Part I: Political education as historical necessity

Before we get started, and in order to be as upfront as possible about things, we must confess that this book is actually not about Zapatistas (believe it or not), but rather political education. That said, what better example of political education than the Zapatistas?

To begin, we need to address the current state of things. On this point, the world is undeniably in crisis and neither humanity nor Earth is safe. The coloniser's model of modernity, not to mention the global economy, has been in the making for over five hundred years and is operating, if not plundering, in full effect. The consequences include exploitation, repression, indifference, mass alienation and both human and non-human suffering, in addition to climate catastrophe and ecological ruin. We, collectively and the planet, are simultaneously confronted with the very real prospects of existential peril, environmental collapse, social anomie and spiritual death. All of these dynamics, when and if reflected on and considered seriously, raise a crucial two-fold question:

Amid such a reality and as a response to this question, countless people and communities all over the world (as well as perhaps even you yourself) – who have not given up hope in the face of what is seemingly impending doom – are declaring ‘Enough is enough!’ or ‘¡Ya basta!’, as the Zapatistas would say. Indeed, something's gotta give and things must change. But how?

On this front, well over half a century ago, the anti-colonial revolutionary Frantz Fanon (1963: 88) proclaimed in his ground-breaking book, The wretched of the earth, that ‘the political education of the masses is now recognised as an historical necessity’. Fanon, who was from the Caribbean and was dying of leukaemia at the time, was passionately offering this assertion amidst a violent struggle for liberation while tending to the injured in Africa – Algeria, to be precise.

What does it mean to be nonreligious? One of the most notable trends in the study of religion today is the growing number of people who claim no religious affiliation. In the early 1990s, only about 7 per cent of respondents to the US General Social Survey would choose “none of the above” when asked to pick a religion. In 2018, about 23 per cent of respondents chose this option.

This trend toward religious disaffiliation has spurred interest across the social sciences – in sociology (Zuckerman, 2011; Hout and Fischer, 2002, 2014; Manning, 2015; Edgell et al, 2006, 2016; Schnabel and Bock, 2017; Frost, 2019; Smith and Cragun, 2019; Thiessen and Wilkins-Laflamme, 2020), political science (Layman and Weaver, 2016; Brockway, 2018), psychology (Silver et al, 2014; Gervais and Najle, 2018), and history (Schmidt, 2016). It is also more than an academic curiosity. When I tell people that I study this group I am often met with a knowing nod or an excited “That's me!” as people realize their own personal experiences fit into a larger social fact.

The unaffiliated are also entering public life, and many different interest groups want to claim them. Organizations like American Atheists and the American Humanist Association talk about this trend as if their ranks are swelling. Faith-based groups take it as evidence they need to redouble their efforts to welcome back disaffected believers who are unsatisfied with religious institutions. The unaffiliated are a substantive portion of the Democratic Party, but some have strong ties to independent or libertarian politics (Cimino and Smith, 2014). One of the most notable nonreligious advocacy groups was even run by a former Republican staffer and center-Right lobbyist.

This wide-ranging research base and public conversation create a challenge for studying the unaffiliated: being nonreligious means many different things to different people. This is an interpretive problem. There are many specific subgroups to study, including atheists, agnostics, people who say they are “spiritual but not religious,” and those who call themselves “nothing in particular.” There are many traits to study, including demographic and personality characteristics, beliefs, practices, and political views. Finally, there are a range of public frames for making sense of this trend in larger social context.

The seeds for the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) were planted in the late 1960s when an eccentric Russian American woman traveling in India asked the Tibet-born Lama Yeshe (and his young Nepali-born disciple Lama Zopa Rinpoche) to teach her about Tibetan Buddhism. Lama Yeshe and his disciple – who were in India due to the Chinese occupation of Tibet – soon began taking on students, mostly American and European hippies, backpackers, and other searchers. Since FPMT officially incorporated in 1975, it has grown into something of a transnational Buddhist empire with over 150 centers and projects all over the world. I did fulltime ethnographic research on FPMT between 2005– 7 and periodically thereafter (mostly in India, but also at centers and events in the US). FPMT's transnational breadth invites us to dwell upon the issue of enculturation and identity in global Buddhism, and this chapter will address the puzzle of how scholars ought to refer to an increasingly diverse slate of people and practices.

FPMT is currently running study centers for all ethnic groups, monasteries and nunneries for non-Western (for example, Tibetan, Mongolian, Nepali) sangha (Buddhist communities), voluntary charitable projects, giant construction projects, educational initiatives, language training efforts, a college in the US, as well as a magazine, and other projects. Although the organization is very diverse, the very large majority of FPMTers are practitioners who were not enculturated into Buddhism growing up. These FPMTers chose Buddhism as adults and thus I would call them “nonheritage Buddhist practitioners” of FPMT's unique transnational Buddhism. As I wrote about FPMT's diverse transnational Buddhist practitioners, I was obligated to engage and struggle with extant categories of Buddhists and Buddhisms in the West. Buddhist scholars have long agonized about how to write about communities of Buddhists, especially outside of Asia, and how to categorize different kinds of Buddhist informants and interlocutors – some of our previous categories are fraught, exclusionary, or inaccurate.

This chapter's critical reflection on Buddhist categories was primarily born from a place of self-criticism and doubt about my own early writing on this topic.

Introduction

The onset of disability is a natural part of the ageing process. However, this can often lead to the need for care. In India, it has been a traditional practice that older adults obtain socio-economic support and health care from a family caregiver, usually from their children, spouse or immediate family members (Ugargol et al, 2016). Hence, the household living arrangements of older people in India are seen as important for the availability of family support. Kerala is one of the states in India that has undergone rapid demographic transition (Liebig and Rajan, 2003; Guilmoto and Rajan, 2005). Due to the decrease in infant mortality rates and increases in average life expectancy, both of which are comparable to some developed nations, Kerala is reported to have the highest proportion of older adults in its population in India (Bhat and Rajan, 1990; Rajan, 1989; Rajan, Mishra and Sarma, 1999; Rajan and Sunitha, 2018). According to the 2011 Census, 12.6 per cent of the population were aged 60 and over and this proportion is increasing at a rate of 2.3 per cent per year (Rajan and Mishra, 2014). By 2026, the state will have 6.8 million older adults, up from 5.9 million in 2021, which will constitute approximately 16 per cent of the total population (Rajan and Mishra, 2020). In addition, Kerala has also experienced large internal and international migration (about 10 per cent of the population) of younger age groups which led many households to be without an adult member of ‘working age’. It is assumed that this will have serious implications for care and living arrangements among older people in Kerala.

Living arrangements of older adults in India

The 2011 Census revealed that the average household size in India was 4.5 and the average number of older adults in a household was 2.4. This reflects the traditional image of the Indian family that has two older individuals who are looked after in the home. Also, it was found that the number of single-person older households increased during the inter-census period 2001– 11 (Rajan and Sunitha, 2019). Figures from the Longitudinal Ageing Survey in India (LASI) in 2017– 18 show that 5.1 per cent of older adults are living alone.

Introduction

Demographic ageing and the associated changes in population health are necessitating a complex reorientation of health systems, public spending, social security and living arrangements of older adults in developing countries (Bloom et al, 2015; Goodman and Harper, 2013; Lamb, 2013). In countries such as India, the consequences of ageing are far more severe because insufficient social security systems make families the main providers of support to older adults (Bloom et al, 2010). Changing demographic circumstances, such as the increased mobility of adult children, fewer siblings and increased longevity of parents, are influencing care arrangements in Indian households (Croll, 2006; Dhillon et al, 2016). The BKPAI (2011) study on the elderly in India reports that 6.2 per cent of older adults live alone, 14.9 per cent live exclusively with their spouse and 78.9 per cent of them live with children and other family members respectively, and importantly, the proportion of older adult women who live alone is nearly four times in comparison to older adult men (Ugargol et al, 2016). The traditional Indian family is in transition and the modified extended family where parents, children and other relatives do not necessarily live under one roof or share a hearth is now becoming common (Rajan and Kumar, 2003; Medora, 2007). Simultaneously, a cultural norm exists in India that older adults will continue to live with and receive their care from family members (Bongaarts and Zimmer, 2002; Ruggles and Heggeness, 2008 ) and living alone or in old age homes is interpreted as a sign of breakdown of traditional Indian values in public discourses (Medora, 2007; Lamb, 2013).

Though migration of adult children is considered one of the most effective poverty reduction strategies for families in the developing world (Stark and Lucas, 1988; Clemens, 2011) and increased incomes from migration can provide support for parents left behind, often the physical presence of a caregiver is the most desired but missing element (Bohme et al, 2015; Dobrina et al, 2015). Miltiades (2002) found from her study of left-behind Indian older parents that migration of adult children changes household dynamics and leaves families, mainly older adults, in disarray.

Introduction

This chapter provides a theoretical framework to understand the ways in which living arrangements and the provision of care for older people in India have been affected by migration. According to the United Nations, as of 2020 nearly 18 million Indians were living outside their country of origin. Indians are the largest diaspora groups followed by Mexican, Russian and Chinese diasporas (UNDESA, 2020). The largest concentration of Indian international migrants is in the Gulf region. The international migration from India prior to 2000 was largely low skilled and more focused towards the Middle East. After 2000 rapid globalisation increased the migration of skilled workers to the developed countries. Much of this skilled migration was among middle-class households and followed a trajectory where education and employment mobility to cities fuelled further migration plans to other countries. Indian migrants also contribute a large portion of their incomes as remittances. According to the World Bank, India received close to $US84 billion as remittances in 2019, close to 2.8 per cent of its GDP. Due to the COVID pandemic the World Bank estimates that remittances could drop by between 7 and 9 per cent (Ratha et al, 2020).

However, as eye-catching as these figures are, it is important to remember that the number of internal migrants within India is far greater than those who migrate abroad. Increasing urbanisation, improvement of travel and access to travel, coupled with greater educational opportunities, has led to widespread migration within India. Migration to the cities is driven by a combination of labour migration, which can be both temporary and circular, educational mobility and marriage migration. Bhagat's (2016) analysis of the 2011 census data shows that nearly 30 per cent of the Indian population moved internally. De (2019) reports that there were 450 million internal migrants in India and much of this migration was intra-state migration. See Chapter 3 by James and Kumar on the impact of migration on living arrangements of older adults in India. The lower levels of interstate migration could potentially be due to the non-transferability of social security entitlements across state borders (Kone et al 2018).

Introduction

This chapter uses process tracing to analyze one of the pathways identified in the previous chapter. Specifically, this chapter presents the results of Cambodia, whose fsQCA solution indicates that it is the combination of high economic dominance, high globalization, high income inequality, high gender inequality, and low social expenditures important in creating a pathway for human trafficking. The chapter begins by setting the stage with a brief review of Cambodia's history. Following that, the historical processes are teased out to reveal how high economic dominance and globalization emerged due to Cambodia's restructuring and dependence on foreign aid. This has resulting in increasing inequality and corruption and a weakening of the state's role. The relationship such forces have with cross-national labor migration and resulting human trafficking are explored before concluding the chapter.

Cambodia

A brief history

Located in Southeast Asia between Thailand and Vietnam, the Kingdom of Cambodia gained independence from France in November of 1953 (Chandler, 2008). The country was later subjected to heavy aerial bombardments from 1969 to 1973 during the US– Vietnam War (Chandler, 2008; Kiernan and Owen, 2015). At the same time, a military coup in 1970 overthrew the monarchy, ending Prince Sihanouk's 15-year rule (Corfield, 2009; Dayley and Neher, 2013). By 1975, the new Communist government known as Khmer Rouge gained control and changed the official name of the country to the Democratic Kampuchea. The primary leader Pol Pot enforced strict rules and isolated the country from the outside world. Between 1975 and 1979, an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or worked to death (Corfield, 2009; Dayley and Neher, 2013).

The overthrow of the Khmer Rouge government by Vietnamese troops in 1978 began a ten-year occupation by the Vietnamese, under which the country was renamed the People's Republic of Kampuchea. The withdrawal of Vietnamese troops in 1989 coincided with the start of a peace agreement and the renaming of the country to the State of Cambodia (Chandler, 2008; Corfield, 2009; Dayley and Neher, 2013). The UN-brokered Paris peace agreements were signed in 1991, beginning a short-lived period of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) governing from 1992 to the first free election in 1993. The country eventually returned to its former name, the Kingdom of Cambodia, in 1993 with the restoration of the constitutional monarchy (Chandler, 2008; Dayley and Neher, 2013).

White supremacy in the United States

This chapter argues that the true religion of the United States is white male ethnonationalism, often but not always polished with a Christian veneer (Lundskow, 2020). The essential doctrine of faith is white supremacy, and the essential rite is restorative violence against those perceived as the “Evil Other” – Black people in particular, although others often stand in as well, such as Mexicans and other Latinx, and various Muslim ethnicities. Post-Civil War Reconstruction, and the 20th century labor movement, respectively, offer two sociohistorical moments when the faith of white male ethnonationalism thwarted racial reconciliation and material social progress. My approach uses contemporary empirical research to establish the concept and broad social impact of white male ethnonationalism. Concurrently, the two historical periods represent decisive moments when the social forces of the Civil War and rapid industrialization challenged racial and gender hierarchies. The goal is not to chronicle the periods in question, but to highlight the enduring dominance of white male ethnonationalism and demonstrate how it played the role of religion, over and against material concerns. More specifically, I argue that as wealthy and powerful whites pursue ever more wealth and power, they also need whites of all classes to embrace their acquisition as a legitimate and moral conquest, and that this requires validation that transcends economic interests and exacts willing personal sacrifice from the white ‘servant classes’ (those with minimal to no upward mobility) – in other words, religious validation.

What is American white supremacy? People of white European descent can embrace diverse ethnic heritages, including German, Dutch, French, English, Swedish, and many others. Yet these are particular European heritages, not American white heritage. Immigrants were English, German, and so on, not specifically white. Rather, whiteness developed in the first Thirteen Colonies in America as a justification for enslavement and genocidal annihilation (Allen, 1994), such that initially, only Anglo-Saxon Protestant men of property counted as white (Roediger (2018 [2005])). Many southern, eastern, and Catholic European groups started as denigrated ethnicities and gradually joined the white hegemony – more or less – such as Italians (Guglielmo and Salerno, 2003), Greeks (Kaloudis, 2018), Poles (McCook, 2011), Irish (Ignatiev, 2009 [1995]) and Jews (Ratskoff, 2020), although in the process all of them and many others faced widespread ethnocentric discrimination and exclusion (Lee, 2019).

To understand extractivism, it is essential to realise it is rooted in dispossession, has its historical origins in colonialism, and is now facilitated primarily by corporations and states. Extraction has traditionally and continues to be a hallmark of (neo)imperial domination and neoliberal policies (for example, ‘cash crops’, fossil fuels, minerals, biofuels, precious metals, water, livestock, timber/logging). Put simply, extractivism is a capitalistic method of acquiring wealth through the withdrawal of ‘resources’ or ‘raw materials’ from either ‘conquered’ (read, dispossessed) lands or territories that were encroached on, privatised and earmarked for commodification. After extraction, said resources and raw materials are transported for production, manufactured into value-added retail goods and shipped back to a respective metropole or placed on the global marketplace as stock suitable for consumption and disposal. Over centuries, the terms ‘raw material’ and ‘natural/human resources’ have been used and expanded to include privatising not only land, minerals and fossil fuels, but also fishing, farming, forestry and even humans. The punchy and all too exact axioms ‘property is theft’ and ‘accumulation by dispossession’ are each inextricably linked to the enclosure, privatisation and extraction of the commons, that is, the colonial enterprise and neoliberal capitalism. Unsurprisingly, the planet and all its inhabitants are suffering the consequences. Part of the Zapatista resistance is confronting this.

Because there is a massive imbalance between the amount of ‘raw materials’ being extracted over short periods of time and the brief period allowed to ecosystems to recuperate and replenish, the extractive industry is effectively cannibalising itself. The corporations and states that are endorsing and continuing to engage in extractivism also have little to no regard for the types of relationships and ways of being that Indigenous and peasant communities have with land and are beholden to. What results is the dismissal of any worldviews that do not align with liberal ideals and the prerogatives of entrepreneurial capitalism, which poses a major threat to rivers, soils, oceans, forests, plants, animals, the climate and humanity.

We need not turn any further than the words of Arundhati Roy (2003) and Frantz Fanon (1963) to gain insight into what most threatens life and dignity on this planet, as well as where the ground is most fertile for decolonisation and widespread transformative change. Whether it be mutually recognising the inherent worth of others, decentralising governance, fostering communities of care, co-creating cultures of dissent, actualising emancipatory politics, decommoditising nature, degrowing the economy, effecting food sovereignty or securing material and psychological wellbeing for all, both Roy (2003) and Fanon (1963) rightfully suggest that we just might have something to learn from peasants in identifying what lies at the roots of structural social problems and global inequalities, as well as how to wisely confront and solve them.

As detailed earlier in the book, one of the greatest threats the world currently faces is neoliberalism. As a refresher, the logic of neoliberalism, which endorses responsibilising (blaming) people for the structural conditions they face, entrepreneurial capitalism and free trade agreements that are, paradoxically, heavily regulated by state officials with corporate conflicts of interest, is made manifest through economic policies that promote privatisation, deregulation and cuts to public spending (Mohanty, 2013). Despite rarely being criticised or even mentioned by state officials and mainstream media, neoliberal programmes, practices and rhetoric continue to give rise to unprecedented levels of poverty, anxiety and anguish. This is true not only for the global economy, but also for the global food system and global health.

In light of increased calls to consider neoliberal capitalism as a significant determinant of human and planetary health (Mair, 2020; Sell and Williams, 2020; Flynn, 2021), our focus in this chapter offers an analysis of the entanglements between the social, political and economic factors that shape health and wellbeing. Drawing from examples in EZLN communiqués, as well as on-the-ground food systems and economic practices, we show how the Zapatista struggles offer viable solutions to the devastation caused by global capitalist modernity.