Cross Talk
The shortcut is cutting us short
NESTLÉ and GlaxoSmith- Kline have been accused of lying about their products. Horlicks doesn't make children "taller, stronger and sharper," and Maggi Noodles doesn't strengthen bones and muscles in them either. Yet, such lies were packaged in the commercials of two of the world's food and pharmaceuticals giants, targeting their consumers in Bangladesh. Count your blessings everyday! Advertising Standards Authority of UK banned those commercials before they arrived.
The recent scandal of tainted milk is already causing enough heartburn. Melamine is an industrial chemical that raises the nitrogen readings and makes milk appear to be high in protein, causing kidney stones or kidney failure in infants. Milk companies also claim that they add DHA, a fatty acid, which is good for developing intelligence. Parents aspiring to raise smarter children fall for that kind of crap. What those companies hide is that DHA exists naturally in mother's milk.
At the heart of the global financial crisis is also a pack of lies. A group of crooked mortgage brokers, greedy investment bankers and oblivious rating agencies worked in cahoots. They mis-sold credit and mismanaged risk. The result is an economic meltdown, which, like a tsunami, is sending waves around the world.
These are but a few scratches on the surface of a nefarious underside. We have laced our lives with a bunch of lies, and those lies are finally catching up with us. As the old saying goes, what we sow is what we reap. We sowed lies and our lives are blanketed with drifts of falsehood from baby food to stock market.
So, the false claims made by Nestlé and GlaxoSmithKline don't come as isolated incidents. The fruit vendor sells fresh fruits sprayed with chemicals. The banks make unauthorised deductions from our accounts. Adulterated food, contaminated water, wrong medical treatment, police harassment, tilted justice, tampered academic results, false credentials, pretentious politics, one after another, lies have perpetuated lies. It has happened because, to protect our lies, each of us has covered up and created more lies. Nothing can be original in a fake world!
There can be no denying the fact that lies have crowded our lives. If anything is screaming at us today, it's the voice of truth that wants to breathe under the crushing burden of lies. In 2003, George Bush concocted the excuse of WMD to attack a foreign country. The world quietly accepted such a blatant lie and many "civilised" countries even rallied around the United States by sending their forces to Iraq.
If we use the allegory of a mountainside full of snow, this particular lie worked like that last snowflake, which falls to cause an avalanche that buries an entire village. In last five years, as never before, the world has grappled with the shame of what happened in Iraq, and this American misconduct has trickled down to other nations, then down to their elite groups, down to rest of the populations. The last trace of innocence was erased when the world's most powerful nation showed no qualms after it had lied to its people and rest of the world.
Lies are told because it works, and what works is success. When George Bush told lies about Saddam Hussein, it worked. It got him into Iraq, for oil, for revenge, for whatever, but definitely not to destroy WMD, which was never there. Everybody else is following suit. They lie because it works, because lies bring instant success, lies bring electoral wins, business deals, court verdicts, immense power and windfall profit.
So what if the invasion of Iraq has cost somewhere between 946,000 and 1,120,000 lives according to a survey conducted by Opinion Business Research in August 2007? So what if a quarter of Chinese children drank Melamine-contaminated milk, countless more in rest of the world? What matters is that Iraq was conquered. What matters is that the milk companies made money. The end has mighty well justified the means.
Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant, gives us an illustration of how that justification has spawned its many contradictions. The political system of the United States, for example, is an unstable combination -- domestic democracy and foreign empire. The country has 737 military bases in well over 130 countries, more than the number of US embassies in the world. The most recent manifestation of the American empire is Pentagon's decision to create another regional command in Africa, which may be situated either in Djibouti or the Gulf of Guinea.
This is but one more proof of how the United States doesn't practice what it preaches, a contradiction which has infiltrated the mores of the world. If we compare this civilisation to a fish then the rotting has started from its head. In this age of American influence, its moral depravity has been infectious.
Military dictators are installed in power in the name of democracy. The United States and its allies possess nuclear power, but others are coerced not to have it. The country talks about peace while being the largest supplier of arms, the land of the largest military-industrial complex in the world.
Robert Noyce, inventor of the silicon chip, tells us that if ethics is poor at the top, that behaviour is copied down through the organisation. His observation encapsulates the modern crisis as our lives are submerged in false pretense. In so much as the American era and the American aura dominate the world, the hierarchy of inveracity runs from George Bush to the bushman in Africa.
A lie corrodes truth with a certain vengeance, because if one exists, the other doesn't. That corrosion has destroyed our conscience. From politics to business to every other walk of life, truth has been banished, like a street patrol conveniently withdrawn before a crime. Governments lie, multinationals lie, those who work for them lie, and their lies beget more lies.
There is poison in food, fumes in air and toxins in water. Children are drinking contaminated milk. The truth of our lies is coming after us. The shortcut is cutting us short.
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