Some provocative thoughts about looting in Iraq

Apologies if you read this on PSN:

 

In concordance with most people, I too am saddened by aspects of the looting that has taken place, especially the burning and looting of libraries and museums. It is as if the ahistorical arrogance of decaying U.S. capitalism wants to further allow for the erasing of any history that might allow non-U.S. people any sense of pride--as a letter in my local newspaper put it: "God wants America to rule the world.", and for the more secular among their ideologues: "We don't need no stinkin' history. We have the POWER."

 

But I would like to pose some provocative thoughts. Many of the looters may have been motivated by nihilism; many may be criminals. Maybe. But many were motivated by the possibility of getting some money. It is easy to sit here and condemn someone as "greedy" because they break into a museum and steal a gold cup, but from their point of view, if they can sell that cup for $50, it might feed their family for a month or buy antibiotics to save the lives of their children.  

 

Massive poverty, intensified by the sanctions and now by war, have left hundreds of thousands of people in a very desperate state. We should be careful not to engage in a kind of self-righteous condemnation of desperate people who break the rules of "polite society", when their desperation was caused by the kinds of "polite people" who now condemn them for their acts of "thievery". By 1990, Iraq was ruled by a vicious dictator, but in class terms, it had a rather large "middle class", and the degree of inequality was less than in many other parts of the world. The sanctions impoverished many people, and if history is any guide, the Americanization of the Iraqi economy might rebuild a small "middle class" but will likely increase the gap between rich and poor. 

 

I join others in lamenting the destruction, possibly permanent destruction of the history, not only of Iraq, but of much of humankind.

 

But let us understand how the forces of capitalism and imperialism (not that sanitized term "globalization") have so severely impoverished people all over the world and created the explosive conditions that lead desperate people to take desperate actions. Let's not add class (and possibly ethnocentric) insult to the injury which poor people are experiencing so intensely.

 

Alan Spector

 

(P.S. --A radio station (possibly NPR, I don't recall) quoted a U.S. soldier in a palace, asking, derisively: "How could the leaders of Iraq have lived in such wealth while there were so many poor?"  But it is only a twenty minute car ride from Spanish Harlem in New York to wealthy Scarsdale, and only a ten minute walk from Water Tower Place in Chicago (an area with 5 million dollar condominiums) to Cabrini Green public housing, (with people living on $400/month). And didn't one of the Enron executives build himself a 50 million dollar home, which would be exempt from lawsuits, because "homes" are generally excluded from legal settlements?)