A blog Written by RACE intern, Alishba Saadat
August 17th, 2022 marked the end of this year’s South Asian Heritage Month, themed ‘Journeys of Empire’, paying homage to the odyssey of displacement and migration South Asians have historically endured because of British indenture and colonialism. A mere few days later, rivers and glacial lakes across Pakistan that were overwhelmed by weeks of extraordinarily high levels of monsoon rains broke their banks and created the worst flash flooding the country has ever seen, stripping millions of their homes and catalysing the long-expected influx of the newest form of displaced Brown bodies – climate refugees.
Image Source: Getty Images.
There is no mistake to be made that the net result of the climate crisis, resulting in eight weeks of severe rainfall, has been nothing short of apocalyptic – catapulting a nation of 220 million people into a humanitarian crisis, a food crisis, an economic crisis, a health crisis, and an education crisis all in one. As of September 5th, official statistics report that the death toll has reached 1,300, yet it is likely to be much higher as the number of houses destroyed exceeds 1,000,000 and the local government is ill-equipped to carry out extensive search-and-rescue missions. Out of the 33 million people affected by the floods, over 500,000 have been housed in displacement camps, or in makeshift shelters in public schools and government buildings. Yet, many more are stuck shelterless with nowhere to go, while further downpour is expected in the coming days. In this chaos, businesses have ceased to operate, multi-story hotels have toppled, and 118 districts of the country have been rendered unsalvageable, causing a wave of inflation and poverty to suddenly strike the nation that, in terms of development, sets Pakistan back 20 years.
Image Source: AP Photos
In the direct aftermath of this catastrophe, as international news agencies and journalists put pen to paper, a recurrent theme within global discourse is the primary blame for the scale of the disaster being directed towards the mismanagement of the Pakistani government. There is, of course, an inherent truth to the claims of neglect being lodged against the State, as the political landscape of Pakistan has been unstable since its independence, with particular volatility seen in the last few months of 2022. However, the task of calling out this inadequacy and demanding accountability from those in power lies with the Pakistani people – not with political actors, social figures, and governmental institutions based in the Global North. By partaking in the age-old routine of scrutinising a local government’s corruption or dysfunctionality in the Global South, local citizens are actively harmed; as the narrative is upheld that certain countries cannot be trusted to self-govern or manage funding, and this invariably impacts the level of funds that the people receive. International journalists and those who similarly craft narratives through the media thus have a more important task than holding the Pakistani state to account: using their privileged position in the mainstream to demand that countries within the imperial core pay their debt to the people in the Global South.
Image Source: AP Photos
For starters, like most former colonies, Pakistan’s economic potential during the early days of independence was stunted by centuries of Britain’s imperialist extortion of resources and labour, as well as the systemic subjugation of the local populace, placing it at a very unequal footing to the ‘First World’ from its outset in the 1940’s. In the eight decades that have followed, a string of the Global North’s neo-colonial interests in the region has set off a chain reaction of proxy wars and financial imperialism in the form of loan-sharking. This uncertainty and unrest has forced consistent political turmoil and economic disparity to persist in Pakistan unendingly. Running concurrently with these empire-led endeavours, the climate crisis works to add another layer to the extractivist relationship between former colonial powers and former-colonies; where one region bears the brunt for the other region’s culture of endless profiteering.
To exemplify the insidiousness of this discrepancy, Pakistan’s contribution to carbon dioxide emissions (as an agricultural economy) represents a mere 0.50% of the total global share. Pakistan is also home to the highest number of glaciers in the entire world outside of the arctic regions, which are of crucial importance to the landscape and culture, and also generate billions in tourism revenue worth nearly 3% of the country’s GDP. According to a 2015 study, the rich, industrialised nations of the Global North (USA, UK, Russia, Japan, Canada) are responsible for 92% of the total global carbon dioxide emissions – meaning Pakistan’s glaciers are melting, and flooding millions of its people, who scarcely use so much as a non-biodegradable sanitary pad; entirely in response to the weight of the heavy industrial, economic, and recreational activities of the Global North.
Image Source: AP Photos
Globally, there is a lack of concern in properly mitigating the climate crisis as the repercussions fall upon vulnerable Asian and African communities (who so far have suffered the greatest death tolls in climate disasters), and wealthy countries are not yet affected in the same way. This apathy is termed ‘environmental racism’ – and it leads to the lack of accountability or adequate assistance to countries like Pakistan when climate catastrophes strike. An important point of discussion on this is the fact that Pakistan’s economy rests greatly on its cotton industry, as the world’s fifth largest producer of cotton; and cotton-picking is one of the biggest sectors providing work and income to Pakistani women. The livelihoods of millions of families thus depended on the cotton crop, which is now completely submerged in the floods –with 2 million acres of agricultural land in the country having been destroyed. Pakistan is the second cheapest place for US buyers to source cotton, rendering it extremely significant to brands such as Target and H&M, and the underpayment and exploitation of Pakistani cotton farmers has allowed these corporations to maximise profits for years in the realm of billions of dollars. Now, as the same cotton farmers that clothe the entire world drown, insultingly meagre levels of assistance have come through, with barely any acknowledgment or donations from these large corporations at all.
Environmental activist, Ayisha Siddiqa took to Twitter to put the “aid” extended to Pakistan by the Global North into perspective – the USA’s donation of $30 million amounts to less than even $1 per displaced person. Canada, which contributes 15.5 metric tons of carbon annually, has offered aid of $5 million, less than even 50 cents per displaced person. And the English, those who have historically benefited the most from Pakistan’s natural resources, and have emitted more than 78 gigaton of carbon since 1750, effectively setting the world on fire, have extended £800,000 to Pakistan – which is 2 pence per displaced person. This is the Global North’s idea of ‘charity’ or ‘responsibility’ for the crisis of their creation. While a small percentage of the world’s ultra-elite are allowed, unregulated, to gear up for a ‘billionaire space race’ that will emit black carbon into the air 500 times more deadly than usual for the sake of their recreational space tourism – vulnerable communities across the globe are apparently meant to accept the fact that flash floods and deadly heat waves that kill their families are going to become more and more of an ever-increasing reality; the assistance for which will be a drop in the bucket of what they are owed.
In short, the people of Pakistan have deserved trillions in colonial reparations regardless, as a country that has long-suffered under colonial-era poverty, the post-colonial debt trap, and the other political and economic losses to Western hegemony. Extracting these reparations, however, is a struggle that every former colony has shouldered, and it is an endeavour akin to screaming into a blank void. The matter of the climate reparations however, given the fact that Pakistan has been made the epicentre of climate catastrophe for the foreseeable future, are a matter of extreme urgency that cannot be ignored. Any funds pouring into Pakistan now must not be “aid” or “charity”, or framed as a gesture rooted in goodwill that can afford to be limited. There must be accountability and an appropriate reckoning of exactly what Pakistan is owed, and payments that are made must be symmetrical to the losses it has suffered in this Western-curated crisis. There is no reason other than apathy and racism, that those who caused this damage should not be the ones to foot the bill. The first step towards reorienting the world towards any sort of climate or colonial justice, or providing even a shred of justice to the 33 million forcibly displaced people, is a push towards genuine and adequate reparations – and this includes reparations from the citizens of the Global North, whose consumerist lifestyles produce greater amounts of waste per capita than anywhere in the world; and who, in turn for upholding the capitalist structures of their economies, benefit from the wealth their states accumulate at the Global South’s expense.
Click here to donate to a trusted charity functioning within Pakistan, housing many displaced individuals and carrying out search-and-rescue missions. Now more than ever, currency privilege backed by Western governments and economic institutions starkly come into play, and allow donations and reparations from the UK to go a long, long way.