Haitians Eating Dirt To Survive

I refuse to believe that we good people
Would forever turn our hearts and eyes away.
Haiti I’m sorry
We misunderstood you,
But one day we’ll turn around
And look inside you.
Haiti I’m sorry
Haiti I’m so sorry…
But one day we’ll turn our heads
And restore your glory.
(David Rudder)

“Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt.” I read the article and looked at the photographs months ago but the image of hopelessness and perpetual poverty is still etched on my mind. I have a feeling that it will be there for years to come.

There is no doubt that the mass of impoverished Haitians suffer the most debilitating and demoralizing misery of any people in the world. There is nothing redemptive about not having enough food, clothing, medical attention, water or shelter. Moreso in these days of plenty when developed countries like the US and UK are battling an obesity epidemic and rich capitalists such as Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim Helu have personal fortunes in excess of $62 billion and $60 billion respectively according a recent Forbes listing. Another Forbes- listed billionaire, is building a 26-storied palatial home in England.

Yet in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, people are literally eating dirt to survive.

But how did a country, once known as the world’s most prosperous colony in the 18th century, become today’s “poorest country in the western hemisphere?”
A brief look at its history reveals that by 1780, Haiti, a French colony, was one of the wealthiest regions in the world. The economy was knitted together by a high demand for sugar and tobacco, African slave labour, a deeply entrenched class system predicated on colour, race, fear of voudou (voodoo) and brutality. But in 1791 a protracted slave uprising began and it was led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean Jacque Dessalines and Henri Christophe. The slaves would eventually overcome the best efforts of the French armies, even defeating the great Napoleon Bonarparte to oust French rule.
In 1804 the island became the first black independent nation in the western hemishere. But, the European ruling classes never forgave Haiti and her black slaves for the insubordination and humiliation. The two centuries which followed independence were marked by bloody internal atrocities, class conflicts, black dictators and racially-motivated indifference from the imperialist powers of Europe calculated to destabilize the only republic ever founded by slaves.

Today, slavery is a distant, half-forgotten memory in the past but for the black masses mired in poverty, living conditions have hardly changed.
With food prices on the rise, more of Haiti’s impoverished are now eating dirt to stave off the prospects of death by starvation because they cannot afford to buy rice, corn or flour. They are eating mud cookies are made from dried yellow dirt, salt and vegetable shortening. One mother from the oceanside slum of Cite Soleil, describes the cookies as having a “buttery, salty taste.” She admits that they cause stomach aches but she has no choice but to serve them as meals for herself and her emaciated 16 month old son.
Another unemployed Haitian Saint Louis Meriska, told reporters that his two children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day.
Haiti’s ever burning hunger, has become fiercer than ever in recent weeks as global food prices spiral out of reach.
According to World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, “In just two months, rice prices have sky-rocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come.”
He also pointed out that the price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the last year, doubling the bread prices, in places like Haiti where the poor spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food.
In recent weeks, Haitians like their starving counterparts in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Bangladesh, Egypt, The Cameroons, Malaysia, Mozambique and India took to the streets in angry protests. The Haitians bashed in the front gate of their presidential palace burning tires and confronting the soldiers and the police.
“It’s the worst crisis of its kind in more than 30 years,” said Jeffrey D Sachs, the economist and special adviser to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Prices for all basic food commodities including corn and beans have spiked because of higher oil prices, increasing prices for fertilizer, irrigation, transportation, and the heavy demand for biofuels such as ethanol, which has diverted food into energy production. Jean Ziegler, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, has called using food crops to create ethanol “a crime against humanity.”
The World Bank announced a $10 million grant from the United States for Haiti to help the government assist poor families but the question is, how much of this will reach poor families and how far will it go before they are hungry again?

Most impoverished Haitian families have no hope of ever reaching beyond subsistence living.
Many are not certain if there’ll be shortening available to make their dirt cookies tomorrow.

Human suffering in the form of physical hunger is something that I never can quite get my arms around. I do not want to rationalize it as part of the natural order of life. It is too unnatural. Maybe the real cause of hunger is really a shortage, no – not a shortage – but famine of fairness and human compassion. Maybe the few with a social conscience are barely surviving ourselves and perhaps like me they are all cried out – to the point of numbness.

What is going on this world? Is anyone monitoring the culture of officially-sanctioned lies that has taken firm root everywhere? Why are we allowing the mainstream media and our leaders to concoct and feed us self-serving lies rather than respecting us enough to reveal the truth however inconvenient it might be?

Lying for those in authority has become as natural as inhaling and exhaling.

I believe that one of the biggest tragedies of recent decades has been the death of truth and the rise of that imposter called perception. Everything seems to be about “perception” and “fabricated or relative truth (lies) within the context of a situation”.
I define a deliberate liar is someone who knows that he or she is telling an untruth but deceives for selfish purposes.
A pathological liar is someone who habitually deceives others and often believes his or her own lies. The pathological liar often lies for no real reason except to keep in practice.
Reminds us of our glib, chameleon presidents and those Islamic mullahs who promise paradise and nubile young virgins to demented suicide bombers.
My grouse is not with ordinary people who might tell a fib occasionally to protect somebody’s feelings or to lessen the awkwardness of a social interaction. My problem is with the deliberate and pathological liars who occupy positions of leadership. The ones who exert influence at the highest level within the executive, judiciary, military and business circles.

What kind of fools do they think we are?

Very gullible ones it seems.

I know that it is usually difficult for the public to identify many of the lies being thrown at us because we are a trusting people by nature. These lies are well-manicured and well-disguised within the flatulent rhetoric or politically correct hash of the public relations practitioners.
First, there is the hard core lie, which is totally woven from the imagination. This one completely disregards the truth.
Then there is the more popular convoluted version with a tiny, dried up seed of truth at the middle of a big, fat juicy lie.
The latter was spawned in response to calls “for transparency” from the underground media and alert public.
The convoluted lie lends itself to malleability and it works like this: a piece of information is dissected, shaved of all key elements, enhanced with some subtle, self-serving fabrications and then presented to the public via a “media leak,” press release or a press conference. Within minutes it becomes breaking news across the globe and in some perverted way it crawls into the realm of credibility where it nestles comfortably with millions of other officially sanctioned half lies and quarter truths.

Almost everyday with clockwork precision, our intelligence is insulted with a hard core or convoluted lie from some high office in the land.

According to these lies, fast food is actually food; Mahmoud Ahamadinejad’s imaginary playmate, the Mahdi, constitutes a threat to world peace; God, the Creator, cannot arrange Armageddon himself so he needs Christian fundamentalists to act as his agents and warmongers on earth. Let us not forget that oil prices will fall to $30 again and, intelligent people are actually interested in the idiot culture that spawned entertainment news about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
Oh, I almost forgot the most ludicrous lie of all. Are you aware that global warming is a man-generated phenomenon?
Say what?

But seriously now, I believe that the most disturbing element of the situation is how lying is mutating into lucrative and legitimate businesses which range from corporate communications to reality television. These perpetrators of deception lurk in the corridors of power, rubbing shoulders with the who’s whom in government and business circles while they collect five and six figure salaries for spinning lies.

As I delve into the dynamics of deception I am dumbfounded at the assumptions made by these folks who peddle lies for a living. Behind the scenes of secret meetings, John Public is stereotyped as being “not too bright” and generally projected as not being able to understand words of more than three syllables. The governing principle underlying official deception is that it is generally “not in the public’s interest to reveal the truth about anything, so let us hide the facts and deny the truth until the matter blows over.”

Within recent years, governments in power have learned to use the tricks of “image enhancement” and advertising. Now you and I, as taxpayers are paying the government to lie to us. What a smooth operation.

I am afraid that officially-sanctioned lying is now permeating every institution of society. This disease is eating away at our collective integrity like a malignant cancer. And we wonder why our children like the poet’s Mathilda, are given to telling lies? I believe that this culture of deception reflects moral bankruptcy at a global level and sets a dangerous precedent for generations to come.

Some believe that a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth. I believe the culture of lying is becoming dangerously entrenched because we prefer to be deceived with palatable lies rather than to stagger under the weight of an unpleasant truth. Maybe we find it easier to live in denial rather than to work a little harder to demand respect and truth from those in authority and leadership positions.

Categories:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of the children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half a million bushels of wheat…. This is no a way of life at all, in any true sense.”
US President ‘Ike’ Eisenhower (1953)

The poor among us transcend all national and cultural boundaries. Yet, they are considered to be of far less significance than futile wars around the world fought in the name of Allah or as “the war on terrorism” or whatever cause that drives paranoid, egotistical world leaders.

But here are the facts:
Of the about 6.5 billion people in the world today…

About 852 million people are hungry- the most extreme form of poverty. Billions now face the grim spectre of starvation in the face of the current global food crisis.

About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five.

About 640 million children do not have adequate shelter.

About 400 million children do not have access to safe water.

About 90 million children are severely food-deprived.

In the developing world, more than 1.2 billion people(over 1\6th of the world population)currently live below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day.
In developing countries, 6 million children die each year, mostly from hunger-related causes.

Even in the US, considered to be among the wealthiest countries in the world, 36 million people are believed to be living under the poverty line and of this number, 3 1/2 million are homeless, living in the streets.

Every day across the world we are confronted with hunger, poverty, malnutrition, inadequate drinking water and poor sanitation, no basic health care, illiteracy, slavery and other social ills.

At the same time the global military expenditure has overtaken the 1,000 billion dollar mark! Some have even estimated that in the final calculation, the US bill for the current war in Iraq could surpass one trillion dollars.

Governments and leaders across international borders are spending of billions of dollars per month for arms and saber-rattling gestures while children go hungry for a piece of bread and a cup of water. Is this really happening in our world?

We, the people must challenge this madness and demand that they change their priorities. Besides the financial wastefulness of militarism, overall it exacts a huge toll on human life and the environment, while creating a climate of fear and mistrust and undermining global security. The US and UK are in many ways part of the problem, being the highest and second-highest military spenders in the world. The intensification of the “war on terror” has led military spending – after a short decline after the end of the Cold War – back to the old unacceptable high levels. The US alone are spending over 500 billion dollars per year on their military programmes, and this does not include the costs of the Iraq war. Yet, more people in the US die of poverty-related diseases, lifestyles or incidents per year than were killed in the 911 tragedy. Time to think people. Something is not right.

Less-developed and third world countries are now taking pattern from wealthier states and one needs to look no further than the African continent or India and Pakistan for validation on this argument. Of the one billion people in India, 1/3 live in absolute poverty yet both governments are spending billions of dollars per year to sustain a nuclear weapon programme against each other that serves no real purpose given the dynamics of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
The trigger-ready situation in high-risk Middle East regions is alarming and borders on a kind of madness which must be rooted in demonic realms despite its justification in the name of “God”.

The five members of the UN Security Council – the US, Russia, China, France and Great Britain are the official nuclear states, and though they committed themselves to nuclear disarmament in the Non-Proliferation-Treaty Conference in the year 2000, they are doing nothing about it. Instead, they are developing prototypes of new nuclear arms which ultimately find their way into the hands of unstable leaders like Mahmoud Ahamadinejad. They have also been the 5 leading suppliers of conventional arms to developing countries in the last 10 years.

Why are we giving so much priority to militarism?
Is it a primal fear or a deep-rooted corporate greed and cronyism that drives this collective descent into war games and imminent global destruction.

Should ordinary folks just sit by and leave “everything in the hands of our leaders” or should we practice our democratic right to demand a voice in the running of our country and the world. Are we content to be sheeple, dumbed down by entertainment news, pornography, consumerism and everything else that feed our escapist lifestyles? Or should we speak out and show ourselves to be people who still have a conscience and a connection to common sense, compassion and brotherly love.
In 1987, when military spending had rocketed to unacceptably high levels, The UN Conference on Disarmament and
Development concluded that “the world can either continue to pursue the arms race with characteristic vigour – or move consciously and with deliberate speed towards a more stable and balanced social and economic development within a more sustainable international economic and political order; it cannot do both”.

What will it be people? The policy makers and global elites may have the money and influence to continue creating a war-driven global dynamic that sacrifices the innocent and vulnerable at the altar of greed, ego and fear. But as the common people, we have the heart, conscience and collective power to stop the madness before it goes much further. Speak out through your letters, emails, votes, gatherings and protests in every form. Time is running out.

Romance Novels And Unrealistic Expectations

With the memory of another Valentine’s Day well behind us, this is a good time to consider the possible effects that romance novels may be having on our perceptions of reality as women.

A romance novel is a literary genre rooted in the western culture of English-speaking countries. These novels place their primary focus on the romantic attraction and resulting relationship between two people, which must have an “emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.”

The basic theme is about man meeting woman. They fall in love and inevitably discord enters the picture to drive them apart. After a series of misunderstandings, love conquers all and they are reunited, with the implication of living happily ever after.
Bestselling author Nora Roberts sums up the genre, saying: “The books are about the celebration of falling in love and emotion and commitment and all of those things we really want.”

It might surprise many, but the romantic genre is big business. Over 50 million women in the United States alone read romance fiction. In North America, romance novels are the most popular genre in modern literature, comprising almost 55% of all paperback books sold in 2004. This is more than literary fiction and mystery thrillers. The genre is also popular in Europe and Australia and romance novels appear in 90 languages.

The modern romance genre first appeared in 1972 with publication of Kathleen Woodiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower, the first single-title romance novel to be published as an original paperback. The genre boomed in the two decades which followed with the “bodice rippers” novels featuring bare-chested, swashbuckling heroes and voluptuous heroines driven by the madness of uncontrollable passion. Mercifully contemporary romance novels with more realistic plots have replaced the dramatic excesses of the “ bodice rippers” most of which reflected an idealized but quaint Anglo Saxon perspective of courtship and love.
In the past ten years however, African American romances have established a firm foothold in the ever-expanding contemporary romance market with writers such as JS Hawley, Donan Hill, Brenda Jackson and Candice Poarch among hundreds of others. Hispanic and Asian romantic fiction books have also begun making significant inroads in the worldwide romance market as well.
From all indications, the romance novel is alive and doing well today among women of all backgrounds. But why do some romantic addicts fantasize about Mr Strong, Suave and Sexy – the idealized hero, who will adore her for life, even with her angst and insecurities? The answer may be found somewhere in the drabness of her everyday existence, an innate need for love and appreciation seeded in every human heart and the blurring or recasting of traditional male and female roles over time. Another factor worth considering is the possibility that many men have been emasculated by racism, poverty and the lack of strong male role models in their own lives. As a result, they are unable to fulfill the book- manufactured expectations of women who might desire a mongamous relationship with
an impossible human ideal: a psychologically balanced individual, who is a good provider, a sensitive soul and a fantastic lover all rolled into one muscle- bound hunk.

One wonders, if over exposure to these saccharine romances can cause some women to have unrealistically high expections in their romantic relationships?
Are some of us perpetual heroines, conditioned by the “bodice ripper” era, who cannot identify the different phases of love because of our dysfunctional beliefs? Do we yearn only for the heady, hormone-driven euphoria of the first phase, when the attraction is new and exciting? Are we grounded enough to understand that this cycle must inevitably end and love will change its expression during other phases of growth?

A little personal soul searching will give each woman the answers she needs.

But, if some of us are unrealistic in our romantic ideals, then what role do romantic novels play in molding our expectations? The themes of romance novels are influencing the thoughts and perceptions of millions of readers around the world making them a powerful medium.

If indeed romance novels are portraying life, lovers and love in an unrealistic way, then maybe we should take a second look at ourselves and how we impose our romance novel conditioned reality on our significant others. We may be straining our relationships in vain and placing unnecessarily heavy emotional burdens on those we claim to love.

(First appeared in The Coup Magazine dated 23/02/08)

“Fatima Bhutto – She is as beautiful as her aunt, has similar tragic appeal and orphaned like most Bhuttos as a result of political assassination.” (Jemima Khan)

Fatima Bhutto is only 25 years old but she is outspoken – some might say brash – idealistic, refreshingly honest and a rare advocate for unconditional democracy in Pakistan.
She is a western-educated writer with two books to her credit. She also writes a weekly column for Pakistan’s largest Urdu daily newspaper, Daily Jang and its English sister paper, The News International.
Fatima is the granddaughter of former Pakistani Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who was deposed in a 1977 military coup and executed two years later. She is the niece of former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto but a complex family feud rooted in broken bloodlines has kept this powerful clan divided among themselves, even after the untimely assassination of her aunt in December 2007.
Her father, Mir Murtaza Bhutto was the younger brother of Benazir Bhutto. After a 16 year absence, Murtaza returned to Pakistan in 1993 to work with Benazir who had been elected Prime Minister for the second time.
Her father had expected to assume a senior role or even leadership of Benazir’s ruling People Progressive Party in keeping with the patriarchal rights of leadership practiced by the Bhutto landlord class for many generations. Benazir, influenced by her husband, refused to cooperate and Murtaza reacted by openly criticizing Benazir’s policies. As the rift between the siblings intensified, Murtaza formed his own party which failed to attract popular support.
In 1996 he was killed by what appeared to be a carefully planned police assassination and to this day, there are still many unanswered questions about Benazir’s role in his murder. Fatima who idolized her father, still holds Benazir and her husband Zardari “morally responsible” for Murtaza’s death.
Like Benazir, Fatima’s life was molded by the brutal murder of her father and she bears a striking physical resemblance to her aunt but that is where the similarity ends. According to Fatima, “The comparisons are largely cosmetic…In terms of political ideology, what we read, how we think, we are very different. I don’t think that I am anything like her.”
Fatima had openly criticized her aunt’s final return to the political stage in Pakistan in 2007. In her newspaper column, she referred to Benazir as a “puppet democrat” fearing that her aunt’s deliberate duplicity to win public sympathy and her willingness to compromise with military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, would sabotage “an earnest grass roots movement for real democratic reform.”
She also expressed grave misgivings about the graft and corruption that tainted Benazir’s two terms in office. Benazir’s modern and US-friendly leadership style earned her favor in the outside world but many allege that she and her husband, Asif Zardari, known as “Mr 10 Percent” were responsible for stealing over one billion dollars from Pakistan’s treasury.

There have been recent suggestions that Fatima or her brother Zulfikar Ali, as offsprings of the male Bhutto line, are the real heirs to Benazir’s title. But they are unlikely successors, since Benazir’s teenage son, Bilawal, has already been anointed for that position. His father will conveniently “act on his behalf” until he is ready to assume responsibility as leader of the PPP.

Fatima claims that she is not driven by a sense of entitlement and does not subscribe to birthright politics. Unlike some other members of her family clan, she does not believe that the Bhutto name qualifies her for automatic leadership of any political party in Pakistan. She would prefer to see an end to dynastic politics and has reiterated that she is not interested in becoming Benazir’s successor.

In spite of her anti-Musharraf stand, she has refused to accept the final results of Pakistan’s recent national elections which pointed to a victory for the opposing parties, led by the PPP, with the highest number of votes. Even as Benazir’s husband , the ubiquitous Asif Zardari, prepares for a government of “national unity” with the other parties, Fatima has been critical of the PPP claiming that they committed fraud to win votes in Monday’s elections.
It seems that for now she will make her contribution to Pakistan’s politics through her writing, verbal candor and support for candidates who are genuinely committed to democratic principles and improving the lives of Pakistanis at all levels.
She is learning from experience as she invests herself with the power of an indomitable spirit and perhaps the purest form of patriotism that can be found among the offspring of the privileged classes in Pakistan.

Maybe one day, with her ideals and patriotism still intact, Fatima will stand as the beacon of light amidst the violence and corruption of her country’s bleak political landscape. Given the history and character of the self-serving opportunists who will be playing key roles in the new government of “national unity,” it is unlikely that Pakistan will have much to celebrate after the post-election euphoria is over.
But, there may still be hope for redemption in the future – her name is Fatima Bhutto.

(First published in The Coup Magazine dated 09/02/08)

This is a question I have been asking for a long time. I am not referring here women made famous or popular by virtue of their physical appearance or social status but to female achievers who broke the rules and challenged the status quo in order to raise our collective awareness or improve our standard of living at some level.

We are familiar with the token few like Indira Gandhi and Rosa Parks who have made the male-dominated honours list over the years and we respect and admire them for their courage and achievements. But where are the thousands of others who have beaten the societal odds stacked against their success? It would appear as if they have been forgotten or relegated to the shadows of obscurity while their places are taken by usurpers like spiritually-duped female suicide bombers, the fashionistas or misguided femme fatales of entertainment, desperate to be cast as an object of desire in a male fantasy world.

Is this the face of “self-realized or idealized” womanhood that is being continually projected to women around the world? If these are the exemplars who are favoured or fawned over by the media, then the face of womanhood that is projected to the world is disfigured and incomplete.

I am not denying the right of any woman to have her moments glory in the limelight. The unfolding story of womanhood must be told with all its characters and each woman’s role is significant in our collective evolution.

However, an increasing number of women are breaking through the glass ceiling to find places as decision makers at the highest levels of business, formal education, science, technology, entertainment, community development and government. Yet, the females who are most frequently highlighted in the popular media are those who shock or titillate us with their sexuality or erratic behaviour rather than the ones who inspire, uplift and educate us as a society.
It is almost becoming a media-manufactured reality devoid of balancing elements to make the picture complete. My research has uncovered thousands of female achievers past and present, whose notable and sometimes awesome accomplishments have been underreported or overlooked over the years in favour of the “It Girls” or preferably “The Bad Girls” whose tabloid-worthy antics are now being headlined in the so-called respectable media with alarming frequency.
One such woman whose accomplishments fascinate me is Dr Alonda Oubr, a medical anthropologist, writer, and research consultant. Over the past twenty years she has worked relentlessly to bridge the gap between orthodox modern medicine and complementary alternative healing practices. She is one of the few African American scientists trained in ethnopharmacology, defined as the study of medicinal plants and other natural substances for pharmaceutical use.
During the 1970’s, she studied traditional Chinese, African, Native American and Hawaiian herbal medicines with a goal to integrate these non-Western healing methods into traditional Western medicine. In 1992, she joined Shaman Pharmaceutical as a staff scientist, becoming perhaps the first full-time medical anthropologist for a pharmaceutical company. Her studies in physical anthropology and human evolution have added new dimensions to the complex subject of race and race relations.
Why haven’t we seen or heard more about her or her invaluable work?

Much has been written about the Bollywood beauties in the international media but the world knows very little if anything at all about Sarojini Naidu, who defied caste and gender discrimination in colonial India to fight for the emancipation of women and welfare of impoverished Indians. She spoke five languages and excelled at universities in India and England. In 1925, she was elected as the President of the Congress, the first Indian woman to hold the post. She was an ardent patriot and an outspoken critic of British rule in India and colonial exploitation elsewhere in the world.
Naidu visited New York in 1928 and expressed outrage at the unjust treatment of African Americans and Native American Indians. In 1930 after returning to India she was arrested for her radical, anti-colonial stand and she along with the great Mohandas Gandhi spent several months in jail. In 1942, she was arrested again on orders from the British authorities during the “Quit India” protest and spent 21 months in jail with Gandhi. In 1947 India became independent and she was appointed Governor of Uttar Pradesh. She died two years later with the honour of being the country’s first woman governor.
What about Abay, a young woman from Ethiopia’s Muslim Afar tribe. The Afar “circumcise” all their girls by the time they are 12, a practice they claim to be ordained by Islam. Abay refused to accept this practice fled her village at the age of 10 to live with her godfather in Addis Ababa.
Eight years later she returned to her tribal community as an outreach worker for a humanitarian organisation and decided to campaign for the end of female genital cutting. She was threatened by men of the tribe who accused her of attempting to destroy their culture. Abay however, did her research and showed them it was never written in the Koran that girls must be circumcised. Using graphic footage of the painful ritual, she single-handedly convinced the all-male village elders to end female genital cutting in the village. Now she is working hand in hand with others to end the practice in neighbouring Afar villages.
Not too many women outside of India know the real story about Shahnaz Husain, chairwoman of Husain’s Herbals, who was married off at 15 years of age and became a mother one year later. She started her business from humble beginnings at her home in New Delhi using knowledge her grandfather taught her about ayurveda. This is an ancient Indian system of herbal healing involving the use of herbs for medicinal as well as cosmetic use. These traditional products have been used in in most Indian homes for hundreds of years but Husain was the first entrepreneur to recognize the immense marketable potential of ayurveda remedies. After several years of challenges and hard work, Husain’s determination paid off and today she ranks among the top twenty billionaires in India.

These are the stories of four amazing women randomly plucked from the thousands waiting to be told or retold in a jaded, wounded world desperately in need of genuine feminine softness and strength. Unfortunately, this very real face of womanhood is being denied widespread and consistent expression in today’s popular media.
I felt goose pimples on my skin as I read about these women. It made me realize that with the right inspiration and some psychological support a woman can transform her circumstances, her community and by extension her world. It is in her DNA; she is genetically predisposed to creating, nurturing, inspiring and healing. But too often she stands alone against her difficult circumstances and the siege of negative stereotyping all around her. She must be reminded of her her worth and potential and it can begin with more stories describing women of substance and their journeys to self-realization.

HEADLINE: WHO WILL SAVE SUHARTO’S SOUL?

(This article first appeared in The Coup Magazine dated 02/02/08)

Former Indonesian President Suharto passed on today Sunday January 27th, 2008 at the ripe old age of 86 years. He had earned himself the unenviable reputation of being among the most corrupt and barbarous dictators of the 20th century.
He had scant regard for human rights and inflicted his authoritarian laws with the heavy presence of iron-fisted soldiers in every village of the 6000 islands which make up Indonesia.
Suharto’s graft-ridden reign of terror lasted 32 years until he was forced from power in 1998 by mass public uprisings. Observers claim that during his repressive regime, over a million political opponents were killed in this Southeast Asian nation of 235 million people.
It is interesting to note that during his communist-routing days he was actually considered to be a very close ally of the US government and the blue -eyed boy of other western democracies with their eyes on Indonesia’s wealth.
Unfortunately, Suharto’s early idealism mutated into malignant narcissism and a profound contempt for his own people not long after he claimed absolute power in 1965. With all the pretensions of the nouveau riche, he distanced himself emotionally from the pain and suffering of others, although professing to be a devout believer in God.

As an authoritarian leader, he shared the blood splattered spotlight with the likes of Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, Than Shwe of Burma, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe, Mobutu Sese Seko, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosovic, Joseph Stalin and the sometimes overlooked duo of King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The list of 20th century dictators would not be complete without a dishonourable mention of Saparmurad Niyazov of Turkmenistan, Charles Taylor of Liberia, Teodoro Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, Kim Jong II of North Korea and Pol Pot of Cambodia, whose despotic government oversaw the imprisonment, torture, exile and murder of 20% of the country’s 2 million population.
For economic advice Suharto depended on a group of American-educated economists, nicknamed the “ Berkeley Mafia” to set policy. On their recommendations, he passed a number of reforms designed to promote Indonesia as a center of foreign investment. He sought to privatise Indonesia’s resources and encouraged the industrial nations to invest there through favourable labour laws and tax incentives.
His efforts at development however were sabotaged by members of the military and his Golkar Party who used their positions as intermediaries between businesses and the government to embezzle companies and accept massive kickbacks in the name of Suharto and his foundations.
The final verdict is that he mismanaged the country’s abundant natural resources. According to Jeffrey Winters, associate professor of political economy at Northwestern University, Suharto’s cronyism and graft effectively robbed “Indonesia of some of the most golden decades, and its best opportunity to move from a poor to a middle class country.”
Many of us do not possess the cognitive ability to begin processing the true nature of the inner evil which prompt the genocide, material greed, torture, ethnic cleansing and societal rape that defined the brutal regime of Suharto.
The world is yet to agree on what might be responsible for creating this kind of human monster. Some argue that it may be the power-driven ego in overdrive, others claim it is a kind of dementia rooted in the influence of dark, sinister forces beyond our comprehension. The jury is still out on that one but dictators appear have certain characteristics in common.
First of all they sanction the merciless killing of men, women and children using warped ideology to justify their brutality. They are also notorious for torture in every form and for denying their people the right to free and fair elections.
Under their regimes, there is usually a systematic attempt to dehumanize women through rape and other forms of violence.
They amass incredible wealth for themselves and their sycophantic inner circle while keeping the majority of their people in poverty.
There is no way to quantify the depth and breadth human misery that can be attributed to Suharto or any of the tyrants referenced above. The bestial acts they perpetrate against other human beings are unimaginable and some might even say unforgivable.
And yet, as I watched his eldest daughter, Tutut weep for her father as she bid him farewell, I felt my anger transform itself gently into sisterly empathy. In the oneness of Spirit I resonated her her sense of loss at the level of my heart.
I remembered that in the bigger picture of life, it is not up to me, a mere mortal, to judge others.
I can only hope that there is life for Suharto when death is over. I pray that there is healing for all concerned. May he find some kind of redemption at the level of the soul and may his victims be among the first to forgive his transgressions.

Controversial financial adviser Robert Kiyosaki in a recent newsletter, has bemoaned what he perceives as the financial illiteracy of some financial journalists.
“I sometimes wonder about the intelligence of many financial journalists, both in print and the electronic media…The problem with much of the financial news in print and on the web, radio, and television is that it comes from journalists who may not be investors. When I listen to most journalists whine and cry about the subprime mess, the slowdown in the economy, and the volatile stock market, I can all but tell that they’re not really investors.”

I am inclined to agree with Kiyosaki who has made millions by going against conventional financial thinking strategies.
My pronouncement has come in the light of overly-sensational newsclips by American and foreign correspondents which are being splashed around the world as forecasts of a global recession projected as the inevitable outcome of America’s economic woes. In spite of their strong continually expanding economies Asian, European and South American markets are now dipping to levels lower than those experienced in the post -911 tragedy largely as a result of poorly researched, media-generated hysteria. News stories are liberally sprinkled with phrases like “worldwide recession”,“bear market” and “crash” and “global market meltdown”.

Could this be a manifestation of the current media malady that chooses cheap sensationalism, and careless generalizations and over well-researched truthful and balanced reporting?
The irony of it all is that US economists, fund managers and financial experts are yet to reach an empirical consensus that the US is slipping into recession. The myriad views being expressed are based on opinion and intuition rather than fact and figures.
I am aware of the sub prime debacle and the ensuing credit crunch in the US. I am also aware that the Federal Reserve has been slashing the federal fund rate on a regular basis and President Bush has announced a 145 billion dollar stimulus plan to regenerate the US economy but no respected authority figure has been clear about the motives for these measures. Are they intended to stave off the possibility of a recession or is the US already into a recession cycle?

Ken Fisher, CEO of Fisher Investments and Forbes columnist describes a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real Gross Domestic Production (GDP), real income, employment, industrial production and wholesale and retail prices.”
I am seriously asking myself if some of these financial journalists are even able to define the term “recession” precisely or understand the basic dynamics of economic growth and development.

How many of these financial reporters have done in depth comparative research on GDP statistics in the US or the emerging markets to make such far reaching prognostications about a worldwide recession? Very few would be my guess. Instead they appear to rely on man-in-street hearsay, expert quips taken out of context and the avalanche of speculation and wishful thinking that is acceptable as responsible reporting today.

Investors across the globe, with herd-like docility are panicking and selling off shares en masse to avoid being caught up in the perceived “oncoming global recession.” This artificially stimulated fear reaction is inevitable because consumers are media-conditioned beings whose thought patterns and behaviour are shaped and controlled by hundreds of multi-media clips every few hours. To compound matters, they also trade on emotion and the financial media is having a field day promulgating fear and worldwide recession because it makes for a “good” story almost in line with the gleeful frenzy behind a juicy Hollywood scandal.
It would seem therefore that general public consciousness about the health of global economies is moulded by a plethora of sensationalized, and largely under-unresearched news breaking stories across the media repeated with parrot-like frequency every few minutes.
This is difficult for me to compute at any level.

I am no expert on bourses and world economies but I took the time to educate myself on the reality basic market dynamics. As a small investor, a self-taught woman who took many years to move beyond the safety of 2% per annum fixed deposits and into the high risk world of offshore equity investing I am aware of my nondescript, almost plebeian status within the world of high finance.
Yet, I am audacious enough to ask question and make observations based on my research. There is no real credit crisis in emerging markets. On the contrary, American financial institutions mired in the sub prime mess are being bailed out by Middle Eastern and Asian corporations with an eye on long term benefits. To this, we should factor in a rapidly growing demand from an affluent Asian middle class reality and the fact that with the exception of Japan, emerging markets in the East, sell 43% of their products to non-American markets. An American recession would no doubt result in lowering the demand for products from around the world and slightly smaller returns from equity investments in the BRIC countries, but given the strength and resiliency of these emerging markets, this is hardly likely to lead to a global recession.
I am appalled by the media’s sieve -like perceptions of the current economic situation around the world and irresponsible reporting which is exacerbating a situation that really does not contain the fundamentals to become an international crisis Yet, I am more puzzled that no international high profile economic or government expert has taken the collective media to task for this level of irresponsibility. This type of journalism is inflicting unnecessary and incalculable damage to the American and global markets. The legendary Warren Buffett has always said that it is very important for society to have accurate and informed sources of information and he is correct. The repercussions of unreliable financial reporting is today having dangerous and unnecessary repercussions everywhere and media houses must invest more resources in proper economic research or lose their claim to credibility in the eyes of the world.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
( Bob Dylan-1962)

Bob Dylan’s masterpiece protest song has always been among my favourites, even in its many incarnations around the world. This evening the lyrics came quietly to me as I contemplated a snapshot of today’s screaming media headlines: ISRAEL AIR STRIKE ON GAZA; DOZENS DIE IN IRAQ CULT CLASHES; BELGIANS KILLED IN YEMEN ATTACK; KENYA PROTESTS CLAIM 5 MORE LIVES; ETHIOPIA HOLDS “MANY WESTERNERS” and “THIRTEEN CONVICTED IN INDIA RIOT”. There were many more but I was too shellshocked to delve much further. It is not that I have not seen similar headlines over the years- it is just that today something in me shut down emotionally and refused to click into the usual mode of assimilating and understanding the desperation and repressed rage that ignite these events around the world.

For one fleeting minute, my somber appraisal of the human condition led me past the conveniently simplistic existentialist explanation and into a contemplation of a larger, cosmic evil as proposed by the Christian and Islamic fundamentalists. Maybe man is really a puppet being controlled by negative elements through his subconscious mind. For a few seconds it seemed to make sense.
But I did not dwell there very long; my soul felt violated by the abrasiveness of thinking.
I laid down my sword of prose for a while and went within the silence of myself. I could not be the self-righteous blogger writing up a storm of protest against man’s inhumanity to man or wax satirical about our slow descent into barbarism.
My spirit was tired and I felt hopeless. Maybe the gentle, peace-inspired poet I buried years ago in my subconscious is being reborn to take the place of the battle-worn scribe, the voice in the wilderness no one wants to hear anymore.
My realisation over the years is that very few people really care about this world or the downtrodden anymore. They are too busy trying to survive in a very scary world.
Today that realization finally hit home like a hammer on a flitting, sky blue butterfly. Now I am all cried out. My inner self searches for quiet detachment amidst the rubble of the futile quest for peace and justice for all. There is nothing left to say. I want to ask a thousand questions starting with “Why….” but there are no answers to be found anywhere…just collective fear and weariness woven into the age-old drama we call life.
Tomorrow I’ll be back on the road again throwing words at the wind. Tonight I need to listen to the silence in me.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it’s washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they’re allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,
The answer is blowin’ in the wind….

We have just witnessed the
Change of power from one fool
And liar to another
Our lives on the line again
She had lived through the wars
She didn’ t wanna go through it all again
She has seen injustice
She has seen corruption
She has seen racism
And any other kind of suffering
You can think about
Then she said to me
Son, Is this the end of suffering?
Is this freedom? (Lucky Dube)

The bloody aftermath of Kenya’s December 27 presidential elections is now another blot on the history of the troubled African continent . Tainted with accusations of fraud and vote rigging, the disputed Kenyan election has triggered off a wave of deadly riots, arson, murder and looting. As of today, January 5th, 2008, over 180 000 people have been displaced and 350 people were declared dead. Dozens of children have died of exposure.
The unrest has taken on ethnic overtones, with other tribes armed with machetes now pitted against the president’s Kikuyu people.
Kenyan politics has been marked by ethnic tensions since independence in 1963.
The country has a population of 34.5 million, comprising of more than 40 ethnic groups and Mr Kibaki depends for support on the largest ethnic group, the Kikuyus, while the western Luo and Kalenjin groups – who seek greater autonomy – back Mr Odinga.

Food shortages have led to drastic price increases and thousands have gone days without food in the slums of Nairobi. One resident in an email has claimed that “it is a lot worse than is being reported in the international press.”

The widespread violence comes as a major setback for a country that began its uncertain walk to to democracy in 2002.
International observers described the elections as “deeply flawed” in the former British colony.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner expressed the view that the polls “were totally rigged,” and Attorney General, Amos Wako, a close friend of Kabiki, has called for an independent investigation of the vote counting procedure. The parties involved are now seeking a power-sharing agreement between the country’s incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, and opposition leader, Raila Odinga.
Kibaki has indicated that he is ready to form “a government of national unity”.

Odinga however, appears to favour a new election rather than power sharing or national unity and according to his spokesman, Salim Lone, he is not willing to share power. He has called for a transitional government in preparation for a new presidential election.
In parliamentary balloting, Odinga’s party won 95 of 122 legislative seats and half of Kibaki’s Cabinet lost their seats, meaning that Kibaki cannot govern Kenya without opposition cooperation.
Other neighbouring countries are feeling the fallout with shiploads of goods destined for Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Congo waiting to unload at the Kenyan port of Mombasa, the gateway to eastern Africa.

Once more, we have another leader who flirted with democracy for a while but alas, now shows the world that it was just an infatuation. Like any closet dictator, a keenly contested election quickly brought Kibaki to realization that he loves power more than honesty, fair play and democracy. He basked in the glory of being a trusted US ally in its war against terrorism and was proud to usher in a period of peace as Kenya came to be regarded as a pillar of stability amidst the strife-torn countries of East Africa. But when the good times were over, his tenuous commitment to democracy snapped very quickly. In the face of a popular opposition leader and a country that is looking at its political options with critical eyes, Kibaki seems ready to part ways with democracy.

To his credit, Kibaki has indicated his willingness to participate in a unity government. Chances are he may have calculated that this announcement would placate Britain and other world leaders, while being well aware that the truculence of Odinga would render such a compromise as impossible.
It is a familiar story in Africa and some parts of Asia, and this is the ground where the seeds of dictatorship and decades-long ethnic conflicts are sowed. Leaders like Kibaki and Odinga in ethnically volatile countries must accept that with power comes responsibility. They must be willing to take a long term vision of their country’s future without factoring in their own greed, power lust and ego as the primary driving forces. But this may be too much to ask of these third world leaders. They both appear to be among those inflexible and self-serving leaders who are willing to sacrifice the innocent while picking the bones and resources of their people, long violated and exploited by colonial powers like Britain and France.
From the depth of Kibaki’s culture and repressed mind, there seems to be emerging the demonic shadow that has haunted the history of Africa for too long – the old time dictator with a lust for blood, a lifetime in power and coffers of money in foreign bank accounts to enrich his family, 30 generations down the road. Let us hope that I am wrong. Let us pray that Kenyans will be spared the savagery of that familiar demon in disguise, the scourge of every emotionally wounded and war-weary African longing for redemption and a chance for peace and social progress.