The International Screw Up Society

Screwing up is not easy. Many think it is, but it is not. To screw up, it takes a lot of commitment and conviction on the doer’s part. Even though we have Murphy’s law (if anything can go wrong, it will) on our side, the ‘Side of the Screw Ups‘, the chance that that something will go wrong at the precise moment when we’re working on it is miniscule, which makes people like us a rarity. We are a group of forgotten heroes who undermine the efforts of billions of people single-handedly. We can do anything from ruining a peaceful morning in a placid neighbourhood to setting off bloddy wars between two nations that have been at peace for thousands of years. You cannot see us on the roads, wearing a cap that has ‘Screw-upper’ emblazoned on the forehead. You cannot find us in the Yellow Pages. Google cannot track us down online – in fact, if it were for us, Google wouldn’t even exist. Your complaints to anybody, written or otherwise, signed or otherwise, forced or otherwise, can’t aid you in anyway in tracking us down. We are from every country, although it is a common opinion amongst us that we don’t represent our countries. We don’t have uniforms, no communication networks, no code words, no secret gatherings – we did once, but I’ll come to that later. We come. We see. We conquer. In fact, that is our motto. Julius Caesar flicked it from one of our men. I think this piece of information also tells you we date back to thousands of years.

Just as in any other secret society, we don’t know the complete identities of our fellow men – i.e. for reasons more than one. However, unlike in any other secret society, our recruitments into the society are completely voluntary. If you want to join, you join. Our doors are open day in and day out, and there are registration fees, no rituals, no voodoo crap. In fact, you inadvertantly become a member when you screw up. We have no satellites in space, no CCTVs rigged into your household, and members from other secret societies will never ever be sent out to kill you. Even as I write this, I don’t think you, the reader, get the largesse of what I am trying to say; so, let me give you a perspective. We are so secretive, Dan Brown knows nothing of us. Nor does Walt Disney. Nor does Galileo. Nor does Jesus Christ. Like I said, forgotten heroes.

During World War II, because of the extreme chaos that also seemed all-pervading for a stretch of six years, a screw up became inevitable. Not only did many people do it, but they did it repeatedly. The inherent value was lost, and people no longer cared if you screwed up or not. This idea negated the principles of our existence itself. Even though this was not the first time such an idea had been ideated – just imagine the number of battles the people of this world have fought – it was unnerving because of two reasons:

1. The dawn of the 20th century was of momentous consequences not because of the chronological analogies, but because it happened simultaneously with industrialisation. Man had begun to build machines that would surpass his skiils and efficiency by integrating his own intelligence a thousand times over. The world became smaller as faster transport began to be built, and telephone, radio and television reduced the time taken for information to traverse the edges of the earth. In such a time as this, the value of a screw up soared. Soared? It shot through the skies! If a screw could happen in this century, then it would be legendary. (Right then, Hitler had a nightmare about Jews)
2. The second reason is simple – it, in fact, followed from what I said earlier and what was described in the first reason. In a time of good value, we don’t need bad tidings.

And so, the Screw Up Society convened for the first time ever. In order to conceal from the general populace the sheer numbers that would come together, we did two things. First, we changed the name of our society and registered ourselves as the ‘League of Nations’. Second, we asked every country to send in a team of ten representatives. We gathered together in a prominent city so it wouldn’t attract too much attention (gathering in an unknown city does, don’t you think?), and we sat and talked for days together. The press was swarming around our halls all day long for the whole time, and all they had to say to their bosses and the people was this: (imagine a lady’s voice – and her emotions as well) “The League of Nations, which convened a special meeting this week, has representatives from all member nations. Although they have been inside for hours now, there have been no updates as to the status of their talks. As France is increasingly exposed to the dangerous threat of a German blitzkrieg, the leaders have been silent in their actions. Only time will tell.”

So there! Under the glare of so many cameras and twice as many people, the Screw Up Society held its first and last meeting. If only the outside world had known the gravity of the situation then and there, it would have been a different world that we see around ourselves today. Anyway, by the end of the meeting, we had come to a desicion: one of our members would be placed as a mole within the German ranks in order to undermine their war efforts. Although this is a simple solution, the hours we spent cooped up inside were spent in deciding who the spy would be. We had finally settled on one William Joyce, who would thereon be referred to as “Lord Haw Haw” (his code name). Joyce was succesfull for a few years, until the day he double-crossed. The Germans tracked him down, and just as they were about to shoot him, a RAF warplane bombed the region. Joyce escaped with a scar on his face, but couldn’t evade the British for long: he was finally captured on the Germany-Denmark border in the town of Flensburg. His voice betrayed his identity to the soldiers. 

Although no SUS member attended his execution a few years later, his wife, Margaret did. Since attending the funeral itself was a political screw up, Margaret became one of us and, officially, one of us did attend the funeral. But hey, all’s well that ends well. I narrated this little story to you just so you could form a mental picture as to our greatness and power – both of which we never misused. We only did what we should have, and because of our steadfastness in our beliefs, it was always what we could have.

Note: The Pugwash Conference and NATO are some other groups that constitute SUS members. Although these groups did come together for meetings and stuff like that, they were never recognised as full-fledged meetings because they didn’t compare in size to the LoN conference.

We were there!

However, you will notice an aberration here: if I am one of the SUS, why am I even talking about these things? Well, the answer is this: when Osama Bin Laden piloted those planes into the WTC in NY, we received a distress call from one of our overseas members. Seemingly, a small section of the SUS had gathered for the evening in order to celebrate – September 11th was the date of the first SUS meeting – in the upper floors of WTC Tower 1, when the plane crashed into them. Then, when they expected the aircraft to blow up, one of the SUS men exchanged winks with the pilot, and pressed a button the wall. This set of a series of explosions within the building that brought it down. An investigation followed, through which was uncovered the fact that the SUS had itself been infiltrated. After this, a second meeting was convened in secret. But, this time, there was a difference: we did not all sit down in a big city and talk for hours. Instead, we made the SUS pseudo-public, i.e. we exposed ourselves and our intentions through a secure channel to leaders of nations from around the world, and made them an offer: we would need to use a part of their country’s land for our secret operations, in exchange for which the country’s government would receive exclusive information – the kinds which none could come in possession of. The deal was finally brokered with Indonesia, and East Timor, generally thought to be the last country to secure independence, became our international headquarters. 

And this document, lady or gentleman on the other side of this screen, is important. It is important because you should know that we are trapped. This document is, I think, the only surviving distress call our leaders have sent out. Indonesia is strangling us! They are perfecting everything, and our men and women are returning home from work distressed and despairing. Please help us, whomsoever you may be. We need to be able to roam the streets again. An improving world, they say, has no place for people like us, and they execute us when we disagree. I have told you so much, and I think you will agree when I say that life is interesting only when one screws up, and our organisation, our beloved SUS, stands for that and that only. If you read this and believe in this, please pass it around. Help us today, and we will help you build a better tomorrow.

– George W. Bush 

Clueless

There is one thing a misinformed reporter should never do: REPORT. How much ever information he possesses, he shouldn’t finalise the piece of news as so unless he is absolutely sure that whatever he has in his hands won’t thicken into blood later on. And that is exactly the same thing I’m hoping won’t happen here. You see, I’ve been itching to ride the Obama wagon ever since he won the elections last year, but owing to one thing or another, I figured I don’t really know who he is. I don’t know what he did for a living, I don’t know how he grew up, I don’t know where he was born! Agreed, he’s not my president, but he is a president of consequence. There are not many political leaders like that. Another two examples for presidents of consequence would be Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Vladimir Putin. And you must agree: Barack Obama redefines the phrase itself! The first black president of America happens to be a Muslim as well. That’s too much information to handle, analyse, dissect and whatever more. I’d written a post earlier, a small time before the election results were going to be announced, about how the election of Obama will affect my country, India. And that little post turned out to be more of India’s prowess in the international arena than Obama’s prowess in the international arena. Now, I’m not even sure who an ‘elitist’ is. But the thing is, I’m still itching to ride the Obama wagon, so here goes a post by someone who doesn’t much, rather close to nothing, about the consequences of Obama’s election into office. Maybe this could be the post where some guy writes about how he doesn’t know anything but has a lot to say about why and how all of it’s been affecting him. OK, I’ll stop.

Barack Hussein Obama, the first black and first Muslim president of the United States of America, a nation recovering progressing from a president who filled up the Gitmo Bay prison to the president who wants to empty it. Again, Bush wasn’t my president, but he was a bad man. Well, not Biblically bad, but just bad. And probably conceited. How? He went around the world toppling governments that weren’t his to topple, and substituting them with other governments that weren’t his to substitute with; and one fine day, when he decides to get back home, he finds the economy crumbling and his popularity, plunging. As of today, I for one think Bush is yet to give us all a valid reason as to why he toppled Saddam Hussein. The guy had done nothing much since the Gulf War! Then what was it? Public executions? Nuclear projects? Or the coveted black gold? And SH, within a few hours of being captured, was hung! While at the same time, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad walked into the US of A, insulted the West, and walked out. I guess junior got carried away. But hey, Bush is not my president to be ranting like this about. After all, he did give us the nuclear deal!

But if you look at it, Bush involuntarily set the stage for the monumentalisation of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the nation. He struck a clear contrast with his impending future, thereby catapulting Obama further into the limelight as the guy who would set everything right. “Yes, We Can!” – good choice of words! Being an Indian, I wouldn’t have much to say about the Guantanamo Bay prison being shut – all our terrorists are from neighbouring countries. What would truly display the capabilities of “Superman” would be the economic turnaround of the West. I didn’t know about the economic crisis around the globe until it finally hit the Indian exports, and up to 10,000,000 jobs were slashed in that one sector alone. The dollar climbed, the rupee fell, the liquidity worsened. Now, that is one way Obama can show us what he is capable of.

Just one clarification. I’m not saying Obama has an obligation to all the countries around the world. I’m just saying that the worsening economic crisis is an excellent opportunity for a man with immense expectations to utilise and prove that he can, indeed, make a difference.

Anyway, there’s just one other thing. Before Ms. Pratibha Patil, who is president of India now, we had Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the founding father of India’s nuclear programme and recipient of India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. Dr. Kalam was very well known among the general Indian populace even before he came in at the helm and thus, there was an inevitable consensus that he would be the one to effect a great change in the way India functioned. After the inauguration Dr. Kalam began to tour the nation, visiting all schools and most colleges on the way, and began to spend time with the children – or the nation’s future. Simultaneously, he fortified Vision 2020, his ambitious plan to make India a developed nation within the next two decades. And when the day finally came when he stepped down as president of India, the people did believe he had made a difference. For, the people knew the structural contents of the government were screwed up – and when Dr. Kalam moved away from the political aspects of his office, the people were instilled with the hope, as well as the truth, that politics was not everything. Similarly, if we were to move past the fact that Barack Obama does seem like an unorthodox choice for the presidency, he is in the same position as Bush, Jr. was. His promises helped him win an election. Now, it’s time for him to prove that he can keep up to them.

Gay Marriages, Religion And The State: Individuality Over Identity?

First in line in the news should be the global economic recession, and then it could be Barrack Obama’s looming presidency, and then probably terrorism. But fourth in any case I’m sure will be ‘gay marriages’. After the dawn of the 21st century, there has been quite a flutter as to their legalisation by the state and acceptance within the society. Now, marriage is an institution that represents the willful agreement between two individuals to spend the rest of their lives together. As such, if you were to go by the definition, religion does not seem to play a role in it. But since the individuals live in a society safeguarded by the state, the state, in its turn, must recognise the existence of this bond and must do the needful so as to let them be represented that way. And therein comes religion. Today’s nations are forged through the integrity of their peoples, an integrity which stems from a belief in themselves. Since the option of a ‘God’ fosters that belief, a religion that encompasses the belief in that God becomes necessary to sustain the individual in his or her moral obligations, as it were. Therefore, when a nation is built from scratch, the individual passes on his or her beliefs and perceptions to the state to which he or she aspires to belong to. Creation is but a mirror of oneself.

But here is wherein I think the difference lies. In the establishment of a state, you may seek to pass on your values to the state as well, but the state is a collective that speaks for more than just one man, woman or child. It speaks for everyone around you, and everyone around you is not who you are. The individuality you represented in your oneness now stands dissolved in the face of a nation. This is the difference between individuality and identity. You now assume an identity, and identities only permit you individuality, they do not define it. The religion you embraced in order to give your morals some ground should not be passed on to the whole state in order to bind it rigidly. It then will no longer constitute representation. Those individuals who do not base their faith in godliness will fall outside the moral reaches of the state, and the establishment will then only represent a section of the population although all of them are citizens. The same thing applies to gays and gay marriages. Religion is the one factor that disallows them from joining in holy matrimony (medical issues can always be tackled with; religion is not as predictable as science is!). Just one more thing to finish my argument with. Think of marriage away from the state-recognition part of it all. An informed decision arrived at by two individuals based on some traits which they think are important. “… which no man or court may tear asunder”. What does that mean? Does it or does it not set apart the ‘institution’ from the state – which is not forming but recognising it – and the society – which is not allowing but partaking from it? The foundation for marriage is the trust between the two individuals. Therefore, what should matter is the individuality and not the identity. If the two are fine with it, so should be the state.

A077513

While on one of my ritualistic excursions through the net, I came across this article on Wiki about the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, listed as America’s deadliest high school tragedy. I went through the whole thing, starting from the strategy of the two kids, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and their blood stained tour through the school, before they killed themselves. With a whole lot of debates raging from Cassie Bernall’s questioning and Rachel Scott’s Christian martyrdom, psychiatrists blame the megalomaniac nature of the two students for the whole incident. I also went around looking for Harris’ blog page, which seems to have been removed, where he documented all the hatred he bore towards the society in general, the making of the pipe bombs and the propane explosives, and the death threats he issued to his neighbours and family friends. This might all seem like me digging up an issue so known and old to the readers out there, but to me this is something new. I come from a very secular and conservative society, and all children are taught patience as a virtue even before they begin schooling. The need of tolerance is very high in a country in India, and though it seems to restrict our personality developments in the earlier stages of our lives, we come to understand it later on and also appreciate it. But what’s interesting to me here is not the mental structure of Harris or Klebold, but the social phenomena that may have provoked them to commit this crime. I for one believe that not everyone is a fool, and even though foolish decisions exist, there must have been some reason or the other that provoked them to commit this misinformed and misguided act. Looking beyond the role of one’s parents to take responsibility for their child, the role of the society also plays a very important role in one’s upbringing. The friends you make, the relationships you hold on to, the people you turn to in times of crisis, and the people whom look up to or look down on.

The impressions you have in the minds of the people around depends on many social factors. At the same time, one other factor that inhibits a complete assumption and ‘display’ of one’s own personality is bullying. While bullies seek to overshadow some other moment(s) of failure in their lives by picking on younger kids, the effect they have can even be devastating. Bullying exists in the childhood of every child, either as the bully or as the victim. If you had been the bully, you’d have experienced some sort of overwhelming sensation that makes you think that you’re in power at that moment – a compensation for your megalomania. But the victim feels helpless in a world that is supposed to have helped. It blunts the display of your character and makes the issue seem rudimentary and inconsequential in your eyes, further deepening its nails. This will lead to a suppression of emotion on a temporary basis but as the child matures, it will all pour out in one form or the other. The need for a friend and a friendly touch is always necessary for an adolescent youth, and this need is projected in our conformity to a given set of rules and regulations in order to find acceptance and a sense of belonging and, most importantly, identity. A loss of identity is equivalent to having home no go back to at the end of the day, an absence of an ideal reference point for all your decisions. As for the blames on the violent video games and all that, I think those wouldn’t have mattered much as long as the child had in mind the fact that it was a just game, a portrayal of some event as it would have been if it ever happened.

The Advent Of Obama: What Does An Indian Have To Do With It?

Barack Hussein Obama II, the incumbent Junior United States Senator from Illinois, becomes the forty fourth President of the United States of America. He is a representative of the Democrats, and also the first African American to be elected to the post. All these apart, what is the significance of Obama’s victory in the polls? What are the factors that led to this, what are the influences that contributed to this, and what will be the influences on the global scenario? More specifically, as an Indian, what does it mean to me?

India, as the world’s seventh largest nation, occupies the land between the Arabian Gulf and the Bay of Bengal. Its strategic location, partnered by its friendly foreign policies and steadily growing economy, have made it a potential superpower for the 21st century, although it remains to be seen whether it will actually make it as one with millions of its citizens living below the poverty line. India’s closest strategic partners include Russia, Israel, the United States, France and Germany, and its economic comprise mainly of China, the United States, Brazil, Japan, and many developing nations as well. Ever since its independence in 1947 from British colonial rule, the nation has been a founding member of many international organizations, including the NAM, UN, IMF, WTO, IBSA, G8+5, SAARC, and many others, and as a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, has advocated the independence of a large number of states, especially from the colonial rule. India also enjoys friendly relations with the African Union and the GCC. India’s claim to a permanent seat in the Security Council is backed by prominent states like France, the Russian Federation, the African Union, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and recently, China. Ultimately, it has been her growing voice in the scene of international affairs that has resulted in the clamour of ‘being associated with India’.

The recently signed Indo-US Nuclear Deal has paved the way for expanding the energy sector in India, with greater investments by Indian companies as well as foreign investors. Operation Smiling Buddha, conducted in 1974, sparked of India’s nuclear program. Although the government has always followed a ‘no first use’ rule, India has consistently refused to comply to the NPT despite military sanctions. However, these sanctions have gradually come to be waived since 2001, and have been further accelerated by this deal; India has also received waivers from the IAEA and the NSG.

Post the 9/11 attacks, Indian intelligence agencies have provided the US and the UN with important data regarding terrorist base camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and coupled with a surge in its economy, has contributed significantly to the War on Terrorism with close to 55,000 of its military personnel deployed in many peace-keeping operations across 4 continents. The relations with China and Pakistan have eased over the last 5 years, although the Jammu-Kashmir land conflict still remains to be settled with no solutions over the horizon. What started of as a unilateral reform process has blossomed into a multilateral campaign, with India forging important strategic ties with the US and the EU. The bilateral relations between India and the EU have, especially, strengthened our already significant foothold in political affairs across the globe via the one state-one vote policy.

India’s major occupation is agriculture, with close to 64% of its population engaged in it. Being a member state of the WTO, India has had strong objections to some of its agreements with the organization, especially the AoA (Agreement on Agriculture). One of the important clauses of the AoA is the Market Access pillar, which asks for a 24% reduction of tariff barriers (for developing nations; 35% for developed) for trade with member states. Although the larger developed nations have subsidies for their smaller farmer markets, India cannot afford such subsidization; further, the reduced tariff protection reduces the income for such farmers.

(Tariffs are taxes imposed on goods when they are moved across a political boundary. Although they may signify a loss of individuality in the free market, they may be used to artificially inflate the prices of imported goods. For example, a protective tariff of 50% imposed on machinery may increase its price from Rs. 100 to Rs. 150. Local manufacturers, who have been selling the product for Rs. 100, can now charge Rs. 149 for the sale.)

So much is known. But what of Barack Obama?

Indians constitute a significant percentage of immigrants into the US, with many doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and other “hard-working professionals” seeking better opportunities. Bush’s administration sought to reduce this immigration as it brought on job crisis in the local market, with many US citizens being unable to find a job that should have been theirs in the first place. The H-1B Visa Program has a 1-year or 3-year increment option for its holders, with a 6-year initial validity. The many Indian professionals, who hold this visa, can apply for a green card after successive renewals. However, the employment-based immigration process has retrogressed into increasingly tightening green card application approvals, with those applicants being forced to apply for a 1- or 3-year visa validity renewal while waiting for the citizenship.

Obama’s Promise: (In an interview with the Indo-Asian News Service) “[I will support] comprehensive immigration reform”, including the H-1B visa programme “to attract some of the world most talented people to America”.

The Bush government’s War on Terrorism primarily involved the Al Qaeda and its operation in and around Afghanistan. Now, Obama’s take is that in order to expand this effort and to dissolve the threat of the Al Qaeda, his ministry will be looking to increase their participation with the newly elected Pakistani government by telling them, “Terrorism and extremism is a threat to you”. The way to do this: by resolving the issues of Pakistan with India so they (Pak) can contribute with greater quality and quantity in aiding Afghanistan. At the heart of the issues between India and Pakistan lies the Jammu-Kashmir conflict. What is Obama trying to do here?

Over and above all this, Obama has often been called an ‘out-of-touch elitist’; his rags-to-riches story has been used to greater effect than expected. Did this strategy pose a sensationalist threat to McCain’s down-to-earth campaigning strategy? This and more remain to be seen.

Monetary Aids: Boon Or Bane?

“…the government of the world must be entrusted to satisfied nations, who wished nothing more for themselves than what they had. If the world-government here in the hands of hungry nations, there would always be danger. But none of us had any reason to seek for anything more. The peace would be kept by peoples who lived in their own way and not be ambitious. Our power placed us above the rest. We were like rich men dwelling at peace within their habitations.” – Winston Churchill

Foreign aids, in times of distress resulting from large-scale calamities and famines, provide a temporary solution regarding the basic needs of the endangered people until proper order has been established by the home government. Therefore, looking at monetary aids from this perspective, foreign aids will seem to be the solution to global poverty. But, it is more of a bane than a boon. They will definitely help in the shorter periods of time (i.e. until order has been restored), but in the long term, they will only do to make beggars out of countries. What is important is that there must exist a development program which is sustainable in nature so that the economy prospers, making it possible for the people to earn their livelihood. For this, the mandatory conditions, at a glance, will be political stability at a broader (country) level, and social stability at an internal (society) level. This means that there has to be peace as the first step for making progress. The next step would be to focus on what is best suited for the nation to make economic progress, and then start working on a sustainable program for developing it. A good example would be Japan, which was reduced to rubble post-WW II. It, then, recorded Asia’s fastest industrial and economic growth, which was achieved through a minimal quantity of resources. Another example would be Singapore, depending mainly on industrialization and tourism. Both nations do not go to war, thereby ensuring external peace as well as eliminating causes for many an internal strife. Further, they have a disciplined approach to life that also helps.

Let us now come to a situation wherein foreign aids are imposed upon defenseless Third World nations, further crippling economies. This has been shown, through extensive research, to be profoundly crippling as far as the poor are concerned. An imposed aid can only function to generate devious bureaucracies, which in turn serve to sap the initiative that brought them about in the first place. Ultimately, the moral effect would be to, simply put, snap the enterprise of the common man, and draw potential intellectuals into non-productive activities. Foreign aids, concerning untimely occasions, will create a ‘moral tone’ in international affairs thereby denying one the hard-task of wealth generation, substituting it with indigenous handouts; what will ultimately be realized is a curbing of individual freedom and a suppression of popular choice. Of course, such actions do not go without its handful of defenders. What such men and women don’t understand is that such foreign aids are fundamentally bad, and that, far from being incremented, must be halted before more damage is done. What is even more grievous is that lobbyists in the halls of power argue that ‘aid’ must not be stopped because the poor would not survive without it. Willy Brandt, ex-chancellor of Germany, headed the Brandt Commission in 1980. The Brandt Commission Report was then generally well received for its ideas and programs on globalization and free trade. Excerpt: “For the poorest countries, aid is essential to survival”.

To quote further, at the International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico, US President George W. Bush pledged to increment development assistance to poor nations, in terms of monetary aids, through the establishment of the new Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). The fund would set strict standards of accountability and long-term sustenance for the aid-acceptors and would reward select poor countries with as much as $5 billion in aid by 2007. Now, the proposed Account is a step forward because it builds on a consensus that development works best when poor countries have strong policies on governance and economic reform and take responsibility for reducing poverty and seeding sustenance so as to spur growth.

But what President Bush has failed to recognized it that the MCA also poses a great risk: by dealing with recipient countries only on such a cheap basis, the fund will surely undo significant progress in improving donor-recipient coordination. Backsliding in this area could condemn poor countries to court suspicious sources of money, thereby increasing the chances of corruption and subsequent collapse of order: simply put, back to square one. Also, one has to note that the United States has ventured into this aiding-market alone. Therefore, sensitive issues regarding failure of reception could have adverse effects on the donor’s economic scenario. Secondly, narrow focus on the development of top-few countries may generate funds so as to execute economic reformations – but only in those countries; the majority low-income nations will then face seclusion.

Of the Third World nations, Africa contains many lessons concerning the fraud of ‘aid’. It has gradually given up the ability to posses the self-sufficiency required in food production; it must be noted that African countries did enjoy that before developmental aids were invented. Since 1960, the per-capita food production has fallen steadily owing to dependence on international aids. Today (as of 2002), 70% of the people of the sub-Saharan nations live below the poverty line, with the result that the continent has the highest infant mortality rate, lowest average life-expectancy, lowest literacy rate, fewest doctors per head of population and the fewest children in school, on the planet. Since 1969, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has shrunk at a constant rate of 3.4% per annum! What people don’t see is that the poor do thrive without it in some countries, and that the suffering of miseries occurs not in spite of aid, but because of it. However, such statements undervalue the people of the poor countries concerned. As such, they are logically refutable when uttered by those who want us to believe that foreign aid works. At the tail-end of close to a hundred years of industrialization and allied developments, we are told that many countries have lost the ability to survive a moment longer unless they receive even larger amounts of aid. Let me ask you a question. If foreign aids really do work, then the poor countries must be better off now than when they started to receive the aids. Where is that improvement? There is a stark lack of concession that prudent management of resources, a willingness to share responsibility to fulfill common needs and improve living standards are just missing from the root agendas.

The truth is that the people in most of such countries seldom come in contact with the aids in any tangible shape or form. After the multi-billion dollar influx of money has been filtered through ‘officials’, ‘agency staff’, dishonest ‘commission agents’ and the like, there is very little left to go around. This trifle, furthermore, is then used up thoughtlessly by those in power who have no mandate from the poor. Small wonder, then, that the effects of ‘aid’ are so often vicious and destructive for the most vulnerable members of the society. Also, over fifty years of aid-work, the channels of resource transfer, titled ‘agencies’, should have dealt with the problems they were established to solve, closed shop and stopped spending funds from developed to developing countries. Solution: if the people ever are to receive their entitled quantities of aid, they must have the necessary and proper, in every sense of the word, communication with the government they have elected. Being irredeemably out of touch with the poor can only serve to make the situation worse.

In fact, these ‘agencies’ have sunk their roots deep enough so that they have grown year after year with even bigger budgets, and ever more projects to administer.

All the above-said notwithstanding, what is to be said about the successes of the foreign aids?

In the past half-century, the goal of these ‘aids’ has been to solely create and entrench a new breed of influential and wealthy gang of parasites. In this campaign, led chiefly by the IMF and WTO, ‘aid’ has perpetuated the rule of incompetent individuals, heading governments characterized by massive ignorance and irresponsibility. Foreign aids, therefore, has condoned the most consistent cases of human rights abuse. In the today of enlightened minds, the oustering of these evils can be achieved only if the victimized are willing to recognize ways to assist one another according to their needs and needs only. They must begin to act on their own set of agendas, in line of priorities they themselves have set. They, therefore, must not be aided, but must be provided with equal opportunities so as to aid themselves.

Rendered Redundant

The flight was delayed by half an hour, but that wasn’t a problem – we spent most of our time sleeping our way through the journey, be it in the terminal gates or in the aircraft. The only thing we found wrong with the flight was that the attendants were unable to dim the lights during the trip, making it hard for us to sleep easily. Anyway, we walked through without any hitch and were waiting by the baggage claim section when I noticed something: Sharjah had changed. It was not the Sharjah I had seen three months before, when I left for Chennai, a town in the south of India. The better look of the airport was, however, a seemingly welcome change, but the city outside somehow different; the facades weren’t those which I had found easy to connect myself with. When I first landed in this dusty city two years back, it was as though I had taken a flight around the earth: Sharjah looked like what Chennai could be in the future, and/or had been in the past. The buildings were more spaced apart and the roads were less crowded, but all that could be attributed to a lesser population density than India. But everything else, beginning from the people and including the food, the traffic, the roadside eateries, the vehicles on the roads, the overcrowded shopping malls, assuming a sense of wholesomeness with a very similar ambience, made me feel as though I was at home away from home.

But it is very true that all good things must come to an end.

The city moved on. The aura generated by the feeling of belonging was fading and it was noticeable. The connections were lost, and an American could be seen at work under the foundations of the city: McDonald’s and Hardees took over the local market, wiping out cheaper but more enjoyable eateries, giant bollboards and neon banners eliminated the peaceful heralds that were the cloth banners, the people were falling prey to some alien Westernization and its vile propaganda. The populace, I felt, would soon be reduced to a pointless world of thought were things would be limited to deciding where you wanted to dine that night. The retention of a nation’s identity is very important to its people because of the sole reason that they be able to call such and such a place on the earth their home. If you give up the identity of your nation, you are surrendering your homes. In fact, with the surrender of your homes, you are also assuming other values which aren’t imbued in your skins in the first place. It is a well known fact that the Gulf nations are majorly dependent on the quanitity of oil they extract and export every year, and it is agreed that they should be considering other means of living once the resource runs out. Such a happening will obviously result in a crisis, but the leaders must not allow the doors of living and trading to be open enough to allow some foreign ideas to enter the regions. What I’m saying might seem a little too fundamental, and I may not be equipped enough to understand the troubles concerning a whole nation of more than a million people, but everything I’m saying is based on my common sense. A localite wouldn never want to walk out of his home one day and see that his childhood has faded into obscurity, now being buried under his thoughts owing to a veil draped over the gardens in which he used to play and in the streets he used to run. Things will always change, that’s true, but not to the extent of having to sacrifice your identities.