Violence increasing in Middle East, SACPA told
While teaching in Egypt, Alberta educator Sean McMahon saw brutality, shootings and killings as ordinary citizens protested impossible food prices.
But violence is increasing in many parts of the world, he says, as working people are persecuted for demanding enough to feed their families. In desperation, some are turning to fascism, racism and religious extremism.
That’s the background for ongoing bombings and terrorism in the Middle East, he indicated during a presentation to the Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs.
McMahon, a visiting political science professor at the University of Lethbridge, pointed out manufacturing and production drove the economy during the postwar years. But since 1971, the world’s major banks and their control of capitalism have become increasingly powerful.
They’ve gained “social control” over the working class in much of the world. “But the working class is resisting.” While workers in Canada, Europe and many nations have seen their wages stagnate since 1971, he said, it’s people in impoverished places like Egypt who have suffered most.
Governments there provide no social supports, McMahon explained. When the International Monetary Fund ordered a “strategic adjustment” in 2016, he said, the cost of food went up 48 per cent overnight.
Families can go to the mosque for help, he added, so it’s no surprise they’re strongly Muslim.
But while North Americans were aware of the workers’ “Arab Spring” uprisings in 2011, they’re less likely to hear about the bloody purge that’s continuing under orders of the Egyptian president.
After teaching at the American University in Cairo for a number of years, McMahon said, he decided to return to Canada out of concern for his own safety.
But lives are in danger in Syria, Sudan, Libya, Palestine and so many Middle Eastern nations, he noted. In Iran, tensions are heightened by bellicose tweets by President Trump.
“The U.S. is beginning to sabotage the (world) order it created,” and it’s even threatened to quit the NATO alliance.
But in reality, McMahon said, the U.S. is no longer a major manufacturing nation. And political leaders in Europe are working to create a parallel financial system that could end the Americans’ reign as the world’s banker.
While Trump is repeatedly breaking agreements that have preserved peace, he added, other First World nations have stepped up to reinforce those pacts. Now he’s launched a trade war against China, which has taken over from the U.S. as a manufacturing superpower.
Trade wars can lead to “shooting wars,” McMahon warned.
But crises can be resolved in other ways, he said, and might actually result in a better life for working people.
“What matters is how organized we are to take advantage of these opportunities.”