In an impassioned speech that drew cheers and hoots from a crowd of more than 250 people in the EMU Ballroom Wednesday evening, guest speaker Michael Parenti challenged his listeners to organize against the “globalization” of the world economy.
He said this globalization is driven by the cutthroat, capital-driven interests of transnational corporations that often impoverish third-world countries by extracting resources and undercutting worker salaries. He said poverty levels in many of these third-world countries are higher than they’ve ever been at a time when the United States sends more in foreign aid than it ever has.
The reason, Parenti said, is that often this foreign aid is squandered on improving infrastructure that increases production of a country’s resources for corporate gains. Often, this money never reaches the hungry and impoverished, he said.
Organizations like NATO often attack governmental systems like communism that don’t adhere to capitalistic ideals, he said. By replacing these governments with leaders more submissive to Western economic interests, he said trade agreements are more easily reached.
“Leaders are not it,” Parenti said. “The people…we are the hope.”
He also spoke of his recent trip to Serbia and other countries that composed the former Yugoslavia, where he said he discovered that tales of “mass genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” were greatly exaggerated by the U.S. media. He has written a book about his discoveries, entitled, “To Kill A Nation.”
Parenti, a graduate of Yale University and resident of Berkeley, Calif., spoke at the University in conjunction with a photography exhibit in the Adell McMillan Art Gallery, which depicted a war-torn Yugoslavia during 11 weeks of NATO bombing.
Before the speech, many people gazed at the images of collapsed buildings and inhabitants digging for their possessions amidst the rubble.
One observer, University computer science doctorate student Gerd Kortuem, said he lived in Germany several years ago, and it was hard to fathom the destruction that occurred in a country so near his own.
“It’s strange to see people dressed like me involved in a war,” Kortuem said, adding that he was eager to hear Parenti’s eyewitness accounts of conditions in the country. He said the American media hasn’t released a lot of critical information about the region’s struggles, and hoped an alternate viewpoint would shed some light.
Another University student, pre-psychology major Kerry Broderic, said she was attending the lecture merely to learn.
“All the destruction …,” Broderic said as she looked at the graphic images. “I looked at the exhibit today and heard there was a lecture this evening. I had to attend.”