This is a post written by David Newman, my good friend and contributor to this blog. I consider that David's thoughts below reflect our world in a sentimental but more that true mirror and I am sure that most of us, the EU and USA residents, will have similar thoughts many times, especially coming back from transition countries. Thanks a lot David - please enjoy it...
"Post - Durban reflections
We are living in a western microcosm which is destined to
be surpassed by the energy coming out of places like Durban. Here is youth,
vitality, poverty, the need and the desire to create wealth. We in Europe are
old and wealthy and the paradigm is ending. And we are not willing to get up
and move to where the new paradigm is, instead we sit in our roccaforte and
protect our position- a position being eroded by the growth of the new world,
in the same way it was 150 years ago by the growth of the USA. We haven't learnt those lessons, even though
we saw the rise of Japan, then China, and now Brazil, India, and parts of Africa.
Some may say that Europe always retained its supremacy
despite the rise of the new economies- but this is a partial reading of
history. Europe has remained wealthy because the south has failed to open its
own economies to its own people. This has now changed.
The new Arab Spring is nothing but a desire to liberate
the economy from imposed elite monopolies.
These elites have given their peoples education and expect their peoples
to not see the lesson- that the economy is in the hands of few, the opportunities
are limited, major industries are monopolised. Just as Europe was. Even selling
fruit on the street was an offence in Tunisia. So these educated people want
their share too, want to belong, to participate in the growth of their
societies, to travel, to own homes, businesses and to enjoy the liberty of an
open society.
And when they can't get into the economy they move-
immense numbers of asians, africans and south americans have been and are
moving now. It is the largest emigration we have seen in human history.
Millions. Millions. Poor people but also people given that education and unable
to find fulfillment in their own societies. Doctors, engineers, economists,
artists, musicians. Depriving their home countries of intellects they so sorely
need but that are shut out through repression and monopolisation of economic
sectors. So idiots are in control because they belong to the elite. And they
are corrupt.
So the courageous and the intelligent risk their lives on
boats heading north and west across the Med; or hidden under lorries riding
north through El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico. Such waste.
Can the uprisings in the Arab countries be linked to the
economic decline of Europe ? In other words, having nowhere to go to seek work,
as Europe declined, the arabs realised that above all in their own societies
they were denied those same opportunities they sought in Europe ?
The world improves slowly but the steps forward are over
the corpses of the poor, women, the disenfranchised, the repressed, the
uneducated. Such waste. Such a daily tragedy.
David Newman"
