may peace be upon you

My father will have been about my present age, when he was contemplating whether as a family we would move to Iran or if he should opt to continue to business travel back and forth while my sisters and me stayed with my mother.

It will not have been the mere burden of logistics or geographical movement and certainly not the educating challenges of a civilization's heritage and contemporary cultural exposure that will have made my father to opt for the latter.  Rather, he will have wanted to avoid us being "caught" in the then still unforeseeable impact of the regime change about 5 years later, when the Shah fled and Khomeini commenced implementing his revolution as supreme leader. 

Today, I can only guess what my father would have to say on the situation in the Middle East, a region he held close to mind and heart, for so many reasons.  

It will be impossible to grasp his library of thoughts and insights accumulated over several decades in a mere blog's post, but I suspect he will have been busy today with - like most people - closely analising what causes countries to have or not to have their unique individual version of what history is somehow erroneously recording as Arab Spring, given that the first wave of widespread popular protests were induced by young predominantly Persians through the Green Movement in 2009 (and thus not Arabs).

In an inevatable integrating world, my father always had strong pragmatic (not ideologic) reservations on the 20th century western and Soviet pricetagged sponsering and interfering in populations' sovereignty that continues disturbing the region as a whole.  Consequently he admired the most those populations and their rulers who slowly and wisely conquered progress from within, carefully - and not always successfully - balancing ethnic and religious diversity with national patriotism and economic evolution, something impatient Westerners tend to quickly try to categorize as reform or lack thereof.

Last week's not so surprising election of Hassan Rouhani would appear to have come at a welcome time for everyone (with the exception of the democratically defeated hardliners) but in first place for the driven young population confronted with wordly views restrained in a domestic context, followed by a multilaterally desired breakthrough of a nearly constant state of belligerence with neigbouring countries.  It will be the political and real advancements in those two arenas that, only in third place, will come to secure diplomatic progress in Iran's position towards the rest of the world, whether NAM or western aligned countries.

Today, I think my father would advise western countries to pre-occupy themselves with a much needed focus on domestic agendas and to let Iran be itself.  And guess what ... that is how we may very well move to a greater notion of peace and progress then the clumsy damaging poking politics so far.

السلام عليكم

 

 

The (un)known rebel

For as long as there has been urbanization in a planned and organized manner, do civilizations have recourse to some central square or main avenue in their principal cities.  Whether designed or used for market trading or military parading, the political mandate to architects will always have been that the square shall be a central meeting ground for the people.

Times change, certainly much quicker than inner cities do and in the last three years we have learned and seen the names like Habib Bourgiba, Tahrir, the Pearl roundabout, Syntagma, Taksim, Praça dos Três Poderes, Avenida Paulista and of course the Avenida Presidente Vargas in Rio, the city where "liberte, égalité, fraternité was called much before any French revolution, all principal places in major cities over four continents which were temporarily turned into hotspots by civilian crowds  taking their stand against some government (in)action.

Whether a city, country or a nation feels it practises democracy, or not, it is a population's fair right to exercise usufruct of a public property, even if this involves some form of organisation under some specific motive.     Large gatherings do attract and inevitably come to include individuals that do not align with the crowd's beliefs and may threaten the overall good intent.  Then again, is that not equally true for the party politicians generally targetted in the demonstrations ?

On the other hand, a gathering of 1 million people within a country that populates 65, 85 or even 150 million inhabitants does imply that the far majority has other interests and activities and makes one wonder whether who has access to (mobile) internet claims power over who does not. 

Remember Tianamen in 1989?   No internet or widespread use of handheld phones there and then and only in the years beyond did we came to discover what had been gradually driving the student demonstrations and how they organized themselves before and after the then violent crackdown by militar in Bejing while protests spread to other cities in China.  The man that came to be known as the tankman, individually putting a row of 50 invading tanks to a halt, was included in Time Magazine's top 100 of the 20th century most influential people.

So maybe smartphone technology is just a mere instrument to pursue very old aims and perhaps politicians should step up in truly applying the same channels, with genuine and quality two way communciation, so that we can all visibly agree where we disagree. 

 

Islands of resilience

In the past few years we have seen an annoying number of occasions where upon politicians in public office congratulate each other and themselves on the demonstration of courage in the measures they announce and the impact those promise to bear to their electorates and communities.

Whereas I can appreciate long and hard invisible back office work pursuing some belief in a national interest unlikely to be met with gratitude by large populations unaware of some longer term impact, to associate any such actions as courage is widely exagerated, unless there might be some threat to life or professional integrity, which is hardly the case in most civilized and democratic societies.

I would not want to think of Edward Snowden as hero, nor as a traitor but will grant his action to disclose the PRISM programme as courageous in a very modern sense.  I see truth in the apparent comfortable private life and promissing professional career he had when he made his individual choice to discontinue upholding the code of conduct he will have been bound by, especially as he will have been (made) timely aware of the plausible consequences.  No more island feeling for him.

Frankly I see no motive for anyone to be shocked either by taking note of some government controlled intelligence set up, screening and monitoring communications and when this is in the USA also see no reason for surprise that private entreprises are tied in, but then again I am fortunate enough to live and work in an environment of relative democracy, transparency and justice in comparison with most other people on this planet.  After all, in the US and certainly not in Europe I think we would now not want to debate on how governments should come to spend more on cyber intelligence, exlusively paid for by public means.

That does not withstand that any organisation, public or private, should have their act together at all times and if caught and challenged, that will just be another tough bite to take on board while seeking evolution otherwise.

I recall Jon Stewart's show sarcasticly analysing what one can do in one's virtual life after some US governor had been caught browsing porn sites on the internet.  One proposed solution was to outsmart whomever whistleblows you or, my preferred option, just become a better person in real life as well and then you will have nothing to worry about.

Ain't no mountain high enough

Back in history, the times we now like to qualify as romantic and poetic, it was normal that notable and honourable men (and women) of influence, owners of titles, land and businesses would be the ones to push a nation's prosperity.  In those times it will have been perceived as normal or necessary that the engagement of trade and business would be paired with affairs of state, varying from outright wars to mutually convenient marriages. 

If there is one thing that has influenced the course of history it is the level of information populations (demand to) receive, have access to and consequently to a certain degree will also digest and act upon, whether to serve individual purposes or a perceived wider common good in less or more visible manners.  The disclosures on the US' NSA's Prism programme, triggered by an apparent normal, average person such as Edward Snowden are early indicators that over the 21st century the tide and value of information flows is actually turning in the opposite direction from population to government.  How historic is that ?

This past weekend there was another Bilderberg event and for the first time since the 50's there will be press statements as well as parallel organized popular protest alongside. I regard the Bilderberg meetings as inspiring or even hopefull.  The gatherings do not bear the inherited exclusivity like the mostly royal Serafimorden, nor the lifelong rituals surrounding franchised freemasonry, which is exactly what places the Bilderberg group in a consistently forward looking balance that will maintain it as meaningful and thus secure its existence.

There are leaders and leaders and it makes perfect sense there is a thought and traditional organization that selects invitees to listen to and opinion with, in function of what is happening in the world albeit from a restricted perspective, especially with the Europe and the US in the status they are at, vis-à-vis the rest of the world.  No need to always roundtable hiarchies or to (democratically) explain who, where, what and why.  Just listen and be heard to before each goes back to her/his daily responsabilities.

Politicians, businesses and, in today's world, even private individuals, organized or not, have more instruments at hand to find or challenge common grounds than they can handle.  Maybe one day "bilderberging" will show up in Oxford's dictionary not too far from "blogging" or "browsing" but until such day I wish the few hundred carefully picked participants each year all the help and wisdom they can get.

Avenida de amoR

There is truth in what Paul Krugman touched upon in his post Nightmare in Portugal in that the Financial Times tends to portray a sad dramatic view of Portugal often illustrated with some cliché photo of a dunkey or old-man-on-bench-in-village. 

In this post Krugman relays to a recent article from Peter Wise, FT's longtime correspondent in Lisbon who chose to reflect on the present crisis through a circumscription of abandoned glory at the Avenida de Roma .............. my Avenida de Roma, the street I have been living in for 15 years as per tomorrow, the day my then wife and I got married  (female friends thought it was romantic, male friends called me stupid, but that was indeed 15 years ago).


Peter Wise happens to reside just around the corner from Avenida de Roma and whereas I can visualize his inspiration for the article when taking a stroll down the street on any Sunday afternoon today in comparison with "the good old days", there is much more than meets the eye, which is so very true for all of Portugal. 

We have seen old fashioned and trendy stores, family operated or multinational owned come and go over the years and I have always considered the "customer will come to us" attitude, whether in retail or otherwise, as an unsustainable threat, especially because it is so deep rooted in Portuguese commerce.

But, like Krugman hints, what is important is how we go about turning the tide. So here's another link; http://www.avenidaderoma.com/blog/ announcing an entertaining shopping night tomorrow, in a genuine attempt to remind a population on what life was like before a suburban sealed shoppingcentre tsunami invaded Portugal.

More importantly, the initiative is the result of a hands-on joint effort and investment by a varied mix of private business owners with little input from the public sector, seeking to undertake its share in micro-economics and therewith not relying too much on some possible future macro-economic policy change a government may or may not bring.

To be continued.