Yo! Wassup?
A few years ago I had cause to go to a burlesque show in aid of a charity that helps disabled performers out. Apologies, but I can't recall the name of the charity. Anyway....it was all pretty adult fare.....burlesque dancers (gorgeous as they were) treating us to enchantingly erotic stripteases and I recall one young guy who (all set to ear-thumping clubby music) sat on a series of dildos that progressed in size from the norm to eye-watering and on again to anus-rupturing, all with a smile so beguilingly innocent that you wouldn't think butter would melt in his mouth! Impressive stuff! However, one of the acts took even these levels of 'good taste' to the extreme, though to be fair to the performer, it wasn't entirely his fault!
So, what happened?
We were on a table next to the stage. The guy came on, did his striptease, all very commonplace by this time of the evening. Then, just as he seemed about to finish he bent over, wiggled his newly waxed arse right in the face of my wife, Latifa, who is not known for her timidity! Not that I particularly wanted to have a close up view, but the guys rectum was but inches from my face and I couldn't help but notice he had a link of a chain protruding from his puckered little hole! He whispered to Latifa, 'pull the ring my lovely! But do it slowly!' He wiggled his arse once again...perhaps getting comfortable....or more likely to make me feel even less comfortable!!
Latifa grabbed hold of the link and proceeded to tug! The chain slipped from his arsehole, one link after another, getting ever longer. It was a heavy chain; the sort that many use to lock their bikes up with! Amazing he could even walk with that up his arse, let alone do a dance and still manage a smile!!! And the more she pulled, the more bored she got!! So, Latifa being Latifa, turns to face the audience and starts to yank the chain faster and faster! Whether the poor guy suffered any after effects (other than acute embarrassment) I do not know. The chain was dripping and oozing all sorts of....well, shit, I suppose....and it seemed to be endless!
I could see what was going to happen, as could one or two others at our table. I edged my chair away and began to take cover beneath the table as Latifa continued to pull, faster and faster. Finally the chain slopped out of his arse at such a speed that (and here's the horrible part!!) as she then started to swing the effluent covered chain about her head, whooping and hollering for all she was worth, the shit just flew off in all directions as she was muck-spreading in a field!! OMG!!!
From where I sat, cowering beneath the table, I could see Latifa as if in slow motion, standing above me, laughing and cheering, swinging the chain about without a care in the world, as the shit flew off the chain and around the room landing with soft, wet splodges on everyone and everything around!!
Laugh? I almost died!! But when she finally sat down again with a face beaming and looking as innocent as a child, she took umbrage with me when, back at the table, I pointed out her...ummmm....little transgression!! She didn't believe me! Not one word! Even when I pointed out the ghastly, shit splattered table and chairs!! Then she sat back into her chair and felt the unreal squelch of human waste on her back! "Ooooh! Did I really do that?"
All the other women were aghast, understandably! Latifa, in her typical way, wasn't a bit embarrassed, even when the stripper came over to apologise! "I had 3 enemas before I came out! Sorry luv!! Shouldn't have happened like that!"
For the next 30 minutes the women crowded the bathroom as they cleaned themselves up! Latifa too had disappeared in that direction. The other women slowly filed out cursing and swearing, covered in fading brown spots! When Latifa finally reappeared she looked, once again, like a million dollars! In her tiny little bag (no bigger than my wallet!) she had folded and cajoled a spare evening dress, which she now wore with added aplomb! The only woman at the venue not covered in shit stains!!
"You never know," she told me! "Always be prepared!"
Not ever having been a boy scout this motto was NOT in my repertoire! But Latifa gave us all a good lesson that day! You never know when the shit might fly your way! I just ducked, kept my head down and was lucky, whereas others came in for the full pebble-dashing!! Not a pleasnat thing at all....as funny as it all seemed at the time!
And in light of all the shit flying around the global financial sector at the moment being prepared for the worst is a lesson that she could well teach to many current heads of state.
Yesterday Spain and France, collectively, failed miserably to raise the 10bn Euro they had hoped from bond sales. After trading had finished Spain had sold a paltry 3.6bn Euros of Spanish 10 year yield bonds but had to pay an average 6.975% interest in order to sell those (see http://gu.com/p/33e3h for more detail). This is the highest rate paid since 1997 and the highest they have paid since entering the Euro. Despite this sales did not reach the expected 4bn ceiling increasing the Eurozone uncertainties and further fracturing the already fragile major stock markets that have, without exception, opened depressingly down this morning!
France went on to sell their 10 year bonds at (the relatively high rate of ) 2.8% yield, a figure which is up substantially on similar auctions 6 months earlier.
Britain also auctioned off some its' debt at just 1.44% yield, an interest rate that still shows the levels of confidence the market has in Britains ability to weather the latest crisis. However, this has not stopped the German press ( for example, see http://www.spiegel.de/ or http://gu.com/p/33eqx for a partial translation) taking a swipe at Britains ever growing youth unemployment problem and the poor (expected) growth of the UK economy.
David Cameron is due to meet with Angela Merkel later today and we can well expect some fireworks at that meeting where both sides are up in arms (figure of speech...not an absolute) about their differing approaches to the various problems.
All this whilst new ECB President Mario Draghi used his first speech to fire a broadside at the major Euro powers over their tardiness at implementing the Eurozones 'European Financial Stability Facility' (EFSF) rescue plan which was agreed on May 10 last year and has yet to be implented.
You know, I read all this and I basically understand whats going on. What I don't get is why Europe seems to be picking away at its' own sores. We are supposed to be all Europeans now and yet the powers that be bicker like school kids fighting over a toy! They tug and they pull and they push each other about, until finally the toy ends up the dirt broken and useless.
Where's the unity? Where's the team spirit? Or maybe I am just being overly cuddly wuddly about it all? Hopelessly naïve even? Someone tell me, please!!!!
And finally....on sunday we have the general election here in Spain. All indications are that Mariano Rajoy, leader of the People's Party, will romp to a landslide victory. He has made much during his campaigning of Zapatero's woefully poor handling of the financial crisis (not that I disagree one iota) and the Spanish electorate seem to have latched onto the need for a change. Once again though I find I am left bemused by the vagaries of Spanish politics. Rajoy's whole campaign has been about slagging off Zapatero and his (outgoing?) Socialists and the need for change.
Ok! Fair enough!
But, not one word has he uttered about how he will change things! And what's more the voters don't seem to care! Again...I'm in need of some further explanation yuet again. Someone please explain to me how this can be? Why doesn't anyone seem interested in what changes Rajoy might bring?
Maybe Monday will bring some more answers.
Have a great weekend and remember...when the shits flying all around, the safest place is always under the table!
P xxxxx
Friday, 18 November 2011
Thursday, 17 November 2011
True or false: All Somali's are terrorists.
Hiya!
Hope you had a good week....a bit of a drink maybe, some dancing, some good food and some sex thrown in, just for good measure! And if you didn't enjoy any such delights.....then what the hell were you thinking? Next week don't be slacker. Life is short.....get out there!
Not quite sure why I started out like that but I have and I'm not a deleter...once my comment is out there, it remains so. I'm not one for backtracking or post-bloggie editing. It's on my screen so out it goes....although I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not. First thoughts are often the most coherent, so I tend to go with that and let it all hang out.....open it up to the breeze...see what happens, you know?
I'm in real danger here of just having a complete blog entry as an aside and not really writing anything at all.
Would that be such a bad thing?
I digress......
Now - having said what I said I find I have something to say after all - time for the meat in the sandwich. I feel it necessary to update a couple of my earlier entries, not because there's anything big or new to say but because it annoys me intensely when such things are just left dangling, kinda like movies that end without tying up the loose ends. I prefer a neat package with no fraying ends. So.....
In Somalia things have moved on apace. The Kenyan invasion is ongoing. Now an estimated 2000 Kenyan troops are in Somalia with Kenyan officials saying that the force will not leave until the al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab have been destroyed. However long that may take! But, at the end of the day this is still Africa. Chaos is the norm and such a thing as a straight answer to a straight question is simply not forthcoming. For example, official Kenyan reports said an air attack on Jilib was successful in killing at least 10 of the al-Shabab jihadists and injuring more than 45 more. However, Médicins sans Frontières (MSF) said (after the attack) they had treated only injured women and children, and there were only 3 dead and not the expected larger figure. But, the sad truth of it is that no matter how many died or were injured, or who was telling the truth and who was not, it just doesn't matter. No-one really gives a toss what happens to a few black Africans in a part of the world which is poorer than most Westerners can ever imagine and has no resources (if you discount the amazingly good-looking indigenous peoples) worth grabbing by the rich northerners of the various Western and Northern alliances. In fact, al-Qaeda have latched onto this in a big way (see this amazing video and you end up not knowing what to believe... http://gu.com/p/32q3d) and are making definite headway winning the psychological battle for hearts and minds.
I do not doubt for one second that there are many bad and terribly dangerous men and factions at large in Somalia and the surrounding areas. Some of the atrocities committed - the kidnappings, the murders, the rampant piracy - are truly horrific and these men need to be brought to justice. But, in the same breath I am also equally sure that these men are a very small minority and yet, in my mind as in many others I'll wager, the word Somali is synonymous with terrorism. And that can't be right! The poor people of the horn of Africa - the Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea - have suffered decades of strife of one form or another. No sooner is one tragedy over than the next one hits. Drought, famine, war, civil war and then the same all over again. Sometimes a deadly melange of them all and yet we can sit happily in our armchairs watching the evening news condemning these people as terrorists, extremists and the like, just because one of them gets tricked into becoming a suicide bomber. But we haven't led their lives. We haven't felt the pain and the hunger and the desperation they have felt. We haven't lost everything we ever owned because a kid carrying an AK-47 told us to leave or to die. It's too easy to condemn in the (neverending) wake of 9/11 all of those who dress differently from us, who think differently, who worship differently. Again, I am guilty of generalising - there are surely those of you who may indeed be enlightened, even understanding perhaps - but generalising is what the media, in particular, and the human race in a larger context, is all about. It's what we do. Most people feel comfortable being part of a group and as such we extend that comfort zone to those around us and those we see on the TV or in the newspapers just because they live in the same country or are in the same social class. For example.... all Chinese cannot say the letter R; all black men have big cocks; all footballers are stupid; all teenagers are trouble; all Americans are naïve; all Brits are stuffed shirts!! Catch my drift? And finally, all Somali's are terrorists!
In this blog, as in the pages of many a western newspaper, al-Shabab are seen as a terrorist organsation, but I can't help asking the question 'who is winning the propaganda war?' In the west, in our papers and on our 24hour news channels, there is no doubt that the US led world press contingent seem to be able to spoonfeed us any report with the words 'terrorist' or 'al-Qaeda' and we just swallow it down without so much as chewing it over. In Somalia al-Shabab are seen by many as the legitimate heirs to this drought ravaged, war-torn African nation. I am as guilty as the next man in assuming that the forces of good (i.e. those NOT associated with al-Qaeda) know what is best and are taking appropriate steps to make our world a better place. And I've no doubt that they (the Goodies) are, hand on heart, doing what they think is the right thing. Al-Qaeda are the bad boys and that is all there is to it! But after watching the above video you have to wonder if 'we the people' are being hoodwinked. How can it be that al-Qaeda are distributing food and offering medical assistance?
Far from being a sympathiser, I now feel that I am equally far from denouncing them, at least in as far as Somalia is concerned. There is always so much that we do not know and we rely on the internet, TV news, etc to tell us the truth. Now, I'm not suggesting that they lie - far from it - but I do think that we (the viewers, the listeners) are victims of the Western propaganda machine as much as those poor unfortunate souls who get lied to and cajoled into becoming martyrs for their cause when anyone with more than a grain of common would see those Koran-ic distortions for what they truly are - a mess of lies. Who's to say that if you and your family were pushed to the brink of starvation, were forced to leave your homes and to live life as a refugee, that you too wouldn't find yourself supporting the people who gave you what you needed even if they were reviled and feared elsewhere? - who's to say that al-Qaeda are the bad boys when they have just given you cash, food and a ride back home?
I guess that what I'm trying to say is that there are always two sides to every story and until you have lived both sides of the fence it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully comprehend any situation. I will do my best to remain a bit more objective in the future and not to just assume that every battle is simply a matter of good versus evil.
I have just come back from my lunchbreak where I continued to plough my way through the excellent "With the Old Breed" by E.B. Sledge (the book on which the HBO series, "The Pacific," was partly based). For anyone wishing to understand more about the Pacific wars of WW2 or to try to understand the horrors of war, I can only heartily commend this book and its' author for its blatant sincerity, heartfelt simplicity and the matter of fact manner in which PFC 'Sledgehammer' deals with the death and mayhem around him.
I put the book down and it got me to thinking about the situation in Somalia. Of how the Kenyan forces had launched air and shelling raids against supposed al-Shabab hotspots and of how those below the barrage must feel. Especially the innocent.
I can't believe what we do to each other in the name of politics, religion, greed or jealousy.
Time to breathe.....and move on!
Have you ever seen 'Blood Diamond' with Di Caprio? You remember when he says "T.I.A."? Or "This Is Africa"....well, at home now we (the missus and I) have our own version which comes rolling out whenever Spanish politics or the economics are discussed. We just shrug our shoulders at the myriad inequities, malformations, distortions and illegimate processes in this country we call Spain...and say, "T.I.S." ...This is Spain.....which if we are to believe what we hear, is actually a part of Europe, but once you live here you realise that this isn't Europe any more than Canada isn't the U.S. Spain is part of Africa. It's governmental processes, the endless red tape, the mañana mentality, the ubiquitous corruption and the immensity of the black economy all go to prove the relevance of that statement. Spain is more African than it is European. Maybe more than just the sands of the Sahara lands in our gardens? African vicissitudes soar like eagles here and if the crisis continues and things take a further nose-dive then those little African foibles may well reassert themselves in a much more visible way. As pockets tighten and desperation grows we may see the face of starving Africa much closer to our little safety zones than any of us might wish it to be.
I hope I'm wrong.
And also, just for the record.....I DO love living in Spain, really I do! It's just a bit, and occasionally more than a bit, frustrating when one is trying to achieve anything that may involve some sort of fiscal or administrative process! As to all my bitching...well, what's life if not for bitching? I do love it here but I would see many things changed as perhaps you've gathered. However, in truth...do I ever expect those things to change?
Do I hell! After all....T.I.S.
P xxxxx
Hope you had a good week....a bit of a drink maybe, some dancing, some good food and some sex thrown in, just for good measure! And if you didn't enjoy any such delights.....then what the hell were you thinking? Next week don't be slacker. Life is short.....get out there!
Not quite sure why I started out like that but I have and I'm not a deleter...once my comment is out there, it remains so. I'm not one for backtracking or post-bloggie editing. It's on my screen so out it goes....although I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not. First thoughts are often the most coherent, so I tend to go with that and let it all hang out.....open it up to the breeze...see what happens, you know?
I'm in real danger here of just having a complete blog entry as an aside and not really writing anything at all.
Would that be such a bad thing?
I digress......
Now - having said what I said I find I have something to say after all - time for the meat in the sandwich. I feel it necessary to update a couple of my earlier entries, not because there's anything big or new to say but because it annoys me intensely when such things are just left dangling, kinda like movies that end without tying up the loose ends. I prefer a neat package with no fraying ends. So.....
In Somalia things have moved on apace. The Kenyan invasion is ongoing. Now an estimated 2000 Kenyan troops are in Somalia with Kenyan officials saying that the force will not leave until the al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab have been destroyed. However long that may take! But, at the end of the day this is still Africa. Chaos is the norm and such a thing as a straight answer to a straight question is simply not forthcoming. For example, official Kenyan reports said an air attack on Jilib was successful in killing at least 10 of the al-Shabab jihadists and injuring more than 45 more. However, Médicins sans Frontières (MSF) said (after the attack) they had treated only injured women and children, and there were only 3 dead and not the expected larger figure. But, the sad truth of it is that no matter how many died or were injured, or who was telling the truth and who was not, it just doesn't matter. No-one really gives a toss what happens to a few black Africans in a part of the world which is poorer than most Westerners can ever imagine and has no resources (if you discount the amazingly good-looking indigenous peoples) worth grabbing by the rich northerners of the various Western and Northern alliances. In fact, al-Qaeda have latched onto this in a big way (see this amazing video and you end up not knowing what to believe... http://gu.com/p/32q3d) and are making definite headway winning the psychological battle for hearts and minds.
I do not doubt for one second that there are many bad and terribly dangerous men and factions at large in Somalia and the surrounding areas. Some of the atrocities committed - the kidnappings, the murders, the rampant piracy - are truly horrific and these men need to be brought to justice. But, in the same breath I am also equally sure that these men are a very small minority and yet, in my mind as in many others I'll wager, the word Somali is synonymous with terrorism. And that can't be right! The poor people of the horn of Africa - the Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea - have suffered decades of strife of one form or another. No sooner is one tragedy over than the next one hits. Drought, famine, war, civil war and then the same all over again. Sometimes a deadly melange of them all and yet we can sit happily in our armchairs watching the evening news condemning these people as terrorists, extremists and the like, just because one of them gets tricked into becoming a suicide bomber. But we haven't led their lives. We haven't felt the pain and the hunger and the desperation they have felt. We haven't lost everything we ever owned because a kid carrying an AK-47 told us to leave or to die. It's too easy to condemn in the (neverending) wake of 9/11 all of those who dress differently from us, who think differently, who worship differently. Again, I am guilty of generalising - there are surely those of you who may indeed be enlightened, even understanding perhaps - but generalising is what the media, in particular, and the human race in a larger context, is all about. It's what we do. Most people feel comfortable being part of a group and as such we extend that comfort zone to those around us and those we see on the TV or in the newspapers just because they live in the same country or are in the same social class. For example.... all Chinese cannot say the letter R; all black men have big cocks; all footballers are stupid; all teenagers are trouble; all Americans are naïve; all Brits are stuffed shirts!! Catch my drift? And finally, all Somali's are terrorists!
In this blog, as in the pages of many a western newspaper, al-Shabab are seen as a terrorist organsation, but I can't help asking the question 'who is winning the propaganda war?' In the west, in our papers and on our 24hour news channels, there is no doubt that the US led world press contingent seem to be able to spoonfeed us any report with the words 'terrorist' or 'al-Qaeda' and we just swallow it down without so much as chewing it over. In Somalia al-Shabab are seen by many as the legitimate heirs to this drought ravaged, war-torn African nation. I am as guilty as the next man in assuming that the forces of good (i.e. those NOT associated with al-Qaeda) know what is best and are taking appropriate steps to make our world a better place. And I've no doubt that they (the Goodies) are, hand on heart, doing what they think is the right thing. Al-Qaeda are the bad boys and that is all there is to it! But after watching the above video you have to wonder if 'we the people' are being hoodwinked. How can it be that al-Qaeda are distributing food and offering medical assistance?
Far from being a sympathiser, I now feel that I am equally far from denouncing them, at least in as far as Somalia is concerned. There is always so much that we do not know and we rely on the internet, TV news, etc to tell us the truth. Now, I'm not suggesting that they lie - far from it - but I do think that we (the viewers, the listeners) are victims of the Western propaganda machine as much as those poor unfortunate souls who get lied to and cajoled into becoming martyrs for their cause when anyone with more than a grain of common would see those Koran-ic distortions for what they truly are - a mess of lies. Who's to say that if you and your family were pushed to the brink of starvation, were forced to leave your homes and to live life as a refugee, that you too wouldn't find yourself supporting the people who gave you what you needed even if they were reviled and feared elsewhere? - who's to say that al-Qaeda are the bad boys when they have just given you cash, food and a ride back home?
I guess that what I'm trying to say is that there are always two sides to every story and until you have lived both sides of the fence it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully comprehend any situation. I will do my best to remain a bit more objective in the future and not to just assume that every battle is simply a matter of good versus evil.
I have just come back from my lunchbreak where I continued to plough my way through the excellent "With the Old Breed" by E.B. Sledge (the book on which the HBO series, "The Pacific," was partly based). For anyone wishing to understand more about the Pacific wars of WW2 or to try to understand the horrors of war, I can only heartily commend this book and its' author for its blatant sincerity, heartfelt simplicity and the matter of fact manner in which PFC 'Sledgehammer' deals with the death and mayhem around him.
I put the book down and it got me to thinking about the situation in Somalia. Of how the Kenyan forces had launched air and shelling raids against supposed al-Shabab hotspots and of how those below the barrage must feel. Especially the innocent.
I can't believe what we do to each other in the name of politics, religion, greed or jealousy.
Time to breathe.....and move on!
Have you ever seen 'Blood Diamond' with Di Caprio? You remember when he says "T.I.A."? Or "This Is Africa"....well, at home now we (the missus and I) have our own version which comes rolling out whenever Spanish politics or the economics are discussed. We just shrug our shoulders at the myriad inequities, malformations, distortions and illegimate processes in this country we call Spain...and say, "T.I.S." ...This is Spain.....which if we are to believe what we hear, is actually a part of Europe, but once you live here you realise that this isn't Europe any more than Canada isn't the U.S. Spain is part of Africa. It's governmental processes, the endless red tape, the mañana mentality, the ubiquitous corruption and the immensity of the black economy all go to prove the relevance of that statement. Spain is more African than it is European. Maybe more than just the sands of the Sahara lands in our gardens? African vicissitudes soar like eagles here and if the crisis continues and things take a further nose-dive then those little African foibles may well reassert themselves in a much more visible way. As pockets tighten and desperation grows we may see the face of starving Africa much closer to our little safety zones than any of us might wish it to be.
I hope I'm wrong.
And also, just for the record.....I DO love living in Spain, really I do! It's just a bit, and occasionally more than a bit, frustrating when one is trying to achieve anything that may involve some sort of fiscal or administrative process! As to all my bitching...well, what's life if not for bitching? I do love it here but I would see many things changed as perhaps you've gathered. However, in truth...do I ever expect those things to change?
Do I hell! After all....T.I.S.
P xxxxx
Friday, 11 November 2011
The Eurozone Crisis: A Retrospective View
Hiya!
Well it seems we are heading for global Crisis 2 this decade. Makes one wonder if the International Banks are playing some sort of game. "I know...let's see how badly we can fuck the planet up whilst still drawing top dollar for ourselves!"
"Can't be done!"
"Wanna bet?"
And the rest is history! And what isn't history, is either the present or the future of course!! In the present (in Spain at least) the people are suffering. Businesses seem to be closing on an almost daily basis and in many stores the shelves are sparsely covered with over-priced tittle-tattle that no-one wants. And that's just today? What calamities await us in the near future? Only God and Wall St. probably have the answer to that one!
But the short answer would seem to be that we are fucked and we are going to continue being fucked for some time yet!
The Eurozone is sliding towards chaos at an ever increasing rate of knots. Germany and France...our Euro buddies...Not!...have been meeting secretly to discuss the next step (http://gu.com/p/339bf) in (what might laughably be called New) Europe. If, as seems increasingly likely, one or more nations leave the Eurozone, then where Oh! where does that leave us who remain? Probably doffing our caps to German fiscal policies, that's where!
There is no doubt that Europe must change and whatsmore, change quickly if it is survive in any workable way. Leaving the Euro was always in the past an impossibility until the events of the past few months caused a fundamental turnaround in the minds of those in Brussels. But it's no good now saying that Greece should never have been allowed in. They were and now we have to lump it. The same with those countries who agreed to (voluntarily) join the Euro. Perhaps the big mistake was tying the Euro to pre-Euro exchange rates of the German Mark. Nations such as Greece and Italy should not have been allowed to enter the single currency until they had sorted out their own economies as well. As it was they were allowed to adopt the Euro despite being heavily debt-ridden, a situation that has now developed into a complete disaster. Qualification for the Euro was always fractious and changeable where it should have been strict and rigid. So desperate were we to embrace our 'neighbours' that no-one ever dreamed it might all backfire. Oh! for a time machine!
"We are witnessing fundamental changes to the economic and geopolitical order that have convinced me that Europe needs to advance now together or risk fragmentation. Europe must either transform itself or it will decline. We are in a defining moment where we either unite or face irrelevance," said José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commision said on Wednesday.
A defining moment indeed. Italy is now the big concern with many shouting above the endles din that it is too big to bailout! Europe's third largest economy cannot be allowed to sink and yet it cannot be bailed. What's the answer? Print bonds, my little Italian Presidente! Print bonds! That no-one will buy and are illegal anyway, not that illegality is something that has ever worried Belusbalony thus far! And why print bonds? Because, if Italy is too big bailout and yet it cannot be allowed to sink because it would surely drag the rest of Europe under the waves, printing bonds (or money) seems to be the only possible route out of the path of the on-rushing tsumani.
Quite rightly now, the Euro bosses are now getting more involved in national politics (witness the demise of both Papandreou and now Berlesconi) . Another thing that Brussels was never supposed to do. But retractions, back steps, sidesteps and reneging on previous promises is just political expediency these days. Make no mistake. Things are desperate and they are only going to get worse. And yet some still to believe that the Euro can survive. 'Charlemagne' at the Economist says we Europeans are now family (http://www.economist.com/node/21538204) and all that is happening is a family row!!! I don't know where he lives but it is definitely not anywhere close to me!
On the contrary in fact. I think that if the crisis deepens, as every predictor says it will in the early part of next year, and if we do see the loss of perhaps Greece, maybe Italy, possibly even Spain from the Euro, not only would the Eurozone 'family' be shrunken down, I think that in those dispossessed and debt-ridden countries we could well witness a return to strong nationalist fervour that could easily spread and engulf countries that are, and will remain, financially on their knees for the foreseeable future.
Even as the shadow of imminent disaster slowly envelops us all in Europe I cannot help but make comparisons with what has come before. After WW1 Germany was a country in name only. It had massive unemployment, low, if not non-existant national pride, an infrastructure that had been decimated after years of conflict and yet, within 25 years it had risen to become the most powerful nation in Europe. We all know what followed.
Hitler rose to power on the back of nationalist fervour the like of which has probably never been seen before or since. He roused the pride in Germans. Made them proud to be German again and the German people adored him for this (nothwithstanding his later war-mongering and megalomania). In pre-War Germany Hitlar was a hero. A visionary who gave Germany back to the Germans and got them working again.
Today, with the Eurozone's policies of open-door immigration we have all witnessed the floods of people from the poorer European nations to the richer ones. That these people should be entitled to make a good living, I think is a universal human prerogative. Problems have arisen though, as we all know, in limiting the numbers of immigrants. In the UK this became a huge problem a few years ago and it is still not resolved. I'm not sure it ever could be solved now. The UK is too multi-national, too cosmopolitan these days. And certainly in the UK it has led many, (myself included) born and bred in the British Isles, to wonder where our Britishness has gone. Today in the UK it is a widely vaunted sin to be proud of being British. Those with national pride are viewed as low-browed Neanderthals who need to be cleansed of the sin of patriotism. And what's more patriotism always seems to be equated with racism. Admittedly, in some cases this may be true. But for me, to be a patriot is not to be racist. They are quite clearly, NOT one and the same thing. For me, in the UK today, there is no British culture anymore. True Brits have become so scared to stand up for their Britishness that it is now all but gone. 'PC' politics and the need to respect another's culture have been taken to ridiculous extremes and resulted in a watering down of your average Brit until our culture is harder to find than than a thin man in Mississippi! In London today every culture is represented except British. We, as a cultural force, do not exist anymore.
But not so elsewhere in Europe. And (in Spain at least) there is much talk of reversing the open-door policy and getting rid of all the unwelcome additions. In Spain we have elections in the next few days and, even though, the parties are all pretty much of the same monotone grey, there has been a definite move towards a more socialist ideal. Vive Franco!!! The Spanish want Spain for the Spanish and it seems the clamour for a man who can deliver this is growing proportionately as the crisis deepens. And if that is happening here, where most people are fairly moderate and open-minded, then what must it be like in Greece? Or in Italy? Or even in Germany, where they can see all their hard-work being squandered by the tinpot, partying politicians (i.e. Berlusbalony!) of broke and breaking Euro-allies? In France, a country with a strong socialist base, there are many calling for a complete rout of the country to kick out the 'legal' invaders and to return the country to it's people.
For me a rise in nationalism in those nations worse-affected is inevitable should this crisis continue to deepen and whilst I seriously doubt that it would end up in WW3 I do think that the protectionist policies that would follow such a rise would result in a rise in patriotism, much racial discalm and would eventually lead to violent conflict somewhere down the line.
The last time the whole world was in global financial meltdown was following the Wall Street crash of 1927 and the debilitating depression of the 1930's. And what got the world out of depression was of course a global conflict. It is a very different world now to that before WW2, but the parallels are there for all to see. Now we just wait, watch and hope that things improve before such extremisms can develop.
Well it seems we are heading for global Crisis 2 this decade. Makes one wonder if the International Banks are playing some sort of game. "I know...let's see how badly we can fuck the planet up whilst still drawing top dollar for ourselves!"
"Can't be done!"
"Wanna bet?"
And the rest is history! And what isn't history, is either the present or the future of course!! In the present (in Spain at least) the people are suffering. Businesses seem to be closing on an almost daily basis and in many stores the shelves are sparsely covered with over-priced tittle-tattle that no-one wants. And that's just today? What calamities await us in the near future? Only God and Wall St. probably have the answer to that one!
But the short answer would seem to be that we are fucked and we are going to continue being fucked for some time yet!
The Eurozone is sliding towards chaos at an ever increasing rate of knots. Germany and France...our Euro buddies...Not!...have been meeting secretly to discuss the next step (http://gu.com/p/339bf) in (what might laughably be called New) Europe. If, as seems increasingly likely, one or more nations leave the Eurozone, then where Oh! where does that leave us who remain? Probably doffing our caps to German fiscal policies, that's where!
There is no doubt that Europe must change and whatsmore, change quickly if it is survive in any workable way. Leaving the Euro was always in the past an impossibility until the events of the past few months caused a fundamental turnaround in the minds of those in Brussels. But it's no good now saying that Greece should never have been allowed in. They were and now we have to lump it. The same with those countries who agreed to (voluntarily) join the Euro. Perhaps the big mistake was tying the Euro to pre-Euro exchange rates of the German Mark. Nations such as Greece and Italy should not have been allowed to enter the single currency until they had sorted out their own economies as well. As it was they were allowed to adopt the Euro despite being heavily debt-ridden, a situation that has now developed into a complete disaster. Qualification for the Euro was always fractious and changeable where it should have been strict and rigid. So desperate were we to embrace our 'neighbours' that no-one ever dreamed it might all backfire. Oh! for a time machine!
"We are witnessing fundamental changes to the economic and geopolitical order that have convinced me that Europe needs to advance now together or risk fragmentation. Europe must either transform itself or it will decline. We are in a defining moment where we either unite or face irrelevance," said José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commision said on Wednesday.
A defining moment indeed. Italy is now the big concern with many shouting above the endles din that it is too big to bailout! Europe's third largest economy cannot be allowed to sink and yet it cannot be bailed. What's the answer? Print bonds, my little Italian Presidente! Print bonds! That no-one will buy and are illegal anyway, not that illegality is something that has ever worried Belusbalony thus far! And why print bonds? Because, if Italy is too big bailout and yet it cannot be allowed to sink because it would surely drag the rest of Europe under the waves, printing bonds (or money) seems to be the only possible route out of the path of the on-rushing tsumani.
Quite rightly now, the Euro bosses are now getting more involved in national politics (witness the demise of both Papandreou and now Berlesconi) . Another thing that Brussels was never supposed to do. But retractions, back steps, sidesteps and reneging on previous promises is just political expediency these days. Make no mistake. Things are desperate and they are only going to get worse. And yet some still to believe that the Euro can survive. 'Charlemagne' at the Economist says we Europeans are now family (http://www.economist.com/node/21538204) and all that is happening is a family row!!! I don't know where he lives but it is definitely not anywhere close to me!
On the contrary in fact. I think that if the crisis deepens, as every predictor says it will in the early part of next year, and if we do see the loss of perhaps Greece, maybe Italy, possibly even Spain from the Euro, not only would the Eurozone 'family' be shrunken down, I think that in those dispossessed and debt-ridden countries we could well witness a return to strong nationalist fervour that could easily spread and engulf countries that are, and will remain, financially on their knees for the foreseeable future.
Even as the shadow of imminent disaster slowly envelops us all in Europe I cannot help but make comparisons with what has come before. After WW1 Germany was a country in name only. It had massive unemployment, low, if not non-existant national pride, an infrastructure that had been decimated after years of conflict and yet, within 25 years it had risen to become the most powerful nation in Europe. We all know what followed.
Hitler rose to power on the back of nationalist fervour the like of which has probably never been seen before or since. He roused the pride in Germans. Made them proud to be German again and the German people adored him for this (nothwithstanding his later war-mongering and megalomania). In pre-War Germany Hitlar was a hero. A visionary who gave Germany back to the Germans and got them working again.
Today, with the Eurozone's policies of open-door immigration we have all witnessed the floods of people from the poorer European nations to the richer ones. That these people should be entitled to make a good living, I think is a universal human prerogative. Problems have arisen though, as we all know, in limiting the numbers of immigrants. In the UK this became a huge problem a few years ago and it is still not resolved. I'm not sure it ever could be solved now. The UK is too multi-national, too cosmopolitan these days. And certainly in the UK it has led many, (myself included) born and bred in the British Isles, to wonder where our Britishness has gone. Today in the UK it is a widely vaunted sin to be proud of being British. Those with national pride are viewed as low-browed Neanderthals who need to be cleansed of the sin of patriotism. And what's more patriotism always seems to be equated with racism. Admittedly, in some cases this may be true. But for me, to be a patriot is not to be racist. They are quite clearly, NOT one and the same thing. For me, in the UK today, there is no British culture anymore. True Brits have become so scared to stand up for their Britishness that it is now all but gone. 'PC' politics and the need to respect another's culture have been taken to ridiculous extremes and resulted in a watering down of your average Brit until our culture is harder to find than than a thin man in Mississippi! In London today every culture is represented except British. We, as a cultural force, do not exist anymore.
But not so elsewhere in Europe. And (in Spain at least) there is much talk of reversing the open-door policy and getting rid of all the unwelcome additions. In Spain we have elections in the next few days and, even though, the parties are all pretty much of the same monotone grey, there has been a definite move towards a more socialist ideal. Vive Franco!!! The Spanish want Spain for the Spanish and it seems the clamour for a man who can deliver this is growing proportionately as the crisis deepens. And if that is happening here, where most people are fairly moderate and open-minded, then what must it be like in Greece? Or in Italy? Or even in Germany, where they can see all their hard-work being squandered by the tinpot, partying politicians (i.e. Berlusbalony!) of broke and breaking Euro-allies? In France, a country with a strong socialist base, there are many calling for a complete rout of the country to kick out the 'legal' invaders and to return the country to it's people.
For me a rise in nationalism in those nations worse-affected is inevitable should this crisis continue to deepen and whilst I seriously doubt that it would end up in WW3 I do think that the protectionist policies that would follow such a rise would result in a rise in patriotism, much racial discalm and would eventually lead to violent conflict somewhere down the line.
The last time the whole world was in global financial meltdown was following the Wall Street crash of 1927 and the debilitating depression of the 1930's. And what got the world out of depression was of course a global conflict. It is a very different world now to that before WW2, but the parallels are there for all to see. Now we just wait, watch and hope that things improve before such extremisms can develop.
Friday, 4 November 2011
What's it all about anyway?
Still waiting for my first visitor ......which begs the question 'why do I bother?' And a very good question it is too! Why indeed? Well, basically, I suppose I don't really care if anyone reads my drivel or not, the point is that it's there...my thoughts, my ideas....me! I'm there! And that is all the reason I need.
Or is it?
Ten years ago blogging was in it's infancy. Now there are God knows how many blogs published every day (I've no doubt the stats are there somewhere but I'll leave that mundane digging to some other anorak) and I cannot help but wonder what did all the bloggers do before blogging existed? I mean, I know what I did....my thoughts used to go down in badly cornered notebooks, most of which disappeared, swallowed by time and forgetfullness. But what about the rest of them? What did they do?
And even now I wonder how many bloggers find the time not only to pen their thoughts and opinions, but to do the research and reading necessary to write a factually correct blog (yeah, yeah, I know many do not read, research or worry about their facts being correct....but many do!) ....replies on a postcard please labelled 'what I did before my blog!' The most original idea gets a picture of my dog autographed by the canine herself ...(Lola has always secretly hankered after the limelight) ... and for something truly original she might even add a 'woof' or two!
For myself, it can take the best part of several hours getting my fingers to tap out the motley procession of letters and that is without the time needed to research an idea. Oh!.... to be a free-form writer, words spilling onto the page (screen?) like so much spilled milk, spreading across the page in a tsunami of fluid prose and faultless grammar, the fingers of the typist exhibiting stamina, dexterity and independence so that the words seem to drop, thoughtlessly, seemlessly, onto the page in an order that implores further investigation.
But for me...no such luck! I slog over my blog,
Sweating and pawing, a literary hog,
As I stress and I worry,
What should I say on my page today?
What subject shall I broach?
My ideas beyond reproach....
I must go the whole hog.
Not fear getting stuck in a bog,
For I have opinions to flavour and to curry
But what should I say on my page today?
There's no need to encroach
Mine is not to be poached.
As I slog and I slog,
Over my blog like a dog,
My heads in a mess, nothing comes in a hurry
About what I should say on my page today?
"Many are dead. A crash with a coach..."
"Disease can be spread by a new type of roach..."
And I slog and I slog,
As I ponder my blog,
And I stress and I worry,
Tell me, what should I say on my page today?
So, what on earth should I write about next?
Choice is a funny thing, don't you find? Too much choice makes the very act of choosing a trial. And let's face it...the world is fucked up...there is no shortage of subject areas for would-be and paid up bloggers to blather on about. Yet with too little choice one runs the risk of drying up one's (few) ideas or worse yet, drying up one's words! I don't see myself as any sort of radical. At heart I'm a true liberal (not politically, but morally and emotionally) and liberals find it hard to get overheated about anything other a scalding hot bath! The truth being that liberals are invariably empathetic (if not always understanding) towards any counter-arguments and with the empathy often comes a certain tranquility - not a bad thing in 21st century Europe, I might add - and with the tranquility comes a degree of watchfullness. Do you follow the train? We sit back, we observe and we do not, under circumstances, rock the bloody boat! We ( the liberals) like to live and let live, and as such, to demonstrate radicalism goes entirely against the grain, begging the question (once again) why do I bother (to write a blog)? People want controversy, gossip and (dis?)agreeable opinions strained through a net of enmeshed political insightfullness and witty repartee, none of which I possess. Though, in my darker moments (of which there are relatively few, thank the stars) I can admit to a smidgen of jealousy of those endowed with a Noel Coward/Oscar Wilde type of wit that I find so sadly lacking in much of today's media and even more sadly, lacking in myself!
Tragic innit?
And all of which rather nicely brings me back to the original question - why do I bother?
Well, here's the thing. I may well be a wit-free liberal, lightly dusted with insecurities and void of interesting ideas on a daily basis..... but that doesn't mean that I haven't got something to say. I shall persevere and continue to slog, racking my brains for opinions and thoughts because I enjoy having my say, whether anyone reads it or not!
Have a nice weekend and I'll be back next week with more baseless opinions and comments!!!
P
Or is it?
Ten years ago blogging was in it's infancy. Now there are God knows how many blogs published every day (I've no doubt the stats are there somewhere but I'll leave that mundane digging to some other anorak) and I cannot help but wonder what did all the bloggers do before blogging existed? I mean, I know what I did....my thoughts used to go down in badly cornered notebooks, most of which disappeared, swallowed by time and forgetfullness. But what about the rest of them? What did they do?
And even now I wonder how many bloggers find the time not only to pen their thoughts and opinions, but to do the research and reading necessary to write a factually correct blog (yeah, yeah, I know many do not read, research or worry about their facts being correct....but many do!) ....replies on a postcard please labelled 'what I did before my blog!' The most original idea gets a picture of my dog autographed by the canine herself ...(Lola has always secretly hankered after the limelight) ... and for something truly original she might even add a 'woof' or two!
For myself, it can take the best part of several hours getting my fingers to tap out the motley procession of letters and that is without the time needed to research an idea. Oh!.... to be a free-form writer, words spilling onto the page (screen?) like so much spilled milk, spreading across the page in a tsunami of fluid prose and faultless grammar, the fingers of the typist exhibiting stamina, dexterity and independence so that the words seem to drop, thoughtlessly, seemlessly, onto the page in an order that implores further investigation.
But for me...no such luck! I slog over my blog,
Sweating and pawing, a literary hog,
As I stress and I worry,
What should I say on my page today?
What subject shall I broach?
My ideas beyond reproach....
I must go the whole hog.
Not fear getting stuck in a bog,
For I have opinions to flavour and to curry
But what should I say on my page today?
There's no need to encroach
Mine is not to be poached.
As I slog and I slog,
Over my blog like a dog,
My heads in a mess, nothing comes in a hurry
About what I should say on my page today?
"Many are dead. A crash with a coach..."
"Disease can be spread by a new type of roach..."
And I slog and I slog,
As I ponder my blog,
And I stress and I worry,
Tell me, what should I say on my page today?
So, what on earth should I write about next?
Choice is a funny thing, don't you find? Too much choice makes the very act of choosing a trial. And let's face it...the world is fucked up...there is no shortage of subject areas for would-be and paid up bloggers to blather on about. Yet with too little choice one runs the risk of drying up one's (few) ideas or worse yet, drying up one's words! I don't see myself as any sort of radical. At heart I'm a true liberal (not politically, but morally and emotionally) and liberals find it hard to get overheated about anything other a scalding hot bath! The truth being that liberals are invariably empathetic (if not always understanding) towards any counter-arguments and with the empathy often comes a certain tranquility - not a bad thing in 21st century Europe, I might add - and with the tranquility comes a degree of watchfullness. Do you follow the train? We sit back, we observe and we do not, under circumstances, rock the bloody boat! We ( the liberals) like to live and let live, and as such, to demonstrate radicalism goes entirely against the grain, begging the question (once again) why do I bother (to write a blog)? People want controversy, gossip and (dis?)agreeable opinions strained through a net of enmeshed political insightfullness and witty repartee, none of which I possess. Though, in my darker moments (of which there are relatively few, thank the stars) I can admit to a smidgen of jealousy of those endowed with a Noel Coward/Oscar Wilde type of wit that I find so sadly lacking in much of today's media and even more sadly, lacking in myself!
Tragic innit?
And all of which rather nicely brings me back to the original question - why do I bother?
Well, here's the thing. I may well be a wit-free liberal, lightly dusted with insecurities and void of interesting ideas on a daily basis..... but that doesn't mean that I haven't got something to say. I shall persevere and continue to slog, racking my brains for opinions and thoughts because I enjoy having my say, whether anyone reads it or not!
Have a nice weekend and I'll be back next week with more baseless opinions and comments!!!
P
Thursday, 20 October 2011
What's next for Somalia?
Hiya!
Just a quick follow up on what is going on at the Kenyan/Somali border. On Sunday Kenyan troops moved across the Somali border in a show of strength against al-Shabab, perhaps the most dangerous of all of the militant groups operating in Somalia today. The Kenyans appear to have reached overload point with their Minister of Internal Security stating that Kenya '...is threatened by the most serious level of terrorism' and that government troops would be pursuing al-Shabab across the border and into strongholds in southern Somalia. All this in the wake of yet more kidnappings, this time of 2 Spanish aid workers (see this blog 14th October - http://valencia-peter.blogspot.com/). However, the official Somali government response was to insist that Somali troops are well capable of dealing with al-Shabab and, whilst welcoming 'logistical support' from the Kenyans, the presence of Kenyans troops in Somalia was unnecessary.
However, the Kenyan push was slowed on Tuesday by heavy rain as they began closing in on the town of Afmadow, with the militants fleeing in face of the advance. On Monday al-Shabab denied any involvement in the spate of kidnappings and attempted to turn the tables on the Kenyans accusing them of an act of blatant terrorism following this new advance into Somali territory and threatened severe reprisals. 'Remember what happened in Uganda's capital' it warned. A clear reference to their July 2010 bombing of a hotel in Kampala where 76 people died. That particular act was in response to Uganda's contribution to an African Union peacekeeping force stationed in Mogadishu and on Monday they promised to bring down the skyscrapers and buildings of Nairobi, Kenya's capital in a similar attack.
The Kenyan and official Somali government troops do appear to have settled some differences and were reported to be moving in concert towards the town of Qoqani, some 50 miles from Afmadow, which is expected to be captured within the next 48 hours or so.
The rapidity of the Kenyan push though cannot just be in response to the most recent of the kidnappings (see http://gu.com/p/32ya6 for more details) due to the size of the force and the apparent readiness of their preparations. It seems likely that the Kenyans have been pushed just one step too far and were already preparing a tactical response to the seemingly endless territorial violations of al-Shabab and other militant Somali groups.
All this in the wake of the death of the French woman, Marie Dedieu, a wheelchair bound tetraplegic who had been undergoing cancer therapy for the past two years (http://gu.com/p/32mvp) who had been kidnapped from her home in Kenya's Lamu archipelago. Details on the exact manner of her death have yet to surface but one seriously doubts that they will be pleasant!
And all around the famine continues. People die in their thousands and the world turns its' back. Even other African nations seem to be at a loss about what to do to combat the problems in Somlia. In August the African Union, at a meeting in Addis Ababa, pledged funds to help rebuild the Horn of Africa. However, the pledge was far short of what is truly required and a lack empathy for their fellow Africans meant only 4 African heads of state turned up at the meeting. The funds that were agreed were largely contributed by Algeria, Egypt and Angola, with the continents richest nations (South Africa and Nigeria) completely ignoring the call for help. However, so far only $500,000 of the pledged $46m has arrived, leaving Somalia, ravaged by severe famine in 4 of its' 5 geographical regions, teetering on the edge of complete collapse.
"If we truly believe in 'African solutions for African problems' we need to demonstrate this very clearly, not just in words but in actions," said a spokesperson for Africans Act4Africa. His words before the July congress falling on deaf ears as he called for the visting delegates to 'not just talk shop' and 'not just spend a lot of money on travel, protocol and their entourages.'
The UN do seem to be reluctantly pushing for aid for the region but this blogger feels that it is too little to late. Death, starvation, rape and violence are rampant across the country and the paltry amounts arriving in the country as a result of the UN's push are barely denting the fabric of this rapidly escalating disaster.
And then there's me! What can I do to help? Well, I'm writing this blog and doing my best to raise awareness of this intolerable situation. Also, given the chance and money, I would like to be able to approach Act4Africa and join them on one of their expeditions. Such things do not directly help those suffering in Somalia right now but Africans are suffering in more places than just Somalia and if I can do something that might help, then I'll do it! I do not believe that donations to the various NGO's working in the Dadaab camps will be totally effective and I feel that one's time and efforts would be put to much better use by writing strong letters of condemnation to one's MP and MEP's protesting the complete lack of British and EEC action in putting an end to the problems of Somalia.
Thanks for reading
Peter
Just a quick follow up on what is going on at the Kenyan/Somali border. On Sunday Kenyan troops moved across the Somali border in a show of strength against al-Shabab, perhaps the most dangerous of all of the militant groups operating in Somalia today. The Kenyans appear to have reached overload point with their Minister of Internal Security stating that Kenya '...is threatened by the most serious level of terrorism' and that government troops would be pursuing al-Shabab across the border and into strongholds in southern Somalia. All this in the wake of yet more kidnappings, this time of 2 Spanish aid workers (see this blog 14th October - http://valencia-peter.blogspot.com/). However, the official Somali government response was to insist that Somali troops are well capable of dealing with al-Shabab and, whilst welcoming 'logistical support' from the Kenyans, the presence of Kenyans troops in Somalia was unnecessary.
However, the Kenyan push was slowed on Tuesday by heavy rain as they began closing in on the town of Afmadow, with the militants fleeing in face of the advance. On Monday al-Shabab denied any involvement in the spate of kidnappings and attempted to turn the tables on the Kenyans accusing them of an act of blatant terrorism following this new advance into Somali territory and threatened severe reprisals. 'Remember what happened in Uganda's capital' it warned. A clear reference to their July 2010 bombing of a hotel in Kampala where 76 people died. That particular act was in response to Uganda's contribution to an African Union peacekeeping force stationed in Mogadishu and on Monday they promised to bring down the skyscrapers and buildings of Nairobi, Kenya's capital in a similar attack.
The Kenyan and official Somali government troops do appear to have settled some differences and were reported to be moving in concert towards the town of Qoqani, some 50 miles from Afmadow, which is expected to be captured within the next 48 hours or so.
The rapidity of the Kenyan push though cannot just be in response to the most recent of the kidnappings (see http://gu.com/p/32ya6 for more details) due to the size of the force and the apparent readiness of their preparations. It seems likely that the Kenyans have been pushed just one step too far and were already preparing a tactical response to the seemingly endless territorial violations of al-Shabab and other militant Somali groups.
All this in the wake of the death of the French woman, Marie Dedieu, a wheelchair bound tetraplegic who had been undergoing cancer therapy for the past two years (http://gu.com/p/32mvp) who had been kidnapped from her home in Kenya's Lamu archipelago. Details on the exact manner of her death have yet to surface but one seriously doubts that they will be pleasant!
And all around the famine continues. People die in their thousands and the world turns its' back. Even other African nations seem to be at a loss about what to do to combat the problems in Somlia. In August the African Union, at a meeting in Addis Ababa, pledged funds to help rebuild the Horn of Africa. However, the pledge was far short of what is truly required and a lack empathy for their fellow Africans meant only 4 African heads of state turned up at the meeting. The funds that were agreed were largely contributed by Algeria, Egypt and Angola, with the continents richest nations (South Africa and Nigeria) completely ignoring the call for help. However, so far only $500,000 of the pledged $46m has arrived, leaving Somalia, ravaged by severe famine in 4 of its' 5 geographical regions, teetering on the edge of complete collapse.
"If we truly believe in 'African solutions for African problems' we need to demonstrate this very clearly, not just in words but in actions," said a spokesperson for Africans Act4Africa. His words before the July congress falling on deaf ears as he called for the visting delegates to 'not just talk shop' and 'not just spend a lot of money on travel, protocol and their entourages.'
The UN do seem to be reluctantly pushing for aid for the region but this blogger feels that it is too little to late. Death, starvation, rape and violence are rampant across the country and the paltry amounts arriving in the country as a result of the UN's push are barely denting the fabric of this rapidly escalating disaster.
And then there's me! What can I do to help? Well, I'm writing this blog and doing my best to raise awareness of this intolerable situation. Also, given the chance and money, I would like to be able to approach Act4Africa and join them on one of their expeditions. Such things do not directly help those suffering in Somalia right now but Africans are suffering in more places than just Somalia and if I can do something that might help, then I'll do it! I do not believe that donations to the various NGO's working in the Dadaab camps will be totally effective and I feel that one's time and efforts would be put to much better use by writing strong letters of condemnation to one's MP and MEP's protesting the complete lack of British and EEC action in putting an end to the problems of Somalia.
Thanks for reading
Peter
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Eta, Spanish nationalism and the future
Hey!
Hope you had a wicked weekend.....I did...somewhat quiet, but to be honest that's the way I like it!
So, what's happening today? Eta have hit the headlines again over here because they are finally expected to renounce violence as a means of achieving their aims. Eta (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - Basque Homeland and Freedom) have been in slow decline for decades now, their ability to strike fear into the hearts of the Spanish people has lessened gradually to the extent that most people no longer feel scared by the homespun terrorist threat.
Founded in 1959, at the height of Franco's power, Eta has fought for over 4 decades for Basque self-determination. The Basque region is surprisingly small when viewed on a map and encompasses 4 small Northern Spanish provinces and a part of South-West France. From such humble beginnings they have gone on to kill over 800 people in a reign of terror lasting 53 years. There have been several abortive attempts at some sort of reconciliation in the past, the latest of which came in September 2010 when there was a called for a 'permanent ceasefire.' However, as on previous occasions the Spanish government rejected the ceasefire as worthless without an acknowledgement that they would renounce violence as a method of achieving their aims. This was not forthcoming and the ceasfire has remained unratified.
But now comes the news, that with Kofi Annan's visit to the Basque region this week, that Eta may be finally ready to agree an end to violent campaigning. There have been calls from convicted Eta members, as well as Sinn Fein leader Jerry Adams, to embrace the cause of peace and I fervently hope that this week they may finally see the light.
As an Englishman living in the Iberian peninsula it has been hard to sometimes get a handle on the Spanish psyche. Each region appears to be fanatically introverted in its' political persuasions and affiliations. The Basque region, with all the (negative) publicity and interest in the region because of Eta is perhaps the best known of these political and cultural entities.
In all there are 17 provinces in Spain, similar to the counties of England or the States of America. In many of these regions there are distinct dialects which are spoken only locally. In Valenciana, for example, the local language is, not surprisngly, Valenciano. It is a language with an Indo-European heritage that I'm told has many similarities to French. Not that I am able to spot any of those...to see Valenciano written down is like looking at Welsh - you just have no idea at all how to even begin to pronounce the words - but if you're French then you can just waltz in, chat away and most people will understand you. The Iberian peninsula is hotbed of dialectic activity with 6 major Indo-European languages being spoken. If you then count each separate dialect the number balloons to (depending on who you read) perhaps more than 20 distinct languages/dialects!
The Basque language though stands out as being distinctly un-Indo-European. Its' origins are still unclear but the Basque language is perhaps most similar to that historically spoken in the French region of Aquitaine. It is thought to pre-date all the other Spanish and Iberians tongues and go back to a time before the Roman conquest of the peninsula. This would make enormous sense to me. Whilst the other languages all have a common antecedent, probably dating back to the Romans, the Basque region (and also that of Galicia) remained largely untouched by the Romans simply because of the difficulty of accessing the region. The Roman influence was inevitably stronger closer to the Mediterranean coastline and waned the further inland they attempted to go. Following the decline of the Romans the various Iberian tribes sub-divided the peninsula and over the following 4-500 years re-inforced local cultures, traditions and languages, so that by the time the Moorish invasion began in the early 700's Iberia was a mosaic of different peoples, cultures and languages.
Once again during the African occupancy both the Basque regions and Galicia were left largely alone and so in these regions local culture and language were able to ingrain themselves even further. Even up to the time of the Napoleonic Wars Spain, although a single nation under a single monarch, was still largely regionalised. The vastness of the country and the endless mountainous terrain went to make travel from one region to another difficult in the extreme, and helped to reinforce local differences and cultures.
Since the death of Franco in 1975 Spain has undergone huge mechanical and structural changes. The infrastructure, for example, has improved beyond all recognition. There are now very good road and rail links between the various regions that have had the effect of improving trade and making the course of any journey much more comfortable. But the Spanish themselves though, remain hugely introverted in their social and business lives. Very few young Spanish go travelling, for example, preferring to stay at home where things are much safer and more secure. Even fewer ever leave the town of their birth to go and live and work elsewhere, let alone move to another region of the country. And whilst I applaud the family values that still pervade every level of Spanish society, this 'homebody' attitude has led to a dearth in Spanish patriotism with people more likely to wave their regional flag than that of their nation (except during the World Cup), with many commentators citing this as the reason that a unified Spanish identity is all-but absent. In my local schools they teach in Valenciano a lot of the time and not Castellano (the national language) once again reinforcing the local factor. If you go 50km down the road inland from my house they wouldn't understand a word of it! People take their holidays and stay at home to be with family. All very nice but the spirit of adventure is completely lacking, especially in the young which I find somewhat disturbing.
And in a roundabout way that brings me back to Eta. If that announcment is indeed forthcoming and they opt for a more peaceful way of promoting their ideas then I am all for it. The Basque people are a tough, uncompromising lot, who value their solidarity and uniqueness in a world which is becoming evermore homogenous and same-y! But for me though, an alien in a strange land, I will continue to be amazed and puzzled by attitudes that differ so greatly from those I grew up with. That Eta have fought so strongly and for so long for their own cultural identity can be explained largely by their unique history and cultural heritage. Their methods have been gravely wrong and I in no way support or advocate this. Peaceful and organised protest is the way. If you want things to change do it through the polss and elections. Stand up and counted if you feel that strongly. And that i what I hope they intend to do in the future.
As to whether a separate Basque state would be a viable entity I am not qualified to answer. I merely observe and wonder. I am still in a position where the Spanish mentality is somewhat perplexing, but the anwers are all there I believe, if you take the time to look. The Spanish cherish family, friends and local culture, appearing to care little for the outside world, let alone what happens on the other side of Spain. It is introverted and it is simplistic in the basic of ways, but it retains a certain charm that I love.
I understand the feeling one must have when, out for an evening stroll (as families do here) you know everyone that you bump into, intimately, as you have known them from the day you were born. The attractions are manifold, but I do wonder if this small town mentality will serve Spain well in a world awash with globalisation. Everyone is suffering because of the 'Crisis.' That is nothing new. But still people refuse to travel 30km down the road for work because it takes them away from the bosom of their family! Still they show no interest in changing a financial and fiscal system that plainly does not work. And why? Because they cannot see beyond the ends of their noses. But a change is what is needed here.... a radical change...to get the country up and running again. But apathy among the electorate is a rampant disease and I fear that the villagers and short-sighted businessmen who refuse to look beyond their own borders, will find very soon that this Crisis has a lot bigger bite than any of them could ever have anticipated.
Levels of unemployment, particularly in the under 25s is criminal. But still the system does not change. Starting your business here is a mission in futility. The red tape, the soaring costs and the lack of help and benefits make it difficult in the extreme for any budding entrepreneurs to even take their first step towards success. So, like everyone else, they take the easy route because financially, that is the only route the government leave open to them - they work, yes! But they work in the black economy, so therefore pay no taxes at all, whilst all the time many continue to collect healthy unemployment benefits and other social payments and then everyone wonders why the country is going bankrupt!!! Doh!
If the Spanish want their unemployment figures under control they must change the system. But I, like everyone else, know that won't happen. Why should it? If you were working, paying no tax, but earning good money and were still able to collect ample free payments on top, would you want it to change? Not me!!
Where else in the EEC can one go into a builders merchants, or a garage, or a large retail outfit or a garden centre and be offered 2 prices for what you wish to purchase. One with tax. And one without. As to which you choose might depend largely on whether you may wish to make a 'guarantee claim' at some point in the future, in which case the taxable option is best. But, in many cases and particularly with large purchases, the short term gain by paying between 15-18% less on your items is a very attractive proposition. As I write no doubt, millions of Euros in lost taxes are just disappearing this way simply because the system allows it. It´s incredible, really! And it has to be seen to be believed!
So, to some extent I understand and sypathise with those Basques who want to change the system. I would only disagree with their methods in the past.
Reading back over this blog now I´m not quite sure what my point was, or even if I had one to begin with, not it really matters I suppose. I've had my say and that is what blogging is all about.
Back again soon
Peter
Hope you had a wicked weekend.....I did...somewhat quiet, but to be honest that's the way I like it!
So, what's happening today? Eta have hit the headlines again over here because they are finally expected to renounce violence as a means of achieving their aims. Eta (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna - Basque Homeland and Freedom) have been in slow decline for decades now, their ability to strike fear into the hearts of the Spanish people has lessened gradually to the extent that most people no longer feel scared by the homespun terrorist threat.
Founded in 1959, at the height of Franco's power, Eta has fought for over 4 decades for Basque self-determination. The Basque region is surprisingly small when viewed on a map and encompasses 4 small Northern Spanish provinces and a part of South-West France. From such humble beginnings they have gone on to kill over 800 people in a reign of terror lasting 53 years. There have been several abortive attempts at some sort of reconciliation in the past, the latest of which came in September 2010 when there was a called for a 'permanent ceasefire.' However, as on previous occasions the Spanish government rejected the ceasefire as worthless without an acknowledgement that they would renounce violence as a method of achieving their aims. This was not forthcoming and the ceasfire has remained unratified.
But now comes the news, that with Kofi Annan's visit to the Basque region this week, that Eta may be finally ready to agree an end to violent campaigning. There have been calls from convicted Eta members, as well as Sinn Fein leader Jerry Adams, to embrace the cause of peace and I fervently hope that this week they may finally see the light.
As an Englishman living in the Iberian peninsula it has been hard to sometimes get a handle on the Spanish psyche. Each region appears to be fanatically introverted in its' political persuasions and affiliations. The Basque region, with all the (negative) publicity and interest in the region because of Eta is perhaps the best known of these political and cultural entities.
In all there are 17 provinces in Spain, similar to the counties of England or the States of America. In many of these regions there are distinct dialects which are spoken only locally. In Valenciana, for example, the local language is, not surprisngly, Valenciano. It is a language with an Indo-European heritage that I'm told has many similarities to French. Not that I am able to spot any of those...to see Valenciano written down is like looking at Welsh - you just have no idea at all how to even begin to pronounce the words - but if you're French then you can just waltz in, chat away and most people will understand you. The Iberian peninsula is hotbed of dialectic activity with 6 major Indo-European languages being spoken. If you then count each separate dialect the number balloons to (depending on who you read) perhaps more than 20 distinct languages/dialects!
The Basque language though stands out as being distinctly un-Indo-European. Its' origins are still unclear but the Basque language is perhaps most similar to that historically spoken in the French region of Aquitaine. It is thought to pre-date all the other Spanish and Iberians tongues and go back to a time before the Roman conquest of the peninsula. This would make enormous sense to me. Whilst the other languages all have a common antecedent, probably dating back to the Romans, the Basque region (and also that of Galicia) remained largely untouched by the Romans simply because of the difficulty of accessing the region. The Roman influence was inevitably stronger closer to the Mediterranean coastline and waned the further inland they attempted to go. Following the decline of the Romans the various Iberian tribes sub-divided the peninsula and over the following 4-500 years re-inforced local cultures, traditions and languages, so that by the time the Moorish invasion began in the early 700's Iberia was a mosaic of different peoples, cultures and languages.
Once again during the African occupancy both the Basque regions and Galicia were left largely alone and so in these regions local culture and language were able to ingrain themselves even further. Even up to the time of the Napoleonic Wars Spain, although a single nation under a single monarch, was still largely regionalised. The vastness of the country and the endless mountainous terrain went to make travel from one region to another difficult in the extreme, and helped to reinforce local differences and cultures.
Since the death of Franco in 1975 Spain has undergone huge mechanical and structural changes. The infrastructure, for example, has improved beyond all recognition. There are now very good road and rail links between the various regions that have had the effect of improving trade and making the course of any journey much more comfortable. But the Spanish themselves though, remain hugely introverted in their social and business lives. Very few young Spanish go travelling, for example, preferring to stay at home where things are much safer and more secure. Even fewer ever leave the town of their birth to go and live and work elsewhere, let alone move to another region of the country. And whilst I applaud the family values that still pervade every level of Spanish society, this 'homebody' attitude has led to a dearth in Spanish patriotism with people more likely to wave their regional flag than that of their nation (except during the World Cup), with many commentators citing this as the reason that a unified Spanish identity is all-but absent. In my local schools they teach in Valenciano a lot of the time and not Castellano (the national language) once again reinforcing the local factor. If you go 50km down the road inland from my house they wouldn't understand a word of it! People take their holidays and stay at home to be with family. All very nice but the spirit of adventure is completely lacking, especially in the young which I find somewhat disturbing.
And in a roundabout way that brings me back to Eta. If that announcment is indeed forthcoming and they opt for a more peaceful way of promoting their ideas then I am all for it. The Basque people are a tough, uncompromising lot, who value their solidarity and uniqueness in a world which is becoming evermore homogenous and same-y! But for me though, an alien in a strange land, I will continue to be amazed and puzzled by attitudes that differ so greatly from those I grew up with. That Eta have fought so strongly and for so long for their own cultural identity can be explained largely by their unique history and cultural heritage. Their methods have been gravely wrong and I in no way support or advocate this. Peaceful and organised protest is the way. If you want things to change do it through the polss and elections. Stand up and counted if you feel that strongly. And that i what I hope they intend to do in the future.
As to whether a separate Basque state would be a viable entity I am not qualified to answer. I merely observe and wonder. I am still in a position where the Spanish mentality is somewhat perplexing, but the anwers are all there I believe, if you take the time to look. The Spanish cherish family, friends and local culture, appearing to care little for the outside world, let alone what happens on the other side of Spain. It is introverted and it is simplistic in the basic of ways, but it retains a certain charm that I love.
I understand the feeling one must have when, out for an evening stroll (as families do here) you know everyone that you bump into, intimately, as you have known them from the day you were born. The attractions are manifold, but I do wonder if this small town mentality will serve Spain well in a world awash with globalisation. Everyone is suffering because of the 'Crisis.' That is nothing new. But still people refuse to travel 30km down the road for work because it takes them away from the bosom of their family! Still they show no interest in changing a financial and fiscal system that plainly does not work. And why? Because they cannot see beyond the ends of their noses. But a change is what is needed here.... a radical change...to get the country up and running again. But apathy among the electorate is a rampant disease and I fear that the villagers and short-sighted businessmen who refuse to look beyond their own borders, will find very soon that this Crisis has a lot bigger bite than any of them could ever have anticipated.
Levels of unemployment, particularly in the under 25s is criminal. But still the system does not change. Starting your business here is a mission in futility. The red tape, the soaring costs and the lack of help and benefits make it difficult in the extreme for any budding entrepreneurs to even take their first step towards success. So, like everyone else, they take the easy route because financially, that is the only route the government leave open to them - they work, yes! But they work in the black economy, so therefore pay no taxes at all, whilst all the time many continue to collect healthy unemployment benefits and other social payments and then everyone wonders why the country is going bankrupt!!! Doh!
If the Spanish want their unemployment figures under control they must change the system. But I, like everyone else, know that won't happen. Why should it? If you were working, paying no tax, but earning good money and were still able to collect ample free payments on top, would you want it to change? Not me!!
Where else in the EEC can one go into a builders merchants, or a garage, or a large retail outfit or a garden centre and be offered 2 prices for what you wish to purchase. One with tax. And one without. As to which you choose might depend largely on whether you may wish to make a 'guarantee claim' at some point in the future, in which case the taxable option is best. But, in many cases and particularly with large purchases, the short term gain by paying between 15-18% less on your items is a very attractive proposition. As I write no doubt, millions of Euros in lost taxes are just disappearing this way simply because the system allows it. It´s incredible, really! And it has to be seen to be believed!
So, to some extent I understand and sypathise with those Basques who want to change the system. I would only disagree with their methods in the past.
Reading back over this blog now I´m not quite sure what my point was, or even if I had one to begin with, not it really matters I suppose. I've had my say and that is what blogging is all about.
Back again soon
Peter
Friday, 14 October 2011
I´m back; I´m bad; I´m meaner 'an hell!
After what seems like an absolute eternity I am back with a regular internet connection and perhaps...able to move forward with this bloody blog!
The weather here in sunny Valencia...is, not surprisingly, sunny.... although today promises to be a touch more hazy than the rest of the week. But hey, who wants to talk about the weather when we have so much more interesting fish to fry.
Having now got a regular internet connection I find myself darwn ineveitably towards news stories on Africa. I'm married to a beautiful African woman and despite being white, I have always had the strong sense that somewhere deep, down inside that I am more African than anything else. Is that a primal, evolutionary hangover from our our shared genetic lineage or something that has grown inside of me; a metaphorical African ghost that possesses and steers my attention ever-southward, ever drawn to the chaos that is Africa? Or is it something much simpler? I used to think it was just the wildlife. Nothing compares to watching game on an African plain, but now after many trips I know that, as stunning, as wonderful as the flora and fauna are they could not possibly snare me the way that I have undoubtedly been snared. It's not just the wildlife, it's everything that is Africa; the colours, the people, the smells, the chaos, the history, the culture, the wildlife and more...so much more. And so in some mild-mannered way I take offence when someone seeks to destroy yet more of of this crumbling, delapidated continent and one of the most destructive forces in Africa today is Robert Mugabe.
With the news today that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is to seek an audience with the despotic leader Zimbabwe's plight once again surfaces onto the front pages. Why though, this wholly unacceptable situation is not on the front pages every day is beyond me. Mugabe is without doubt a ruthlessly, efficient leader. I do not doubt his intelligence or his leadership skills persay....anyone who can remain in power in the political hothouse that is Africa is obviously succeeding in some way or another. One doubts that his longevity is down to his kind and generous spirit! His is a regime built on fear and destruction, coercion, bribery, corruption and pure, unadulterated evil.
Mugabe first came to prominence in the 1970s where, as a freedom fighter (against Ian Smith's fading colonial and pertinently, white regime) and thence to power as leader of Zanu-PF in 1979. In the early days of his reign Mugabe entered into a short-lived and ultimately destructive coalition with Joshua Nkomo. He wished to improve the lot of his people, to make Zimbabwe into a modern, shining example of black African government. But very quickly after the collapse of that initial coalition (following the discovery of a cache of arms at Nkomo's HQ) his bright new world descended into darkness. Early promises of democracy and political unity failed miserably in the aftermath of a country supposedly free from the tyrannical yoke of imperialist colonialism. Political rivals were rounded up, captured, tortured or killed as Mugabe sought to tighten the political noose. The post-colonial economy went from being one of the most profitable and productive in Africa to one the the worst performing in the world, a fact that Mugabe, now 84, continually refuses to acknowledge hiding behind a ream of paper-thin denials, insisting that Zimbabwe is still the powerhouse it once was. Deluded is not the word! The last journalist to interview Mugabe in December last year must have wanted to laugh when Mugabe insisted that Zimbabwean economy was "a hundred times better" than that of most African countries!
In 1992 I was lucky enough to visit Zim (as it is affectionately known amongst travellers) at a time when the situation was still reasonably progressive and the people of Zimbabwe still had cause to hope that their future would be as bright as they had once believed only a few years before. I saw a country with (by African standards) an excellent infrastructure; good roads, trains that ran almost on time and flourishing agricultural and tourism industries. It seemed to me at the time that of all the countries I'd visited in Africa (and there are more than a few) that Zim had indeed been singled out for a prosperous and settled future. The game parks were well run. There was food on the supermarket shelves and in the markets. People drove modern vehicles and trade seemed good. But as a toursit you often become blind to the deficiences of the places you are visiting just because you are so happy to be there. Perhaps that was me. At the time I knew all about Mugabe but the (shall we say) unpleasant face of his regime had yet to emerge internationally. He was still being wined and dined by world leaders as a 'freedom fighter' and hero whilst at the time performing political slight-of-hand to make his rivals disappear from under the very noses of those.
Now, by all accounts the supermarket shelves are empty, the fields produce no crops and the game parks have no animals. This horrid, little, detestable man is running the country into the ground and lining his pockets at the expense of his own people. Of all the evil and corrupt regimes that have come about in Africa since the collapse of colonialism roughly 50 years ago, Mugabe´s may not be the worst but it can certainly lay claim to be the most resilient. And still the powerful politicians of the world just seem to be content to let these atrocities continue. Africa always seemed to be a place apart politically. A place so far removed from the affluent West that most people, politicians included, cannot even contemplate relating to the problems of a nation so different and so poor that to save them from further suffering seems to be just too much effort to bear! How can we bring realsisation home to the people of the world? I have no idea. But something needs to be done. The politicains turn a blind eye so it is left to the likes of Sir Richard Branson who, by all accounts tried and failed to 'buy' Mugabe out of power (http://gu.com/p/32gqk). But at least he tried which is a damn site more than most men of power have! Or the campaigning Archbishop of Canterbury, who after arriving in Zim last week was kept waiting and waiting before finally being granted an audience with the despot. No doubt promises made about saving the Zimbabwean Anglicans from further persecution were warmly recieved by the Archbishop, Rowan Williams (http://gu.com/p/32gfm), but in truth I don't doubt for one minute that it is just another bucketful of Mugabe's verbal pigswill that the world seems only to grateful to swallow!
Zim is definitely a subject I shall return to. Often!
And now for Spain today....here´s the good news! This morning Standard and Poor have cut Spain's credit rating from AA- to AA causing yet another drop in the value of the Euro. The reasons cited include Spain's exceptionally high unemployment, tightening credit and high private sector debt.
They said....."Despite signs of resilience in economic performance during 2011, we see heightened risks to Spain's growth prospects due to high unemployment, tighter financial conditions, the still high level of private sector debt, and the likely economic slowdown in Spain's main trading partners."
They went on to say that they did not have confidence in Spain's projected growth for 2012, which had been predicted to be only 1.5%, but is now expected to be less than 1%. Further credit rating drops may well follow should Spain actually fail to meet it´s projections and fall in line with that S&P expectations.
This is bad news for all of us. Not just for us in Spain but for Europe as a whole. The severity of the economic climate in Spain was brought home to me last week when the various projects at the company I work for were put on hold or, at the very least, delayed because creditors were unable to pay their debts to us. It´s a vicious circle ...one cannot the other who cannot pay the other and everyone in the line falters! Companies here seem to be taking bigger than usual risks in order to swell their books and gain new business. Manufacturers and suppliers are slashing prices and taking on new clients without the usual credit considerations because they have no choice but to take the risk. The climate is desperate and shows all the signs of getting much worse. As one of the plebians, all I can do is keep my nose to the grindstone and hope that things begin to turn round. Everyone is struggling. Everyone is juggling debts and credit, deciding who to pay and when. I am lucky in that, to some extent my job is more international and so I am still able to see a future for myself, but other co-workers are not sure. They work on projects for the Spanish market and these seem more precarious than ever. The amazing thing is atht in the streets and the bars and the cafes no-one seems to be the slightest bit worried. Wednesday was national fiesta day ...again!..... and everyone was out drinking, eating and making merry. Whatever the economic situation nothing, it seems, can dampen the Spanish need for a party!
In Kenya yesterday 2 female Spanish aid workers from Medicins sans Frontieres were kidnapped from the Dabaab humanitarian camp by Somali gunmen who shot their driver in the neck (though amazingly he lives still) and escaped back over the nearby border (http://gu.com/p/32tmq). In the wake of the recent kidnapping of two French and British women the aid workers are now, understandably, feaful for their safety. OXFAM said last night that this new incident may well affect the aid missions in and around Dabaab whislt security conditions are reassessed.
To say I don't understand this madness that seems to have affected the Somali people is to only voice what everyone else is surely thinking. These gunmen have no respect for anyone or anything and to abduct aid workers such as this again and again shows that they have no understanding or apprecaition of how the rest of the world thinks or behaves. It is a hotbed of violent, criminal activity that the rest of the world seem quite happy to just let continue. I cannot help thinking that if there were exploitable resources in the country then such a situation would not be allowed to roll on endlessly. We would have been in there years before sorting things out and tying up the re-construction contracts before the last bullet had been fired. But since Somalia is of little economic value the situation endures and the innocent continue to suffer. There must be something that can be done to end this cycle of bloodshed and violence before the disease spreads and infects the rest of East Africa. Please write to your local MEP with your suggestions.
And finally....Mark Cavendish...perhaps the greatest British cyclist of his generation and, of course, the new World Road Race Champion, has announced his arrival at Team Sky for the start of next season (http://www.skysports.com/story/0,,15264_7235754,00.html). This is fantastic news....Team Sky is primarily a British outfit (though there are many international riders on the team) with British management and now British stars! I cannot wait for next year to come and to see a British cycling team pushing all before them and sweeping the board. Go Cav!
See you soon
The weather here in sunny Valencia...is, not surprisingly, sunny.... although today promises to be a touch more hazy than the rest of the week. But hey, who wants to talk about the weather when we have so much more interesting fish to fry.
Having now got a regular internet connection I find myself darwn ineveitably towards news stories on Africa. I'm married to a beautiful African woman and despite being white, I have always had the strong sense that somewhere deep, down inside that I am more African than anything else. Is that a primal, evolutionary hangover from our our shared genetic lineage or something that has grown inside of me; a metaphorical African ghost that possesses and steers my attention ever-southward, ever drawn to the chaos that is Africa? Or is it something much simpler? I used to think it was just the wildlife. Nothing compares to watching game on an African plain, but now after many trips I know that, as stunning, as wonderful as the flora and fauna are they could not possibly snare me the way that I have undoubtedly been snared. It's not just the wildlife, it's everything that is Africa; the colours, the people, the smells, the chaos, the history, the culture, the wildlife and more...so much more. And so in some mild-mannered way I take offence when someone seeks to destroy yet more of of this crumbling, delapidated continent and one of the most destructive forces in Africa today is Robert Mugabe.
With the news today that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is to seek an audience with the despotic leader Zimbabwe's plight once again surfaces onto the front pages. Why though, this wholly unacceptable situation is not on the front pages every day is beyond me. Mugabe is without doubt a ruthlessly, efficient leader. I do not doubt his intelligence or his leadership skills persay....anyone who can remain in power in the political hothouse that is Africa is obviously succeeding in some way or another. One doubts that his longevity is down to his kind and generous spirit! His is a regime built on fear and destruction, coercion, bribery, corruption and pure, unadulterated evil.
Mugabe first came to prominence in the 1970s where, as a freedom fighter (against Ian Smith's fading colonial and pertinently, white regime) and thence to power as leader of Zanu-PF in 1979. In the early days of his reign Mugabe entered into a short-lived and ultimately destructive coalition with Joshua Nkomo. He wished to improve the lot of his people, to make Zimbabwe into a modern, shining example of black African government. But very quickly after the collapse of that initial coalition (following the discovery of a cache of arms at Nkomo's HQ) his bright new world descended into darkness. Early promises of democracy and political unity failed miserably in the aftermath of a country supposedly free from the tyrannical yoke of imperialist colonialism. Political rivals were rounded up, captured, tortured or killed as Mugabe sought to tighten the political noose. The post-colonial economy went from being one of the most profitable and productive in Africa to one the the worst performing in the world, a fact that Mugabe, now 84, continually refuses to acknowledge hiding behind a ream of paper-thin denials, insisting that Zimbabwe is still the powerhouse it once was. Deluded is not the word! The last journalist to interview Mugabe in December last year must have wanted to laugh when Mugabe insisted that Zimbabwean economy was "a hundred times better" than that of most African countries!
In 1992 I was lucky enough to visit Zim (as it is affectionately known amongst travellers) at a time when the situation was still reasonably progressive and the people of Zimbabwe still had cause to hope that their future would be as bright as they had once believed only a few years before. I saw a country with (by African standards) an excellent infrastructure; good roads, trains that ran almost on time and flourishing agricultural and tourism industries. It seemed to me at the time that of all the countries I'd visited in Africa (and there are more than a few) that Zim had indeed been singled out for a prosperous and settled future. The game parks were well run. There was food on the supermarket shelves and in the markets. People drove modern vehicles and trade seemed good. But as a toursit you often become blind to the deficiences of the places you are visiting just because you are so happy to be there. Perhaps that was me. At the time I knew all about Mugabe but the (shall we say) unpleasant face of his regime had yet to emerge internationally. He was still being wined and dined by world leaders as a 'freedom fighter' and hero whilst at the time performing political slight-of-hand to make his rivals disappear from under the very noses of those.
Now, by all accounts the supermarket shelves are empty, the fields produce no crops and the game parks have no animals. This horrid, little, detestable man is running the country into the ground and lining his pockets at the expense of his own people. Of all the evil and corrupt regimes that have come about in Africa since the collapse of colonialism roughly 50 years ago, Mugabe´s may not be the worst but it can certainly lay claim to be the most resilient. And still the powerful politicians of the world just seem to be content to let these atrocities continue. Africa always seemed to be a place apart politically. A place so far removed from the affluent West that most people, politicians included, cannot even contemplate relating to the problems of a nation so different and so poor that to save them from further suffering seems to be just too much effort to bear! How can we bring realsisation home to the people of the world? I have no idea. But something needs to be done. The politicains turn a blind eye so it is left to the likes of Sir Richard Branson who, by all accounts tried and failed to 'buy' Mugabe out of power (http://gu.com/p/32gqk). But at least he tried which is a damn site more than most men of power have! Or the campaigning Archbishop of Canterbury, who after arriving in Zim last week was kept waiting and waiting before finally being granted an audience with the despot. No doubt promises made about saving the Zimbabwean Anglicans from further persecution were warmly recieved by the Archbishop, Rowan Williams (http://gu.com/p/32gfm), but in truth I don't doubt for one minute that it is just another bucketful of Mugabe's verbal pigswill that the world seems only to grateful to swallow!
Zim is definitely a subject I shall return to. Often!
And now for Spain today....here´s the good news! This morning Standard and Poor have cut Spain's credit rating from AA- to AA causing yet another drop in the value of the Euro. The reasons cited include Spain's exceptionally high unemployment, tightening credit and high private sector debt.
They said....."Despite signs of resilience in economic performance during 2011, we see heightened risks to Spain's growth prospects due to high unemployment, tighter financial conditions, the still high level of private sector debt, and the likely economic slowdown in Spain's main trading partners."
They went on to say that they did not have confidence in Spain's projected growth for 2012, which had been predicted to be only 1.5%, but is now expected to be less than 1%. Further credit rating drops may well follow should Spain actually fail to meet it´s projections and fall in line with that S&P expectations.
This is bad news for all of us. Not just for us in Spain but for Europe as a whole. The severity of the economic climate in Spain was brought home to me last week when the various projects at the company I work for were put on hold or, at the very least, delayed because creditors were unable to pay their debts to us. It´s a vicious circle ...one cannot the other who cannot pay the other and everyone in the line falters! Companies here seem to be taking bigger than usual risks in order to swell their books and gain new business. Manufacturers and suppliers are slashing prices and taking on new clients without the usual credit considerations because they have no choice but to take the risk. The climate is desperate and shows all the signs of getting much worse. As one of the plebians, all I can do is keep my nose to the grindstone and hope that things begin to turn round. Everyone is struggling. Everyone is juggling debts and credit, deciding who to pay and when. I am lucky in that, to some extent my job is more international and so I am still able to see a future for myself, but other co-workers are not sure. They work on projects for the Spanish market and these seem more precarious than ever. The amazing thing is atht in the streets and the bars and the cafes no-one seems to be the slightest bit worried. Wednesday was national fiesta day ...again!..... and everyone was out drinking, eating and making merry. Whatever the economic situation nothing, it seems, can dampen the Spanish need for a party!
In Kenya yesterday 2 female Spanish aid workers from Medicins sans Frontieres were kidnapped from the Dabaab humanitarian camp by Somali gunmen who shot their driver in the neck (though amazingly he lives still) and escaped back over the nearby border (http://gu.com/p/32tmq). In the wake of the recent kidnapping of two French and British women the aid workers are now, understandably, feaful for their safety. OXFAM said last night that this new incident may well affect the aid missions in and around Dabaab whislt security conditions are reassessed.
To say I don't understand this madness that seems to have affected the Somali people is to only voice what everyone else is surely thinking. These gunmen have no respect for anyone or anything and to abduct aid workers such as this again and again shows that they have no understanding or apprecaition of how the rest of the world thinks or behaves. It is a hotbed of violent, criminal activity that the rest of the world seem quite happy to just let continue. I cannot help thinking that if there were exploitable resources in the country then such a situation would not be allowed to roll on endlessly. We would have been in there years before sorting things out and tying up the re-construction contracts before the last bullet had been fired. But since Somalia is of little economic value the situation endures and the innocent continue to suffer. There must be something that can be done to end this cycle of bloodshed and violence before the disease spreads and infects the rest of East Africa. Please write to your local MEP with your suggestions.
And finally....Mark Cavendish...perhaps the greatest British cyclist of his generation and, of course, the new World Road Race Champion, has announced his arrival at Team Sky for the start of next season (http://www.skysports.com/story/0,,15264_7235754,00.html). This is fantastic news....Team Sky is primarily a British outfit (though there are many international riders on the team) with British management and now British stars! I cannot wait for next year to come and to see a British cycling team pushing all before them and sweeping the board. Go Cav!
See you soon
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Down, but not quite out in Spain
Down, but not quite out in Spain
When we came here the financial situation worldwide was precarious. In Spain it was downright appalling, but in one respect it worked for us. The glut of Brit-ex-pats who’d moved here in the boom years of the 80’s and 90’s, buying up cheap property, selling at huge profits and moving on, had come to a rapid and almost complete stop, with the vast majority returning ‘home’ rather than sticking it out (the reasons for this being many perhaps, but with, I believe, an underlying causality which I shall return to at another time). The price of property fell 50% in some places in a matter of months giving us a window of opportunity that had previously been shuttered by our under-strength purchasing power. Spanish developers who had gambled everything on a continuing boom came badly unstuck and now you can see whole estates of half-built, or even completed villas, that sit empty, boarded up, fenced in, either awaiting completion (that will never happen) or buyers (that will never arrive) and so they just rot. It’s amazing to see! Literally, whole suburbs of towns and cities built to satisfy the needs of non-existent foreign buyers sitting dormant, not dead because they’d never been alive; just frozen in suspended animation, scaffolding intact, piles of bricks, cement, sand and other building materials, half used, part-built, on permanent pause like a broken-down cheap DVD.
The Spanish government also invested heavily in an infrastructure that had been backward by the standards of other Western-European nations. They gambled on a never-ending influx of Brits, Germans and Scandinavians who wanted roads, hospitals and shopping malls like they had at home. But they lost that gamble. Spain now has the highest unemployment in Europe and is effectively bankrupt. The black-market economy here thrives (like nowhere else in the EEC I would guess) and the snails pace of legislative change and the general apathy of Spanish voters in this regard mean that Spain is fast becoming a 2nd or even 3rd world nation while presenting to the world a 1st world face. Innovation and enterprise here are stifled by bureaucracy and red-tape. There is no encouragement whatsoever from a Governmental system that does everything in it’s power to make it a difficult and costly undertaking to start a business, thereby forcing people into the black economy because they simply cannot live any other way. Old timers here will tell you that it’s always been this way and the under-25’s who exploit the system illegally and constitute the vast majority of the officially unemployed, working, selling, ducking, diving, beneath the radar of the tax man see no reason for it to change at all. The system allows them to earn, buy houses, new cars, go on holidays, avoid taxes and in many cases, claim benefits as well. They are simply not motivated to see a change which might, in the short-term, see them worse off. I empathise whole-heartedly.
By way of illustration. I was offered a job just a couple of weeks before Christmas. Whoopy-do!!! All my problems over with. Or so I thought. It was with a new and expanding company. The Boss is English (luckily for me) but he was doing everything legally and above board and quite rightly so. He had taken on me and one other as a starting point, hoping to end up employing another 8-10 people if things went as expected. But right from the off it was a doomed exercise. He had applied for his S.L status; the equivalent of having a Limited company in the U.K.. This was probably his first mistake, ie. In trying to do it legally. The Spanish telecom company found out that he had applied for his S.L. and so they cut off his telephone lines because they considered him to be an unnatural risk. Okay, said the Boss, I understand (which is more generous than I would have been under the circumstances) and offered them a deposit as security and a show of good faith. The telecom company duly accepted and put 2 of the 3 lines back on. The 3rd line was mine - last one in and all that - so he asked me to wait a few days till it was sorted, which the telecom company assured him would be only a matter of days. Whilst he waited they, in their infinite wisdom, decided that he still to risky, so they cut off the 2 lines again and for good measure, also his home phone and his mobile line. Again, the Boss, showing admirable restraint, offered to pay what was outstanding on all of the lines as a show of further good faith. The telecom company again accepted. The Boss coughed up over 2000 Euro in payment for telephone lines whose first bills are not even due until the end of January 2011. Unbelievable! But even after that, they still refused point blank to reinstate even a single telephone line. In the meantime, the Government agency to whom you apply to in order to gain your S.L. discovered that his office was not functioning and told him that his application was on permanent hold because they did not believe that the business was legitimate. “You don’t even have a telephone line,” they told him!!! Aaaaargh!!!!! To cut a long story short, the would-be Boss has now given up the ghost, has taken his family and moved to Madrid and is now setting his business up on the sly because this is the only way he can get it done. How’s that for Democracy in action?
I am married to an African woman and have myself, spent many happy years in Africa and the parallels between the Spanish and many Africans peoples are blindingly obvious if one cares to look. Spain spent over 700 years as an ‘African colony’ and maybe this is just the worlds longest hangover! The climate here is mild in the winter and tropical in the summer, as we all know, the same as much of Africa. Latifa, my wife, tells me that the Spanish are Mediterranean in their looks and African in their attitudes. It is a ’mañ ana’ culture, as it is across much of Africa. Of course, there are exceptions; there are always exceptions. But it is the generalisations that make the people and in the main the Spanish see no need to change.
Latifa is working on temporary contract for a ‘customer service’ operation for a large, well-known (in Spain and France) website similar to Amazon. She has done similar work in the U.K. previously and had every expectation that it would be similar. How wrong she was! Right from the first day things started to go awry. She had her interview one day and they asked if she could start the very next day for her training. Somewhat taken aback by the rapidity, she gratefully said yes and duly cancelled other work she had (she works P/T as an aerobics instructor). She came home very happy and delighted to be working full-time. I was happy for her. The training was supposed to be 3 days long and about 3-4 hours each day. Great! On the 5th day of training they were all told (there were about 10 training in all) that the training was unpaid after all, but not only that it was now going to be only 1 hour per day and would last another 2 weeks. The reason, they were too busy dealing with all the customer service requests to spare anyone to train them!!! There’s a logic of sorts at work there!! When finally she did start work and was getting paid she found she had 3 supervisors, one of whom would tell them to deal with clients in one way (not the way in which they had been trained incidentally), which they then did, until such time as the 2nd supervisor came along and fined them all an hours pay for doing so and told them do things differently. They then did as requested. The 1st supervisor then arrived, saw that her instructions were not being obeyed, fined them again and told them to revert to the her method!! This yo-yo-ing continues to this day. Latifa has now been there almost 3 months and the supervisors still cannot decide how they want things done! Bear in mind, this is the biggest shopping website there is France and Spain!!! But not only that, if a customer phones up to find out where their item is that they purchased, and the computer is unable to find out what is going on with it they are told to hang up on the client.
To hang up!!! They have got the clients money and so now they just don’t give a fuck! Can you imagine if that happened to you in the U.K.?
But that’s not the end of it, oh no! Before Christmas, when understandably such websites are very busy, they falsify their stock lines and numbers of items available to get the clients business knowing full well that said item is no longer available and that the clients children will be without a gift this Christmas. If such a client phones up they are told to pacify them by lying that it is on the way. If satisfied and the client hangs up, thinking all is okay, they are told to go quickly to the next phone call and to do precisely nothing about the previous caller. If said client then calls again, which inevitably they do, they are told to offer the client a refund which will take over 2 months arrive.
I have never heard of such blatant disregard for basic business practice. One evening Latifa came home in tears because one particularly irate customer had asked to speak to a supervisor, who flat refused to deal with person and instead stood over Latifa whilst instructing her to tell the client to ‘fuck off’ or lose her job. Nice people eh? Luckily it is only a temporary contract that is shortly coming to an end and she cannot wait to leave, despite being asked to stay because she had dome such a good job! We might be hard up but I’d rather eat shit than take more money from a company like that.
Spain is a 1st world country with a 3rd world mentality and an even worse administration. Nothing here is computerised. After all, why store info quickly and easily on a hard-drive when you can employ 2 or 3 people to write everything down in triplicate and take all day about doing it and then lose it or misfile it? This is a 1st world country where you cannot get a mobile signal in many places once outside of a city. By comparison, I travelled to Mali last year. Officially the 4th poorest nation on the planet. I could connect to skype, phone home and send emails from the middle of the Sahara, literally over a weeks drive from what we might call civilisation. Fantastic! But do you think I can do any of those things from my house only 45km from Valencia? The answer is ‘yes,’ but only if the wind is the right direction! And you think I’m kidding, don’t you? This is a 1st world country where my neighbour, nearing bus-pass age in the U.K., cannot get any help medical help from the system for his chronic back and neck problems, or any medication for a slight psychosis that results from over 20 years of daily stress from living so far below the poverty line that he makes most Africans seem positively wealthy by comparison. His house has no electricity, no running water, no telephone line, no nothing. His bedroom ceiling collapsed some years ago so that when it rains at night he gets wet in his bed. In winter time he has an ancient old ‘estufa,’ a wood burning stove, that chokes his rooms with pallid, unhealthy smoke but it is his only source of warmth. He is not entitled to any financial assistance whatsoever from a system that does not recognise infirmity as a handicap so he spends his days traipsing over the mountains looking for wild herbs, mushrooms and plants to flavour the rainwater soup he makes. If he’s lucky he may be able to trap a rabbit or a small bird occasionally to liven things up a bit. He beams with delight if he catches a starling or pigeon, from which he will cook and eat every last, unappetising morsel, the bones he gives to his scrawny dog, his only company in his harsh world. He weighs considerably less than my 11 year old son who is built like a beanpole and sways in a strong wind, as I did at his age. But Juan, for that is his name, can always raise a smile and for all his hardships he says he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. And the same is true for us. For all it’s problems, for all it’s frustrating, backward ways, it’s red-tape and endless bureaucracy, Spain is a wonderful place to live. The culture and lifestyle are vibrant and colourful. The people, friendly and open. It really is wonderful place to live until you have to try and deal with the system. Or get a job.
We help Juan when we can. We buy him bread, a drop of vino and a bit of tobacco when we have the money ourselves, but I already worry for him (and for us by proxy) about what will become of him in a year or two. What happens when his health truly fails? What if he breaks an ankle on the mountain? Who will know? Who will care for him? Of course we shall do everything we can to help, but I’m not a rich man and I have my own family who must come first. So, do we just let him die when he cannot trap his rabbits anymore? Tell me, someone. Please?
And this is in Spain. A 1st world country we are told.
And the strangest thing of all. Juan tells us of another man, younger than himself, who lives like a hermit further up the mountain than we are, in the wilds of this region and in the middle of nowhere. Juan says he has lived up there for longer than himself, so that means he has been there for over a quarter of century I would imagine. This guy lives in a house (if that word adequately describes it) with holes in the wall (in other houses these holes would be called windows, but windows have glass or shutters or something to keep the weather out) which are open to the elements. We live at an altitude of just under 500m, which whilst not high, is high enough to make the winters very cold and biting - Spanish houses are not well insulated and lack any sort of heating. The hermit lives at near 800m where deep snow and strong winds are regular event and must make the winters seem interminable. This guy must be as hard as nails because he rarely comes down from there, finding all his food and fluids by foraging across the mountainside. Amazingly, Juan takes pity on him and when he has more rabbit than he can eat he takes what excess he has up the track to give to the hermit. Such generosity of spirit a rarity in the money-grabbing, money-obsessed, selfish world most us occupy. But that’s just how Juan is.
As a little aside, I would just like to relate a funny story. For all his lack of’s Juan is a mad footy fan! Aren’t we all? When he goes into town, which is not a frequent occurrence, he tries to home in on a newspaper and then sits in a café drinking a café solo (espresso to you and me), generally donated by a kindly proprietor, where he dives avidly into the sports pages and devours all the results, news, etc, which dominates the pages of most dailies here - because Spain is not football mad as the Brits are, but is completely football loco in a completely obsessive way that British footy fans could only dream about - and so he thereby keeping abreast of all the footy goings on. On talking to him, his football knowledge is impressive considering the gaps in his media relations. Anyway, I digress. When we first arrived and could still afford satellite TV, I invited Juan in to watch a few matches. “Who’s your team?” I asked in French. Juan had grown up in Strasbourg just after the War and he speaks French like a native, and when we first arrived our Spanish was dodgy to say the least, so conversing in my schoolboy French was the easiest way for us all to attempt to understand one another. “No-one,” he replied. “I just love football.” Fair enough. I can go with that. But it soon became clear to me that Juan’s impressive knowledge of the game was not as in depth as I’d previously thought. I’d talk about such and such a player, such and such a team, as you do when enjoying the match but Juan seemed totally out of touch with what I was saying. I was confused. Then, after having watched 3 or maybe 4 matches with me he finally said one day, “So, which one is Messi?”
‘Which one is Messi?’ I couldn’t believe my ears. The worlds greatest player and for all his supposed knowledge of the game, Juan couldn’t tell who Messi was. What on earth was going on?
Upon investigation, it turned out that he’d never seen a match on TV before and had no idea what team played in what colours, what any of the players looked like, how old they were or anything. It turned out that he never looked at the pictures in the papers because he didn’t see the point! Even the graphic in the top corner of the TV screen showing the score was baffling for him. “What is BFC?” Barcelona Football Club I told him! “Oh, now I understand!” he said. “I didn’t know who was playing who (me, being the selfish Brit had the English commentary on!) and who was whom. Now it becomes clear!”
There’s a lesson in there somewhere. If someone can wheedle it out then please let me know.
So, to summarise: I will be blogging when I can get to an internet café to do so or when one of other of us manages to secure employment with a legitimate and conscientious company. We are having a hard time of it. There’s no point denying it. But in the end, I’d rather be having a hard time of it here than in the U.K. There are many things here that I do not agree with, most of which I have found out since moving here. After all, you don’t really know someone till you live with them and the same is true of nations too. But we won’t be running for home even if things get worse before they get better. We left the U.K. because we didn’t like many things there, but what you realise is, that nowhere is perfect unless you’re rich. Money can smooth over any amount of difficulties and whilst we came here with money in the bank, almost 2 years of not working makes a sizeable dent in any amount of savings for a most families. We are no different. So, if you are thinking of moving to Spain like us, then come here with your eyes fully open and your bank balance sufficiently in the black, because over here you have to help yourself, no-one is going to help you.
Until next time.
Peter
P.S. Feliz Año Nuevo.
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