A Brief History Of Some Rock

Well, here I am back from the Bay of Bengal, the tsunami amplifier of the region. On a clear day you think you can see forever, but what you are seeing is inestimable beauty mixed with a poverty that is induced by the globalisation of a certain kind of wealth-concept.

Because certain people over the globalisation history of the last 200 years have successfully imposed certain wealth values on others, to their own benefit, those others have become poorer. Sri Lanka, the Ceylonese centre of great wealth and marvellous gems; the various city-states of the Indian sub-continent; the mysterious outskirts of Indochina... all of these have been exploited to their own detriment by the powers of the world, minor pieces and pawns in the Great Game.

Why else are gems mined in this region marked up 10x in their journey to the markets of Bangkok, marked up 10x again en route to Hongkong, and 10x again as they fly their clattering journey to London? The miners are as poor as dirt; the dirt is perhaps richer. The society belles with the outsize carbon and impure alumina and other Mammon-sanctified rocks — they live on the backs of the poor. And why ever should this have come to pass? These aren't even useful rocks in their shiny metal cages.

I sat by the Bay of Bengal. And I laughed, and the waters answered me.