Humans – Merely a step in evolution

A week of suicidal CEOs, monumental aid from Turkey to Pakistan and a realisation AGAIN that I'm living in the wrong century!

This week a touching story came in about a CEO of a Turkish holding group who took his own life after killing his wife on a regular working day, after eating breakfast together as usual. "The couple retired to their bedroom after breakfast" said the housekeeper, where the man shot his wife before turning the gun on himself. The housekeeper found the two dead shortly after. The woman had Alzheimers and was very sick according to the family and as the couple couldn't imagine living without each other they made a decision to take their lives on that cold sunny Istanbul morning. While there is something tragic about the people who are left behind to cope with the loss, there is something incredibly romantic about the death of the couple. I only hope that if there is an after life they are both together in peace and able to live out their love for eternity.

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A Noble Effort

Turkey joined along with the UN relief program and NATO this week to help in relief efforts for the victims of Pakistan's earthquake that hit two weeks ago. Ankara has facilitated the airlift of hundreds of tons of supplies, including nearly 10,000 desperately needed tents (although some may say that the tents are old and useless), from the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey to the earthquake zone in northern Pakistan.

Prime Minister Erdogan also travelled to the quake-stricken region on Thursday and took a helicopter tour to see the damage for himself. Erdogan also delivered the news that Turkey would pledge $150 million in aid – this is single largest donation to date. Something which is quite outstanding for a country that is seen to have high debt and that also suffers from quakes. In fact as the prime minister was in Pakistan Turkey was hit by an earthquake that measured 5.9 on the Richter scale. The quake sent panic through the western Aegean city of Izmir, which resulted in one person dead from a heart attack at the age of 38 and others were injured as they jumped from their balconies. A noble effort for Turkey to help in aiding Pakistan.

Erdogan spoke out on the subject of lacking aid to the region. "By the end of 2004, the world had put one trillion U.S. dollars into weapons and we have to ask how much the world has put aside for this disaster in Pakistan," he said after a helicopter flight over the shattered region.

"We have to open our hands more. Today it's Pakistan, tomorrow it can somewhere else," he told reporters through an interpreter in the destroyed city of Muzaffarabad.

"We have to feel what they are a feeling. And as people who are in a responsible position we have to take responsibility for this," he said a day after the United Nations said the world was not doing enough to help.

Although UNHCR has worked closely with non-combatant NATO forces in Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia during the Kosovo crisis, this is the first time the UN refugee agency and NATO have mounted a joint airlift of this size.

Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said, "In all, we have about 860 tonnes of supplies in our warehouse in Iskenderun, Turkey, that we're going to rush to Pakistan with the generous help of these two partners," adding that, "This part of the airlift will deliver nearly 10,000 family tents – enough for 100,000 people – 103,675 blankets and 2,000 stoves from our stocks in Turkey."

Dozens of planes are expected to be sent from the NATO alliance, so far a total of 11 C-130 planes have been offered by the UK, Italy, France, Turkey and Greece. With the Turkish government offering 40 trucks to transport the supplies from the UNHCR warehouse to the airbase in Incirlik. Seven trucks arrived in Incirlik on Tuesday carrying stoves and some 45,000 blankets.

The Turkish effort has been at the forefront of this relief effort with the local governor close to where the air base is located going all out to help by assigning some military troops to move aid supplies. "The governor of Adana, where Incirlik is located, is assisting with the provision of military troops and equipment to help shift the supplies," Redmond added.

We should take out hats off to Turkey for getting involved! Bravo! A really humanitarian effort.

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The scariest piece of propaganda I came across this week was published on the US government website under the title of "National Security" (no surprises there). The is a whole page dedicated to the war on terror with ridiculous plans of actions and explanations as follows.

"Third, From Their New Base, These Militants Will Seek To Establish A Radical Islamic Empire. The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East and establish a radical Islamic empire that spreads from Spain to Indonesia."

And who said I was paranoid about the US inventing just another reason to continue their fight against the lefties of this world:

"Like Communism, Islamic Radicalism Is Led By An Elitist Self-Appointed Vanguard That Presumes To Speak For The Muslim Masses. Bin Laden says his role is to tell Muslims "what is good for them and what is not." What this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that this is the road to paradise - though he never offers to go along for the ride."

Hmm. Communism and Islamic Radicalism in the same sentence. Interestingly put there! This is from a government who still hasn't got it that the cold war is over. Maybe they could have said:

"The wealth that we, the US government, gave Bin Laden obviously wasn't enough to persuade him into a life of TV dinners and submission to Western ignorant political values."

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When asked what he thought the human race was in for, Mr Hartley from London said, "Capitalism will run its course - I still believe Marx was right in this + I still believe Nietzche was right in saying that humans were merely a step in evolution... "

Then he quite aptly went on to talk about his working week, "Sell soul, make money." A good example of a modern (how long has that phrase been coined for?) working class man. Ideas and capitalism all together in one fell swoop. What else is there to do in today's "modern" world. And how much more modern can we be?

Mr Dobis an American living in Istanbul said when posed on the question of why Americans cannot separate politics from their culture, “Americans are brought up to believe that the US is right and that we are saving the world for democracy, but in actual fact they are pushing in the direction of capitalism. And nine times out of ten capitalism is anti-democratic”

Question: The debate at the moment in the US is "What will we do when Castro dies?"
Answer: It's none of your god damn business! Spoken like a true American.

"The domino theory", a term coined by the US government to explain the effects of country by country turning (or as they said "falling") to communism, the thing that many US defense ministers never realised to understand was that most of these countries were more interested in a sustainable independence than communism. If only Macnamara had picked up and READ a history book on China and Vietnam, millions of lives may have been spared.

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Socially awkward or just a false impression?

Sitting at a dinner in a very shi shi restaurant this week, surrounded by young professionals who had all been through university education, some with masters degrees, others applying for grad school next year, the conversation consisted of name dropping, silly political quotes and stereotyped observations about people – supposedly aimed at being ironic. The surprising thing thought the observer (and diner among the group) was, "Don't these people have any information based on the theories that came up with the very stories they are quoting?" An egotistical exercise in seeing who knows more information than the other, but with no real depth of discussion introduced. The observer decided to jump in and comment on why the person to her right was talking utter crap. "Do you really believe that the free open economy of the world can be reversed?" His reply was,"Of course the economy of the world can be reversed? Anything is possible." Finding this to be a simple reply, the observer asked her fellow diner to expand on this statement, which, he was not able to do and instead ignored the request – cunningly in a quick maneuver to divert attention – he quickly jumped into a conversation across the table on the names given to US licence plates.

Is that a justfication in fighting for democracy on all fronts? Thought the observer. Hmm. And hasn't democracy been around since the Romans? It's not something that was invented by the US? Was it? Although the Romans were pretty good at sticking their nose in where it wasn't wanted. Sound familiar?

The observer not able to participate in the shallowness of the conversation sat tight, she would find another opportunity to join in, however, time passed and no opportunity presented itself, feeling under extreme pressure to get involved in the conversation, she tried again. But she couldn't. Would she be seen as a social faliure? A boring person of low intellect?

And then she reflected. Why was it that everytime she questioned the man to her right over his ideas, he replied with a look of puzzlement. The observer's first reaction was one of paranoia. She sat there for a while before excusing herself from the smiles and fake laughter.

Off she went to the bathroom and took a good look at herself in the mirror. "What am I doing here? I'm being relegated to the second division social club." Then the cloud of paranoia cleared and a smile of confidence looked back at her from the mirror. She realised that although he had been talking about politics, he didn't in actual fact know anything about the history behind his ideas. It reminded her of a t-shirt her cousin used to wear, "Keep us in the dark and feed us lots of bullshit".

She went back to the table, sat down, looked around and relaxed. A group of well-educated attractive people with well practised monologues surrounded her. What would they care if she said something or not. They probably hadn't even noticed she had been gone.

Isn't a dialogue much more interesting and benficial for all parties?
Isolation and Estrangement:If this is what being a democratically raised Westerner is, then I reject it.