Proutist Universal

"According to PROUT, economic exploitation involves the unrestricted plunder of the physical and psychic labour of a particular community together with the natural resources in their local area. In PROUT’s view, exploitation is not confined to only economic exploitation, but includes psychic and spiritual exploitation as well. The final and most dangerous form of economic exploitation is fascist exploitation. In order to canvass national support to justify their exploitation, the imperialists popularize the theory of nationalism. They portray their exploitation as rational and constitutional and based on the national interest. The British imperialists, in order to legitimize their exploitation, embraced nationalist theory. Following the example of the British, Mussolini of Italy and Hitler of Germany moved along the same path.

When communist imperialism was established after the Second World War, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin propagated the concept of the Slavic supremacy. Likewise, the Chinese leader Mao Zedong built up Chinese superiority. As soon as an imperialist power is transformed into a fascist power, it spreads out its tentacles to psychically and culturally oppress a vanquished people. To perpetuate unhindered economic exploitation, psychic exploitation starts almost simultaneously. Where psychic exploitation is used to further economic exploitation, it is called “psycho-economic exploitation”.

At the very outset, the fascist exploiters select a weak community which inhabits a region rich in natural resources. The fascists socially and culturally uproot the victimized community by imposing a foreign language and culture on them. Because the local people cannot easily express their individual and collective feelings and sentiments in a foreign language, they develop a defeatist psychology and inferiority complex with respect to the exploiters. This defeatist psychology destroys the natural spiritedness and will to fight of the local people, and the fascists skillfully utilize this golden opportunity.

The primary interest of the fascist exploiters is to gradually suck the vitality of the local community so that they can pillage and plunder their natural resources, but if necessary they will even obliterate the local community from the face of the earth." ~ Shrii Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar

"We already have collaboration with Sami broadcasting, Maori broadcasting (from New Zealand) and the Aboriginal Peoples TV Network, in Canada"

By Marty Logan

ALTA, Norway (IPS) - Just weeks after giving up her post, the former president of the parliament of Norway's indigenous Sami people has lambasted Sami journalists for shoving aside their culture in the rush to get a 'scoop'.

Aili Keskitalo told an international conference organised by Sami media organisations that reporters had "violated" personal limits during her tenure, including when she was hospitalised with a brain stroke and when it was rumoured that she was pregnant. "This leads me to the question: is this Sami journalism or a bad copy (of mainstream journalism)," asked the former president, who delivered the critique with a smile as keynote speaker at the opening of the conference 'Same Voice, But Different' in northern Norway, Sami territory.

"My experience is that Sami media want to publish the most juicy and dramatic details, maybe to impress the Norwegian media," added Keskitalo, who was speaking to about 40 indigenous journalists from around the world in Alta, a town of 20,000 people above the Arctic Circle. She resigned as the first Sami woman president, after serving just two years of a four-year term, reportedly because of protracted disputes with her vice-president.

The Sami, Europe's only indigenous people, are native to what are now Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia. Best known as reindeer herders, about half of today's Sami population of 80,000 lives in Norway. ... Full story

By Milagros Salazar

LIMA (IPS) - The Peruvian state will repay a longstanding debt to indigenous people in the country’s Amazon region by including them in a national census in a way that pays attention to their particular social, economic and cultural characteristics. But experts say this is only a first step.

On Oct. 21, interviewers from the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics (INEI) will arrive in 2,200 indigenous communities in the Amazon region, armed with census forms bearing 37 questions that will put these people back on the country’s data map.

This detailed survey will be carried out in 11 of the 25 administrative regions into which the country is divided: Amazonas, Cusco, Junín, Madre de Dios, Ucayali, Pasco, Huanuco, Loreto, San Martín, Cajamarca and Ayacucho.

Since Peru’s independence in 1821, 10 national censuses have been carried out, but only once, in 1993, was specific information gathered about ethnic and multicultural aspects of the population, even though international guidelines require it. ... Full story

"To most independent observers it seems plain that Israel's cruel, aggressive and expansionist policies have resulted in a steady deterioration in its strategic environment."

by Patrick Seale, Al-Hayat

What would it take to persuade Israel to rethink its attitude towards its Arab neighbours - and primarily towards the Palestinians? The Hamas victory in Gaza is surely a clear signal that an Israeli change of direction is urgently needed.

All Israel`s efforts to break the democratically-elected Hamas government have failed. Its policies of boycott, siege and starvation, of bombing and shelling, of extra-judicial murder, of withholding tax revenues, of the systematic destruction of Palestinian institutions have served only to create a time-bomb of hunger, despair and defiance on Israel's flank.

Yet Israel appears to have learned nothing. Instead of seeking peace with the Arabs - instead of seizing their outstretched hand - it persists in rejecting all peace overtures, preferring to rely on force and still more force, and on its ability to manipulate its American ally. ... Full story

By Mario de Queiroz

LISBON (IPS) - The violence, corruption and generalised poverty marring more than three decades of independence in Portugal's five former colonies in Africa, and five years of independence in East Timor, have been the main obstacles for development in these countries, but not the only ones.

Brain drain is another phantom that is slowly but inexorably destroying hopes for progress and wellbeing for the people of Guinea-Bissau, which became independent in 1974, Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Sao Tome and Principe, which became independent in 1975, and East Timor, independent since 2002.

Skilled and academically qualified people from African countries where Portuguese is an official language often give up their status in their unstable home countries to build a new life in peaceful Portugal, even if it means sacrificing their former careers and having to take up a hastily learned, lower skilled job.

In contrast, many of those who earn a degree in universities in Portugal, thanks to scholarships offered to young people in the six former Portuguese colonies by the Portuguese Institute for Development Support (IPAD), and return to their countries of origin find jobs in the professional sector. ... Full story

"We believe the economy should be based on human beings," and that capital, investment, the profit motive and the workings of the state should be subordinate to human beings."

By Kintto Lucas

QUITO (IPS) - The landslide victory for Ecuador's governing Movimiento Alianza País in the election for a constituent assembly to rewrite the Ecuadorean constitution has cleared the way for the foundations to be laid for a "solidarity economy."

Alberto Acosta, a 58-year-old economist with strong ties to the country's environmental and indigenous movements, was the candidate who garnered the greatest number of votes on Sunday [Sept. 30], which means he is likely to preside over the constituent assembly when it begins its work in November.

In an interview with IPS, he stressed the need for the new constitution to establish the framework of an economy based on solidarity, and argued that the "neoliberal" free-market model followed by previous governments must be dismantled. ... Full story

By Gustavo Capdevila GENEVA (IPS) - The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold an emergency session next week to discuss the bloody crackdown on protests by the military regime in Burma, which has left an unspecified number of Buddhist monks and other demonstrators dead and injured this week and hundreds under arrest.

The decision by the highest U.N. human rights body was the finishing touch to its three-week ordinary session, which was largely dedicated to procedural matters.

It is not clear how many protesters were killed this week in Burma, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets, led by Buddhist monks. Some media outlets have reported 13 or 14 deaths, but diplomats in Rangoon have warned that the death toll may be much higher, and activists speak of up to 200 victims of the security forces.

In Burma, which has been ruled by successive military regimes since a 1962 coup, a wave of protests broke out in mid-August, triggered by a 500 percent hike in oil prices. The demonstrations are the biggest since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was crushed with brutal force, with some 3,000 civilians killed by the army. ... Full story

Researchers at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff have discovered ancient British recipes dating back 8000 years. Among the foods popular in Neolithic times are roast hedgehog, nettle pudding and fish-gut sauce. The oldest recorded of the foods is nettle pudding, which involved blending nettle leaves with barley flour, salt and water before they were added to stews as a form of dumpling.

By Tom Segev

Mischa Shauli sat at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., completely beside himself. It had been years since the first time he heard about the existence of a document said to prove that Stalin, not Hitler, bore the main responsibility for World War II, and for years he had searched for it with all his skills as a professional detective. Shauli's last position was as Commander Shauli, Representative of the Israel Police in Russia. Previous to that he had been head of the police fraud investigation unit for the Southern District.

A few years ago Shauli read "Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War," by Bogdan Rozen. Rozen, who now lives in England, wrote it under the pseudonym of Viktor Suvorov. Shauli, impressed by the book, translated it into Hebrew and saw to its publication here.

From out of the sea of details, a coherent thesis emerges: Stalin dragged Hitler into war to force Europe into chaos and facilitate a communist revolution on the continent. According to Shauli, there is evidence to back up this theory, including a speech by Stalin himself as well as a report obtained by the U.S. Consulate in Prague. The report has been mentioned here and there over the years, but it has never been published, because no one knows where it is today. ... Full story

By Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY (IPS) - While governments and the representatives of international agencies celebrated the approval of the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples after more than two decades of negotiations, some native leaders and experts in Latin America were less enthusiastic.

In their criticism of the document, indigenous leaders Manuel Castro of Ecuador and Luis Andrade of Colombia, as well as the former director of the Inter-American Indigenous Institute, José del Val, pointed out to IPS that it is non-binding, and that parts of it were negotiated with little participation by the representatives of its presumptive beneficiaries.

A slightly different stance was taken by the spokesman for the Rigoberto Menchú Foundation, Elmer Erazo, who said the Declaration could be considered a stride forward "to the extent that indigenous people make use of it."

But, he told IPS, "it's nothing to jump up and down about."

The Declaration was adopted Thursday by majority vote in the United Nations General Assembly. Only four countries -- the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand -- voted against it, while Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Samoa and Ukraine abstained.

The 12-page Declaration states that indigenous peoples have the right "to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs".

It also says native peoples have the right to maintain their cultures and to not be displaced from their land, and urges states to indemnify them when their land or resources are used or damaged without their consent. .... Full story