Is it my fault that the only reason I sit at ahwas downtown is because they’re readily accessible to me and my friends and not because of any cultural reason or excuse? Is it my fault that I don’t want to attend all these “really cool” foreign movies that are shown around different Cairene venues year-round because I honestly don’t believe I’m a cultured person?

Is my fault that I don’t like attending plays, ballets and/or symphonies or because I don’t enjoy them or (in the case of music) don’t see the reason why I have to listen to some orchestra playing when I can get an almost perfect copy of the aforementioned piece on my PC?

Is it my fault that I think art died with the turn of the 20th century and thus I would love nothing better than to visit Florence, Paris, London, Rome but not all these art galleries where people express themselves in ways I don’t even come close to understanding?

Is it my fault that I prefer movies with happy endings even though they may be the complete opposite of what real life is? Is it my fault that I prefer watching most movies at home rather than at a cinema?

Is it my fault that I’d rather write a small piece/article/whatever on the state of Egyptian or international politics than demonstrate? Is it my fault for saying that yes this government is f*cked up beyond all recognition and yet not forget that one has to give credit for things done correctly?

Is it my fault that I consider myself liberal yet wanting to shove some self-righteous morality, ethics and lessons of behavior down the throats of most Egyptians? Is it my fault that everytime I see a police officer, I cannot quell the feeling of rage that rises up inside me because of the way things are?

Is it my fault that there comes a point where one stops trying to come up with solutions and just gives up? Is it my fault that I’m laying the blame on everyone but myself? Is it my fault that my pure and utter disgust and shame have pushed me to levels of apathy I did not know I possessed?

I suppose there’s a yes there somewhere… so I suppose it is.

Disclaimer: Proposed, sometimes detailed, solutions to Egypt’s problems coming your way.

“Were I President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, things would be very different.”

It makes me smile; the number of times I have heard the previous statement… both from myself and others. And so, in the spirit of wasting my time and working on something that will never come to life, I decided to work on a series of posts entitled “If I was in Charge…”.

These posts will obviously not be comprehensive, complete or absolute in terms of content. Your comments and points of views are probably more important than the posts themselves… the longer, the better. The more comprehensive and detailed the criticism, addition, subtraction or what have you… the more I benefit from this.

I suppose that’s why I’m doing this. To find out what others (people who aren’t friends or people that I’ve discussed this with before) think.

This was just a Head’s Up. Stay Tuned.

P.S. Even Neo-Cons (#@^%&^%#) are welcome to comment.

Addendum:

Received an interesting suggestion from Tomanbay concerning how I could go about doing this. It would require others participate as well. If anyone is interested in his idea (which I like) of the whole thing, email me at: snefru.m (AT) gmail (DOT) com.

P.P.S. Sometimes I wish wordpress allowed me to use colored fonts. Like really, really wish they did.

I logged on to my account at wordpress this morning with a plan to write something about Egyptian politics and what I’d do were I president or in some way in charge of this country.

Of course, I don’t start writing the moment I hit the PC, so I went over to Manal and Alaa’s to check out the new post on their aggregator. It was then that I found this post over at Big Pharoah‘s Blog.

Now I’ve never really been a big fan of Big Pharoah’s stuff, and I’m sure he wouldn’t like the things I say were he to visit my blog. He’s more of the Sandmonkey persuasion… and I’m not too hot on that.

But anyways, since he uses a wordpress platform for his blog, he should have noticed the incoming link from my post, if he checks, so please continue reading while I address this post to him. I’d also like feedback from anyone who reads this, and I mean it in all sincerity, because I do want to understand something there.

So, Big Pharoah’s (BP from now on) post was about him wanting Hezbollah to lose. (I’m just going to forget about Mubarak and all the other Arab leaders because they are as close to non-entities for me as anyone could be.)

What strikes me as strange are the conclusions reached by BP. It seems the criteria upon which we judge and analyze the situation differ and diverge to such an extent that someone’s conclusions (his or mine – I was not implicitly referring to him) are somewhat skewed.

To begin with, it is obvious that he is a recognizer (if I may use the word) of Israel’s right to exist. I, on the other hand, do not. To explain my view I’d have to explain that this does not stem from some pan-arabist, pro-palestinian point of view. It’s just that I think they’ve taken land which doesn’t belong to them, plain and simple.

I don’t know any Israelis, and while I’m sure that there will be non-arab Israelis that might appeal to me, this will not change my view that sometime ago, almost 60 years now, the “founding fathers” of Israel claimed land which belonged to someone else (with the help or, I should say, with the tacit agreement of an occupying colonizer).

The thing is, of all NGMGs (Non-Governmental Military Groups) in the Middle East, I would have to say that Hezbollah is the only one that without any shred of doubt or a moment’s hesitation cannot be called a terrorist organization. (I wrote this a bit ago, check out the links where I mention why they aren’t – Keep in mind that the US is signatory to any agreement I’ve linked to.)

If you want to discuss Iraq, it gets wishy-washy… what about Egypt and its NGMGs? I would probably actually agree with BP (I’m theorizing) on that. BUT, not with Hezbollah.

It annoys the living hell out of me when I hear arguments like:

1. Resolution 1559 says that Hezbollah has to disarm completely. 1559 my ass! SC resolution 242 and GA resolution 181 say a lot of shit that Israel has been ignoring for what? Almost 40 years now? Let them wait 40 then (or however long it takes them to implement those resolutions) before 1559 is applied.
2. Hezbollah kills Israeli civilians. WTF? Only after Israel started bombing Lebanon and killing Lebanese Civilians. Hezbollah holds two prisoners of war and wants a prisoner exchange. I see no problem with that at all. Let’s not forget what Israel did with Arab prisoners of war in the 1967 war.
3. Hezbollah hides within the Lebanese Civilian Population. And this is based on… what? I sincerely and surely want to know what source has mentioned this other than nice little reporters and writers sitting in their neat little posh offices in New York, London, Tel Aviv, Baghdad or where ever else and have said so. But wait! There have been reporters who wrote the exact opposite, how come what they say is never used as source material by people like BP and SM (Sandmonkey)? Besides, keep in mind an important thing. Hezbollah might be funded from Syria and Iran, I won’t discuss the sources of their finances… mainly because I don’t care, but they’re still not a government army. They cannot afford to go out and build military compounds and barracks and all that because (a) Israel would destroy them within a week (b) they obviously do not have the equivalent manpower from which to draw upon as a national government would.
4. Hezbollah fires its rockets from Civilian neighbourhoods. What kind of idiot would believe something like that? This, technically and militarily, is not the smartest thing to do… and I sincerely doubt that Hezbollah would attempt to do this, at least on a large enough scale, in such a manner as to actively decrease their chances of havign successful launches.
5. The Ta’ef agreement of 1989 ALLOWS HEZBOLLAH to exist in southern Lebanon arms et al. All the other militias were merged with the army or disarmed, but Hezbollah was to leave Beirut and gets to keep their weapons.

These are really the main points I wanted to make in reference to that. I still want to know BP’s sources because it occurs to me that our radically different viewpoints must be based on something more than simple ideology.

So, BP, if you so happen to read this (or anyone else for that matter) please give me your sources. And oh! One last thing, I sincerely doubt that Hezbollah emerging more popular in this war will lead to civil war inside Lebanon. That condition alone should not be sufficient. I can imagine it being a catalyst with Christians fearing the increase in power and then the Sunni Muslims (usually the last people to act – which isn’t because they’re calmest or most politically astute) and Palestinians reacting to that and then all hell breaking loose… I can imagine that.

But you know what? I also think that if civil war breaks out again, and no one interferes, the Lebanese have a better chance of reaching a solution which satisfies most parties and is durable and sustainable.

And that’s the way I see it.

I haven’t commented at all on the current situation in the Middle East; the Israeli “invasion” of Gaza or Southern Lebanon. It’s because I feel that I don’t have anything new or original to add to the discussion. That and the fact that I try not to use my blog as a medium where I criticize other bloggers’ views.

I did find a debate, or discussion if you will, which I feel strongly enough towards that the urge to write something would not dissipate however much I willed it to. I am, of course, talking about the criticism of Hezbollah, by Arabs, in the past three weeks or so.

First of all, let me (for the umpteenth time) clearly say that I am staunchly anti-islamist when it comes to politics. Basically the day will not come that I would support an Islamic government over a secular one… no matter what.

Having said I wish to make it clear that I am 100% behind Hezbollah in the current endeavour. This stems from many reasons, of which I will list the most important to me:

1. Israel’s “IDF” cast the first stone by occupying Lebanon in 1982 and their continued occupation of the Shebaa Farms.
2. Israel began to indiscriminantly attack civilians with such claims as: they aid Hezbollah fighters, they are hiding weapons and ammunitions for Hezbollah etc.
3. I do not accept the argument that Hezbollah attacked Israeli civilians first because as an off-shoot of Amal, Hezbollah was formed during the Lebanese civil war and only clashed with Israel, in any way, form and manner, after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israeli Forces.
4. Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization (I would not support them if they were). This is because they carry their arms openly, they have a Leader who gives orders to subordinates in a clear chain of command, they have an emblem which is known and is carried into battle when they do battle and finally they wear uniforms and have ranks. Not only that, they conduct parades and shows where their armed forces marshes with weapons and all that… in full public view. Read more here & here (read article 44, paragraph 3).
5. If Israel wants its two soldiers back it should negotiate. If it doesn’t want to negotiate then fuck ‘em.
6. Hezbollah is the only movement in the Arab World, and I don’t care who supports them or for what reason, that is organized enough that it forced Israel to leave Lebanon and ACTS when it says it wants to act.
7. Though I deplore the idea that civilian casualities have occurred and that people claim that Hezbollah’s initiation by”kidnapping” the two Israeli soldier was the intial spark behind the ordeal of the Lebanese people, keep in mind that if Israel wants to, they could NOT fire their bombs and missiles. They consciously choose to use them. So you think they do that because they want to destroy alleged Hezbollah bases and homes etc. Aha. Sure. Right. They’ve tried that hundreds of times. IT DOESN’T WORK!!! It’s not like they love Hezbollah. If they knew where the god-damned bases and houses all were, they would not have hesitated to attack. They didn’t hesitate in 1986 to go cross country and destroy a god-damned nuclear station in Iraq, did they? It’s not like they hesitated to bomb Qana in 1996, did they? The only reason Israel is bombing the shit out of Lebanese civilians is to increase internal pressure against Hezbollah and punish the Lebanese people as a whole so that the only bastion of resistance remaining against the fuckers would be removed from inside.
8. I don’t think Israel has the right to “live in peace amongst its neighbours” or any and all of this bullshit. I have no great love for Palestinians, but Israeli armed forces have been fucking a whole people for over fifty years through murder, destruction and pillaging. Peace my ass.
9. Israel does not respect International Agreements. Then Egypt’s stupid President (and his Foreign Ministry’s) position is that we must respect International agreements if we expect Israel to do the same. Fuck that bullshit! We’ve had no choice but to do that for years and they still haven’t respected jack shit. It’s their turn to stay the fuck out of another country’s soverign soil, airspace and territorial waters.

Basically, these are the main reasons. I have no less then 6 more… but I really don’t think I needed to mention anything over any three of the aforementioned ones.

I don’t have any solutions though. Sadly. I can’t tell the Lebanese people what to feel or say; I don’t live there right now. I’m not Lebanese. But, so is every other non-Lebanese in the Arab World.

What I tell those others is this: why don’t you keep your god-damned mouth shut if you aren’t going to support Hezbollah. If you don’t like them, now is not the time (under ANY POSSIBLE CIRCUMSTANCES) to adopt the point of view of a country like Israel or the United States.

And that’s the way I see it.

I won't waste time with a long introduction. This post is a response to a response to a post I wrote, which in turn was a relative response to another post.Alright then, let's go!

Now, Sandmonkey responded to my post by saying:

Well, Faisal, let me ignore your mindboggeling comparison of those who die on the hands of terrorists and those who die from poverty for a minute, because You said you don't want a blog-bashing post and I believe you. This will be a discussion of the issue at hand and the mode of thinking. Ok? But first of all, let me correct you on 2 things: The Oil companies in Bolivia aren't US or from other developed countries, and this wasn't done for the "benefit of the people".

Hold on a second! I made that comparison for a reason… ignoring my comparison is like saying: "we'll just imagine you didn't say this". But… but… I did! I said it!

I will, of course, continue to look at the rest of the arguments that were made, but we can't just forget about the comparison. No way. I will bring this up again as I go through the post. I also want to say I'm glad that you didn't take it as a blog-bashing contest. That would have been useless and such an intellectual turn-off!

Now, you said you wanted to make two corrections. Let's take the first; that the oil companies in Bolivia are not from the US or other developed countries. This is factually incorrect. I actually quoted an Exxon Mobil spokesperson in my first post. But, more information about the "nationalities" of these companies here, here, here and here. Brazil's PetroBras has the highest share and then come the three European companies (or joint venture in one case) and Exxon Mobil. That's three major operators from developed countries.

As for the "benefit of the people" argument, I guess my whole post will go through that.

Sandmonkey also said that "Brazil isn't exactly what someone would call a rich or developed country. And do you know how much the bolivian government stole, sorry, i meant nationalized from them? 1.6 Billion dollars worth of investment . That's money the brazilian people will never see ever again. Is that, in your opinion, right?"

This is a bit tricky to answer, I must admit. On one hand, and straight off, I would have to say Hell No! Of course, it isn't right. $1.6b is quite a large amount of money, especially for countries like Brazil and Bolivia.

But, again as I mentioned in my original post, Morales clearly stated that the contracts would have to be re-negotiated within six months or the companies would be nationalized. I'm guessing what he is doing, at this point in time, is ensuring that no foul-play (as far as he is concerned) or some form of sabotage takes place. Whether I support his decision or not, it would be reasonable to suppose that these companies might decide to take action that Morales would not want; dismantling equipment beyond the abilities of the Bolivians to put back together, shipping equipment and other forms of capital out in secret etc.

Keep in mind that the statements in the previous paragraph refer to matters from Morales' point of view… regardless of whether I (or anyone else) agrees with his decisions.

Now, this re-negotiation (assuming it occurs and matters do not deteriorate drastically – which I do not believe will occur with the way both the Brazilian President and Morales have been handling the situation after the announcement) will probably end up changing the current contracts in such a manner as to benefit the Bolivians (through their government and respective agencies and institutions) more.

Oops. Noticed I didn't answer the $1.6b question. Open a notepad file or something next to your browser so that you don't forget, I will be getting to this question in the next part of my post, but I will say this: If there is proof that a certain party was complicit in any action or whatever that involved depriving another party of their economic rights and thus their right to live a dignified life where their needs are satisfied (because of work they do, of course) then I support nationalization 110%. (Please keep in mind that I am not, at this point, claiming that the companies, related to this specific topic, were in fact party to any such behavior. I was merely declaring my view on this matter).

Moving on. I need to make sure that something is clear; Morales, during his campaigning had always mentioned that the nationalization of energy/hydro-carbon industries was a main and important point on his political agenda. The people voted for him based on this agenda. In fact, that vote had one of the highest voter turnouts in Bolivian democratic history. Morales won a clear and comfortable victory. Conclusion: A large portion of Bolivians wanted this. The Majority wanted this. Morales, as a man/human being/living entity or whatever, is merely a representative of this group of people. He didn't seize power through force or through illegal practices.

Sandmonkey then said:

Second of all, does it strike you as odd at all that the moment they seized the companies, it was venezeulan technicians who went in and ran the sites ? Does it not seems suspicious at all, that the bolivian candidate that was supported by Chavez all the way , suddenly nationalizes the industry and hand it over to the technicians of his "ally"?

As about the Venezuelan technicians part, I honestly see no relevance to the topic at hand; if that post was in fact a response to my post, then it's the nationalization and its disadvantages/advantages to Bolivia and its people that was under discussion. Excuse me if I think that the attempt to tie Morales to Chavez is an attempt at sensationalization by linking Morales to someone who is not quite liked by many countries in the west.

Either way, let's say it wasn't an attempt to sensationalize and it's relevant and all that. Well, I hate to say this… but most of the sources I've attempted to check online mentioned nothing about Venezuelan technicians taking over these facilities. It might be that I missed that fact while browsing through, literally, at least 90-something news and opinion pieces on the matter.

Either way again, if he enlisted the help of another country's technicians because his couldn't manage on his own, I honestly see no problem with this. As about Chavez… well of course he'd support Morales. Their "economic reform/policies" agaendas seem to have found a common point, an intersection if you will, where they both see eye-to-eye. I'd support him if I were Chavez: LOOK! LOOK! I'm not alone! Third world countries tend to do that.

Interestingly enough, when I followed one of the Sandmonkey's links I found this (it was the last paragraph of the article):

Under Monday's decree, foreign companies must sell a majority stake of their participation to YPFB. Yet it remains unclear how Bolivia will come up with the several billion dollars needed for that deal.

Pssst! There's the bit about compensation. It isn't exactly hardcore, confiscate-nationalization if you're buying the shares/stake, is it? (The YPFB is Bolivia's state-owned natural gas company).

Aaaah! Now we get to the meat of the matter; the war of ideologies. I've noticed that many of the comments on Sandmonkey's post are screaming against socialism. Well, I'm not going to defend socialism because, in all honesty, Im not rooting for socialism. What I'm going for are certain ideas that I believe can be integrated into any system; the fact that they bear close resemblance to socialism is… well, it is what it is. I have no explanation for it.

When sandmonkey says

Do you know what Morales now wants? He demands that any company that comes in to get only 18% of the profits, and give the other 82% to the Bolivian government. And they are wondering why the hell no one has stepped up to take them on that offer yet. Man, I work in the Oil and Gas sector, and let me tell you, that kind of profit margin is beyond unacceptable. The return on the investment would take forever to actualize itself, and let's face it, any government that sees it well in its right to nationalize your investment whenever they see fit, is a government that you can not trust with your investments. So yeah, sure, they did take over the facilities, but no one who actually knows how to run the business will touch it with a 10 foot pole. Morales, if he really wanted to help his people and raise their income level, has fucked up big time. Bolivia doesn't have much oil to begin with, so the return is not even close to the risk.

… all I can say is:

1. Don't you think that the number, 82%, is a bit of a strange number? I did. First thing that came to mind was: Why on earth did this guy not say 80 or 85? I mean come on, I sincerely doubt that they went to great pains calculating some sort of cost-benefit analysis and came to the conclusion that with the 82/18 combination they will get the right number of investors. First thing I did was check things out and, then I found this. Now, I can begin to understand the number:

The state assumed the majority control (51% of the actions) of all the oil-producing companies in the country and two refineries of the Petrobrás (brazilian state company); decreed an increase of the gas tax of 50% for 82% and gave a period of time of 180 days for the companies accept the measures, otherwise they will have to leave the country… Formerly, in the beginning of the privatization process, the companies stayed with 82% of the invoicing and the state with 18% left. In that time, the executives of the company Repsol YPF (Spain and Argentina) celebrated the fact that, for each dollar they put in Bolivia, the company got 10 dollars of profit.

So basically, the situation was reveresed when the companies were privatized. Hell, it isn't even fully reveresed because before privatization, the state owned 100% of all assets. Even more, I came across this article. This is the bit which caught my attention:

Although Mr. Morales said on Thursday that no compensation would be paid because there was no confiscation of energy companies' assets, Bolivian officials have said that if the new contract talks fail, expropriations are possible, and in that case, restitution would be made.

As always, its the little stuff that is mentioned by some anonymous officials that usually goes unnoticed… no matter the significance of the declaration or statement they made.

As about Socialism and Capitalism and all that. I am surprised at how much people do not realize the complexity of things like Socialism and Communism. Idealistic as they are, these theories came out as by-products of events like the Industrial Revolution where Capitalism reigned supreme and workers were treated like shit.

A simple response to this would be: but hold on a second, if Capitalism is simpler, then just apply its tenets and you're safe. Occam's Razor you idiot! Sadly, that isn't the case. But, what also isn't the case is that socialism failed… as a system. Look at Sweden for god's sake! That, is what I am arguing for. Russia was a perfect model of State Capitalism; the state was responsible for the distribution of resources and production. The State, and not the workers or peasants, was the owner of property.

Cuba have some of the best doctors in the world. If that's Socialism, then to hell with the Scandinavian Model and let's go Socialist!

As with Abdel Nasser… I can't even begin to talk about Abdel Nasser. You're Egyptian Sandmonkey… I don't think I have the patience nor stamina to enter into another discussion about him. Suffice to say that I agree with you whole-heartedly, it is a fact after all, about the gold, the Egyptian Pound and the state of the economy before-hand. Let me also tell you that my own mother (who hails from the landed-aristocracy – before Nasser obviously – and whose family lost a WHOLE LOTTA LAND because of his nationalization) had this to say about Abdel Nasser: Shoof ya Faisal. It's true that we didn't get to eat Apples every year. It's true that he took the land and all that. BUT, the poor people who lived miserably at the time of the king had food on their table every night.

I'm not a huge proponent of Human Rights and all that… in the sense that it isn't really something that I think about all the time or associate with athoritarian regimes and all that. I am a Political Economist, so I think Politics and Economics. I want people to have land (I want to own land myself!), I want people to invest and enjoy the returns on their investments (the more the better, I say!) But, I cannot accept that people do this while others cannot find food, or clean water, or clothes or shelter and are not given a fair chance of obtaining them. Again, if that is Socialism, then I'm all for it.

As about the approaches… well, again, I'm all for micro-financing and micro-banking. I'm all for lending money to SME's and households so that they'd start their own projects and make money off that. I'm also all for free education up and until University levels, an efficient public health-care system (in addition to private health care) and public utilities (or at least the option of some… in some way or another).

What I am not in favor of are entities like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund who send their smiling, suit-clad, theory-toting representatives/employees to my country and "forcing" the government to "Go West". That is exactly what happened. They come and they decide that Egypt, as with most other countries they've attempted to help, needs to restructure its economic system in order to 1. Repay all its international debt 2. Thrive economically.

Bullshit.

What happened is that they forced the government to spend less money by hiring less people and removing subsidies from foodstuffs and other products (most of them essential products that are used on a daily basis – salt, sugar, flour etc). You know, this would have been totally fine were it not for the fact that there was no one in the Egyptian market to replace the government as the LARGEST SINGLE employer in the economy and, of course, poor people's purchasing power does not increase because subsidies are cut. And Egypt boomed for a bit and the people suffered.

If you want to say that socialist governments have only brought misery and doom unto their people, I will generally not disagree with you. I will say thought that the whole truth goes a bit beyond that; it isn't their socialist tendencies or whatnot that doomed them, it was their (generally) authoritarian, totalitarian system of rule that stripped their citizens of all their rights, freedoms and ability to prosper and/or achieve social mobility. THAT, I am definitely against.

Let me just say this about Bolivia, I just remembered something someone had said, if foreign investors do not go to Bolivia, then Morales will learn his lesson the hard way and he'll obviously have to change the way he deals with the world. Let me just say this: I sincerely doubt that any wide-spread boycott of investment in Bolivia will occur. They might face a bit of a problem in their energy sector for a couple of years (maybe!) but no more.

As for me benefiting from capitalism, well… I never said I did not. Even if I hated capitalism, I am not in a position personally to change the International Economic Order or World System generally. Having said that, I don't think that pure capitalism works for me (in terms of what I think would be best for all or at least most of the people). And sure the Chinese benefited from Capitalism… they couldn't afford not to. They "got with the system". Notice though that the chinese only have a couple of cities that have non-socialist laws and exemptions for foreign countries.

Also note that it's free trade (another concept which scares the living hell out of me) that the Chinese utilized most intelligently to get where they are now.

TAKE NOTE: My first post was entitled: "Why I'm a SOCIAL LIBERAL" (not Socialist or Capitalist-hater)

I also believe that Socialism and its pretext of working for the public good has always been and still remains the ultimate excuse for tyrants and dictators to validate their powers and control.

Couldn't agree with you more. The fact that it can be used to sway the hearts of men (and women of course) to help the tyrant, dictator or whatnot entrench himself further is something that I cannot deny. But, I can definitely say that Socialism (as a theory and not a living entity) cannot be blamed. That's like saying it's the bread-knife's fault that it was used to kill someone.

In Short: I am NOT a socialist! Nor do I support Capitalism! People who think life is just Socialism and Capitalism really need to read-up on the way this world is run. It's much, much more complex than that. I support certain policies, most mentioned above, that I believe should be applied in any state. If you wish to call it Socio-Capitalism, Communism or friggin Geography… please do so.

And thus, I await to see what Morales will really do after all the attention that he wanted to get, and did obviously. I want to see if what he did will help his people, like he said it would and based on the fact that his people voted him into power because of these promises.

So, about the $1.6b? Well, if he covers any losses (in terms of money invested until that point) then I'm personally cool with it. If not… well, then I'd have to see how that company treated the Bolivian market and government when it comes to the contract and so on and so forth. So basically, I have no conclusive view on the matter.

That's the way I see it.

Tags: Political Economy Politics Socialism Capitalism Bolivia Egypt

[This post was originally written and meant to be published on the 6th of May. Real life events forced me to save it as a draft and I was only able to continue it today.]I have political views. A lot in fact. The way I see it has been dedicated to commenting about various socio-political and economic ideas that I've been exposed to, mainly in Egypt and the Middle East. I dabble in the occult [Read: International Affairs] when I can draw parallels with events of the Middle East.

My previous post was about President Evo Morales of Bolivia nationalizing the countries Energy sources, mostly those owned by foreign corporations. Not everyone shared my view that his actions would lead to a situation which is more socially equitable. Sorry, I still think it is. It was mentioned that there were people who invested money into these projects. Obviously, they expect (and deserve) a return on their investment. Sandmonkey, whose post I linked to in this paragraph, believes that Morales' decisions were immoral.

This is not meant as a blog-bashing post, rather, I am criticizing a mode of thinking. This same blogger, along with all those who share his views, clobbers "suicide-bombers" and all groups/individuals who carry out acts of "terrorism" because of their "murderous nature". He clearly states that he is "sick of the people dying".

So, it's not alright if people die violent death in bombings, shootings or stabbing incidents and it's completely alright if their country is sucked dry of its resources, because other people payed money to make profits from these resources, effectively killing hundreds and thousands over a longer period of time. That makes complete and utter sense; Bolivia needs the gas and petrol to sell in order to make money to fund their resource and money starved government (whichever government it is).

What happens is that these companies come from the US, or other developed countries, and then sign contracts which award the Bolivians an amount significantly lower than half of the profits or revenues generated. I can understand how someone can expect to make money by helping you do something that you wouldn't be able to do other-wise; the Bolivians wouldn't get any revenue at all if these companies weren't there… but come on! Less than HALF! Half!

For someone who's pre-occupied with human rights quite a bit, I would have expected that that single fact would have caused Sandmonkey to shout: STOP! You need to see how things are there! He also works in the field of finance, according to his bio, so he understands the numbers and the terms. But, apparently the forces of capitalism which the glorious United States has been adamant on sowing everywhere in the world either directly or through one of its proxies [Read: IBRD, IMF, IFC etc.] are much too blinding.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) [which all anti-islamists/ anti-Hamas/ anti-"suicide bombers" apparently know word for word] has a numer of articles that I think might be relevant when discussing Bolivia.

Let's take it from the top (and I'll try to take only the most relevant articles of the Declaration):

First, there is the preambulatory clauses;

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

[Note the bit with freedom of speech, belief, fear and want.]

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

So, "rule of law" is important against tyranny and oppression and also to prevent people to rebel against any possible tyranny and oppression. Keep in mind, this law has to be Just.]

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

The crowning piece really. Why do people seem to believe that the dignity and worth of the human being is violated only when they're killed? It's as if kicking them out of their homes and depriving them of equal opportunities to get a job and "allowing" their government enough resources to spend on public projects and so on is not a demeaning of these persons; that they can still maintain their dignity and feeling of self-worth when they're homeless, destitute and ravished by disease.

What about promoting Social Progress? What about those better standards of life? What is the western world going to do about this? And why should they do something about this? I'll tell you why; it is their financial and developmental organizations that help perpetuate the state of affairs in the developing world. I'm not even going to shout history. I'm not going to scream foul and say: what about all the years of servitude and highway robbery that most developing countries had to go through.

I won't do that, but not because these things are not true. They are true. It is because other developing countries proved themselves capable of improving their situation and implementing correct economic and developmental policies (sustainable ones too!) that I will not scream history.

[Continued in next Post]

Tags: Socialism Liberal Social Liberal Neo Con Neo-conservative Egypt Bolivia Morales Human Rights