The hand that rocks the cradle

There seems to be an ever increasing number of Muslim countries and communities favoring the implementation of Sharia law. I’m not going to judge any religious aspect of people’s choices, but I think no good has ever come out of mixing church and state.  However, there is something particularly nefarious about implementing Sharia in these places where social inequality is ramped and the poverty of the lower classes seems endemic and perpetual; where poverty is a legacy of despair from generation to generation.

It is a proven fact that the most effective method of pulling a community out of poverty is to empower women.  Women who have a minimum education, the power to make choices, earn a living, value her children’s education and to decide how many children she will bear, raise healthier children, who grow up to be better educated and more able to rise out of poverty. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world! And when that hand is empowered to plan for her children’s future, there is nothing that can hold it back. However when that hand is restricted by law, there is little hope for the future of her children.

That Sharia law divests women of all power, education and choice is a fact. That communities whose women are divested of power, education and choice are less likely to rise out of poverty is a fact.  

Draw whatever conclusions you like.

Brazil: the emerging economy! (unless it rains)

 Rain has fallen from the sky since before human beings evolved on the planet.  Rain has always been there, in any given day in human history it has rained somewhere on the planet.  You may argue that human activity on the planet has changed rain patterns and that it now rains more or less in specific regions. But the fact remains that it rains, and that it has always rained, and that it will always rain.  We have built our civilization around the fact that it rains, no one ever designed a building around the notion that henceforth it shall never rain again.  That would be stupid.

Every year in the rainy season the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo experience floods, landslides, death and destruction, massive power outages, disease riddled drinking water, overcrowded hospitals and shelters, and general despair.  Everyone is quick to point out that the catastrophe is caused by the rain, or the excessive rain, or the continuous rain.  All of the victims interviewed say that god willing, the rains will stop and they will be able to return home.  To this I would like to say one word: Bullshit!

It’s not the rain people!!! The rain has always been there.  The rain will always be there!!  It’s the complete lack of remotely adequate infrastructure that is to blame! Not the rain!  The government spends no money on infrastructure maintenance.  Construction on hillsides is unregulated.  Massive amounts of trash clog the sewer and runoff systems, in those few instances where a runoff system is in place. The rivers and waterways are completely stagnant from tons of debris that are freely dumped by the population whose government offers no other alternative for trash disposal.  No sewer or runoff system is ever cleared before the rains come.

If you force a person into a vacuum chamber and he dies, you might say that the cause of death was ‘lack of oxygen to the brain’.  You would be right.  However, any court of law would argue that the cause of death was the placement of the person inside a vacuum chamber in the first place, and that it was in fact murder.  The corrupt city, state and federal governments pocket public funds and force people to live with completely inadequate, life threatening infrastructure.  The cause of death in this case is not the excessive rain, it’s the subjugation of people to inadequate living conditions by a corrupt and broken system of government.

An astounding, shameful 49.1% of the Brazilian population has no access to a sewer system and the evening news on Globo television has the unmitigated temerity of blaming the problem on the ‘rain’ and then turn around and call itself ‘unbiased’.  A people who demands no accountability from its government, who believes the news when told that the rain is the problem and is happy to leave the solution in the hands of god, deserves next year’s rain.  Harsh? Perhaps, but I’m sick and tired of all of the hype and advertising around Brazil as the country to watch, the emerging power of today, the economic powerhouse in a dwindling world economy, while all of the very real problems are swept under the rug.  Stop advertizing and start solving the problems.   But by all means world, come to Brazil, come for the Olympics, come for the World Cup, come see all of the splendors of this magnificent country. Unless it rains.