Cosmo,
With all due respect, I'm afraid your trip wasn't long enough. First of all, people in the first world by and large earned it. The popular view is that the White European stole all his wealth through colonialism but I don't believe the economic history supports that. Colonialism practically ruined several European powers (Spain and Portugal) and countries without a lick of colonial history (Switzerland, Sweden and Norway) are very wealthy.
There's precious little we can do about the world's envy and I for one don't feel like apologizing for someone else's problem. Look at South America--there's no reason why a continent of such great wealth and natural resources shouldn't be as wealthy as the north (indeed, Argentina was, in the 20's, one of the 5-6 richest countries in the world, despite its latin, mercantilist past). Or look at Europe's economy, floundering in weakness and high unemployment levels--why? Well, you can start with the unions and the 8 weeks of annual vacation, the role of the State etc. etc. Do they envy and resent us? Yes. Is it our problem? What are we supposed to do, goof off like they do? I've met Italians who resent that English is the world's international language. Che cosa fa? Parla italiano per fare business?
As for the Nike swipe, forget it. The reality of the world economy is, some Indonesian family would face no job, no money, no hope if it weren't for the Indonesian subcontracting factory. What seems like not much money to you is a fortune to someone who's lived on Bangladeshi standards for millenia. It might be all that stands between 3 points on infant mortality rankings, or starvation levels among the under 5 set. The argument is an anti-WTO canard. The Koreans did their transition in sneakers and textiles in the 1960's and 1970's and it was the springboard to a modern economy (they started the 1960s on a par with Morocco, btw).
Your post reminds me of the two guys who are slugging it out in a ditch. One says, "Come on, let's stop hurting each other. You stop first."
Hitler whipped up his people to certain death and destruction with fantastic rhetoric about how they had been cheated and robbed; I'm sure the bin Ladens of the world can do the same in Arabic. I'm sure some in that world think they have a valid beef with us. But I'm equally sure that there's nothing we could or should do differently in terms of pursuing happiness and wealth.
If they can do this with kitchen knives or box rippers or sharpened plastic blades, then we aren't safe until we destroy them where they are. Can't do it at the airport; if you want to hunt tigers, you have to go to where the tigers are.
Kb |
