Revolutions - the reign of terror – creating a nation

Societies revolt, that’s what they are bound to do when those in number are deprived and those in power are free to abuse the powers vested in them. A quick glance at the revolutions that have taken place in the world in the last few centuries starting from the French revolution, up until as late as the Iranian revolution, if there is one common factor, it is the reign of terror.
So here is how this story goes, factions within society decide that the people are being abused by those who have been either vested with power, or were born with the right to those powers. These factions present or develop a plan on how they think the society should be governed, these plans could be democratic, socialist or fundamentalist in nature, examples would be the French, the Russian and the Iranian revolutions. Once these factions seize control from the forces in power (a bloody series of events in its own right), they go about transforming the way society had been governed thus fur, and transforming it into the beliefs that they bring with them. More often than not, elements that were subscribers to the previous arrangement, are eradicated. This act of extinguishing is more than just removing people who had the beliefs that were over thrown by putting them under a guillotine, it is about changing the way the society thinks, what it believes or had been believing to be right, and making the factions at large subscribe to the agenda laid out by the revolutionaries.
Simply put, when Cambodia revolted, and turned into an Agrarian Socialist state, the future of the nation was laid by the party, in the hands of the children, who were thought to be pure of the accumulation of resources phenomenon specifically, and knew nothing of commerce generally. What yielded was a nation where the adults who could work hard were put under the control of the children who were thought to have pure beliefs. Who placed family above society and nation, and lived for the cause of the party, paving the way for the birth of a nation.
So what follows is possibly decades of efforts to either change the mind set of the entire nation, or to instill a new generation with the freshly prepared mindset. The concept is, if you can sacrifice the current generation, what will come out at the end of the effort will be a pure nation that will work for the entire society.
The obvious assumption is the b beliefs of the select few are in conformation with the nation at large. The second assumption is that the beliefs are actually correct and the sacrifices will actually result in a nation stronger and closer than before.
History is witness that this has actually never happened. The French revolutions, or the socialist revolutions, or the Islamic revolution, have all failed to create a nation that is stronger than what they have replaced. This is not to say that the concept is wrong, just because it has never worked out. The fact is, there have been two reasons why this does not work out. The first is, during the reign of terror, economic viability is not created, wealth is not created, or that nations go into isolation and seize international economic activity. With out the lack of resources a downward spiral is created, one that has seen most revolutions fail thus far. The second reason is more potent. Almost all revolutions have seen power going from the hands of a select few, who abused the power, to the hands of a select few who abused the power. What resulted, at least in the case of the French was a revolution spiral and a reign of instability never before in the history of the nation.
To create a new nation by a select few in a matter of decades is easier said that done. I do not have a single example of where an individual or a group of individuals were able to create a nations in years, it takes generations upon generations to come together over a range of overlapping variables to create a nation.

Pencils and Pens....

I walked into the hotel lobby, and I was greeted by a pleasant looking asian lady. Although she was wearing a name tag that said "Golf" which was intriguing at least, what was more intriguing was that she was holding her hair with a pencil. I looked at her colleague, and she too had a pencil stuck in her head to keep her hair together. So here is what I asked her:

Me: Your name is golf
She: (smiling skirmishly) its my nick name
Me: you have a pencil in your head
She: (On the defensive now, still smiling though) Uhhh, Its part of my uniform
Me: What would happen if I pulled it out
She: My hair would fall open
Me: so you can't use this pencil
She: Uhhh, no
Me: You mind if I try and pull it out
She: Uhhh, no
Me: If your hair falls open, will you let me do it up again
She: Uhhhh, ok

So I pulled the pencil out, and surely the hair does fall open, she went ooops, and then shrugged her head from left to right, and smiled at me, surely she was upset, but putting up a mighty good show at playing the hostess. So I looked into her eyes, the pencil in my hand, I have to do your hair now, she's freaking out by now, takes the pencil from my hand, and says, oh I can do it, please dont bother. I bring a stare of disdain to my face, but i want to do it, i say. She turns her head, and says, have you ever done this before, no, I said. What happened later is not important

After a long day at work, I come back to the hotel and decide to goto the bar to have a drink before dinner. The ladies in the bar were wearing these amazing thai silk dresses, yet the one making my Singapore sling, had two pens stuck smack in the middle of her lovely cleavage! You're killing me I said, she looked at me inquisitively, excuse me she said. Lose the pens please, I said, but I need them to take orders, you should have some place else to stick them, would you mind if i removed them. She is thinking this cant be happening, but before she says any thing, I reach forward and take the pens out one by one. Don't tell me they are part of your uniform, no she says. Funny, I said, the front desk ladies wear pencils in their heads, and thats part of their uniform, and they dont need the pencils, you need the pens, but they are not part of your uniform, can you answer that. She is done making my sling, she smiles, can I have the pens back, she says. Only if you promise never to put them there again, I replied. She nods, and I gave her the pens

On Tolerance, yet again...

The bell rings, and a flood of children bursts out, ages 6ish-16ish, girls and boys, heading in one direction or the other, some on their own, others in groups. Some with their heads held up high, others try not to be seen. Some holding books, wearing spectacles, hair nicely combed or in pig tails, clothes washed and ironed, braces on teeth, holier than thou, richer than thou; Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Others just trying to look cool, backpacks full of everything other than books, jeans and tops, hair done like P Diddy or Estelle had theirs done yesterday, giving way to oncoming folks not part of the schedule, eyebrows tense, anger on forehead, thou shalt not mess with me; The miserable have no other medicine but only hope; Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

Latifah is part of the latter, and Andrew forms the former group. All other children





Latifah 16 - Eboue 12 - Adebayor - Noshad - Zainab - (Al Fady ) - Carlos - (Kim Park) - (Yamada Taro) - Andrew


This is a story that takes place in Junior School.
In junior school, you will find different types of kids. And these kids can be plotted on a band, that has black, white separated by gray area. Lets say black are the bullies, they have terrible grades, their probably have single parents, are abused at home, and take out their psychological trauma while at school; they have an inferiority complex building into them that is most likely to live with them for the rest of their lives. White are from rich, they have good grades, their parents are nurturing them to become just like them, they have a superiority complex building into them that is most likely to live with them for the rest of their lives. Everyone else lies in the various bands of the gray area. Consider the following band, and various characters plotted on the band.

The Parallel Reason...

Reason suggests that there is a logical explanation for every event that takes place on g(G)od's earth, and most of those explanations have either money i.e. power behind them, or scientific forces behind them. So here is the split, all human actions have money aka power behind them, all heavenly actions have science behind them. So colonization, the first and second world wars, vietnam, korea, afghanistan all had power behind them. Earth quakes, volcanic activities, tsunamis over the centuries have perfect scientific reasons behind them.
Having said that, there is a parallel reason, and that is religion! Religion knows no logic, and is certainly not scientific in nature. Consider the crusades, the global terrorism activities in the name of God, the revolt against petty cartoons, surely there is no logic behind these actions. The actions of the church in the dark ages, the differential treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, the caste discrepancy in India, surely religion knows no logic, yet I look around and I see people so passionate about what they believe in, surely this is a parallel reason...

I'm so sorry...

You can be sure of the fact that the sun is going to rise, and that is going to set, close your eyes and you cant see, pinch yourself and feel the pain, grow old as the years go by, and one day...die. Humans are mortal, everybody is going to die and no one lives forever. Its a fact of life, yet we seem to cherish the fact that a new life has come into this world, and mourn the moment a life departs.

Mourning is sorrow, it customary to say I'm sorry, I feel your pain, I know how you feel, I wish I could do something for you, yet I know for a fact that it all means nothing. for those who have lost some one near and dear, its only them that know what the loss is like, and for those who claim to feel the loss, they are going through their motions. Of course they cannot feel the loss, because the loss is not theirs, nor can they bring the departed back.

However, the question I ask is not of bringing the departed back, its a fact of life, everyone has to die, so why even mourn then. Dying is a fact, why condole, why feel sad...

And you would say its human to be sad, it's emotions, parting with ones dears is sorrow. Its part of ones values, its what jels a society together. So i ask, do we have to put up a show to gel together, lie to put up an impression that we care as opposed to let those who have lost grieve together, and move on at their own pace, and the sooner the better.

We've all been to funerals, its a religious thing, a man of God would pray for the soul of the departned, the bystanders would feel sorry, the family spends a good deal of money of feeding those who have come in to share the sorrow, the bystanders use the commotion to socialize, some even turn up to share the spoils, others wonder if they have a share in the will, the teenagers wonder if they can get a hold of grandpa's car, all worldly belongings will be left behind, dying is part of life, and regardless of what spiritual beliefs you have, whether you are coming back in another life, or you are promised eternity in heaven with the fear of hell, the fact is those near and dear you will never see you again, and you will never see them. Fact is life for everyone else will move on, time will heal, the sun will rise, and grandpa's car will get roar again

Patience

In a scenario where resouorces are superseeded by wants, consumers tend to feel they have to step ahead to claim what is rightfully theirs, albeit at the expense of other consumers. Patience is waiting in line waiting for your turn, a la first come first served basis. And if resources are exhausted before your turn comes, then so be it.
So what makes people move out of line, and push ahead to get something that is not rightfully theirs, lack of patience I could presume. Lack of patience should directly attribute to the level of maturity that is exhibited by an individual, a group of individuals, and a nation collectively.
Using this metric I am going to try and judge various nations on the level of maturity that they exhibit.

South East Asia
With the exception of Sri Lanka all nations in South East Asia rank the lowest in their maturity. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal all have minimum tolerance, low patience, and low maturity levels. From the moment you land at the Air port at any of these countries the first thing you feel is waiting in line at the immigration is different, the person behind you would be pushing you to move ahead. Its as if there is a race going on, and if you are not the first one to exit the terminal you could end up losing the Noble Peace Prize. And then there is VIP culture prevalent in these countries. VIPs are defined as well, people who are important, cannot stand in lines, do not pay taxes, earn more, and give less!
More on the rest of the nations later...

About Smoking and Killing...

Most of the Internet generation has probably never really sit in a plane and either lit a ciggarrette themselves, or seen some one do it, in fact, i bet most of you wonder why they even have those no smoking signs on top of every seat right next to the fasten your seat belt sign. But the fact is, in the good old days, the first thing that the captain used to do after lift off, was to take the no smoking sign off, and as soon as that happened people just started lighting them up like no body's business. You had smoking cabins and no smoking cabins, which made even more sense to have those cabins. Smoking in the lavotries was never permitted even then. They had those ash trays by the arm rests, some of the older planes still have them, but they are a rare one to come by, wonder why they are still persisting with the no smoking signs when they have stopped making ash trays.

And i bet, the way i am telling you about how things have changed in the air, ten years from now, the next lot will be reading on how once it was ok to smoke in a pub with drinks and all. The lot after that, well they will hear about how people in the old days used to carry paper with some sort of a weed in it, it didnt give exsactly a high, didnt give pretty much nothing at all, but they would light it up, puff it in, let the smoke come out, till the thing finished, throw the butt away, and then after a while do whole darn thing again.

Smoking in public places is not where this is ending, its actually gone into your houses, hell it takes pretty much a lot of doing if you want to to smoke these days. So this is really about smoking and killing, people say smoking kills, and we are seeing smoking being killed right before our eyes. The generation before us, you know the one that found it really cool to smoke, were the reason a giant industry was breading right before them, that entire industry right now is looking at an inevitable death, and not for a moment should we consider what is going to become of all thosse associated with this industry, from the farmer in thailand, to the VP marketing in his penthouse. They will be doing something else once the industry dies. But Killed it will be, and the question i put forward is what becomes of all the consumers, they need something to carry in their pocket, and to do after every 30-90 minutes, which really is an answer to why we smoke, we just need something to do!