
The total, annual, global avoidable mortality from deprivation and
malnourishment-exacerbated disease is about 20 million or 55,000
people per day. To put this into a human framework, it is as if
somewhere in the world one major soccer stadium packed with fans is
completely obliterated EVERY DAY. We have trouble dealing with large
numbers as individuals and as societies. Thus the potential fate of
one threatened hostage will horrify billions of people throughout the
world for a week – but 55,000 avoidable deaths a day is somehow
regarded as `normal’ for the Third World and Muslim adults and
children who are dying.
There is usually one compelling reason for doing anything but lots of
arguments for not doing it. The one compelling argument for trying to
stop this 55,000 a day massacre of the innocents is that every life
is sacred – if it were your life at stake in the Third World you
would certainly want the clean water, soap, mosquito netting, minimal
food, shelter, security and primary health care that can be provided
for you at a cost of several dollars a day. It will not happen
because, for example, the world (armed by the First World) has a
priority military expenditure of about US$800 billion a year or
US$40,000 dollars a year for each of the 20 million who perish
avoidably annually.
Of course immediate cessation of economic constraint, war and
military occupation would be useful, as seen in the example of Iraq.
It is estimated that the financial cost of the Iraq débacle to the US
will come to about US$200 billion. However the human cost to Iraq
(population 25 million) is an annual under-5 infant mortality of
about 100,000 – as compared to a figure of about 1000 for the
occupying Coalition nation Australia (population 20 million)
(UNICEF-based estimates). This largely unreported, massacre of the
innocents is continuing because the Coalition wrecked the water,
sewerage, electricity and other infrastructure, wrecked the economy,
does not provide security, continues to bomb and strafe cities and
funds medical services at only 4% of that required under the Geneva
Convention.
Acknowledgement of the greatest crime in history
The Germans and Austrians have acknowledged the crimes of the Nazi
era. Further, denial of the Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) is
illegal in Germany, Austria, Israel, France and Switzerland and is
punishable by fines and imprisonment. The same moral measure should
apply to man-made, mass mortality elsewhere in the world – but
unfortunately the First World-dominated media largely ignore the 1
billion Third World Holocaust and the half-billion Muslim Holocaust.
Indeed the man-made famine in British-ruled Bengal (4 million
victims) that occurred at the same time as the Jewish Holocaust has
been largely deleted from British and world history.
>From a basic scientific perspective, failure to sensibly acknowledge
massive realities blatantly undercuts the whole scientific process
and prevents any rational solutions being developed. No solution will
be found if the problem has been rubbed out. Ethical and humane
people cannot ignore the blatant, general holocaust denial by
academics, politicians, governments and mainstream media in relation
to the Third World and the Muslim world – they must respond
positively by informing and educating the world and punitively, by
exposing, excluding and boycotting these intrinsically racist
holocaust deniers.
Of course, the holocaust deniers could argue that high mortality is
somehow `normal’ for developing countries (an assertion contradicted
by many examples of developing countries with excellent mortality
statistics). They could further argue that there is a distinction
between violent death and genocide (as in German South West Africa,
Turkish Armenia, the Jewish Holocaust, South Asian Partition and
Rwanda) and mass mortality associated with man-made famine and
avoidable, curable disease in occupied or neo-colonial countries.
However whether a person dies violently or from avoidable disease or
deprivation, the end result is the same. Further, as described in
Sven Lindquist’s important book `Exterminate All the Brutes’, the
racism of the brutal colonial and neo-colonial European occupiers of
the non-European world is ideologically directly linked with the
genocidal racism in Nazi Europe.
Apology permits healing and reconciliation
Peace can be achieved under the weight of cost-benefit analysis –
although the same analysis has instructed the US and the UK that war
in Iraq and its endless continuation globally (as in George Orwell’s
`1984′) will be immensely profitable for their respective
military-industrial complexes. On the other hand, healing and
reconciliation require simple, sincere apology as demonstrated by
post-Apartheid South Africa and current global attitudes to Germany
and Japan. Lack of reconciliation will lead back to conflict, as
illustrated by Europe in the 1930s. The Gypsies (Rom) of Europe (who
originated from India a millennium ago) have not been given the
fulsome apology offered to the Jews for the Nazi era genocide and are
still being persecuted in Europe. Of course, an apology presupposes
cessation and acknowledgement of the Third World and Muslim
Holocausts.
Amends – mandatory war crimes trials and compensation
The 1 billion Third World Holocaust and the half-billion Muslim
Holocaust cry out for Justice that cannot be denied. Justice for the
victims of the Nazi era meant war crimes trials for those responsible
and attempted compensation for the surviving victims – the Third
World deserves the same.
War crimes trials should primarily involve the First World leaders
responsible over the last half century for the Third
World-devastating impositions of militarization, debt, malignant
interference, corrupt client régimes, threat, sanctions, war,
invasion, occupation, economic distortion and economic exclusion. The
magnitude of the crimes can be glimpsed from just a few statistics:
the value of First World arms supplies to the Third World from
1991-1998 totalled US$172 billion; the current annual world military
expenditure totals US$800 billion, of which half is that of the US;
it has been estimated that the Iraq conflict alone will cost the US
US$200 billion; the post-1950 `excess mortality’ in Iraq and
Afghanistan has been 5.2 million and 16.2 million, respectively.
What can compensate the people of Sierra Leone or East Timor for whom
the post-1950 death toll means almost one avoidable death for every
person alive in those countries today? The obscenity of the
continuing, 90-year duration, First World violation of Iraq can be
seen in the under-5 infant deaths per thousand live births in
oil-rich, Muslim Iraq (133) and in modestly-endowed but peaceful and
democratic, largely Muslim Malaysia (8) (2001 UNICEF data). If the
US$800 billion annual global military expenditure were allocated to
Third World people it would give them an annual income increment of
over US$200 per head. There is plenty of `fat’ in the rich First
World for compensation by direct payment in cash or kind, debt
elimination and trade equalization.
Acceptance of no repetition, `never again’
The inner strength of Israel derives from the post-Holocaust
resolution of `never again’. Unfortunately Cold War rivalry, US
aggressiveness, Arab hostility and Israeli intransigence have meant
that the Palestinians have been the post-war victims of the Jewish
Holocaust. Nevertheless the Third World and the Muslim World must
learn from the thoroughly justified and unwavering Jewish resolution
of `never again’. The 1 billion Third World Holocaust and the
half-billion Muslim Holocaust must stop now – and must never be
repeated.
It is unfortunate that a history of colonial occupation and
neo-colonial arrangements has so distorted highly-compromised,
corrupt, client and mendicant governments in the Third World that the
appalling mass mortality reality is still not a front page issue in a
world flooded with `information’. If Third World and Muslim leaders
ignore the continuing holocaust, what hope is there for the victims?
With Third World populations still increasing and US-driven global
warming set to decrease crop productivity in much of the tropical and
sub-tropical world, a window of opportunity for humane global
reorganization is rapidly disappearing.
Many of the prosperous citizens of the aggressive First World
countries have in effect become `arm chair Nazis’ in democracies
largely oblivious to their complicity in the carnage being wrought in
the Third World. Insidious `democratic Nazism’ rapidly developed into
” totalitarian Nazism” in 1930s Germany. “Democratic Nazism” is now
returning with a rampant, imperialist, human rights-abusing US,
backed by the Anglo sycophants of the UK and Australia. One hopes
that this will be increasingly resisted by the huge reservoir of
truthful, democratic, humane decency in the US and the rest of the
English-speaking world – reflected in people such as Tariq Ali, Noam
Chomsky, George Monbiot, Michael Moore (`Fahrenheit 9/11′), John
Pilger and Arundhati Roy.
Global mass mortality will ultimately be halted by truth and reason,
by informing, education and resolute advocacy, principally in the
aggressive First World countries that are the major players in this
continuing disaster. Intellectual and political leaders in the
developing world (especially women and mothers) have a crucial role
in informing the potentially responsive First World about the
horrendous realities of the Third World and Muslim Holocausts.
Silence is complicity – inform others.
About the author: Dr Gideon Polya of Melbourne, Australia published
some 130 works in a 4-decade scientific career including the
pharmacological reference text `Biochemical Targets of Plant
Bioactive Compounds’ (Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, London & New York,
2003).