The Moral Maze

Raffique Shah (Trinidad Express) has written a very insightful piece about the killing of a local criminal and gang leader, Merlin ‘Cudjoe’ Allamby and the collapse of a finance company, the Hindu Credit Union in Trinidad.
(When greed leads to grief, http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_opinion?id=161356920).

We live in a globalised world and it may come as no surprise that in the UK we are also grappling with similar issues like the glorification of gangsterism and the exploitation of the poor.

Hundreds turned out to the funeral of Merlin ‘Cudjoe’ Allamby and the expressions of grief were genuine and palpable and somewhat unnerving. Of course we know not of those who felt exactly the opposite, didn't see him as a hero or felt their prayers had been answered. The dissenters within the community were hardly likely to demonstrate their joy at his passing lest they suffer a similar fate. Bad men survive because of fear and greed, and bad boys because of misguided affection, that's why gangsters like Cudjoe prosper but this issue is not that simple. I am reminded of the scene in the Godfather when war hero Michael is talking about his father Don Vito Corleone to his girlfriend Kay, at his sisters wedding:

Michael: My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.

Kay: Do you know how naive you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don't have men killed.

Michael: Oh. Who's being naive, Kay?

People like Cudjoe have a following, a constituency because of what they provide in areas of deprivation, a generous benefactor, he even owned a football club. It may not be legitimate but in places long since abandoned by the state and civil society they provide social services, employment and a form of natural justice. In Jamaica so called 'community leaders' provide votes for particular parties and have political backing, it’s an unholy alliance. I'm not sure as to the situation in Trinidad but I would guess at some level of collusion, either by commission or omission, with agencies of the state, such as the police force and other local authorities.

Outlaws have always been larger than life and somewhat mythical figures, bad men (bad boys) tend to be exciting, they have an edge. Amongst the poor and the dispossessed they represent a particular class of entrepreneur, those who literally put themselves on the line, in order to 'get rich or die trying'. It’s also a gender thing; young men (and sadly increasingly young women) tend to put themselves at risk from driving at breakneck speed to binge drinking, substance misuse and various forms of antisocial behaviour. Most tend to grow out of it, mature, however for some it becomes their lifestyle, life long career, or in some instances, short life career - they fail to thrive. It is they who dominate the headlines, we see the photos in the newspapers, and read the scant obituaries; barely out of their teens we look upon their fresh faces and wonder where it's all gone wrong. It is a crisis of our youth, it is the dilemma of the Diaspora, but it is one of our own making.

The young didn't invent greed and consumerism, they didn’t invent drugs or are the major suppliers, didn't invent the bling culture or the screwed up set of values that they live and increasingly die by, but it is they who are caught up in it and suffer. For them life ceases to have value or meaning, it is replaced by the concept of respect which really isn't about respect at all but all about fear of the other.

It is a nihilism that few can identify with and we all struggle to understand.

That does not mean they are in any way absolved for the violence they perpetrate, an explanation is not an excuse. They must atone for the evil that they do, they must pay the price. But it is because of the failure, the failure of parents to discipline, of the schools to educate, of the police to protect, of big business to care about anything other than profits, of politicians to give a damn, that we're in this mess in the first place.

We have shirked our responsibility, we may not be directly involved but how many have turned a blind eye or failed to inform on a loved one? We would do well to remember that, for evil to triumph all that is necessary is for good men, and women to do nothing!

Here in the UK, there are families where kids are the sole breadwinners and mothers (father's being largely absent or when present complicit) just take the money, no questions asked. If the behaviour of our children and young people is revolting it’s because we as adults have set the example they follow. Unfortunately, whilst children may have some difficulty in doing what adults say, they excel in copying what they do. Children by and large simply reflect and respond to the world that's envelopes them. But for some unknown reason we are surprised when they act in such an aggressive and violent way, as if we expect them to somehow be better than us adults. We seem to hold them to a much higher standard than we hold ourselves. It is you, the nebulous 'you', who have abandoned these feral kids, that roam our streets, gun or knife in hand, spreading terror. It is 'we' the not-so-silent majority, the innocent and law-abiding who suffers. We watch our children in whom we have so much invested and have invested so much, succumb to the madness and all we can do is weep.

My 5 billion dollars now becomes 5 dollars!

I've just lost a small fortune, for one brief moment I was trying to work out what I'd do with my five billion Zimbabwean dollars now I've only got one dollar, talk about a cruel twist of fate. The sudden decision by the Reserve Bank Zimbabwe to drop ten zeros has left me bereft. Its another riches to rags story, ah well easy, come easy go!

From Times Online

July 30, 2008

Zimbabwe slashes ten zeros off its currency

(EPA)

No more - the 100 billion dollar note

Jonanthan Clayton

Zimbabwe, gripped by rampant hyper-inflation stoked by ruinous economic policies, reacted by knocking ten zeros off the country’s near-valueless currency.

The move by the Reserve Bank, which analysts said would do nothing to redress the economic crisis, turned ten billion dollars in to one dollar. It came as President Mugabe went on state television and threatened to impose a state of emergency if businesses took advantage of the country’s economic woes, which he blames on the limited sanctions imposed by the West.

Mr Mugabe, 84, often accuses Western capitalists for the country’s plight, but this time his words, coinciding with a breakdown in talks with the opposition in neighbouring South Africa on a government of national unity, were taken more seriously.

An African diplomatic source close to the talks, which began at a secret location in Pretoria last week, said: “If he feels the talks are not going his way, he could well use the economy as an excuse for a state of emergency and try and cling on a little longer."

President Mbeki of South African flew to Harare yesterday to see Mr Mugabe after having previously met Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). He later said that the talks would resume on Sunday.

It is believed they stalled after Mr Mugabe offered the MDC leader only a few minor ministries and the meaningless position of third deputy president — a new post. The MDC claims that it won the first round of the country’s election on March 29, but then Mr Mugabe unleashed a campaign of intimidation to win a second round which the opposition boycotted.

Mr Mugabe would remain as president for two years and then step down, but the opposition fears the ruling ZANU (PF) party would use the period to undermine the MDC still further and ensure one of its top politburo figures takes over.

In his television statement, Mr Mugabe insisted that he was negotiating in good faith. “We are still negotiating, we want to succeed...You find room for compromise but sometimes compromise is difficult ... So things are never easy.” An official South African statement said that Mr Mbeki would also meet the leader of a breakaway opposition faction, Arthur Mutambara.

Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai, who is also under pressure from his grassroots not to make too many concessions, met for the first time in ten years last week and agreed to have their negotiators hammer out a formula to share power.

All sides are under immense regional pressure to do a deal. Zimbabwe’s neighbours, all awash with hundreds of thousands of refugees, have lost patience with Harare, but remain deeply suspicious of the MDC and its leader.

How To Disappear Online

Social networking undoubtedly has many benefits and it is fun, however like everything else one should be aware of the pitfalls. Some people may not be aware that information posted on these sites may not be easily deleted, so its worthwhile having a second or possibly even a third thought about those posting or photos that might seem quite funny at the time but less so in the cold and sober light of day!

Forbes.com

Online Life
How To Disappear Online
Andy Greenberg, 03.07.08, 12:00 PM ET

You may have forgotten about Friendster, the once-booming social networking site that faded as American Web users flocked to MySpace and Facebook. But Friendster may not have forgotten about you.

It still remembers, for instance, that John Smith from Salisbury, Md., enjoys hobbies including "comic books" and "copulation." And any Google user can read a glowing testimonial written to Brooklynite Sam Brown, describing his habit of walking around his apartment drunk and naked, as well as his talent for using a certain part of his anatomy as a puppet.

In fact, Friendster is a ghost town of detailed personal information: The site received only 2.4 million unique visitors in the U.S. in January, but has more than 10 million American profiles, many of which publicly display information that users would probably prefer to keep private.
In Pictures: How To Become 'Web Dead'

Luckily, deleting your old Friendster profile takes just seconds. A subtly placed link on the bottom right corner of the "Account Settings" page will permanently delete all information stored on your page.

While you're at it, why not delete your old blog, that embarrassing attempt at literary wit that still lingers online? And perhaps it would be best to rid yourself of the Flickr account with those incriminating photos from last weekend? In fact, why not delete every reference to yourself online--simply disappear from the Web and restart your digital reputation afresh?

It's not easy, says Michael Fertik. But plenty of Web users would like to try.

Fertik's business, a start-up called ReputationDefender, based in Louisville, Ky., advertises that it lets users control their Web identity: For $30, the service will work to remove any content a subscriber chooses, using tactics that start with polite requests to the content's publisher and occasionally escalate to legal threats.

Most of Fertik's 6,000 or so customers only want a limited amount of material removed--a couple of embarrassing or defamatory blog posts, for instance. But a few, he says, want all online references about themselves to evaporate. "They want to be what they call 'Web dead,' " he says.

For those customers, many of whom have been stalked or threatened in the real world, Fertik admits that "Web death" is often impossible--references in major newspapers or political contribution data collected by the government, for instance, are practically indelible. More reasonable is trying to manage your online identity, say by removing a few unpleasant references or hiding them.

One ReputationDefender service creates innocuous content about customers, then tweaks those comments so that they float to the top of Google search results, where they hide offensive material. (See "Google-Proof PR?")

But for people who have just a few online references on community Web sites--usually older customers--it's sometimes possible to create a clean slate. "If you're 60 and above, you might be able to become 'Web dead' because you've never been 'Web alive,' " Fertik says.

Many younger users, on the other hand, have left a vivid record of their lives online by posting to user-generated content sites and social networks. And some of the more privacy conscious of those users are starting to clean up that digital trail.

More than 13,000 Facebook users, for instance, have joined a group on the site called "How to permanently delete your Facebook account." The majority of the group's members simply want to erase pages with embarrassing details when they apply for a job, says the group's Swedish founder, Magnus Wallin. Others don't like the idea of leaving personal details sitting on the Web for years to come. A few, he says, want to delete all online traces of themselves to hide from the C.I.A. or other imagined pursuers.

Thanks in part to the demands of Wallin's group, Facebook has made disappearing easier. Until recently, users had to painstakingly remove every message they had left on the site and then "deactivate" their account--an option that still left their personal information stored on Facebook's servers, though not publicly visible. Now users can choose to leave the site temporarily with the deactivation option or to contact the site's administrators and request that their records are permanently erased from the site.

But when it comes to content that's not created by the user himself or herself, completely disappearing online often runs into legal barriers, cautions Daniel Solove, a professor at Washington University and author of The Future of Reputation, a book about online identity management. Because first amendment law tends to protect free speech above privacy in the U.S., an individual can't easily demand that someone else pull down what they wrote, unless the comments are either false or overtly offensive, he says. That means if a blogger or mainstream media outlet mentions you on the Web, Google will find the page for years to come.

"Antiquated notions of invasions of privacy and the overprotection of free speech make removing content a real uphill battle in this country," says Solove.

The only real solution, argues a hacker and security researcher who calls himself "Dead Addict," is to not reveal your personal information in the first place. Dead Addict, who plans to give a talk on Web privacy at the technology conference Notacon in April, has used a workaround common to hackers avoiding the problems of online identity: To keep his controversial opinions and cyber-misdemeanors separate from his real world identity, Dead Addict has used a pseudonym for the last 15 years.

Search for Dead Addict's real name, which he declines to reveal, and he says you'll find a digital non-person: Other than a single forum comment he wrote some 13 years ago, the name offers no results. That anonymity comes from careful attention: Dead Addict has never blogged or created a social networking profile with his real name. Even his business cards carry only his first name and middle initial. "Fifteen years of keeping distinct identities takes a lot of work," he says.

But for those who haven't spent decades hiding from the Web, is it still possible to pull off the same disappearing act?

"If you already have a history online and suddenly start caring about privacy, you're in a very tough spot," he says. "Basically, there's no easy answer."

A brief report on my visit to Elmina and Cape Coast Slave Castles in Ghana

Elmina Castle was built by the Portuguese in 1482 initially to trade in goods as opposed to people. I was struck by the fact that a church stood in the middle of the castle and that religion played such a prominent role in the slave trade, cheek by jowl(the Church owned slaves on plantations in the West Indies. At Elmina church services were held above the dungeons that housed the slaves. I moved though the castle listening to the tales of physical and sexual abuse (rape) foisted on a people held captive until encountering the Gate of No Return, where slaves boarded the waiting ships, something moved inside me. This was the point of severance. It was made deliberately small as some slaves leapt into the sea and drowned rather than board the ships taking them away from Africa – choosing death rather than separation.

The scene at Elmina was somewhat incongruous because our visit coincided with the Bakatue Festival which is a pretty lively and fun affair, with huge crowds (a bit like Notting Hill Carnival). The Bakatue or (Fish Harvesting) consists of a royal procession of chiefs and stool holders riding palanquins through the main streets to a sacred shrine where chiefs pour libation and sprinkle sacred food. It heralds the opening of the fishing season following the ban on fishing, and features the ceremonial scooping of the lagoon with a net, after which permission is given to fishermen to fish. We're talking serious bling here, with chiefs draped with gold and fine clothes; it is a very impressive and imposing sight. I was having a digital camera malfunction and my battery was almost dead. I only managed to get a few pictures from afar, I couldn't get close to the chiefs, as people danced in the streets, music blared, and men in multi-coloured costumes walked on stilts, it reminded me of Trinidad carnival. Actually, I will add that if you want to see the origins of carnival go to West Africa.

Cape Coast Castle:

Unlike Elmina, Cape Coast Castle was built by the British specifically to house slaves. What you don't get in the pictures is a sense of how dark and dank the dungeons are and hot, and despite the centuries that have elapsed, the funny smell. There would be little point in me trying to imagine what the conditions must have been like with about 300 hundred people shackled in them, even emptied and clean the dungeons are revolting. At one point they closed the doors and you could hardly see a thing, the air was also quite stale and that was with only with a few of us in them. Slaves were held for up to 3 months in the dungeons depending on the availability of ships, packed in shoulder to shoulder, given little food and water, they were quite literally left to wallow in their own filth, for 3 months this is where they lived - slept, ate, defecated, and died, one can only guess at the attrition rate.

I am not at all squeamish but I felt very uncomfortable when our guide pointed out that what we were walking on was not the brick floor of the dungeon but a thick stone-like crust on top of it, made up of layer upon layer of compacted faeces (excrement), blood and human remains (slaves that died were literally left to rot); this had been trodden on by the slaves over the years and had become rock hard. In some of the pictures you can see where the dungeon has been excavated exposing the brick floor. Thereafter I felt uneasy with every step, continually glancing at my feet as I walked over this compacted matter and was very much relieved to be out of it. However when I emerged from the gloom of the male dungeon and into the air and light, I initially thought I was going to cry, felt the tears welling up inside me but suddenly I just became very angry.

Those who survived the Slave castles then faced the Middle Passage, crossing the Atlantic and exposure to more misery and death. It is said that the difference between the Holocaust and the Slave Trade is that there was no intention to kill or exterminate the slaves. As far as I'm concerned that is merely semantics. I got a distinct sense that not only was the welfare of the slaves not a matter of concern for the traders but that the conditions were as such that survival was simply a matter of luck and the indomitable spirit of our ancestors. This was further evidenced by the use of the death cells for those who transgressed and offered the greatest challenges to authority. They were shut into this airless, lightless room, with no food or water and left to die. The marks on the stone walls and floor of the death cell were made by slaves as they clawed with their fingernails in distress. The slavers made best use of the technology of their day as did the Nazis; if the slavers had gas at their disposal they would have used it.

The Slave Trade remains an issue that has yet to be properly addressed; I also need to mention that the enslavement of Africans would not be possible without the collusion of Africans. This was my first visit to West Africa and I couldn't help but see the dietary, social and cultural similarities with the Caribbean, between the Africans in Africa and those in the Diaspora. I became even more interested in the disconnect, the fact that there is such fear and loathing between us. The links were so obvious to me; this is where our origins lie, our story begins, our history starts; not the new world and not the 400 year period of chattel slavery.

The Castles are monuments to an unbridled savagery but I also see them as a having a positive story, resistance and triumph in the face of adversity - we survived against the odds and if we survived the Slave castles and the Middle Passage we can survive anything.

I would urge everyone to try to make the trip not only to the Slave Castles but to see the country as well.

Money, Money, Money

This is not a hoax, strange as it might seen I have actually been given $5 billion dollars by a friend, if you don't believe me see the photos. I was really surprised because I didn't ask for that much, the thing is I have until 31st December to spend it or lose it. So please forward suggestions as to how I might spend it.
I forgot to add that I've got $5 billion Zimbabwean dollars, and one should consider that currently the exchange rate of Zimbabwe dollar against the US$ is US$1 to $75 billion Zim dollars! $75 billion buys a loaf of bread (however it wouldn't by the time you read this email). So what can you do with $5 billion? Toilet paper is exceedingly scare in Zimbabwe to be precise it is more or less impossible to get. The $5 billion dollar notes seem fairly absorbent if a tad sharp but with the attendant due care and diligence I would suggest that they are a fitting replacement!