Dark Clouds over Nigeria Forebodings for India
But Abaka is not just Nigeria's dictator, for he is a convenient middleman for these Western nations that are consistently tapping Nigeria's oil resources. However much these liberal Western nations criticize him now to project their liberalism, they do need this country's oil. Hence they need General Abaka, or someone else for that matter, as a middleman.
The real root-conflict is not between this cruel dictator and the simple, innocent Ogoni people, but between the industries which take away the oil and the orphaned mass of local people. This so-called cruelty of the dictator is only a circumstantial excuse or a desperate alibi. This is the truth. If not the local people, then the higher echelons of society might get some benefits in the form of temporary, petty jobs or some other inconsequential gains in all these exchanges. But the tribals, such as those of the Ogoni tribe, will be the ones to experience total devastation without even being given a chance to lick at these benefits.
Finally, what is the message of this unanimous condemnation coming from the 'universal fraternity' comprising not only the developed Western countries, but the developing nations of the Commonwealth including India? It says that the hasty execution of the nine activists was bad, uncivilized and condemnable. But nobody opposes the process by which one country's wealth is being looted and spirited away by destroying the local people there. Today, nobody, no country, is prepared to think about the conflicts engendered by such exploitation. We have accepted it as normal and the only way to win political hegemony. The exploitation of one village by another, one district by another, one state by another has become an everyday aspect of our life today. In this conflict all stated and countries will be torn to pieces. Endangered indigenous people have been pushed to the edge of destruction. Today it seems about 2,500 such communities which, wounded by these conflicts and in a hopeless situation, are to be found all over the globe, are already fighting to win back their own land.
The powerful nations of the West have from time to time fanned the fires of such conflicts, planned them, and finally seen to it that all the fruits of such exploitation are available to them alone.
Looking at our own country, we don't have a ruthless dictator like General Abaka, nor are we likely to have martial investigations, nor are death sentences likely to be passed. Even fifty years from now let us assume that we will not face such inhuman incidents given our general background. But if we were to observe the process of privatization and fast-paced progress which are the root causes of exploitation and violence then India's situation is no different from that of Nigeria's. The dark clouds that shroud Nigeria threaten our country and State too. Innumerable explosive projects all over the country like the Northern Tehri, the Narmada project, and Bedthi and Sharavathi in Karnataka itself, hover dangerously over the heads of the people, continuously terrifying them.
It is meaningless to hope that we can control the violence while we hold such smoking explosives. Jailing and tormenting civil society which ought to be quietly leading its own life may not be as terrible as a death sentence, but it is just as violent and destructive. Nigeria's example must make us beware of our own dangerously similar state. The big problem facing us is how we, the people of India, the people of Karnataka in particular, are going to prevent this cause of violence, how we are going to cool the 'internal earthquake.'
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