Shame On You White Man - You Stole My Children (Again!)

By Uday Kagal

The East was always much more harmonious, just like human societies that survived 50,000 years. But look where it got them? Who were the ‘savages’ by the way? We lost morality and succumbed to an individualistic life of comfort, which has resulted in gross inequalities (to their benefit) and unprecedented environmental destruction. Is this ‘progress?’ This decision will fundamentally determine our choices for the future. Do we continue up the path of restlessness (or recklessness) or go back down the road of peacefulness (within ourselves) and harmony (with our environment)? The latter will not be easy, though, and the cynic in me says, “Why bother?” The hopeful in me, “Why not?” But the latter continues to prevail, and that is my single most important reason for writing this book – to leave a legacy for my children. I continue to hope that they may find a life of meaning rather than be swept away in one of indulgence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Aug 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9789389759983

Uday Kagal

Uday Kagal has worked for 32+ years across the social and business domains, mostly in India. He studied Rural Management and spent the first five years in rural development and later also set up a social enterprise. The next 13 were in the corporate sector (including seven years in Dubai), last with Unilever and HSBC Bank. He started ISC Innovation in 2005 to provide innovation consulting services to the corporate and development sectors. He is a late-in-life self-realized maverick who loved the stimulation both domains provided but was disillusioned by the inefficiencies in the former, and the lack of purpose in the latter. He has authored three books - Philanthropy Sucks! It only perpetuates dependencies [2013], Origins: A satire on human civilization, Book 1/12: The Origin of Death [2016], and Dare to Care: One possible future for corporations - and the world [2017].

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Has humanity lost the plot?

Live in the moment. Realize your true potential. Change the world. These are some of today’s maxims. None of them, however, take into account where we have come from. A point in time does not acknowledge history, nor that our trajectory from the past is intrinsically linked to our choices for the future.

Two aspects made me particularly curious. How did we rise above nature, a major inflection point that made us arrogant; and why did some, consequently, come to dominate the rest.

The sequence of history is reasonably uncontested, although some of it could be speculative. Life has existed on Earth for 3.5 billion years and human societies for 50,000. We developed agriculture 10,000 years ago and created civilizations 5,000 years ago. The more noteworthy events that bring us to the present day, however, occurred in a relatively short period.

The most significant of these from an evolutionary standpoint was the emergence of organized religion about 2,500 years ago. We gave up our link with our natural environment, which was one of the most sustainable aspects of life before this and placed man as the voice of God. We rose above nature and lost our balance with the natural world. Here is what the Bible says:

Book of Genesis [27] So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. [28] God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

The next most important event was the colonization of the world by Western Europe over the past 500 years. Europe imposed its notion of civilization onto it under the civilizing mission, mainly through Christianization, presuming a linear model of progress as defined by the West.

The Industrial Revolution that occurred in Europe just 200 years ago intensified this, which created the factory system of mass production of goods.

Sustainability has become the new jingoism of the corporate world. Still, much of it is restricted to reducing the environmental footprint rather than reducing how much we consume or, more importantly, what we consume. Indulgent lifestyles continue to feed and feed off corporate greed.

Since their priorities continue to be growth, they compete to sell more, thereby needing to make more and therefore take more. How sustainable are we going to be if we continue to consume more without heed to our place in the natural system?

Nevertheless, Europe’s success might undoubtedly be considered laudable, although their morality remains questionable and hotly debated. Colonization eliminated most preexisting ways of life, how we lived for at least 50,000 years, if not more. The industrial era created gross inequalities that persist in the modern-day; it also caused unprecedented environmental damage.

What is less clear though is how it came to be? A popular view has been that victors have always written history and led the discussion. Many justifications have been provided for how Western Europe came to dominate the world, and we shall discuss a few leading ones in the book. The minority voices, of the vanquished (who constitute the majority), focus on why they did.

As we shall see, the past was good, albeit challenging, although we have only now grudgingly come to accept it. The present is unstable, although comfortable for some, but we do not like to acknowledge it. The future looks bleak, but not many care to think about it. Has humanity lost the plot? I guess it has.

My heroes are Socrates, Darwin, Gandhi, and Mandela, all of whom challenged the prevailing discourse. Socrates contested might is right, Darwin the church, Gandhi and Mandela oppression. They all defied domination, the most central paradigm of civilization, but they all went to prison, and Socrates was executed.

I doubt I will face either fate, but I will likely be ostracized or marginalized should I even be taken seriously. Most do not want to confront these difficult questions because it challenges their otherwise comfortable lives. But can we get away from the ugly truths of history?

INTRODUCTION

The Story of the Porsche

As we set out on this journey of discovery and also self-discovery, let me start with the Story of the Porsche. It is a story you might have heard before in some form or another.

A man was driving through the countryside in his fancy, newly acquired Porsche and sees a man sleeping under a tree. He stops the car, steps out in his swanky shoes and custom-fitted suit, shakes the sleeping man awake, and asks him what he is doing.

Sleeping, the man replies.

But why are you sleeping in the middle of the afternoon, asks the visitor.

Oh, I am having a great nap under the shade of this tree, but what else could I do? asks the villager.

Get a job, says the visitor.

And what would that give me?

You could earn money.

And what would that give me?

You could possess a big house, have all the luxuries of life, and maybe even own a fancy car like mine one day.

And what would that give me? The man was now beginning to get a bit exasperated because his sleep had been disturbed, and he had no idea where this was going.

Oh, it would bring you happiness, declared the visitor with a flourish, half expecting the other man to now ask him what that would give him.

The man replied, Oh, I am happy already, having a peaceful nap under this wonderfully shady tree, but if I may ask, are you?

The two men enter the conversation with diametrically opposite worldviews. The visitor presumes a life of luxury is the route to happiness and wishes to impose it on the indigent. The sleeping man, however, does not give much value to the visitor’s possessions or opinions.

But the Story of the Porsche does not end there. It turns out that the man who had arrived in the Porsche had come prospecting because he had learned that the area was rich in minerals and timber. He had done the rounds, established the validity of these claims, and wished to exploit them. He goes to the village and rallies up the villagers, handing out watches and other goodies to get them interested.

He inspires them with stories of wealth and the good life if they help him extract these resources. The villagers get hooked; the man sets up a corporation, and pays them meager wages with the promise of more later. The enterprise grows, but he keeps the profits to himself.

The village people revolt, and the man brings down reinforcements to suppress them. He kills off the rebels and random others too to dissuade others and even stops paying them meager wages since he now has might on his side.

He takes ownership of the lands with government nexus and displaces the locals to resource-poor areas. He claims right to the spoils because he extracted them. He also knows what is best for everyone (the locals are savages in any case), because he has (his) God on his side and the means to make it happen. His newfound wealth ultimately helps him achieve political leadership, and he goes on to become the president of the United States.

The man in the Porsche was restless; the villagers lived peacefully before his arrival. It brings out an indisputable fact of history that Markets originated from the restlessness of a few. This led to gross inequalities as a direct result of colonialism over the past 500 years.

This story is derived from economics, and I heard it from an economist friend a long time ago when I was working in rural development. The fact that it has stayed with me after all these years means that I had found it interesting then.

Some people lived on an island and grew rice. One among them invented the plow, increased his productivity, and offered his services to others in exchange for rice. He eventually built more plows and swapped them for rice. He then made a boat to carry him to a neighboring island where he traded his rice for wheat. He came back and exchanged this for more rice.

I have taken creative license to elaborate on the story.

A long, long time ago, people lived on an island where they cultivated rice. They grew rice, ate rice, and lived happily, and this went on for a long time.

But one among them was restless; he fidgeted with things and experimented with stuff he found lying around. He resented the effort he needed to plow the field, plant the rice, tend it, harvest it, clean it, and preserve it. But, most of all, he disliked the hardship involved in plowing the field.

He fidgeted. He found a piece of wood and molded and shaped it. He tried digging the ground with it. Then he modified it some more and tried it again, then adapted it more and attempted yet again. Eventually, he came up with something that eased his labor, which made the task of plowing easier, and he was able to cultivate his field much quicker and got plenty of time to relax.

But then he did not know what to do with his free time, so he offered to plow his neighbors’ fields for a fee. He earned some rice, and his friends saved some labor. And so it went. Eventually, he started making more plows, which he sold for a fee. He began to amass substantial mounds of rice. But still, he kept fidgeting because now he did not know what to do with his vast heap of rice. He certainly could not consume it all.

He knew of another island on the horizon that they had not seen, however. And he fiddled and came up with something that could carry him across the ocean. He ventured out one day in his boat stocked up with some rice, not knowing how long he would be away, and not knowing what he would find there.

He made a long journey, an arduous one, and eventually reached the other island. And he saw people on the shore. These people were different from him, who spoke in a language he could not understand. He showed them his rice, and they showed him something else that resembled rice, but it was brown. He swapped some of his rice for some of their wheat.

He came back to his island, and everyone was curious. They wanted some of it, so he traded the wheat for some rice. But he exchanged it in an unequal measure because the people were willing to, as this was something new and different, and in short supply.

As time progressed, he became a more significant aggregator because he was restless and fidgeted. He was less interested in the hoard of rice he accumulated, but rather in the outcome of his mind. He was proud he made the plow. He was pleased he built the boat. And he was happy that he was resourceful enough to go out to explore and barter a deal.

There had been a time of peacefulness. But there was an inherent restlessness in one of them for more. He tinkered, explored, toiled, and invented. He sought to get more out of his labor or reduce his drudgery, and created machines to help him with that. He began to barter his goods and services. He became wealthy.

Eventually, he ended up with more than he needed and even more free time. But his mind was idle then, so he discovered new lands to further his limits. He was willing to go beyond the known, to take risks, and to discover uncharted paths and worlds.

To explore, through pain and hardship, just so he could expand his horizon, test the limits of his imagination, and monetize the products of a highly galvanized mind. But he maintained the leverage because only he had the knowledge.

As his vision grew, so did his world. And his wealth increased. He now became different from the others. He became successful, but also arrogant, higher placed than the rest of the people, the masses. And he became the ‘haves.’

Multinational Corporations emerged as a consequence, struggling now also to do ‘good.’ However, capitalism remains the new arsenal in place of historical military and political control to gain dominance.

This book, therefore, is really about the Western life of success versus the Eastern life of contentment. Undeniably but also tragically, the former imposed itself on the latter, with dire consequences for humanity and the planet.

It leaves us with two broad choices for the future. We can continue down this path of restlessness or cut back and be more contented. The former is predicted to lead to greater misery for humanity and escalate damage to the planet. So do we have a choice?

Let us now conclude the Story of the Porsche. Jew had two sons; the older he named Christian, the younger Muslim. They constantly vied for their father’s affection and competed with each other. Eventually, Jew died, and the sons decided to venture out across the Great Desert to explore and conquer distant lands. They stocked up on supplies, mounted their camels, and departed across the vastness. They came across many tribes and overcame them merely by the power of their beliefs.

But Christian and Muslim differed in their viewpoints and eventually decided that they must part ways. Christian was also worried their supplies might not last them across the desert because the end was nowhere in sight. He killed Muslim and carried on alone. Christian finally reached distant lands, conquered them and ultimately acquired a Porsche. Muslim had a cousin brother called Moslem who, to this day, continues to seek to avenge his brother’s murder.

This brings out the most critical inflection point in history when civilized man changed his environment to himself when he found God, making him arrogant and dominating. This shift from nature as the voice of God to man eventually led to the rise of capitalism, primarily fuelled by Protestantism, which brings us to the present age of corporations.

Christianity and Islam over roughly