Food crisis

Recently, CNN reported that the food shortage in Africa and Asia is not only a humanitarian crisis, but may also become a global security problem. It takes a trained eye, and a fair amount of cynicism to decode what this sentence really means. Let's break it down.

Vocabulary:

Food shortage: a situation in which a population does not have enough access to food supplies. We don't care about the reasons behind such conditions. Mainly, we believe it's their own fucking mistake.

Africa and Asia: Some warm places, far, far away. Basically, we don't know what happens out there most of the time.

Humanitarian crisis: conditions under which human life is endangered due to poverty, disease and war.

Humanitarian crisis in Africa and Asia: stuff we shouldn't be worried about.

Global: referring to parts of the world dominated by rich countries (see also "international community").

Security problem: threats to economical and political interests and institutions.

Wright is right

Recently, the U.S. public conscience has been shaken up by Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s controversial statements regarding the U.S. approach towards foreign policy and racial issues. As a result of this controversy, Barack Obama has distanced himself from Wright, whom he once considered as his mentor.


Following this controversy made me once more realize how different my political views are from the mainstream American perspective. While I considered some of Wright’s statements as pure speculations, I couldn’t agree more with the rest, especially as some of these statements go beyond the ideology and represent factual events.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.”

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

“The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”

In the past week, I kept asking myself: what’s the big deal? What is really going on? The American society is acting, like any other society, in a self-absorbed and narcissistic way. It should strongly repress and condemn any form of criticism, for it would otherwise lose its self-value.

At an epistemological level, controversy and radicalism do not necessary imply falseness. The norms of the majority cannot be used as criteria for the truth. The case of Nazi Germany shows us how inhuman and destructive the societal norms can be. An ideal society should be open to and stimulate all forms of self-criticism. We all have a long way to go.

Walking paradox

Humans are multi-layered, complex, and paradoxical beings. They are perhaps the prime sites where cultural symbols manifest themselves; where the modern meets the traditional, and spirituality meets materialism. There are only a few images so strong in documenting this very particular human nature. This picture is taken at an Ashoura ceremony in Iran.

Protest against discrimination at the universities

Dear friends,

I would like to request your support for our protest against the structural exclusion of Iranian students and academics at two Dutch universities.

Universities used to be open, scientific forums where students and researchers were selected based on their academic qualities, not their nationality. University of Twente and Einhoven University of Technology have decided, in an unprecedented move, to reject all Iranian students and academics "as a results of the UN sanctions" against the Iranian government. This means that even students who are interested in subjects that have nothing to do with nuclear technology, such as social sciences and industrial design, are denied admission to the university.

Dear friends, this is the first time, since the Second World War, that a specific group of people is excluded from higher education. It is sad to observe that it should happen in a country that used to be praised for its liberal and progressive climate.

What needs to be done? We have already the support of a large number of academics at the Dutch universities. Also, we have lobbied so much that the Parliament will hold a session on this topic within the next few days. We can really stop this, by sending a strong message to the government and the universities that we do not accept discrimination against innocent students and researchers, just because that have "the wrong" nationality.

We need all the support that we can get. That is why I would like to ask you to read our petition here.

If you sign it, it would even be better! And please, spread this message in your network.

Many thanks

Empty selves at Starbucks

"Walk into a participating Starbucks with your laptop, iPhone, or iPod touch and buy whatever’s playing — along with millions of songs on iTunes — while your latte cools."

Now you can listen and buy songs at the Starbucks from you own laptop... "while your latte cools". God, that's what I always needed! I can imagine Apple had thought: "what can we do now to make even more money?". And who can blame them? After all, it's the very notion of consumerism that is keeping the modern economies running. But at what price? Clearly, this latest move by apple doesn't meet a public need. As a matter of fact, it's the dumbest product I have seen in years.

I don't want to be moralistic in this. But perhaps, it is appropriate to quote Philip Cushman, introducing the notion of "empty self" as a characterizing feature of human beings in modern societies.

"The empty self is soothed and made
cohesive by becoming "filled up" with food, consumer
products, and celebrities.... The two professions most responsible
for healing the empty self, advertising and psychotherapy,
find themselves in a bind: They must treat a psychological
symptom without being able to address its historical
causes. Both circumvent the bind by employing the lifestyle
solution, a strategy that attempts to heal by covertly
filling the empty self with the accoutrements, values, and
mannerisms of idealized figures. This strategy solves an
old problem but creates new ones..." (Cushman, 1990, p. 600).

Read his entire artice here. (pdf)

Lie

There is power in a lie.

Babylon

The city, lightened by divine blessing, raises its middle finger as a symbol of gratitude.


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"Toronto seen from Ward's Island"
By Sam Javanrouh