Inshallah is a popular expression in the Middle East that is sometimes misunderstood by Westerners. Its literal translation is ‘if God wills’. The reference to God does imply a religious focus that might not necessarily be in the mind of those using the expression. More often than not it reflects uncertainty about future events. This, in my view, separates Eastern from Western thinking and causes frustration as well as inaccurate stereotyping on both sides. Continue reading →

Lessons in even the worst catastrophes

There surely is not a darker cloud than the war launched on Iraq in 2003. Over 600,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed so far, many times more than the civilians who died in both Britain and the USA (or for that matter Japan including Hiroshima and Nagasaki) during the whole of World War II. Several millions became refugees reliant on charity at home and abroad. Some had to flee with little more than what they had on their backs. Continue reading →

There is much gloom and doom about. People might be better economically, and they are certainly healthier and longer-lived. On the other hand, unhappiness, loneliness, and alienation are rife. Continue reading →

“Lethal Shadow Across the Globe”?

Colin Powell prefaced a report to Congress on international terrorism with these chilling words. And the war of words has not abated since 11 September, or more precisely since George W Bush came to power. Americans and Europeans are now in a state of shear terror of terrorism from abroad. Continue reading →

Once again I have to go back to the subject of neoliberalism as the cause of much of the instability we see today. Past references on this website appear in 11 September 2001, Justified Optimism, and Hate of the USA?

When the slogan ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ gained popularity during Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign the message was easy to understand. Basically, the economy is highly significant to all people. Few will disagree with that sentiment. Continue reading →

Muslims Fall For It Yet Again

The recent, hardly edifying, furore that followed the offensive cartoons about Islam and the prophet Muhammad prompted me to think about God and his association with some religions. Why did Muslims overreact so violently, and in so doing helped to reinforce the negative image that their opponents work so hard to maintain? Continue reading →

St John the Divine identified, two millennia ago, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as agents of the world’s destruction on Judgement Day: disease, famine, war, and civil disorder. Nowadays, no one will dispute the accuracy of this vision but we might change famine to malnutrition and then add ignorance or illiteracy. Continue reading →

Hard won asset

Western democracy is one of the best institutions that human beings have created so far. However, by long familiarity and association it has now become an undervalued feature of life. Democracy was described by Richard Crossman, British socialist thinker, as “thick masses of foliage”. Continue reading →