Happy Half Century ?

This year is my 50^th birthday, and I have been gathering other 50 year facts to see what has happened in my life, and how it could affect my future.

17 African nations celebrate their 50^th anniversaries of freedom from the yolk of Colonialism this year. The Cold war was fought for the most part on this continent, mainly for the mineral wealth under their mountains. Aid began in earnest in the 1970’s, and it is the children of this time that are now mature adults looking to lead their nations. While we in the West are about to enjoy an inverse pyramid of population, with more people collecting our own version of lifelong aid, Africa is bottom heavy with youth. – hundreds of millions of them are under the age of 30, on a continent wealthy beyond dreams in mineral wealth on a continent where you could drop the western nations, and emerging economies, and lose them with room to spare.

Meanwhile, China and India (Two nations that haven’t been fighting endless wars for half a century) are now proving to us that they are more than simply ‘worker farms’. They are now taking industrial and management techniques to a whole new way of doing business. They have taken mass production to a while new level: $2000 Cars, $300 computers, and $30 cell phones. 40% of the World’s growth are going to come from these two nations over the next few years. Who is leading them? Not us. 5 million Chinese and 3 Million Indians graduate from their universities every year. 75,000 of these Chinese degree holders are in Computer science or engineering, and 60,000 in India.

Emerging markets share of global GDP increased from 36% to 45% in 30 years, and will be over 50% in les than 5 more, and they are outspending Americans. In the last quarter of 2009, Thailand grew at 15%, and Taiwan at 18%. Chinese and Indian companies are buying Western businesses and names: Tata industries in India own the names of Land Rover and Jaguar. Productivity rose in China last year by 8.2% The US grew by 1%, and the UK dropped by almost 3%.

These markets are now stretching what the Japanese taught the US about auto construction in the 1970’s further. After all, they weren’t going to stay as serfs for very long. That’s why they taught the Koreans to do the ‘grunt’ labour, and now look at what Kia has become. When these emerging economies finally ‘emerge’, the African nations are ready, willing and able to overcome their last 50 years and join in with the rest of the World.

Co-incidentally, it is also the 50^th anniversary of The Pill being given the green light by the FDA, over here. In these contexts, it appears that we have been doing our best to stop producing, cut the amount of children there are around, and funding massive war machines. What a waste of half a century.

Haiti: THIS is what we can do

The frightening images from Haiti over the last 36 hours may appear to be just the latest in a never ending episodes of Mother Nature’s Revenge against a species that has pushed it’s luck once too often. As a firm believer in my species’ part in recent and rapidly expanding climate change problems, I, too, am as likely as the next person to simply take in this information, throw up may hands, and thank God that it wasn’t me, this time. This time, however, may prove to be a turning point, thanks to the area that has been devastated: A turning point in the way that Human’s can change an area for the positive.

In past disaster’s, the emphasis has been on Government’s getting face time on TV to pledge support, the rapid deployment of initial emergency response to immediately save lives, and then the almost expected negative press some months later on promises being reneged on, and people still starving when the mighty battleships go home. Can we ‘turn the tide’ this time? Thanks to Haiti’s geography (I.e. In the West), can we do something long term in this instance to raise the future as well as the immediate present of this financial basket case?

In these situations, the first item to be addressed has to be the immediate. Already, only 36 hours after the earthquake hit, emergency response is on the way from the U.S, Canada, and the U.N. The immediate concern is for those that are saveable, the badly injured, and the young that will have the chance to be nursed back to health. Then comes the care of those not as badly hit, and those that made it through and are able to assist in the recovery. A few years ago, in the Thai Tsunami, the vast majority of aid ended here, because (let’s be honest), it’s Asia, so outside of those minority pockets of Asians in our community, who cared? But here is an area on our doorstep. Although the Haitian ex-pats in the West may be small in number, this toilet of a place has lasted in their current position of corrupt government, and lawless neighbourhoods for decades, and we all felt that we couldn’t do anything about that, because it is Sovereign Territory. Their lives may be screwed, but a sit is their land, we cannot do anything about it. Well President ‘DubYa’ changes the rules in Iraq, so let’s do it again. We can force a better life onto a people, apparently, for whatever reason we think fit, and the thousands of impoverished and ill Haitians reaching North American shores for asylum in the near future has to be looked upon as a threat to our social security welfare. Let’s change it.

Yes, the short-term targets remain the same, but let’s stay and get some long term goals met, too. Lets move the capital to the other side of the bay more than 15 Kilometres from the epicentre of this earthquake. Let’s build structures that can withstand the next one (when was the last one?). Let’s put people to work using their own talents to show them that a life can be lived just as fully and rewarding on their own island. Let’s re-vamp the electoral system, after all there isn’t one to speak of at the moment, and hasn’t been for years. The online community has proved that they can receive and send messages even though there isn’t an infrastructure left, so let’s begin industries aimed at making this Island paradise – and it could be – into a member of the global networked community, and make oit pay for the populace. Let’s take the dead, incinerate them all, build a monument to them and get in with a new and better life. One that allows these people to realise their own destinies, and stop them trying to be part of a Ice Hockey playing nation’s.

Looked at in this way, this disaster could be a golden opportunity to rebuild an entire country: One that is on our doorstep and deserves more from the ultra-rich than the lip service it has received for the past half century or so. Or – put another way – let’s do the right thing for a change.