In English Only In English Only In English Only In English Only

Carlo Federico's MANIFESTO

PART III

17.

 

Slogans are the stuff of the fool, or of the lazy: here in my Country some Moral Gurus come out every now and then pensively admonishing local pragmatic people to create new jobs for the unemployed.
Unfortunately no practical indication is coming with the slogan-like exhortation, an umpteenth example of what could be defined hilarious vacuous demagoguerie. In the United States and England the unemployed are half the percentage we have here, but their Reaganian and Thatcherite mores are deemed unpopular, here. If you look especially at the dramatic plight of the young under thirty, the figure here is 23 per cent, while in Great Britain is virtually zero [Igor Man, Sept. 6th, '98]. Even in the Netherlands, where the devilish Ron and Maggie never had particular ascendancy, the percentage of unemployed is half what we have, but for some other [ideological] reason their flexible medicine here couldn't work. (One of the reasons is a small party of unrepentant Communists who are the tail that wags our government's dog and still dream central planning as panacea; an other reason might be in a time-honored remark by H.L. Mencken: Unions are mostly devoted to safeguarding the advantages conquered by their old-guard "working" constituency; the young unemployed out in the cold do not cast unionist votes). Who cares? Why to risk one's face going into hard technicalities? Some resounding words have been pronounced, and the gurus who uttered them feel adequately in peace with their own conscience.
Such personages punch their timecard of moral concern being present at the right moment in the right place, as many did in Sarajevo at its top fashionable point in time, and then forget all about.
One of the most prominent Moral Gurus here, a much revered philosopher, wrote some years ago that technological progress now grants the means of subsistence for all humans on the globe, THEREFORE it is imperative to distribute etc etc. Unfortunately up to now he did not suggest any practical no-nonsense, no-slogan new way: are we expected to continue pouring our taxpayer money into the hands of corrupt incompetent leaders down there?
[a book I advise: Lords of Poverty, by Graham Hancock, Mandarin paperback = you will learn how many billion dollars from the taxpayer are wasted every year through the sinkhole of incompetence; you might see how FAO money was selectively allocated to Third-World Countries whose delegates voted for Mr Saouma as Director General and allegedly denied to others in need just because they didn't vote for Mr Saouma, and among countless appalling examples of the World Bank incompetence you will read the story of the Polonoreste Project that had a Hiroshima-like effect on Amazonian rainforest and on its unlucky tribal people who were foolishly supposed to benefit from that misconceived project].
Apparently the admired philosopher never heard of the only earnest way I know to help, that of some NGOs people, such as the Grameen bank and others in Bangladesh, whose boss understood that the poor don't need welfare in the form of charitable alms, they need financial credit at personal level: and the trick started working successfully, though the local mullahs are fiercely opposing the initiative, lest housewives (to whom the bank is lending) should become emancipated away from the Koran's precepts of supine submission to their relaxed husbands. As far as I know, the guru philosopher never took side with the Grameen bank or the mullahs. He just uttered his slogan, and rests in peace.

Now, don't you believe that hot air is a wasteful dissipation of energy, particularly when it comes out of human mouths? I am one of those like Mr Levin who believe that energy could be used modestly, simply, to achieve something that is not Utopia, but can be recognized as modest, simple, and achievable. Some of our local entities here in Piedmont are collaborating at local level with some local entities in Zenica (Bosnia) and with four regions in sub-Sahel area. No charitable alms, but co-operation on concrete, achievable targets. A business is good if it's good for both partners.
And these modest simple ways of co-operating might show the way to further achievable projects.

(17.To be continued)


Have you anything to say? Please, do on line in The Web Park Speaker's Corner