New Rulers of the World

John Pilger (Verso, 2003)

Reviewed by Darren Guy

By far John Pilger’s clearest, easiest to read and thinnest book, a mere 215 pages. John Pilger again with brilliant, factual and critical insight, takes us on a tour trough Asia and Australiasia, opening our eyes to what globalisation capitalist style is really about. We visit the slums of Indonesia and degradation of its proud people. He reveals how with Western backing the murderous General Suharto, reeped havoc on Indonesia, murdering over 1 million people in the process. He offers us up indisputable facts of how tin-pot murderous dictators enslaved the people and are propped up by the World Bank. Moving on through a once prosperous and proud Iraq, now devastated by US & Western bombings, uranium and embargoes, which caused the deaths of over 1 million Iraqi, that’s 5000 children a month. He unveils the real truth behind the ‘War on Terror, and how the language of those who want to rule the globe, takes on an almost Orwellian form – how freedom means represssion, truth, lies. And finally the enduring legacy of imperialism, and how Australia subjugated the first Australians. Shocking to think after all that, that the US, the most powerful country in the world, has the leaders of this country wagging its tail, desperate for some glory. Anyone who is concerned about the future must read this book.