S alam Kabare semua? Waras? Good. Nice summer sunshine innit? 
Kepada yang nak exam good luck and pray a lot. Kepada yang nak kahwin pon good luck lah banyak2 and pray a lot jugak. Kepada yang tatau nak buat ape sebab dah abes exam, do something useful. Contohnye project option.
Ade sedikit perkongsian untuk hari Jumaat. I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago, in fact I think it was about sometime in March. He said to me, “You know what Zaid, the current hard times we are facing will see the rise of extremist ideas and all the right-wing guys will be coming out again”. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at that time as I didn’t have enough information nor experience to make a sound judgement but fast forward 2 months and now I think I know what he meant.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, two of the world’s most “successful” economies were those of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In hindsight, this sounds perverse – even obscene. But at the time, political leaders from around the world watched the Italian and German economic experiments and, in many cases, lauded them. The Germans and Italians introduced new economic concepts that remarkably worked successfully during the depression.
During a 1937 visit to Germany, Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King noted in his diary how “impressed” he was by Adolf Hitler’s labour policies. In the U.S., as German cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch recounts in his book Three New Deals, then president Franklin Roosevelt pronounced himself “deeply impressed by what (Italian dictator Benito Mussolini) has accomplished…”
These individuals made these comments not because they favoured Hitler’s murderous anti-Semitism or Mussolini’s brutal blackshirt tactics. Far from it. But they knew that credit should be given where it’s due. The combination of authoritarianism and capitalism that Hitler and Mussolini used to great effect to reduce unemployment and revive their respective economies attracted admirers. Huge amounts of public money were spend on public works and military development. But how did they prevent trade unions from interfering by doing things like demanding higher wages? They banned them. Trade unions were banned so that the economic revival would be smooth and free of interference, an example of labour-management cooperation that appealed to a lot of people, particularly Canadian PM at the time William Lyon Mackenzie King.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, most Germans and Italians like what their leaders were doing. Because I quote “With the notable exceptions of Jews, Communists, social democrats, liberals, Roma, gays, dissident pastors and anyone with a shred of conscience – most Germans and Italians were materially better off than they had been.”
Kenapa saye beritahu semua ini? Relevankah dengan kita? Pakcik khutbah Jumaat MRI last week pon ade menyebut something along these lines.
Well, it is worth keeping all the above in mind as we head into what most economists say will be the worst economic slump since the Great Depression in the 1930s. We should learn from history and the Great Depression teaches us two things:
1. Firstly capitalism doesn’t necessarily need liberalism or even democracy to be successful. Tidak percaya? Lihatlah China. In fact in the 1930s, many people believed that an authoritarian market economy could pave the way to a higher standard of living.
2. Secondly, it is human nature that in times of stress and hardship, people are more vulnerable. They want strong leaders and fear outsiders. Enough of all this democracy crap, we want to limit immigrants etc2. “Stop stealing our jobs!” People will be desperate to hold on to what they have and quick to find scapegoats.
This theory can be applied to most events that cause stress and fear in people. We all saw what happened after 9/11. A similar version of right-wing populism was aimed at Muslims and swept across the US.
Now we are on the brink of an economic version. It is just waiting to happen.
The signs are already there. Rush Limbaugh who is a right-wing radio show host in the US has been openly labeled as a fool and criticized time and time again. But 20 million Americans still listen to him every week, more audience perhaps than most politicians get. His message of anger and resentment resonates with many Americans. Migrant Mexican workers continue to get the brunt of the blame for “stealing jobs”. As the economy gets worse, these right-wing views will surely gain more followers.
In the UK, the NHS is cutting down on foreign doctors continuing postgraduate training. The recent changes to Tier 1 applications to extend stay in Britain means that some doctors have to find work somewhere else. Ironically, NHS is also adhering to the new European Working Time Directive (EWTD) that prevents doctors from working more than 48 hours/week but at the same time they are struggling to meet rota demands.
Last autumn, leaders of the G-20 (so called 20 of the world’s strongest economies) made a promise not to raise any new trade barriers. But since then the US has blatantly introduced “Buy America” in Presiden Obama’s stimulus package. How weird is that? And according to the World Bank, as many as 16 countries have probably done something similar too.
All this seems like bad news but history very rarely repeats itself in such an obvious manner. We are not going to see fascism on all the front pages of tomorrow’s papers. The current economic crisis has solutions that do not require dictatorship and one that we all hope the politicians will stumble upon soon, if they are not already looking for it. Because if they continue to offer useless nostrums to get us out of this hole that we are in, there is always that potential of simple and dangerous ideas coming into play. They are lurking in the background waiting to pounce on any opportunity and first signs of weakness.
That is the bit of history that usually repeats itself.
