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