You walk through the air conditioned
shopping mall and are surrounded by an array of colourful shiny
shops, all displaying a kaleidescope of goods. They are all there,
H&M, Gap, Adidas, and others, it all looks so innocent. However, a lot of the
merchandise of these companies is manufacture in Indonesia, along the
banks of the once beautiful River Citarum. A river that for centuries
was the survival line for millions of people. They
fished the river, they drank the water, it slaked the thirst of their
animals, and it watered their fields of crops.
Now thanks to the manufacturers
of cheap goods for Western corporate names like the three mentioned
above, the River Citarum is now a running sewer, as factories along
its banks pour in a cocktail of toxic chemicals such as Mercury and
other noxious poisons and waste. In spite of this the River Citarum,
now among the dirtiest rivers in the world, is still drinking water
to approximately 35 million people. Now the local trade has changed,
instead of fishing, the local villages along its banks try to
salvage rubbish from the river to sell, it's a living.
Why should these people have to
endure a range of horrific illness and the destruction of their way
of life and livelihood, because corporations want to maximise their
profits in the West? This is a form of slow mass murder, people will
die from avoidable illnesses, others will live a life of poor and
deteriorating health, all in the name of corporate profit. You kill
somebody and steal their belongings, that's murder. You slowly kill
thousands of people and steal their way of life, that's mass murder.
It is not done through ignorance, these corporations are fully aware
of the damage they are doing, fully aware of the consequences on the
lives of those caught up in their greed driven quest for ever more
profit. Not an impassioned murder, but cold blooded murder with intent.
