Deliver us from the bondage of free-dom

The world has two very good examples of negative reactions that have been prompted by two vastly different groups of people that received massive 'gifts' from their governments only for the recipients to turn around and 'rebel'. The first is Libya and the Second Saudi Arabia. From what we hear, the government under the previous head of state allowed citizens to go to school gratis and provided them super allowances as well as access to money for homes and travel. The second might not be a good example given its monarchs are still in charge, but there is a boredom that pervades its youthful citizenry which is synonymous to a form of rebellion. As a result the conservative youngins are often spotted in the sun bathed paradise's streets spinning the wheels of their Sports Utility Vehicles passing time and making full use of the music systems that define their vehicles. Maybe these troubles are part of the organization of oil producing countries all of which have taken advantage of the price of oils to benefit their citizens. 

Nothing wrong with that. But as the prices have plummeted, these economies are being forced to go back to the drawing board. Similar challenges seem to await the Nigerians as well as the Venezuelans even if in the case of the latter, their left wing leanings and veiled attacks against their Neighbors in the North seems to have aggrieved the troubles in their country. 

So how do you create economic development without tampering with the natural in-built ability of people to strive and achieve? How do you generate prosperity without creating an atmosphere of complacency? 

Is it worth the risk creating the short term benefits of growth at the expense of long term changes that are often painful but good for the populace? 

This is what we are asking ourselves on the home front. Our providers have come up with all sorts of neat little tools that can give us free or cheap options that will let us communicate and interact via social media. But is all this worth it? 

Are you ever going to be able to teach people how to work and strive and think by providing free stuff to them?

Is this the same challenge that our friends in the Rainbow Nation are also facing as their students gather demanding free education? 

Will be ever be in a position to provide anything that is of utmost quality st no price? We leave it to you! 

War in Heaven-Ebony springs

This week we saw the dawn of what I will describe as an ebony spring. 

Previously with the exception of Burkina Faso, there were springs emerging from predominantly lighter skinned and mainly Arab Africa. 

Tunisia had emerged from its fog after a young man struggling with employment doused himself in petrol and then lit the match. This event had gone on to bring about an awakening in Egypt whose streets were soon overtaken by crowds of eager demonstrators calling for change. 

In previous blogs I had ruminated about the existence of an imaginary mason dixon line which roughly splits Africa into two sections much like the pre-independence America. I had gone on to describe the nature of this divide along mainly religious lines which also often take on a certain hue. 

So Burkina Faso was a breath of fresh air for many. For the first time, the sons of biblical Joseph seemed to have began a rebellion of sorts after decades and even centuries of casualness and passivity. This marked a spring that was now owned exclusively by black people.

The demonstrations in Burundi seemed to have taken in a similar format however my ears grew attentive when for a brief moment the activity in the streets was referred to as war. What this meant was that there was a brief opportunity to capture the narrative away from the agreements that were singed after the civil war (agreements preventing an extension of term limits) as well as ideas behind hallowed documents such as the constitution. Calling the activity in the city war, would therefore justify a measure of violence and if possible nip in the bud any commitments that would be made by any generals or top cops. 

Maybe this calculation would help prevent any strategic moves by influential leaders to steal the thunder from the activists and civil society groups or citizens for that matter. 

There were and are fears about driving a wedge between the two major ethnic groups a la Rwanda but the text was pretty solid and the variations clear. Regardless of the tribe or the current leader, the people...those that had managed to make it into the streets were calling for a respect of their sacred documents. They were challenging the member of the military to abide to the higher law. Similar sentiments were echoes in previous debates between the Congolese who struggled though the same concerns and other ideas would also emerge in neighboring Rwanda. 

All this was taking place across a complex backdrop of immense mineral wealth as well as the rise of well armed and well funded militias drawing in leaders across the region and causing convoluted relationships between states. 

So the involvement by a section of the army was a welcome development but it has not stolen the show from the civil society and the community at large. What it has revealed is a major or for some minor rift in the military machine and brought about a ratcheting up of an already strained management system. 

And while it might be attractive to summarize such complex ideas in such brief spaces, the hope is that we might distill a little more from the initial awakening in Tunisia which in my view was really about youth and unemployment. It should be noted that even after the massive and in some ways commendable changes in that country, the exodus of bright young North African minds has not ceased. If this is an invasion, then it's strategist has chosen an incredible method-and that by depleting the continent of its most prized possession-it's people. 

The rise of a new religion-human rights it's priests are called activists.

This week I heard an interesting program on the BBC in which an interview was done with a former British intelligence officer whose level of expertise seems is in ISIL. 

He made some important references to U.S work in Iraq and the errors that were made in dismantling the former presidents state machinery. His view was that those who had formerly served the Iraqi president had now coagulated and gathered around the new core (ISIS). This made sense because I was beginning to see a revival of Baathist tendencies especially with the attack on Yazidis. In my view therefore the former president was not dead...not in the complete sense. 

One could see the same happening in Libya even if the forces that displaced the Colonel in that country seem to have been more home grown. What one should therefore follow is the after effects on Libya and if marginalized groups will begin to suffer abuses from the past as in the case with Iraq. If the same happens, then one might as well rewind all the way back to 2011. 

The conflict here rises out of what we can loosely refer to as established authority and the broad subject of Change. What I have also found and what I ascribe to is a belief that nations are just like people. When they are hurt or wounded, they often cease to grow or at least begin to limit resources to those areas that are wounded until those parts are healed. 

If they have unanswered questions or dilemmas, these often cause deep questions which after a passage of time will result in a loss of confidence in their systems or a birth of doubts and fears and negative attitudes. 

So the natural flow of questions in this regard then is this? Are Americans ready for change and what does this mean for the next administration? 

Will it take the rapid form as it did in the early 1900s so that suffrage predates the struggle of the sixties with the civil right movement? 

Was Hillary meant to be first and is America ready for the return of the Clintons to the white house (after the primaries we can see how the Clinton family played the role of king maker in B.H.O's election). 

As power begins to centre more along family lines, will we see the return of the larger Bush Family to the white house too? Is Florida going to play a significant role in the elections? What role if any will the new dynamics in the U.S-Cuban relations play in the coming elections. Do these changes benefit the republicans or do they favor eye democrats?

Have recent development in the petroleum brought about a sea change in the machine that is government? Are we going to see something similar to what happened in the Seventies when the Saudis tightened the note on foreign relations?

The Christian faith calls these strongholds, or you can call them mindsets.

You could say, that the sixties were a prime example of this challenge on the American Psyche. The Vietnam war, the Kennedies and Martin Luther on one hand and the drive to the left which was characterized by the Jesus Movement, the hippies and the rise of experimental drugs. 

While we are still dealing with the subject of our relations, another group has arisen whose prime focus seems to be on the elimination of western education. 

In my most recent post (trends and prediction) I wondered aloud why we seem unprepared for an event which we for such a long time had predicted. 

Could this be the case now too? 

Do we now have a solution to the problem of endemic corruption?

A forceful return to faith (sharia) and a complete revamp of the education system? 

Have you ever silently cheered for someone who challenged authority even if you did not approve of their actions. Did you ever wish that they succeeded and fought for a position once they did even if you were unwilling to engage as deeply as they did?

There are some aspects of this in the faith struggle that seems to accompany all major faiths especially those that have proselytization as part of their doctrine or that insist on some sort of hell fire message. 

In addition to this there are some references to what Zacharias calls man's responsibility versus God's sovereignty which in summary questions, tries to differentiate between those activities for which men must act and those for which God bears full responsibility. 

The result of this is the creation of two distinct groups of believers those who act and those who wait for God to act. Maybe some groups draw inspiration from the book of Genesis in which God places men at the heart of his garden and commands them to subdue and dominate the earth.