When Oil and Water Don’t Mix

State of War: When Oil and Water Don’t Mix


Islamically, Sharia refers to matters of religion that God has legislated for His servants. But in Arabic, Sharia means the path to water. The two meanings of Sharia reflect the management of water as a metaphor for discipline of spirit. After all we humans, constructed mainly of water, require water to survive.

Water is an essential element in Creation referred to 63 times in the Qur'an. In the Sharia, 3 types of water are differentiated: running water, water from a well, and water from natural springs. Not all can be for free use—this can lead to destruction of the precious resource.

Water sustains civilization in so many ways. Once humanity profoundly understood this fact; even the Chinese character for “political order” is based upon the symbol for water. And according to the Institute Voelia, “The nature of the water and its use have given rise, throughout history, to highly complex forms of legislation in which Qur'anic law and local custom and practice are often more or less closely associated.”

Muslims have long known the importance of water flowing underground. In the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun described the vast networks of foggaras, ancient underground canals to collect water in the North African desert. However, after the French came to Algeria, the colonial authorities slowly began to bring new technologies for water extraction. This progress has also resulted in the sinking of the water table and the pollution and over-salting of vast underground reservoirs. The old systems are crumbling.

In India, the irrigation system has become based on competition and not sharing. The number of wells has increased from two million thirty years ago to twenty three million wells. Water conflicts arise when water use increases, and the common water sinks lower, forcing everyone to keep digger deeper than his neighbor.

Around the world, so many of our brothers and sisters die because drinking water is polluted by fecal bacteria. Even if the ambitious UN Millennium Development Goals to improve access to sanitation and clean drinking water are achieved, only thirty to seventy million people will die in the next fifteen years from preventable water-related diseases. Imagine how many more die now! Who is to blame for this mass death?

We can blame rapid industrialization and the gap between rich and poor. We can blame corruption. We can blame industry to some extent, as it uses water in great quantity. However, we also need to look closer to home. As human beings eat more meat, as McDonalds spread across the world, the use of water increases vastly. A thousand tons of water are required to grow a ton of grain; but over fifteen thousand tons to grow a ton of cow. Stated even more clearly, thirteen hundred gallons of water go into the production of a single hamburger. One cup of coffee requires a hundred and forty litres of water used in growing the coffee plant. So how many hundreds of gallons did you consume today? And whose water was it?

We can build dams. Desalinization remains too expensive for most developing nations. But conservation is necessary. Drip irrigation requires only a fraction of the water and minimizes evaporation. In the USA, improvements in flush toilets and other technology has already significantly decreased water use per person. The principles of wise management of resources are universal. Bu how will humanity manage?

In the future, as we reach peak water levels, will desperate measures be taken, with wars for water? As we currently see with oil? A recent poll asked Iraqis what they believed was the main reason for the US invasion and 76 percent gave "to control Iraqi oil" as their first choice.

A recent Johns Hopkins Study has estimated 655,000 Iraqi deaths since the US invasion in 2003. Other studies have noted how 2,000 doctors and nurses have been killed in the chaos, and 18,000 more have emigrated. With most basic treatments lacking, over half the deaths would normally have been preventable. This is not to ignore the tragic and evil sectarian violence tearing apart Iraqi society. But foreign and US companies are swarming to profit from the war, while civilians perish in great numbers.

In 2006 Halliburton’s KBR division watched third-quarter net income rise 22 percent, to 2.4 billion. "Iraq was better than expected," said Jeff Tillery, analyst with Pickering Energy Partners Inc.

$120 billion in Saddam-era debt owed to the Paris Club, a group of 19 industrialized nations, was renegotiated by Bush family representative James Baker to forgive 80 percent of the debt, in exchange for a "reform" package administered by the International Monetary Fund. The Iraqi National Assembly called it "a new crime committed by the creditors who financed Saddam's oppression.”

Moreover, according to Alternet on 10/19: “The Carlyle Group, of which Baker is believed to have a $180 million stake, had contracted with Kuwait to make sure that the money it was owed by Iraq would be excluded from any debt-relief package.”

More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the 'insurgency' in Iraq was stolen by people the U.S. had entrusted to run the country's Ministry of Defense before the 2005 'elections,' according to Iraqi investigators.

One of the few Saddam-era laws that Paul Bremer left on the books was a prohibition against organizing public-sector workers. Some contractors, many working as subcontractors to Halliburton /KBR, were found to be using deceptive hiring practices and charging recruiting fees that indebted low-paid migrant workers for many months or even years to their employers. The Pentagon has yet to announce any penalty for those in violation of US labor trafficking laws.

"We will never believe in you unless you cause a spring to gush forth from the earth for us, or have a garden full of date palms and grapevines and make rivers gush forth plentifully through the midst of them" (Sura 17, 92-95). But O Allah! Guide us to wise management of your creation!