Komkommeren

Komkommertijd in de journalistiek? Geen sprake van. Genoeg om over te schrijven dezer dagen. Had zo’n ramp kunnen voorkomen worden? Zijn wij daarop voorzien? In combinatie met het pikante debat over het al dan niet sluiten van kerncentrales. Hoe zal onze economie hiervan last ondervinden? En natuurlijk zullen we dat aan de pomp voelen!

Ik krijg huiveringen van zulke berichten. Er zijn verdorie zoveel mensen gestorven. Er zijn nog veel meer mensen op zoek naar hun familie, zonder eten, zonder verwarming. Mag er plaats zijn voor een beetje medeleven vooraleer we, maar weer eens, aan onszelf denken? 

Morocco: to revolt or not to revolt

What was an original plan of a relaxing week in Morocco became for me an amazing opportunity to get in touch with the changes going on in North-Africa and the Middle-East. Could Morocco be the next in line? A reason for me to hold my eyes and ears widly open. While waiting on another airport I did some resaerch. The worldwide web tells me that Morocco is a corrupt monarchy. There's a king who has got his power directly from the prophet Momhammed and is very popular. In every public picture, there's a picture of him on the wall. He appoints the ministers, so we cannot really speak about 'serious elections'. Our local 'guide' told us that you can critisize the policy of the king, but not his person. He owns more than half of the total economy because all the companies are his!!

Further more, Morocco is charaterised by (a growing) social inequality, low scores on the Human Development Index, analfabetism and a low employment rate, especially between the highly educated. That's where I saw the only protest of 100-200 people. There's totally no stimulus to go study. A son, working from the age of 7 as a shepherd, will be better of than a high-educated son, who will probably be unemployed and poor at the age of 20.

Up to field research. Interesting detail, the ministery of the exterior in Belgium (the one still in function..) recommands not to talk or go in discussion with people about the current political situation. Makes it even more tempty to do so!

When arriving in the country of 1001 nights, I immediately had to put some prejudgements aside. Besides the other arabian countries, Morocco is doing 'quite well' on the position of women. There are young girls on the streets, during nights, wearing western cloothes (eventhough I don't know if that is a good thing..) and no headscarfes. You can find women in all sorts of jobs (in the city though).

While travelling around, you can really see that Morocco is moving. Since a few years, there's a new king, Mohammed VI and he adheres to a policy of reforms. Everywhere you see building projects, decent infrastructure,... Also a lot of police for the control of the 'paper of the car'.  But are these reforms enough for the people of Morocco? And are they to improve the life of the growing level of tourists or are they to improve the lives of the people of Morocco? Apparently, Morocco needs more change.

So, as to see my 'field research', I would prospect no immediate revolution. I read some things about 'the march of love' on february, 20 (today) but I only found one source. Apparently that source was right! If I would prospect some conflicts, it would more be between the Berbers and the Arabs, because the Berbers still don't have the same rights while they are the biggest part of the population. As well, I would expect some protests of the side of the higher educated. Seen the recent evolutions, people are giving critics on the king and not only on his political course. Things are moving. Most Moroccons are young (-26) and they are apparently not immediately believe everything that they have been told.

There's agriculture, a lot of resources like gold, silver, phosphor,sulfate, tourism, .. Morocco certainly has the possibility to be a rich country and some appropriate policy mesures . But why is it not a rich country? Why is there still so much poverty? Why are they still working like hell to get nothing? A reason of our 'local guide' would be that the borders in the Sahara are still not clear, so there's a lot of money going to defence on those borders. These days, there are people coming on the streets in Rabat and Casablanca, economically and politically the most important cities. Apparently, the improvements were not enough.

'It's not our task to predict the future. It's ours to make it possible.'

Does it matter?

A few days ago, I attended an infomation day of the organisation 'Damiaanactie' (DA, www.damiaanactie.info/damiaanactie/). When I was 18, I worked in a project of them, rebuilding a 'health care post' in the heart of Africa and one of the many Belgian shames, the former colony of Congo. The organisation has a clear object, curing tuberculosis and leprosy. Also a clear vision, they want to work in the track of father Damien. A Belgian priest who stood up for the lepers on the island Molokai; though without religous backgrounds. Respect, engagement, inspiration are among the many values they cherish. Non of those things I couldn't NOT support.

I truly believed in that project. It was a great experience and the people really appreciated what we did. 'White people, coming here, helping us? For free?', 'That couldn't be possible'. Though, you come back home, restarting your normal life and bit by bit, you loose a little bit of the magic you experienced there.

There are many people dying of disseases. Dying of hunger. Dying while fighting for democracy, for peace, for their country. And then you think.. Did this one little thing really matter or was this just a drop in the ocean? And you truly wanna or more need to believe in it because otherwise it all ment nothing and all your ideas and dreams ment nothing. But on the other hand, you have to face reality.

BUT THEN.. There was an interview in the newspaper with a person who also worked with DA in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is one of the most overcrowded countries in the world and moreover, there is more than one flood a year destroying a lot of the infrastructures. The guy told us that if DA was not working there, there was no infrastructure. No health care. A hotbed for tuberculosis and leprosy.
 That's where I knew why again.. For some people, a little drop really can make a difference.

Big question mark?

To continue Max Weber's discussion between rationality and ideology, moral beliefs and ethics of responsibilty, another reflexion.
A few days ago, I had an interesting discussion with a person who made me reflect about myself. Here, I may have to revise my comment on the Belgian political situation last. Because in that discussion, I became hit, in the meaning of really slapped by reality.
I want a social system that works for everybody, people to have a good health insurance and refugees to have a place where they can go to. But if we take a look at (social) psychology, sociolgy or even the economic 'game theory', you recognise the following. Everywhere, we see that people try to avoid contributing to systems that actually have good intentions for them. 'Free riders'. Just for a free rider, the individual option is the best. But if we take a look at the meta-analytical level, we see that there's an option who can bring good for all people. But we will not have the intention to take this one.  I don't want to stray to much from the subject here, my point is.. I'm a naive youngster and I want to believe in those ideals and I want world peace. But the world is not like that. If we want to realise those ideals in practice, we will not know where and how to start.
When you are at the crossing point: which choice will you make? Will you go for the safe option?  Or will you put your heart and hopes in a place where it risks to become hurt?

Een interpretatie van de politieke impasse volgens Max Weber.

Ondertussen zitten we aan meer dan 200 dagen zonder regering. Het record ‘langste regeringsonderhandeling ooit’(in West-Europa), kan België alvast achter zijn naam schrijven. Daarnaast worden we geconfronteerd met één van de zwaarste financiële crisissen allertijde.

In Max Webers werk ‘Politik als beruf’, maakt hij op het eerste zicht een streng onderscheid tussen verantwoordelijkheidsethiek en een overtuigingsethiek. Verantwoordelijkheidsethiek duidt op het realisme van politici die rekening houden met de logica van de macht en hun handen durven vuilmaken wanneer de situatie dit verlangt. Overtuigingsethiek wordt soms omschreven als het 'naïeve idealisme' van diegenen die zich laten leiden door hun trouw aan levensbeschouwelijke idealen. Het onderscheid tussen verantwoordelijkheidsethiek en overtuigingsethiek vindt in onze geseculariseerde samenleving zijn basis terug onder de scheiding van kerk en staat.

Doch, volgens J. Verstraeten, professor religie, zingeving, levensbeschouwing aan de KU Leuven verdient het werk van Weber een tweede lezing. Daarbij ontdekken we dat hij de tegenstelling tracht op te lossen, door overtuigingsethiek en verantwoordelijkheidsethiek te zien als complementen. De politicus moet rekening houden met de gevolgen van het al dan niet gebruiken van bepaalde machtsmiddelen. Dit vermogen moet worden aangevuld met het heldere inzcht en de politieke passie.

Ik kan niet ontkennen dat ik Bart De Wever een intelligente politicus vindt maar macht mag geen doel op zich vormen, noch mag het bedrijven van politiek een vrijblijvend, frivool intellectueel spel vormen. Vooral met dit laatste heb ik het wat moeilijk, met betrekking tot de tactieken van Bart De Wever. Ja, deelregeringen moeten zo veel mogelijk verantwoordelijk zijn voor eigen financiën. Ja, een staatshervorming is nodig. Neen, tegen een splitsing van Belgie. Maar alstublieft, Bart De Wever, speel geen politieke spelletjes door in 'Der Spiegel' België een ziek land te noemen. Partijen in Vlaanderen en Wallonië, hou het been niet té lang stijf want het is alleen de burger die eronder lijdt. Voor we het weten krijgt de financiële markt weer de poepers en moet België noodhulp vragen aan de EU of het IMF. Onze toekomst is geen tactisch spel!

* Voor deze bijdrage heb ik me gebaseerd op de cursus 'Religie, zingeving, levensbeschouwing' door J. Verstraeten. 

In my old, lovely life in Belgium, I was one of those, opposing technical evolutions. I didn’t want to learn (or couldn’t) work with my computer and ultramodern gadgets were nothing for me. I hold on to the printed newspaper, buying books and cds and loving libraries.

But then I moved to Sweden and since most newspapers are tabloids here, I was forced to do news rounds on the Internet. Now, I am sitting here in my bed, being interconnected with the whole world by the WWW. Spotify, a free program to listen music, enables me to constantly discover new music (or makes me an addict?). Writing in a standardized program called world, so this message transmissible through all of you. Meeting at least 5 nationalities each day. And this is where it became too much this morning. I was reading an opinion article (http://opinie.deredactie.be/2010/11/12/het-%E2%80%98integratieprobleem%E2%80%99-anders-bekeken/) on a Belgian news site, yes, I am practicing long distance nationalism. This article is on the immigration ‘problems’. Especially, when it came to the comments, I was getting really angry. Because, I am an immigrant myself in Sweden, you know. And it is damn hard to get integrated, you know. I am just hanging out with international students. Swedes are friendly but very cold and most of the time, you don’t even come to a conversation with a Swede.

Anyway, I spend my whole week reading about globalization, whether it brings homogenization or diversification and stuff like that. And yes, I am a little bit worried about the ‘McDonaldization’ of our society. The disappearance or impoverishment of cultures, languages, .. And then, on that news site, there were all those people, commenting that integration should be a one way concept. People can only change into Belgians (is there something like a Belgian national identity???) and that there is no space for a little bit diversity. This world is sick, I will kill myself.