THE COMMODIFICATION OF LIFE

It's almost 40 years ago since Bob Dylan penned these words, which I actually used in a sermon last summer:

“Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody”

But it's almost 2000 years ago since this Lord himself stated:

            "No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Or Mammon as the King James Version of the Bible used to say.

These two statements came to mind as it struck me recently how much we in 21^st century North America have sold out to Mammon. As I put it in my title, we have quite thoroughly commodified life, from beginning to end. Now, I am no economist, so some might argue with some of what I have to say. However, as we are becoming increasingly aware, we are running into problems with this commodification.

Are there any remaining basic human rights or needs that do not now have a price on them in some way or other? I’m not speaking here of the details that go into modern human rights codes, which concern mostly psycho-sociological areas. I am talking about fundamental things like air, water, food, clothing and shelter. And of course, another life essential, good health, has long been commodified. However, as was also impressed upon me this week in my volunteering with the City of Richmond’s Family and Youth Court Committee, even justice has been commodified.

Now, what do I mean by ‘commodifiction?’ Two on-line definitions should suffice:

1.     the action or process of treating something as a mere commodity (Google).

2.     the transformation of goods, services, ideas and people into commodities, or objects of trade…objects of economic value (Wikipedia).

Indeed, interestingly, Google shows a graph with the definition that indicates the use of this word has really only taken off towards the latter part of the 20^th century. That is not surprising, as the concerns I have about the commodification going on in the areas I mentioned in the last paragraph have really escalated in that time period.

So, is air commodified? Not so much yet in North America. However, in parts of Asia, beginning notably in Japan, and spreading from there, air pollution has some time ago already resulted in oxygen being sold on the street to help you cope with the toxic air.

I scarcely need to tell you about water. Most jurisdictions in our continent, too many Indian Reserves notwithstanding, still provide a service of supplying us with quite satisfactorily potable water. However, because of our excessive concerns for our health, we have fallen prey to huge multinationals exploitation of our own water supplies. Most of us probably know how corporations like Nestle get away with extracting our underground water resources for pennies and selling it to us for dollars. I like to sometimes point out to people that one well-known brand of water tells it all; Evian – spell it backwards. And then we keep getting reminded by those who stand up for our water rights, or indigenous neighbours and organizations like the Council of Canadians, that others, like our increasingly dry neighbour to the south, are eyeing our water and would just love to buy some of it.

Food? There are all kinds of monetary issues around food. The value of commercial crops like grains are sold on futures markets in the stock exchange where they are simply referred to as commodity markets. Our health fanaticism has again resulted in our being gullible to all the hype and marketing around natural and organic foods – for a higher price, of course. Then we have, especially in this country, all sorts of boards that control prices of commodities like milk and eggs. Sometimes, food production is subsidized. 

Clothing?  Seriously – you don’t think commodification is here too? Anything with a brand on it is always sold at a higher price than no-name apparel, whether that brand refers to a corporation or is the logo of some sports team, for example. And if you don’t wear the right brand, well, be ready for some negative reactions from your insensitive classmates or snobby peers. When it comes to fashion, shoes and accessories, the sky is the limit. Ladies, want a little clutch purse for $3,000? My young friend will sell you one. You probably couldn’t fit $3,000 worth of bills in it. I won’t even begin to go into cosmetics and all of that. Beauty has been extremely commodified into sales of billions; what the Creator gave us is no longer good enough.

Now, housing – homes – has become a serious area of concern. A mere thirty years ago, owning a home was probably still an average dream of young people. It was just something that came with growing up and starting a family. Sure, people sometimes made goodly sums by selling homes in areas where value was going up for some reason or other. However, now? Things are entirely out of hand in too many part of the world. In our global village, there are too many people with too much money who think nothing of plopping a few million down for a house, or a few of them. That used to be the purview of deep-pocketed ‘developers’ etc. No longer. Before the ink is dry on the bill of sale, the houses are already being ‘flipped’ for a higher price. It’s not a home that is being bought. It’s an investment. Indeed, just as on the stock market or an auction, it’s not uncommon for the house or condominium to go to the highest bidder, often reaching heights well beyond the asking price. Meanwhile, those who want and need ‘homes’ get shut out of ‘the market.’

I also mentioned health. In our country, we try to retain basic health care as a service, not a commodity. But would you not agree that dentistry – are teeth not essential? – and the pharmaceutical and related [neutraceutical and supplements] industries are really dealing at commodity levels? There are also constant forces, again mostly coming from south of the border, with some notable challenges from within (e.g. Dr. Brian Day and his supporters here in BC) that would like all of health care to be more commodified.

While we are talking about health care, it’s a small step to talk about life.  Now, you can pay to start life - to get fertilized, or inseminated, to have a conceptus implanted in a womb. That’s the beginning of life. We know that genetic modification is in the wings here too – for a fee, of course – just as it has long been with food and animals. And if you think you have lived long enough, or find life insufferable – you can get help to end it – for a fee.

Then there’s justice. Isn’t that a right for all? I told my wife yesterday maybe justice should become a service like health care, along with dentistry and pharmacy. We have had so-called Legal Aid for some time – government – (now mostly woefully under-)funded. But we know too well that too many don’t get justice because they can’t afford the high-priced legal help that might get them their due. Some of the worst abuses in this area have been our own Canadian lawyers pocketing millions from disenfranchised and abused, traumatized indigenous people to supposedly help them get their due in the aftermath of the residential school revelations.

Is there an area of life I have overlooked? Love? Faith? One could write a lot about how money figures into those areas in our world too. But you get the picture. Whom do we serve? It’s certainly not mostly “the Lord.” If it truly was – well, I guess we have to wait for Him to return to get us there.

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem? Not so fast...

To those of us concerned about the situation in the Middle East, there is new cause for concern and prayer. Perhaps even letters to appropriate authorities so cool heads prevail.

My wife and I had an enjoyable first visit to the small nation of Jordan at the end of April this year. At the time, although we were informed of stresses the country was experiencing, it also appeared that it was somewhat of an oasis of peace in the area, or as our guide referred to it, ‘the hole in the doughnut.’ You can read more of our experiences in this regard at http://reflect-lulu-isle.blogspot.ca/2017/05/2017-5-17-report-on-jordan.html .

We learned that Jordan seemed to be at peace with its western neighbor, Israel. In fact, we were told that there was a good deal of business going on between the two nations, and that Jewish businessmen even lived in Jordan and carried on their business there. All of this followed Jordan’s signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. Therefore, it was troubling to read in the news recently about a recurrence of friction between the two nations. Just the same, this report suggests Israel was in some ways blackmailing Jordan into accepting their demands as these incidents unfolded:

“Jordan relies on Israel for much of its economic stability. With an annual $39 billion GDP, compared with Israel’s $320 billion for roughly the same population size, Jordan could go under without Israeli support.

Under the 1994 peace treaty, Israel provides Jordan, a desert country, 13 billion gallons per year of fresh water from the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). More than 200,000 Israelis vacation in Jordan, which is starved for foreign currency. Jordan is expected to receive natural gas at a bargain-basement cost from Israel’s Tamar and Leviathan offshore fields. In a country with a soaring unemployment—at least 30 percent, much higher among youths—Israeli businesses have established industry in Jordan, taking advantage of the lower pay across the river.” https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/92370/jordans-king-vows-stop-judaisation-temple-mount/#boZkqZjyMiIlZKpY.99

The immediate incitement for the current situation started with Israel’s closure – again – of the Temple Mount, in the old city of Jerusalem, to Muslims wanting to come to the Al-Aqsa Mosque for prayers. This followed the murder of two Israeli Druze police officers in an attack on Israeli guards at the Temple Mount by 3 Palestinian youths. There is no excuse for such attacks but we do have to keep in mind that these things happen when the temperature in the pot – Israeli occupied Palestine – whose lid keeps held shut by Israel, which is their short-sighted way of trying to keep themselves secure – gets too hot and some ‘steam’ escapes. Then Israel throws tear gas and shoots rubber bullets back into the pot, which does not help in the long run. But I carry the figure of speech too far.  

I leave it to a Christian Palestinian brother we met last year, who is an academic in Bethlehem, to describe what happened next:

“Jordanians are very upset.  An Israeli security official at a private apartment building shoots the owner of the
building and a 17-year-old worker installing furniture and runs off to a hero's welcome in Tel Aviv [This is the incident referred to, quoting from Israeli paper, Haaretz:

The guard at the Israeli Embassy in Amman was stabbed on Sunday by a Jordanian carpenter who was installing furniture in his apartment near the embassy compound. The Israeli security officer, who was lightly wounded in the incident, shot and killed the attacker. His landlord, who was also present during the incident, was also wounded during the incident and later died of his wounds. http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.803076?utm_content=%2Fisrael-news%2F1.803076&utm_medium=email&utm_source=smartfocus&utm_campaign=shivuk-haaretz-news ].

The two victims? One a Muslim, one a Christian. One of Palestinian origin (refugee family) and the other [of] Jordanian lineage. One young, one old. One highly educated (practicing doctor) and one who has not finished school. One friendly to Israel and rents to their officials[;] the other more nationalist. Israeli murderers [have] showed all [of the] people in the world repeatedly that they do not distinguish "goyim" [Gentiles] from one another.

Hopefully some day that killer [will] be brought back to Jordan to face justice.

Yet, our actions do make a difference. Israeli forces finally complied with Internationally law temporarily by removing the illegal electronic gates and corrals leading to [the] Al-Aqsa compound. Western media ignored the massive popular resistance (non-violent) that made the difference. They also ignored the cost of our success: 4 murdered Palestinians and hundreds injured (and no support from most governments). 

The last two sentences of our friend's newsletter about the situation reflect the chain of events that followed the original action on the Temple Mount. There were violent Palestinian protests/riots against Israel's response to the incident. These are always disappointing and we wish they would not happen, as they only make things worse, but remember the boiling pot metaphor. Some of the injuries our friend mentions occurred as a result of Israel's action to put down that violence. Some of it occurs when Israel, as is usually the practice, uses the opportunity to use its muscle against the occupied Palestinians in other parts of the so-called West Bank, as part of their ongoing campaign of harassment and intimidation of Palestinians, which often includes many innocent individuals, for any alleged (by Israel) negative action on the part of any Palestinian.

However, getting back to my original concern, the increased tension between Jordan and Israel as a result of all of this, which I don’t think has received much attention in most Western media. There were protests in Jordan against Israel's action https://worldisraelnews.com/jordanians-enraged-by-israels-closure-of-temple-mount-in-response-to-terror/ . Some of this was because Jordan’s Muslim sector has a role to play in the guarding of the Temple Mount mosque. Some is because there are a large number of expatriate Palestinians in Jordan, and some of them may simply have been reacting as were their compatriots in Israel and Palestine. The third reason would be simply that Jordan is predominantly Muslim, and there would be a more extremist element that would react this way.

Then the lawmakers and governing bodies, the leaders of both Israel and Jordan started the usual wars of words, threatened reprisals and shifting of embassy personnel that nations engage in when these things happen https://worldisraelnews.com/jordan-lawmakers-praise-jerusalem-attack-criticize-israel/ There were skirmishes near the Israeli embassy in Jordan with an Israeli security guard being killed. One Israeli media source reported:

 [ https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/92051/stabbing-israeli-embassy-jordan-terrorist-shot/] “The unusual incident began when a team of carpenters came to install furniture in one of the apartments where the Israeli security guards live, near the Amman embassy compound. One of the workers crept behind the officer and began to stab him with a screwdriver - at which point the officer jumped back, cocked his weapon and fired. He was lightly wounded in the jump.

The guard arrived at the embassy immediately following the incident. A Foreign Ministry official noted that he is an accredited diplomat, immune from interrogation and arrest under the Vienna Convention.” http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.803117?utm_content=%2Fisrael-news%2F1.803117&utm_medium=email&utm_source=smartfocus&utm_campaign=shivuk-haaretz-news

As a time of this writing, the situation seems to be resolving, at least for now. Israel has removed the metal detectors which where an added aggravation for the Muslims wanting to worship at the Temple Mount. All of this just underscores again though, how volatile this region continues to be.

Many Christians repeat the phrase,”Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” That is a limited and narrow-minded view of what is needed. We need, as Christians, to pray for the peace of everyone in the region, not just Jerusalem. We especially need to remember our Christian brothers and sisters in all of these nations. When it comes to Palestine, Israel makes little distinction as to whether those they trouble are Christian or Muslim. Yet, too many Christians in the west blindly support Israel, which, in effect, means they are leaving their Christian brothers and sisters in the region vulnerable. This is not acceptable. God’s love does not distinguish between Jews, Christian, Muslim or other. If we follow Jesus’ command to love our neighbors, even our enemies, this includes everyone.

Colonialism and the State of Israel

I am not the first person to put these words together in this way. And, when I raise this topic, I am not talking about imperialist powers of previous millennia and their actions in this area. I am writing about the last 150 years.

Let me be brief and to the point when it comes to the history part. In 1917, Palestine, as it has been called since at least AD 135, was under the rule of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. It was losing its grip and the European powers were muscling into the area. Britain obtained a mandate to rule the area. There was some increase in agriculture and manufacturing on their watch. The Palestinians who had been there, some from before Israel ever entered the land in Abraham’s day, with more joining their ranks during successive empires in the last millennium before Christ, saw their numbers swelled by Arabs moving in from surrounding nations to take advantage of increased employment opportunities. Muslims were in the majority but there were many Christians, tracing their faith heritage to Christ’s time. Starting in the late 19^th century, the small number of Jews who had made their way back to the land since Rome expelled them in the first century, were joined by increasing numbers of immigrants, mostly from Europe. This led to unrest between them and the Palestinians to the point where Britain tried to stem the flow of Jewish immigrants, but not very successfully.

Then, in 1948, Jewish Zionist visionaries and their armed supporters were granted statehood by the United Nations over a strictly demarcated limited portion of the land the Jews claimed in their biblical heyday, including division of Jerusalem itself. The fledgling nation of Jordan was given power over the non-Israeli portion of Palestine, including East Jerusalem.

Here is where we can see the parallels to what the Israelis have done over the last 150 years to what colonial powers have done throughout history, including Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, Belgium and others. Now, I must grant right from the outset, that the historical circumstances are somewhat different. In the case of European colonials, they were entering into territories where they had not lived before. Here, we have the Jews wanting to return to a land they claimed as theirs going back to a couple of millennia BC. However, the behaviours, the patterns of activities, are very much the same.

As with European powers, Israel began occupying the land, or re-occupying if you will. Likewise, when their moves were met with resistance by the local Palestinians and their allies, they were suppressed, often brutally, with military might. Israel took control of ever more land and ever more facets of life of the previous inhabitants and their descendants. To try to solidify their claims, they adopted an age-old tactic of the victors – rewriting history. Right from the outset, one of the Zionist slogans was, “A land without people, for a people without land.” This was in spite of their being somewhere in the neighbourhood of at least 750,000 Palestinians in some 900 villages spread over this small tract of land, not to mention Jerusalem, Haifa and other growing centres. To this day, pro-Israel writers try to deny Palestinian claims to the land by emphasizing Israel’s historical claims and denying those of the Palestinians, minimizing the duration of Palestinian occupancy and numbers at every turn.

In North America and Southern Africa, there were systems of racial separation for centuries. The conquered were forced to live in reserves or homelands. In Israel and Palestine, they are called refugee camps. The impact is the same. The Palestinians who live in Israel are called Arabs, an attempt by Israel to identify them with their Arab neighbours, as if to say, that is where they came from, that is who they are, and that is where they should be. They don’t refer to Palestinians, so as not to give that name credibility.  The Palestinians who live in Israel are second class citizens in many ways. Israel likes to claim they are the only democracy in the Middle East, with voting rights given to Palestinians living in their boundaries, with their being represented in Parliament by elected members. However, even these are restricted and often jailed on slim pretenses, rendering much of their representation powerless.

Colonial powers have often tried to assimilate their subjects to their way of life. Israel is not even that beneficent, if you can say that about the attempts of the European powers in the past. Israel’s ultimate aim is to push all the Palestinians out and claim all the land given to Palestine in 1948 for themselves and the Jews. Their tactics and pronouncements have demonstrated that ever since the Zionist forces began to make inroads into the land, even before 1948.

The record of the colonial powers in the Americas and the third world has been far from exemplary. However, over time, practically all of the former colonies have regained their independence. In the Americas, this has not meant the indigenous populations gained control. It only meant the settlers and their descendants established their own governments in the former colonies. The ‘natives’ are still largely under the thumbs of the settlers. Well, that is still certainly the case in Israel. In other former colonies though, there has been an increasing awareness of past injustices and attempts begun to right them. To be sure, there are many Jews in Israel and in the Jewish Diaspora who think in those ways too. However, until those elements ever get to form the government, things continue to look pretty bleak for the Palestinians. Indeed, for a variety of selfish reasons of their own, the Western powers continue to support Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, especially the United States. Until they see the injustices they are supporting in the so-called Holy Land, there will be no peace there. For a Christian like myself, the real tragedy here is that far too many so-called Christians blindly support their governments, abandoning their Christian brothers and sisters and forgetting all about Jesus’ and the Prophets’ teachings about love and justice. We continue to hope and pray for change. What else can we do about it? I leave that question to you, dear reader.