Day 120: Europe Not Impressed with EU Nobel Peace Prize

Every year the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the person/group that has done the most in terms of promoting peace and harmony among states. Last year it was awarded to Barak Obama, this year the award went out to.................

The European Union!

What used to be a prestigious and honourable prize, has now become a complete mocking stick, to the point where Europeans themselves think of it as a big joke.

The award went out to the EU for the role it played so many decades ago - but awarding it today is completely out of context, since the European states are experiencing extreme  tensions and conflict.

Here is what the EU recently has achieved in terms of promoting peace and harmony...

"It is debatable whether the EU contributed to peace from 1945 to 1990: the Cold War, the nuclear balance and mutual assured destruction were surely more decisive. The EU contributed nothing to the drawing back of the Iron Curtain or the reunification of Germany, and has unfinished business in Bosnia and Kosovo. Turkey's membership application has been stalled for decades. It has tamely endorsed the American line on Iranian sanctions and was initially on the wrong side of the Arab Spring.

With two nuclear weapon states, it has never taken any lead in disarmament, and some member states have played a far from pacific role in the world. EU protectionism has been hurtful to deve-loping countries. It could have never won any prize for internal democracy; it toppled elected prime ministers in Italy and Greece, and shrinks from referen-ces to the voting public. Ironically, its current president is Cyprus, which has endured conflict and partition for nearly four decades.

The originally well-intentioned eurozone has divided Europe's north from south, and is associated with pain, the blame game and outside interference through the instrumentality of the union. The rich northern economies, led by Germany, are hesitant in aiding the southern members financially strangled by public debt and draconian austerity measures that are creating a backlash in the name of democratic accountability and the resurgence of nationalism."

...Indeed, absolutely NOTHING.

Source: K. Srinivasan, 2012. Award with an agenda: The Nobel peace prize for EU is more about bolstering the European experiment than peace,
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-10-17/edit-page/34500354_1_nobel-peace-prize-european-union-franco-german-axi, consulted 18/10/2012

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119: The Yes Men

The Yes Men, a movie, follows a couple of anti-corporate activist-pranksters as they impersonate World Trade Organization spokesmen on TV and at business conferences around the world.

The story follows Andy and Mike from their beginnings with GWBush.com, and on to their tasteless parody of the WTO's website. Some visitors don’t notice the site is a fake, and send speaking invitations meant for the real WTO. Mike and Andy play along with the ruse and soon find themselves attending important functions as WTO representatives.
Delighted to speak for the organization they oppose, Andy and Mike don thrift-store suits and set out to shock their unwitting audiences with darkly comic satires on global free trade. Weirdly, the experts don’t notice the joke and seem to agree with every terrible idea the two can come up with.
Exhausted by their failed attempts to shock, Mike and Andy take a whole new approach for one final lecture.
The Yes Men is directed by Dan Olman, Sarah Price, and Chris Smith, whose previous credits include the 1999 Sundance Winner “American Movie.” It was released by United Artists. -  From http://theyesmen.org/movies/theyesmen

This is a documentary I watched today, which was quite interesting, funny and sad at the same time.

Within the documentary they show how these two guys go around to conferences and TV interviews, pretending to be representatives of the WTO. Within these interviews/conferences, they assume the opinion of the WTO, which is pro trade liberalization and so will always defend/protect the WTO as if they really are part of it. What they however do, is take these points to quite an extreme where they propose new policies which are quite ludicrous, but in a way do very closely resemble how the WTO works/operates -- it's just more emphasized.

So in the documentary for instance, they show how they go to a conference in Finland to talk about 'The Future of Textiles'. For this conference, they created this golden tight costume, which has got an inflatable penis attached to it, with a screen on the head of the penis. In this conference where lots of educated people are sitting, they showcased the suit on how managers can overcome the obstacle of work and monitoring their workers in Third World Countries while at the same time enjoying leisure time. So here, the suit is set up with monitoring devices and sensors, where the manager can keep an eye on the slave workers in Third World Countries and send them shocks to implants in their shoulders -- all from the suit.

At the conference, the guy who is doing the presentation is wearing the costume underneath his suit, and after his 'assistant' rips his suit off and the costume is revealed, he does a presentation of the suit along with showing an animation clip with all the benefits of this amazing suit. So this is one of the funny parts, because here's apparently a guy from the WTO, which is considered to be one of the representative points of capitalism and our current economic system -- walking around in this conference in a penis suit.

One of the sad parts however, is that they've been in this game for quite a while, and previously when they did this type of gigs, they were already going a bit 'over the top' but no-one seemed to notice that they were pulling a joke. They expected people to immediately find out what they were doing and get thrown out, but instead everyone received their message very well and encouraged what they are saying. So that's pretty scary -- where simply because the WTO represents that point of 'authority' -- people will simply accept whatever they say and support it, within believing that it's the right thing to do without being critical in anyway whatsoever.

So now with this penis suit, they thought it was going to be quite clear and they were pulling off a joke, and that they were going to be thrown out -- and as I was watching the moment in suspense, I was completely flabbergasted by the level of apathy in the audience and how they were not at all questioned or thrown out.

Some of the things you see in the documentary, where they do their speeches, are really quite disturbing and completely 'off of this world' and the complete zombie-ness of the audience/participators is just....scary.

I definitely recommend watching this documentary, as it clearly shows how our so called 'educational elite' is completely clueless as to what to do with this world, and are just brainwashed zombies who will accept anything 'society' throws at them from if they perceive them as an 'authority' -- even if what they throw at them goes beyond any form of reason and is completely ridiculous. It also shows the extent of the human problem and how much work there is to be done in terms of re-educating human beings and supporting them to for the first time become being with actual common sense and integrity. Because right now, humanity's really a joke -- and a bad one at that.

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Day 118: Drop in Agricultural Farmland Threatens South African Food Security

The Agricultural sector in South Africa is suffering extensively.

Over the past 16 years, 20 000 agricultural farms have ceased production and is set to fall from 40 000 to 15 000 over the next 15 years

Why?

A number of reasons are given, being: farmers are no longer being subsidised for labourers' housing or farm schools, uncertainty about water usage rights, poor disease control, government incompetence and policies lacking the incentives for job creation.

But the main reason that is raised is the issue of land reforms. As part of South Africa's land reform policy as an attempt to correct the evictions that took place during the Apartheid regime, claims can be made to certain sites of land on the grounds that it is part of ancestral heritage. "A new law that has focused attention on land issues will allow the government to expropriate land for restitution where negotiations on a “willing buyer, willing seller” basis fail (Thomson, A.)."

The title deeds of the property, after it having been expropriated by the governments are then given to the claimants who then own the farm.

Why is this a problem? Very simplistically: many effective and efficient commercial farmers lose their land to another that is not necessarily a farmer - and in most cases, isn't. There are only very few examples of claimed farms that are actually being maintained or improved after the transfer. In most cases, the new owners will attempt to make as much profit from what the farm currently has to offer, but lack the desire or experience to actually manage and run the farm effectively over a long-term period in such a way that the farm contributes to the feeding of the South African population.

A simple example is a farm that was full of fruit trees, where instead of continuing to produce and sell the fruit - the new owners simply cut down all the trees and sold them for firewood, after which they didn't see any more value in the property and simply left - still holding the title deeds to the farm. The farm was the previous owner's life work and he saw it being destroyed in a matter of months.

Imagine the amount of agricultural farms dropping from 60 000 to 15 000 over a period of 30 years and then consider the implications this has on South Africa's food security!

The problem is not only that well-operating farms are being turned into wastelands after them being claimed - the simple possibity of one's farm being expropriated understandably creates extensive reluctance in farmers to invest in their farms and expand them, as there is no certainty that they will still own the farm in 1 or 2 years. So, not only a massive amount of farms that took years to be established are lost, but the remaining farms are not expanding their production capabilities to make up for the loss in numbers.

It should be understood that the past is the past, and yes, many mistakes were made. But to try and fix the mistakes of the past in the present is simply another big mistake if it means endangering the South African agricultural economy, which will affect everyone - whether one's ancestors had been evicted several decades ago or not.

In the name of 'doing good' and 'making good gestures' an ideological way, the practicality of the matter has been completely overlooked and the practical consequences are starting to rear their heads.

This is only considering one dimension of the problem. Consider the farmers losing their land - what is a farmer to do without a farm? Farming is a holistic profession and a life-long dedication - farmers generally do not possess the skills for other jobs, they simply excel at being a farmer - when this option has been stripped for them, what can they make of their life? And furthermore - why are they to pay for mistakes they didn't necessarily partake in, but happened many years ago?

We cannot correct the problems of the present by attempting to re-set time through land reform policies, there is simply no point to it. The reality of today's problems must be considered within today's context - in order to ensure the best solutions for the future.

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Day 117: The Apple doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree - Part 2

I commit myself to show that the world will only change by example – where those with the necessary means have to walk the example within responsible for other to see, realise and understand that it is in fact possible to create a world of responsibility, sustainability and actual care for one another

I commit myself to show that wanting to have another to change their ways without changing one’s own is completely ineffective and as such one should first investigate where self is not yet standing completely effective so that one can stand as the living examples where one expects nothing less than from what is expected from self

I commit myself to show that the world hasn’t changed in anyway whatsoever for the better, but only ever for the worse and within that I commit myself to in fact change the world for the better within taking responsibility for the mess we created and putting into a place of actual support as the Equal Money System

I commit myself to show that due to the inherent global nature of our economic system, everyone is responsible for anything happening anywhere in the world and so to enforce change will always start with self first – and so it is not to point fingers at other countries but to investigate how one is contributing to the problem and sort oneself out to live as an example

I commit myself to show that it is not okay to simply ‘walk away’ from an abusive past such as enslaving and colonising other people/countries and then getting them indebted in order to sort out the mess that we’ve created – it is time to take responsibility – not to push people/countries/nations down – but to assist and support them unconditionally, without expecting any form of financial gain

I commit myself to show that the Equal Money System is the only valid solution for a world as fucked as ours – to for a moment assist and support us in changing our ways until we no longer have to dependent on a system to guide us – but in fact live the solution as ourselves in every way

www.EqualMoney.org
http://www.facebook.com/groups/capitalism.vs.equalmoney/

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Day 116: The Apple doesn’t Fall Far from the Tree

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see, realise and understand – that judging the third world for their ‘corrupt’ and ‘inefficient’ ways – is totally hypocritical, since they are like a child, whose tendencies are the result of their upbringing by the parent – where the child will merely copy the parents behaviour and perpetuate it even more – and thus it should be of no surprise that the Third World is acting the way it is in the socio-political economic arena, as they are merely acting out what has been unto them as the years of direct exploitation by the West

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that forcing a country into a particular way of doing things, while it was taught over the years to do otherwise – is not effective

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the Third World will never act in a responsible way, as long as we do not acknowledge our own responsibility within the creation of the Third World as it exists today – where we accepted and allowed ourselves to create a fuck – and where instead of taking responsibility for our fuck-up, we’ve merely specified and perfected our ways of exploitation and abuse within sophisticated trade mechanisms – and so as long as the parent remains an abusive fuck, the child will not know any better

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that the Third World is a direct reflection of the First World as the First World was in the position of being the parent of the Third World within taking in the point of governance – where the Third World is just copying how governance was done before them = in completely corruption and self-interest

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that as long as we do not change our ways and remain self-interested and exploitative to others – they will never take us seriously, as we are clearly being hypocritical within demanding of them to be responsible and respect human rights, while we blatantly disregard them – of which they are the direct result

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that if you go and steal everything from someone and them leave them with everything within their grasp, that it is no surprise that they will take what they can and hold on to it no matter what out of fear of ending up with nothing again – as is currently the case in the Third World

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that our ways haven’t changed – but that we’ve merely overcomplicated and sophisticated our ways to such an extent that we actually believe ourselves to be benevolent – where our intricate ways cover up our inherent malevolence

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Day 115: Like Father, Like Son

 I’ve been doing some reading on the political development of countries post-independence. What is interesting is that the West is very much into getting these ‘less developed countries’ to a democratic state of affairs, but it just doesn’t seem to want to work. While I was reading, the point opened up that in essence the West was like a ‘Parent’, which imposed their ways unto these countries as a ‘child’ and where these countries simply observed how things were being done and how things could be done.

So is it really a surprise that there is so much corruption, dictatorship, war, disregard for human rights in these Third World Countries? I mean, all they are doing is copying the parent as those who were governing before them, which was the West. What they saw was corruption, exploitation, abuse, war, death, violence, disregard for human rights – all for the sake of self-interest as making a quick buck at the expense of many.

So what is going on in these countries as the corruption, exploitation and general disregard for Life – is merely a reflection of patterns patterned in by the parents. So, can you really blame these countries for acting the way they do? For not having a democracy? For having military rule? All they ever saw was people coming in and with force as violence and coercion, take the resources from them for their own benefit, and saw how easy it was to get what you want as wealth, if you use force and corruption. So then when the West left, all they did was copy what was done to get what they want. I mean, for a long time they were living in misery and poverty, and now they suddenly had a chance to get the abundant lifestyle their oppressors had. Once they had the power, wealth and influence they were so long deprived of – they were afraid of going back to life of poverty and misery – and so they did everything they could to remain in power.


What is going on in the World and the things we don’t like to see and talk about, as all those apparent ‘negative things’ which make us feel down – like poverty, starvation, misery, child soldiers, corruption, abuse – are really the direct consequence of who we have accepted and allowed ourselves to become, where our actions as self-interest have created a little monster that we can’t seem to stop – yet this little monster is us, just a more direct, obvious version. All we’ve done as the West is “civilianised”’ our exploitative ways, where we refined them and make them look so sophisticated, intelligent and complex – so that at first sight, it looks like we’re doing some cool shit – but once you look behind the curtain as the sophisticated charade – we are still doing the exact same thing we’ve been doing for centuries = abusing other for our own ends.


It is time to take self-responsibility and wake up from the illusion that we are good, civilised people – the amount of suffering in the world as never been this high through the whole of history, this again just shows our process of evilution. It’s time to stop and clean up the mess we’ve all created – check out EqualMoney.org and see how we can be a responsible, sustainable society that Respects all Life

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Day 114: The World is Our Legacy

I commit myself to refute the idea and perception that controlling/ruling/dominating another/others is a sign of power, prestige and superiority and something to be proud of.

I commit myself to stop limiting responsibility to stop my involvement/participation within a certain situation at a point where I feel satisfied, without considering all participants of the situation and whether or not I have taken complete responsibility as a participation of the creation of this situation.

I commit myself to take a good look at our countries, our world, ourselves to see what we have created, where it has become acceptable to fuck people up and then toss them to the side under the guise of empowering them to be independent - and I commit myself to work towards the correction of human behaviour so that such acts are no longer tolerated and categorised under 'normality' - but seen as what they as crimes against life - so that we no longer require to live in fear of one another of how another may disadvantage me and therefore, have to do it unto them first.

I commit myself to rid myself of all taboos - where no topic is off limits and all cards are on the table - so that, in our words, we can see ourselves and address ourselves - not allowing any points of dishonesty to be hidden in silence/forgetfulness/ignorant bliss - so that we may learn what it means to be responsible beings who are accountable for their thoughts, words and deeds.

I commit myself to stop all forms of abuse for personal gain - whether it be through direct or indirect, economic, political or military means - as it is unacceptable to treat another in a way we wouldn't want to be treated and if such tendencies come up - it is a flagpoint that there exists a perception that 'this is the only way' and therefore, I commit myself in that moment to pursue an approach of working out a solution that benefits everyone involved.

I commit myself to be open about the mistakes I have made - both towards myself and others, so that both myself and others can learn from my mistakes and I commit myself to educate future generations on the mistakes of the current and previous generations so that responsibility can be taken to stop the sins of the fathers of perpetuating the same mistakes over and over again - but instead stand up for what needs to be done to create a better world for everyone.

I commit myself to take full responsibility for my thoughts, words and deeds so that I can be certain that my change is real and not a mere pretense towards bettering myself and thus, bettering the world.

I commit myself to take full responsibility for the world so that when I have children I can look them in the eye without regret, without shame - because I have done all I can to correct the mistakes of this and previous generations and lowered the burden on the next one - so that, over time, as each generation stands in openness and responsibility of their mistakes - we can take them on one by one - and so, generation after generation, slowly but surely create a better world for all equally as one.

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Day 113: Responsibility for Colonial Past

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to view having colonies as a symbol of power and prestige.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to view having colonies as a symbol of superiority of being able to control and subject an entire nation/country to my will, culture and ruling.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe it is something to be proud of if you live in a country that has colonies, like that makes you a greater person somehow.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to question Belgium's role as a colonial ruler as well as its responsibility it had/has after the colony of Congo became independent - just thinking that after the declaration of independence, we had reached a happy ending, and thus - our job is done - because we are happy, we are satisfied, not considering all the parties involved.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that there is something seriously wrong with our country, our world and ourselves if we cannot look our children in the eye and openly share about our country's history because we know we are responsible for the suffering of millions through first stripping them of everything they ever knew in colonising them and then leaving without facilitating an effective transitional and support system to be implemented - like cutting off someone's legs and then expecting them to start walking.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to keep quiet about the topic of Congo, harbouring it as a taboo within myself, because I believe that if I don't speak of it, don't think about it, then it doesn't affect me and it allows me to live in ignorant bliss.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use countless excuses of why we shouldn't support Congo after independence, when actually we just think of the country as a burden that we have nothing to gain from anymore - since we can achieve the same goals through purely economic means as developing countries are being drawn into the globalisation process where resources are pulled away from them without having to give proper repayment, as they don't have the financial power to demand to be respected and treated as equals.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to claim to be working towards a better world when we are too ashamed of who we are and what we have done as a people, a nation, to educate the next generations about ti so that the young generations can learn from past mistakes.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to claim to be working towards a better world while deliberately abdicating responsibility for the harm we have done unto other people, pretending that we can create a better world without requiring to take responsibility for our thoughts, words and deeds.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to claim to be working towards a better world while we are too ashamed to admit to our own mistakes and within this, place shame above what needs to be done in consideration of what is best for all - and thus, I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in an absolute act of self-interest.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to claim to be working towards a better world while we cannot look our children in the eye and speak straightforwardly about the world we created for them as it is a legacy of problems that we are leaving to our children to sort out.

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Day 112: Shame for Colonialist Past

I grew up in Belgium and was taught in school how King Leopold II of Belgium had colonised Congo during his rule. I remember that during the lesson they explained what colonising means and they were summing up which country had which colonies during that time. They first went through all the other countries and eventually said: "And Belgium also had one colony: Congo". And it was said as though it was something to be proud of - like 'we also owned another country'.

Other than that we were taught that in 1960 Congo became independent and stopped being a Belgian colony - and that was apparently all there was to say about it.

Now - while doing research on African politics, I've become aware of the absolute absolute chaos ruling Congo after independence.

When my sister was taught about Congo as Belgium's colony in school, she asked her teacher to tell her more about it and the teacher just stood there, not responding. She's not sure if this is because she simply didn't know or if she was just too ashamed to tell an inquiring child of Belgium's heritage.

The shame of abdicating responsibility within the problems that were created in Congo as a consequence of colonialism has led to the concealing of information in relation to it, where children in school are not informed of what Belgium had done and what it hadn't done in relaiton to Congo and what role it played in Congo's downfall.

This is the world we live in today - where we are so ashamed of who we are as a society, as a people, as a nation - that we cannot look a child in the eye and openly share about the country's history.

The topic of Congo is like a taboo, something we don't speak of, something we don't even think of - it is like it has been erased from our history books and as though, therefore, it never happened - yet, the Congolese are still suffering the bitter aftertaste to this day, hoping that Belgium will come and assist in sorting out the mess it left behind - not knowing that the current Belgian generations live in ignorant bliss of what is going on in its former colony and, really, couldn't care less.

It is easy to go and fuck up a country and then, once it is declared independent, wipe our hands clean as though 'our job is done now, we did the right thing' - but no responsibility was taken for the harm that had already been done.

How can rich nations like Belgium claim to be working towards creating a better world, when they are too ashamed of who they are and what they have done as a people, as a nation, to educate the next generations about it so that the young generations can learn from past mistakes?

How can rich nations like Belgium claim to be working towards creating a better world when they deliberately abdicate responsibility for the harm they have done unto other people - as though we can create a better world without the requirement of taking responsibility for our thoughts, words and deeds?

How can rich nations like Belgium claim to be working towards a better world when they are too ashamed to admit to their own mistakes - placing their own shame above what is best for all - an absolute act of self-interest?

How can rich nations like Belgium claim to be working towards creating a better world if they cannot look their children in the eye and speak straightforwardly about the world that they have created for them, the legacy they are leaving their children to sort out?

To be continued.

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