g kohler asked me to pass this on in response to
From: "g kohler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: solidarity with muslim peoples Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 16:11:04 -0500
Dear Professor Perelman, Could you please forward this to pen-l? Thank you. Gernot Köhler
Chris Burford wrote 02 March 2003
"I would suggest one of the key issues in internationalism is solidarity with muslim peoples"
..> snip
Arab countries (a subset of Muslim peoples) have, on average, very high unemployment - another reason for solidarity, see table below.
> Arab Unemployment Rates (%)
> From: CIA Factbook2002 (online)
> % year
> Algeria 30 1999
> Bahrain 15 1998
> Comoros 20 1996
> Djibouti 50 2000
> Egypt 11.5 2000
> Iraq na
> Jordan 27.5 1999
> Kuwait 1.8 1996
> Lebanon 18 1997
> Libya 30 2000
> Mauritania 23 1995
> Morocco 23 1999
> Oman na
> Qatar na
> Saudi Arabia na
> Somalia na
> Sudan 4 1996
> Syria 20 2000
> Tunisia 15.6 2000
> UAEmirates na
> West Bank 40 2000
> and Gaza
> Yemen 30 1995
>
> average 22.5
> median 21.5
>
> Note:”na”= not available
>
> (The Sudan figure looks rather questionable.)
I rather assumed this would be the case, but it is useful to have it documented by the CIA.
Not I hope to sound too doctrinaire, but I assume what is going on is that as capital accumulates preferentially in the metropolitan heartlands, a disproportionate part of the burden is carried by a massive reserve army of labour in the less developed world. This is only slighlty mitigated by the historically unprecedented economic migration of people to become a slightly more privileged reserve army of migrant labour in the metropolitan countries, vulnerable to discrimination and contempt.
Are there also statistics for the educational level of immigrant taxi drivers in New York? If not why has not anyone done it? Easy enough for progressive economists or sociologists to get on with a pilot bit of research.
Chris Burford
London
