Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

Category: ENGLISH (Page 21 of 27)

There a few posts written in English

Semantics

I need not remind you that what we imagine we know about the past tends to be what victors of the past wanted us to believe. Ever since barons, of one sort or another, came into existence, they made sure to hire and overpay the most talented bards to sing their praises. In our day, we have the media. Running an attractive media outlet costs far more than consumers are willing to pay, and modern barons are happy to sponsor those who tell their side of the story.

I have just been to Cordoba, Spain. There are many reasons to visit Cordoba, one of which surpasses every other. True, you may not share my tastes, but the Mesquita in Cordoba is the most sublimely beautiful building I have ever visited! To my mind, neither the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg nor the Acropolis in Athens nor any Gothic cathedral hold a candle to the Moorish Mesquita in terms of transcendental architectonic harmony.

The Moors were defeated and driven out of Spain, and most of us are unaware of the remarkable scientific and artistic supremacy and – not least – relative tolerance that had characterised Moorish culture in Spain during what is known elsewhere in Europe as the “dark ages”. “We won”, as it were, and we are telling our story now, a story that centres on Western moral superiority, on the one hand, and Islamic religious fanaticism and brutality, on the other. The story is no more true than innumerable other fanciful concoctions spun out of ignorance. The ghastly war crimes committed by US soldiers in Vietnam, for instance, do not mean that US Americans are cruel monsters.

Now, telling a fib is not as straightforward as you might think. After all, incorrect facts can be gainsaid, although the correction will often only be found on the last page, in small print and long after the entire population has taken the venomous bait. In the long run, though, a mainstream news outlet would not want its reputation to be tainted as fallible, so journalists and speech writers need a more indirect approach, which is where their semantics come into the picture, their choice of words.

If you are up against a brutal dictator, and there are many of those, you may be engaging in political activism, but as soon as your authorities get on to you, they will not convict you of political activism but of “sedition”** or “incitement” for the simple reason that no self-respecting country will admit banning “political activism”. In the news, your friends will hear about a “rioting mob”, rather than about a “crowd of demonstrators”. Nobody wants to be part of a “mob” and most people are reluctant to have anything to do with a “riot”. Serious opposition to your country’s authorities will not be labelled a “rebellion” – since anyone can easily be sympathetic of a rebellion against a tyrannical regime – but as “treason” or “terrorism”.

In fact, even in a country that does not have a tyrannical regime, you risk being indicted of treason if you are some Mr Nobody who exposed your country’s war crimes. On the other hand, presidents who harm their countries past the point of no repair are very rarely accused of anything at all.

Mind you, semantics – the words that are used to describe, in this case, your political opposition – matter not only to you as a dissident, but to all who attempt to bring down tyrannical regimes. No country is an island, not even North Korea. Your country will have financial, military, strategic and other ties to other countries. The US, for instance needs to keep its military bases in a large number of minor countries and will not risk disrupting relations with a regime that has taken draconian measures against “terrorists”.

As for the rest of us, those who believe that the occupants of the White House are – ehem – whatever-we-believe-they-are, we are all “conspiracy theorists”. Those of us in favour of some redistribution of income and wealth are “populists”, and analysts who expose the inefficiency and financial extravagance of the US health system are elitist, and their arguments are merely referred to as a “narrative”, i.e. something distinctly dubious.

Israel refers to all who have the slightest sympathy for the Palestinian cause as anti-Semite. Makes my blood curdle, in fact, because I very much resent being called a racist.

Unfortunately, those of us who are referred to as populists, conspiracy theorists, elitist or anti-Semite are often no better. Referring only to myself, I have on occasion vehemently stated that so-and-so was a racist, a fascist or for lack of anything more precise, a bastard. Only recently I referred to a very prominent person as a hooker, on these very pages. I can’t say I very much regret having done so, because letting off steam feels good. My words were less elegant, though, than those used against me, and would have no other effect than to make it clear that I loathed the object in question, and that was not really my aim, which was to make the reader share my loathing.

Any political movement that is referred to as populist, elitist, anti-Semite or based on conspiracy theory will probably never seriously get off the ground, so semantics do matter.

**A recent case from a so-called Democratic country is that of Catalonia: Although the separatist movements earned a majority in Democratic elections for the second time in a row in December 2017, the Spanish authorities have indicted the separatist movements’ leaders on charges of “sedition”.

National health

Three weeks ago I had an operation. As it happens, it was a rather large, if not life-threatening one. Yet, after exactly 48 hours, I was back home again, walking up the stairs to my flat.

Why am I telling you this? Why am I also telling you that as soon as I had woken up from my anaesthesia, I spent the rest of the day endlessly and exaltedly praising and thanking all and sundry (doctors and nurses) around me? Moreover,  I have been thanking, ever since, whoever was willing to endure my boundless gratitude for a few years without pain, without invalidity.

I am telling you because I want to extol the fabulous scientific advances made over even just the past ten years; also because in most other countries of the world I would not have been able to afford such an operation; and finally, because – well, because I am extremely lucky to live in a country with an excellent national health service.

EU countries are expected to provide affordable health services to all citizens. I quote the European Commission’s 2016 report “EXPERT PANEL ON EFFECTIVE WAYS OF INVESTING IN HEALTH”

The 28 Member States of the European Union (EU) have a clear mandate to ensure equitable access to high-quality health services for everyone living in their countries. This does not mean making everything available to everyone at all times. Rather, it means addressing unmet need for health care by ensuring that the resources required to deliver relevant, appropriate and cost-effective health services are as closely matched to need as possible.

Between 2005 and 2009, EU Member States made huge progress in improving access to health care. The number of people reporting unmet need for health care due to cost, travel distance or waiting time fell steadily from 24 million in 2005 to 15 million in 2009. Since 2009, however, this positive trend has been reversed – a visible sign of the damage caused by the financial and economic crisis. By 2013, the number of people reporting unmet need for health care had risen to 18 million (3.6% of the EU population).

The report is worth a look, as it is well referenced and goes a long way to explain the repercussions and by-products of a population’s health.

Now, out of the global population, the entire population of the EU amounts to approximately 7%, that of Canada less than 0,5%. I suspect that the standard of life in New Zealand (0.06% of the global population) and Australia (0.325%) is comparable to that of EU countries, but I have not looked into it.

As for the rest of the world: Sorry Mac, you were born in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In my country, I belong to the majority (i.e. > 50%) that is neither poor nor filthy rich. We have not only what we need; we can go abroad twice a year, and we can renew our computers every third year. But whether we belong to the blessed or the non-blessed, we have access to the same health service. The fabulous operation I had cost me nothing. Not a farthing. And the growing number of people in this country who cannot afford to go abroad twice a year and renew their computers every third year would at least be able to afford that operation or, for that matter, any other medically indicated treatment.

Yes, the number of people who struggle to satisfy basic needs is rising and will continue to do so (as you will understand if you have read your Piketty). But so far, most EU-nationals should in principle, at least,  have access to what was granted me.

Personally, though, I believe that proper medical treatment is a human right.

A new year

What if we lived in a world where the powers-that-be set out to eradicate children who were less than excellent students, women who were less than very sexy, men who were not both muscular and smart?

Such a policy would be far more radical than mere eugenics, (cf. Nazism and Joseph Mengele), yet enterprises in this vein are not altogether unheard of. After all, the whites did go after the reds, the blacks, the browns and, most recently, the Jews; though of course the Jews were white too, which only goes to show that race really is irrelevant.

The good news is that unless some crackpot presses one of those famous buttons, the planet will survive and with it the human species, for good or for worse.

As the climate becomes ever more ornery and unpredictable, investors will be happily occupied in satisfying new consumer needs. There will be a market for protection against erratic climate tantrums: hurricane-proof and tsunami-resistant systems, self-replenishing underground lakes, desalination plants. We already have a booming industry of carbon sequestration and ocean plastic capture projects. Eventually, of course, clean energy will be the rule, not the exception, resulting in new scrambles for market positions.

The problem is that very few of us can afford having our own underground artificial lakes. Now if you are lucky enough to live in a country that requires even its wealthy  inhabitants to pay taxes, your government may be able to afford systems to protect you against extreme climatic events, at least for a few years. Provided of course that all the taxes paid are not diverted to “defence”. Parenthetically, I wish to point out that my quotation marks refer to the fact that in some countries, the word “defence” means “attack”.

The ultimate climate débâcle will not kill us all, rest assured. The one percent who can afford palaces with artificial self-replenishing lakes under tsunami-resistant, hurricane-proof, self-cleaning glass bells will need underpaid workers to man their factories, clerks to send their invoices, male and female hookers to satisfy their sexual needs, interpreters to help them communicate with competitors on other tectonic plates, nurses to tend their spastic parents and psychopathic offspring. There is hope for us all: many will find a safe haven from the vindictive climate under the wings of the one percent, also in future.

Many will not. Among those who will not, we will see blacks, browns and — oh yes — whites. Many of them. There will be devoted fathers, good musicians, kind little girls, dreamers, surfers, biologists, house painters, and geniuses. Many of these people will be stacked away in rat-infested refugee camps along the borders, where they may or may not be fed. Others will try to survive as fugitives, stealing and fighting each other over water, blankets and toilet paper.

Thanks to those of us who are elected to serve the one percent ( I am glad that I don’t have much longer to live) they will be spared from having to inbreed and give birth to three-headed babies. Pity. I would have loved to learn the eugenic outcome of a hundred years’ inbreeding. Would mating emperors create smarter babies than the rest of us do now?

Finally, bearing in mind that we are facing a new year with a few quite sinister clouds on the horizon, I would like to add that sometimes things turn out very much better than we feared. Nevertheless, we should all — young and old and in-between — be a little alert, to say the least. Is there anything we can do to make things better, for instance?

And — sorry to say this — but please take a look at my post “Encryption“, just to be on the safe side.

Jerusalem

The website of El Pais had an unusual headline this morning, one that seemed to suggest an alliance between the Pope and Iran: “El Papa e Irán se unen al intento de evitar que Trump lleve la Embajada a Jerusalén“. Later in the day, El País changed the headline, but the fact remains that Iran and the Pope agree on one score, at least.

This is a memorable day. Not only did the Pope and Iran appear to join forces, if only for a brief moment, but Finland is celebrating the centenary of its independence, and Trump ended, presumably once and for all, any US pretence of being an honest broker in the affairs of the Middle East. Trump’s announcement today, when he declared that henceforward the US embassy in Israel will be in Jerusalem, paved the way for a great leap in terms of Russian and Chinese hegemony, something you may or may not welcome.

For my part I doubt there is less injustice and poverty in Russia and China than in the US. Moreover, much as I criticise the US, this much must be said for the country: I am absolutely sure that it treats political opponents far more leniently than Russia and China.

However, outside the country, the record of disastrous US interventions all over the world knows no parallel. I put to you that accumulated US crimes against humanity, or complicity in such crimes, outnumber even those of WWII Germany.

Moreover, there is every indication that human impact on the climate will see dramatic consequences within a very short space of time. The US has turned its back on the Paris accord, whereas China seems determined to make a tremendous effort to help save the climate, and that may perhaps be worth more than political freedom. We shall see. All indicators appear to suggest that saving the climate may be worth considerable sacrifice.

Back to Jerusalem: The speech held today by the Emperor could have been written by one of Netanyahu’s script writers. It was not so much about America and American interests as about Israel, which it lauded at length as a successful democracy.

Now I assume that what is usually implied when we speak of “democracies” is not merely the right to drop a piece of paper in a ballot box. I have never been to Israel, so I must ask: Is Israel a democracy?

In Israel, are all permanent residents, regardless of race, gender or religion,

  • equal in every way before the law?
  • equally allowed to purchase and keep property and to keep inherited property?
  • equally entitled to education, health care, employment and social services?
  • equally entitled to the protection of the courts and law enforcement?

If the answer to all of these question is “yes”, well, then Israel has made, unbeknownst to me, a very good start and merely faces the challenge of upholding the law. There are some other industrialised  countries that also find this difficult, most notably the USA, where blacks need to remind the public that “black lives matter”. Racism is not theoretically condoned in the USA, so I suspect that discrimination of blacks is also a consequence of a political  system that systematically favours the wealthy and chastises the poor.

But if the answer to any of these questions is “no”, the country is not a democracy, but something rather more systemically antediluvian, governed by rules that are alien to the industrialised world, though still, perhaps common in some primitive societies.

If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, I repeat, Israel is pursuing a path that is alien to the common good, I’m afraid,  one that is similar to and as ignoble as that of systemic anti-Semitism.

 

Did the US ever apologise?

In my previous post I spoke about sanctimonious know-alls. Well, after yesterday’s admissions, watch me now: I intend to be as sanctimonious today as I darn-well please.

Remember the war on Korea? No, you wouldn’t, because it’s rarely talked about and certainly nothing to be proud of. All we ever see of it are replays of the comedy Mash. Those who were naive enough – and most of us, then, were very naive, indeed – to take note of Foxy News probably swallowed the bait and believed the war was being waged in defence of democracy. But US defence of democracy can most kindly be compared to a series of raids of army ants. The purpose of the war was to limit the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, which may be fine and dandy – depending on how you look at it – except that Korea belonged by rights to the Koreans.

At least we can be grateful that Truman explicitly forbade MacArthur to use the atomic bomb, and effectively sacked (or “recalled”) him in the end. Korea had to be permanently divided.

Source: Britannica

You will, however, remember Vietnam. Not because Foxy News finally owned up to the facts, but because so many US soldiers came back in coffins, if at all. Students protested against the draft, parents protested against loss of their sons, and footage and snapshots of US war crimes found their way to international news channels.

Did Foxy News admit that in South Vietnam, the US was supporting a nest of Frankensteins, a vicious dictator and his ghoulish wife and collaborators? Still, the dictator’s acts were not as embarrassing as the Buddhist monks setting fire to themselves in protest. (See the famous Malcolm Browne photo here.) Even McNamara was appalled, and the US eventually decided to allow a military coup against him – so much for “democracy”.

Now the war on Korea was probably no better. As in Vietnam, the US started by playing its cards through a puppet. In fact, they were the ones who installed the extremely brutal dictator Syngman Rhee in the first place.

The press is currently hounding the North Korean dictator. I can’t say I like him either. But had I been born in a country that had been destroyed almost down to the last blade of grass due to the hubris of a bully from the other side of the Pacific, I would have dreamt of revenge too.

Yes, I know I sound horrible. But think of how little North Korea must feel with a Trump riding his gilded horse into battle against the entire world, against the planet, no less. Mind you, it’s not just Trump, nor even Bush or Reagan or even Foxy News; it’s a narrative, a particularly dangerous narrative: Always the biggest, the best, the greatest, almost at any cost. Ordinary US Americans gain no benefit from that venomous narrative, which is fed to them from the day they learn to say “ma-ma”. No benefit at all.

There are those who do, though.

Annoying the general public

I’m writing today in response to this: http://www.musicradar.com/news/5-reasons-why-your-protest-song-is-making-things-worse

Mind you, it’s well worth reading as the guy evidently has a point – five, actually – as well as a sense of humour.

And he’s not the only one who’s sick and tired of bedraggled lefties who go on and on about “the scourge of neoliberalism”, and by sanctimonious organic know-alls who insist that the apocalypse is nigh and that we must all repent, otherwise all, except those who can afford to move to Mars, will suffer a hideous, worse-than-death demise.

Most people are pissed by self-righteous, better-than- you, priggish, self-disciplined and more often than not neurotic, self-denying would-be saints who refuse to go window-shopping, refuse to splurge, refuse to eat T-bone steaks, and whose faces are perpetually warped by disapproval.

In short, by people like me.

“Look out the window,” people like me say, as though we were the only ones who ever notice what goes on in the world. “Now Saudi Arabia has even kidnapped Lebanon’s PM, with the blessing, of course, of Emperor Trump”. And since most people haven’t noticed that Lebanon’s PM has been missing for 13 days, and since they really don’t see that this concerns them, our making such a fuss about the matter annoys them. Understandably.

In short, most of the general public, if not the general public as a whole, is annoyed. The “green” people disapprove of how we live. The lefties disapprove of just about everything. And the rest of the population disapproves of both the green people and the lefties and the immigrants. What a lark!

So, what to do? Should people like me just pack up and go tend our gardens?

I know, yes, I really recognise, that by labelling anti-immigrationists “racist”, we are making things worse. I must confess that when I read that “Police estimated 60,000 people took part in Saturday’s event, in what experts say was one of the biggest gathering of far-right activists in Europe in recent years” (source: the Guardian)  my first thought was to demand that Poland be kicked out of the EU. But what good would that do? The EU is disintegrating in any event, and the best we can hope for is that it will survive a few more years. In the mean time, calling people “racist” is not a wise move.

Twenty years ago, and even five years ago, I would never have thought I should hear myself wish the EU well. Now I have come to understand that war is not something Europe has grown out of. People are, it seems, still mere primates in spite of their highly developed brains. War may come to Europe again sooner rather than later.

No, I shall not pack up and go tend my garden! I intend to continue weaving my own way through media outlets, trying to understand what is happening and why. I shall continue to try to understand why most of us act as we do, and why we allow “Democracy” to be so terribly abused. From time to time, I shall continue to express, on this site, my understanding, the understanding of a cetacea paellicius, no more, no less. In short I admit the writer of the article referenced above has a point, or five, but I also insist that defeatism is not a solution, just an option.

It is not my option.

Lost causes

There are at least two interesting aspects of Naomi Alderman’s what-if novel The Power. One is that if women, somehow or other, miraculously gain the upper hand and get used to calling the shots, they will be no better, though possibly not much worse, than men are now.

The other is that this novel is generally referred to as a “speculative fiction dystopia”. But, as the author writes in a Guardian article  “Nothing happens to men in the novel – I explain carefully to interviewers – that is not happening to a woman in our world today. So is it dystopian? Well. Only if you’re a man.”

In other words: since it is currently happening to women, we are living in a dystopia.

True, it does not happen to all women, and obviously it does not happen to Stephen Pinker. But it does happen to many more women than we care to think of. Moreover, it happens to children. In fact, it happens to just about everyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I want a certain tract of land, and you just happen to have been living there since you were born, but I am rich and/or powerful, whereas you are just somebody’s lost cause, you’d better scuttle away as fast as you can.

Lost causes are scattered over the landscape like the innumerable heaps of dead bodies we see on the news. Even if Stephen Pinker appears undeterred in his faith in humanity and progress, the number of displaced persons is the highest ever recorded and rising, according to the UN. Being displaced means, more often than not, living in a squalid desert refugee camp, courtesy of some recalcitrant donor. Mind you: Living there for years. No hope.

Personally, I suspect that Mr Pinker must have been suffering from attacks of temporary insanity when he wrote his feel-good nonsense. His line of thinking has annoyed me immensely over the years and has caused no end of harm, I believe. As a psychologist, he is of course entitled to try to help his clients feel better, but that is no excuse for telling the general public that there is no need to worry. Just sit back, relax, be happy.

Yes, I am very familiar with the statistics of the UNDP, according to which “absolute poverty” has declined dramatically, as has infant mortality. Please note, however, that the UNDP term “absolute poverty” is defined as roughly < 1 USD. I ask you: try to live on 10 USD a day or even 20 USD a day, and see what you think of it.

Back to the bag of lost causes, which Mr Pinker seems to have forgotten: In it, we find most of the population of Yemen, most of the population of Afghanistan, most of the population of Syria, the entire population of Palestine, both Sudans, most of the people still trying to eke out a living in Chad and Mali which are becoming increasingly uninhabitable, … I could go on, of course, interminably. But out of respect for the author of The Power, I wish to specifically mention the countless women in India and elsewhere who are subjected to acid attacks or gang rape.

The thought of such senseless cruelty to defenseless women lights up my very worst visceral instincts and reminds me that if I had power, the kind of power possessed by the women in Naomi Alderman’s novel, I would indeed use and abuse it.

That is what happens when you hand out weapons to a flock of tattered, dejected rebels. They will use and abuse them. Here, there or anywhere, inflamed and outraged by the injustice they and their people have been subjected to, they will suddenly feel, like a rush of adrenalin, like divine intervention, a surge of power in their veins. And they will kill without remorse. As would I, if I were where they are.

But I am not. I am safe and sound, far away from it all. But even people like me or like Stephen Pinker, sometimes cross the line: The leaders of ISIS (now defeated, or so they say) were once wealthy, educated and basically law-abiding men. What hit them was rage against the injustice of it all. With money and financial contacts, they could purchase arms and that, alone, gave them immense power.

In addition to those who abuse power because they have a just, lost cause to pursue, there are a lot of psychopaths, so, Mr Pinker, I see no reason to just relax and be happy.

Football from the sidelines

Almost blinded by the sun and my own perspiration as I drag myself up the steep hill, I find that the cobbled roads are near empty while the normally empty bars are packed. Packed with men, shouting men. Football, I assume, and snarl.

Mind you, I don’t at all mind football. What bothers me is all that seems to be so evident if we objectively look at a football stadium or study the comportment of men around TV screens when certain games are being played. “We’re in this together,” they seem to be saying, “our team!” “fight till death”, “kill the infidel”, or as General Halil of Janjaweed says, “eliminate anything in my way!”

General Halil is fighting for no cause other than himself. And he has earnest supporters, including loyal and good men who think they are fighting for a worthy cause, men who believe in Halil by virtue of his “strength”. A strong general is a good general, they think. Alas, ruthlessness and callousness is often mistaken for strength, as the US is kind enough to remind us at regular intervals.

The US is a deeply religious country, as are Israel and Saudi Arabia, its close allies. The crimes against humanity committed by those three countries are such that more and more people in my country are saying that religion is the root of all evil.

No, I say, religion is not the root cause of war. The root cause is what we see when we watch those who watch professional football. After a match, people sometimes get bashed to death. The spectators’ arousal, almost sexual in nature – indeed, fired by male hormones surging as the battle is played out before their eyes – makes them dangerous. They are one with the players, identifying with them (“our” team, “us”) , admiring them, enjoying a moment in the sun of borrowed fame and glory, and ready to defend them with their lives, if need be.

Now, some people will retort that war is not necessarily bad. Some wars, they will say, are just, wars for freedom, for instance, wars for liberation from oppression. Of course this argument is neither here nor there, since we will never all agree as to what wars are just, will we? Forget WWII, there have been infinitely many wars since, and in all of them there will have been at least one big bad bully against whom resistance is at least justifiable. Sadly, even the oppressed are usually also lead by big bad bullies, since – again – what is mistaken for strength tends to inspire confidence.

Football makes it all so clear: What spectators by the billions see and admire is: brute force, naked muscle, precision and cunning. They will rise to their feet as one, almost levitating, and they will all feel, for a few magic moments, omnipotent. In short, they will loose, not only their voices from screaming, but also their heads. Who needs drugs or religion to go to war prepared to die? Give me a general who can generate the electric current of a football match, and he will be in business, regardless of the cause.

I, too, long to – more than that – I need to admire. I particularly enjoy feeling kinship with those that I admire. I, too, feel elevated when any of my heroes “wins” a battle.  But my heroes are neither callous nor ruthless, and their strength is not muscular.Today, I finished a novel in which one of my favourite protagonists, George Smiley, definitely sealed his long-time opponent’s casket. Characteristically, Smiley did not enjoy his moment of glory, due to ruminations that I shared with him.

I wonder what Smiley would have made of the global mess we’re in now. For one thing, this little Spanish town on the top of its cliff is becoming near uninhabitable due to summer heat and winter cold. What would Smiley have suggested? I imagine him turning off the light to go to sleep. Outside his wide open window, the neighbours have finally come out of their houses, seeking relief in the evening breeze. Fathers, children, grandmothers, gossiping women… the street is full of their laughter, their pleasant chatting. Yet for all their easy pleasure, he cannot help hearing, still, the continued low wailing of a woman he knows is 97. She wails day and night, but as he knows, she has been out of this world for years. She cannot talk, cannot tell her surroundings why she is so unhappy. Her children take turns looking after her, and they all visit her almost daily. Every day she is dressed and cherished.

Smiley plays with ideas of what may be occupying her mind. After all, she is nearly a century old; think of what she has seen and endured!

Finally, Smiley falls asleep, covered only by a sheet. When he wakes up, he knows he was woken by a sound, and he soon hears it again, a thrill sound that ends in a tremulous sigh. He sits up in bed, because there is no mistaking an owl. An owl? This is definitely not owl country! But hark, there is another one. And another. Standing by now, stark naked in the middle of the room, he hears them all – four owls on different roof tops, one of them just above him on his own roof.

After a few moments, he sadly goes back to bed. Even the owls have lost their marbles, he muses.

And that was the best my hero could do, alas. Can you do better?

Beware of GDP and GNI

I’d like to tell you about an article I read in El País this morning, about Luanda. I hadn’t really intended to read it – I mean, who cares about Luanda? But there was an intriguing dislocation in the heading that I could not resist: The most expensive city in the world is in an underdeveloped country. Now why would that be? I wondered, so I read on.

Yes, rich countries are the ones with expensive capitals, so how come Luanda has surpassed them all with regard not only to the price of water? In 2017, I read, the most expensive cities are, in descending order: Luanda, Hong Kong, Tokio, Zurich, Singapore, Seoul, Geneva, Shanghai, New York and Bern. Madrid follows way down the line as no. 111, and Barcelona is only no. 121. Now how about that!

Well you see, the article tells me, Angola is actually a super-rich country, for the rich that is, who enjoy its oil and diamonds. (Just think of it, diamonds!) The country is so rich that its government has been kind enough to pass a minimum salary law, giving employees the right to the equivalent of EUR 88/month (assuming the employment in question is declared, of course). This amount is just enough to pay for 30 litres of water, 10 kg of rice and 10 litres of milk. Now that might not sound all that bad to you, but try surviving on this amount of water, milk and rice for a whole month.

And what about this figure: about 50% of all families living in Luanda have no running water.

I leave El País and look up the CIA “World Factbook” – to make quite sure that I have not misunderstood Angola’s situation: No, Angola is not considered a communist state or even a dictatorship. In 2012, I read in the CIA World Factbook, “the UN assessed that conditions in Angola had been stable for several years and invoked a cessation of refugee status for Angolans.”

To conclude – and I am no longer leaning on either the CIA World Factbook or El País – I note that the famous GDP (whether nominal or forecasted (PPP)) (see Wikipedia as at 1/7/2017) tells us very little about whether or not a country stinks – excuse my French. Personally, I have learned today that Angola, for instance, is a particularly bad country to live in for almost everybody.

I would like to add on a more positive note, however, as there there are other ways of measuring countries. There is something called the HDI – Human Development Index, which is better able to describe a country than the GDP and GDI. You are of course welcome to disagree with me, but since I do not allow comments, I shall never know.

The rat is out of the hole

You may have heard – and then again, you may not have – that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have issued an ultimatum against Qatar, the 13 so-called “demands” the country must meet within ten days, “or else”.

If Qatar meets the demands, it will have ceased to be a state: It will merely be a vassal of Saudi Arabia, since what is demanded is in reality that the country surrenders its sovereignty.

It all started with an economic and diplomatic blockade launched in the wake of the US emperor’s visit to Saudi Arabia, and since the Saudis evidently feel confident about US support, goodness knows where it will end. For that very same reason – i.e. US support – nobody even mentions this issue around here. In Europe you don’t talk back to the US! Not in this country, not in any European country, least of all in the UK.

Now I was brought up with the BBC. I feel warmth and gratitude to the BBC. I know the names of many of their foreign correspondents. I download BBC podcasts and listen to them. But let us not delude ourselves: BBC is a British broadcasting company, and Britain is very cosy with the USA. As for the USA, well, need I remind you …? No, I won’t remind you, because that would require not a website but many tomes of modern history. However, take a look at Reporters without borders. If you click the map you will see that the USA ranks no higher than 43 out of 180 states as far as freedom of the press is concerned.

My country is also uncomfortably cosy with the USA, if not quite as cosy as the UK, but certainly cosy enough for its national broadcasting company to refrain from ever quoting Al Jazeera. Yet, I suspect that all good foreign correspondents – be they from my country or from the BBC – consult Al Jazeera more than almost any other outlet, at least about Middle East issues. Why? Because Al Jazeera is good, very good! And they are not bound by the US Patriot Act.

One of the 13 “demands” is that Qatar close down Al Jazeera. Now I don’t know whether you watch Al Jazeera, but what I do know is that whether you do or don’t, the news outlet will have considerable impact on what is revealed to you about world affairs. If it were not for Al Jazeera, the US and the UK could tell their side of the story, and nobody would know the difference.

I wish to quote another Guardian article of today (also quoted, by the way, by Al Jazeera):  Asked whether the closure of al-Jazeera was a reasonable demand, the UAE envoy said:

We do not claim to have press freedom. We do not promote the idea of press freedom. What we talk about is responsibility in speech.

I ask you, could any quote be clearer?

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