A Decade Of Denial

By Hamid Golpira, Tehran Times

The first decade of the twenty-first century just ended, but what just happened in those ten years?

All of the analyses seem to have missed the point that it was a decade of denial.

It was a decade of denial about the fact that globalization and the neoliberal economic model have not uplifted the poor but have actually increased their suffering and enriched the wealthy.

It was a decade of denial that hunger and poverty are killing 25,000 children every day;

A decade of denial that the United Nations Millennium Development Goals are not on pace to be met by 2015;

A decade of denial that depleted uranium weapons have been used by the U.S. military in Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, irradiating large areas of those countries;

A decade of denial that exposure to depleted uranium causes genetic damage, birth defects, cancer, immune system damage, and other serious health problems and is probably the cause of Persian Gulf War Syndrome;

A decade of denial about the fact that the human factors behind global warming are not being properly addressed;

A decade of denial that there is also global warming on Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, and Neptune’s moon Triton, which some scientists say is due to the fact that the Sun is getting hotter, which means that global warming on Earth is only partially a result of human activity;

A decade of denial on desertification and deforestation, which is being caused by global warming and logging companies using methods that are not environmentally sound;

A decade of denial that global warming and pollution, if unaddressed, will lead to an eco-catastrophe;

A decade of denial about the extinctions of countless species of plants and animals and the fact that this is being caused by human activity, for the most part;

A decade of denial that large numbers of the world’s fish have died out and the oceans are being contaminated by mercury and other toxic chemicals;

A decade of denial that billions of bees have died in a number of places around the world, which will affect the pollination of crops and could lead to a serious decrease in the global food supply;

A decade of denial that the wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, Colombia, and a number of other places have been dragging on unnecessarily for years, with millions of people killed and millions more suffering through interminable cycles of violence;

A decade of denial that the global HIV/AIDS crisis is not being properly addressed, especially in Africa;

A decade of denial that the human rights issue is not being seriously addressed;

A decade of denial that progress on women’s rights is much too slow, especially in many countries of the Global South;

A decade of denial that racism is on the rise again, especially in Europe and other parts of the Global North;

A decade of denial that religious prejudice against Muslims is on the rise in Europe, North America, and Australia.

A decade of denial that indigenous people’s rights are being trampled upon, especially in the Americas and Australia;

A decade of denial that the people of Kashmir have been denied their right to self-determination since 1947 and are still waiting for the referendum on the final status of the territory to be held;

A decade of denial about the fact that Israel is an apartheid regime that has been oppressing the Palestinians since 1948;

A decade of denial about the deliberate neglect of Africa;

A decade of denial that the Geneva Conventions are being flouted in many conflicts and in Guantanamo and an archipelago of secret prisons across the world;

A decade of denial about the fact that Aafia Siddiqui, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and countless other political prisoners have been railroaded;

A decade of denial about 9/11 and what really happened on that day and who did it;

A decade of denial that the so-called war on terror has been used to restrict civil liberties;

A decade of denial that the restrictions on civil liberties have been implemented through an increase in surveillance, to the point where listening devices and cameras are popping up everywhere, and computer systems like Echelon, Carnivore, and NarusInsight have been used to monitor everyone’s telephone calls, emails, and other electronic communications;

A decade of denial that there is evidence that a global depopulation program is being implemented through war, famine, poverty, HIV/AIDS, and other diseases;

A decade of denial of the fact that globalization is actually a neo-feudal system in which the middle class is being deliberately eliminated in order to create a world of very poor worker/slaves serving an extremely rich global ruling class;

A decade of denial about the denial.

Is this the kind of world we want? Do we want the next decade to be a continuation of all this?

If not, everyone must stop the denial and start rolling into action before the repercussions of the denial of the last decade lead to a chain of events that spin out of control.

.