Upside Down

Tagged as Books

Written on 2008-03-17 18:09:16

I'll try to actually write something useful in here (be it technology ruminations, code, or an essay) soon. For now, I'm too busy working, having fun, and sharing content with you all.

Today, I'm posting an excerpt from Eduardo Galeano's Upside Down. It's the first thing of Galeano's that I read (on recommendation from a friend) and I still think it's probably my favorite thing of his I've read. This excerpt is called Language and it's the first in a set of 3, taken from page 37.

"Companies are called multinationals because they operate in many countries at once, but they belong to the few countries that monopolize wealth; political, military, and cultural power; scientific knowledge; and advanced technology. The ten biggest multinationals today earn more than a hundred countries put together do.
"Developing countries" is the name that experts use to designate countries trampled by someone else's development. According to the United Nations, developing countries send developed countries ten times as much money through unequal trade and financial relations as they receive through foreign aid.
In international relations, "foreign aid" is what they call the little tax that vice pays to virtue. Foreign aid is generally distributed in ways that confirm injustice, rarely in ways that counter it. In 1995, black Africa suffered 75 percent of the world's AIDS cases but received 3 percent of the funds spent by international organization on AIDS prevention."

Well, what do you think?

• ← Previous
• Next →