Books: Must reads - all ages

CAPITAL IN THE 21ST CENTURY - Thomas Piketty 

Thomas Piketty's first data analysis and inequality research gathering all available world data resulted in the r > g equation. Meaning, the return on capital from family or already existing wealth is always greater that the return on labour. Which is why some who work three jobs are still struggling to make ends meet for their families.  His book is thoroughly worth reading!! An introduction to the background below.

Globalisation without regulation leads to inequality and inequality leads to dissatisfied societies.  It has helped the election of questionable leaders, given rise to Fake News and counteracts globalisation's positive effects. There are people with ideas to improve the current system but they are not necessarily politicians. The French Economics professor and author of Capital in the 21st Century (2014), Thomas Piketty is one example. 

Dutch Historian and author, famous for his Davos viral tax video Robert Bregman, and book Utopia for realists, plus  American Andrew Yang, a 2020 presidential democratic candidate are also pushing for UBI (universal basic income). When Artificial Intelligence takes jobs governments needs to ensure they do not raise inequality, pushing the less skilled into further poverty.  Long term, inequality is bad for any society and America is certainly racing ahead in the lead in this negative terrain. World wide tax laws that are standardised as in the new G7 so called commitment to a fixed 15% Corporate income tax rate can stop the race to the bottom.   But all countries need to be onboard otherwise profits are just shifted (BEPS) to new tax havens like Singapore and the usual Caymen islands etc etc.  Follow ICIJ, the Investigative Consortium of Journalists who research this and gave us among us, the Panama Papers.  

KIDS BOOKS OR CROSSOVER LITERATURE 

The Secret Garden - F.H. Burnett

Regeneration - Pat Barker

A conscientious objector (not pacifist) is gay and in World War 1, he is sent to a psychiatric home for diagnosis but sent back to war.  It covers the shell shock suffered by many soldiers and the emptiness of war.  

I AM MALALA  - MALALA

I am not one who follows trends so although I knew that Malala had been injured by the Taliban and was now famous I did not know much else about her. So it was with an open mind that I started the book and to my great pleasure from page one, I had difficulty in putting the book down. It's simple prose is catching, there is a constant flow and her story is incredible. 

Malala suffered immensely at the hands of politically backward and so called religious men who hide their evilness behind religion.  Much like the Catholic priest sex-offenders except the latter were not phyicially violent.  But the beauty of Malala's story is in how she shines the light of good over the atrocious horrors and violence the Taliban have caused. Malala has an inspiring, intelligent mind that thinks fluently in both Pakistan languages, Urdu and Pashtu, plus English. Perhaps it is this that gives her such beautiful objectivity, with not one tiniest hint of revenge. She is a character who is full of hope, laughs, positivity, optimism and joy.  

The book starts with her being shot in the bus after having to secretly go to school.  (The Taliban had forbidden it for girls) It then goes back to her youth and upbringing in the Swat Valley. She describes her culture, lifestyle and the difficulties of being poor and uneducated in forgotten parts of Pakistan, plus the corrupt politics of the land.  I learnt so much about Pakistani culture it was heart warming because things are so different and they have some beautiful idioms, proverbs and expressions that describe all the different things of life. Love, hate, jealousy, revenge, pain, happiness and all the emotions human experience. 

Malala's father was her strength and her political interest arose through him. But she was also a clever girl who studied hard and who was outspoken, yet keenly religious and always wanted good for everyone.  The photos in the book illustrate a poor and depraved poverty stricken life, yet she brings her life-story in beautiful poetic words which show how childhood memories and love of our country and roots always outweigh material hardship. Furthermore, how lack of amenities cannot take away the richness of growing up in simplicity and nature. But the toils, troubles and fear were there also and these are also vividly described. She traces how her family and many others had to flee the Taliban once they had taken control of rural villages and how people left with little but the clothes on their backs.  Their pet chickens were left to die of starvation and when they returned, their village school, shops and buildings were riddled with bullet holes and devastation. The Pakistan army had driven out the Taliban but there were traitors too and things were seldom really safe. 

Malala was shot at point blank range and the bullet entered her forehead so she is lucky to be alive. The military surgeon who first operated on her, saved her life because her brain was swelling from the injury. They actually cut out a piece of skull and stitched it into her stomach to replace later. Over time, other surgeons in Birmingham conducted miraculous, intricate, dangerous operations to give back the feeling to her face, fix her lop-sided smile, eye and hearing, painstakingly picking out tiny fragments of bone around her ear drum. She spent ages in hospital but the support from the world was amazing. The Saudi's flew her in the royal jet to safety in England and monetary support came from the Pakistani government, foundations and celebrities world wide. She was utterly deserving of the help and attention, although that is not what she herself decided.

Malala now lives safely in Birmingham, UK with her family but it's clear form the book how she misses her home country. Her wonderful attitude to life and her fight for female education makes her a well deserved Nobel Peace Prize winner. The youngest ever. I think her foundation, her reverence for life, plus humility will touch many on earth for years to come.  She turned the hate, disdain and indifference of equality from the Taliban into a zest for life, forgiveness, goodness and education.  She will no doubt one day be remembered just as we remember Mandela. Someone who fought for democracy, equality, education and goodness, no matter the cost.

If you haven't read "I am Malala" I suggest doing so. It's an eye opener into how cruel the world can be to one person and how one small girl can change evil into good. It's also a journey into a culture so unbeknown to the west it is truly educational and inspiring. It's a reminder than while some complain bitterly over "luxury problems"and not getting their way in something, it is quite meaningless when  compared to realities of bare footed African children, who always with a smile, roll their single wire wheel over dusty roads. Or women and girls in religiously backward countries who risk their lives for an education and any kind of female freedom. It really does leave one with a sense of bafflement and bewilderment and humanity.  This is how I felt too when I read "I am Malala."  One religion using an evil force to silence a girl who can educate the persecuted and persecutor in what is  right, ethical and honourable. Needless to say, I am now a Malala fan. May she live long, well and healthily!

 Photograph credit: Ramin Talaie -Getty Images

YUVAL NOAH HARARI - SAPIENS - A BRIEF HISTORY OF HUMANKIND

Yuval is one of the planet's current most intelligent intellectuals in my opinon! His book, Sapiens, a brief history of humankind is written with compassionate humour towards our species, detailing the good and bad within us throughout history, without any excusing of human behaviour. Harari is a fluent story teller and besides delivering plenty of truth and facts of which you’d probably often wanted to know,  he adds personal anecdotes and funny human attitudes that engage you more with the pleasant informative book content. Here’s a short summary.

The timeline of our world begins 13.5 billion years ago where matter and energy appear, creating chemistry.  From the first biological organisms, to the last common grandmother of humans and chimpanzees, the first genus Homo started developing into different human species.  Using stone tools to the discovery of fire, Homo sapiens evolve in East Africa and Harari tells us what could have theoretically happened to make Neanderthals extinct leaving Homo sapiens to survive. He leads us through our entire history without focus on wars, only highlighting details where millions were wiped out unnecessarily. All due to our imagined realities of empires, religions and money,  created to enhance collaboration and from which we cannot escape.  

We’re taken back in time on a journey of our ancestors from 70 000 years ago who hunted and foraged a wide diversity of animals and plants up until the Cognitive revolution where we created language. Born from Sapiens' curious talent for telling stories and gossiping, we began to transmit information of things that didn’t exist at all, such as evil spirits, tree gods or fancy sorcerers. These imagined realities, which humans have engaged in for thousands of years are what bonds us into groups and tribes. As wandering nomads, generation after generation, we moved across plains wiping out other species of animals such as mammoths and any others that threatened our environments, as having become the masters of fire, our powers were increasing. The sea levels were low too, and crossing land-bridges between continents saw the spread of populations into new and different territories and beyond familiar plains. Harari also spends time in the book reminding us of the plight of animals at our expense throughout time.

Harari leads us from the Cognitive into the Agricultural Revolution with easy to read narrative, often placing you into your ancestor’s shoes so as to imagine how life was. He explains that the Agricultural Revolution beginning around 3500 BC, was where wheat, rice and maize domesticated us, not the other way around. Captured by the promise of being able to live next to our food, we became farmers. Mobility stopped as we created settlements and villages, the drawbacks of which led to less healthier lifestyles, as populations grew, diet variety decreased,  hygiene problems began, and bodily injuries due to heavy farm work, evidenced by ancient fossil findings. But production and development continued to progress as generations later, Sapiens could not turn back. Instead, they domesticated animals, bred birds to chickens, tamed sheet, goat and cattle, using them to plough fields and carry water, whilst Sapiens toiled all day in hot scorching sun weeding their crops, to ensure that wheat alone benefited from all the soil nutrients.  Fencing communities against wandering animals, Sapiens were yet to invent the wheel, writing and iron tools.  

It is when trading began by swopping crops that villages saw the rise of  dominant leaders who would become the ruling elite, subjugating peasants.  The rise of the earlier  Assyrian, Babylonian and Roman empires gave birth to taxes and oppression, allowing some elite to lie around eating grapes, watching gladiators in combat for entertainment.  He draws stark moral similarities between the very first law of Babylonian King Hammurabi’s code written on stone tablets, contrasting it  against the opening of the American Declaration of Independence  of 1776. His thoughts on “all are created equal” gives rises to a wonderful rewrite of the opening first amendment in terms of human biology, putting aside Sapiens' imagined reality to confront the truth.

Harari's writing is balanced, not only including history and biology, but also modern examples of science, politics and technology. For example, contrasting the ancient Egyptian pyramids as a pastime for the rich, to increasing our wealth in modern life suburbia with a house, pool, car and all sorts.  His  humouristic musings along the way, for example,  how Sapiens in ancient times  would have seen lawyers and businessman today as sorcerers will leave you with many chuckles.  Using carefully interwoven chronological order, he lays out the history of how there has always been societal hierarchy, and that it is our collective imagined realities, (intersubjectivity), that justify the politics and discrimination of our collective human history. He details the buying and selling of slaves after the old Empires crumbled, and Sapiens conquering of the seas when colonising began from 1500 onwards. He also touches on religions comparing them with ancients polytheist ideas where ideologies justified conquering territory, creating empires and policies through politics.

For Sapiens, it has always been about trying to creating a unity with one truth and empires, money, religions and politics answered that call. Money was once about barley to shells or silver shekels but today it rules our unity and is the one language every culture, creed and country share. It is the religion that rules all. In China, where  political theory ruling economics promises  prosperity for everyone in the kingdom.  The American order upheld by the hierarchy of wealth which is thought to be mandated by God, who supposedly created nature. A God who in 1776, seemed to have told the then leaders that the rights of man had little to do with Negros.  But Harari reminds us, that even Greek Aristotle believed in slavery and had even written “slaves have a slavish nature and free people  a free nature.” Thus discrimination seems inherent to our DNA taken on by imagined realities which started thousands of years ago in collective minds. In a nutshell:  “It is religion and money that have unified much of humanity alongside xenophobia, which is part of our history of old empires and rulers from Cyrus to Persians, Alexander the great, Greek kings and Jesus Christ.” For money can convey anything into a myriad of objects for example, just as in a prison, cigarettes can be exchanged for food protection or sex. 

Harari does not hide human evil intent for power under any veil, and openly discusses how capitalism too has killed millions out of cold indifference coupled with greed. “For colonisation was anything but democratic, no body ever asked anyone’s opinion before taking over any country.”  He dips into details of Britain’s declaring war on China for the free trade of opium, despite it then leading to China having 40 million opium addicts. Plus colonial Britain’s flexing muscle in Egypt who couldn’t repay the debt after building the Suez Canal. When Egyptians rebelled, Queen Victoria  declared war and Egypt became a protectorate until after World War II. The free reign of capital with no regulation and slave trade made colonial empire countries rich, as they bought and sold slaves from Africa to America. Bringing back products of slaves' hard labour, such as sugar, tobacco and luxuries, which sold at a profit making many shareholders rich.  Harari quotes Adam Smith’s 1776 Wealth of Nations, the bible of the west, which told us that extra profit from business would lead to employment, raising collective wealth, so greed was good and egoism equalled  altruism. The supposed trickle down theory which seems to suit a certain few.  Financial credit builds the present at the expense of the future  and Sapiens went from trusting only in the now, to trusting in the future.  Colonialism driven by capitalism is, like previous empires, tainted with sin if we care to honestly look at history. One only needs to view how the strong consumer tribes of France and Britain colonialist countries drew lines through Middle East territory to see this. Creating imaginary borders along Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Jordan, without any thought behind the people, cultures or history of Sapiens who had lived there for centuries.

From the history of colonisation, ideologically driven by massive projects of progress,  Harari brings us to the 21st century and Science of Europe explaining how western domination came to be. By creating railroads, steam engines, medicine, steel and concrete buildings, the driving force behind research into innovation and technology progress has rocketed. All of which is driven by capitalism, companies, banks and trust in the future. From Newtonian physics, which gave us dimensions and engineers to Darwinian biology, Harari joins science in concluding that in the big picture the truth of evolution is that it has no purpose, despite what all religions and our intersubjective ideologies say. Comparing science because of its attitude in admitting “we don’t know,”  to religious claims of “we know everything,” he moves onto artificial intelligence.  He discusses in depth the dangers of creating machines more clever than ourselves and worries about whether Sapiens will finally wipe out its own species.  Modern society he claims, is experiencing a revolution  in progress and science every year. Through collecting empirical evidence and expressing so much into logical mathematical formula we will continue to achieve wonders that would once have seemed supernatural. For instance, statistical facts that show: "Since 1850, modern medicine has decreased child mortality from 33% to 5%;  and in 2002, despite 9/11 the previous year, statistics showed that we were more likely to die by our own suicide than a terrorist attack.” 

Noting that people want history to be deterministic, Harari says that Sapiens rarely see what is going to occur in the future and seldom heed the dangers. With his feet on the ground, and a conscious realistic approach to the meaning the life, he reminds us that any millionaire living in a high end penthouse on the Champs-Elysee in Paris, is biologically no happier than any poor peasant somewhere else living in a mud shack who has caught enough fish for his family to eat. Happiness is caused biologically by chemicals in our brain, and wealth and imagined realities do not increase it for the elite because biology is the original source of our happiness.

Harari observes, how our chameleon modern society depletes our happiness by always aiming to raise our expectations of life, its purpose and future. “The two pillars of our society - mass media and the advertising industry deplete the globe’s reservoir of contentment…. And although new therapies could extend life and youth, they cannot revive corpses.” He claims that “effective anti-aging therapies and regenerative treatments that keep people indefinitely young, will in all likelihood only lead to an epidemic of anxiety.”  As all of our  social orders are imagined realities, they are all fragile. Leaving us to ponder the capabilities of future AI, who could read our thoughts and overpower us, Harari ends with the thought of our power as Sapiens that have conquered, land, animals and each other that: “Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want and if we are accountable to no one, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement."

All in all an excellent read! 

                                        Photo: With thanks to The Occidental Observer