It has only been 5 months since the families of the 112 Bangladeshi labourers who died in the Tazreen garments factory fire have been mourning and yet again we see another industrial incident which is the third in 5 months with a death toll rising over 300 and injuries over 1000.
An eight story building that manufactures garments on behalf of global retail giants such as Primark, Bonmarche, H&M and Wal-Mart have once again raised a discussion regarding the role of Western companies in pursuing the safety and working environment for their suppliers in expense of cheap labour.
The more preponderant concern however is that the Hasina government and employers are more worried about continuing operations as normal for the clothing industry which accounts for 80% of Bangladesh’s exports. The Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina’ s statement “Shall we have to demolish all the buildings right now?” [11] shows little empathy and confirms that nothing will be done to preclude similar disasters.
The Western companies on the other hand have shown a few crocodile tears and a cynical shudder to the situation who are clearly aware of the despicable labour conditions that exist and try hard to scrape as much as they can in order to fulfil the high demand of cheap garments and compete in the hyperactive textile industries. It is thus no surprise that we have seen denials of involvement by Western companies with the suppliers at the Rana Plaza complex.
In fact many of these companies operate multifaceted broker and sub-contractor relationships in order to distance themselves from the direct production processes. Audits are done to protect their corporate image and brands rather than solve health and safety concerns.
To add to this obnoxious corporate event which is one of the biggest industrial incidents in the world, we see the media portraying a great urgency of action and promoting an illusion that MNC’s and the government of Bangladesh can be pressured to take action yet in reality these are the fruits of global capitalist economics that have broken the back of the millions of women and children of Bangladesh [1].
Bangladesh may be the focal but not the only country that is a victim of global capitalism. We see similar examples internationally, just 5 months ago, 300 workers died in one of the worst factory fires in Karachi, Pakistan. In China, there are a mass suicides, where families leap out of large buildings to end their miserable lives working tirelessly for corporates such as Apple [12]. Other human beings are sacrificed relentlessly to satisfy the hunger of capitalists in sweatshops located in Africa and Latin America. Even in the most progressive economies we see disasters such as the fertiliser plant that exploded in Texas in 2011 [13].
This is typical of capitalism, to rationalise unethical behaviour and avert discussion to the real issues and questions that should be asked. Why are Bangladesh the hub of cheap labour in the first place? Why is the ruthless government of Bangladesh depriving the vast majority of the population from employment, health care, education, food, clothing and shelter forcing them to accept cheap job roles for foreign companies? Why is the country absent of its own independent industrial sector and indebted to the IMF and World Bank?
Shifting the responsibility from the government to the Western companies themselves [2] doesn’t resolve the fact that Bangladesh has been one of the most exhausted economies due to Western imperialism. With budget strategies defined by the IMF [3] who are directing the country into further economic slavery by imposing the interest based capitalist model as well as indirect tax schemes such as VAT where every individual, rich or poor, pays the same amount of tax for consuming a product or a service and investment restrictions into their agriculture sector, the economy of Bangladesh is a victim of exploitative behaviour by imperialists.
Their concept of GDP to measure growth of an economy presents false realities and weak measurements to assess the economic crisis of Bangladesh. Whilst the 6% GDP growth rate of Bangladesh may satisfy the politicians and the Western ‘philanthropists’ it does not show any improvement of the infrastructure of the country which lacks the provision of basic necessities such as gas and electricity for the public nor reduction of the 50% poverty rate in Bangladesh. Furthermore, setting GDP targets simply means the country is opened for rich multi-national companies to do business at low production costs and exploit the cheap labour who were not only being subsidies for the greed driven capitalists but as we have now learnt are buried alive in rubble due to the absence of decent architecture.
The deaths of these poor workers who were living in the harshest of conditions needed more than an A3 laminated code of conduct certificate stuck on the wall of every room in the factories of Bangladesh approved by high street fashion retailers in the UK. The country not only needs a refurbishment of factories nationally, but the refurbishment of the political and economic landscape too starting with the removal of the cruel Hasina government and the re-establishment of the Islamic Khilafah.
Only the Khilafah can remove Bangladesh from the economic slavery of the West. The Khilafah will regenerate the industrial sector by investing in reverse chain industries allowing the country to make use of its local resources such as Jute, Gas, Uranium, Fish and Poultry. The Khilafah will encourage the establishment of industries that manufactures machines thereby leading to a new industrial revolution. The Khilafah will educate the population and explore the variety of skills in the labour force of the country and revive their current brain-dead job roles which are to operate like robots making clothes for satisfying the attire of the average European.
In addition to the rebirth of the industrial sector, the Khilafah is obliged to implement a bi-metallic currency and forbidden the use of interest in the economy. This will remove the need of printing money to fill the holes and stabilise the value of the currency as well as spur the free circulation of money which will end the uncertain fear of exchange rate and the policies of the IMF to gear the country towards financial sectors which will further ruin the country.
كَيْ لَا يَكُونَ دُولَةً بَيْنَ الْأَغْنِيَاءِ مِنْكُمْ
“So that it does not become something which merely revolves between the rich among you.”
(Al Hashr, 59:7)
The priority of the Islamic State is not to simply improve production rates, rather primarily to satisfy the essentials of every human being. This is a pre-requisite for the nation to stand on its own two feet and remove the reliance on foreign institutions.
Imam Ahmad narrated that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said: “Any community, whosoever they are, if a person among them became hungry, they will be removed from the protection of Allah the Blessed, the Supreme.”
Muslims grieve the deaths of the thousands of Muslims who have died as a result of negligence. At the present moment in time the Ummah of Bangladesh is facing a momentous attack on the values and beliefs of over 1.7BN humans by secularists who want to remove the façade of Islam from the constitution of the country and yet we see another tragedy in which the quality of their life is in the spotlight again. However, the brave Ummah of Bangladesh have recently shown that regardless of their conditions, their belief is non-negotiable [10]. It is incumbent on the Muslim to take action against evil, today which is carried out by the vicious political powers of Bangladesh. This evil can only be stopped once we have removed this class of corrupt power-driven blocs and replaced them with a sincere Islamic leadership.
Kasim Javed
References
1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22296645
2) (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/davidblair/100213818/bangladesh-disaster-primark-and-other-western-companies-have-tough-questions-to-answer/)
3) http://worldeconomicdata.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/imf-expect-bangladesh-gdp-growth-rate.html
4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Bangladesh
5)http://www.un.int/wcm/webdav/site/bangladesh/shared/Press%20Release/Bangladesh%20Economy%20is%20a%20Star%20in%20the%20World%20Economy,%20says%20UN%20Experts.pdf
6) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html?countryName=Bangladesh&countryCode=bg®ionCode=sas&rank=109#bg
7) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/cheap-clothes-have-helped-fuel-economic-revolution-in-bangladesh/article11589450/
8) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/26/bangladesh-building-collapse-clashes-rescue
9) http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/26/us-bangladesh-building-idUSBRE93N06P20130426
10) http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/04/20134661058364976.html
11) http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-bangladesh-factory-collapse-the-global-cheap-labor-economy-wages-at-a-dollar-a-day/5333214
12) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9006988/Mass-suicide-protest-at-Apple-manufacturer-Foxconn-factory.html
13) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/18/texas-explosion-fertiliser-plant-live