Later this month the game show Deal Or No Deal will make its debut on Afghanistan TV, a development that will doubtlessly delight the poorest people on earth.
When a hackneyed Dutch TV show can so easily pervade this awkward country, it comes as no surprise that India’s influence on the country continues to grow… And naturally Pakistan is none too pleased about it.
While it is well-known that China has invested heavily in Pakistan, it is also playing the 21st Century version of The Great Game with India, but not for geostrategic control, but for the minerals under its earth.
According to the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Industry, this landlocked country has huge amounts of gold, copper and iron ore as well as 3.6 billion barrels of oil and 36 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and a 2010 US Pentagon report estimated there were nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits.
But mineral wealth doesn’t equate to riches for its people. Just look at the Congo, Angola and other African countries as terrible examples of how imperial powers have plundered their riches while using its people as virtual slaves.
China’s approach has been to subsidise Afghan companies to extract these minerals and India is concentrating on political leverage… while the Western nincompoops prefer to concentrate on bombs and misguided military muscle. Never has the global transfer of power been so starkly illustrated.
So the Great Game continues and I’m not talking about Deal Or No Deal, but one thing’s for certain, nobody has ever won these particular game and it’s unlikely anybody will.
