Since June, a third of Pakistan has come under water resulting in over two thousand deaths and upwards of 20 million displaced, revealing the complete failure of the capitalist Pakistani government in particular and ineffective capacity for capitalism globally to solve the problems endemic to the climate crisis. In 2022 alone, famines, floods and catastrophes wrought by climate change have laid bare to workers from East Africa to Pakistan two facts of this profit-driven system: first, that international “aid” is often a smokescreen for imperialist aggression; second, that local government neglect and corruption leaves millions around the world starving and tens of thousands dead—often women, children and the most vulnerable. Take Haiti where, after the 2010 earthquake and ensuing cholera outbreak, mafioso agencies diverted needed goods to the poor to line the pockets of greasy Haitian elites via either the black market or for personal use. As in Haiti, Pakistani workers show us that only the heroic efforts of members of the working class will offer the courage, energy and political commitment needed to share our resources and help prevent further suffering from class brothers and sisters.
The recent floods in Pakistan are the direct outcome of the deadly admixture of heavier than normal monsoon rains and rapidly melting glaciers, both resulting from the bosses’ system of profit-driven production which continues to pollute the atmosphere, ravage the ozone and intensify global warming. Chinese, US and neighboring bosses in India contribute the largest share of CO2 emissions, and workers the world over suffer the impacts. Pakistan’s share in the world’s CO2 emission is 0.5 percent only which may not be a reason for climate change, but the government-backed rich landowners divert the natural flow of water toward the small piece of lands and dwellings of poor farmers to save their own crops and properties.
Bosses save their profits
The bosses there have proven entirely ineffective with government mismanagement of international aid and mob-like agencies swarming to hoard the “charity” and relief donations arriving from around the world, causing even more death and devastation than the floods themselves. While the Current Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s brother is largely behind the corruption in the current flood relief, the Sharif brothers years ago opportunistically called out the former regime in the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake that killed 100,000 people, claiming the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority had misused 60 per cent of the funds. According to one local journalist, Shadi Khan Saif, “There are already quite credible reports concerning criminal negligence and abuse of authority to loot and misappropriate the funds and resources meant for the flood victims…It is, however, quite ironic to see the power-greedy elite looking at this calamity as an opportunity to accumulate more wealth.” Saif is mistaken, however, to see this greed as ironic when it is in fact the parasitic nature of a system
based on exploitation for profit that such “corruption” take place (in.investing.com/news).
Workers better than anyone know not to be fooled, as many impoverished Pakistanis understand that donors are sending the relief items like tents, mosquito nets, blankets, mattresses, kitchen utensils, medicines etc. that are being diverted into the markets.
As winter is approaching a large number of displaced populations are living without shelter, clean water and warm clothes. Still more than ten million people are surrounded by water which is breeding ground for malaria-breeding mosquitos, because the government is doing nothing to get the water out of the affected areas. As of October 25, “in Sindh, 59 health facilities are fully damaged and 461 partially damaged, further limiting access to primary health care. In Sindh, between July and early October, nearly 350,000 people were suspected of having malaria, more than 700,000 had some form of diarrhea, and over 770,000 people reported a skin-related disease, according to the Directorate General of Health Services” (reliefweb.int/report). Not only do poor people have no way to access hospitals, but capitalists owning the pharmaceutical companies are creating artificial scarcity of life saving drugs to increase the prices of medicines. Now an ordinary medicine like Paracetamol is not available in the market which is widely used to treat dengue and malaria. Some lifesaving medicines became very expensive. Those capitalizing on the shortage offering black market generics have joined the ranks of those responsible for severe reactions and sudden deaths.
Workers save lives
We approached some areas where there is no road intact. We used boats without engines/motors and were pushed by the men using a piece of wood to reach out the poor people with medicines, clothes and tents. We are a party of the poor working class therefore we don’t have resources to meet the requirements of poor displaced people but we used to collect some used items, food, water and lifesaving drugs from our neighborhoods, and we coordinated to establish some medical camps. Some of our comrades fell sick because of Malaria and dehydration during these efforts.
We in the PLP are trying to expose the bosses’ high officials and political leaders for their systemic neglect and discrimination against members of our class. When we told them that we are from a political party which is striving to establish a society without classes and exploitation, we collected all that stuff from the poor working class people and their sympathizers, they in turn showed full support to our ideology and activities. They asked us to come over here again when the situation gets better. We have found very good contacts in these areas to develop a base of support for workers’ class consciousness, a critical step toward revolution. We are proud of our poor brothers and sisters living under the sky without a tent, warm clothes, mosquito nets and clean water but understanding that it is all because of a bad political and economic system which is creating
problems for them.
Natural disasters require political solutions!
Whether it be the crushing of innocent people in Seoul’s Halloween celebration or last year’s Travis Scott concert, October deadly collapse of the bridge in India, or recent cholera outbreaks from Haiti to Pakistan, capitalism proves time and again that profiteering bosses are always at root of the events that cause needless death for our class. Natural disasters will occur even under communism, but natural disasters under capitalism are 90 percent man-made. They can only be combatted and mitigated through political organization and the power of our class. Hoarding of commodities, competition over land ownership and business, pharmaceutical profiteering are all political problems fueled by the capitalist world order. Until workers seize control of land, of pharmaceutical plants—we will continue to be left at the mercy and will of the same class that places us in this continuous cycle of crisis, displacement, misery and death. Long live Communism and PLP.