I am not a believer in any religion. A spiritual friend left a comment on one of my previous posts about putting an end to war. It got me thinking because he wrote about The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse mentioned in The Bible. Please click on this link to find out more about The Four Horsemen.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Victor Vasnetsov(1887)
Image: Wikimedia Commons
The third horseman, riding the black horse, is called Famine. The black colour of the third horse could be a symbol of famine. Its rider holds a scale, which could be a representation of the ’scales of pitiless justice’ which commonly represent inequality and corruption. Some religious interpreters may believe that the black horse stands for capitalism.
I tend to agree with them, though I keep my distance from any religion. I believe the rider on the black horse represents the evil forces of ‘free market capitalism’.
Let us take a look at what those evil forces have done to our beautiful planet and a majority of her inhabitants. Take a look at this wikipedia article about the escalating food price crisis on the planet.
Hunger and rioting in different countries
Capitalism is all about the love of money. Money by itself is not bad as we cannot go back to the barter system but I have heard this a few times, “The love of money is the root of all evil“. Well, there is no harm in loving money either, as everyone has a right to lead a decent life in this imperfect world, but once people begin to love money so much that the idea of oxymoronous ‘free market capitalism’ begins to replace humanity in their hearts, the following is the result.
Haiti witnessed violent food riots in April because the prices of staples went up 50% since 2007 and the price of fuel tripled in four months.
Violence erupted in Indonesia where prices of staples and fuel doubled since January.
A boy was shot dead in Egypt by the police during violent demonstrations against rising food prices on April 8.
The Philippines is facing a severe shortage of rice, the country’s main staple.
Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) erupted on March 31 due to food shortages.
In Cameroon, seven lives were lost during protests against rising inflation.
Twenty four people were arrested and tortured for daring to protest against rising food and fuel prices in Senegal.
Over one hundred people were arrested in several cities of Burkina Faso.
One person was killed and thirteen were wounded in food riots in Yemen.
Four persons were killed in Mozambique in ‘food and fuel riots’.
Latin Americans met in Brasilia to confront the rising prices of food and fuel that has resulted in sporadic violence in the region.
South Africa and the South Asian countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are facing unrest due to the escalating prices of food and fuel.
Rising food prices have not spared the United States either. Faced with a ’slowdown’ in the economy that may result in job losses, twenty eight million people may receive food stamps from the government in order to ensure that they do not go to bed hungry.
In India, there was sporadic violence in a few areas due to food scarcity. Parliament was rocked by the issue of spiralling inflation(though it may not be high when compared to other countries) that is affecting everyone in the country with the poorest taking a brutal beating. This has forced the central and state governments to take a slew of measures to control food prices. Forward trading in essential commodities was banned and the export of rice(except basmati rice) has been banned. The government is planning to create strategic food reserves to make sure the country does not witness violence over the issue of the price of staples. The Reserve Bank of India is also planning to take a few measures to control galloping inflation.
What does all this mean to people who are not badly affected by rising prices? Ofcourse, everyone has to eat and most people use fuel in their vehicles so almost everyone notices the rise in prices of what they consume. But they may not be aware of what it means to the least fortunate who barely manage to eke out a living, for whom it may mean skipping a meal altogether or cutting down on what they consume which was insufficient in any case for the hard labour they put in to earn daily wages.
On the other hand, we have the forces of ‘free market capitalism’ who want to divert corn to produce bio-ethanol and convert vast swathes of farmlands that are used for growing food crops to cultivate ‘bio-fuel crops’ to produce fuels to power their fuel guzzling, fume spewing vehicles.
Bio-fuels are not a problem as long as they are produced from crops grown on wastelands(like bio-diesel obtained from Jatropha in India) or if they are produced from the byproducts of other industries(like bio-ethanol obtained from molasses in Brazil) or from waste oils(like bio-diesel obtained from used cooking oil in Malta) and some other cases.
Diverting food crops and edible oil for bio-fuel production when millions of people are facing food shortages around the world is a crime against humankind. Cultivating ‘bio-fuel crops’ on farms where food crops were previously cultivated when people are forced to go to bed hungry is a crime against humanity.
But it does not matter to those who have decided that the sacrosanct concept of the ‘global free market’ will take care of everything. It does not matter to such people if millions around the world face food shortages and hundreds are killed in ‘food riots’.
Jesus Christ! Please save their souls from ‘free market capitalism’. I can only hope that they realise that feudalism, ‘free market capitalism’, monarchy and other such nonsensical concepts deserve to be thrown into the sewer before it is too late.
Marie Antoinette would have been proud of the ‘free market capitalists’. She is believed to have said this about the poor, “If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake!”
The modern day Marie Antoinettes would say, “If they don’t have porridge, let them eat pizza!”
The French Revolutionaries put Marie Antoinette to death by the guillotine. I can only hope that the present ‘Food Rioters’ put monarchy, feudalism, ‘free market capitalism’ and other evil concepts to death by the guillotine or by any other method.
(I am totally opposed to the death penalty, so I do not want any person to be put to death, even if he is a notorious criminal. I only want evil concepts and ideas to be put to death so that everyone on the planet can lead a happy life.)
I prefer to be associated with the concepts that enrich the hearts of people, rather than those that promise them diamonds! Only a minority of people on this planet are in clover! I always prefer to call a spade a spade! 
