Death Of Workers In Bangladesh, In Germany

They, the workers burned to death in Bangladesh on a November day, are now a number only. In Germany, in another November day, disabled workers also died in a factory. They are also mere numbers.

And, they are symbols of a time and of a system, symbols of an approach to accumulation by a few. And, they are a call to repudiate and reject the system that flourishes on life.

Flaming fire in a garments factory in Ashulia near the Bangladesh capital city of Dhaka, and the death of the garments factory workers, more than a hundred, are now almost old news.

In Germany, at least 14 workers died. They were disabled workers. The disabled persons had to generate surplus value and the capital appropriated that value. This was also a fire and smoke incident.

Along with passing time, last traces of the news shall turn into peep onto newspaper pages. Within days, the last follow ups of the news shall find its place in limbo.

Even, a faint melancholy shall not keep the memories of the burned-to-death-workers alive neither in Bangladesh nor in Germany.

A silence of indifference shall faithfully spread its shroud over the death of the workers, considered insignificant and expendable to the system. It’s the dust of unawareness that the system shrewdly spreads over such “accidents”, and passes time with crafty management as it believes “time is the best healer”.

It’s not the first incident that has made the workers encounter death. Scores of similar incidents preceded it. All the incidents got assurances of effective steps so that work force is not “spent” in such an inefficient manner.

Then, time moved. And, time took away more workers to the silence of death as time moved to the past. The current Bangladesh and German numbers – more than 100 and at least 14 – are a new addition only, and only to be forgotten, and only to be ignored by the system.

The systems’ strength is the inertia of a major section of the society, the workers’ unawareness and lack of functional steps, weakness of the workers’ organization, lack of the workers’ political mobilization, the broader society’s apathy and indifference, and a significant section’s collaboration.

So, the system thrives, thrives on plunder, on appropriation, on sufferings, pains and deaths of the toilers.

Workers’ death, workers burned to death and the poor burned to death are regular “incidents” in Bangladesh society. Bangladesh newspapers carry the evidence. These are in factories, in city slums. An advanced capitalist society, Germany, does not stand as an exception.

And, the evidence exposes the seemingly innocent face of a system that survives and flourishes on the workers, the toilers’ labor and the working persons’ sacrifices.

And, the evidence exposes the harsh truth: the most dispossessed sacrifice the most for most of the gains by the most minority social class.

The cruel fact repeatedly comes out: the system can flourish only at the expense of the toilers, the working people. And, it’s the system’s only path to fill up its bottomless basket of greed.

Then, the system owns sweet smiles, soothing words, consoling assurances, faces painted with lines of pains, pens composing mal-arguments that buy scholarship, respectability and acceptability, personalities that market confusion with disjointed sentences forming illogic.

This is a system with masks. Mookhash, Mask, a Bangla poem, tells the fact: The system with masks amasses huge wealth although its hands are invisible, and, there are masks of cow, sheep, and goat.

Monkeys, jackals, wolves, leopards, hyenas having masks of human faces are also abundant in the system. This enables the system to make death of workers, hundreds over the last few years, mere numbers.

It’s safe for the system as long as it dominates workers’ politics, as long as it can manipulate workers’ movement with organizations equipped with anti-worker ideology, as long as it can put its subalterns on the position of workers’ leadership, as long as only rage dominates scientific analysis, as long as vandalism and inconsistent slogans command workers’ unorganized, unaware initiatives.

A cost-profit analysis keeps capital assured that labor turned to ashes is not a loss now. Cheap labor gluts the market. A large reserve army of labor makes labor cheap. Political intrigues or competition, whatever the background is, labor is expandable by the system. So, to the system, a callous handling of labor is not dangerous. The system is much careful with all its costly commodities. Its costly commodities don’t turn ashes.

The two countries, Bangladesh and Germany, are far away from each other. They are far away in terms of geographical distance, economy, culture, management system, class character of property owners, politics.

In a country, the dominating capital is mature. In another, it’s shamelessly crude, rustic, immature that even don’t know the art of camouflaging its face and character. In a country, the dominating capital is much old while in another, it’s quite nouveau, absolute upstart, in essence lumpen.

In both the countries, the dominating capital is defended; but in one, it’s done craftily while the other generates incoherent logic and arguments that proudly stand below juvenile level.

And, the two countries are closer. They are closer in terms of appropriation of surplus value, accumulation, dominating philosophy. In both the countries, dominating interests are fundamentally the same: appropriators. This ties the workers together.

The two economies are closer in terms of intensifying appropriation of labor. In one, the method has a sober face while the other fails to hide its rough approach.

The labor in both the economies finds capital as hostile. Both the economies fail to arrange full employment. Both the economies curtail labor’s bargaining space.

There’s no difference between black labor and white labor, between western labor and eastern labor, as is propagated by a section. And, there is no logic to identify capital as only western. The fundamental contradictions between labor and capital remain the same. Capital’s globalization has widened and sharpened these.

Whatever analyses are done, whatever losses or profits are calculated, and whatever political intrigues or competitions form background of the incidents, the deprived labor’s pains shall persist as long as labor is shackled.

Death Of Those Garments Workers

Thirty-one workers died of fire and smoke in a garments factory near Savar, a few km from Dhaka, as parts of the factory gutted on Dec. 14, 2010.

What’s her name? And, his? His? Her?

What’s the use value with their names? They had names. But those names are useless now. They are nameless. Or, they could be identified with any name. Shefalee, Halima, Rafiqul, Kabirul, Shohaagee. Below-ordinary guys they were. The names were below-ordinary. Humbled and shackled life bears no name. At terminal point, they just turn into number.

They were faceless. Do faceless souls bear any name? No. Even, names with faceless souls carry no name-value. Put on any face on there. Any face will fit in appropriately.

Yes. Those faceless faces smiled. Those faceless faces bore lines of pain, overflowing pains. And, at moments, silent signs of anger played on corners of those faces. But all those, pains, anger and smiles slipped into oblivion at regular intervals, into unknown unconscious universe.

They just embodied labor, a source of resource. They embodied labor-power. They were wage-slaves. And, also were sellers. They sold whatever they had. They had only that labor to sell. No commodity could be produced without their labor-power, and no profit could be pocketed without appropriating their labor. But they had no control on their labor-power.

They had liberty. They had no liberty. They were at liberty not to go to labor market and not to sale their labor. But as hunger was their companion, as uncertainty was their associate, as fear was their yokefellow, as there were dependents on them back at home, they had to turn slave to wage, they had to mortgage their liberty, they had to forget the opportunities liberty offered.

What the fears they carried in their brains?

The same fears all wage-slaves carry. A sense of “perpetual insecurity…. Fear of losing a job. Fear of not finding a job. …Fear of boss’s wrath.” (Michael D. Yates “Class: A Personal Story”) The fear of, as Sweezy wrote, losing face if turned unemployed. Those were ordinary, simple, petty fears, the fears petty guys nourish: the Lilliputian fear of going hungry, going uncared and untreated if turned sick, the petty fear of eviction from rented home, the trivial fear of failure to maintain family of insignificant dependents. Those fears carry neither use value nor exchange value in markets that sale incensed candles and diamond ornaments and skin whitening cream.

Had they no dream?

Probably, they had. Probably, there was no space for dream. Only hunger, only empty stomach, only thirst for survival, only the desire to squelch an antagonistic time overwhelmed their dream. Or, probably, that thirst, that desire to squelch was their dream. Time worked like a wrench on their life, and pulled out whatever dream they had. Or, probably, needles, threads, buttons and hooks, constantly circling smaller wheels, sharp blades cutting cloth, or, bright lights over head, panes separating them from sunlight, or, railroad stripe, sunny side, true blue, winter wheat, sunset pink, pitch black, white, yellow, green and sky blue colors overwhelmed their dreams. Probably, their dream fleeted away towards an absent crimson red. It turned fugitive. Fugitive dreams those were.

What the thoughts they had in their last moments?

What can they think of? The near-to-illiterate or semi-literate folks, almost a nuisance in an honestly crook world, don’t think. They just produce, just consume, they just consume only to produce. A sub-human life bears no power to think of anything. How can a guy think if the guy goes down to the level of machine, if the fellow befriends machine and turns into part of machine? Machine’s rhythm is their rhythm of life. How can a folk think if he sells out all his time to a merchant named mere survival? They join production line, come back to their dingy dens, consume vulgarly and sleep haphazardly only to turn fit for next day’s production. They were miser enough not to allocate any space for reflection. Or, they were not masters of their time that could allow them to think or perceive or reflect. Their last moments probably failed to get separated from that time in cage.

Or, probably, they recollected some hopeless faces waiting for them. Probably, those were the hapless faces of their mothers, of fathers or wives, or of innocent faces of their children, minor, absolutely unaware of powerful tentacles of cruel reality. Probably, they thought of their fate abandoned even by fractions of fortune.

Or, probably, they had no intellectual capacity to think at all. That capacity probably has been forfeited long ago.

How many are they, those perished into flames and smokes in the garments factory there near Savar, Dhaka in mid-December?

The number, one or thirty-one, does not matter. Insignificant persons create no number. They have no power to generate that arithmetical articulation. Number-game doesn’t take them into account. Their produce is calculated only. And, to ensure that produce their consumption is monitored. Their consumption creates markets. That is carefully calculated. They will fail to produce if they don’t consume. Capital cannot be generated if they fail to consume. That consumption-failure will bring in failure in production, in productivity and consequently, in regeneration of capital. Their consumption up to a level is good news.

And, the perished-numbers there in a gutted garments factory near Savar is a mere single incident or accident, a simple addition to the numbers over the years. Taking into account will simply over-burden a sympathetic mind. It is better to forget those numbers. There is nothing to worry as long as there is a huge reserve army of labor in waiting. New numbers will join in the ranks behind machines. Perished-numbers are always gone with memories. Chariots of commodities will circle trade centers. Is not it better to forget those perished despite their strivings to survive? There are lots of Natha, the burned to death fall guy of Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan’s Peepli Live. Forget them. Are not they forgotten? Doesn’t it bring peace to a sound mind if they are forgotten?

But shall they be forgotten?

Difficult question to answer. Probably. Probably, they will not be. The perished are not necessary-numbers. There is a burgeoning reserve army of labor. Rather, some tricky accounting method will find out an extra niche for extra profit with the perish- puzzle.

A thin possibility of have-not-forgotten-you may reside in the fading memories of an old mother, an ailing father, a young widow with unfriendly world around, a sister, a brother, a daughter or a son. But the grieved will not be allowed to shed tears as a very powerful force will push them out from the grave of grief. It is the force of hunger, the force of poverty, a major force that shapes lives of millions, that shapes politics. The certainty of uncertainty will pull them out and will not allow them to keep the memories of the perished-numbers for long. The grieved below-ordinary near ones have to dry down tears as soon as possible as the whip of survival will dictate that way and they have to run and rush for finding out food, for finding shelter. It is like luxury to them to sit idle and shed tears. The competing forces in market economy cannot afford that inefficient use of body-power that creates tears.

But time will tick. Probably, someday somewhere someone will dig out facts of perished garments workers’ last sleep from the pages of newspapers and from online-news sites and calculate the cost labor paid in search of a decent life.

---------------------------------

This article was published at countercurrents.org , on 15^th December, 2010