Steve Jobs and Wangari Maathi

Think different.
Steve Jobs

It is important to nurture any new ideas and initiatives which can make a difference.
Wangari Maathi

Could you imagine two people more different than Wangari Maathi and Steve Jobs? A Kenyan woman and an American man.  A Peace Nobel Prize Winner environmental activist and a billionnaire anti-conformist visionary businessman. A lifetime struggle standing alone against injustice and a worldwide netword made of millions of little apples. One voice for women’s rights and one face for friendly capitalism.

Wangari Maathi and Steve Jobs have nothing in common; the only reason for them to be cited here in the same sentence is the randomness of life that made them pass away 10days apart defeated by the same ennemy, cancer. We can speak long about their legacies. We can also debate long about the unethical business practices that were hidden behind the young and innovative design of Apple products.

But maybe when it comes to the death of individuals, regardless of talent, origin or success, we should just keep silent for a minute and remember that at the end, we walk different paths to reach a same destination.

Ben Laden’s death has fed America’s appetite for blood, not for justice

President Obama’s “Justice has been done” is trending: on TV, in papers, on the web, even in casual conversations. Ossama Ben Laden’s arrest/death was wished by most of the Americans for now a decade. The outburst of joy depicted us an indecent at ease with itself thirst of blood within Americans.The American President was not the only one to see his approval rating jumping: following results of a poll held after Ben Laden’s death, 1/3 of the Americans are now in favor of detention of innocents in Guantanamo, more than half of Americans believe their mission in Afghanistan is not complete and about 44% think is winning its “War on Terror”.

The conclusion we can draw here is horrific in itself: we wrongly interpreted these last years’ growing opposition of Americans to the murderous wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan as ideological humanist positions of people becoming progressively aware of the fact that these wars are slaughtering civilians and unhappy they were fooled on the reality on the battlefield; now we see that they were disapproving them not because the wars were ethically wrong but only because they were losing them. In short: a dominating opportunistic point of view, not an ethical one.Those who wanted their “boys” back, were not asking for it in purpose of stopping this continuous rape of countries sovereignty and peoples lives: it was merely a “hunger strike” to protest against the fact that their thirst of blood was not adequately satisfied; consumers were unhappy to have been promised the finest beef tournedos and are brought only cheap industrial poultry. And now that they tasted Ben Laden’s blood, the appetite for destruction is just increasing. The lowest part of the being needs to be fed with revenge, humiliation inflicted to others.

America learnt nothing on why in the first place the rest of the World is so keen to be fed with anti-American feelings: their attitude consisting of making prevail their interests and profits over anything else, including any form of ethics, careless of the protests and opposition their acts might encounter, as long as they have enough weapons to crush them. After all, did Barack Obama mean anything else when he says during his announcement on Ben Laden’s death: “ tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. “.

And what comes next? I mean after Muslims paid with 900’000 lives the price of “justice”, will people of Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan be given the right to live a normal life, without US troops on their territories? Families of the World Trade Center had their “justice” when Al-Qaeda leader passed away, will the Muslims have right to relief (yes, just relief, since “justice” is affordable only for those who own drones), in seeing the end of the “War on Terror” that was imposed on them? The US have given their answer: no.

First because US officials notified it extremely clearly: Ben Laden’s death is not the end of the war. It is understood that it was much of a high psychological impact, but as this assassination does not disrupt the organizational scheme of Al-Qaeda, a lot has still to be done to fulfill the goals of the “War on Terror”.

Second, this “victory”, by justifying the massive investment of Bush and Obama into the wars, opens the door to a more aggressive global military policy. A first clear sign was given in this direction, when on May 7th a drone attack was launched in Yemen targetting the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula, the American-Yemeni Anwar Al-Awqali, failing in killing him but causing the death of two men. For now like for the last 10years, US is nor bothered nor concerned about this kind “collateral damages”. If it is to kill 5 or 10 millions Muslims around the world in addition just to reach their targets and pursue their agenda, so be it. People of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan (and soon Iran?) are, for the US foreign policy, no more than insects they can crush without any apology, without any shame. Americans will slowly reconciliate with torture as now it was proven that “it works“, Obama promise to close Guantanamo Bay camp became secondary. Fundings will continue to be granted. Muslims will continue to be killed.

When looking back to the last decade, one has the bitter feeling that US did not understand anything during this war on terror: if efforts were engaged to suppress the roots of the hatred they inspire to Al-Qaeda as well as to the rest of Muslims, even the moderates (even the modern educated revolutionnary egyptian and tunisian youth praised by all worldwide medias have shown their rejection of US strategy in the Arab World in boycotting Hillary Clinton’s visit in Egypt and Tunisia), they would have won the war. If they had fought the aggressive imperialism they submit the world with, they would have gained the sympathy of all. We wanted to believe in a change. All throughout Africa and the Muslim world, we have seen people celebrating Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and Cairo speech in 2009, simply because somewhere, we all thought that a half-African man could be the perfect person to understand what it is to stand on the other side of the barrier, to understand the expressions of despair from populations starving, not accessing education or medication, living in unstable or tyrannic state… for the unique reason that most of the policies that rule our countries are not decided in our parliaments, but in the White House, following interests far from the local population wishes and needs. It didn’t take long for the optimists we all were  to be disappointed.

The truth is that since the end of the second World War, the United States won every battle but lost every war (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan). Operations were always fulfilled, targets were always reached. But because their outrageous imperialism/neo-colonialism  inspired each day more new opponents than it could kill, making the distance to go to the finishing line of their quest increasing after each step instead of decreasing. Now in killing Ossama Ben Laden, they just added one more item on their list of shameful records during their lost War on Terror. Terror was not eliminated, it only changed its location: the crowds celebrating the death of one man are showing how much terrorized they are from the inside, to the point to “need” that blood to reassure themselves, to simulate their lost sense of justice, while the Muslim and Arab World experiencing the first days of the “Arab Spring” ousting the Oriental puppets of an Almighty West that lost track on the too numerous files they try to handle, the first and only targets in number of victims of the War on Terror, only increase in courage to claim their opposition to an unfair world, building nations where “justice has been done” won’t be just an empty statement.

By dying, Ossama Ben Laden won his last battle

There is nearly nobody on the 7 billion people on our planet talking about anything else than Ben Laden’s death at the moment. When the American President Obama spoke late night, bringing the news that was already largely spread on all social networks and TV broadcasts of the killing of the most feared man on Earth after a hunt of nearly 10 years, he sounded victorious. “Justice has been done“, he argued. Really?

When one sticks to the facts, one is forced to conclude that:

1. Apparently Ossama Ben Laden was not hidden in mountains, under the ocean or on Planet Mars, but in a small cozy town of Pakistan, an ally nation of US. The trillions of dollars put in the wars against terrorism and the extravagant sums spent to supply the Intelligence failed to bring practical and efficient solutions to catch the most wanted man on the planet in a reasonable timing.
2. He was caught only after he clearly retired from his duties in Al-Qaeda. US totally failed at catching him while he was active, challenging the whole planet with his tapes recorded in Afghan mountains. Al-Qaeda legendary figure is dead, but Al-Qaeda works for now at least 3-4 years without Ossama Ben Laden. In a sense, he was more like a “Godfather”: highly valued and respected by his men for the “glorious” record, feared by his ennemies, but not being anymore the field guy.
3. The logistics and organization of the number 1 terrorist nebula won’t be affected by Ben Laden’s death. Ex-Number 2 who is now Number 1, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, is not a youngster anymore either and very unlikely to be technically leading Al-Qaeda; he’s just the other ‘Godfather’. The technical leadership, planning of operations, recruitment, are to find somewhere else. So to say, US have totally failed to disrupt Al-Qaeda as a criminal organization able to schedule operations and put them into practice.
4. Al-Qaeda’s emulators, such as Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb or Jamaat Ansar As-Sunna, are  deeply rooted everywhere and do not depend on Al-Qaeda itself to pursue their own goals: Al-Qaeda created a template and it was successfully used to spread terrorism.
5. The release of the Wikileaks Guantanamo Files (779 detainees files, with extensive individual description, charges, medical statements) a couple of days before the “arrest” of Ossama Ben Laden are nothing but a testimony of how far had Americans to go to get very few information, with an extremely weak “return on investment”. In other words, the enigma is still unsolved. Al-Qaeda succeeded to create the most opaque organization ever (the Wikipedia pages about Al-Qaeda are among the most poorly documented), almost impossible to stop but from the inside.
6. By killing Ossama Ben Laden, any hope of a trial/instruction/interrogation is automatically suppressed, depriving anti-terrorism strategists from a number one source to key information on Al-Qaeda and depriving victims from a real justice process.
7. The war on terrorism done in Afghanistan and Iraq ruined financially America, ruined its reputation worldwide, made about a thousands times more victims than the terrorist attacks themselves, planted the seeds of the dramatic collapse of the global influence the “American Empire”: US were weakened by this decade of “shock and awe” campaign. Al-Qaeda and Ossama Ben Laden made in less than 10 years what the USSR did not achieve in 30 years of Cold War.

When in 2008 Bush administration spokesman pronounced the simple sentence “Ladies and Gentlemen – We got him.” to announce the arrest of Saddam Hussein, it did not prevent G.W. Bush from the complete failure of his policy in Iraq. Today, Ossama Ben Laden death is certainly not a victory on the battlefield, where Amrican troops can surely already prepare for an intensification of terrorist acts against Amrican interests.

Indirect consequences of a decade of Al-Qaeda threat over the world would be interesting to study. A few can be already be named: Al-Jazeera was “made” by Ben Laden tapes the same way CNN was “made” by the Gulf wars, empowering the Arab region with its first subversive towards Arab regimes and the West TV channel; virtual activism and on-line recruitment, “headless” or “structure-less” political entities constitute the jist of the method mostly developped by Al-Qaeda (some used it for terrorism, others to ask for democracy); war on terrorism weakened enough US and allies for them to lose hand and perfect control on global geostrategy (they have hard time evaluating the dangers and the appropriate answers).

At the end, they offered Ossama Ben Laden what he always wanted: to die as a “martyr”. By his political criminal acts, as incredible as it appears, he created the “post-September 11th” world he wanted, where Western nations are terrorized and violently challenged for their imperialism and let a large “heritage”: a method to aggressive resistance.

Yes, definetly, by dying, Ossama Ben Laden won his last battle.

Depressed? You won’t get a job, but you’ll be agreed for euthanasia

Le Matin, a swiss newspaper, reports on February 16th the case of a 56 years old depressed man euthanazied, helped in this task by Exit, an association specialized in such ‘mercy killings’. In Switzerland, euthanasia (or more precisely “suicide assistance”) is to some extent legal, in specific cases of an extremely painful incurable disease and a free from any external influence request of the applicant. Wether a psychatric disease such as an extremely deep depression fits into that is pretty unclear; the pain might be as strong as for a cancer for example but the evaluation of the consciousness and the awareness of the patient seems to be quite subjective.

Exit the self-called association fighting for people’s right to ‘die with dignity’ (as if being courageous enough to face pain was disgraceful) has since decades in Switzerland fought to have the right to provide death as a solution to despair and is becoming more and more popular in a country where the elders face the naked truth during their last days among the living: alone they will pass away, let it be painful or not. However, this case of a depressed patient (manic-depressive to be more accurate) assisted in his suicidal process remains quite unique. The risk exists that such an event becomes a jurisprudence and marks the beginning of numerous demands of assistance for suicides from people suffering from depression. When you know that up to one third of people experience depression during their lives and a substancial percentage of them develop morbid symptoms, the ‘market’ is potentially big for the death helpers.

Exit agreed to provide poison to this 56 years old depressive man 10 months after he made the request by letter. One letter, a couple of months waiting, and here you’re done we’re helping you to die. But would have he been agreed as easily for any other request?

In Switzerland, forth to third of the people will experience depression one day or the other.For those, hard and competitive work conditions are a major cause. But in Switzerland it is so shameful workwise to have suffered of a depression that even the unemployment office advises to hide, whatever, to recruiters that one has been through this. Literaly it is advised to reply to questions by insinuating that one “had health problems” to let people think it was a “body” disease. A persone who suffered of heavy depression will have to write hundreds of letters to have right to have a work and 99.99% of them will stay unanswered. There is no help from the unemployment office or any other governmental agency to help depressive people to find a job; on the “best case” they’d offer them to participate to programms for social reinsertion for mentally challenged people, which do not fit a depressive person.

This “shame” of being depressive goes beyond work environment. Depression is limiting in all areas of life. For example, it is reported cases where healthcare insurances and life insurances refuse to cover somebody if the medical tests reveal depression. The Swiss people always had a tendency to be distant and not so into family, and depressive persons pay the high price of a society where everybody is isolated from everybody else. As most of social life in Switzerland is focused on activities that are charged for admission (restaurants, clubs, cinemas, etc), jobless depressed people end having no occasion to meet people and keep alive a friendship or any relationship. If anyway anything would offer the occasion to meet anybody the first question is always: “What do you do for a living?”.  In our Swiss society, one is tagged with what one does for a living and being “unproductive” or more precisely costing more money than one brings is almost  a ”deadly sin”… Weakness is unallowed and on the weakness ladder depressive persons are almost cheaters, since what they suffer from is invisible, almost considered as “subjective”. No wonder we have in Switzerland one of the highest suicide rates in the world and suicide as the first cause of death for people under 45… and for those who need a little help for suicide, we have associations such as Exit and Dignitas ready to put their knowledge in service of suicide.

Looking towards death is one of the major signs of depression. But instead of trying to put everything in service of making depressive and weak people want to look into life as something “worth it”, instead of implementing real solutions against pain, isolation and social exclusion, suicide is offered as an exit door. One sometimes cannot go deep inside to help somebody to emerge out of the depression, but offering suicide assistance services is certainly no more than a dreadful symptom of a society sick with cynism and un-humanity. Unless we react against it, I see no hope to not finish under-human beings ouselves.