Christmas is over

I hope everyone had an excellent Christmas and those lucky ones who are still on holidays are enjoying their vacation. I originally intended to write this post to wish Merry Xmas, but I got late, bit too late and Christmas passed.

Well, the only bad thing about major festive seasons, they get over and you wish you didn’t. It was fairly difficult for me to drag myself to work today after four days of holidays. I have been getting lazy and kind of neglecting my blog, just letting things pass by without bothering to develop on them, or even if I do, I don’t blog it.

Well the last week of any year is one of the most exciting week. Lot of good reports, collection and documentaries are there on every channel, newspapers and magazines. It refreshes all of the last year in almost all the fields. And all this is taking away most of my time. I guess this shall stand as the most pathetic post from me and I will find it easy to better it, may be tomorrow.

Nothing Much

I feel bad that I am not blogging these days; the worse is that I am not even reading the blogs I used to frequent. I went to many such blogs now and found that I have not one or two but even three unread posts in each of them. I do make an attempt to read them everyday as a part of my online habit. Sometimes I would read them and feel strongly to comment, deciding to do it a bit later. By the time I would come back to the blog, there would be two more new posts.

I would not say that I am keeping busy cause that would be an excuse. I have always maintained in my life that one is never busy for things one want to do. Even now, with huge pinch on my conscience, I would stand by it. I have always seen it that if things are left pending, slowly it will acquire the shape of a vicious circle.

It keeps getting worse and the only way to come out of it is to act now, but even that is not helping now. I keep getting myself in funny situations. It is going to be more than a month and I have yet to register myself in the city. I decided to do it two days ago, just before I going to work. I took the print out of the map to reach the office. To make the story short, when I reached the area, I somehow could not locate myself on the map so it became useless and I had to abort the idea. Yesterday, the restaurant where we had dinner is one bus stop from my apartment. I could have walked but thought of taking the tram to make it fast and I hopped into the correct ‘number’ tram but going in the opposite direction. Probably I had a drink more than I should. I had to spend 15 more minutes to save 5.

This weekend hopefully we will have snowfall, which is unusually delayed this year. The last time I saw sun or a sunny day was when I was in India. But I am happy that unlike most others, the dark period has not messed up my routine. This being my third winter in Finland, I was expecting this dark period but only till November. Yeah it does induce sleep at odd hours, but I have not succumbed to it yet. Everyone on the street have a long face, devoid of any smile and warmth, just happy to get past one more gloomy and depressing day (?). Things will brighten and people will cheer up once snow is here.

06th December

Happy Independenc day Suomi !

Reparations for slave trade

Thought it is still few months for bicentenary of the Slave Trade Act in UK, which abolished British participation in trans-Atlantic slave trade until March 25, 1807, Tony Blair has given the start to the debate on the whole issue. After his expression of deep sorrow, which was slammed by some for being short on apology, already there has been demand of reparations. These reparations, which in literal term mean ‘repairing the harm’, are also being sought in practical terms, meaning cash. It may not be cash, but it is yet to see whether Britain does any sort of reparations.

Even after abolition of trans-Atlantic slave trade, which had resulted in riches for many in France, USA, Caribbean Islands and Britain, the condition of Africans haven’t changed much. So if there has to be any sort of reparations, it should be for upliftment Africa and its deprived inhabitants. Dispersing cash in any form, may be to the present generations of those harmed (as suggested in some circles) is not going to help in any way. There are several better and effective ways for these rich countries to help them.

Today Africa is besieged by variety of issues, be it genocide, corrupt dictatorial rules, AIDS, hunger, poverty, corruption etc. We don’t see any active help from any of the government of the rich nations. Yesterday, the outgoing secretary of UN, Kofi Annan accepted on a news channel that there is neither ‘will nor resource’ to stop the mass slaughter in Darfur. As I write this, the news is coming on BBC that a mass grave has been uncovered in Congo of the poor people killed by Congo army. The question is who supports these apathetic governments and who gives them weapons?

Even during the slave trade, Britain, USA or France didn’t capture slaves on their own. It was the savage rulers of Central and Western African kingdoms and chiefdoms who captured them and sold them. In a way they were getting sustained by the same slave trade that encouraged the slave trade further creating a vicious cycle. Just like what could have done then, could still be done now. The world should unite in isolating these selfish, corrupt and cruel rulers and deprive them of money and weapons.

Africa has to have sustainable economic development of its own. Africa does have agricultural produce of its own; for example it has good output of cotton. But African cotton does not stand a chance in international market full of cheap cotton from the subsidized developing countries. Infact if the rich nations agree on reducing subsidy on agriculture, it would give fair play to the African farmers. This is one sort of reparations that can be done.

There are many other ways for undoing and helping the Africans for one of the most unfair treatments of humanity also called African Holocaust. It is so heartening to see few individuals doing their best like the U2’s rock star Bono and entrepreneur Bill Gates. Now it is time for bigger nations to really translate their sorrow in deeds.