Corruption is not the cause of poverty in the third world.
It is simply the people in those nations turning to horrible leaders in desperation.
This situation is, in my opinion, very clearly due to European nations enslaving, colonizing, stealing natural resources and preventing the long time period needed to cultivate stable democracies through inevitable revolutions.
They’ve inhibited nations from building complete infrastructure until the 20th century and in a synergistic manner have created a huge gap in wealth, political stability and quality of life.
In this global economy, investment is the key to accelerating the growth of an economy.
As Western European countries and the United States have the most capital, invest in and trade with primarily each other, and have shown no signs to make any major reparations or invest — at least for a couple of decades — heavily in the infrastructure of the nations they plundered, the gap will only widen and remain forever.
Only the West helping to build the third world they created or war can make right what is easily the greatest evil in the history of the world. I truly hope that in my life the first happens and that the world can survive in the event of a major war over resources.
In the name of progress, humanity lost its humanity.
During Thanksgiving, we think of those who benefit from these crimes and at least want to help the descendants of the souls the West was built on.
Are we thanking our ancestors or at least forefathers for us, more recent Americans, for the extreme brutality against Native Americans and destruction of their identities as peoples?
Maybe we’re thanking the Native Americans for the help in understanding the land so that they could in turn be destroyed.
Maybe I’m thanking them for making such a tolerant country that I fear for my life as a Pakistani-American when I forget to shave.
I have this feeling only being exacerbated by the election of a man which shows just how little 47 percent of the U.S. care about the historical and present injustices that came and come from racism.
In ending this rant, I ask fellow Americans to think of this holiday as both a time to be thankful for what they have but also as an occasion to ponder what can be done to help the people who were run over by this nation and the West in general.
Kamran Tamoor Zahid,
Bloomington
