The Shock Doctrine (Shock Doc)
The Rise of Disaster Capitalism- by Naomi Klein
Analysis of Part 7: The Movable Green Zone: Buffer Zones & Blast walls
(by Mahim Pratap Singh)

Blanking The Beach (The Second Tsunami): Sri Lanka, Thailand and Maldives. Three different countries. Three different types of governments. Three different populations meted out strikingly similar capital (ist) punishments. Colorful beaches of the idyllic Arugam Bay that sustained simple fishing communities and entire ecosystems, faced the wrath of nature during the December of ’04. The destruction caused by the killer waves was no match for the havoc wreaked upon unexpecting fisherpeople by what can be called the “second tsunami”. A giant killer wave of unrelenting capitalist expansion that rendered homeless scores of civilians already shattered by a long-drawn ethnic strife. The pain caused by the second tsunami proved way more acute than that caused by the first one. The first at least could be bore with as a “natural” disaster, beyond mortal control. But the subsequent wave, brought in with the help of the same government that the people had shown faith in, at a time when storm battered families awaited state help, was too much to bear with. The beaches where fishing communities had been living for generations were taken away from them in order to make way for a multi-billion dollar tourism industry. Expectations of state-intervention were belied and met by state orchestrated evacuations and repression. The global politics behind these evacuations is evident from the fact that long before the tsunami actually struck, the state tourism industry, lured by typical Chicago-school capitalist gains being sold by western capitalism, had been making attempts at driving fishing communities out of the beaches in order to convert the Sri Lankan East coast to a paradise retreat for wealthy tourists. Centuries old cultures sold off to wealth of the west and replaced with vulgar monstrosities available for capitalist consumption. Numerous anthropological studies have documented cultures of consumption as well as consumption of cultures. How about cultures being sold off to consumption? An ecosystem sold-off to capitalism in exchange for a market catering to the stinking desires of a few. The money was there, in the form of high disposable salaries of modern day IT sweatshop (BPOs) slaves and their masters, along with various other capitalist encampments in Asia; what was needed was an untouched-by-globalization natural paradise that could offer them a vacation for their money’s worth. What the tourism industry had been long trying to achieve without much success i.e. large-scale displacement and gentrification, was orchestrated by the tsunami over a matter of weeks. As with Sri Lanka, so also with Maldives, Thailand, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations. Under the repressive regime of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Maldives has been transformed into a chain of luxury island resorts, providing getaways and vacations to an elite clientele, displacing thousands of fisherpeople and other island communities. State-assisted corporate land-grab on a massive scale. A Throwback to the colonial doctrines such as terra nullius and the doctrine of lapse? “Efforts” towards reconstruction have given rise to the slummification or ghettoization of an otherwise self-sustaining fishing community, in the process making the people lose faith in the role of NGOs and other voluntary organizations. The same reconstruction myth that was played out in Iraq and Afghanistan and had blunderous consequences is being staged in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka on its way to reconstruction- U.S. style.

Disaster Apartheid- another instance of disaster capitalism playing out its dirty games. The aftermath of the hurricane Katrina exposed the weaknesses of a state rendered incapable of discharging its civic duties on account of mindless privatization. It also brought to light the limitations of a rich, industrialized, western nation with regard to its preparedness for a natural disaster that had been 6 months in anticipation. Or were they limitations at all? As noted by Naomi Klein, mistakes repeated in the form of a pattern across two geographically and ethnically distinct locations are not mistakes. When the Green Zones of Iraq are staged out in New Orleans with striking similarities, calling carefully planned profit-making strategies mistakes, would be naivety. Another point that the author hammers in several times is that earlier, disasters were periods of social leveling, when communities put hatred aside to help each other. Now, of course, they are periods that guarantee huge state-sponsored profits, where “money and race buy survival”. State intervention during the hurricane was minimal and civilians were left at the mercy of the market. Activities like rescue-ops, providing rehabilitation, medical care, food etc to the victims, that should have been the responsibility of the state were mechanically “awarded” to private players such as Halliburton/KBR, Shaw, Flour, Blackwater etc. in the form of contracts. That these contracts were all paid off with the taxpayers’ money, that they were awarded without even an open bidding, that they were awarded almost exclusively to corporations that are regular contributors to right wing political organizations and that these corporations donate generously to the political campaigning of the Republican party are not mere coincidences. The fact that this post-disaster management has given rise to and sustains an entire parallel economy and even something close to a parallel private government (Blackwater’s private mercenaries etc.) is shocking. In the words of one Dave Blandford, an exhibitor at the National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Florida, “this is huge business man…I’m going to be a hurricane debris contractor”. This statement shows how disaster capitalism is not a third world concern or a threat to “other” countries by western capitalists. With no regard for human existence and with no respect for the sanctity of human life, the evils of this self-styled money-spinning business know no bounds, even if the target is one’s own country, which would definitely disturb even the most hardcore right-winger, as is evident from this statement by Martin Kelly, a widely believed “believer”, “ the collapsed levees of New Orleans will have consequences for neoconservatism just as long and deep as the collapse of the Berlin wall had on Soviet Communism”. With increasing privatization of state responsibilities, constant cutting back of public funds and expenses and humanity at the mercy of a ruthless profit-seeking market, disaster capitalism will successfully continue churning out one crisis situation after another. Even for those working within this system, the gains are reaped by only those at the higher rungs and “actual” workers have to sustain themselves on marginal wages, as happened with the large number of immigrant, mostly Hispanic, workers employed in the reconstruction process after hurricane Katrina. Do the poor always have to bear the “costs” incurred during the profit making practices of disaster capitalism? The rich, meanwhile stay convinced that they can buy their way out of any crisis. Making money out of human death and misery? Does the post-Kargil war coffin-scam in India qualify for a berth on this disaster capitalism bandwagon? Are these crises of governance? Or are those of morality? Civil society? Or are these crises of humanity that the globalized world faces?