Monetary crisis in Southeast Asia

Monetary crisis in Southeast Asia

The monetary crisis in Southeast Asia should not be a puzzle.
It is the end result of colonialism and imperialism
systematically carried out by some European countries, Japan and
lately the United States. "Globalization" is merely a disguised
name for ongoing economical imperialism and hegemony by which
developed and capitalistic countries attempt to dominate the
global market by inundating the world with their products and
insisting on market liberalization.

Southeast Asian nations continue to suffer from the
postcolonial era characterized by a lack of capital, poor human
resources, poverty and chaos created by inhumane treatment of
people by colonists and imperialists in the past.

The trillions of dollars in revenue collected by imperialists
during the colonial era has never been repatriated. The money
Southeast Asian countries borrow from developed countries through
the IMF and other bilateral agreements to boost their capital to
survive in the global era is actually their own money laundered
by capitalists and imperialists during the colonial era.

As a result of a "confusion of identity" suffered by most
Southeast Asian people during the postcolonial era, Southeast
Asian people have developed a taste for Western goods, money,
technology and values while discarding their own traditional
values and needs.

This process is being continued and engineered systematically
by globalization to make people of Southeast Asia more dependent
on Western things. The preoccupation with electronics, luxurious
cars, designer clothes and accessories, huge shopping malls,
foreign travel, credit cards, the tourism explosion, dollar
hoarding, monopolies, oligopolies, corruption, alcoholism and
drug abuse, violent crimes, prostitution, premarital and
extramarital sex, family disintegration, high rate of divorce,
etc. are all products of Westernization.

We cannot blame the governments of Southeast Asia for the
currency depreciation. All people should work together to change
the direction of our destiny and lives. First of all, we should
go back to practicing and embracing our own traditional values
and needs. We do not need huge buildings or malls, polluting
cars, and all those electronic gadgets and luxurious goods and
services, credit cards, loans and expensive monuments.

The government should set an example by not using luxurious
cars for officials and by using our own products and Southeast
Asian products. Borrowing money from developed countries should
be stopped immediately.

The government should launch an austerity program and an
educational program to eradicate people's addiction to the
Western lifestyle. The government should launch a long-term
program to create economic independence and self-sufficiency
among its people. The government should not bail out companies
which have created huge debts, as I believe their primary motive
to borrow was to gain profit rather than help people and society.
Let them work it out with their own foreign creditors.

Let's combat our own greediness and be empathetic toward those
who are suffering, the sick and the poor.

DR. K. PRIBADI

Cimahi, West Java