Two massive earthquakes have recently struck Nepal. The first earthquake on April 25 was 7.8 magnitude and killed more than 8,000 people. The second earthquake struck on May 12, with a magnitude of 7.3, killing over 200 and injuring thousands. Between the two earthquakes, entire villages were flattened with more than 95 percent of all houses destroyed in the area. More than 2 million workers are displaced with hundreds still missing. There is nothing “natural” about this disaster — the earthquakes are created by forces of nature, but the disasters are created by capitalism!
It is not surprising that the quake left so much devastation in its wake. Nepal, like many other countries, has been subjected to decades of imperialist plunder. This, combined with a repressive dictatorship supported by the U.S. and European imperialists, has brought about high levels of inequality that remain in place, despite a change in the political scene. From the 1980s, Nepal also was forced to accept structural adjustment loans imposed upon them by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, forcing the country to cut already-limited social services and programs, and allowing for multinational corporations to privatize and profit on everything from health care to natural resources like grain and water.
The outcome of this disaster is not at all natural. It is the direct result of the failure of capitalism, a system which is based upon inequality, crisis, and unpreparedness. Capitalism operates according to this “logic” of crisis, which is ultimately seen as profitable and inevitable. Like the environmental devastation in Haiti, the Philippines, or New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, these disasters expose the inherent racist policies implemented by capitalism, as Black, Latin, and Asian are disproportionately affected and suffer the horrific consequences of such policies.
Many commentators blame the current disaster on bad governmental policy and neglect, which is only one part of the story. In 1934, Nepal experienced an 8.3 earthquake that killed over 8,000 people, and experts have been warning for decades about the next “big one.” An article in the Nepali Times, written just months before the recent quake, cites the unpreparedness of the current government to deal with the next disaster, calling for “communities…and individual communities to have contingent plans”.
The article also drew attention to the crisis in Nepal’s internal politics. Since the 2006 electoral victory of the fake “communist” Maoist movement, the coalition government has been squabbling over what type of federal system to institute to run the country. These fake revolutionaries have eroded the massive support of workers and students. They originally had, and have since embraced the devastating capitalist policies that further impoverished the country. The heart of the matter is that under capitalism, these kinds of disasters will continue unabated.
The Progressive Labor Party fights to unite the international working class to smash national boundaries along with racism, sexism, and the entire capitalist system.
The Maoist stooges elected into the capitalist government in Nepal claims to represent the revolutionary legacy of the Chinese revolution of 1949. While socialism was reversed because of concessions to capitalism like maintaining the wage system and inequality, it was through the combined efforts of millions of women and men, not some “great leader” like Mao, who built the dams and dug the canals to prevent workers from needlessly suffering environmental catastrophes.
Under communism, we can coordinate massive efforts around the world in order to ensure that such catastrophes become relics of the capitalist past!