26 January, 2009

Observers France 24: 'Made in China': "the worth of our work is so low, and the price of our materials so immaterial"

One of our Nepali Observers gives her perspective on Asia's dependence on its exports market and the effect this has on the economic crisis.
A butterfly flutters its wings in one part of the world, and the flutter causes a hurricane on the other side. This causality, so widely cited by everybody from weather experts to scientists to economists looking at causes for seemingly-random but connected phenomena, becomes more relevant in this day and age when a global financial crisis is occurring. The collapse of one mortgage company in America, it appears, could trigger the collapse of the entire house of cards which we call the global economy.
That's why I am fascinated to find that, despite the crisis, the streets of Granada, a city in Southern Spain, is full of shoppers who throng the classy areas, buying clothes and boots and bags, buying jewellery and scarves and other bric-a-brac, all clearly manufactured in Asia. Despite the 'Made in Spain' stamp (written in English), I can recognize a pair of boots-or an entire store of boots-made in China when I see one. So the question presents itself-how can Southern Spain, whose main economy seems to rest on manufacturing pork and cheese and wine and olive oil, command such a strong currency that it's able to buy up entire storehouses of Asia at discounted rates? Are our workers so cheap, and our materials so inconsequential, that a winter coat can cost only €6.99? How is it possible, I wonder, that this kind of frenetic shopping can take place all over Europe, while in parts of Southern Asia we struggle to buy a good pair of shoes? How can the Zacatin (Granada's market street) be full of goods from Nepal, cheaper in price than if I tried to buy them in Kathmandu? I always buy clothes when I have the chance to visit Europe-not just because of the quality, which is always better than consumer goods you can find in the supermarkets of Nepal, but also because of the price, which is always more competitive and affordable. How on earth, I asked myself, is this possible? 
The answer may lie less in economics than in a rather complicated internalization of self-image which I call the 'Thamel Factor'. In Thamel, that storehouse of Oriental goods, I invariably come upon shop assistants who give me an insufferably condescending look when I ask them if I can buy an embroidered cushion cover, or a slightly funky jacket. 'Well, okay, we´ll show you, if you insist', they will say. 'But really this is not for Nepalis. Our main market is Europe. Nepalis can't afford to buy stuff like this'.
And here lies the gist of the matter. That sneer, which bothered me for years, comes into focus as I look at the piles of scarves and t-shirts and jewellery, all made in Nepal, all half price and discounted in the window fronts of Spain. Precious and semi-precious stones of Nepal make it out of the country, meant for consumers other than the ones who produce and manufacture these objects. But in its stead, we get no wine and cheese. And why is that? Is it because the Europeans make us believe our goods are worth so little that they can buy up the entire marketplace for a pittance? Or is it because we, in some way, also believe this?
Yes, of course. An old college saying comes back to me; the colonizer and the colonized are always complicit. This could never happen if employers and factory owners in Asia, and Central America, and Africa, didn't play along.  China brutalizes its people and makes them work at slavery rates. And everywhere else from free trade zones to maquiladoras, from Mexico to Bangladesh, the people reinforce over and over: the worth of a poor human being must remain low.
Does the fault lie only with the First World? Despite all my education in colonialism, I say no. The fault also lies with us, the people of the East who believe the worth of our work is so low, and the price of our materials so immaterial, that we can-indeed, should-sell everything to Europe and that the locals who make these objects can never be worth enough to buy them.
Imagine, for instance, if Ray Kroc had said: 'Be gone you stupid Americans, these luscious hamburgers are meant only for the Australians, who know how to appreciate a good hamburger when they see one'. Or if the Spanish had said: 'Vamooosh Chulos, this ham and cheese is not meant for you, it's only for our special customers, the French.' Imagine what would have happened then? Imagine if the French made their wine only for their special customers, the Americans, and refused to sell it to the locals? Would they be the great civilization that they are now?
But such is the case in Asia. We imagine that our customers are always the 'Others'-white skinned, fair-faced, pockets loaded with euros. We don't know that they are just like us, that they can only afford a closetful of clothes and after that even the most acquisitive of human beings tire of buying, and it would make sense to make less clothes but pay your workers more. Then, perhaps, a Nepali could also have enough money to buy some European oil and cheese, and olive oil owners in Spain wouldn't have to worry about how the market was doing badly.
At the moment, the asymmetry of the world rests on a pure economic illusion that people of one part of the world deserve more than the other. The illusion is maintained not just by the First World that suffers under this glut of overproduction, but also by the people in Third World countries who persist in thinking they are too poor to afford to pay their workers, too poor to buy quality goods, and too poor to have a symmetrical exchange rate.
This is all very well and good, you may think. After all, it's working in favour of one side of the planet so why change it, right? Well, that's when we come back to the butterfly. Because when one side of the world groans from poverty, unable to afford even three meals a day, when their schoolhouses have no electricity and their hospitals lack medicine, when they work years of their lives, for more than eighty hours a week, in foreign countries but return home with less money than when they left, then it's not just the psychic burden that Europe and America have to bear. It is also the fact that the lives of each and every one in the planet becomes inextricably intertwined, and poverty in one part affects the other. Affluence in the Third World would bring a boom in human cultural and economic growth, whereas right now all it brings about are individuals who struggle to find work (on both sides of the planet)-one side determined to dump its cheap goods made by slave-like labour while the other part sinks under the weight of Asia.
How long could such a state of affairs last? Well, now we know. Until 2009, when a butterfly fluttered its wings, and a global financial crisis that nobody understands took over the world. But change is not always bad. This may be the time to renegotiate-not just trade relations, and prices, and financial equivalence, but also the way in which we imagine ourselves as people of the world. The poor have to understand that they are only poor as long as they imagine themselves to be so. In Nepal, that means seeing a human being as somebody worth much more than he or she is today."   
Sushma sent us these photographs to illustrate her story:

See the photographs for this article at France 24 Observer site.

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