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Poverty Blamed for Mideast Terrorism, Activists Disagree
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Activists do not agree that poverty leads to violence |
By
Steve Smith
IOL Washington correspondent
WASHINGTON,
Feb. 26 - Economic failure and poverty in the Middle East help nurture
fundamentalism and terrorism, according to a new study by a leading U.S. foreign
policy group. But anti-poverty activists counter that poverty is now being used
as a scapegoat.
"Underlying
the analysis in this report is the belief that lack of economic prospects and
poverty in the everyday life of people in the MENA (Middle East and North
Africa) region contributes to extremism, and perhaps even to terrorism,"
said a statement by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, a
prestigious U.S. organization that draws its membership from elite U.S.
establishments.
The
report, published on Monday February 25, is titled: “Harnessing Trade for Development and Growth in the Middle
East”. It argues fervently for traditional prescriptions often given by the international
financial and trade institutions like the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization to fight poverty. It urges Middle East countries to open up for
international trade, reduce the role of the state in their economies and cut
bureaucratic red-tape and corruption if they want to maintain a steady economic
growth and end terrorism breeding climate.
Two
economists, Bernard Hoekman, of the World Bank, and Patrick Messerlin of the
Paris-based Institut d'Etudes Politiques, both noted for pre-corporate
globalisation views, authored the report. Peter Sutherland, former head of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) chaired the study. "Greater openness to
trade and domestic economic reforms can reinforce each other to generate faster
growth, lower unemployment, and high standards of living," writes
Sutherland.
Sutherland,
who is currently Chairman of Goldman Sachs International and BP, added that the
Middle East economies needed new domestic policies. "The fundamental
problems of these economies (are) essentially domestic and related to the need
for new policies to govern the internal economy," he said.
Thirty
to forty years ago a number of key MENA nations were on an economic par with
Asian countries. According to the Council's report, in the 1950s per capita
income in Egypt was similar to South Korea, whereas Egypt's per capita income
today is less than 20 percent of South Korea's. Saudi Arabia had a higher gross
domestic product than Taiwan in the 1950s; today it is about 50 percent of
Taiwan's.
The
report also contains an economic multi-country business survey conducted
specifically for this study. The survey emphasizes long-held suspicions that
corrupt practices and other economic inefficiencies and bottlenecks undermine
prospects for outside investment and economic growth.
"Remarkably,
20 percent of the respondents said corruption payments averaged between two
percent and nine percent of the value of traded goods," said the report.
The
report preaches that the MENA economies also "must move quickly to reform
their service sectors", such as banking, "if they are to generate
outside investment." This is part of the report's emphasis on the need for
MENA countries not only to liberalize trade, but to pursue "a regulatory
agenda that encourages genuine economic competition.”
But
anti-poverty campaigners argue that the line between terrorism and poverty is
thin saying that the Bank officials, one of them is a co-author of the report,
were engaged in self-justification.
"To
say poverty is behind terrorism is lazy analysis to me," said Njoki Njehu
director of the Washington-based anti-poverty group, 50 Years Is Enough Network.
"If you look at Osama bin Laden and those who hijacked the planes, you'll
see they are not poor. Saudi Arabia is not poor. That logic doest work for
me."
Njehu,
who comes from Kenya, said that the Council report's literally mirrored the line
of the Bank and other international trade and financial institutions rather than
be thorough and fair arguments for real reasons behind poverty and deprivation.
"The World Bank is in this never ending mission to give itself a reason for
life," said Njehu. "Now they say by fighting poverty you are fighting
terrorism."
Njehu
said that if poverty was the main reason behind violence, Sub-Saharan countries
and Latin American poor countries would be at the forefront of terrorism
networks, which is evidently not the case.
Njehu
said she suspects a deliberate disregard of some of the reasons that the
terrorists gave themselves as behind their violence along with other reason that
lead to the disempowring of people in the region.
"This
is about people feeling disrespected and feeling disempowered and not about
economic restructuring," she said saying that Western countries continued
to support "despotic" regimes in the area and promote so-called
economic reforms that take control out of the hands of the people.
The
Network says that the "poverty as breeding-ground for terrorism"
rhetoric of the Bush Administration and the World Bank - and some liberals -
risks identifying poverty itself, and impoverished people, as the threats.
"This
is to say that poor people are a threat to us," she said. "Therefore,
they will attack and mug us. Poor people are going to be stop trying to fee
their families to go buy a ticket so that they can take a plane down in
Washington and New York."
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