Looking at oppression and resistance on the global scale, it’s tempting to look at a nation like Haiti and think that poverty and oppression are a consequence of lack of resources. But then, looking at other nations - particularly in Africa - it’s the exact opposite.

In Impact Lab’s recent “20 Failed States Report,” I found this fascinating quote: the Democratic Republic of Congo is “blessed with perhaps the world’s single most abundant, diverse, and extractable supply of minerals.” Yet the country has “one of the world’s most desperate humanitarian situations,” with millions dying from disease and conflict.

And when I visited the Dominican Republic in 2008, after hearing stories from Dominican immigrant friends about how impoverished the country was, I was shocked to see an incredible richness of produce: plantains and mangos and bananas and rice everywhere you looked, growing in astonishing abundance. Poverty and hunger were very real and very obvious, even among so much food production.

The open market turns resources into a liability. The Congo’s richness attracted brutal colonialist exploiters for centuries, and after the colonialists came corrupt local government and violent insurgents and corporate parasites, leading to a brutal war that’s still raging. Farmers in the Dominican Republic are like any other merchant; they’re going to sell their goods wherever they’ll fetch the highest price. And US corporations can pay a lot more than their own neighbors.

So what are we going to do about it? How can the poor flip the script of global exploitation and underdevelopment? The deck is so clearly stacked against outright revolution or non-compliance with market capitalism, going back to Haitian independence - the big powers have a lot of weapons and long memories - if anything, developed nations and major corporations are eager for domestic instability, as it gives them an excuse to take by force what they had formerly needed to haggle and barter and bribe away.

But what disruptive opportunities are created by new technologies? Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about John Robb’s theories around deviant economies, networked tribes, coercing organizational hierarchies, and resilient communities; including some speculations on “potent coercive tools for non-violent protest (in a post-Gandhi world).”

I’ve got nothing particular to add, except that us community organizers and activists in the developed world need to start reading a lot more blogs and talking to a lot more folks, from all corners, from corporate consultants to hill-country insurgents to hackers. All voices in the choir, as James Baldwin said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 7:54 am and is filed under Organizing and Resistance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.