NOURISHING FISH AND CORPORATIONS

On 11/25/98 a writer from the Third World Network wrote a story from Penang, Malaysia as follows (a summary) :

FISH FARMS THREATEN ENVIRONMENT AND FISH SUPPLY

A scientific report says that fish farming or aquaculture destroys and pollutes coastal ecosystems that provide habitat for fish and other marine animals. Fish species raised on fishmeal also deplete rather than augment fish supplies.

By Danielle Knight

And knowing something about this, the subject made me remember two related experiences working and living out in Malaysia and the Philippines. So I wrote a short essay on :

While working as a volunteer for President Aquino's Presidential Commission on Good Government not long after the Peoples' Revolution in 1986 - advising how to track down and freeze Marcos' multi-billions of stolen $$$$ (as guided by CIA and DIA Offshore proprietary companies) - I was coming from Cebu into Bacolod City on Negros Island on a pam-pam (small taxi-boat) when, about 15-20 kilometers offshore, I noticed the sea was slowly turning brown as far as I could see up and down the long coast. Darker and darker as we approached shore.

When asked, the Capitan said that it was caused by the rain washing the top soil from the hills into the sea because Mrs. Marcos had sold off so much of the mountain timber to the Japanese that most of the surrounding vegetation had died and there was nothing much left to hold the soil together. As a result much of the plantation life (coconuts, pineapples and other fruits and vegetables) had been also destroyed. And the people were actually starving, for they had to 'import' from other islands part the food they used to grow in what had been a simple, easy-going, healthy-living tropical 'paradise'. Naturally, as a subsistence community they had no funds to buy such 'foreign' produce. So many of the children were walking around with distended stomachs, like the Sudan.

When asked what the government is doing about it (a quite naive question, I later learned), the boat capitan said that they had leased a lot of the land to Japanese shrimp farmers who had promised jobs and a new prosperity for the people. When asked about the result, he replied that even more small farms had gone out of business due to the contamination of their ground water by surrounding shrimp farms using so many chemicals to make the shrimp grower faster and without diseases.

When asked about the promised 'prosperity', he said that there was none to speak of because the big bosses were Japanese, and the few middle management Filipinos needed very few workers to quick-time stuff the shrimp fry with fish feeds mixed with chemicals. And through bribery to Manila, they paid no local taxes and imported most of what they needed; thusly spending very little money in the 'backward' local shops on Negros.

FOOTNOTE:

A year later, 1987, moving back to Asia after a stay in the US, I dumped my 10 year old half-Japanese son into a Kumamoto, Kyushu primary school to force-feed the reading and writing of his mother's language (she was a 70" tall, anti-authoritarian, sensual and iconoclastic, France-loving woman; thereby unsurprisingly anti-Japanese v-a-v her mixed son's future treatment in bureaucratically racist Japan). But having been born 200 meters from Notre Dame, for me American and Japanese immersions were necessary if the boy was to learn, first-hand, BOTH the good and the bad of his parents' cultural nurturing.

The only foreigners living in a Japanese traditional house in a small village on the edge of Kumamoto, the word quickly spread that I behaved not only like a responsible Japanese mother to son and neighbors but also was a man of experience who respected Japanese people - if not always their national government (which generally rested well with Kyushu people). And also that I was a good speaker, an extrovert with enough world-wide anecdotes to make homogenous subjects more interesting than usual. Therefore was invited to speak at a number of functions held by City, University and Non-profit organizations.

One day I was asked to be the principal guest speaker in a Kyushu-wide appeal for funds and food to be sent to the starving children of..., where would you guess? Yes, Negros Island, the Philippines. It was a semi-catered affair, with the requisite officials present, some corporate donors, civic groups and many mothers like me (fathers are rare at such functions in Japan unless sent by their boss). There were many sad pictures exemplifying the economic hardships of the Negritos people, specially emphasizing the plight of the children and young mothers. As this event was organized by the headquarters of the Kyushu YM/WCA, with the date being near the anniversary of the end of world War II, the underlying theme was Peace and Prosperity. Therefore pictures were also displayed graphically demonstrating the inhumane horrors caused by the Germans in Europe and by the American in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Being quite familiar with the 'reasoning' the Nazis used to commit their atrocities and that used by Americans to drop atomic bombs on two civilian cities within three days, I asked the director of the "Y" about the lack of any display panels devoted to the vast atrocities committed by His Majesty's Imperial Japanese Army throughout Asia from 1932 to 1945. After getting over a brief surprise at being asked such a naive question on the occasion of this generous fund-raising for starving colored peoples, he replied "It was inappropriate." And politely began to excuse himself as he turned away. "Why inappropriate?", came my Socratic confusion as I gently held his arm in place to be sure of an answer. Physically he couldn't struggle with his guest speaker, in the middle of everyone, but mentally he was in anguish as the Christian director of the biggest foreign youth organization in all Japan. Supposedly non-profit, it and he were actually excellent mercantilists, selling American styled language and cultural courses making tons of money to buy tons of real estate by quickly and poorly teaching English to sweetly vulnerable young would-be internationalists. Finally, realizing I was not to let his arm go without an answer, he stammered "Our guests would become upset with such a display." Knowing this to be the truth, and, also, that it was not efficacious to then argue the merits of making those good Japanese upset with their own history equally as they were with the history of Nazi and American experiments on humans, I released his elbow and he slipped away just as he began to sweat.

I spoke about the history of the Philippines as they moved from Spanish feudalism into American colonialism into Japanese Imperialism and then again into a neo-colonial 'free' status after World War II. A status wherein the country was, in all realities, still controlled and occupied by the US military right through the Marcos years. I expressed hope, later proved quite naive, that Mrs. Aquino, the widow of CIA agent Benino, had actually started a revolution that would eventually eliminate the endemic corruption so long fermented, and so well played, by Washington to covertly run the country. This history was gone through somewhat quickly as I had been asked to concentrate on the present dire straits of the people in order to impress everyone there, including a number of journalists, with the need for contributions.

So I explained the devastation that Marcos' corruption had wrecked upon the Filipino people, from loss of timber in Negros resulting in contaminating shrimp farms feeding Japanese kitchens, to loss of school books and basic health supplies everywhere, to unpaved roads, broken down bridges, no electricity and clean water, factories polluting seas and land so to give work paying $15 to $20 dollars for a sixty hour week, etc., etc. And I even had the audacity to note that there is so little paying work to be had down there that Filipino men will go work anywhere overseas, often under bad conditions, to support their extended families. And that so many young Filipino women have done the same - also to avoid getting pregnant or married too soon - that they are the most common servants, as well as 'dancers', 'singers' and prostitutes, in EVERY major Asian city, from the Gulf States to northern Hokkaido in Japan. As to be expected, the women shook their heads in surprise while the men sat stony faced - and then YMCA director signaled from the back that my time was up, and he was just about to start the clapping when I destroyed his naivete.

Before he could get past a first clapping sound, as he moved down the center isle towards my lectern, I leaned into the mike and stated, "I'll take any questions now." Hands shot up, from only women, naturally, and he stopped abruptly in the middle of the hall, looking quite alone and not sure what to do. Maybe his guts told him what was coming next.

I had thought it might take a little prompting from me, or at least that I would have to wait until the third or fourth question before getting the one I wanted. But, maybe to save the heart strain of the "Y" director, a youngish mother whom I knew to be a primary school teacher asked, "Mr. Manning, what is the basic cause behind all the corruption causing this starvation?"

"The greed of corporations, the majority of which are American and Japanese controlled. They are asset- stripping the natural resources from the country and are exploiting the feudal labor practices allowed by the Filipino politicians. Almost no benefit get down to the people in the villages."

"But why do the Filipino politicians let their country become SO raped that children get to that state?", she asked, touched with annoyance, pointing to the display photos. Not a few male eyebrows raised in her direction, both for continuing this line of thought and for her vivid choice of semantics. Meanwhile the "Y" director had begun frantically waving his arms at the back of the hall, jabbing continuously at his watch, mouthing words as if I were not only dumb but deaf as well. Yet, as I haven't worn one in some 20 years, I couldn't see the time, though noticing a dramatic increase in the hand movements, ass fidgeting and feet shuffling of the male dignitaries sitting closest to my podium.

Being essentially a kind man, I decided it was wisest to end this torture of so many men - who would have surely wanted to invite me for a drinking and eating spree at the excellent country styled restaurants around Kumamoto - particularly those kindly older ones who had come to this fund-raiser with charity in mind, seeking a Shinto-like salve for their dying memories of a World War II conscience.

So I answered this spirited woman, "Because most of the elite make so much money through corruption, and/or are so well bribed by those corporations, that they themselves have long developed a colonial, exploitative attitude towards their own people."

Another woman timidly raised her hand, "You mean the business and political leaders simply don't care about the poor?"

"Yes, finally, few or none of the elite in the Philippines care much about 90% of the people."

As I ended that answer, the director was making his way down the isle, clapping loudly through a smile forced into felicitations for an informative speech, for a 'lively' discussion. Most of the women in the audience were warm in their applause, though much more serious looking than when entering. Most of the men were politely stone-like. They, including the director, avoided me through the balance of the evening but a group of housewives timidly approached to invite me to my favorite Izakaiya restaurant. The word must have spread because I think that was the last major invitation to speak, except from some groups, usually women, who liked practicing their English with a man who gave unusual answers to usual questions. The most rewarding point occurred at the exit, when, quietly and unobtrusively, one assistant director of the "Y", a Buddhist who was also a Kendo master, shyly said, in the low voice of the warrior, "Manning-san, you have a courageous spirit." I answered, "Thank you. Maybe 17 years ago my Japanese Karate sensei in Hong Kong left something in me." He was a master, I only a student, yet he bowed deeply as I said goodnight.

richard manning

© nyc 11/1998