Faces of Exploitation

By Apolinario Villalobos

Exploitation can be viewed as the twin of greed. In the biblical legend about the garden of paradise where God put Adam and Eve with the latter created out of the former’s rib, the serpent exploited the curiosity of Eve, and the latter exploited the submissiveness of Adam who readily gave in to her prodding…that is how my simple understanding goes. All of these resulted to their being driven out of the paradise….the beginning of exploitation and betrayal of trust.

Today, exploitation has so many faces that the world practically throbs with it. From the moment a baby is born, exploitation is already doing its thing. For the mothers who prefer to have a comfortable delivery, they are charged by hospitals enormously and they are left with no choice. Mothers who deliver babies in the confine of pushcarts are left with no choice but buy expensive basic infant needs. When babies are supposed to be given a secured spiritual foundation, parents spend for their baptism. For the children to grow, supposedly, on nutrients, parents buy food from opportunistic merchants.

While the world throbs with exploitation, man breathes it. Practically, everything that man does is tainted with exploitation. Survival of the fittest has become the norm of life. If one is weak, he gets trod on by the strong. So now, we see weak countries that are overly dependent on economically strong ones. The more, that this disparity has become vicious with the strong ones aligning themselves to better exploit the weak.

No amount of hypocritical “assistance”, be they in the form of food or finances can hide the true intention of the “helpful big brother” countries. While they extend their right hand, their left hand behind them has crossed fingers. The purse of solace, being handed out, on the other hand, has a long string attached to it. “Grants” are debts that are contracted between the haves and the haves-not, renewed just before they are paid out, leaving the latter in the helplessness of seemingly eternal indebtedness. These are the two kinds of nations in the world today. The United Nations seems to play the role of a guarantor to ensure that this exploitation goes on.

At the rate the deterioration of peace and man’s morale values are going, thanks to the machination of the few strong nations, the world may eventually be “united” under them. Strong manifestation of this direction can be clearly discerned around us.