Introduction
This week, I started a new Faceboook Group called
"Visa Free Pacific".
"Visa Free Pacific".
Some people have criticised the intentions of the group, offering their worse case scenarios if countries of the Pacific would create a Visa Free Zone.
Interestingly enough, the fears that have been raised so far include, the fear of growing transnational criminal activities, including terrorism. No one mentioned the Trans National Corporations who cross international borders rather too freely, causing a great many human catastrophes, destroying local businesses and atrociously exploiting the local labour force.
People seem more willing to mistrust fellow citizens, and pay no mind to the larger crimes. Why is that?
As you read through this blog post, and without me actually writing it you will work that out for yourself. Because it is part of the way the system works on earth at the present moment.
Interestingly enough, the fears that have been raised so far include, the fear of growing transnational criminal activities, including terrorism. No one mentioned the Trans National Corporations who cross international borders rather too freely, causing a great many human catastrophes, destroying local businesses and atrociously exploiting the local labour force.
People seem more willing to mistrust fellow citizens, and pay no mind to the larger crimes. Why is that?
As you read through this blog post, and without me actually writing it you will work that out for yourself. Because it is part of the way the system works on earth at the present moment.
What is a Pacific Visa Free Zone?
A Visa Free Zone in the South Pacific would mean that people from the South Pacific Island Countries of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia could travel in and out of their countries without the requirement of a visa on their passports. Australia and New Zealand could also be invited to be part of this diplomatic arrangement.
Why explore the idea of a Visa Free Pacific?
On the surface, the reasoning would be about granting the facility of international travel to Pacific Island citizens within the Pacific Visa Free Zone itself, thus allowing them greater human freedom of movement and making it part of their basic and legitimate civil rights.
But there is a more profound and urgent reason for the desire to create this free zone of business and travel for Pacific Islanders.
It is a measure against unjust corporate exploitation of human labour.
But there is a more profound and urgent reason for the desire to create this free zone of business and travel for Pacific Islanders.
It is a measure against unjust corporate exploitation of human labour.
As difficult as it may be to believe at first, this proposal is actually a crucial part of a strategy to under-mind and defeat corporate exploitation and its stranglehold on the lives and livelihood of ordinary citizens and workers.
How does that make sense?
The first thing to understand and accept is that the unjust corporate exploitation of human labour works and survives best because of several reasons:
- Multinational corporations with the help of a powerful media machinery work to create an extreme division between people on the basis of class, background, race, religion and even age division where through television and film, they also seek to divide families into various classes of opinion and consumption taste;
- Corporate Practice facilitates the ignorance of the masses through misinformation, filling up crucial airtime with the beating up of media events, not reporting properly about war zones and the reasons for war, a great lack of attention to events crucial to human survival, knowledge and awareness;
- Multinational corporations survive due to the ignorance of the majority of international citizens about unfair and unjust corporate practice, and the multitude of different means they employ to bleed citizens in order to acquire and further their profit;
- The suffering of millions of exploited workers goes unnoticed and unchecked by the public because there is a great lack of information, awareness and understanding about the plight of humans caught in cycles of poverty and how they have become dependent on very low paying jobs;
- The ordinary people and the working classes of citizens are unable to cross borders to escape the shackles of modern day slavery because they severely lack the means of mobility owing to their own poverty and the laws that the companies have helped governments to legislate. As a result, they are trapped into conditions of injustice perpetrated by corporate industry. Within very limited bounds they are then fated to adjust to inhuman conditions of existence.
- Multinational Corporations in the worst case of predatory capitalism, must seek to destroy local industry and business in order to have the monopoly of the market and the creation and access to the cheapest human labour possible.
It is partly the immobility of people which plays into, and feeds the corporate machinery of unjust exploitation because it works best, when it can lock people into set and confined areas where they have no other opportunity to save themselves except through their labour until they show signs that they lack the energy to meet their production quota in the fields and factories.
Giving mobility to citizens robs the multinational corporations of the convenience of citizens and workers held captive through local policy and legislation. This coupled with regional diligence in the protection of regional and local businesses gives citizens and workers alternative forms of taking part in the international economy at a comfortable and human level of existence.
Giving mobility to citizens robs the multinational corporations of the convenience of citizens and workers held captive through local policy and legislation. This coupled with regional diligence in the protection of regional and local businesses gives citizens and workers alternative forms of taking part in the international economy at a comfortable and human level of existence.
"Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to America"
Those are the oft-quoted sentiments of the late Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz.
The Mexican-American relationship is perhaps the worst example of cross border relationships and maybe the worst people fear, when they think about visa free zones.
But the rise of the human exploitation industries in the Mexican case is a separate injustice altogether. It is a glaring case of the nature of Predatory Capitalism.
It is not a visa issue. Here is why:
The misery of Mexican workers has many layers, rooted in the basic nature of predatory capitalism, which is the exploitation of human labour for greater profit.
It is part of a long story with many accumulating causes which are compounded and interconnected:
This is an important point to remember. Because government stopped overseeing the fate of workers and left humans at the mercy of corporate practice.
Then came an international treaty of 1994 called The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ). This treaty impacted on the growth of the Maquiladora industry because it gave some legal grounds to the sweat shops.
In 1994 the Maquiladoras mushroomed in Mexico. Many of these factories are US owned.
The Mexican-American relationship is perhaps the worst example of cross border relationships and maybe the worst people fear, when they think about visa free zones.
But the rise of the human exploitation industries in the Mexican case is a separate injustice altogether. It is a glaring case of the nature of Predatory Capitalism.
It is not a visa issue. Here is why:
The misery of Mexican workers has many layers, rooted in the basic nature of predatory capitalism, which is the exploitation of human labour for greater profit.
It is part of a long story with many accumulating causes which are compounded and interconnected:
- The dismantling of the labour unions especially in the UK and in America through the "Thatcherism" and "Reaganism"
- The creation of "sweatshops" in poor countries - as part of the movement by multinational corporations to break the back of the Labour Unions in the first world and to increase their own profit by spending less on salaries and wages. Amongst the American companies that set up "sweatshops" in Mexico are: General Electric, Nike, Motorolla.
- The Rise of the "Maquiladoras" industry in Mexico. These are the tycoons that run the sweat shops. The biggest contributer to human exploitation along the US/Mexican border is the rise of these "Maquiladoras". They comprise factories built on the Mexican side of the border employing over a million Mexicans. Please google "Maquiladoras". "Maquiladoras" are all over Latin America so it is not a visa issue. It is a case of factories hunting down poor workers.
This is an important point to remember. Because government stopped overseeing the fate of workers and left humans at the mercy of corporate practice.
Then came an international treaty of 1994 called The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA ). This treaty impacted on the growth of the Maquiladora industry because it gave some legal grounds to the sweat shops.
In 1994 the Maquiladoras mushroomed in Mexico. Many of these factories are US owned.
The "Wonderful World" of NAFTA
A short cartoon documentary on NAFTA, illustrating the cross border relationship between the two countries, done a few years back by Paul Rodenburg. (Twitter)
Part 1:
Part 1:
Part 2:
A Photo Essay from a Maquiladoras tour of the Mexican border town of Tijuana.
This essay shows the harsh effects of cross border exploitation by Transnational Corporations (TNCs).
To fight the ongoing injustice and unfair corporate exploitation of humans and their labour, we have to create international transparency not only on corrupt politicians, that is but the tip of the ice berg, they are just on the salary roll of bigger corporate giants.
The Bangladesh Sweat Shops
We now come closer to our part of the Pacific to witness the fate of fellow humans caught in the capitalist trap with scarcely any means of becoming free.
Hidden Face of Globalization Part 1
Hidden Face of Globalization Part 2
Hidden Face of Globalization Part 3
Are you watching the wrong enemy?
In the Pacific we have to strengthen our workers Unions in all the countries including in Asia so that cheap Asian labour is not used by the Multinational Corporations to throw our own people out of jobs or deny workers employment on the basis that they are not qualified. Companies should start investing in training programmes to create the right manpower for their economic ventures. This must become mandatory and conditional upon their licence to operate in any country.
On the other hand, we must make all our Pacific people mobile so that we can all see and be witness to how all our people are treated by the Corporate Giants that live under the umbrella of big Pacific countries like Australia and Papua New Guinea.
On the other hand, we must make all our Pacific people mobile so that we can all see and be witness to how all our people are treated by the Corporate Giants that live under the umbrella of big Pacific countries like Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Fight for a Visa Free Zone for the Pacific. It is part of an overall strategy. In following posts I'll list other parts of the strategy to defeat predatory capitalism.
