Behind the crisis. A close friend of mine says I am an idealist and an academic. The reason I enjoy his friendship is because his sense of reality is quite different from mine. He has the rare combination of intellectual acumen with no-nonsense practicality.
More than once, as we discussed the issues facing the US, he voiced serious concern about the increasing gap between the educated and the less fortunate, between the higher and lower income groups of our society. “You see, George”, he told me several times, “what worries me is that this increasing disparity will create serious discontent which will eventually be difficult to control.”
In the past four weeks I found myself glued to the TV set, like everybody else, trying to learn more about what is happening. How are we reacting? What are we going to do? What will the implications be for us, for our children (my son works very close to the WTC)?
Suddenly, after almost a month of having been bombarded by news and special reports from Central Asia, the message became loud and clear. I had no doubt about what I was seeing. I was hit with the hidden meaning and much broader implications of what is happening in Central Asia and the Middle East.
I do not want to sound naïve. I know and agree we have to answer to the attack of September 11 with all our resources and commitment – emotional and financial. But the pictures on the TV set were showing tremendously poor people, treated like animals. They were running across mountains for survival. They had no limbs. No shoes. Kids crying. Living in tents. In the dirt. Not even animals are treated in this way in the industrialized world. Can they see a way out of their miseries? Death? Maybe.
Suddenly, the words of my friend exploded in my brain. Is it possible that what we have witnessed in early September is an act of desperation? The average annual income per capita for the Islamic countries stretching from Morocco to Bangladesh is $3,700. At the opposite side of the scale is the US with a per capita income of $37,260. Could it be that what we are observing is also a hopeless act of some of the poorest countries in the world against the industrialized, rich countries?
The protests taking place around the globe about the risks of globalization could also be viewed as another cry to capture the attention of the rich countries to help the poor and mismanaged areas of the world.
The answer we gave to these calls was to schedule the next G-8 meeting on a solitary mountain in Canada. This is clearly not the kind of dialogue we need to engage to help the poor people of the globe and minimize the increasing discontent.
Whatever meaning you like to give to the current situation, the issue remains. The Islamic countries harbor the poorest people in the world. After we wipe out the threat of terrorism, the industrialized world needs to develop plans to narrow the income gap between the Islamic world and ours.
We convinced China and Russia that democracy and free markets provide the best system to increase the income level of their population. I am sure we can also be successful with the Islamic world.
(This
Observations was publisged in the 10/15/01 issue of
The Peter Dag Portfolio)
George Dagnino, PhD
Editor,
The Peter Dag Portfolio. Since 1977
2009 Market Timer of the Year by
Timer Digest
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