Fw: [greenleap] John Pilger on the 'New rulers of the world'

I found this interesting. Sorry if cross-posted!

Carl Nordlund
- - - - -
Demesta - Academic Solutions
http://www.demesta.com/

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Philip Sutton <Philip.Sutton@green-innovations.asn.au>
To: <greenleap@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 4:23 AM
Subject: [greenleap] John Pilger on the 'New rulers of the world'


------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      Wed, 11 Jul 2001 11:48:46 +1200
From:           John Peet <j.peet@CAPE.CANTERBURY.AC.NZ>
Subject:        from John Peet
To:             BALATON@LISTSERV.DARTMOUTH.EDU

Dear Friends,

This may interest you.
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DEMOLISHING GLOBAL MYTHS
By David Cromwell

David Cromwell talks to John Pilger about his forthcoming television 
documentary, The New Rulers of the World, which examines the 
real meaning of the 'global economy', including the virtually 
unknown and bloody history of how globalisation took root in 
Indonesia  

Anything less than a rigorous accounting of power is - in the eyes 
of John Pilger, the renowned Australian journalist and ZNet 
commentator - a serious failure of journalism. Interviewed last year 
by Professor Anthony Clare for BBC Radio 4's 'In the Psychiatrist's 
Chair', Pilger said: 'A journalist covering political affairs, 
international affairs, really should be outside - so outside - the 
establishment ring, that he or she makes enemies'. Pilger fits the 
bill. As he told Anthony Hayward - whose recent book, 'In the 
Name of Justice', reviews the journalist's 30 years of television 
broadcasting - '[I am] anti-authoritarian and forever sceptical of 
anything the agents of power want to tell us'. But more importantly, 
in his own words, Pilger is driven by his 'respect for humanity, and 
for telling the stories of humanity from the ground up, not from the 
point of view of the powerful and those who, in one way or another, 
want to control or exploit us'.  

In his latest documentary, 'The New Rulers of the World', Pilger 
presents the compelling argument that economic globalisation is 
but the latest phase of colonial domination of the weak by the 
powerful. Globalisation - deceptively described by Blair and Clinton 
as 'irreversible', 'irresistable' and 'not a policy choice, [but] a fact' - 
is being deliberately moulded by powerful international forces such 
as the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the 
International Monetary Fund. The film reveals 'free' trade as nothing 
other than forced trade, with victims aplenty falling by the wayside. 
Some of these victims are the half-million Indonesians who were 
slaughtered in Suharto's Western-supported coup in 1965, leading 
to the Western control of that country's economy, as Pilger 
documents.  

It's that kind of link between economic globalisation and mass 
abuses of human rights that sets Pilger's work apart from relative 
newcomers to the field, such as Naomi Klein and Noreena Hertz.  
How else does Pilger's take on globalisation differ from the 
relatively safe analysis served up by such voices? 'A lot of the 
people who are in the broad anti-globalisation coalition', he 
responds, 'subscribe to the view that the new rulers of the world are 
the multinational corporations. I don't agree. I think it's a 
combination of state power - with state power still dominant - and 
the multinational corporations. The two are really wedded together. 
It's risky to start describing the world as simply run by 
corporations.' Pilger points out that 'the United States government 
has never been more powerful' and that major US corporations have 
been 'the beneficiaries of massive government subsidy - a kind of 
socialism for the rich.' The rise of the transnational corporation has 
been enabled and maintained by 'centralised state power'. This 
power, Pilger maintains, is the 'engine  room of globalisation'.  

In the hour-long documentary, to be screened in Britain by ITV on 
July 18, the 'global economy' is stripped bare, revealing a world 
'where the divisions between rich and poor have never been greater.' 
1.2 billion live in severe poverty - including two-thirds of the world's 
children - and more than one billion do not have enough to eat. 
More than one billion people still have no access to clean water. 
Over 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed by the West's 'genocidal' 
regime of economic sanctions, in one of the greatest crimes 
against humanity in the modern era. All of these shocking facts 
raise barely a murmur in the free press. But then, as Noam 
Chomsky once observed, 'What is being reported blandly on the 
front pages would elicit ridicule and horror in a society with a 
genuinely free and democratic intellectual culture.'  

The documentary highlights the impacts of globalisation on 
Indonesia. I asked Pilger why he decided to focus on this country. 
'Indonesia's a very good example because it brings in the roles of 
the World Bank, the IMF, foreign investors, [as well as] the 
exploitation of natural resources and of labour. So all the 
ingredients of the globalised economy can be found in Indonesia.' 
Also, as Pilger reports, the country is a 'a major client of the British 
arms industry' and was described by the World Bank - ironically, 
just before the Asian crash in 1998 - as a 'model pupil'.  

The film presents a virtually unknown account of how globalisation 
took hold in Indonesia. In the wake of Suharto's seizure of power in 
the mid-1960s, which was backed by the United States and 
Britain, some of the most powerful capitalists in the world, such as 
David Rockefeller, met with Suharto's ministers at a secret meeting 
convened by Time magazine in Geneva in 1967. 'Most of the 
Indonesian economy', reports Pilger, 'was redesigned in a week. 
This was the direct result of the bloodbath in Indonesia the year 
before, in which the United States and Britain had played 
important, supportive roles.' He goes on, 'Indonesia then fell under 
the control of a group called the Joint Inter-Governmental Working 
Group, which was all the main Western governments, Japan, the 
World Bank and the IMF. They effectively guided the Suharto 
economy for many years, determining investment, debt, central 
bank policy and so on.'  

It's an astonishing revelation, and typical of Pilger's drive to get to 
the heart of significant matters for Western democracy - to expose 
the dirty reality of a US-led vision of 'global markets', 'freedom' and 
'human rights'. His previous documentary, 'Paying the Price - 
Killing the Children of Iraq', broadcast here in March 2000, sent 
shock waves through Washington and London. Pilger gave space 
to former high-level UN diplomats to denounce US/British sanctions 
as 'genocidal', with the deaths of over 4000 children under the age 
of 5 every month. Since the broadcast, the US and UK have 
intensified their efforts to frame the debate about Iraqi sanctions as 
though they are wholly the responsibility of Saddam. The latest talk 
of 'smart sanctions' is but the latest step in the same propaganda 
offensive. Hans von Sponeck, one of two UN humanitarian 
coordinators featured by Pilger who resigned in disgust at the 
West's policy, said recently that the US/UK proposals are mere 
'tinkering at the edges of the sanctions regime'.  

'Journalism', says Pilger, 'is about lifting rocks, and not accepting 
the official line. As a journalist, it is my duty, surely, to tell people 
when they're being conned or told lies'. And the whole edifice of a 
global economy, understands Pilger, would not be possible without 
official untruths and media complicity. Politicians tell us that the 
poor have 'lost out' on the 'benefits of free trade'. The solution to 
poverty, we are told by representatives of the rich West, is for 
these benefits to be 'spread more evenly throughout society' by 
continuing the process of economic globalisation which has 
already caused so much harm.  

Pilger notes that while the cliches of corporate propaganda may 
have changed - 'the American way of life' has become 'globalisation' 
and 'the new world order'- the objective remains the same: 'to 
expand the power of capital, mostly Western and American capital, 
into most aspects of our lives so that almost everything is a 
commodity and the only value is measured by cost and 
consumption.' Pilger concurs with Indian activist Vandana Shiva's 
observation that the forces of globalisation, and especially the 
corporate media, are generating a form of brainwashing, a 
'monoculture of the mind'. 'Media language', says Pilger, 'has 
systematically appropriated positive concepts, emptying them of 
their dictionary meaning and refilling them.' 'Reform' now means 
regression or destruction. Selling off public enterprises - such as 
the railway system - is 'breaking up monopolies'. 'Deregulation' 
means a shift from public protection to private power. This insidious 
corruption of language encourages people to accept that global 
capitalism is as healthy and inevitable as the need to consume 
oxygen.  

One of the myths that John Pilger wishes to demolish with this film 
is 'the received wisdom ... that people these days are apathetic'. 
Pilger expands, 'The opposite is true... the fact that several million 
people in the last six months have demonstrated all over the world 
against the imposition of various forms of the global economy has 
been ignored by the free press. Most people have had no idea of 
the extent of the opposition to globalisation'. Compassion and 
outrage - not apathy - typifies public reaction when the truth is told 
about the machinations of Western power. Pilger's documentaries 
have invariably generated massive response. When 'Year Zero' was 
broadcast in 1979, it raised $45 million, unsolicited, for the people 
of Cambodia. In 1994, immediately following 'Death Of A Nation' 
about East Timor, 4000 calls a minute were made to ITV.' Last 
year, in the wake of Pilger's documentary on Iraq, the Foreign 
Office were reportedly shocked by the extent of public questioning 
of the West's sanctions regime in that country. Given John Pilger's 
record, 'The New Rulers of the World' looks set to be a major 
contribution to the rapidly growing resistance to  state-corporate 
totalitarianism.  

'The New Rulers of the World - A Special Report by John Pilger', a 
Carlton TV production, will be broadcast in Britain by ITV on 
Wednesday, 18 July at 10.30pm. A special preview will take place 
at the National Film Theatre in London on Monday, 16 July, when 
John Pilger will be taking questions after the screening. The 
director and producer is Alan Lowery.  The producer, writer and 
presenter is John Pilger. The website address is: 
www.JohnPilger.com  

David Cromwell's book, 'Private Planet', is published by Jon 
Carpenter (£12.99). Website: www.private-planet.com  

(First circulated by "Taking Control List" <taking-control@converge.org.nz> )

--
Dr John Peet
Department of Chemical & Process Engineering
University of Canterbury              Phone:  (64)(3) 364-2538
Private Bag 4800                      Fax:    (64)(3) 364-2063
Christchurch              Email:  j.peet@cape.canterbury.ac.nz
New Zealand  Web: www.cape.canterbury.ac.nz/people/njp/njp.htm

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