Economic Development and empowerment

What actually empowerment of a nation at present is?

And who are the villains and victims?

Why it is imperative to give a chance to economic development, good transparent governance over any political agenda?

Nations, like individuals, have to be empowered. So, the people entrusted with the privilege of ruling/governing the nation and exercising power to enact policies which impact the citizens must be clear about what actually empowerment is at present?

In very simplistic terms it is doing things that would promote economic development leading to taking care of the basic necessities of maximum number of the citizens of the nation along with ensuring to bequeath an environment which won’t harm the lives in future. I am carefully and intentionally avoiding much debated and debatable terminologies like sustainable development, bio-diversity etc.

Though all these may sound as simple as a school boy’s essay, in reality, ruling/governing a nation, any nation, is not an easy task; whatever be the form of government that is in place.

Internally there are both obvious as well as hidden hurdles.

The international politics has so many intrigues that the labyrinth of it is unclear and unknown even to the most well versed, well equipped spy agencies of most powerful nations in the world.  

Manipulations of all kinds political, economic, commercial, trade, attack etc are all so masked and complicated that it is not easy even to know them. In addition the information explosion spreads so many stories some of which could be true and many of them mere hunches peddled by vested interest groups to create portrayal of proverbial victim-villain phenomenon to whip up passions of a group or generate reactions to gauge international opinions or garner international support.

But however much one may wish away the ‘victim-villain’ story line is what is easily understood by the majority of human beings. So, no wonder all politicians and media manipulators use it effectively.

Nations will have to know not only what real empowerment is, they also need to make the public know who the real victims and villains are.

The unfortunate but unavoidable facts are that there are many nation states and groups which pander more to identity politics; defining modern states based on some old ‘isms’ of economical models; ancient religious affinities etc . More sickening is the fact that these are backed by opinion molding media propaganda which pushes whole populations into identity cages without letting them live life in comfort and calmness and let others too enjoy the same privilege.

The villains are no more obvious invaders, colonialists, imperialists imposing their bossy insolence, military powers dropping bombs or wagging wars;

The villains are not present physically at the national borders;

They are not lurking in bushes or sailing into your shores with sirens;

The villains are the surreptitious creepy political and economic manipulators aided by media mafia [euphemistically referred to as propaganda peddlers or mass opinion molders], international political manipulators, identity hawkers, some unfortunate dirty corporate houses and some dubious financial institutions etc who are in the grip of these manipulators. So, even alert nations fall a prey to these manipulators unknowingly and unwillingly.

The victims are the rest of humanity who are not engaged in these activities. The victims actually outnumber the villains. Therefore, it is easier to create a conducive world where governance based on economic developmental agenda is given a priority over the rest.

Many books, documents, nowadays websites and blogs provide some sneak peek into denouement of unimaginable international political manipulations and ramifications. Of course, these are confined to most often just two or three continents not all. We can extrapolate and imagine the magnitude of invisible impacts. Unfortunately, we have neither astronomical facts nor astrological charts to decipher or even hunch the outcomes of these.

To sum it all in brief, the summits, conferences and meetings of international leaders very nicely mask these realities with diplomatic wheedling, hypocritical bonhomie, pious oaths, catchy slogans, attractive policy pronouncements, tedious treaties, symbolic gestures, photogenic postures etc and finally the secretaries, top diplomats trot out with hangover from cocktail parties to brief the media either with or without handing over the brief case of currencies to carry a favorable story of grand success of summit.