Liar! You are not begging. Surrender!

“The miser would argue that he hoards wealth to alleviate his fear of poverty.What is remarkable about this mindset is that the miser is never truly feels relieved of anxiety; a miser is constantly worried about money and devoted to servicing his worry.
…
The Prophet (s.a.w) once asked some clansmen about their leader. They mentioned his name and said, “But he is a bit of a miser.” The Prophet (s.a.w) said, “A leader should never be a miser.” And then he added, “Do you know of any disease that is worse than miserliness?”“

- Hamza Yusuf (2004), Miserliness in “Purification of the Heart” p25

It’s a mirror.

What use do I have of it? Take it away. I don’t need it.

You need to look at yourself.

I have you. Now tell me, what have you done with your life?

“The human race is an unfair and stupid competition. A lot of the runners don’t even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some people are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It’s not surprising some people have given up competing altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk food and shout abuse.

What we need in this race is a lot more streakers.”

- Banksy in Cut it Out

“I’m sorry. I dont want to be an emperor.That’s not my business. I dont want to rule or conquer anyone. I shall like to help everyone if possible. Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there’s room for everyone and the good Earth is rich. And can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful but we have lost the way.

Greed has poison men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives us abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind.

We think too much and feel too little.

More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men. Cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all.

Even now, my voice is reaching millions throughout the world. Millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed. The bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will past and dictators die. And the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers, don’t give yourselves to brutes. Men who despise you and slave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do what to think and what to feel. Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and with machine hearts. You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate, only the unloved hate. The unloved and the unnatural.

Soldiers, don’t fight for slavery. Fight for liberty. In the 17th chapter of St.Lucas it is written, the kingdom of God is within men, not in one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you. You the people have the power. The power to create machines. The power to create happiness. You, the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful. To make this life a wonderful adventure. Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world. That will give men a chance, to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie. They do not fulfill, their promise, they never will.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.
Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world.
To do away with national barriers. To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance.

Let us fight for a world with reason.
A world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”

- Charlie Chaplin in his film “The Great Dictator” / “Look up Hannah”

Let us consider the case of a rape victim who may possibly be given 100 lashes (In 2007, a female rape victim was given 200 lashes). Now, it may at first seem absurd that a rape victim is being handed out a punishment. Well, because it actually is absurd. No. it is wrong. Plain wrong and anyone who says otherwise…..

And it is because of this – the legal system in Saudi Arabia, that some people have just given up on the law institution in the country altogether. This include rape victims. I mean, why would anyone file for a criminal charge against their rapist if all they are going to end up with is a 100 lashes on the body, and a jail sentence too?

So what happens therefore, is that rape cases are simply just not being reported. This in turn, keeps the official statistics of rape counts, low. This then gives out to people in other countries, especially Muslims, the impression that the sharia as per the Saudi’s interpretation – which entails subjugating women – is indeed a good thing as evident from the low crime rates. But alas, all these may just be mere illusions.

John Perkins has written three books that revolve around the ideas of corporatocracy: “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, “The Secret of the American Empire” and his latest, “Hoodwinked.” If you ever have the opportunity to read any of these, I highly recommend that you do, at least the first two cause I haven’t read his third book yet. Nonetheless, John’s an excellent writer and he’ll keep you engaged throughout the pages but most importantly, you’ll end up being enlightened (and astonished) on how the world works.

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The world is full of problems: poverty, wars, diseases, global warming and traffic jams just to name a few. In our pursuit for a Utopia, we are always looking for ways to solve them all. But this it seems, is just impossible. And so we would resolve to at least make the world a better place, by reducing the number of problems that currently plague us all. But which problems do we need to seriously look at and try to solve if not minimize? Lomborg argues that by using economic calculations and analysis, it is actually possible for us to identify the problems that need to be given priorities.

In his book How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, he admitted at the outset, that ranking of problems based on its severity is indeed “unpleasant.” Nonetheless, he argues that it is necessary, so that money may be spent effectively, improving the most number of human lives and not spent on a problem that is merely popular. He argues that one such popular problem is climate change.

He argues that the threat of climate change is actually minimal and affects only a few. This problem has thus been given too much of our attention and energy (no pun intended) and he seems to suggest that this is injustice to the many people who are facing other immediate and high-impact problems. He argues instead, that the problems that need to be solved first are HIV/AIDS, Malnutrition and hunger and Trade liberalization, in that order. The list goes beyond these three and throughout the book, Lomborg makes a cost and benefit analysis of solving each of these problems. Now herein lies Lomborg’s flawed arguments.

Lomborg’s main flaw is in his assumption that each problem may be isolated and analyzed individually. This however, is not the case. The world’s problems are complexly interconnected with one another and they all occur within specific cultural and ideological frameworks. For example, the problem of depleted water sources in India by Coca Cola shows how flawed policies give rise to environmental injustice and exacerbate poverty. We cannot just therefore attempt to solve the problem by merely giving new water sources to these population. The problem of AIDS too, cannot be isolated on its own. Significantly, it is linked with political concerns regardless whether the solution is either treatment or prevention. The former concerns patent rights of medicine and healthcare technologies. Only the rich would end up being able to afford effective treatment where the prices are set by pharmaceutical corporations. The latter is of political concerns – not all political actors are willing to endorse the free distribution of condoms because such endorsement would also mean the endorsement of casual sex. And this could tarnish their political image. There might also be movements against such free distribution of condoms by religious groups as well, especially in countries where its population are highly religious.

On another note, we only need to look at the wars going on in the Gulf region. Here we can see how political, economical, environmental and health issues are all part of one huge mess. The depleted Uranium being used by American military, for example, have toxicated the environment and there is just no way of detoxicating the region. This inevitably leads to polluted natural resources, birth defects and adverse health conditions not just for existing generation, but also the future. Isolating health issues on its own by just providing healthcare infrastructures are just not enough. They have to go together with solutions that addresses environmental problems (e.g polluted agricultural land and water sources) as well as poverty issues.

On another point, the problems listed by Lomborg are problems that concern only the human population. He did however listed climate change, albeit the last (and least significant) on his list of problems. But he has failed to see that climate change affects not just the human population, but the entire world’s ecosystem. Plants and animals all included. And he has not in fact, factored these non-human beings into his arguments. Sure, we all want to make the world a better place. But for who? For ourselves alone? This is simply human-centric and such mentality is what have caused this world to be in the mess it is in right now.

In sum, Lomborg have failed to realize that problems do not occur in isolation. Some of these problems are connected with one another and that political and cultural factors play a huge factor. I would think that Lomborg’s failure to understand this complexity is from his lack of understanding on why the various problems exist in the first place. In any case, I have to say that I am not arguing against solving problems individually or locally. In fact that is what we should do – to act locally and also to think globally, so that we may understand how global forces have given rise to cultural and political specific problems. It is only then can we come up with effective solutions that are not merely of temporary good. Merely pumping money into a problem will not make it go away.

To Lomborg’s credit, his ideas and arguments are based on the noble idea of making the world a better place by solving the most dire problems first. The world however, is not the sum of its parts.

One may argue that not all domestic workers go through shit. But this is highly arguable. Domestic workers spend most of their time indoors and as such, however they work and live remains hidden from public knowledge. There is also a lack of research conducted on the working and living conditions of domestic workers. I am not arguing that most domestic workers are indeed being abused. I hope not and would like to think this is not the case (because I like to believe that most Singaporeans are not douchebags). I am just saying that we do not know.

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