anja merret

A friend sent me a link to a site that discusses where US Foreign Aid goes to. And it was quite an eye-opener. But before I go there, I just want to share something I read a few years ago with respect to that little war in the Middle East called ‘Desert Storm‘.

This little war was a skirmish between the USA, assisted by a couple of Allied troupes - again, and Iraq - again. Iraq had decided to invade Kuwait and the UN authorised the task of removing Iraq out of Kuwait. Pesky folk, those Iraqis.

It wasn’t the war so much that caught my attention. It was some reports in the media, can’t remember which as this was in 1991, which speculated that in fact the war had been instigated primarily by the US as the US needed to replace its aging army, navy and airforce equipment.

With the heavy penalties paid by the coalition forces from 34 nations this would be easy. With other words, the US would send it’s armed forces in, with its aging weapons which would certainly be good enough against the flimsy armies of Iraq, and the allies would pay for them to do the dirty work.

It’s a kind of new take on mercenaries. And that’s how it played out. The US got rid of its ailing and ancient weaponry and its allies funded the refurbishment. And guess what and just as an aside, who was president of the US at the time? None other than daddy Bush.

So back to my original thought. Where does US aid go to and for what purpose? So lets have a look at number 1 on the list. Israel gets $2.4b of which virtually all is used to buy weapons of which 75% are sourced from the US. Interesting.

Second on the list is Egypt, which was quite surprising really. Who is Egypt in the scheme of things? Except of course for it’s rather strategic geographical position to the Middle East. They get $1.7b of which $1.3b is to buy weapons with. Huh? Egypt needs that kind of weaponry? Maybe it’s to protect the Suez canal from all those Somali pirates?

Third on the list is Pakistan. Again, could it be because of its geographical position to Afghanistan? They get a cool $798 million of which about half is for security efforts, including military-equipment upgrades and border security. Isn’t this the country that has all that internal conflict? One wonders where the weapons for both sides come from…

Then fourth is Jordan with a hand-out of $688 million of which $326 million is for fighting terrorism. Have you checked recently where Jordan is vis a vis Iraq and Iran, Israel and all the other countries where the US is fiddling around in, whether politically or with it’s all powerful war apparatus.

And here I thought it was all about oil. It isn’t, is it. It’s all about keeping the US arms industry going. Whether it’s hidden under the banner of ‘the war on terror’ or foreign aid, the US government, this time led by junior Bush, seems to focus on keeping its arms industry well fed.

What’s even worse is that it doesn’t look like Obama is the person to stop the war machine.  After appointing Rahm Emanuel, jewish and mooted to be hawkish, to the position of Chief of Staff in the new administration one can’t see a let-off of the fighting around Israel.  Obama has been particularly tight lipped about the events happening in Gaza at the moment.

Of course speculating as to what Obama will or won’t do is entertaining at the most.  What seems to be more real is that the US plans to give a further $30b to Israel over the the next 10 years. 75% to go to buying weapons from the US? Can’t see a peaceful Middle East any time soon.

Pity the civilians that routinely get mangled in the cross-fire. Is this what it means to live in a modern society? Killing fields?  There’s no regard for ordinary people who just want to live with their families and friends and bring up their kids. What’s WITH THIS WORLD?

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It would be totally remiss of me not to pay tribute to Helen Suzman who passed away at the age of 91 years on January 1, 2009. If ever there was a candidate for the Peace Nobel Prize, she would have been on the top of my list. In fact she was nominated twice for the award.

I lived in South Africa during the apartheid years. They were not good years in terms of political, economic and personal power to the white population and disempowerment to anybody who did not fall into this category. Helen Suzman was often the lonely voice of opposition. And her voice always rang out loud and clear, despite constant intimidation by government forces at the time.

For many years she was the only person who managed to retain an opposition seat in parliament and she used that to constantly criticise and harrass the Nationalist Party dominated government. She was her party’s, the liberal Progressive Party, sole representative from 1961 to 1974. And she was, during this time, the sole parliamentarian unequivocally opposed to apartheid.

It is almost beyond understanding the courage that Helen Suzman had.  One woman alone stood up in the South African parliament during these years as the only one totally against apartheid. Where were the other voices of white South Africa? And I hasten to add that there were many who worked relentlessly outside the system at great risk to their lives and freedom. However, one could speculate that if more had worked within the political dispensation apartheid might have ended sooner.

But these few lines are not meant to discuss apartheid South Africa and how we white South Africans failed the people. It is a tribute to a woman who served mankind beyond the call of duty. Who showed us the better side of what it is to be human during a time when the worst side was the norm. We are so thankful to you Helen Suzman. May you rest in peace.

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Inevitably at some stage during the dying embers of a year, a list of blunders is compiled by somebody and published for all to chuckle over. One of the lists, as on CNNMoney.com and Fortune provides some not so funny ones that happened in the business world.

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft fame must be thanking his stars and anything else that Yahoo turned him down when he offered $44.6 billion in a 61% premium bid. Any guesses what Yang, who turned him down, is feeling now in retrospect? Ten months down the line the offer was three times the amount of what Yahoo shares were fetching at year-end. Some very sour shareholders methinks.

Those two dumb moments are only half way down the list of the 21 dumbest moments in business in 2008 as per this list. Leader of the pack is the arrival on private corporate jets of Detroit car CEO’s en route to Congress in the quest for a multi-billion dollar bailout. And number 2 on the list? The 10hr car drive taken by same CEO’s for the next hearing.

Then there was the story about Steve Job’s death, the Bloomberg News releasing its obituary well ahead of the event. At least Steve Jobs is alive today to enjoy the wonderful chuckle inducing news that Microsoft’s Zune is having some difficulties.

30GB Zunes are tripping out over an internal calendar software application that is not coping with the end of a leap year. Blue screens anybody? Trying to win the anti-iPod award is not helped along by massive operating system failure. Oh how the Apple fanmultitude is laughing at this.

Mostly though, the dumbest business moments deal with people’s reaction to the global or regional economic meltdown. As an example remember McCain, the Republican party’s US presidential candidate, pontificating that the US economy’s fundamentals were strong?  He ventured this nugget of insight just days before the whole pack of cards came tumbling down.

Then there was Fannie Mae CEO Dan Mudd stating that his company would be feasting on weakened competition in the mortgage market even as his own company was suffering mounting credit losses and asset write offs. Talk about fiddling while Rome is burning.

The list goes on. Joining these dumbest moments is a veritable smorgasbord of preposterous statements, analytical garbage and soothsaying dished up by a who’s who of Economists who stuck their necks out during 2008. In this manner their contributing to the panic in people’s minds was substantial.

The consequence of this? The consumer has reacted by shutting his money pocket with a loud snap. In a consumer driven economy such a loud snap sounds the death knell. The business world will not remember 2008 with much affection.

But then we consumers, the ordinary people, are blessed with a ludicrous amount of faith and hope that everything will work out in the end. And in that vein, I wish everybody a happy New Year and everything you wish for yourself and more!

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A recent United Nations Department of Food and Agriculture Organisation or FOA report discusses the issue of Food Insecurity in the World. And it makes for sad reading. Close on 1 billion world citizens, or 20% of the population, are hungry.

It seems the cause of this is the increase in food prices. Poor households, urban and rural, are net buyers of food and have been hit the hardest by the increase in food prices. Landless people and female-headed households are the most vulnerable within this group.

Food prices have increased by 10% over 2007’s prices and poor households are unable to afford food on a regular basis. What will add to this desperate state will be the recession the global community is going through at the moment. It will mean there will be less money available for food aid.

Whatever happened to the first goal that of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger as set down by the UNDP in its Millennium Development Goals? The target was to reduce poverty by 2015, and in a meaningful way. It seems, checking the progress made thus far on the UNDP website that Asia seems to be winning some of the battle whereas sub-Sahara Africa is worse off than at the beginning of the MDG.

The success, if it were achieved, to cut by half the proportion of people living on less than $1 per day would be a hollow one, if the cost of food increases by more than the increase in average daily earnings. The goal post is constantly being shifted.

So as we say good-bye to this very turbulent 2008 and look forward to the next year with a fair amount of trepidation, let’s not forget that there are mega millions of people so much worse off than we are. Let’s be grateful for what we have and include in our thinking and actions some effort directed at alleviating hunger.

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Dubai is an amazing country. It’s vibrant, modern, innovative and a whole bunch of other superlatives. Truly an awesome country to visit. The buildings, businesses, progress of this Emirate is just out of this world. Really unbelievable.

Yet there is some confusion here. For all its modernity the conflict between the religion and traditions practised by the indigenous people is in severe contradiction to the modern feel of the country. This really got to me during a shopping trip to the world’s largest mall recently.

While we were settling our parcels into the boot and getting ready to pull out of our parking bay, I idly watched a small family decamp out of their car near us and get ready for their shopping experience. The two small kids, about four year old girl and smaller boy were running around as any kids anywhere in the developed world would do. In their jeans and t-shirts they could have been kids from anywhere.

Then I looked at their parents. Dad was in his white, starched long dress shirt with long sleeves and ankle length also called a dishdasha, thawb or thobe.  I was surprised not to see the obligatory head covering.  But it was really the woman that caught my eye.

The woman was dressed in full black hijab or covering, including her face so that only slits showed her eyes. That in itself wasn’t even that unusual as I had come across many women dressed in this way before. What really made me wonder was the fact that she was pulling on a pair of black gloves as well. Everything was covered.

I looked at her carefree daughter and truly felt sorry for the child. I’m sure the woman, in her mid twenties probably, guessing here as I could not see anything of her, does not need my pity and she is fully into her religion. But I just felt really appalled that a modern society could be so confused in itself.

Not only did this young family seem out of place in this world class city, but the shopping mall was just not in tune with this kind of tradition. For as we drove out of the  mall I noticed the huge posters of half naked women on the outside walls of the mall advertising fashion available in the mall. Totally viewable by anybody driving or walking past.

How does one reconcile these two views of society? One where the wife is not even allowed to show her hands, and one where a most skimpily dressed woman is on a huge poster on the outside of a building. Where is the consistency?

Surely if one is so into ones religion as this couple and many other citizens of Dubai, then it is totally contrary to ones culture to have half naked women on posters, never mind allow tourists to swim in bikinis on public beaches and swimming pools. There must be some moral - if this is a moral issue of course - consistency.

Should one bow to the call of money on the one hand or on the other hand insist on strict religious adherence.  During Ramadam nobody, visitors, foreign workers and expats included, is allowed to drink any liquid or eat in public during daylight.

Alcohol purchases for private individuals is not allowed unless one acquires a license, yet bars and restaurants are allowed to sell alcohol. It just seems to be a society of contradictions and confusion. Make money or adhere to religious principles? It seems the making money principle tends to win the contest. Whatever the issue here, my feelings are for the women. Hidden from view.

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Hotly following on George Bushes visit to Bagdad, the UK’s Gordon Brown is not to be outdone by his US counterpart, with his own visit to the capital. What these two political allies wanted to achieve was anybody’s guess.

It seems that Bush was doing a last bit of travel on company costs. Whiling the time away, so to speak.  Although one wonders what on earth possessed him to visit a country where his actions have created such unbelievable hardship, distress and sorrow for the general population.

Was he going to gloat? Wave the victory flag? At least he didn’t pitch up in a military aircraft waving a sign with ‘Mission Accomplished’ on it.  What mission and what accomplishment one asks oneself. Did he visit to rub noses in the blood, guts and tears of Iraqis?

In all probability, and if one were to believe the newscasters, G W Bush visited Iraq to say good-bye and to receive the heroic victor medal. Instead he received a pair of shoes thrown at him by a reporter. Besides a fabulous video and YouTube opportunity, showing a surprisingly agile president ducking in time to avoid getting hit, we also learn that the throwing of shoes is considered the height of an insult in Iraqi society.

We further hear that Iraq has learnt well in its time under US occupation and has taken on board acceptable US police behaviour. The reporter was beaten and according to news reports suffered several broken ribs. Another instance of the practice of quiet persuasion.

The question then on everybody’s lips should be whether Gordon Brown will also be accosted with a pair of size ten shoes accompanied by a mouthful of accusations. If one were to believe that this is a sign of extreme disdain of the person getting the order of the boot extended or OBE for short, then Brown should be in line for similar treatment.  Shouldn’t he?

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Well, of course there was no actual hanging of a person. Just want to get the disclaimer in straight away. However, the downsizing of staff at Yahoo certainly seemed to take on the look and feel of a public hanging.

First there were the victims, being carried on horse drawn carts towards the town square in preparation of the deed.  The town crier advising the rest of the population was heard within the community. A successful hanging depends on eager public participation.

The public’s task in these events is to comment, throw abuse either at the victims or at the hangman and his henchmen and participate physically by hurling the odd bit of rotten organic matter. So how did this manifest in our modern time? As already mentioned no physical blood was shed.

But just because there were no actual corpses, this past week’s lay-offs at Yahoo had all the elements of a public hanging. Of course one could understand that the lay off of 1 500 member’s of staff at Yahoo during the past week would create a stir. But what might not have been anticipated was the massive spotlight focused on the event. With other words the extent of the public participation was unusual.

In the most public way ever, the happenings at Yahoo were broadcast via Silicon Alley Insider, Valleywage, VentureBeat, CNET and Search Engine Land. Bloggers kept cyber space burning. But what seems to have kept the whole situation on the boil, by far,  was Twitter.

Via a maximum of 140 characters, the tragedy of Yahoo and its biggest asset, its people, unfolded over several days. It was as public a hanging of both Yahoo and its talented people as there ever was. We are talking the execution of software engineers that are the best of the best by a company that lead the way in innovative ideas and products to explore those ideas.

Of course by virtue of the fact that Yahoo operates in the land of computer geeks and early adopters of new ideas such as Twitter, it would be understandable that the buzz in cyber space would rise to such levels. However, Adobe a software giant working in the same space of computer geekdom, laid off 600 people a week ago and there was not the same level of heat.

It seems that one of the reasons behind this public display was the fact that Yahoo has always encouraged its people to maintain high profiles by promoting themselves publicly. This would mean that Yahoo staff would have many more web followers than for instance staff at Adobe and other digital media companies issuing pink slips.

Be that as it may, Yahoo’s layoffs made a huge noise.  With so much attention it is a pity that this energy is not harnessed to point out to the folk inhabiting cyber space and the world at large that many of the layoffs are not entirely necessary.

The reductions in staff are often in response to the stock market and shareholder demands that high profits are posted.  Public companies need to be able to offer higher returns on investments in the form of rising share prices and by paying substantial dividends.  As an example see Adobe’s earnings here. And yes, the economic climate has worsened since March 2008 but still the point is valid.

In order to deliver on the demands made by investors, companies and their leadership have to prostitute themselves. Regrettably the workers have such little voice that they are made to feel the brunt of these demands. They are removed, actually more likely terminated, at the whim of the profit gods.

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The one thing I really love about living in England is the British sense of humour. But then what can one expect from a country that gave birth to the Goon Show, Black Adder,  Fawlty Tours, Mr Bean and Hugh Lawrie in House amongst many. And yes I do know that House is supposed to be American. But the interpretation is British.

It was manifest again on Saturday late afternoon when I sallied forth to take part in my first singing concert. I have been member of a community choir since July or so this year. A community choir is one where one can take part without the trauma of having to audition.

The last time I had sung in a choir was when the Beetles were big, Cliff Richard and The Shadows actually performed in South Africa, every kid played in a band and we damaged our backs trying to dance the Twist. That should give you some idea as to how long ago. With other words, auditioning was not an option.

The English have an unbelievably wonderful tradition in choral participation and composed music. I was fortunate enough to attend a concert of the best I have ever had the privilege to hear, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen. Although in line with English humour, there were eighteen singing.

With this kind of standard, I knew that community choiring was the only choice. Good thing too. For although I could identify the notes as being a g or an f, there was no way I had any idea how to sing them. Much re-learning has taken place in the last few months.

My re-introduction to performing chorister status was to happen at a church in Hove. I arrived half an hour after the start of the concert. It was a two and a half hour event and I thought I would save myself half an hour of it. No such luck. The event had been delayed and I was just in time for the start.

I was offered a plastic cup of mulled wine. To drink in the church. I was aghast. My experiences of church have predominantly taken place in the protestant Lutheran denomination. Drinking in church would have meant a direct route to hell, do not stop to collect anything.

A quick glance around told me that most people were drinking. Wow. So we settled into our ‘reserved’ seats. After all we were choir. We had been instructed to wear black and festive bits. So I had fished out a little silver angel from our Xmas tree decoration box to adorn my somber attire.

A quick glance at the program and I saw there were four choirs singing. The first choir, an all girl group performing with a pianist was called Lipsynch. Only in England, I thought. What a name. They sang well. However, whereas we had prepared three songs, this lot didn’t know when to stop. After many a song, they finally concluded their bit. On their own it would have been wonderful, but there was a lot to follow.

It always surprises me that people have the need to hear themselves talk. So we had poems and verses and stories from novels and all sorts of in between bits. Finally the next choir was announced. Their name? Naked Voices. What? I waited with bated breath. But no. No naked people snuck onto the stage. It seemed that the naked referred more to the fact that they did not have a pianist nor a conductor.

More chit chat stuff and finally it was our turn. Our little choir, which generally during practice is about 50 strong, managed a meager twenty or so. Our choir mistress couldn’t attend. But in her wisdom she had decided that three new songs should be imbibed for this concert.

This in itself was probably not too bad. But the light on stage in the church was so poor that we couldn’t read our music and after one rehearsal, it wasn’t going to be that easy to sing along. Somehow we managed! It’s amazing what a loud piano accompaniment can do to hide the bad parts.

During our rehearsals we discovered that our dear, jolly American choir leader had picked three songs that were extremely lacking in English words.  So this English choir, with one South African as the token foreigner, sang a song that mainly had the words ‘Didi bom’ in it, a Swahili song and something with a lot of ‘Hamba’ in it which made me think of my hometown Durban and Zulu. As one choir member wistfully said: ‘It would have been nice to sing something in English!’.

The next part of the concert was Xmas carols to be sung by the audience with our choir leading the singing. This is a peculiarity of the English church system that the congregation is not to be trusted to know how to follow the organist or pianist, even with popular Xmas carols.  A few bodies have to stand in front to ‘lead’ the singing. Most amusing.

After our little leadership story, the final act arrived. I had tried to persuade my friend that the pub across the road, which one could access via an underground tunnel (??) looked mighty inviting. Apparently, the underground walk way was there to hide worshipers from view who were sneaking off for a pint of the good stuff. It wasn’t right to be seen to go from sampling the word of god to sampling the nectar of gods.

I was persuaded to stay and what a good idea. The best was kept for last. We had a men’s choir, the Brighton and Hove Actually Gay Men’s Choir. They were fabulous. From Wagner to Westlife. New interpretations, excellent voices and loads of hard work with a few camp bits thrown in for fun made it a great show. I was thankful that I had decided to wait another half hour for a pint of the best.

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At what stage will our support of freedom of speech have gone too far? Is there a limit to this idea, in fact idealism possibly, that is so sacred to the western world. At what stage would one suggest that enough is enough?

An article in Spiegel got me thinking about this very topic. For non-German readers the picture series on the page is informative too.  The story goes as follows, briefly. On Saturday a group of neo-Nazi demonstrators took part in an organised march through Berlin to demand the establishment of a youth centre. The demonstrators had permission by the authorities to hold this protest.

Considering how sensitive Germany is still about the second world war and the holocaust it is surprising that this group would have been able to get permission to hold this march. But one would probably presume that the authorities in Berlin believed in freedom of speech and thus gave the go ahead.

What the authorities might not have anticipated was the reaction of the general population, one would imagine, led by the fear of and distaste for anything Nazi. After all Germans are taught from an early age how dreadful, terrible, despicable the whole nation is because of what their forefathers did in the war.  This is not overstated. Schools teach this guilt to young kids.

Germans on the whole, except for a small fringe element, are petrified that an organisation such as the neo-Nazis could become prominent again and cause another world war or holocaust.  One can understand this kind of paranoia.

Taking this sensitivity into consideration it should be fairly easy to predict that there could be some counter demonstration taking part. This indeed is what happened. What is noteworthy however, is that the demonstrators against the neo-Nazis were in fact the people that got dragged away by the police and beaten back.

Of course police action could have been in response to violence started by the anti-demonstrators. This is not about police brutality or even whether there was any. The question in this instance is whether a group of people who believe in the doctrine of the Nazis should even be allowed to demonstrate and if they are, whether ordinary people should stand back and allow this to happen.

Is it any different to the fact that we allow websites to remain up that teach people how to make bombs from household products, sell weapons, show people how to commit suicide in private or even allow online viewing of the act, how to become a cannibal or easy ways to be anorexic or self-mutilate amongst many more bizarre and horrific topics.

There is so much information available on how to do the most bizarre things. There are interest groups for all of the kind of things that ordinary people would consider strange if not outright bizarre. It’s all allowed under the title of freedom of speech. Is that really healthy for us? Do we really wish for a world without boundaries. More importantly, do we really trust humans to be able to establish their own boundaries and remain within them.

It is always said that you can do anything provided it does not harm anyone else. And the same should apply to belief systems then. But what if that person manages to influence others and talk them into harmful activities. What if one person started the neo-Nazi movement again and managed to influence disaffected young men to join up.  Some person did, and suddenly there is a movement.

When Hitler first started speaking, he was seen as a saviour to a German people who had lived through many years of economic turmoil as well as political ostracism from a fall-out consequence of the first world war. Over a short period of time people could afford a Volkswagen, a Volksradio or a Volksskitrip. The ordinary folk had only dreamt about this. And then there was Volksgenocide.

Should we not be more vigilant then? And one way of being that would surely be to add a caveat to the concept of freedom of speech. Do no evil! But then who controls that? And who determines what is evil or not. Answering that question could open another can of worms altogether. No easy answer is there?

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Apologies to Shakespeare for mangling a lovely speech as presented so beautifully in the eternal love story of Romeo and Juliet.  It seemed appropriate somehow. So what thoughts about slavery then?

What led me to this topic was a website called GetAFreelancer. I somehow got there a few days ago and thought, what a good idea. Maybe I can earn a bit by offering copy writing services. I duly signed up and waited with bated breath for the first projects to drop into my mail inbox.

It took but a few minutes for the deluge to start. I was taken aback by the quantity of mail. Rubbing hands gleefully, I started checking the offerings. I was absolutely speechless. The offers go something like this. 500 word article for $1.5. Or 145 short product descriptions for a budget between $30 to $250. Bid on this!

Now even if people somehow manage to find a trick to write articles very quickly, it still seems an amazing low rate to get paid. It takes me a good two hours to write a blog post with all the links I usually add to the content to make it more interesting.

How would I be able to compile regular European Soccer Reviews for a similar budget. Or how about a Project for WriteSmart for ONLY $4. Their caps. The only way anybody could make a living with this would be to scrape content off other websites. And changing elements to somehow be able to get away with it. Fraud with other words.

Whatever it is, there seems to be a demand as I get about four to six mails of lists of project offers per day. And for GetAFreelancer to continue to send out these huge quantities of offers people must be willing and able to perform these copy writing feats.

Along similar lines of slavery, I also discovered oDesk at about the same time. This is a ‘lovely’ little application that home workers instal on their PCs and the boss, wherever he might be can check on every move you make on your PC.  Hook up a webcam and the intrusion into your privacy is complete.

No chatting on Facebook during working hours anymore. The application takes screenshots of what’s happening on your computer at regular intervals. Sophisticated features analyse your time spent on work, your offline time and levels of productivity and compiles reports to send through. Big brother watches every move you make, even the times you don’t move anything.

It seems to be the most intrusive application I have ever seen. The boss has the luxury, so to speak, of not having to pay office space for his staff, or provide coffee and tea never mind paid leave and any other benefits such as pension or medical aid contributions.

The boss can actually check your work far more effectively than he could ever before in an office environment. He has rid himself of the idea of a permanent staff member and is now able to exploit the worker totally without any benefits in return.

What seems to be happening in the business world is that the benefits that people had and which induced them to enslave themselves to mindless and monotonous jobs are no longer offered. What made people work like robots was a trade off to get safe monthly salary payments with a possible pension to retire with.

Now they work at home, for a pittance and still have the boss lurking, watching, controlling and punishing if things don’t go his way.  If the freelancer does not deliver on some arbitrary targets then they just don’t get any more work. So you could be sick for a day, or have drama with small kids and that would be the end of your freelance work.

In effect, what has happened, is that companies using this service have taken away the previously regular work environment where unions and legislation gave the worker some protection. In its place we find that the worship of the god of profit has enslaved the worker even more. What has been removed are the few benefits that workers had fought so hard for. In its place a slavery of even greater magnitude.

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