By Deepak Chopra and - -
CARLSBAD, California, Nov 30 -0001 (IPS)

The following article by Deepak Chopra, is part of a book entitled \”Peace is the Way\”, published by Harmony Books and set to be released on January 18, 2005. In conjunction with the book, the author has created a website for peacemakers, www.peaceisthewayglobalcommunity.org which will be up and running by mid January. Chopra, one of the world\’s best-selling spiritual authors, is a doctor and the founder of the Chopra Center in Carlsbad, California. His passionate new book was inspired by a saying from Mahatma Gandhi: \”There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.\”

Do we live in a country that stands for peace? Millions of Americans fervently believe they do, and ugly facts will not change their minds. They turn their backs on the damage America creates, almost thoughtlessly, around the world. American corporations who do not want to tolerate being regulated at home move overseas where they can pile asbestos in huge mounds that Asian children play on, sell potent pharmaceuticals over the counter in Thailand without the need of prescriptions, create a lethal gas leak in Bhopal, India, and generally damage the ecology in any way they choose. Being an American means all of those things. It’s just as American to be the largest supplier of arms in the world and send your troops into battle to be killed by these same arms. It’s American to promote free markets whatever the cost, as one native culture after another is despoiled and corrupted by the dollar.

Henry James called it a complex fate to be an American, and it still is. I once heard someone say that we are the one country everyone hates and the one they all want to move to. Last year I saw a documentary on the free market system, which has basically become the new religion in American economics and conservative politics both. One economist after another praised our efforts to open up every foreign country to the American way of life. Free markets were credited with the end of Communism, the rescue of Chile from the iron grip of Gen. Pinochet, and the general liberation of the world from stifling monopolies and class privilege.

In the midst of painting this rosy picture, the camera went to a street vendor in Thailand selling sandwiches from a cart. We followed this man as he left Bangkok and went north to the lush resort areas favored by Western tourists. He ended up at an eerie, ghostly place. It was a ruined hotel and golf course built on a grand scale. Walking through one half-constructed room after another, each now molding and tattered, the man made clear that he once owned this whole complex. He was a budding entrepreneur who had assembled millions of dollars to construct his dream.

The money came from a boom in the Thai currency in the early Nineties, which was entirely created by American investors. A few money managers sitting at computers in New York sent the Thai economy into a dizzying ascent. They had never been to Thailand and knew nobody who lived there. Then just as precipitously they became nervous about the Asian currency market, and almost overnight the boom reversed itself into a catastrophic plunge, and a man who on Monday was building a dream resort found himself on Tuesday selling sandwiches from a street stand. The double face of America as the world’s best friend and worst enemy was starkly revealed to me.

In the past, dealing with such ugly facts wasn’t necessary. You could simply shield yourself from them, as many people do now. One road to the future will turn the U.S. into a fortress, isolated against the realities outside its borders. In that future we will ignore the disparity between rich and poor that has already created so much harm. America possesses around 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes about a third of its natural resources. We emit half of the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that are linked to global warming. Yet in fortress America none of that will count as much as remaining comfortable and rich.

The other road to the future leads to globalisation. America will dedicate itself to everything that is being ignored at the present moment. It will become a leader in reversing global warming, protecting other economies, closing the gap between rich and poor nations, and ending the devastating pandemic of AIDS. (It’s stunning to realise that every person infected with HIV in Africa could be treated for free with a fraction of the U.S. defense budget, or even the portion allotted to the feckless Star Wars missile defense. The same infected Africans could be treated for a month for the cost of a single Stealth bomber.) For any of this to happen, however, our brand of nationalism would have to stop being toxic and begin to be healing.

The way of peace is dedicated to the second alternative. If the future is fortress America, peace has no real chance. For once, the tangled hierarchy leads to a clear choice. To keep going in the direction of toxic nationalism is a recipe for disaster. I realise that to the rest of the world globalisation may no longer be seen as a virtuous alternative for America; it is condemned as a cloak for American dominance. But America must reach out and become part of the globe in a positive way. This has become so clear over the last decade that most people, I believe, see the writing on the wall. America must globalise or go down with the planetary ship. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

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