Environmental Colonialism - Essay Example

The 20th century witnessed the pivotal inauguration of Western expansion, also historically known as the Age of Exploration. The Europeans were the first people to manipulate global affairs to a large extent. Consequently, this period of discoveries, occupations, and colonization put forth a remarkable boost in trading activities and the inflow of money to the civilized societies of the Old World. The Age of Exploration became the catalyst for the emergence of a new world economy. Subsequently, the economic form of capitalism germinated due to the freshly amassed wealth and resources from the satellite countries or which are currently addressed to as the global south. Apparently, the olden movement of colonialism created both advantages and disadvantages to the nations which did not engage into territorial expansion and survived simply by tapping the resources made available to them by their immediate environment; unfortunately, the negative effects of colonialism outweighed the opposite. Colonialism drastically altered the very structure of the occupied territories such as its social, political, and economic systems. These modifications are still massively evident in the continent of Asia, Africa, and South America which bore the brunt of colonialism. These regions of the earth had archaic technologies and infrastructures before the Europeans realized that they can alleviate the supply of riches to their nations by means of confiscating the wealth of other nations for their egotistical gains. A few of the positive outcomes of colonialism outlined by contemporary social scientists are the improved technologies such as the telegraph, printed media, medical equipment, innovative farming tools, and the road systems which made possible the establishment of a complex society that can accommodate the increasing exigencies poised by its members conveyed by these technological advancements. Nevertheless, it is still fundamental to note the relevance of the lackluster end products of colonialism in understanding the inert global situation of many underdeveloped nations or the global south. The global north or the developed and highly industrialized countries had histories of exploitation and domination for the sole purpose of breeding economic affluence for the mother country. This desire to accumulate wealth led the powerful nations to employ an inhumane system which was slavery or bonded labor. The slaves were commonly used in plantations wherein crops were grown for exports and for other economic goings-on in the market. These plantations which were created for cash-cropping destroyed the natural habitats hence generating environmental predicaments. The natural habitats and the species of the colonies were exceedingly browbeaten which continued until now in a consummate level. Likewise, the inhabitants of the global south inadvertently adopted Western values such as consumerism and materialism which also contributed much to the exploitation of natural resources even by the locals. These unconstructive values were prevalent in the colonies even after they had attained their independence. The aftermath of the World War II was a period of de-colonization which deposed and obscured the colonial system. Yet, colonialism did not perish but took on another form which became manifested in the 1960s; this new form of colonialism thrived via capital investments and technological manufacturing. Nonetheless, contemporary data infallibly support the idea that these economic metropolises are still the promoters of unprecedented environmental degradations. The Third Worlds are recently combating an environmental crisis which is brought upon by the dumping of e-waste—electronic or electrical waste from the United States. According to the article of the Environmental Impact Assessment Review in July 2005 (Cheng, 2007), the emissaries of the US recycling business truthfully attest to the allegations that the American nation dumps or exports 80% of its e-waste to Asia and 90% of that goes to China. This system of discarding e-waste to the developing countries has economic advantages for the rich nations; the “recycling” industries reap profits due to the fact that they are not compelled to innovate ways in which their waste can be deposited environmentally safe since the poor countries will readily accept these wastes for reuse. Dumping wastes in an environmental-friendly manner proves to be tasking and expensive which goaded the “recycling” industries to throw despoils to the needing Third World countries. However, the Xinhua News Agency accounted on January 31 (Cheng, 2007) that the United States is not the solitary contributor of the recent environmental crisis in China; hazardous waste weighing thousands of tons were seized by the Chinese customs two years ago which were discovered to originate from other highly industrialized nations, namely, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea. On the one hand, China itself produces e-waste in a substantial degree since the capital city Beijing advocated capitalism in the early 1990s. Annually, China junks countless appliances such as “television sets, air-conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and computers” (Cheng, 2007). Sadly, the producers of these material goods are not enthusiastic in venturing a socially responsible means of disposing e-waste. Furthermore, the dumping sites are usually beleaguered by migrant workers who are paid to do menial jobs of fissuring and sorting parts of electronic gadgets which expose these laborers to harmful metals akin to lead, mercury, and cadmium. In 2007, the government of China documented a sordid 80% of casualties composed of children who died from lead poisoning (Cheng, 2007). Meanwhile, in the Dark Continent or which is commonly referred to as Africa, currently undergoes conservationism efforts. The modern-day condition of the African environment is not that malaise compared to the injuries done by the history of slavery; however, the natural habitat of the continent preserved its function as the bowl of treasures wherein the colonialists are free to trample on. Despondently, the local population maintained its scarce existence which is freshly aggravated by conservationists who ardently push forth the erection of national parks; these national parks in consequence will displace and further deprive the local inhabitants. However, the national parks have no history of military coercions and governmental strokes to drive away the native inhabitants surviving in the natural preserves; instead, akin to North and South America, the local population of Africa was obliterated centuries ago due to the emergence of new diseases carried over by the European colonialists such as smallpox and syphilis to the continent. Dissimilar to America, these new-fangled diseases had negatively altered the makeup of Africa’s animal demography. Jonathan Adams and Thomas McShane (1996, as cited in Nelson, 2003, p. 70) in their book entitled “The Myth of Wild Africa” described the early depiction of nature in Africa and the notion of the “noble savage” as a valuable magnetism for several Western minds. European missionaries who purposively visited Africa to propagate Christianity documented that the African people were much more blessed than the poor people situated in the civilized worlds as the former lived in a bountiful environment which is devoid of demands of human labor to sustain its efficient capacity to produce. Roderick Neumann (1998, as cited in Nelson, 2003, p. 71) related the concept of a mythical identity of Africa created by the colonialists to the mounting of national parks in the locale. He asserted that these national parks justify the myth of the “noble savage” as an ad hoc; the Westerners are then fascinated by the incorruptibility of nature portrayed by the national parks in where ironically modern Africans were extricated to give way to the original conception of an Africa as an Eden. These national parks are advertised in a very creative and brisk manner to attract Western tourists hence becoming a profit-generating project. The issue of environmentalism in the global south is actually misrepresented. Environmental movements are in reality a response against the foremost concern of rapid industrialization which has been the preoccupation of several developing countries. Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir aggressively spoke for the global south on the topic of environmental collapse; in the Rio Conference on the Environment and Development held in June 1992, fervent Mahathir declared that colonialist countries were liable for the destruction of the lush forests of the global south and that the factories these rich countries mounted in the poor nations created health problems due to the toxic chemicals belched by these manufacturing infrastructures. Mahathir then bitterly pronounced that the poor did not whine instead they wholly accepted the millstone of providing the resources for the economic expansion of the rich nations (Bello, 2007). Meanwhile, nineteenth century Latin America became a profitable destination for the venturing entrepreneurs of Western Europe and the United States. The great empire of Britain built railways and was the chief investor before the outbreak of the First World War. The rising nation of the United States focused on the purchasing of large acreage in Cuba and Central America for the creation of plantations. Despite the fact that coffee-growing continued to be administered by the Central America, the investment and political manipulation from America were bolstered by the establishment of the United Fruit Company which took full control of the banana plantations and trade (Grenville, 2000, p. 701). The inflow of large investments in Latin America nonetheless failed to alleviate the pestering poverty and noticeable wealth disproportion among the social classes. Moreover, the manufacturing industry in South America did not blossom in the first half of the twentieth century. The purchasing power of the Latin Americans remained at a low level since large percentages of them earn minimum income. The period since 1945 witnessed the remarkable amplification of large-scale industries in Latin America particularly in the major Latin American nations like Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile due to state sponsorship and foreign investments. The political economy of Latin America significantly transformed from agricultural to manufacturing and from rural to urban which is comparable to the economic shift underwent by industrial Europe. Yet, the sweeping alteration of the Latin American economic life resulted to huge debts to the West which should be paid in a very high interest rate. The Western dream of renovating Latin America to democracy through modernization which will indubitably develop a professional middle class, an urban skilled workforce, a high standard of living, and education hence literacy is not yet realized (2000, p. 702). All the same, Latin America became enmeshed in the emerging world system as a supplier of raw materials engendering an over-dependency on Britain and later on the United States. In the year 1914 and the dawning of the First World War were recorded as the neocolonialism era in Latin America in which the war hostilities upset the market for commodities from Latin America. The relevant characteristic of this neocolonialism is its emphasis on a solitary export of a raw material or otherwise known as “cash-cropping”; the burgeoning of the cash crop system crafted the economies of the colonized countries susceptible to oscillations in prices on the world market. Likewise, the neocolonial order progressed from the rapid increase in the hacienda system wherein Indians were dispossessed of their ancestral domain rights. Large plots of lands were taken away from the Indian families to serve as fertile grounds for the sowing of globally in-demand agricultural products. The Indians then, who were the rightful owners of the massive tracks of lands, are relegated to labor on the haciendas in which the system financially indebted the Indians to the landowners hence the advent of bonded slavery in Latin America (Grenville, 2000, p. 705). On the one hand, the vibrant social forces in Europe were attained through the employment of African slavery and subjugation. The surfacing of the European bourgeoisie and the disenfranchised proletariats was due to the allocation and distribution of African habitat and wherewithal. The affluence gained by the European bourgeoisie from the usurpation of African riches resulted to the fortuitous demise of the divine rights of king or the aristocratic rule in Europe that in turn led to the democratic revolutions staged in both the Old and the New World. Similarly, the momentous industrial revolution was caused by the intensification of appropriating the wealth of Africa and as well provided the thrust for the demolition of slavery. Colonialism carried its “own seed of destruction” as Karl Marx eloquently put it in terms of capitalism. Yet, it is notable that the impact of slavery on Africa was debilitating in the sense that the slave trades devastated the political economy of the continent which enticed a domino effect that weakened the entire societal stronghold of Africa. The inhabited regions of Africa and the flourishing cities alike were wiped out as the slave traders pressed the population into the center. The pristine way of life of the Africans living in the towns and villages were razed into the murky parts of humanity’s history. The political economy of Africa which originally functioned as a protector of the rights and the purveyor of the basic needs of the local population was radically reinstated with a foreign political economy that served the self-centered purposes of the European colonialists’ civilizations. Modern-day postcolonial intellectuals contended that the evolved form of colonialism which is imperialism did not really expire as the European empires renounced their colonies after the World War II. In the postmodern era, the obsolete notion of imperialism is replaced by the concept of neocolonialism. In the past, the method of colonialism such as control of administrative organizations and the institute of military powers are thwarted by neocolonialism which affiliated itself to indirect control of the colonies’ economy and culture. The ex-colonies per se are still under the guise of colonialism which is undetectable because of the new stratagem employed by the First World countries; the continued manipulation of the former colonies is efficiently done through the installation of native ruling elites who are merely puppets of the neocolonial powers. The appropriation of labor and resources are effectually accomplished through the stimulation of the common sentiments upheld by the native settlements which is led by a spiritual adviser or a charismatic authority who in reality is the mask of colonial domination. The capitalistic drive provoked by the assurance of advance technology and modernized culture is currently undertaken on a global scale. This impetus towards production and accumulation of monetary goods is deliberately transferred from the metropolis nations to the satellite states making the plight of the underprivileged morbidly unsolvable. Breinner and Keil (2006) studied the conditions of the urban life at the opening of the twentieth century and enlightened the readers on the underlying factors on the claimed envisage of the eventual downfall of urbanism owing to the ascendance of the ingenious informational technologies. The global cities are now all embarking on the complexities of the global political economy forged by the powerful empires such as the United States, European countries, Japan, and recently China. The projected death of urbanism is parallel to the calculations by some radical individuals of a complete termination of all kinds of colonialism thus liberating the global south. References Books Adams, Jonathan & McShane, Thomas 1996, The Myth of Wild Africa: Conservation Without Illusion, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Brenner, Neil & Keil, Roger 2006, The Global Cities Reader, Routledge, London. Grenville, J.A.S 2000, A History of the World in the 20th Century, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts. Neumann, Roderick P. 1998, Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservation in Africa, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Journal Articles Nelson, Robert 2003, ‘Environmental Colonialism: Saving Africa from Africans’, The Independent Review, vol. VIII, no. 1. Newspaper Articles Bello, Walden 2007, ‘The Environmental Movement in the Global South’, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 17 November 2007. Cheng, Eva 2007, ‘China: E-waste and Environmental Colonialism’, Green Left Weekly Issue, vol. 715, viewed 19 May 2008, http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/715/37118. Websites Latin American History: The Triumph of Colonialism, viewed 19 May, 2008, Resolution on Trade and Debt 2000, viewed 19 May, 2008, Read More