Thursday 14 April 2011

It's actually very Simple

A quick summary: an invasion in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, a playground fight (just ended) in Ivory Coast, _______ (<- enter your own perception of what is actually happening) in Libya, a “let’s kill our own people” vogue in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, absolute catastrophic failure of something not even remotely related to governance in the land jostling with Egypt, Libya, Chad, CAR, Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Red Sea, mass graves in Mexico, no government in Belgium, a financial crisis in Portugal, and last but not least, a North Korean with an American passport just got detained in DPR Korea.

It’s obvious that there’s a lot wrong with the world these days. The summary doesn’t include details but to give you an idea of how bad the aforementioned issues are, you can bet your left leg that several books will be written about them in the coming years, and you’ll probably buy them, unless you can’t read, in which case you think these are symbols.

I’m no Gandhi but I can tell you how all these issues could be solved. And since I’m not Gandhi I won’t be doing it wearing a towel and a bald wig, a bald hair, a wigless hair, a hairless wig, whatever.

The main point to bring into perspective is this epidemic of venality and corruption that has engulfed our psyche. This is by no means a new concept to us, but it is a new concept to global governance. Corruption was confined to mafia circles and small governmental issues like mayoral elections. But such large scale corruption is definitely novel.

There was a time when you could clearly point out shady apparatchiks from a crowd, now you point at the crowd. Even university professors are taking bribes. If corruption was a social networking site it would dwarf Facebook.

So, corruption aside, all these problems are like everyday crime. What’s happening in Iraq is like a man taking over your household, forcing your dad out and pretending to give a sh**; then it eventually becomes grand larceny. Syria, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya are murder cases. The recession that caused the financial meltdowns in Europe is daylight robbery.

All these crimes have corresponding punishments in civilian courts. However, it seems on an international level people are treated as countries instead of people. If people like Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh are treated like the recidivists they actually are, we won’t be in this predicament.

So there you have it, treat the world like an oversized country. This fits into the definition of globalization more than any preceding it.

Also, here’s a pocket sized solution to poverty. Take all that futile wealth doing nothing but gaining interest in western banks and scatter it around, give it to people that need it. Again, this is similar to dealing with a city council budget, or a country’s budget. It’s really not that difficult. At the end of the day we all have two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth.

*Note: The above “solutions” assume lack of corruption.

1 comment:

Omer said...

I must say that although the proposed solutions aren't worth the bytes they occupy in blogger's servers, this was an entertaining read. well done

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