Inspirations:
1. Bible,
The Exodus, Moses and the Wilderness:
Moses is a man with a calling on his life. God chose him to lead the
Israelites out of Egypt and take them to the Promised Land.
Through a series of events the Israelites are eventually freed to leave
Egypt under Moses’ command.
The people, though, are troublesome. They have been used to being
slaves, and don’t know what freedom is. They don’t like Moses leading
them, and demonstrate that they are a "rebellious house". So rebellious
that God even threatens to wipe them out. Moses intercedes on the
nation’s behalf and God relents. Rather than trusting God, a major rift
develops between God and the Israelites. This proceeds to make God mad,
and rather than supporting the nation, condemns them to 40 years
wandering around in the desert.
The 40-year wilderness experience that God put the Israelites through is
something that He does to some of his own. Every one of the Israelites
20 years and older flunked this test. As a result, they were not allowed
to enter into the Promised Land and every one of them died out in the
desert.
2. The World is flat by Thomas Friedman:
Writing about Globalization in his book ‘The world is flat’ Friedman
argues that the forces that flattened the world began when the “Walls”
came down and the ‘Windows’ went up. According to him the Berlin Wall
fell on 11/9 (November 9, 1989). The fall of the Berlin Wall on 11/9/89
unleashed forces that ultimately liberated the Soviet Empire. The cold
war had been the struggle between two economic systems, Capitalism and
Communism, and with the fall of the wall, there was only one system
left, that of free market oriented governance.
3. Quote: George Santayana who in his book, Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1, wrote
Those who cannot remember the past (History) are condemned to repeat it."
4.
History does not belong to us, we belong to it. Hans-Georg Gadamer,
Truth and Method, p. 276, what experience and history teach is this —
that nations and governments have never learned anything from history,
or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
Disclaimer:
I am a trained Medical Professional.
I am still not sure if I am fully qualified to deal with issues
pertaining to Medical Profession,
forget about giving opinions on Economics, Sociology & Geopolitics.
Hence what I write / think are my own personal views, to be read by the
readers at their own risk with dollops of salt and....pepper.
What
an Irony, a wonderful coincidence of dates, in order of reverse. While
the fall of the Berlin wall on 11/9 ushered in Globalization and Growth
of the world economy. The collapse of the Twin towers on 9/11 brought
about “The war against Terror” and took the Global economy into the grip
of Recession.
Not in the wildest imagination was it anticipated that a single
incident, even though by all accounts a cataclysmic event, would cast
such a deep and widespread impact on the international stage.
When George bush took over as president from Bill Clinton in 2001, the
American budget was running in a surplus of $236 billion. The 9/11
attacks and Washington’s response to it have crippled the US economy.”
The US made some economic choices that led to the deterioration of its
own economy. Scissors outlines them thus — US monetary stimulus in
response to the expected economic impact of the 9/11 attacks lasted far
too long. President Bush implemented an expansionary fiscal policy when a
war should have necessitated cutbacks elsewhere which did not happen.
At the end of the decade, America was withdrawing from Iraq without the
confidence that it would stabilize in the way it was intended. Al-Qaida
and Taliban are being led from Pakistan, which means that even with a
2014 withdrawal deadline, there is no certainty that victory is in
sight. Meanwhile, the US economy is in shambles, its politics is in a
worse logjam and its public debt is at $14 trillion. The Census Bureau’s
annual report 2010 states that the ranks of America’s poor has swelled
to almost 1 in 6 people(15.1%), reaching a new high as long term
unemployment left millions struggling and out of work. There is no
doubt that the financial crisis and its aftermath have adversely
dampened employment prospects, especially in the developed world. But
according to the Economist, what is all the more worrying is the
unemployment in the youth population. One in five under-25 year old in
the European Union (EU) labour force is unemployed. In America over 18%
of under-25s are jobless. Longer stretches of unemployment makes it that
much harder for securing jobs down the years. This means that the
unemployed are forced to undersell themselves. Over a period of time,
this translates into lower salaries and experience. There
are also undesirable psychological and emotional consequences of long
stretches of unemployment with the link between youth unemployment and
crime.
War is directly linked to the economic fate of mankind. Undermine the economy and you will create the next Hitler. Destroy
an economy and someone like Hitler can rise to power very easily. If
everyone is fat and happy, they will elect to ignore drastic change
preferring not to rock the boat.
The ‘Green buck’ emission (Quantitative Easing, in simple terms,
printing Dollars), by the US Federal Reserve, lead to booming commodity
prices and inflation all around the world. Inflation (high prices of day
to day consumption items) along with unemployment triggered
social unrest across the globe, be it the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia,
Syria or Libya or the Riots in London. The support received from the
middle class for the ‘August Kranti 2.0’, in India, may be partly
attributed to it.
The ‘Cold war’ era (Capitalism v/s Communism) which began with the end
of World War II and the rise of ‘Baby Boomers’ (Generation post WWII)
ended with the fall off the Berlin wall. With the collapse of the Twin
Towers we have entered a new era, the era of ‘War against Terror’.
Contrary to the claims, in real sense, it is a War between ‘Western
ideology’ and ‘Islam’.
If we can draw lessons from History and project the future, the conclusions will be:
1. Wilderness:
A long drawn out process, a decade has passed three more to go. During
this period the Western world will pay for the excesses it committed in
the recent past.There will be fracturing of the ' American Dream ' and
rise of the 'Boomerang generation' !
2. Capitalism: Compelled by Social pressures ‘Unipolar’ Capitalism will change to ‘Inclusive’ Capitalism.
3. Islam:
End of Wahabi /Jihadi form of Islam and rise of a modern moderate
Islam. A complete change from Jihad to ijtithad (independent thinking)
I may not last the Era of Wilderness, but would my children enjoy the Promised Land?
