The Nation Newspaper

Category: Brian Browne

  • The consequences of Crimea

    The consequences of Crimea

    In a strange land, a man is vulnerable; at his own doorstep, that same man stands insuperable.

    The Crimean plebiscite ended as expected. The Crimean electorate voted and the vast majority voted to become Russians. Russia quickly annexed the Ukrainian province and that was that.

    Western nations called foul, stating they would not abide a vote cast under the shadow of coercion. They derided the exercise as a mockery of the democratic ideal. The people’s will should not be influenced at the point of a bayonet or the sinister turret of an armored vehicle.

    Visible Russian steel and mace flawed the election by guiding it to an affirmative result more skewed than necessary. Given the historic links between Russian and Crimea and given the uncertain future of Ukraine under the new hybrid government in Kiev, most of the electorate probably voted as they saw fit to do.

    That the Russians manipulated the exercise and told the people to vote in this manner does not mean they would have voted otherwise in a freer atmosphere. Once Russia opened the door and showed the way, the majority of Crimea seemed destined to enter.

    But Russia wanted the secession vote by more than a simple majority. Moscow wanted an outcome evincing a virtual unanimity to quit Ukraine. Their engineering achieved the desired outcome. However, the very engineering Moscow used to produce this near consensus, permanently taints the legacy of the vote in a way a more modest but more honest margin of victory would have avoided. In short, the final outcome appears accurate but the score and margin of victory were inflated. Because of this Russian overreach, it was an imperfect but not a bogus referendum.

    With more than a hint of unalloyed effrontery, Western nations huffed against the Crimean plebiscite. Over the years, they have sprinkled the fulsome perfume of their approval on elections viler than what occurred last week on that strategic finger jutting into the northern eye of the Black Sea.

    Despite Western consternation, Russia absorbed Crimea without a shot fired or massive veins of bloodshed. This is one of history’s most surgically swift and least violent annexations of vital real estate of one nation by another.

    In one sense, this is a stinging rebuke of American and Western diplomacy. Washington and other Western capitals lectured Moscow from their manual of international commandments: “Thou shall bow as directed.” When this ersatz moral appeal fell, the West threatened crippling sanctions. Moscow was undeterred because its vital strategic interests were at stake. Moscow decided that losing the strategic naval base in Crimea was an intolerable reduction. Russia could stomach whatever economic poison the West would risk but it could not stomach the loss of its base.

    Russia also knew economic sanctions were dual-bladed. Any sanctions America and Europe imposed might hurt Russia but the measures would also injure the West. In the end, Russia called the West’s bluff. It annexed the Crimea and dared the West to cast sanctions its way.

    The West had no stomach for harsh measures that could also pummel key sectors of the flagging European Union economy. Thus, they imposed symbolic assets freezes and visa bans on a handful of Russian officials.

    The sanctions were underwhelming at best and worthless in the main. There is no reasonable expectation of them crippling the Russian economy or any material part of it any more than one anticipates a single sheet of paper on the ground to trip an elephant.

    At this moment, Russia flashes the winning hand but the situation is not static. We are witnessing the piecemeal reestablishment of a balance of power between the Western Powers and the strongest nation of Eastern Europe. The precise boundaries were erased when the Soviet Union cascaded into history’s recesses. The emergence of Russia now requires the drawing of new boundaries to represent the power balance. The undertaking must be done with care and astute calculation. Risks are high. Had both sides rushed like bulls into the Ukrainian fracas, an updated, inverted echo of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in the fashion of a potential nuclear standoff, would have neared the table. Restraint and care are lessons diplomats on both sides must learn from this near miss. Potential disaster lurks in every miscalculation and overreach.

    Putin is more adept at geopolitics than his Western counterparts. That he plays the weaker hand also adds sobriety to his deliberations and actions. Western leaders have been slapped by the reality that they cannot waltz their EU-NATO political-military condominium right up to Moscow’s doorstep without the Russian bear standing on its haunches to deter the advance by extracting more than a pound of flesh in the process.

    Putin has amassed a significant troop presence on Ukraine’s eastern border. The West screams this preludes an invasion. They misread the situation or they are attempting to cajole Putin into forfeiting the advantage proximity has afforded. The Russian has the stomach to devour more of Ukraine but realises the meal will cause more long-term indigestion than its worth. Invasion is unlikely. Instead, he positions troops at the Ukrainian eastern door to remind Kiev not to dance to closely to the West and to deter Western military aid to Ukraine. If the West does try to materially assist the Ukrainian military, Putin may seize part of the east to provide himself as large a buffer as possible from the West’s encroachment into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. At the moment, Putin is not seeking land but he wants sufficient breathing space as he believes the West is trying to bridle his nation.

    In very many ways, this crisis should not have occurred if Western leaders were adept practitioners of realpolitik. By enticing Ukraine and other nations under Russia’s shadow with NATO membership was fool’s gold both for the haughty giver and hapless recipient. As can be seen, the West has no will to fight Russia over real estate in that eastern European neighborhood. Yet, if a great power is unwilling to fight for a nation because that nation is peripheral to its interests, it is illogical and dangerous for that power to forge a military alliance with the lesser nation. Yet, this unwise condition is what the West seemed intent to establish with Ukraine and others.

    Another troubling aspect of the Western mentality is a fundamental misreading of the fall of the Soviet Union. America believes it won the Cold War because its policies contained communist expansion until the Soviet Union extinguished itself like a penned wildfire with no place to go. This myth afflicts both Republican and Democrat alike. It is a totem of American foreign policy. When faced with a serious threat, American leaders quickly grab at the old elixir. They want to contain every perceived foe. In Europe, Russia is the target. China is the Asian equivalent. In the Middle East, the cage bears Iran’s name.

    The only problem is that the vaunted policy of containment did not work. Or we can say it worked so brilliantly only because it failed so miserably. Knowing America wanted to contain their empire, Soviet leaders rushed headlong to establish a presence in every place imaginable, including places where they had no reason to be. The Soviet Union did not fall because it was contained. It fell because it held too much alien, distant and unproductive territory.

    As a consequence of World War II, the Soviets ingested much of war-torn Eastern Europe. Disheveled by that war, the Soviet Union needed development help. Instead, it sought global empire. The demise of the Soviet Union became a matter of fate upon deciding to contest America for global empire. Not satisfied with Eastern Europe, the Soviets interposed themselves in Africa where they had no historic ties or interests. Within thirty years, more than a third of the continent leaned Moscow’s way. If this is containment it is containment in the breach of itself. At times in wary league with China, the Soviets pushed communism through Southeast Asia.

    In the Americas, it brought communism to Cuba, miles from the United States’ southern extremity. Other nations such as Nicaragua experienced socialist, Soviet-funded revolutions and governments. Again, the Soviets had no historic ties and real interests in this region. The Soviets where there out of a bloated sense of empire. They paid a high cost of their miscalculation. They destroyed their empire in the very building of it. Imperial overreach is an expensive undertaking with massive overhead costs. Unless the empire rakes in as much as it spends, its days are numbered. It becomes bankrupt and collapses due to the growing costs of just its minimal upkeep. The political economy becomes debased and less productive. The fiction is maintained that all is well, efficient and growing when the reality is that much is corrupt, stagnant and unproductive. This is the history of the Soviet Union. America did not win the Cold War as much as the Soviet Union lost it by overreaching because it wanted to reach parity with America.

    America’s containment policy worked in a way much like curing a drunkard by threatening to remove the alcoholic beverages from his house. Believing the threat, the man imbibes the entire inventory only to pass away from toxic intake. The remedy’s failure proved more effective than had it succeeded. We are certain the man will never take another hard drink. He is dead. Whatever he now imbibes is not of this world.

    Ironically, the nation now seeking to contain others should be working to better constrain itself. The American notion of the reach of its power far extends the scope of its true interests. Since the Clinton Administration, America’s foreign policy establishment has been guilty of overreach, most egregiously in the theater of war.

    Its track record in this aspect of its foreign escapades has been abysmal. The second Iraqi war was launched on a fraudulent pretext but the damage done thereby to American interests and to the Middle East has been indeed real. As a result, Al Qaeda gained a foothold where before it had none. It would use this platform to sally into the Syrian civil war. Iranian influence in Iraq has grown. America is seen as a villain. This week is the third anniversary of the Libyan war. If that nation sustains its current mad dash toward the gates of anomie, Gaddafi will be elevated to the status of a martyr. Afghanistan is no better than it was ten years ago.

    The lesson should be obvious but America’s leaders can’t see it for they wear blinders woven of the dense fabric of arrogant power. To the extent possible, even great empires should limit warfare to areas close to home and only for reasons of obvious vital importance. The more distant the field of battle, the more uncertain the outcome. He who frequently fights in other’s backyards drains his energy and his treasury. Such engagements fuel the military machine but sap the nation. Such an imbalance is unsustainable.

    Currently, American foreign policy lumbers toward three containment exercises. America simultaneously seeks to contain Russia, China and Iran. These parallel tracks will prove costly. Most likely, there will be serious miscalculations because American leaders so believe the world should understand them that they seek not to understand the world. Such mistakes will lead other weaker nations to rely on flippant American braggadocio as ironclad assurances. A smaller nation will wrestle one of the three containment targets, believing America will anneal their weak position. In its right mind, America will balk for it never should war against a great power for a small reason. However, at some point, America might miscalculate and be goaded into confrontation with one of the three. The prospect of world war looms in such a mistake.

    America and its Western friends must huddle to rethink their policy. This is not about establishing moral dominance over all others because their group is strong. The American coalition may be the strongest but it is not omnipotent. It is vulnerable. The farther away from its area of strategic interests and the more confrontations it seeks, the more vulnerable it gets. Also, the chance of major warfare escalates. Moreover, America’s internal democracy suffers the militaristic the nation becomes. The reason and logic required for democracy to flourish are drowned by the sound of the drums of war. America also risks losing its role as the universal currency the more it seeks to impose sanctions against other powerful nations just because those states might decide to follow the dictates of their national interests as they interpret them.

    In the end, America and its allies as well as Russia need to draw sobering lessons from this crisis. For the sake of regional peace, the West must respect the reality of Russian power and its resultant sphere of influence. Russia must realize it has won a battle but it should go no further in a war where no side wins if war is fully engaged. It need not press further in Ukraine. It should negotiate with America to turn the rest of Ukraine and other geographically sensitive states into “demilitarized zones,” thus forging neutral states between contesting spheres of influences. The same should be repeated with China and Iran.

    Conversely, America will overextend itself if it tries to contain three major nations simultaneously. America places itself in danger of having survived the Cold War only to slowly drain itself by engaging in a trio of unnecessary mini-cold wars. Yet, such is the way of empires. They tend to be more powerful than prudent. That is why none has lasted. History watches and the clock ticks on the American imperial endeavor.

     

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  • The Ukrainian Gambit: Back to the great game

    The Ukrainian Gambit: Back to the great game

    War is that rare game best played when not played at all.

    Western nations are in a state of dense irritation by what will likely occur today in Crimea, the Russian-backed breakaway province of Ukraine. A plebiscite will hold. Minus a jarring surprise, the result is foregone. Crimea will vote to reintegrate into Russia.

    This will be a sharp, voluble rebuke of Western diplomatic pressure to quell Russia’s obvious engineering of the Crimean secession. Western capitals and the international media houses that serve them have been unsettled by Russian contumacy. They are perplexed Russia has not backtracked to take its hands off Crimea. They thought Russia would eventually succumb to the avalanche of criticism that it was in breach of their holy book of international etiquette, becoming an unregenerate along the way.

    They overestimated Russia’s need for their approval or goodwill. The man in the Kremlin evidently concluded that, in acquiring and maintaining power, he could better secure his place at the international table. He would command and own the legitimacy of power. His personal history and that of his country instructed him the legitimacy of power is a more reliable shield and redoubt than that of good intentions and goodwill when it comes to the fluid and uncertain relations among states. He surmised should he do what the West told him, the West would keep telling him what to do. Considering himself the helm of a great power that defines its own way independent of the vocabulary of the West, Russian Premier Vladimir Putin would not strap himself to such a bridle. That the West would seek to control him as he sought to control another nation confirmed his worldview: Power not only rules, it writes the rules.

    Faced with Russian obduracy, the West has pitched a fulsome fit. Self-righteous to a fault, the West claims Putin is acting imperially, even against the wishes of the Russian people and was stoking a return to the Cold War. No doubt, Russian action has come with a hard hand and steel heart. But this is no worse an incursion against a lesser nation than Western action against Iraq or, more recently, Libya. Russia’s usurpation of Crimea has been more surgical and done with less carnage than Western adventurism in the two abovementioned nations. Russia may owe a profound apology to the people of Ukraine but it owes no such apology to the West which has a greater penchant for military trespass and bloodlust than Russia has shown in the recent years.

    During these rare episodes when nations openly act recalcitrant to its wishes, Western nations self-righteously resort to speaking on behalf of the “international community.” In so doing, they commit the same offense of which they accuse Russia regarding Crimea. They believe their power gives them the right to speak as if they are right and to speak on behalf of those with whom they have not bothered to consult. Had they talked frankly to nations beyond their elite club, they would likely find much of the world disapproves of the hard tack Russia has taken. However, people also understand Russia’s concerns, realize Russia historic interests in Ukraine and are devilishly pleased Russia now stands up to the West’s artificial high-mindedness. The views of the genuine international community are more nuanced and sympathetic to Russia than the West dares to allow.

    The West is partially right in drawing a historic analogy to Russia’s current actions. However, the West errs in drawing the wrong link to the wrong period. They claim Putin is an unrepentant Cold Warrior pining to return to that era. Implicitly, they claim Putin aches for a fight and will lunge at any pretext to invade former soviet republics. Because he has publicly trashed their script, Western leaders now cast him as the greatest threat to world peace besides the lunatic of North Korea. The facts vitiate this depiction.

    The Cold War was a time where America and the Soviet Union wrestled in ceaseless geo-political confrontation. There was no spot on the globe immune from the game.

    Putin has not acted in such grandiose, global fashion. He has been fairly discriminating in deploying Russian power. When the West sought to deracinate Qaddafi’s regime, Russia did not lift a finger to help him. Russia gave the West a green light to recreate Libya in its own image. That the West turned that dessert nation from an orderly house ruled by a madman into a madhouse cannot be blamed on Russia. Likewise, Russia has given the West a free pass in Africa. Russian assistance to traditional allies in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba and Venezuela, has been minimal.

    However, Russian saw vital sea lanes and other interests threatened in a nation with which it has a strategic alliance, Syria. Here, Russia thwarted perceived as Western overreach into its traditional sphere of influence. When Russia promulgated anti-gay legislation, Putin stood firmly against vociferous Western condemnation. As a patriot, he thought he had the right to define his nation as he saw fit. The propriety of his actions is susceptible to debate. However, talk that he dreams of another Cold War is dangerous claptrap. Instead of demonizing the leader of a vital nation, the West would further the cause of peace by better understanding him.

    Putin has shown himself to be nothing more or less threatening than a shrewd practitioner of balance of power geo-politics. Here a brief primer is warranted. Spheres of national influence represent the geo-political equivalent of gravity. Just as every material object has gravitational pull, every nation has a sphere of influence. The small and weaker the state, the more modest its sphere. The obverse is true in similar proportion: the greater the “mass” of a nation, the larger its sphere. Every nation’s strategic interests involve the element of extraterritoriality. Assets important and essential to that nation’s maintenance will lie well beyond the country’s borders. For example, a strategic piece of foreign land in Cuba (Guantanamo Bay) is more important to America’s defense than capital of the state of Utah.

    As a corollary, the older and more established a nation, the more discernible its sphere should be to itself and others. Sadly, humans are fallible, and the ambitious among us are the most wrong-headed of an imperfect lot. Thus, ambitious leaders often err by overestimating their sphere while underestimating that of another country. Upon these miscalculations, wars have been fought and lost. Thus, we should discern which side, Russia or the West, seems more awry in calculating the balance of power.

    To argue balance of power considerations should no longer apply is to argue subjective morality and not the reality of how things are. If humanitarian morals and not calculations of power and strategic interests governed international conduct, Western nations would have ended wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia which have endured for generations and costs millions of lives. We must live or die with the fact that nations operate according to their own interests and do so most prudently when they do so without encroaching upon another strong nation’s sphere of influence.

    To argue that morality dictates an end to these calculations is a disingenuous artifice used by those who have encroached onto another’s sphere yet do not want to defend that encroachment in the customary way – by force of arms. It is a hair-raising gambit to think a nation can cajole another to cede important interests without an expenditure of limb or lucre.

     

    If we objectively view Putin’s actions, we see those of a tough Russian nationalist. The farther afield another nation, the less interest Putin gives it. Thus, he left Libya to the wolves. Conversely, Crimea has been integral to Russian history for centuries. More to the point, it is the headquarters of Russian’s Black Sea Fleet. This is Russia’s only guaranteed warm water port, its vital entry into the Mediterranean Sea and a conduit of influence to Syria and the Middle East. This is Russia’s backyard. You do not go shouting insults in a strongman’s back yard without expecting his dog to growl and the man to fetch his weapon.

    The seeds of this crisis were planted twenty years ago when America committed a grave strategic overreach precipitated by its victory in the Cold War. That this crisis would sprout would be as inevitable as death. The only question was how long would false peace last before reality erased it.

    The Cold War did not end with an explicit treaty allocating specific fruits to the winner and a menu of bitter herbs to be suffered by the ruptured empire. Even if it had ended with an explicit treaty, such a formal nicety would be of no lasting avail. As soon as the actual balance of power on the ground changed, the party favored by that amendment would seek to amend the treaty, not by rewriting its terms through negotiations but through its actions on the ground fueled by its renewed strength.

    When the Cold War ended, America thought it had been handed the world on a platter. It believed it had the right and power to rewrite the entire global system in its own image. For America, it was the final end to the final global competition. This was a naïve view held by a strong nation remarkably ignorant of the arc of world history. Blinded by its own power, America was unable to contemplate it would ever have to engage in balance of power calculations again, particularly on the European continent where its interests in Western Europe were many and vital.

    Consequently, America extended NATO to the very doorstep of then prostrate Russia. Some form of NATO membership was offered all European nations save Russia. However, America would disclaim Russia as the implied adversary. This was nonsense. To invest so much in a nearly pan-continental treaty without an adversary is superfluous. Everyone understood what Russia’s exclusion meant. Weak Russia would bide time until strength was regained.

    Russia was a remnant of a global empire but it remained a strong nation with a proud military history, a large land mass, vast resources and a traditional sphere of influence. At some point, its vigor would return. The nation found its footing and regained power. As this happened, it would naturally seek to reestablish the sphere of influence it held prior to the advent of the Soviet Union. If the Soviet Union were to give way to a smaller Russia, so be it. If Russia were to stand, then let it stand as Russia had always stood, with its sphere of influence intact and recognized.

    Consequently, there would be inevitable tension between the dimensions of NATO-EU expansion into Eastern Europe and the Kremlin’s reclamation of its traditional sphere of influence. There is not enough space for both sides to win. Either the West’s expansion eastward or Russian expansion westward would be thwarted. The answer is found in which side finds its expansion to be more vital. That side will use whatever means necessary, including force. The other side will talk but balk when it comes to muscular action.

    That crisis came to Ukraine was not accidental. The West has been trying to pull Ukraine from Russia’s orbit. The proposed EU deal was just one of many enticements. While the media downplays this point, the EU deal would have downgraded Ukraine’s relationship with Russia. By its very provisions, the deal forbade Ukraine to accept certain assistance from Russia.

    The West dangled money to finesse the Ukrainian government away from Russia’s shirttail. When that did not work, it funneled more money, this time to fuel the political opposition. According to a senior American diplomat, America channeled five billion dollars to the opposition to promote “regime change.” That is a very hefty investment to make in another nation, particularly in an opposition movement. This sum can purchase many street protests. It did. Thus, the protests aired by electronic media have been presented to you as spontaneous and home-grown; to a significant degree, they have been orchestrated and foreign-funded.

    Russia was cognizant of these Western machinations and decided to protect its interests the best way it knew. Unable to match the West ruble for dollar, Russia decided to use force, correctly believing the West would not reply in kind. It was a calculated risk but, since core interests were at stake, a risk worth taking for the Kremlin.

    This raises another basic precept of geo-politics. The nation willing to use force generally bests the nation willing to go no further than spend money. Gun diplomacy usually beats money diplomacy. That the U.S. missed this lesson is remarkable given America uses the same strategy to stymie Chinese financial diplomacy in Africa, particularly South Sudan.

    In the end, the Ukrainian crisis is not a battle of democracy versus despotism. It has distilled into a war of Western money and propaganda against Russian arms. The objective has been to recalibrate the balance of power in Eastern Europe. Given this perspective, the West is the initial aggressor but subtly so because it used only money and words. Russia is the respondent but is deemed the aggressor because it upped the ante by resorting to force. China anxiously watches the outcome because America now seeks to isolate China in much the same fashion it has tried against Russia.

    I leave you to determine on which side morality lies, if it lies on any side of the matter. The more important issue is that we learn to see thinks for ourselves and not accept the version fed us. If your mind is to be bent one way or the other, then you should be the one bending it in a manner than suits your interests. Never allow someone to shape your mind and its thinking in a way that does you less good than it does them.

     

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  • Black history month: Can the spirit triumph?

    Black history month: Can the spirit triumph?

    A biased eye incites a mean heart but a compassionate hand repairs the broken

    This will be my last article on the Black History Month. We exit the month as we entered – a people with small answers to large questions. This bewildered inadequacy is not confined to Black America. It applies to the entirety of our race. A small number of black people have reached their individual promise lands. They bask in fortune, fame and even power. Yet, for the vast number of us, being black means being in retreat. For most, yesterday looks better than tomorrow. It is a sad thing when the future appears leaner than the past. Sadness is compounded by the knowledge that the past has been a wholly inferior one. Yet, the danger lurks that we shall go further adrift. This need not happen. To prevent our continuing decrease, we need better understand forces arrayed against our betterment, especially diathesis of a collective psychology that directs us to think less of ourselves than while placing others on a pedestal that needn’t exist.

    Let’s return to the Jordan Davis trial for it offers striking lessons applicable on a wider scale. Since my last column, the verdict has been rendered. It is a case study in logic contorted by the ill advices of racism. The jury convicted the middle-aged white shooter, Michael Dunn, of attempted murder of the three black youths his ten bullets missed. Three of those ten shots entered Jordan Davis that life might leave him. The jury did not convict Dunn of murdering the lone person he shot.

    For shooting the unarmed Davis, the jury could not make its mind that Dunn committed illegal homicide. What a grotesque message this conveys for it carries an implicit invitation to kill. Better for a white man to quickly kill a perceived black assailant than miss the dark target. The black man might flee and later present conclusive evidence of never posing a threat to his erstwhile shooter. Such a threat would exist only in the mind of the gunman because hatred had conditioned him to see a black man as a violent felony in progress. Centuries ago, slave-holding whites slept in fear of an insurrection among the bondsmen. That a dark-skinned human being might fight for his freedom after being involuntarily thrust into servitude was something more than a curious notion. It was unalloyed evil. Slavery is gone but the racial fear, that was both born of it and that gave birth to it, remains. The old hatred permeates the modern air. It walks the streets, nigh ubiquitous for it enters almost every chance encounter between white and black men. It stokes fearful anger in whites and suspicious apprehension in those blacks aware of the crimson history between the two races. Blacks ignorant of that history fall bewildered, unable to comprehend while they always are on the wrong side of the unemployment line, a judge’s gavel, or a vigilante’s gun.

    Dunn said his life was threatened by Davis. He claimed the boy held an object that resembled a firearm or a stick. Nothing corroborates this assertion. The lone confirmed evidence was that the two engaged in a shouting match. Yet the jury gave Dunn a pass on the murder charge because they wanted to believe Davis, by virtue of his blackness, got what he deserved and Dunn, by virtue of his race, had ample reason to shoot as he did.

    We are left with the travesty of a man being convicted for missing the other youths but not for killing the one he shot. The jury did not want to believe this middle class, middle-aged white man could be guilty of murdering a black youth out of sheer annoyance simply because this lesser human being had the effrontery to argue with him. Racial stereotypes do not permit this conclusion. Social and political myths abound regarding the violent nature of black men. By social convention, Davis was guilty of assaulting Dunn. Forgetting or being ignorant of this social myth, Davis would pay with his life. This was too high a price simply for not recognizing the evil barriers society had imposed against his humanity.

    Had Davis and his companions been white youths, Dunn never would have reached for let alone discharged his weapon. Had Dunn been a black man who killed a white youth in the same circumstance, the jury deliberation would have been swift and sure. The shooter would have been convicted of the worst type of murder. This jury simply could not grasp the fundamental truth that a white man might lethally and illegally aggress a black youth. They dared not admit a white man could harbor illegal ill will to a black man. That would upset the cart. According to common perception, illegality and violence always flows the opposite way. For a black man to be attacked by a white man, the former must have provoked the latter. Consequently, the shooter could take the witness stand, bemoaning he was “the victim” and acting in hurt amazement that he would be compelled to stand trial to defend his lethal deed.

    The facts of the case did not fit this tidy construct. Thus, the jury decided to keep faith with racist convention and ignore the truth.

    A deeper truth is that historic reality aligns with this case more so than with the stereotype. Historically, blacks have been targeted and killed by people like Dunn more so than people like Dunn had to worry about being killed by the likes of Davis. Whites have killed more blacks in racist outrage than blacks have killed whites. In the history of America, white men have been the most deadly of racist predators. Based on actual fact and history, that Dunn would murder the black Davis was always the more likely outcome, if only for the hue of the victim’s skin. Yet, this historical reality is not the image that first jumps into the collective consciousness. Imagine a street criminal in America. Imagine a murderer. Imagine a drug dealer. The likely first image to surface is that of a black man. The truth is different. Blacks are no more likely to murder or traffic drugs than whites.

    This inaccurate image is not by chance. It has been carefully engineered so that whites subconsciously abhor blacks and disassociate themselves from them. It has been created also that blacks find manifold ways to degrade themselves and to believe that things white are things superior.

    The power of images is devastating. CNN interviewed one of two black people on the Davis jury. The young female juror asserted that Dunn, the shooter, was a good guy and that race played no part in the case. The poor woman denied almost the entirety of American social history in the space of that brief interview. Ignorance can be more deadly than any bullet. Her statements reveal a fundamental flaw common in the race. A diminishing number of us want to be black in terms of political, cultural and social orientation. These people want to blend in to larger society; they want to homogenize into a great and bland nothingness. They seek not the pride of diversity. They grope for the comfort of submission. They want to be accepted as human beings whose skin happens to be black. They seek to turn sinister tragedy into a love story simply by calling it a different name. Thus, they seek to jettison our historical legacy and duty before the legacy has been completed and before our collective duties have been fulfilled. The quest for equality is not over for it has not been won. However, too many of us find it too uncomfortable and difficult to talk about. It is too stubborn a problem, thus better to ignore the thing and move along as best one can.

    As such, blackness is in retreat. We no longer press for greater justice. Our leaders seek not to inspire us to eradicate this obstacle or demand those on the other side of the barrier to seek greater humanity by dismantling the trap rather than making it more subtly powerful. We now are taught to manage racism. We are to live under its shadow. That is our plight. The best we can do is to position ourselves under the thinnest aspect of the menacing cloud. Since that space is keenly limited, we compete against each other in a winless war to minimize the racism we feel individually instead of gathering our collective strength to combat the injustice so that none will have to endure its sting. We have resigned ourselves to defeat because we have given up the fight. We have accepted the broken image of ourselves to the extent that we no longer believe anything can be fixed or that things need fixing.

    Thus, the pitiable black female juror mostly excused Dunn and saw nothing in him but respectability and good while Dunn despises the very essence of the woman. Dunn is a racist. Before the incident, he had penned letters to friends, asserting the more he came into contact with blacks, the more he hated them. From his lips streamed a flow of invectives against our race when he talked freely. Given his racist disposition, this case should have been prosecuted as a civil rights matter, a hate crime under Florida law because this case was about race. Instead those charged with prosecuting the matter, decided to whitewash race from the trial. They purposely avoided bringing it up. In doing so, they tried a case that did not exist. They turned the search for justice and some modicum of truth into a lie. To distill race from an instance where an obvious racist shot an unarmed black youth is like building a house of wind and air. Nothing of weight and substance can live in the air perpetually, even an eagle has a nest which it inhabits. Those in charge of the case discarded the very essence of the thing they purportedly sought. They feigned toward justice but their objective was to preserve the racist covenant. Maintaining the racist social constellation was more important to them than justice. Preserving the social constellation profited them. Justice would not have done so.

    The Davis case is a microcosm of race in America and much of the world. Most whites deny their racism. They are comfortable and do not want to make the adjustments justice and right require to correct the evil imbalance. When asked to alter their ways, too many now claim to be victimized. They are like the errant driver who, after striking a hapless pedestrian on the roadside, stridently complains how the inconvenient it was for the walker to have damaged their car by not moving out of their way.

    World over black people have lost courage. It is no longer fashionable to speak of race as an active determinant in the political economy. Those who do are labeled troublemakers or regressive. Those words are mere labels used to disguise the truth. The work for justice and equity is half-done. Left unattended for many years, even that work is becoming unraveled for many of us. Most black Americans have lost ground economically in the past decade. There are more black men in jail than in university in America. This augurs ill for the future; nothing in the offing that suggests the change needed.

    President Obama met establishment black leaders in February. The gathering was more symbolic than real and more cynical than symbolic. The policy measures announced to salvage black males from the rigors of prejudice were so pitifully small and piecemeal that one had to wonder if the gathering was to solve a problem or just to take credit that such a meeting was held at all on this subject. This was the first such meeting the president held after six years in office. Still, the session was tepid and modest. The real reason for the session was to energize established black leaders to stoke the black community to vote during the congressional elections later this year. The Democratic Party needs their votes to stave Republican gains, thus averting a repeat of the Republican onslaught that occurred during the last (nonpresidential) congressional elections in 2010. That we now have a black president dangling false carrots before our nose shows equality to be quite real. Black politicians can be as calculating and cold-hearted as their white counterparts. What they offer the black community is ersatz hope so the people exert themselves, not for the common benefit but, to safeguard the jobs and positions of this elite.

    This is a terrible bartering of the people’s welfare in exchange for the continued luxury of a cozy establishment.

    The people deserve much better. No race has suffered more in the past centuries yet received so little for its suffering. We now exist in that awful space where most of our people are so confused they can’t distinguish their self interests from what are not. Our people work hard the world over; but, they mostly labor to the greater benefit others than themselves. The harder we labor, the more we lose and fall behind. If we are to survive and, at some point, thrive, we must first return to the point we see the world and how it operates in terms of race, in terms that are often starkly black and white. Until then, we shall live in someone else’s world. We shall suffer the consequences of existing in a place not intended for us and incur the slings and bludgeons that happen to those who let others define their human worth. Until then, Black History Month is nothing to celebrate or even commemorate as if we have reached our destination. It is never prudent to stop to celebrate one’s homecoming before reaching home. We have too far to go. Until then, Black History Month and every month for that matter should be times when we open our eyes to clearly view the challenge at hand then begin to talk in bold, unashamed terms about how to complete the journey initiated by those figures and personalities of our prouder past.

    (08060340825 sms only)

  • For the love of life

    For the love of life

    He who gives bread to the poor receives a greater reward than he who finds the king’s purse.  

    Today’s column will be a highly personal intervention. Notwithstanding its personal quality, I hope something of universal application will announce itself before this column’s final word is yours to read. Thus, I write pursuant to this hope, meaning I shall write until either I or all I have need to express is exhausted.

    As Black History Month, February has always been one of my favorite periods of the year. This year, my joy is tempered by a loss I am powerless to reverse although, with all my mortal being, I wish I could do so. Last week, my sister has passed into the realm of souls. She died.

    Ill for months, she exhibited a faith and courage that revealed this person, so familiar and close to me, to actually be a human being of an extraordinarily heroic and noble character. I was taken by the greatness and strength hidden within her that walked so visibly forth at this moment of crisis and severity.

    Throughout her illness, loved ones held to the hope that recovery would be hers. It was not to be. This ending was not due to lack of faith. For reasons more sublime than we can fathom, she passed away. That was to be her fate. We dare not argue or second guess. We can only adjust ourselves to this loss and plead for the passage of time to heal the deep cut.

    The cold-hearted will say her illness presented but one ending and that ending came. The practical will say probability worked as expected. The wicked will say Death rules this earth and thus claimed its inevitable victory. This would be partially correct but wholly wrong. True, Death seizes us all. Against fragile flesh and bone, there is no battle Death does not win. Death took her body. Yet, it lost the larger war for it never conquered her spirit.

    This woman lived and did so with a grace and beauty that would not succumb to Death. This is the reason I write of her passing. I write not for sympathy or tears. I write that we all may better understand the reasons why we must strive to uplift those around us and to chase evil’s darkness back into itself.

    Thus, I ask you to bear with me as I recall a bit about my sister’s character so that you may see more clearly the path along which we should tread. My sister neither lived nor walked frightened by the shadow of death but she strolled in the glow of life overflowing in kindness and service to others. She lived to give better life to others.

    Although small, nearly petite, she had an indomitable spirit reinforced with the heart of a lion. Her compass was an unerring magnanimity and fairness, allowing her to accept everyone and to treat no one unjustly. She possessed a welcoming heart and would eagerly stretch out a helping hand to both friend and stranger. She possessed no guile; ulterior motives did not come to her. If you disliked her, she wished you the best. If you liked her, she loved you. If you loved her, there was nothing she would not do for you. She laughed more than she cried. She helped more than she hindered and spoke peace and love when others sniped and gossiped. The warmth of her spirit was as the sun. She gave more to this world than she took from it.

    She was an extraordinary person, a hero in the guise of a neighbor or coworker. Had I not been a writer, you would never have known that this wonderful human being had spent time among us. You would not even know her name. Now you shall: Valerie Browne.

    I had hoped to write this piece before she departed so that she might have read it (she would have been embarrassed by the attention). But her exit came quicker than expected. In some ways, this lapse is immaterial. She knew who she was and did not need my reminder. More important is that I have told you about her because there is a larger purpose to this brief memorial. This is what beckons my pen to continue writing and write I shall.

    The story of my sister is not unique. It is the unsung tale of the progress of humankind and of those anonymous heroes whose quiet sacrifices and dignity make such progress attainable.

    Valerie was not an angel. An angel has no choice but to be angelic. Their deeds are ordained by their nature. A human must make a conscious decision to strive for goodness. It does not come naturally. That was the decision this woman made. Even when life was being stolen from her one hurtful piece at a time, she did not become embittered. Never did she curse Heaven or confuse it with Hell. She remained steadfast even as the final whisper of life exited her lips. Thus, she is an angel now.

    To me, people like her tell the true story of humanity and progress. We tend to focus on those with power, fame and titles. Yet, the world suffers from too many instances of small-minded people with big titles while we rarely celebrate the large-hearted people who have modest or no titles.

    By virtue of this column, my name publicly appears on a regular basis. Yet, in living as she did, my sister achieved something much greater than what I now do. Yet, I am known and she was anonymous. Greatness is found not so much in the amount of light shined on you but in the quality of light cast by you and by the life you wrought.

    She and the millions of underappreciated bright lights like her deserve recognition for the quiet but profound contributions they make to society on a daily basis. It is said a wise man hides not his lamp under a bushel. Nor does a just society commit such bleak error. However, a nation or society bounded in injustice not only conceals these people, it discourages their existence. It seeks to portray them and their contributions as obsolete relics of a long gone era.

    We must not listen to the deceptive verses of those who would rather society become a relentless contest of grab and snatch, of taken or be taken. There are those amongst us who smile and laugh in your presence but plot to desert you of house, livelihood and future hope. There are those who would destroy much of the world that they might lord over the remnant. This is the battle of the day. This is the battle my sister always encouraged me to fight. I remember her exhortations, so I press on as I must. Thus, I write as I do. Thank you, Valerie. I could not have had a better sister.

    This Black History Month, America faces a homicide trial redolent of the Trayvon Martin case a few years ago. Again, the setting is Florida. Again, an armed white man killed an unarmed black youth. Again, the white man’s defense is that he shot the boy because he feared for his life.

    The case startles. Driving his car, the man, Michael Dunn, and his fiancée pulled into a convenience store parking lot next to a vehicle occupied by a few black teenagers, including Jordan Davis, who had no idea the hours of his life were sorely numbered. While the fiancée entered the store, the 47 year-old man complained the rap music emanating from the other car was too loud. For a moment, the volume was decreased. Apparently irked by the domineering tone of the man’s request, someone in the vehicle increased the music to its original loudness. An argument ensued. Eventually, the man fired ten shots into the other vehicle. No shots were fired at him. No weapon was found in the other vehicle.

    When his fiancée emerged from the store, the man simply told her to return to the car. He never informed her that he shot at the other vehicle. He never called the police. He simply drove to a hotel where they would enjoy a late night dinner.

    Conjuring images of the Martin case, the man claims he acted in self defense. He asserted he was in imminent fear of his life because he thought Davis held something that resembled a stick or a gun barrel.

    This case is outrageous. There is no evidence of any weapon other that used by Mr. Dunn to slay the boy. True, the boy’s behavior was lacking. The music should not have been loud. He should not have argued with Dunn. Yet, Dunn’s behavior prior to the shooting was even more questionable for it fermented what otherwise would have been a few uncomfortable moments into lethal tragedy. He had no compelling reason to confront the boys about the music. If he had waited a few moments, his fiancée would have returned to the car.

    He could have driven away without incident or harm, never to see the boys again. Everyone left to go his own way in quietude or with loud music. Moreover, he is a middle-aged adult. He should have been in firmer self-control than to engage in an angry exchange with a teen.

    In all probability, Dunn pulled into the parking area with anger already in his mind. The presence of the black youth and their outlandish music infuriated him, pushing him to the walls of his endurance. When the boy disobeyed and argued back, Dunn had enough. He thought he saw a stick or a gun because he wanted to see one where none existed. He wanted an excuse to use his weapon because he thought these black boys had no business existing in the same social space with him. That they deigned to invade and upset the harmony of that space and argue with him multiplied his ire. He moved to exterminate the unwanted intrusion. Thus, he fired ten shots into a vehicle although no one had tried to leave that other car to assault him and not even a harmless paper cup was tossed from that vehicle at him. He victimized these boys because their blackness was literally bête noire to him. Then he exploited the stereotypes relating to their blackness to lay the absurd claim that he was the victim who fortunately escaped death by visiting death on his assailant.

    The man could not have been in mortal fear. If so, he is a coward. Words are not enough around which to construct such deep fear. Moreover, it would mean he cared little for his fiancée. Why would he allow her to emerge from the store and not rush to protect her if lethality was in the air? More to the point, a man trembling with fear does not unleash a fusillade, then merrily drive away to share a quiet dinner and laughs. His behavior was a more subtle denouement to the evening yet it harkens to a haunting past where whites could lynch blacks then literally enjoy a festive party to celebrate the horrible cruelty they so openly committed. Dunn seems to be of that benighted ilk. For him, the shooting was merely ridding himself of a pesky nuisance. His victims were black thugs, not real human beings.

    The case is now before a jury. All evidence points against the shooter. Yet, he has racist psychology on his side and this is a powerful weapon that often mocks and trumps objective evidence. It led him to shoot Davis and it might totally exonerate him or allow the jury to convict him of a lesser crime than murder. An acquittal would send a stark message more chilling than that conveyed by the Martin case. The message from Martin was for black youths to be circumspect when alone and to avoid fighting whites in the absence of witnesses. In his case, Davis was not alone. There were witnesses, including the other boys in the vehicle. Davis did not fight Dunn and never came near him. There was not a scratch on the man. Davis was shot merely for talking loudly.

    If Dunn is excused from this homicide, the legal system would be emitting the message that a black male is, by law, considered to be a lethal threat to a white person whenever the black vocally disagrees with the white. This is an egregious regression to a time when justice was so blind that it could not see well enough to find its way into the workings of the legal and political system. It was so blind that it could not see blacks were being treated so differently than whites that the two groups could occupy the same geographic space while residing in different legal worlds. It took much sacrifice to leave that unjust existence. We ought not return to it.

    My sister passed too early but hers was by natural causes. Davis died too soon and too unnaturally, He was a brash teenager but that is no reason to snuff out his life. We shall never know the man he might have been. He could have turned into a bright light that bettered the lives of all around him. The world needs no more deaths like this. It needs more life. The injustice must end. That is why I write as I do. That is why I say, “thank you, Valerie, my sister, for your courage and inspiration. Thank you.”

    08060340825 (sms only)

  • The inequality of economic inequality while attempting to fix it!

    The inequality of economic inequality while attempting to fix it!

    Numbers don’t lie but the people who compile them do.

    Much of the global elite has trekked to snowy Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Replete with the tony hubbub reserved for the rich and powerful, the annual confabulation should strike concern, even a pluck of dread, in the hearts of the average person. There, the wealthy gather to discuss how the global economy will function and what the economy will do to or for whom. When the rich congregate rarely do the humble benefit from the stilted occasion.

    Wintry Davos is the perfect setting for this assemblage. The cold heart of affluence exceeds the chill of the frosty weather outside. Participants are advised to take open-air walks that they might warm their hearts and thaw whatever compassion lies frozen within.

    While Davos participants busied themselves on more clearly shaping the world in their own image, they pretended to contemplate the matter of income inequality. There exists a chasm between developed and poor nations. This gap seems to be such a structural feature of our world that for every nation closing the gap there appears to be two more falling further behind. Worse is the divide between rich and poor people. A global humanitarian NGO calculates the world’s richest 85 people possess as much wealth as the poorer half of the global population. Less than 100 people have amassed as much wealth as over 3.5 billion people. Never have so few controlled so vast a portion of mankind’s wealth.

    So minatory has economic inequality become that Pope Francis dispatched an envoy to the convention to plead for the millions the world economy has cast down. He would have done better asking for mercy for that bleating sheep in the grasp of a hungry butcher.

    For a split second, the condition of the poor held center stage at the global forum. Then, that second was gone. The words of the papal embassy fell on deaf ears and hearts stony. His messenger looked out of place, like an awkward clothier bumbling with his suitcase of wares into a nudist colony. The Pope felt compelled to register this plea but he must have known more converts were to have been gained had he sent the good Cardinal to the moon to preach o the lunar rocks and stones.

    A humble carpenter from Nazareth once commented it was easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven. That worker of wood spoke the perfect truth perfectly. Yet, this does not amount to a polemic against wealth or people with wealth. We need wealth and are always in need of more of it. That is the point, “we” need it. Wealth creation is, in almost all instances, a collective endeavor. However, the reward for this joint effort, almost always, is unjustly distributed.

    Thus, the divine admonition was not against those with wealth or riches. It was against “rich men.” There is a subtle difference. A rich man defines himself by his riches. They are so integral to him that he is what he owns. This means that which he owns equally owns him. He is one likely to do wrong to enrich himself and one who will never do right if it costs. Jesus was not so concerned about a person’s acquisitions. He was more concerned about what a person might do to attain wealth and what lengths he might pursue to keep it.

    Like the Nazarene carpenter, we must be concerned with this matter. This requires prudence. Test everything. For the past several months, the global media and establishment politicians has been banging the kettle about economic inequality. At first, this seemed a sympathetic awakening. The more seen of this exhibition, the less good is to be had from it. Whenever hirelings of those who profit from a situation tell you they want to end it, prepare to be duped.

    The fad of this economic season is to bruit economic inequality as if stating the term washes the speaker clean of his antecedents of indifference if not disdain for those of lower economic station. A similar phenomenon occurred during the Civil Rights Movement in America. It became unfashionable to state Blacks were undeserving of equal rights. The most ardent racists were found stating support for equal rights. While their words spoke nicely, their actions remained as prejudiced as always. They did not want the world to change. They connived to keep the world as it was by faking that they themselves had changed. Those who believed them, believed a lie. The more you believe a fantasy the farther you drift from doing the work needed to bury stubborn and powerful prejudice.

    In present-day America, the chant against inequality has been the loudest but it will do nothing except bounce against the ceiling of high privilege to fall haplessly to ground. Late last year, President Obama proclaimed economic inequality as the principle challenge of our epoch. A few weeks ago, he visited the state of North Carolina to declare a policy of establishing economic “promise zones” in impoverished communities around the nation. While the precise composition of these zones remains sketchy, first impressions are that this promise shall be an ill one.

    These promise zones offer relaxed regulations, privatization on the cheap, and a cookie jar of miscellaneous sweets that will profit employers but not the laborers who will work for low wages in these zones. These zones promise little save that corporate power will love them and the average laborer will endure them.

    They will function as modern revivals of 19th century sharecropping. Back then, farmers owned their land but were forced to sell their produce to certain buyers who dictated prices. These buyers manipulated prices so that farmers paid more for the inputs purchased from these overseers than they gained as revenue. Eventually, farmers sold their lands at depressed prices to satisfy the debts. But recurrent debts do not remain satisfied. Farmer became tenants on their own lands. They continued working the fields but could never reclaim their property because they were always wading in growing debt. Such will be the fate of these promise zones. Employers will pay cutthroat wages. But the cost of living will be mercilessly more than the wage can manage. The poor laborer will never earn enough to give his family and himself what he ought. He labors to profit the company and grow further indebted to it or other corporations to which it is aligned. Instead of a shining revival on the local economy, this policy is dark, almost medieval in its inspiration.

    Some Obama loyalists will call this hyperbole. I say take a look at America’s policy supporting such zones in Haiti. There is nothing enlightened in them. With the vast numbers of poor Blacks and Brown people, the powers that be think it is time to move Haiti to America. Even poor White laborers will become honorary Haitians in this regard. Welcome to the new world order. It is one of vast riches and rank destitution.

    This brings us to a crucial point. Fighting income inequality is not the objective. Inequality is a symptom of a graver disorder; it is a consequence of an unjust philosophy of human interaction and of the economic machinery produced by that distorted conceptualization. It is a byproduct of a belief that human beings are so grossly unequal that some people deserve little more than a meager existence while others are destined to rule the world and all the riches of it.

    Imagine a hundred men appear in court testifying that the thief in the dock had robbed each of his wages. It would be a rather curious undertaking for the court to shift focus from the obvious crime to dwell on the fact that the men are aggrieved because they haven’t funds to pay rent. Instead of ordering the robber to return the stolen sums in full, the jurist requests him to pay each a small portion of the pilfered sums to help them in paying their rent. Such a proceeding travesties justice and common sense. We commit a similar mistake when discussing economic inequality.

    Those who have commandeered the financial system and large corporations now earn profits far beyond the value of whatever wealth they may create. A handful of financial speculators are of some stimulatory value to an economy. When that handful becomes a horde, the resultant frenzy does little of value while destabilizing the system. Disaster beckons as the population of speculators and rentiers increases. Yet, the worthless paper they push among themselves is said to be precious simply because they have decided it is and the laws they write give them the power to do so. This is the way they enrich themselves without sullying their hands in real labor. On the other hand, the farmer growing that which we eat for our humble sustenance performs an essential service; but, his reward is not proportionate to his value. The commodity speculator and the middle-man gorge the profit better meant for the farmer.

    We exist in a rentier economy where those who reap the most sow very little and those who literally sow the most, must keep sowing for they never truly ever reap. This unfair weighing of economic reward and value is the heart of the problem. Income inequality is just the fibrillation caused by the hardness of our economic ways.

    The truer issue is not inequality but why our economic processes have been so constructed to generate such inequality. This is must be the thrust of the inquiry lest we miss the bigger picture. Economic inequality is just one aspect of human inequality. I posit that where economic inequality is vast or is increasing, others forms of human inequality, be it political or social, are also vast or growing. To simply fight the symptom of economic is to abet those who profit for this imbalance. Fighting inequality implies a desire to somehow redistribute wealth from the rich to those who are not. It makes it seem like the commoners are trying to pilfer from their wealthy superiors due to envy or small-minded plebian greed.

    In this scenario, the wealthy portray themselves as victim when, in fact, they were the wrongful takers in the first instance. They are the robbers before the court. They are the ones who have structured things such that what they do gets paid more regardless of the value intrinsic in their exertions. Look, no one should begrudge a person his wealth, particularly if that person’s wealth is commensurate with the value of his work. However, when the CEOs of failing financial houses receive eight-figure salaries, something is more than amiss. The people are being jobbed and the dignity of meaningful labor is being slaughtered on the profane altar of financialism’s domination of our economic lives.

    This year, as the mainstream media and politician rail about the evils of economic inequality, pledge yourselves not to be inveigled by their foolery. Their appeal is superficial and transient for they offer no concrete reform of the global economic system. Their answer is to shift a pinch of money to the poor as if doing so heaps injustice on the rich. Don’t let them tug at your emotions or sense of fair play. If a man amputates your finger then offers you a bandage, you don’t smile. Unless you despise your hand, you demand firmer restitution be given. No longer should people be content with promises that can be rescinded at any moment and that detour from the more vital issue. Why should the wealthy gain so much in the first instance?

    The preponderance of empirical evidence suggests an economy is stronger and more resilient when extremes of rich and poor are mitigated. Why then do the engineers of the economy drive it in the weaker direction? They care little about the overall economy and only about what they may get out of it. It is you who must care about the economy. Unlike the rich who live above the economy, you live in it.

    If you want to end the trend of burgeoning inequality, you don’t do so by asking the rich to give back a portion of their improper windfall. That allows the robber to keep his seat as prince and priest. The real answer is to disallow speculators and rentiers from acquiring the hefty, nigh illicit, windfall at all. This will require a substantial restructuring in how the economy values different roles and different work. For sure, it will require a recalibration of the relative value and wealth allocated to the real sector compared to the financial sector.

    Only by reforming the work done and assessing more just and humane relative values for said work can we make our economic processes fairer in how people are compensated for their labors. Such an economy will also produce a different array of goods and services more responsive to the yearnings of the bulk of the population. This will result in less poverty and a growing middle class as the economy begins to produce things that reinforce the stability and welfare of the masses. This makes the masses more productive and thus the economy further grows. This is the only way to fight inequality.

    To do otherwise, is to berate inequality yet follow policies that maintain it. It is a fair thing to marvel at a tiger’s spots when viewing a picture of the beast or when it is caged. However, when the tiger is loose and set to pounce, a fixation on the esthetics of his coat can be a fatal distraction. The tiger of inequality stalked the neighborhood. Time to fell the beast.

    08060340826 (sms only)

  • Iraq: How to break a nation while attempting to fix it!

    Iraq: How to break a nation while attempting to fix it!

    The wicked help the poor that they may later enslave them.

     

    Iraq is a slim line, an untimely hiccup, away from full-tilt civil war. It is a war in the making, based on a war that never should have been made. In 2003, when deploying its modern war-machine against this ancient land and its brutal despot, America was purblind to the strategic back draft of this misadventure. So tactically and technologically advanced had America become that it grew arrogant and intellectually lazy.

    America’s leaders believed so much in their technological superiority that they substituted it for strategic wisdom. This is worse than thinking one’s strengths can mask weakness. They duped themselves to the point where they felt they suffered no weaknesses in the thought, preparation or implementation of this martial undertaking.

    History has unveiled their reasoning as the folly that it is. The most obvious violation of the truth was claiming to rid the land of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. This deception made the war illegal but did not, of necessity, consign it to be the failure it became. Throughout history there have been wars predicated on venal or false reasons yet expertly prosecuted to the desired objective. There have also been wars waged for noble causes that came to disaster for they were poorly conceived and weakly prosecuted. The American War in Iraq is of that melancholy category of war launched for bogus reason and terminating in ill conclusion for being so awkwardly designed and effectuated.

    The great mistake of the America war is found not in the falsity of the reason it was ignited but in the danger of the consequences it unleashed.

    A statesman’s most sublime duty is the protection of his nation. In times of troubling exigency, a statesman bound to jettison decorum in order to perform whatever grisly and mean task is required of him to render safe his homeland. No great statesman has ever valued the propriety of the law or convention over the survival of his nation. The higher duty has always been the protection of the state. All else is secondary. A statesman must be willing to risk the damnation of his soul to save that of his country.

    As a corollary, the worst foul a statesman may commit is to expose his nation to unneeded danger while attempting to acquire uncertain gain in a place not of vital interest. This is the dereliction into which American leaders fell when they determined Iraq might be invaded.

    The Americans knew what they were doing but did not know what it would do. Defeating an inferior army is no great feat; but, corralling a smaller army is a far distance from subduing a nation or conquering an opposing ideology. The demise of the latter duo cannot solely be accomplished by bullet or blade. It is easier to kill an enemy with your weapon of choice than to force him to behave as you would choose. An enemy is usually an enemy for a reason that is so fundamental that it defines the core existence of one or both antagonists. That reason can be suppressed and concealed by superior military power but never is it completely eliminated unless the enemy himself is obliterated.

    Thus, America quickly won the military war it initiated; but, in doing so, it ignited more important contests it would lose.

    First, America said ridding of Iraq of Saddam would bring secular democracy to the nation and the region. American leaders had scant understanding of the centrifugal pressures that described the Iraqi political economy. America also did not understand the wider regional repercussions of unsettling the political balance Saddam had imposed by force on his nation. Thus, America thought it would be enough to change the direction of the nation simply by erect signposts that claimed to lead toward democracy. This was delusional for only the signage not the road had changed.

    The road Iraqi leaders travelled was still the cul-de-sac of shortsighted religious and tribal chauvinism. Today, there is little democracy or liberal governance save that everyone is free to kill and be killed and, in death, there is a certain equality that living mortals can never alter. There is nothing liberal in the society except bombs and weapons have become more liberally and indiscriminately employed. The nation is less safe now than during Saddam’s reign. Democracy is but a silly façade in this lethal setting. Either a strong man or chaos will rise to capture the day. Either way, the 2003 war has been for naught. The several hundred thousand Iraqis and the several thousand American killed in this fracas lost their lives in vain. Those who sent so many to their premature doom may be without remorse or uneasy conscience believing they did right by their estimation of the world; however, their ease of conscience does not release them from the reality that, upon their hands, sits a vast quantity of spilled, innocent blood.

    Second, America hoped the war would trap Iran in a pincer. Surrounded by American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran would become more circumspect. Instead, the one nation that most benefitted from the Iraqi has been Iran. Without going to war, Iran won the demise of its most implacable regional foe, Saddam. The dead man’s minority Sunni government was replaced by a Shiite-dominated regime increasingly adherent to Tehran’s worldview.

    The icing on the cake is that these benefits were funded by the American war machine. America fought the war while its chief enemy in the region reaped the benefit. In common life, intellectual density is neither crime nor sin but does incur its peculiar costs. In the conduct of nations and their international affairs, the folly of a nation’s statesmen is the enemy’s best weapon. Dumb policy has destroyed more empires has the opposing sword. Bad enough, the Washington architects of the American-Iraqi conflict might be guilty of war crimes, worse is that they are guilty of rank strategic misjudgment that has destabilized a nation and its already combustible neighborhood.

    Iran’s heightened influence in Iraq piqued Saudi Arabia, putting fuel to the Sunni-Shiite rim of fire in the Middle East. Positioned as guardian of the Sunni tradition, the Saudis did not take kindly to Iraq falling into the Iranian sphere of influence. Before this development, Iranian influence among Arab nations was basically limited to Syria and Hezbollah regions of Lebanon. Iraq coming under Shiite rule jolted the extant power balance. Iran could use Iraq not only to as a conduit to influence events in Syria, but also to reach out to Shiite communities in the Gulf and in Saudi itself.

    As a result of this perceived threat, Saudi foreign policy has turned decidedly hawkish. It now downplays the Palestinian issue. It has found informal truce with Israel for both nations loath Iran more than they hate each other. Saudi funds extremist fighters to topple Assad in Syria. These same fighters now spark civil war in Iraq.

    Third, America claimed to war to prevent Saddam from teaming with Al Qaeda. This allegation slandered the despot. Saddam was many a brutal thing. A friend of Al Qaeda was not among them. Saddam, like all conventional Arab dictators, feared and despised Al Qaeda. Neither he, nor Mubarak nor Qaddafi broke break with Al Qaeda. These dictators were power conscious and extreme in their own right. They were not about to countenance any free-wheeling religious extremists to go out of control so as to rival them on their own turf.

    The American invasion changed this. Al Qaeda poured into Iraq when America attacked. The superiority of American muscle suppressed this presence but never could fully end it. Once the American military withdrew, Al Qaeda gradually resurfaced. It began with small scale, intermittent actions and improvised explosions. With each success, they got bolder; subsequent operations grew larger. This made Iraq more fragile and made the Shiite government more suspicious of the Sunni community. This created further political estrangement which provided fertile ground for Al Qaeda to continue its urban guerilla tactics. A dynamic was established where each incident made political rapprochement more implausible. The lack of political reconciliation across the sectarian divide gave Al Qaeda tacit support within the Sunni community, thus enabling it to continue its disruptive activities.

    Then war broke in Syria. Jihadists from across the region joined the fray. At first, Iraq was a staging area for the Syrian theatre. Eventually, fighters began to war in Iraq because Iraq was funneling Iranian aid into Syria. Then the fighters began to strike in Iraq to disrupt and redefine Iraq itself. The Al Qaeda franchise, the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now carried out operations in both Iraq and Syria for the purpose of seizing and controlling territory.

    When America assassinated bin Laden, President Obama boasted the world would be safer. As so often has been the case in military aspects of foreign policy, he was wrong. Facing an Al Qaeda headed by bin Laden would have been an easier task than dealing with this current group. Bin Laden was obsessed with the perversely quixotic dream of replicating a spectacular attack against symbols of western power as occurred in 9/11. The chance of a repeat was slim and fairly well contained. Killing Osama elevated a new leadership with a vastly more effective strategy. Al Qaeda would not target western countries as their primary goal. Instead, they would foment and take opportunistic advantage of trouble in Middle Eastern nations adverse to the group. By doing this they could gain control of territory, weapons, riches, perhaps whole governments. Thus, they joined in the fight against Qaddafi, Assad and now battle for the heart of Iraq.

    Weighed against every reasonable diplomatic criterion, the American incursion into Iraq was a strategic military blunder of vast magnitude. It was one of the worse designed campaigns of the past two hundred years. Even the debacle of the Vietnam War was not as counterproductive as this episode. There is only one aspect of the American foreign policy machinery that benefits from the way things unfolded: the war industry. With fighting raging in Syria and Iraq, there will be heightened demand for war materiel. Much of this will be purchased at high costs and with Saudi money.

    If Iraq worsens, there will be pressure to redeploy American troops to keep this “success” from turning into failure. President Obama will not want to redeploy but he also does not want to be accused of “losing Iraq” to the jihadists. On the near horizon, there lurks the prospect of war with Iran if the nuclear deal is scratched. Many important interests in Washington hope the deal founders because war would enhance their balance sheets.

    It is a terrible thing that the world’s most powerful nation seems primed for war just because a few vested institutional interests profit thereby. Yet, these interests are powerful and integral to the system. They say little publicly but do much harm privately. A large-scale, private-sector military industry is anathematic to peace. Such firms need profits to exist and expand. They can only expand if there is increased demand for their merchandise. Demand for their product only expands in the face of broadening war. In times of sustained peace, these firms would become irrelevant then fold bankrupt.

    This story holds lessons for Africa. The American and western military encroachment in the Middle East is mimicked on a smaller, yet still deadly, scale on this continent. Already, we see the effects in Libya. America fought hard, purportedly to save the people from Qaddafi. America and friends neutralized Qaddafi and decimating the nation’s infrastructure through aerial bombing. The West has done little to rehabilitate the nation, save for repairing the oil production facilities. The reason for the oil production repairs is so obvious that it needs no explanation save to the most naïve.

    Beyond this, the nation is a house of bedlam. Chaos reigns and government is a disservice. Yet, the West no longer cares.

    Western effectives have trundled into several African nations in the past two years. Each nation into which they have entered is resource-endowed but poorly led and governed. We are told the troops are here to save souls and rescue nations from themselves. The truth is less noble. They are here to protect or promote access to precious raw minerals. The people and humanitarian concern are but pretext.

    There is great fanfare and accolades from the global media wherever western intervention begins. However, there follow up is rare to see if or how the tale ends. French troops entered Mali. How fares that nation and what precious minerals are being extracted from it? Years ago, America assigned dozens of Special Forces soldiers to track the notorious Joseph Kony and his misfit army. They have had no success finding Kony although he and his glum band have little military training or expertise. Perhaps they can’t find the outlaw because they are not looking for him. Perhaps they are giving protection to Western firms seeking to strip and extract costly rare minerals from some of Africa’s most remote and hidden places?

    The bottom line is that most places Western troops deploy are no better after than before the intervention. This is because the entry was never done for the benefit of the populace or even a part of it. The encroachment happens because it profits the encroacher. Darfur has been a humanitarian maelstrom, dwarfing all others combined save for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet, there was never a thought of intervening in Darfur. The reluctance was not because of Khartoum’s resistance but because there was no material profit to be had from rescuing people from that massive sand dune.

    A century ago, these activities were dubbed gunboat diplomacy. Today, we rename them “drone diplomacy” for the venal objective remains the same although the weapons technology has evolved. Those who run the global economy need Africa’s material resources and want to pay the lowest price for them. They are not interested in bargaining with Africans and their nations as equal parties in a negotiation. They would rather that you stoop poor and weak. That way they may take what they want and tell you it is for your own good.

    So goes the battle of the Western war condominium against the poor and powerless, especially in Africa. This is one of the most uneven and unfair contests ever waged. You have been invaded, and know it not. You have been violated, and know it not. You have been pilfered and know it not. You cannot let this continue and expect to prosper or be independent but you know it not.

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  • Civil strife in Africa – the tragedy continues

    Civil strife in Africa – the tragedy continues

    The poor man’s skin is hard calloused yet vulnerable still to blade and bullet

    For several African nations, war and strife no longer signal a deviation from normalcy. Storms are supposed to be less frequent than clement weather. However, the storm upon these nations does not want to pass. It disobeys the natural rhyme of things because this storm is not comprised of wind and rain. This storm is of mortal make, a bilious cloud of greed, ambition and hate.

    In these places, war has become the prevailing social institution and violence the foundational tenet of the political culture. War has seeped into the very spirit of these societies, afflicting all it touches. War and its consequences control and define the people; they no longer control or define the fighting. War has a life of its own. Whenever this happens, it serves as a harsh requiem for just governance and humane existence.

    Societies bounded by war move no further forward. The movement promised to their burdened people is that of tripping backward to revisit tragedies that should never have occurred. For these episodes to be repeated in each subsequent stanza of a country’s history is a most evil refrain.

    Africa wails because her children set upon each other with such hateful ruthlessness that they are blinded to a better way. Meanwhile, to fund the orgy of violence against ourselves, we sell the fruits and treasures of her soil to outside forces for a pittance. That which occurs within Black Africa countries is replicated in Black communities throughout the Americas. Rival groups battle to control strips of urban desolation where little prospers and much perishes.

    Our miseducation has been so long-standing and thorough that we willingly instruct ourselves in ways wrong and injurious. Time passes. Much is lost. Little is gained. Nothing changes except the rising death toll. So enthralled with grabbing the immediate, small-scale benefits within reach, we see not the bigger picture. Masters of short-term tactics and cunning intrigue, we lose by winning. The purblind, dismal game we play has no victors. It merely has different categories of losers.

    Thus, the African landscape is littered by conflict. South Sudan is oil rich and leadership famished. The fight is on. The Central African Republic (CAR) is replete with minerals and deplete of leaders. The fight is on.

    In South Sudan, ethnic groups that allied for political independence from Sudan now fight each other. They lunge at each other because they never really fought together. They never strived for a common vision of freedom, equitable government and economic life; they merely combated the same foe. They agreed their pasts were terrible but never agreed how a better future might look.

    Political independence is not the brook of unity. Cohesion proves illusory if political independence is not accompanied by a meaningful partnership wherein important constituencies agree to a just allocation of economic responsibilities and benefits among themselves. Otherwise, as in South Sudan, their unity will be a limited, negative one.

    Once shorn of the common foe, the key groups began the dance of mutual reproach. The country was fated to civil war the day it gained independence. The countdown to strife was inevitable as if it fixed by the turning of an hourglass.

    The media characterizes the civil war as an ethnic struggle, pitting Dinka against Nuer. To some extent, this is true. In a more fundamental sense, it is irrelevant. If not ethnicity, it would have been religion. If not religion, would have been region. If not region, it would have been farmer versus herder or city versus countryside or back to ethnicity again. The problem is not so much in us, such as the ethnic group or religion to which we attach. The problem is with us; it lies in how we think and act upon those narrow thoughts.

    Peace talks are set in Ethiopia. But action on the ground belies the irenic quest. Government fighters march against a key town controlled by the rebels. Neither side will concede anything pending the outcome of this encounter. The victor on the ground will be better positioned to exert himself at the negotiating table. Each side should view this as the opportunity to forge the organic political economic partnership that escaped them at the onset of independence.

    However, neither is possessed of the statesmanship embrace such a delicate notion given the martial atmosphere. Each side believes in the way of the gun for neither sees the other as brother compatriots. Thus, each prays for victory on the ground because no one wants to compromise. Both sides are shabbily armed and poorly maintained. But their self-deceived leaders see themselves as generals of strong armies that will shape history. They are neither fine statesmen nor military geniuses. They are the leaders of an armed rabble, the cruel scribes of prolific misery. They drink at the well of hubris. Their reward shall be infamy.

    In CAR, religion allegedly catalyzed the mayhem. An alignment of Muslim groups, the Seleka, fights a medley of Christian militias for control of this parcel of poverty. This country of less than five million people has important diamond and mineral reserves. Given the small population and the amount of raw material underfoot, a decade of peace and credible leadership could turn this parade of desolation into a tableau of progress. Instead, the tragic miscalculation of those who aspire for control thrusts everyone and everything into the jowls of cataclysm.

    Twenty percent of the populace is internally displaced or has sought refuge in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and even South Sudan. To run into South Sudan is not jumping from the frying pan into the fire. It is trudging from furnace to furnace. It is the destiny of people made wretched by the bellicose decisions of those who pretend to lead them.

    Meanwhile, the outside world makes loud sounds of anguished concern but offers little material help. Business continues as usual. This eruption has taken place in slow motion.

    CAR has been victimized by military coups and divisive governance for most of its post-independence existence. For CAR and other nations, the struggle for independence pales to the struggle of post-independence survival. Independence was granted not gained. Sub-national groups did not have to unite and coalesce to fight for a country of their choosing. They merely accepted the partners given them. They teamed together against the former colonial master in negotiations during the day; but, they were conspiring with the former master against each other during the night. Sadly, conspiratorial night has long lasted. Day seems to have disappeared.

    Regarding current edition of crisis, the CAR was wracked by fighting throughout late 2012. Various attempts finally culminated in a cease-fire between then President Bozize and the groups that would form Seleka. The respite was brief for it was predicated on promises broken as soon as they were made. Fighters were to be paid to disarm. However, western donors could not find money in their bursaries to fund disarmament. Frustrated, Seleka regrouped, pushing Bozize from the capital. Seleka’s Michel Djotodia replaced him. Now with gun fire in the streets of Bangui, Djotodia has resigned, prompted by Economic Community of the Central African States. In the midst of anomie, the nation has no leader, only fighters. Somehow, this power vacuum is supposed to be adroitly filled in the midst of chaos. The chance of success is less than hair thin.

    Strangely, those European nations that could not locate a farthing to finance disarmament manage to funnel arms into the torn country. CAR is one of the mostly poorly lit nations in the world. When the sun sets, CAR’s darkness is truly dark. One must carefully watch as they tread for they might step on a weapon. The place is awash in AK-47s. Medicine and food are dear but a firearm is as inexpensive as a broken toothpick. Life is costly but death is cheap and everywhere prevailing.

    The incident of plenteous cheap weapons in an impoverished land is not mysterious. The answer is bright, hard and in demand: Diamonds. Instead of using mining revenue to usher in prosperity among the various constituencies, craven leaders short sell diamonds in a rush to buy second-hand weapons that their people may continue slaying themselves. Because of the distortions now institutionalized in their system, this process seems to be the lone road left. To them, their actions are logical. They cannot see the madness in it or in them.

    Strong historic political and economic forces have brought these countries into the cradle of despair. Over the past several centuries, Africa was waylaid by the twin catastrophes of colonialism and slavery. The past fifty years of political independence is but the most recent chapter in larger book; it represents an ounce of inchoate liberty measured against the pound of subjugation the longer span of time represents.

    So much learned, pent-up cruelty and injustice could not be washed away in an instant. Our nations did not break the colonial yoke. They merely renamed it. The colonial administration became the national administration. The “Colonial Office of Taxation and Sundry Matters” because the “National office of Internal Revenue.” The titles changed as did the skin color of those in office. But the soul of governance remained its moribund self. Government never became of and for the people. It remained on top of them.

    Heavy responsibility must be apportioned to these historic antecedents. But to foist all blame on the foreign machinations of a wretched past is inaccurate and unilluminating. With each day that passes, this reason becomes a lesser one. It becomes more of a limp excuse than a compelling explanation. After fifty years in the driver’s seat, we should have learned more about vehicle and the road traveled. We should also have improved our ability to navigate the bends and twists of our forward journey. We have failed at this.

    African countries and Black communities throughout the world are in tumult because our leaders fight each other with the desperate exertion of slave gladiators hoping to save their lone souls by pleasing their owners. If they have to kill their brother to do so, by all means let not the brother be spared. In essence, their spiritual family is the non-Black for they treat non-Blacks with greater humanity and more respect than ever reserved for people of the darker hue.

    Miseducation of Black leadership is so severe the outside world no longer needs to deceive our leaders. Rarely do any of them see the larger game because they believe they are the only game in town. They are awash in self deception. The narrow political and economic education under which most leaders have been inculcated has produced succeeding generations of leaders incapable of functioning at the national level.

    Actually, the problem is that they function at the national level but not at the level of the modern state. Most African countries are not nations; they are states shaped by foreign hand. These states were constructed to suit the purpose of people who never resided in them.

    We inherited these constructs. Whether we like it or not, in general, the fact of their sheer existence now outweighs the flaws of their creation. More is to be gained by improving these entities than by splintering them. In this world, economies of scale matter. The small affluent state is an incident of a peculiar geography or circumstance that cannot be duplicated at will. Disintegration generally leads to greater destitution.

    However, the challenge for Africa is to change the political education of our people. Too many leaders see their group or region as the nation to which they owe primary loyalty. Upon this atavistic premise, their actions and decisions are founded. To the larger nation or country, they give no more loyalty than an American or British leader would give the United Nations or NATO. When it suits them, the nation matters. When the national interest calls for their sacrifice, they hector at the thing, lamenting colonial contraption heaped upon their forebears.

    Yet, Africa must recognize a strategic shift has taken place since the colonial stage. Then, the artificial unions advanced the administrative interests of the satrap. Today, disintegration of these units would better serve the former colonists than if these countries would functionally improve to become self-integrated modern nations.

    Non-African states seek to enhance their industries and their export of finished goods. They need cheap raw materials. They also don’t need competition from Black nations with large pools of eager laborers. Excuse the mixed metaphor, but watching African nations disintegrate would be music to their ears. They pray for our nations to break and the outside world pays a handsome commission to those who would keep them dysfunctional. The chronic warfare that DROC has become is a blemish on modern history. This nation could fuel the economic revival of its sub-region and light most of sub-Sahara Africa. Instead, it is laid bare so that neighboring states and western mining firms can bite at her like a pack of hyena.

    In the end, it is not that African leaders are ignorant. It is not that they can’t think. The tragedy is that they tend to think of the wrong things at the worst times. We need to wake to the challenge at hand. The old mold must be discarded. We must shift political orientation to the country or nation-state level and begin to downplay sub-national affiliations. This will take courage and vision as it violates the grain of convention. However, following convention is a rather quaint, unavailing exercise when it promotes cold disaster. This change must come even if uncomfortable. To fail at this is to fail the challenge of fusing political independence, economic prosperity and modernity in a way that suits our purposes and interests. This is the only way to gain the authentic freedom Africa forgot to claim when it picked up its half parcel of political independence. Recent history shows that political independence without an accompanying sense of nationhood is a recipe for damnable inertia. It is a self-imposed colonialism worse than anything the former master imposed. A people willing to descend into that hole is not a people at all.

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  • A New Year or the same old way?

    With Christmas now behind them, people can shed the pretense of religiosity that was their carriage during that holiday. New Years Eve now walks toward us. This is the most honest of the celebrations and rituals society hoists on people. It is honest because people are expected to freely act as is their want. In fact, people will act in the extreme, believing something mystical and magical about the day. They will become caricatures of themselves while attempting to drown past disappointments and irrigate future hopes.

    The revelers will wax festive until stupefied by vast quantities of intoxicants giddily consumed. While still possessed of their senses, they will ridicule those spending their evening in worship or another sober setting. They shall get far inebriated but never utter a word of the drunkard’s prayer. They will shake their drunken heads, perplexed why people would huddle to pray and sing to a God that does not seem to hear them. The revelers will console themselves that the church-goers are only there because they had not the money to join the party. If they had, they would have chosen champagne and strong drink over God and the prophets.

    Those who attend church on the eve of the New Year will view the partiers in self-righteous disdain. They will label the celebrants “lost’ and “children of the devil,” noting that the liquid spirits they drink are evil as well as strong. The churchers will say the party people desperately search the bottle for something never found there. The revelers futilely try to fill the gaps in their soul with lavish merriment. But the noise and gaiety are false and unfulfilling. While the festivities may treat some corporeal desire, their parties are but funerals of the soul.

    Then there are those cunning persons who outsmart only themselves by attending church services only to dash afterwards to the nearest party. They seek the best of both worlds as if the one will recompense for the deficit of the other. They hedge their bet between fun and obligation, destiny and distraction, Heaven and Hell. Trying to be both, they are neither. While at the religious service, their minds fret the event drags too long; they sprint from it like a rabbit set ablaze – they rush off in such a way that outpaces and leaves behind whatever good the service might have done them. By the time they reach the party, the other revelers have already wilted under hours of drunken exertion already sustained.

    Each group is more accurate in analyzing the other group then in assessing itself. We tend to see the scuff on another’s shoe before we see the gaping hole in our own. The truth is that both are more alike than they would admit. Most people go into New Year’s Eve hoping for a miracle to visit them. The churchgoer pines for special visitation from above. The reveler seeks a more carnal yet still extraordinary delight from whatever he intakes. In church, everyone prays harder up to the midnight hour, hoping for the last year to end or the new one to begin with a miracle.

    The partier does the same thing. He buys an extra drink or a brand more expensive than normal. They work harder appearing happy in hope their extra sweat will make real happiness appear. One group has faith in ritual and in their righteousness as true believers while the other has it in the dance floor and the bottle. Both are religions and their New Year’s events represent their most special liturgical practices. Sadly, the former may not be as divinely inspired as its adherents might hope and the latter is much baser than even its gaudiest votaries would dare profess. In other words, the one misses the mark as much as it hits it. The other hits its mark all too well.

    After the Eve’s high expectations fizzle, the first days of the new year dawn on us like any other. We make the same mistake year in, year out. Neither God nor Fate seems particularly impressed by man’s attempt to manipulate events by placing special emphasis on this day. God made the universe. That the earth has made another revolution around the sun means nothing spectacular to Him. He knows it will occur before it happens. He works on a timetable which we can neither see nor discern. Meanwhile, Fate is a stubborn chap. By trying to appoint a time for it to act, we have basically assured its inaction. We do not summon Fate. It summons us.

    In the grand design of things, New Years Eve is but another day. That it is the passage from one year to the next makes it symbolic and psychologically important; but, this transition imbues it with no more significance than the last day of any month or the final hour of any day.

    The miracle we seek will not come from expecting a lightning bolt or a miracle to appear because of a date. The genesis of the miracle we should seek must come from us. Instead of waiting and hoping for a benign external force, we should use the annual demarcation to assess the world of changeable human affairs and how we can reshape that world and those affairs for the better. If we would only do a better job at doing our own good works, we would need fewer miracles to get by. We shall always need Divine help, but that does not give us the license to shift all of our mortal responsibilities into the immortal Hand.

    There is a churning injustice humankind must face. Years ago, we crossed an important threshold. Our technological skill and economic processes advanced to the point where we produce enough to feed and maintain every human being. That we do not do so reveals, not the absence of material wealth, but a lack or moral wellbeing. Our political economy is so flawed that it abets deaths that should never occur. The political economy is guilty of manslaughter committed via the weaponry of cold indifference.

    The people broken by this immorality number in the billions. Yet, most established church leaders run from this subject as if fleeing an infectious leper with acute rabies. So busy are they wooing the flock with tales and doctrine about individual prosperity and miracles, they barely delve into the collective wellbeing. Ah, but they and all of us would be much the better off if they would do the one without sacrificing the other.

    Instead, the implicit message is seek your own bounty. Things are bad, but things are as they are because they are and shall always be as such. This is not the spirit of the three religions that trace their roots to Abraham. It certainly contradicts the spirit of Jesus, the Christ. This resignation to injustice is in the spirit of the church as social institution to the establishment and not as an instrument of human redemption and love. This is the way of the Pharisees, of those who would use religion to cheat the people of their very souls.

    Throughout the year, I have amused myself by looking at media pictures of religious leaders taken throughout Africa and the western world. Almost all the pictures are of the leaders posing with the rich and powerful. Only one have I seen regularly take photos with the poor and afflicted: the Pope. For his humanitarian mien and recent comments about the global economy, conservatives brand him a Marxist. I am not Catholic (and judging by the ire he has caused, many don’t believe him to be one either!) and thus not versed in the canons of that denomination. I can’t say whether his statements deviate from the Catholic norm. I can say what he espouses is supported by a book superior to most and inferior to none: the Bible.

    People have been conditioned to believe Christianity and free market philosophy are consonant. This is untrue. Centuries ago, established religious leaders in the western world entered a pact with the minted God and his earthly princes to support the political economy as it was. Consequently, western religious leaders have supported slavery, colonialism and every species political and economic evil that profits global Money Power. Now they support gross income equality, strident poverty and the debt peonage of the poor and working class on seven continents and on all inhabitable and uninhabitable islands, islets, and mounds of driftwood to boot.

    Yet the spirit of the Abrahamic religions points in the opposite direction. The unregulated free market was an adverse concept from the beginning of the tale. Only in recent centuries did it purchased legitimacy and place a hefty down payment on ownership of all else in the public square.

    But those who say they adhere to the Bible must also adhere to an active, pro-poor government presence in economic matters. Read the Old Testament. It is not an account of businessmen struggling over mergers and acquisitions. Most of the Old Testament deals with kings, nations and just and unjust governance.

    The Bible recognizes the role of government in protecting the humble debtor from excessive poaching by the creditor rich.

    The Bible reveals an economic principle key to understanding the dynamics of our age. An initially slight advantage in monetary holdings can create a creditor-debtor relationship. Over time, that relationship compounds itself like interest on the debt. If left unattended, the creditor class becomes so rich and powerful that it establishes a dictatorship of money to the detriment of political stability and spiritual welfare of a society. If you want to turn a people godless, immerse them in easy wealth or harsh poverty. If the latter, they will pray to God to extract them but will connive with the devil perchance that God might be working a bit too slowly by their estimation.

    Read Chapter 25 of Leviticus. Every fifty years, creditors were to erase debts owed them, giving the poor a clean slate that they might not become slaves to debt. Mortgaged property was returned to the borrower free of the prior encumbrance. This was the Year of Jubilee. Loans were to be given to poor, sans interest or usury. In Chapter 5 of Nehemiah, the prophet compelled avarice rulers and nobles to restore the lands and crops of the poor and stop dunning them that the poor may live without hunger or the reproach of debt.

    These sections are as much a part of the biblical story as any other. Yet, there seems to be an unwritten conspiracy not to preach these to the congregation. Yet, clerics of today have no compulsion asking the humble and poor to pay tithe and first fruit as if poverty has any other fruit except more of itself.

    If they can weigh on the poor and working class to pay tithe and tax, why can’t they summon government and the rich to provide the people some relief from debt and poverty?

    Perhaps we all should use the coming New Year’s holiday not to seek a miracle in the bottle or from the divine blue. Perhaps it is time to take stock of what we can do as human beings for ourselves and others. The clock is ticking on the current way our political economy is structured. It is too imbalanced and distorted by injustice. Either this system or much of mankind will come to the end of the tether then fall off. We must develop a new way to order and shape how we produce and distribute the wealth of our labors. I hope this article gives a slight foretaste of that reordering. It is to be a combination of ancient biblical wisdom and modern progressive economic concepts distilled from the empirical study of the global economy as currently structured.

    The old alliance between the established church and the financialism of global Money Power must be sundered. It has never served God and only profits a small section of mankind. May a more humane and decent alliance be struck where the servants of God also come to advocate an economics that serves their fellow man and not Mammon. If so, perhaps by the next New Year’s Eve, some of those people who now seek solace from the bottle will understand that they have a better chance finding it through imbibing a more humane understanding of their religious creed and its holy book. See you next year!

     

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  • Muslim Brotherhood confronts Egypt ‘anti-terror’ law

    Muslim Brotherhood confronts Egypt ‘anti-terror’ law

    Branded a “terrorist group” in new legislation, Egypt’s largest opposition movement continues its demonstrations. By Dahlia Kholaif

     

    After much pulling and tugging between Egypt’s military-backed government and the Muslim Brotherhood, the state has adopted a highly controversial “anti-terrorism” law that effectively freezes any legal activity from the country’s largest opposition group.

    The law, which criminalises any kind of participation linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, intensifies Egypt’s political polarisation. The legislation comes ahead of a nationwide referendum on the country’s constitution set for January 5.

    The bill was passed after a bomb blast killed 16 people on December 24 in the Nile Delta city of Al Mansoura. Although the law does not include Ansar Bayt al-Makdis, the an al-Qaeda-linked group who claimed responsibility for the attack, legislation does target the Muslim Brotherhood who condemned the assault and whose supporters have been staging daily peaceful protests since the army-led overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi on July 3.

    Despite previous government pledges not to shun any faction from the political scene, the law bolts the lock on the return of a party that has won every vote since the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

    Human Rights Watch has said the law banning the Brotherhood is “politically driven”.

    Anti-coup protesters, mostly sympathisers of the Muslim Brotherhood, remain determined to stay on the streets, even if it means risking arrest.

    “We will not stop our peaceful struggle,” said Mahmoud, a student at Al-Azhar University, a hotbed of student activism where protests have continued despite a government ban on unauthorised rallies.

    Since the so-called “anti-terror law” passed, at least five protesters have been killed, and almost 300 others have been arrested across the country on charges of “promoting terrorist ideologies”.

    Rather than bringing stability, security crackdowns on younger marchers could provide radical armed groups with new members seeking revenge, analysts said.

    ALGERIAN SCENARIO

    Some fear that Egypt will spiral into a civil war – much like what happened in Algeria when the military-backed government cracked down on the then-popular Islamist Salvation Front (FIS) during the 1990s. The ensuing conflict left about 200,000 people dead.

    “The Algerian scenario is likely to happen in Egypt particularly with the lack of communication between the Muslim Brotherhood’s leadership and its grassroots whom can be attracted and recruited by radical movements,” Khalil al-Anani, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told Al Jazeera.

    Although the Brotherhood has been operating as an underground movement for decades and its members repeatedly land in Egyptian prisons, many analysts believe the interim government’s crackdown on the group decreases chances for a political solution.

    Most of the movement’s leaders, including Morsi himself, are facing trial on a myriad of charges ranging from inciting violence to espionage. Since July 3, more than 1,000 Morsi supporters have been killed. Critics believe the Egyptian media has spearheaded a smear campaign against Brotherhood members who continue to protest.

    “The current oppression is alienating many young Egyptians, particularly Islamists who [have] lost faith in politics and democracy and might adopt violence as the only way to deal with the current government,” Anani said. “I don’t think that the MB leadership will call for bearing arms against the state but many other non-affiliated sympathisers might.”

    An example of such a call was made by Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the official spokesman of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Despite his criticisms of the Brotherhood’s support for non-violence, Adnani has promoted “the rattle of the swords” and the “shedding of blood” to deal with Egypt’s political crisis.

    ‘TERRORISM’ HOTLINES

    In the Sinai, home to more than a dozen armed groups, analysts fear some residents might abandon peaceful protests in favour of violent tacticts as a result of the new law. “The current confrontation between the regime and MB is driven by revenge and became a zero-sum game,” said Anani.

    Bomb attacks were launched in Cairo’s Nasir City district and other parts of the country following the passage of the legislation.

    Mohamed Farghali, a security analyst and researcher, said Muslim Brotherhood members are unlikely to join more radical religious groups, citing “ideological differences” between the two.

    Farghali said that powerful weapons smuggled from Libya and Sudan are available on Egypt’s black market, and he believes the “anti-terror” legislation could “take these [armed] groups to another level”.

    “These groups, which mostly found a foothold in the Sinai amid the security void that followed the January 25 uprising will now dig deeper to avoid the anti-terror law,” he said. “The law does not include them, but it raises the public’s alertness.”

    Immediately after the “anti-terror law” was issued, the Ministry of Interior made hotlines available for citizens to report anyone whom they “suspected” of belonging to or having ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.

    It is this, rather than the reoccurring blasts reminiscent of the wave of attacks that gripped the country in the 1990s, that worries Mohamed Soffar, a professor of political theory and Director of Civilisations Dialogue Center at Cairo University.

    “We are being pulled back to post-state status, where societal and family ties are being abolished and each citizen is being pitted against the other. Violence is now legal as citizens are transformed into vigilantes,” he said.

    Following deadly attacks in Al Mansoura, thousands took to the streets demanding all Muslim Brotherhood affiliates be executed. Although the group has renounced violence since the 1970s, their critics believe otherwise, blaming them for the surge in violence immediately following Morsi’s ouster. Brotherhood opponents cite comments made by currently-jailed senior leader Mohamed al-Beltagy in which he said an end to violence in the Sinai hinges on Morsi’s return.

    ‘THE STATE WILL WIN’

    Along with worries about peace in the Sinai and bomb attacks, some analysts are concerned that anti-government fighters, or indviduals with sympathies for al-Qaeda, have infiltrated the security forces, complicating the crackdown on the Brotherhood.

    “Even the police institution was not sparred. About 280 officers were detained for links to radical armed groups. Suspects arrested included people from the upper class. Extremism is no longer confined to the poor,” Farghali said. This situation could spell the beginning of a protracted and bloody conflict, according to some observers.

    “A real form of dialogue cannot be established amid such severe polarisation, but it is not impossible. We have not yet reached the point of no return,” Soffar said. Egypt and Israel – two historic enemies – were able to establish diplomatic ties, he said, so if they could bridge the gap, Egypt’s feuding population should be able to do the same.

    Anani agrees reconciliation is possible, but warned that: “Egypt is heading towards more uncertainty and instability and democracy seems to be buried.”

    Despite ongoing attacks and street protests, coupled with an economy in crisis, Farghali believe the interim authorities will be able to keep control.

    “At the end of the day, the state will win. It’s a historical fact,” he said. “It even happened in Algeria.”

     

    Courtesy: Aljazeera

  • Christmas without the false trimmings

    Christmas without the false trimmings

    The poverty of the rich is their wont to ignore the poor

    We come to the end of the year. Given their ritualistic bent, world leaders shall proclaim peace on earth and goodwill toward all men. Then, they will turn their backs on the words just uttered to continue the short-sighted governance that has caused the global political economy to plummet into the cavern of inequality.

    The holiday season has become one of plastic-wrapped, disposable virtue used once yearly then discarded in the effluvia of our consumptive and egregious times. The tree of modern Christmas is ornate and outwardly resplendent; for all of its finery, the thing is barren. It bears no fruit and is taken down too quickly to do any good other than serve as lovely but transient flash before the eye.

    We approach Christmas day but don’t approximate its spirit. The passage of days is inexorable; there are no plaudits earned for merely surviving from one season to the next. There is a choice in how we live and by what spirit and values society operates. Here we have failed ourselves for we have fallen face first, then to our knees, to worship before the temple of the minted god. In the indiscriminate quest for economic wealth and power, much has been gained but also something worthy has been lost. Christmas is a good time to ask what and why.

    Control of money is to hold power over things and people because money is convertible to almost everything else. Thus, it has a force beyond that of any merely physical object. Once money is used to buy a thing, the owner’s power is limited by the physical attributes and constraints of the thing purchased. Once one purchases a car, he must use that car according to the car’s physical properties. He can drive it ad infinitum but he dare not try to sail it or carve it and serve it to the family for dinner.

    As long as one has money, he can purchase anything amenable to purchase. He may buy the car, an airplane, a vast herd of goats or a lifetime supply of toothpicks. If possessed of enough money, one can purchase even things considered outside the realm of general and permissible commerce: He can purchase people and the power that control of people brings.

    Each dollar owned represents a possible acquisition or transaction. Each dollar thus constitutes another opportunity to bring some valuable part of the world into the ambit of the owner. The world becomes a bonded warehouse of opportunity for the heavily affluent. To have money is to own the measurement of economic value. To own the measure of value is to have the capacity to redefine value itself. To redefine value is to have true power. To have power is to be able to shape the world in ways that deflect adversity and uncertainty away from you by channeling them toward others. As such, the status of money is high above that of all other things man has or does.

    Because money has been the force to move all things and most people into the flow of commerce, it acquired a universality that makes it appear omnipotent and omnipresent. Consequently, those possessing great mounts of it are tempted to believe themselves to be the same.

    A god has been established to rival God himself. Money is unlike those lifeless deities carved of wood or graven of gold. Those deities can do nothing but dumbly sit there. However, money lubricates the processes of life and commerce. It is visible yet intangible. Most of all, it is man’s most infallible invention. Money never ceases to work. Individual currencies may fail and lose value, but the inherent utility of and our desire for money never abate. As man exists, does money also.

    Because of these properties, man has been tempted throughout the ages to treat money as his everyday god and to relegate God to the status of guest at special occasions.

    The biblical injunction that love of money is the root of evil was not the expression of an overabundance of caution. It warns of the deep pit into which men and nations may fall should the pursuit of lucre cause them to betray their finer senses and to cheat their souls. Over the centuries, man has periodically strayed from this wise counsel. Each time, the misconduct ended in molten calamity. Nations and societies have been destroyed or impair by the simple error of mistaking money, the presentation of value, for genuine value itself. After the deluge, man regroups to walk a more correct path for a time. Forgetting the lessons of the past, he slowly returns to the secular worship of money and the social wreckage it brings.

    Over the past several decades, the love of money has become the primary commandment of the global economy. An entire economic ideology has been constructed to legitimize the misbehavior. Rules and laws have been instituted to make what once was illegal or unethical business practices into the accepted conduct of our times. In most nations, usury laws prohibited moneylenders from sending unfortunate borrowers into debt peonage. Today, imposing usurious interest rates on the common and poor is considered sound business practice; it is an accepted way of high profit for major financial houses. Government no longer shields the poor from the avarice of the affluent. Government now stands as the eager accomplice in the fleecing of the meager and humble.

    As a consequence, the economy has shifted from one where the premium is on the production of things to one where the grand prize goes to those who make money to make more money.

    This leads to another problem. Unlike most tangible objects such as a car or a chicken, money has unlimited utility. No matter how acquisitive one is, at some point, a person has his fill of material things. There is a ceiling on how many things he will buy. He will not purchase another car, house, coat, shoe or pig until he depletes his existing inventory. However, the threshold for enough money is so high as to be nonexistent. Few people, even the exceedingly rich, ever say they have enough money. Fewer people will excuse themselves from the opportunity to reap a windfall, even at the unjust expense of another. Nations go to war off the hint of treasure. Brother slays brother over it. Those who have much exploit their advantaged position to hoard more. Those who have little must spend and depart with the scant morsel they have. They can neither save nor invest. As each day passes, the rich become more themselves as do the poor.

    Consequently, we reach the current situation where income and wealth inequality in many nations are more skewed now than in almost a century. The global news media tells you that euro zone economic activity is on the uptick. In terms of sheer economic statistics, this might be accurate technically. But whoever said facts don’t lie is wrong. In a complex world, facts are what the powerful shape them to be. Thus, the aggregate figures of positive growth mask a grim tale. Economic growth may be present, but it is of the variety that its benefits evade the majority of the people.

    Most of the growth falls into the soft, welcoming palms of established wealth. A great expanse of youth are jobless and without direction. Greece remains a dungeon of poverty. As the fortunes of the common person declines, suicides and sickness climb. Major cities in Spain and Italy are places of frequent mass demonstrations. These events don’t make the news because the rich and powerful don’t want you to see turmoil. There is an effective news embargo on the desperate protests of the sinking poor in these nations. Spain has gone a dangerous step further in conceal the rancor. The government is engineering laws that will make demonstrations and harsh public critique of government policy illegal, susceptible to steep fines and imprisonment. Welcome to the dictatorship of the wealthy.

    The same observation applies to the trajectory many African political economies. These nations tout high growth rates, but the reality behind these figures is dismal. The bulk of the populace remains mired in age-old poverty while a small elite zooms away in imported cars. This is not economic development. It is economic and social estrangement of the leadership from the people. It can’t but result in a foul end.

    It seems dear Karl Marx had a backward gaze into the crystal ball. The processes of capitalism have not led to his dictatorship of the proletariat. Instead, capitalism has yielded to a virulent species of itself, financialism. This financialization of the economy is producing a dictatorship of money that threatens democracy where it has been established. In African nations, where democracy is yet to give fruit, this distortion threatens to nip that happy process in the bud.

    To his partial credit, American President Obama gave a stirring speech earlier this month proclaiming economic inequality as the primary moral and political challenge of this generation. The man has come to the party rather late. That it took him five years in office to attain this basic understanding is baffling. Had he realized this before perhaps his now dwindling presidency would have been different.

    For too long, he has fraternized and made cozy with those who would bleed the life from democratic society by wrecking its economic underpinnings. He is now chained to these people. The best he can do is become a modern-day Samson who, upon recovering his senses, used the remnants of his strength to bring down the pillars upon himself and those who had enticed, then captured, him. Yet, he appears not to have the special courage to do such a selfless thing.

    His speech endorsed several measures to help the poor and narrow America’s inequality gap. One measure was to continue unemployment benefits for the jobless. Within ten days, he backtracked. Before people had time to forget his speech, he signaled approval of a budget proposal terminating jobless benefits for 1.3 million households this month. Such was his Christmas gift to the nation’s most needy. Sadly, his speech against inequality seems to be one of his notorious feigns. Whenever he says he will do something “for” the poor, be prepared that the real intent is to do something “to” the poor. His fine talk is to sugarcoat the bitter pill so people do not take to the streets of America as they now do in Spain, Italy and Greece.

    In a way, I feel sad for President Obama. Here is a man who has allowed an ounce of greatness to slip through his hands that he might hold fast to a pound of mediocrity. By tethering himself to the rich and powerful, he has written a place for himself that the collective memory will not remember as a fine one.

    God is generous but Fate is stingy. The numerous chances God provides, Fate tries to steal away. Fate always seeks to narrow our chances of greatness to one fleeting moment that once missed is forever gone. This is why we must always be cognizant of Fate’s devices and avoid abetting its attempt to defeat our better purpose.

    Since this is Christmas season, there is no better figure than Jesus to demonstrate how to treat this matter of economic inequality. The establishment tells us the entire profile of Jesus is encapsulated in how he silently took his punishment like a sheep led to the slaughter. Thus, the poor should stoically eat of their poverty for that is their fate.

    In reality, this was but a single episode in an extraordinary life of multiple dimensions. Christians believe his sacrifice was a divine mission to render humankind spiritual salvation. Since there was no alternative except to allow mankind to perish, the Prince of Peace decided he might as well shut up and get on with the heavenly but excruciating mission.

    Before the time for silent sacrifice came, Jesus did much that needs remembrance in the here and now. This man was born of a humble, uneducated family. Yet, he challenged the teachings of the establishment of his time. He so baffled and perplexed the learned ones that they conspired under cloak of darkness to kill him; he had exposed them for the ugly thing they had become.

    They decreed that man must do nothing on the Sabbath. To confound them, Jesus performed many miraculous healings on that day. He did this to demonstrate that the Scribes and Pharisees knew the form of propriety but lacked the substance and spirit of it. They were ghosts parading as living beings, followers of mean doctrine masquerading as moral leaders of the people.

    Jesus chastised them for turning the temple of God into a money-making machine, an olden-day ATM where the priests conspired with moneychangers to separate the poor from their hard-earned money. He did not countenance the disgrace or attempt to sidle up to those in power to partner with them in the gain and profit. He fought the powers of the day to ease the burden on the people. He chased malefactors and their malpractice from the temple that it might return to what is was erected to be.

    Jesus was the consummate radical reformer who cared little for the doctrine and ritual of the establishment. He dealt with the spirit of things and of people. This is the spirit we must now hold. To better the welfare of the poor and struggling, we must do more than sing carols, strain to purchase gifts and act happy during the Christmas season. We must ask fundamental questions such as what is the real purpose of society, governance and our economic patterns. Today, we are told to cheer as long as there is economic growth. This growth has been further distilled to one numerical measurement, GDP.

    We forget that the concept of GDP was devised as an indicator or measurement of economic health. It is but a map, a rough reflection. Today, the map has become more important than the real thing. If GDP is growing, we are told that all is well even when our lives say all is not.

    This deception is the work of modern-day secular Scribes and Pharisees who would place form over substance because it profits them. Their way produces vast riches and power for them but it is destitute of morality and meaning for the people.

    Today, let’s begin to give Jesus honor – not by making merriment – but by dedicating ourselves to the reforming spirit in which he lived. We need to redefine our economic processes away from this adoration of growth figures. Reliance on aggregate growth figures means you accede to the structure of things as they are. It means the bulk of the people will continue to increase in poverty and suffering while the smallest minority enjoys greater bounty. It is an unfairness that caters to evil.

    Let us begin the process of redefining how we gauge the economy so that we begin to talk about concepts such as economic health and fairness. Let us construct new measurements that balance and combine aggregate growth with a fairer distribution of wealth. The poor work too hard for the little they get and the wealthy work too little for the windfall they take. Let this mission be our special Christmas gift to ourselves. If we do this, the history we make will be a benign one, the lives we save will be many and, for those of us who believe in these things, we may just give the Primary Resident in heaven reason to smile and say, “Well done, my children! Well done!”

     

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