De Facto Colonisation Continues Unabated

Colonisation is the act or the process of establishing a colony or colonies like what had happened in the past. It has two distinct connotations: de facto and de jure. The first one means ‘concerning the fact’ or in practice but not necessarily obtained by law. The second means ‘following the decree’ and is created or developed without or contrary to regulation. In other words, de facto colonisation means what happens in real life beyond the domains of any legal sanctity, and de jure colonisation means what happens as per law. In fact, colonisation has a very long history from ancient times to the 20th century, and it had many causes like trade, farming of uninhabited land, overpowering. The conflict always existed between the colonisers and the native people.

In the present-day world de jure colonisation is no more there. All the countries are fully independent, and are no longer the victims of the so-called colonisers of the past. But, unfortunately, there are still de facto colonisers. De facto colonisation had two facets: (a) it occurs within a given country, and (b) it is spread over other countries as well. For example, the US is the biggest de facto coloniser. Another example is that of South Africa. Let us briefly see how.

There is immense de facto segregation especially in the US, and in many other developed countries in terms of racial segregation occurring either because of past social and economic conditions and residential patterns or other reasons not related to laws establishing such segregation. Besides, it is also severe in South Africa. One can find all this in these countries through observation. For example, in South Africa, the original habitants and even the mixed races are highly marginalised and hence ignored by the so-called elite classes. The same is the case in the US and other Western and developed countries. In South Africa, there are still completely separated (geographically speaking) residential areas, especially in big cities, one for the ‘Whites’, the others for the ‘non-Whites’ including the mixed races. Even the universities are also advantaged (essentially meant for the Whites) and disadvantaged (essentially for the non-Whites). The whole country is highly racist. But in time to come there will surely be an upsurge against this kind of racism and this kind of de facto colonisation will soon come to an end, as has happened in Zimbabwe (earlier known as Rhodesia) which is presently in a bad shape in all respects basically because of acute discrimination and marginalisation of the non-Whites by the so-called Whites. It is in shambles both economically, socially, and politically. Let the governing bodies learn from this turmoil of Zimbabwe and try to rectify the situation in South Africa before it becomes too serious.

De facto colonisation of South Africa is also spread over other countries as well. It has completely colonised, of course in a de facto way, its land-locked countries—Lesotho and Swaziland which are forcibly made to depend on it in all respects.

The best example of the de facto coloniser country is that of the US that has been spreading its toxic tentacles to many other countries all over the world with one pretext or another. For example, Pakistan is fully de facto colonised by the US in the name of protecting it against terrorism. All the policies of Pakistan are fully dictated by the US.

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Let us have a brief look at the long-period strategic planning of the US to colonise the whole world. The US has been the citadel of capitalism in the world. It has been practising the supply-side management of its economy for almost three decades or so to supply all the junk that it produces to other countries. Supply-side economics focuses on the argument that economic growth can be most effectively created using incentives for people to produce (supply) goods and services. But the US has followed the policy of outsourcing of the production base to other countries, where wages are low. It has been the sole superpower ever since the nineties when the Soviet Union was broken up and there was no opposition to the US. It controlled all the world in terms of trade and what not. All this was also linked to ‘Operation Desertstorm’ of the 1990s, the war with Iraq, when the US got the full support of the Western world. America also launched globalisation that was defined in its own terms: “free movement of goods and money, supply of financial assets, but no free movement of employment”. This strategy was greatly successful but for a short time. This supply-side strategy helped the US to make up the economy, but not in terms of money or commodities. Globalisation eventually broke the cycle of the supply-side economics that believes in the fact that once money goes into production, and the products are sold at a profit, they then come back within the domestic economy. In essence it does not matter where the product is produced as long as the people at home could afford to buy the commodies in the market. Once the supply-side hypothesis was negated through globalisation, this led to outsourcing of production as the developed countries preferred to become serving economies, selling products made in other countries like China. The end result was that China amassed huge surpluses, but in the US the beneficiaries of this strategy were the large corporates that gained a lot when the money as received from the Chinese reserves was not meant for domestic production; instead it was pumped into government securities. The American market was left with about $ 13 trillion in the mortgage market through what is termed as ‘Ponzy’ deals. This is what has been termed as financial meltdown. The supply-side management in a wrong way, in fact, created the demand-side problems, that basically emerge because of the fact that the private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes, which can be controlled through active public policy including monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government to bring about stability in the system. It is said that the aggregate demand for goods becomes insufficient during economic downturns leading to high unemployment and losses of potential output. Government policies can be used to increase aggregate demand thus increasing economic activity and reducing unemployment.

As a result of the aftermath of this strategy the US was greatly hit by a severe financial meltdown and recession. The citizens in the US were left with very little money, and these was a severe lack of demand. This situation still goes on unabated. This financial meltdown eventually led to recession, that was also spread to other developed and even developing countries. In case it is not controlled it would lead to a worldwide depression, and in that case we would need another J.M. Keynes to revive the economy.

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The US is facing a fiscal deficit of $ 1 trillion. In a recent statement the President of the US has cautioned its people that “if Americans do not reduce their expenditure and cut costs, India and China would outperform them”. According to him, “there are no quick-fixes and there are no silver bullets” to come out of this recession, and “it will take a long time to fix the structural deficit”. The President is more scared of the fact that India and China or other countries would go ahead and would surpass the US in all respects. This implies that colonisation would end. This is indeed great news. I wish it happens, and the US is left to its own fate.

In India the condition is not that serious because of a number of many strengths that we have essentially in terms of tremendous manpower of all kinds, high employment-generation capacity and the potential of the widely spread informal sector, self-dependence, and the current shape of demand and the real economy. It is expected that the country’s economy would revive in a major way within the next six to seven months because by that time the stimulus packages (that were launched by the government in December 2008 and January 2009) and many other remedies like cutting the excise duty, increasing public expenditure and giving more lee-way to the infrastructure finance company, IIFCL, to raise tax-free bonds would have their fruitful impact on the economy.

In times to come, if India becomes a superpower, it will in no way try to colonise the world.

That is my faith in my country. I also wish that at that time all the people of Indian origin come back to their motherland, and serve the country to the best of their capacity. Let Indians stay in India and nowhere else. As an upcoming country, we must also sharply react against de facto colonisation across the world.