Thank you for not smoking; now here's some money.

June 1st 2007 – All around the world smoking is bad, not because of the toxic and cancer- causing substances or the chemical dependence factor but because the Western World says so. Yes, eastern countries are pressured into enforcing anti-tobacco legislation to be able to benefit from the patronage of the west.

In a concrete example, two countries have preoccupied themselves with anti-smoking advertising and legislation this week. First, the pacific island nation of Fiji has been increasing its publicity campaigns which boast such hard-hitting slogans as “the longer one smokes, the greater the risk”. They also encourage non-smoking with real approaches such as “positive behavioural changes through health promotion strategies”, powerful, powerful stuff. The article from the Fiji Times Online brings up awards and encouragements by hospitals and medical professionals…no, no wait, from the United Nations and the World Health Organisation to motivate the strong left-turn against cigarettes.

Secondly, the small, wealthy and new nation of UAE or the United Arab Emirates has gone further by informing the population of upcoming anti-smoking legislation. Soon, tobacco products will be illegal to consume in or near government buildings and in or near public spaces including bars. The article from their news website (http://www.gulfnews.com/) states that the population will support the law because it wants to stop but does not have the willpower. This, of course, is brought to us after we are told that the law was actually instated to conform to the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention of Tobacco Control.

These are only two contemporary examples of non-Western countries accepting and enforcing Western values to “fit in” on the international checkerboard. You can guess that this is not a new phenomenon.

I cite the decolonisation of Africa in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. When the European masters left the countries without resources and after 70 years of administration, they left disorganised factions to fight for the power. This led to European-style conflicts with European and Western values at stake. As an example, when the Belgians left Congo (Kinshasa) in 1960, two factions were ready and willing to go to war for the power. Patrice Lumumba came out on top with a democratic reform and organised elections, something that was unheard of in this vast country and that has never happened again as of 2007. Somehow, the Congolese people fell victim to the Cold War. Lumumba’s opponents asked and received support from the capitalist Americans in return for the diamond and uranium deposits the country still contained. By consequence, Lumumba searched for support from the Communist USSR. Thus began the Cold War on the African continent. It was by an abandonment of African values and a willing submission to Western Values and conflicts. They had never read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations or Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto but were fighting for the principles created by them. As an epilogue, it was discovered in the late 1990s that Lumumba’s mysterious disappearance in 1960 was in fact accomplished by his assassination and dissolution in a bathtub full of acid. It was also discovered that his political opponents had killed him days before the CIA assassination attempt had reached him.

This article does not condone smoking, smoking in bars or secret assassinations (thank you Freedom of Information Act) but it rather deplores the hypocritical application of western values to other nations. Some countries still have civil war but are pressured into adopting pro-environment reforms by the European Union or the World Health Organisation or the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund or the World Wildlife Fund or UNICEF or the United Nations… No one seems to see anything wrong with this, what a screwed up sense of priorities.

(Pictured: Patrice Lumumba in his 67 day term in 1960 - a smoking smoke)

End.