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Steal Big, Steal Little
By Amin Sharif
There is an old adage among the criminal class in America
that goes as follows: Steal big and the world will love you. Steal small
and you are hated by every one. The wisdom behind this adage is that the
public will always respect and even admire acts of boldness. On the other
hand acts of pettiness are universally despised. But, an adage, like other
things may come to outlive its usefulness. Today, the above quoted adage
is still used by petty hustlers and drug dealers to justify their
predatory and self-destructive practices. They say, if big corporations
and stock traders are allowed to steal, then why shouldn't they?
Of course, if one accepts the truth of this adage. Then
one must accept that stealing, on all levels, is acceptable. And the
conclusion that all stealing is acceptable leads one to believe that the
crack dealer on the corner is no more than a micro-version of the CEOs of
Enron or WorldCom. And, in the most perverse sense, this conclusion is
true. For both CEO and crack dealer are raping the American public. But
what both CEO and crack dealer fail to understand is that corporate thievery
(stealing big) is beginning to be despised as much as that of the actions
of the corner dealer. And this is as it should be.
But before I continue I must make something clear.
There are those who would look at what Enron and WorldCom are doing and
insist that the capitalist sky is falling. They are ready to man the
barricades and light the molotov cocktails that will lead to the demise of
the entire capitalist superstructure. We have heard these cries before and
finally they are getting old.
What we have in the Enron and WorldCom scandal is not a
crisis in capitalism. It is, however, a crisis in corporate management--a
crisis in the culture of business morality. And the eventual effect of
this crisis in business morality will have far reaching implications for
all Americans, especially the working poor and the minority classes. Even
the middle and upper classes may not go untouched by the corporate rape
that is now occurring. So while this crisis may not sound the death knell
of American capitalism, the situation is still potentially quite
explosive.
Just as the rape of poor and minority communities by
predatory drug dealers has been an agent of instability, so the corporate
rape of American trust and retirement funds by board-room bandits may lead
to a general instability in the American economy. America, of course, has
had economic instability before. But not since the radical labor movement
of the early 1900s has there been any real crisis in the belief on the
part of the American people that capitalism could sustain the American
Dream. The Enron and WorldCom scandal may be the catalyst that puts an end
to the belief that capitalism can solve every American problem. The
corporate behavior of Enron and WorldCom may put an end to the belief in
the American Dream. Only time will tell if this is true or not.
What is surely looming out there is an economic
Judgment Day and a reckoning for the American people. Millions will be
retiring in the near future and the pension checks that are due these
Americans must be paid by someone. For the politicians are now saying that
there is no need to worry about the future. Every American will get what's
due them. These politicians had better be right. The American public is
already edgy about Social Security and Medicare. They sense that basic
economic promises made in the past may not be honored in the future. If
they must also face uncertainty about whether they are to receive their
pension checks, then it may be that a real crisis in capitalism lies ahead.
Most probably, the politicians will come up with a
window dressing solution to hold the American public's anger and
indignation at bay. One only has to recall the election of Bush to see how
skillfully the American game of sleight of hand can be played. But it was
only the dreams of a few million American voters that was at stake then.
The Enron and WorldCom scandals may lead to a time when the game will be
played for all the marbles. Then we shall see how down and dirty things
get!
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An Introduction to the Literature of
Equatorial Guinea
Between Colonialism and Dictatorship
By Marvin A. Lewis
. . .
the first book-length critical study of this
literature, a multigenre analysis
encompassing fifty years of poetry, drama,
essays, and prose fiction. Both resident and
exiled authors offer insights into the
impact of colonialism and dictatorship under
Spanish rule and consider the fruits of
“independence” under the regimes of
Francisco Macías Nguema and Teodoro Obiang
Nguema. Examining these works from the
perspective of postcolonial theory, Marvin
A. Lewis shows how writings from Equatorial
Guinea depict the clash of traditional and
European cultures and reflect a dictatorship
that produced poverty, misery, and
oppression. He assesses with particular care
the impact of the Macías reafricanization
process and its manifestations in
literature.
In
showing how the views of the nation
correspond and diverge in works of writers
such as Maria Nsue Angue, Donato
Ndongo-Bidyogo, and Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel,
Lewis brings to light artists who articulate
their concerns in Spanish but are African in
their souls. In analyzing the works of both
renowned and emerging writers, he marks the
themes that contribute to the formation of
national identity: Hispanic heritage, the
myth of Bantu unity, “bonding in adversity”
during the Nguema regime, and the
Equatoguinean diaspora. |
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Manuel Zapata Olivella and the “Darkening”
of Latin American Literature
By
Antonio D. Tillis
Manuel
Zapata Olivella and the “Darkening” of Latin
American Literature is an examination of the
fictional work of one of Latin America’s
most prolific, yet overlooked, writers. Born
in Colombia to parents of mixed ancestry,
Zapata Olivella used his novels to explore
the plight of the downtrodden in his nation
and by extension the experience of blacks in
other parts of the Americas. Author Antonio
D. Tillis offers a critical examination of
Zapata Olivella’s major works of fiction
from the 1940s to the 1990s. . . Tillis
focuses on the development of the “black
aesthetic” in Zapata Olivella’s stories, in
which the circumstances of the people of
African heritage are centered in the
narrative discourse. Tillis also traces
Zapata Olivella’s novelistic effort to
incorporate the Africa-descended subject
into the literature of Latin America. A
critical look at the placement of Afro–Latin
American protagonists reveals the
sociopolitical and historical challenges of
citizenship and community. In addition, this
study explores tenets of postcolonial and
postmodern thought such as place,
displacement, marginalization,
historiographic metafiction, and
chronological disjuncture in relation to
Zapata Olivella’s fiction. Tillis concludes
that the novelistic trajectory of this
Afro-Colombian writer was one that brought
into literary history an often overlooked
subject: the disenfranchised citizen of
African ancestry. By expanding and updating
the current scholarship on Zapata Olivella,
Tillis leads us to new contexts for and
interpretations of this author’s work. |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update
8 December 2011
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