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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 February 2000 Issue No. 467 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 February 2000 Issue No. 467
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The great criminaliser
By Mumia Abu-Jamal *
As the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) reach daily record highs, every major media outlet has boasted about America's "booming economy". A recent TV-network report claimed that in New York City alone, over 400,000 people are classified as "millionaires" -- a tidy handful of New York City's residents have annual incomes exceeding that of several nations.
Yet in the midst of this unprecedented wealth lies harrowing poverty -- and yes, even homelessness. In the world's wealthiest nation, homelessness not only exists, it persists -- to the evident dismay of New York City's ambitious mayor, Rudolph Giuliani. His response to the glaring problem gives new meaning to the term "draconian". With small-minded nastiness that is more prison warden than political leader, Giuliani announced the city's plans to toss thousands of men, women and children out of city-run shelters and into cold, wintry streets. Those found to be homeless in the streets will find a new place to stay -- Riker's Island prison!
Under the mayor's plan, those who dare seek refuge in shelters will be forced to work in what is essentially slave labour; those unwilling to take on the labour face the removal of their children to foster homes. Giuliani has chosen to banish or browbeat the homeless: Banish them from the streets or browbeat them into accepting jobs no one else wants -- under threat of prison, or fear of the seizure of one's child. Giuliani, in classic autocrat fashion, has criminalised homelessness.
For the homeless, this is no economic boom -- just a state of gripping terror that worsens as otherwise flourishing American cities turn a blind eye to the abject poverty that remains. If homelessness is a crime, it is one committed by a system that does not fairly distribute social wealth, does not educate poor youth and fails to provide decent social services. In a nation where capital is the greatest possible attainment, poverty is the greatest possible offense. To the ruthless Il Duce Giuliani, the homeless are to be put in prison for daring to mar city streets -- and better a jail cell than a homeless shelter; we are feeding the nation's ravenous prison industry to boot.
There is a malevolent method to Rudy's madness. As mayor of the capital of capitals, the interests of big business are paramount. It was these interests that pushed for so-called welfare reform (read: abolition of welfare), and have led to the slave labour angle on the homeless. Why? In the book New Class War, scholars Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward suggest that welfare programmes place a subsequent burden on the menial labour industry: If the desperation of the unemployed is moderated by the availability of various benefits, welfare recipients become less eager to take any job on any terms.
In short, there is an emerging recognition among analysts, irrespective of political persuasions, that the income-maintenance programmes, modest though they may be, have weakened certain industries' abilities to depress wages through threat of economic insecurity -- particularly in the case of manipulating the relative numbers of people searching for work. In effect, these programmes have altered the terms of struggle between business and labour. As a result, unemployment has lost some of its terrors, both for the unemployed and for those currently working.
The apparent argument thus goes as follows: With these pernicious programmes eradicated, the misery represented by being unemployed and homeless will serve to discipline and curb the anxious working class; which is precisely what Rudy means to do.
* The writer is an activist, journalist and former Black Panther. Since he was convicted and sentenced to death in 1981 for the alleged murder of a Philadelphia police officer, he has been at the centre of an international amnesty campaign.
