Book review: "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam" by Reza Aslan

I have just finished reading Reza Aslan’s book “No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam”. I enjoyed it very much. Written in a lucid, precise and highly readable style, Aslan describes how Islam came into being in Arabia, which up to that time had a polytheistic religious culture. The ancient Arabs worshipped many Gods including the God of the Jews and the Christians. Then came Muhammad - the founder of Islam – who, after receiving the Revelation at Mt Hira in 610AD, preached a message of absolute monotheism and declared “there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the Messenger.” Aslan narrates the lives of Muhammad and his Companions who established the first Muslim community (“Ummah”) in Medina, their battles with the powerful Quraysh tribe and their eventual victory, and the subsequent evolution of Islam after Muhammad’s death.

Aslan knows his subject very well. It does often read like an unapologetic defence of Islam, which he acquiesces in the introduction, yet he is critical of the rise in Islamic extremism (Islamism) in recent times and sets out some ideas for reform at the end of the book. The diversity of Islam owes to “dozens of conflicting ideas about everything from how to interpret the Prophet’s words and deeds to who should do the interpreting, from whom to choose as leader of the community to how the community should be led.” These arguments often led to conflict, but also gave birth to various sects. Apart from the main Sunni or “orthodox” branch of Islam are the Shia and Sufi sects, both of which came into being as reactionary movements. Aslan goes into some detail about Sufism, the eclectic mystical tradition within Islam.

Muhammad was a very different kind of figure from Jesus Christ (whom he greatly revered), yet he strove to bring about radical religious, social and economic change in pre-Islamic Arabia. Aslan makes some interesting comparisons between Islam and Christianity, although his knowledge of the former is much better than of the latter. He says Christianity is an ‘orthodoxic’ religion; it is principally concerned with one’s beliefs in God while Islam, like Judaism, is an ‘orthopraxic’ religion, where it is one’s actions that makes one an observant follower. The five pillars of Islam are: “salat,” or ritual prayer (performed five times a day); “zakat,” or the paying of alms; fast (“sawn” in Arabic) during the month of Ramadan when Muslims believe the Quran was first revealed to Muhammad; the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca; and the “shahadah,” or profession of faith, which initiates every convert to Islam. Only the last pillar requires belief rather than action. Unlike Christianity, Islam is a communal religion; it abhors monasticism and reclusive individualism. The Quran also categorically derides celibacy as being against God’s command to be “fruitful and multiply.”

Aslan traces the roots of modern day Islamic fundamentalism to the influence of people such as Shah Wali Allah (d. 1762) as well as the experiences of the colonial period. Shah Wali Allah’s emphasis on orthodoxy, to strip Sufism of its “foreign” influences (e.g. Neoplatonism, Persian mysticism, Hindu Vedantism) and restore it to a former unadulterated form of Islamic mysticism, sparked a number of “puritan” movements in India like the Deobandi School. What angered political reformers, such as Jamāl-al-dīn al-Afghānī (1838-97) and Hassan al-Banna (1906-49), was the hypocrisy the British showed in preaching the values of the Enlightenment while cruelly pillaging the natural resources of their conquered lands and suppressing appeals for liberation. Al-Banna formed the Muslim Brotherhood, which was conceived to be an Islamic social movement “to present Islam as an all encompassing religious, political, social, economic, and cultural system.” Later, the movement underwent a more radical transformation under the influence of Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), who asserted the new ideology of Islamism which “called for the creation of an Islamic state in which the socio-political order would be defined solely according to Muslim values,” and he envisioned this process to be a “cataclysmic, revolutionary event.”

The book describes how the puritanical, fundamentalist sect of Islam known as Wahhabism became established in what is today Saudi Arabia. Thanks to oil money and Saudi evangelism, Wahhabism has now infiltrated every corner of the Muslim world, and it is the ideology of al-Qaeda. Aslan says that despite 9/11 and subsequent terrorist acts against western targets, “what is taking place now in the Muslim world is an internal conflict between Muslims, not an external battle between Islam and the West. The West is merely a bystander – an unwary yet complicit casualty of a rivalry that is raging in Islam over who will write the next chapter in its story.” This is not the “clash of civilisations” but a war within Islam between scores of first- and second-generation Muslim immigrants, indoctrinated in the democratic ideals of their new homes, and the bigotry and fanaticism of those who have replaced Muhammad.

Being a young boy who fled to America with his family during the Iranian Revolution, Aslan is able to narrate the events of that historic period well and how Iran was transformed into “a fascist country run by a corrupt clerical oligarchy committed to snuffing out any attempts at democratic reform.” Yet he says that democracy in the Middle East is possible because “it is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy,” and Islam has had a long commitment to religious pluralism. If America, which is “unapologetically founded on a Judeo-Christian – and more precisely Protestant – moral framework,” it should be possible to have Islamic democracy through a path of secularization.

Aslan compares the current conflict in Islam to the cataclysmic events of the Reformation in Christianity. The book ends with the sentences: “The Islamic Reformation is already here. We are all living in it.” What is happening in Islam, says Aslan, is an internal conflict about who will write the next chapter in its story. It’s an alluring thought and I sense his passion about his own faith makes him believe that this is the case. The book does have its biases, but for anyone who wants a fairly balanced introduction to Islam I recommend this book.

Will Delhi be ready for the 2010 Commonwealth Games?

According to a leaked government report in India this may not be the case, reports the Times of India:

"In what could bring huge embarrassment to the country, key Commonwealth Games (CWG) projects - including games venues, infrastructure for conducting the sports and major city upgrade plans - are running so much behind schedule that there's a real threat of India's showpiece Games turning into a non-event.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, which early this month submitted an evaluation report to the Prime Minister's Office and the sports ministry, has observed that in at least 13 of the 19 sporting venues, the work shortfall is between 25% and 50%. This means all these projects would either miss the deadline or compromise on quality in the haste to finish on time.

That's not all. Sources quoting the report said the Delhi government and some central agencies executing Games-related projects have officially shelved at least six infrastructure projects by delinking them from the Commonwealth Games.

Though the delinked projects are flyovers and bridges that could at best clog up traffic and hamper timely conduct of events, what could actually result in the Games being shifted elsewhere is the organizers' inability to complete sports venues even in the extended timeframe. As per international guidelines, all CWG projects were to be completed by May 2009 and the last year should have been kept for trial runs.

Far from that, sources quoting the CAG report said in the case of Jawaharlal Nehru stadium - the main venue of the Games - even the final designs were yet to be frozen. Authorities executing the projects hadn't received layout details for LAN, CCTV, broadcasting overlays, video screens, scoreboards and signages etc.

The evaluation report says these details, as well as the type of track and turf to be used, were required to be submitted in October 2008. Instead, these have been received by CPWD only recently. The location and the requirements for the photo finish room at JLN Stadium were finalized by the organizing committee as late as May 2009.

Meanwhile, the all-too-familiar finger-pointing is on. CPWD, the project executing agency, has blamed the organizing committee and its consultants for delaying the projects by constantly revising and re-revising designs for every venue, sources said."

This is so typical of the state of affairs in India today. To undertake any major project, there are a countless number of delays and objections, that by the time something is completed, it is either too late or there is a need for something even better. You would have thought seven years is sufficient time to prepare for these games, but not in India.

Contrast India’s struggling attempts to host the event and China’s highly successful running of the Olympics last year. Whether construction work will be completed before the start of the 2010 Commonwealth Games is anyone's guess. Even if the government pulls out all the stops to complete construction, there is no guarantee quality won't be compromised. One way or another, it seems India may not be spared the blushes.

India trip 2009

I have just returned from a short holiday in India. It was an enjoyable and interesting trip in many ways. The last time I visited the country was in 2006, so this holiday enabled me to take stock of changes that have happened since then. This time I was determined to see some places other than my relatives’ houses because having a young daughter, who was born in the UK but has no knowledge of India, I wanted her to come away with a reasonably good impression of the country.

We landed in Mumbai on 14 August 2009, just one day before Independence Day. Mumbai was in a state of panic about swine flu. After disembarking, all passengers on my flight from London were screened for the illness. The screening process was largely a paperwork exercise, which wasted half an hour and left me wondering: was targeting foreigners the best way of tackling the virus given that it had already spread to India?

Despite warnings about possible terrorist attacks in the run-up to Independence Day, I did go out and see some of the major landmarks in the city of Mumbai including Nariman Point, the Gateway of India, the Taj Hotel, Malabar Hills, and Juhu Beach. The Taj Hotel has been largely restored to its erstwhile glory following the terror attacks in November 2008. It is a majestic building, as is the Gateway of India, just a stone throw away. I didn’t like Juhu Beach, which makes much derided Blackpool Beach seem clean. The many new shopping malls in Mumbai are very popular with the middle classes.

Mumbai is a city of striking contrasts. Here you find people from all walks of life, and all parts of India, and their differences are bewildering. The poor are very poor, and the rich are very rich. In Mumbai, people from just about every state in India rub shoulders with each other. The dilapidated buildings of Dharavi contrast with the tall, modern skyscrapers in the heart of the city. It is a bustling, noisy cosmopolitan that never sleeps. Unfortunately the traffic can be a nightmare, due to the burgeoning population, but that is a fact of life in every major town or city of India today.

After spending a couple of days in Mumbai, we flew down to Kochi and headed to Thrissur in the centre of Kerala. Thrissur is Kerala’s cultural capital, having a number of Hindu temples and Christian churches. Every year the Thrissur Pooram festival, held near Vadakkumnathan Temple in the centre of the city, is celebrated with much gusto by thousands of people, featuring caparisoned elephants and fireworks. The city is also famous for gold jewellery, producing 70% of Kerala’s ornaments. A number of new hotels have come up in Thrissur in recent years.

After visiting my in-laws and my mother’s family in Thrissur, we travelled north to Kozhikode by train. Train travel in India is much more comfortable, and less hazardous, than travelling by car. The passenger compartments are not always tidy, the food can be dodgy, but train travel in India is cheap; it is the best way to see the country. Now more of the tracks are becoming electrified, reducing the dependence on that polluting fossil fuel, diesel.

Situated on the Malabar Coast, Kozhikode is a bustling, multiethnic and muilti-religious city. Although Hindus form the largest community there is a substantial Muslim population here, and a smaller Christian community. The city played an important role in the spice trade during the Middle Ages, and even today there is a strong mercantile character about it. The shopping centre has expanded in recent years, with a wide variety of shops selling anything from Halwa to sarees.

We spent a couple of days in Kozhikode, visiting some of my paternal aunties, and then we travelled south to Alleppey. At Alleppey station, our tour operator from Indian Panorama met us and took us to the houseboat jetty. Alleppey is a small town where the main business is fishing, and more recently tourism. I was impressed with the facilities on board our houseboat including an area at the front for sightseeing and dining, an air-conditioned bedroom and en-suite bathroom, and a kitchen at the back for preparing food. The boat was manned by three crew members including the cook.

As our houseboat gently navigated the lotus-filled backwaters around Alleppey and headed toward Kumarakom via River Pampa, we sat and watched the beautiful green Kerala countryside. This was surely the best way to see Kerala, away from the maddening traffic on the roads, unhurried and relaxed. The palm trees arched over the banks of the waterways, their canopies hanging high over the water. The scenary was simply serene, composed of different shades of green, each shade owing to a different kind of crop. As we passed small villages and paddy fields, we saw people going about their daily lives. Women washed their clothes while fisherman ferried their catches in their skiffs.

We passed many other houseboats in the opposite direction, some occupied by foreign tourists, as well as other types of boats and small ships transporting goods to various trading centres in Kerala. The food we ate on board was fresh and tasty. We docked at a quiet spot not far from Kumarakom for the night, and completed the journey the next morning. It was truly a wonderful experience which I will not forget for a long time, and my five year old daughter particularly enjoyed it.

After a visit to St Mary’s Forane Church at Bharananganam, where Kerala’s first Christian saint, St Alphonsa, is buried, we travelled to Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala, in our pre-arranged taxi. The traffic in Kochi was the worst of all the cities I visited in Kerala. Although many new businesses and people had moved into the city, the transport infrastructure had failed to keep up with the change. The result was heavy congestion especially during the morning and evening rush hours. We just spent a day in Kochi, visiting the homes of two uncles, before heading back to Thrissur where we spent the remainder of our holiday.

This was a most enjoyable holiday and I am very grateful to my relatives for all their hospitality. I have seen a lot of change in the country. Just about every consumer good that you get in the west can now be purchased in India. There is a new confidence among the middle classes with their increased opportunities and affluence. More people seem to know English, the language which enables Indians to communicate with the rest of the world. However, not all change has been for the better. As more and more people flock to the urban areas to get a share of the money pie, the transport infrastructure is struggling to cope. Due to bumbling bureaucracy, appreciating land prices, lack of planning and corruption the infrastructure, particularly the roads, is creaking at the seams.

Climate change is also adding to people’s woes in India. This year’s monsoon wasn’t heavy, especially in northern India, adversely affecting crop production and pushing prices up. India will have to improve its irrigation facilities if it wants to help its agriculture sector. The population continues to grow, putting further pressures on its limited resources, and there are still many areas where illiteracy and poverty are rife. Sectarian violence occasionally flares up in some trouble spots, and caste discrimination is still oppressive in various places, especially in some of the backward northern states. The threat of terrorism, motivated by internal and external elements, is ever present.

The challenges the country faces are indeed huge. Talk of it becoming a superpower, I think, is highly optimistic given India’s current social, political and cultural environment. India will continue to make economic progress, even if that growth is a little lopsided, but it probably won’t be much more than the regional power it currently is. Its success shouldn’t just be measured in pure economic terms. Despite its obvious flaws, what I find heartening is that the majority of its large and diverse population are tolerant of one another’s differences and get along fine. Long may that unity in diversity continue.

Maharajah begs for its survival

The last time I flew on India’s national carrier – Air India – was in August 2000. I was returning from India when my flight was delayed almost a full twenty four hours. My plane, an ageing Boeing 747-200, over twenty years old, developed a technical snag in Dubai which meant it couldn’t make the journey across the Arabian Sea until engineers from Bombay flew out spares there. I was used to the customary one or two hours delay with Air India, but this was extraordinary. My father wrote a letter of complaint to the airline after returning to UK, but he needn’t have bothered. There was no reply, except to say the airline would look into his complaint, but in all likelihood the letter probably just ended up in the waste bin with all the other letters of complaint at the Air India office.

I have never experienced such appalling customer service on an airline as Air India. So it comes as no surprise that I learn today that Air India is on the brink of collapse. Most airlines around the world, including British Airways, are struggling to cope with the current economic downturn, but Air India’s problems have been brewing for over fifteen years due to neglect. Today it neither has enough money to pay its daily operating costs nor the salaries of its bloated workforce of 31,000 employees. Last month, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had asked Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel to prepare a restructuring plan by the month-end.

The restructuring plan will be presented to a committee on 25 July, and it is likely to include a number of changes in return for equity infusion from the government and other financial support. It is not easy to downsize Air India’s powerful unionized workforce, so Praful Patel is trying to involve them in the restructuring process. Measures are likely to include a recruitment freeze for the next three years, cut loss making routes, return leased planes to lessors, and defer deliveries of some new planes. Already Praful Patel has sought to change the management board within thirty days, bringing in top executives with proven track record from elsewhere.

It remains to be seen how successful this restructuring plan is going to be, but one thing for sure is that without a radical overhaul the airline is bound to fail. A few tweaks here and there is simply not going to be enough, for Air India has been steadily losing market share since the Indian civil aviation sector was liberalised in the early 1990s to both foreign and domestic operators. “Instead of meeting competition head on though, Air India allowed its decades of problems to pile up and up,” said Peter Morris, chief economist of Ascend, the London-based global air transport industry consultancy firm.

After years of pampering as India’s national carrier, the root of Air India’s problem was simply its inability to perform in a competitive market. “While every airline in the country calibrated their business model with appropriate cost and revenues structure to meet competition, Air India failed to capitalize on its dominant position, a position any airline would give anything to have,” said Morris. Air India also suffered from political interference, under investment in its fleet, and a weak management.

“I think the only way to make Air India viable again is privatization,” said Vivek Gupta, senior consultant with the Hyderabad-based ICMR Center for Management Research. “That is the key because AI’s management has never been serious about running AI as a competitive business. Privatization will allow AI to shed its national carrier tag, which looks imminent anyway, and will make it easier for the airline to focus on customer service and competition.”

Affectionately known as the “Maharajah” after its mascot for many years, Air India has unfortunately suffered the fate of many maharajahs since Indira Gandhi abolished the privy purse in 1971, and been reduced to the begging bowl. To survive in the fiercely competitive civil aviation market an airline has to be very nimble. Air India’s future seems far from rosy as it fights for its survival. The best thing the Indian government can do is bail it out one last time and privatise it. Then if it goes to the wall, let it go to the wall.

My visit to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea

Over the centuries a visit to the biblical city of Jerusalem has been a prized opportunity for many Christian pilgrims from various parts of the world. I have always had a personal ambition to visit Jerusalem – the city where Jesus Christ once walked, taught, died and rose from the dead; and finally I got my chance on Saturday 20 June 2009 due to a mixture of luck and circumstances related to work. There were ten other people on the tour bus with me from Haifa, in northern Israel, all of whom were visiting Jerusalem for the first time like myself.

The weather was gloriously sunny. After travelling south, parallel to the Mediterranean Sea, we turned east and passed Tel Aviv - the main commercial centre of Israel - and Ben Gurion Airport. Then the bus began to climb the Judean Mountains where Jerusalem is situated. As we made our way into the city I saw landmarks, such as old carefully preserved tanks, that Jerusalem has seen many attacks and conquests during its long bloody history. The status of Jerusalem is still not definitively decided and remains a central issue in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The city is important for all three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

Situated 800m above sea level, Jerusalem is generally cooler than other cities in Israel, but on this blazing summer day it didn’t make much difference. The tour bus stopped at a spot on the Mount of Olives where a great panoramic view of the Old City could be seen. I quickly realised this was an ancient city, where many buildings date back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Other cities in Israel, like Tel Aviv and Haifa, are not so old; they are relatively new in comparison, resembling cities in the West with their modern high-rise flats and offices, highways and pavements.

Staring straight in front of me was the Dome of the Rock, with its distinctive golden dome. The tour guide pointed to specific sites relating to the final days of Jesus on earth, and I was surprised to see that they were all enclosed within a relatively small area. Along the sides of the Mount of Olives were thousands of Jewish tombstones. From biblical times, Jews have been buried on the Mount of Olives. You have to be extremely rich to be buried here today because of land prices.

We visited the Garden of Gethsemane, on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, where Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples – Judas - and arrested by the Temple guards. Here there are some very old olive trees still standing. Next to the garden is the Church of All Nations – a Roman Catholic church – built between 1919 and 1924 using funds from many different countries. The church is situated on the location where Jesus prayed all night in anticipation of his arrest and subsequent death. A mass was getting underway when I visited the church.

Next stop was Mount Zion on the outskirts of the Old City. There I bought a big Australian straw hat to protect my face from the powerful rays of the sun and a bottle of cool mineral water. We visited the room where Jesus had his last supper, located near the tomb of David. Actually it wasn’t exactly the same room where Jesus had his last supper because the architectural elements indicated that the room was built by the Crusaders in the twelfth century, but it is presumed to be on or near the place where the Last Supper took place.

The Old City, barely one square km in area, is divided into four quarters: the Armenian Quarter, the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, and the Christian Quarter. We entered the Old City via Zion Gate, which leads to the south side of the Armenian Quarter. The Armenian Quarter is the smallest in size and inhabitants of all the quarters, although the quarter had its beginnings in the fourth century A.D. when a small group of Armenian monks and pilgrims settled in the area. The Armenian Quarter is closed to the public, so we headed to the Jewish Quarter.

The main feature of the Jewish Quarter is the Wailing Wall, which is all that remains of the Second Temple - built by Herod the Great - after it was destroyed by the Romans in the Jewish Revolt around 70 AD. Following the revolt, Jews were not allowed into Jerusalem until the Byzantine period, when they could visit once a year on the anniversary of the destruction of the temple and weep over its ruins. Hence the name “Wailing Wall”. Later, when the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock was built over the Temple Mount. It was only after the Six Day War in 1967, between the newly formed state of Israel and Arab countries, that the Jewish people once again regained control of what remained of their temple.

To get to the Wailing Wall, security is tight. All bags are x-rayed and each person has to walk past a metal detector. Photography is not allowed in front of the wall. I followed the rest of my tour party and, touching the wall, I prayed for my own intentions. I was surprised that on the Jewish Sabbath the wall was not crowded with worshippers. I discovered later that Jews prefer to go to air-conditioned synagogues near their places of residence rather than stand in the searing heat in front of the wall and pray. Nevertheless, the Wailing Wall is the holiest of shrines for the Jews.

Standing over the top of the Wailing Wall is the Dome of the Rock, built on the Temple Mount, which is an impressive piece of Islamic architecture. With its exterior of pure gold the Dome stands out against a largely white and grey Jerusalem skyline. It was built between 685 and 691 AD by Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, from Mecca, who captured Jerusalem from the Byzantines. In 1998 the late King of Jordan sold one of his houses in London to fund the 80kg of gold required for refurbishing the Dome. According to Islamic tradition, the sacred rock over which the Dome is built is the place from which Muhammad ascended to heaven accompanied by the angel Gabriel.

I couldn’t help feeling that the position of the Dome, over the site of their old holy temple, must have caused some resentment among the Jews over the years. Sovereignty over the site remains a key issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and in Israel there is already talk of building the third and final temple. My tour guide informed us that the Dome is not open to non-Muslims, and so we headed to the Muslim Quarter to wander through its streets.

The narrow, crowded streets of the Muslim Quarter were lined with small shops owned by Palestinians, selling a variety of items including souvenirs, food, clothes, carpets and household wares. This quarter was teeming with life. I passed veiled Arab women busy shopping, keffiyeh-clad elderly men chatting, and young boys in jeans playing with one another. We stopped at one diner to eat some falafel, a common food in the Middle East, made from fried balls of chickpeas. Then we headed for the Christian Quarter.

We followed the Stations of the Cross, the last few places Jesus visited before being crucified and buried. I found re-tracing his last footsteps a very moving experience as I could imagine Jesus struggling to walk up these winding roads with the cross, in hypovolemic shock, following the brutal flogging he received on the previous day. The cruelness of it all became so much more real to me, which was a reminder of how wicked man can be. There were inscriptions on the walls to signify different Stations of the Cross.

After stopping at a particular shop to purchase souvenir items, we proceeded to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – one of the holiest shrines in Christendom - which is the location of the last five Stations of the Cross including the site of the crucifixion and tomb of Jesus. Initially built by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine I in 330 AD, it was later destroyed by invading Persians and then Muslims, but eventually rebuilt by the Crusaders. The main custodians of the church are the Greek Orthodox, the Armenian Apostolic and Roman Catholic churches, with the Greeks having the lion's share. The Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syrian Orthodox own smaller sections within the church. The fractious nature of Christian denominations was very much in evidence here.

From the brilliant sunshine outside, I stepped inside a dimly lit church and turned to my right. I followed people up the Stairway to Golgotha. Beautiful murals and shrines, each owned by a particular denomination, marked important locations within the church. I visited the site of the crucifixion where an ornate Greek Orthodox altar commemorates the place. There were many visitors around this altar, taking photographs and remembering Jesus as he suffered a slow, agonizing death on the cross. Returning to the ground floor, near the entrance, I touched the Stone of the Anointing where Jesus’ body was laid and prepared for burial after being removed from the cross. Like other people, I put my souvenirs on the stone to get them blessed.

Moving to the other side of the church – to the left of the church entrance - was the sepulchre or tomb of Jesus Christ. A large, hollow monument encloses the original tomb. No one knows for sure whether this was the actual tomb of Jesus but what is beyond doubt is that the presence of other tombs, such as the “Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea”, shows that the area was used for burials during the 1st century AD. There were many pilgrims queuing up to go inside and see the tomb but, as my tour involved visiting other places, I had to move on.

We left the Old City via Jaffa Gate and headed back to our tour bus. Sitting down in my seat in the air-conditioned bus was a welcome respite after all the walking, and I felt hungry. The bus pulled away and headed to Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea. From Jerusalem in the Judean Mountains the bus descended more than 1km along a winding, sloping road to the depths of the Judean Desert, where Satan tempted Jesus for forty days and forty nights. The change in scenery from the moderately green mountains of Jerusalem to the parched, barren landscape of the desert, in a fairly short space of time, was quite dramatic.

Soon we were in Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered more than half a century ago. We stopped at a tourist centre where we satisfied our hunger with a hearty lunch. Then the bus drove us to the Dead Sea, about one mile away. I had reached the lowest point on earth, 400m below sea level. The temperature was at least 40°C.

The Dead Sea is unique in that it has a very high salt content of 30%, which means that the water is unusually dense, making it possible for human beings to float on the surface. With the rest of my tour group, I changed into swimming trunks and went into the water. Soon I was lying on my back, effortlessly floating on the water. It was an amazing experience and great fun. The water had a dark green complexion and it felt oily. I learnt that the surface level is decreasing at a rate of 1m per year, although there are plans are to build a canal from the Red Sea to replenish the receding water in the Dead Sea and desalinate it for human use.

I stayed in the water for fifteen minutes, and then after climbing out I washed myself with clean fresh water from a pipe. Soon I was on the road again, travelling northward along the Jordan Valley, on the border between the West Bank and Jordan. We passed the area where Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist. As we passed the biblical city of Jericho I noticed a greenness to this area, near the River Jordan, that contrasted with the desolate terrain of the Judean Desert. I passed by many plantations of palm trees, banana and other fruit.

As the tour bus headed back to Haifa, I quietly reflected on my visit to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. I had fulfilled a long personal ambition to visit Jerusalem, to see the places mentioned in the bible and experience the atmosphere. Although things have got a little commercialised in recent times, there is no mistaking the sense of history when one stands in this great, ancient city. Jerusalem has a timeless quality about it that I have not felt in any other city.

I did get the feeling that because of the proximity of the different communities that live in Jerusalem, particularly the Jews and Muslims, and the importance of the place to each community, there is always the possibility that anything that upsets their sensibilities could flare up into something explosive quite quickly. Indeed, that was one of my main fears before my trip. I discovered that there is enough security around to handle with such situations should they arise.

Seeing the Garden of Gethsemane, the Last Supper Room and other Stations of the Cross, the bible literally came alive before my eyes. Re-tracing Jesus’ last steps was a moving experience which I will never forget. To cap it all, I had a dip in the Dead Sea. I would like to come again sometime, if possible, and spend more time in Jerusalem. I would like to visit some of the other churches and sacred relics. Next time I would like to bring my family with me. For now, at least, I am thankful for having been able to see Jerusalem and I will cherish my memories of it for a long time.

Globalization and the illusion of stability

I am nearing the end of reading “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It’s a very interesting book, and I recommend it you anyone curious about the possibility of Black Swans or the highly improbable events that affect our lives. The author explains the fallibility of using the median in the Gaussian bell curve for making predictions, while in reality many things defy this logic.

In chapter 15 he predicts the possibility of Black Swans occurring in our current highly globalized world:

“I spoke of globalization in Chapter 3; it is here, but it is not all for the good: it creates interlocking fragility, while reducing volatility and giving the appearance of stability. In other words it creates devastating Black Swans. We have never lived before under the threat of a global collapse. Financial institutions have been merging into a smaller number of very large banks. Almost all banks are now interrelated. So the financial ecology is swelling into gigantic, incestuous, bureaucratic banks (often Gaussianized in their risk measurement) – when one falls, they all fall. The increased concentration among banks seems to have the effect of making financial crisis less likely, but when they happen they are more global in scale and hit us very hard. We have moved from a diversified ecology of small banks, with varied lending policies, to a more homogeneous framework of firms that all resemble one another. True, we now have fewer failures, but when they occur...I shiver at the thought. I rephrase here: we will have fewer but more severe crises. The rarer the event, the less we know about its odds. It means that we know less and less about the possibility of a crisis.”

He continues by saying that in a network there are a few nodes that are highly connected while others are barely so. Although networks seem more robust, because a random hit is more likely to affect a poorly connected spot, they are more vulnerable to Black Swans because if there is a problem with a major node, this will have a major impact on the rest of the network.

Actually this is quite an accurate prediction of the present economic crisis, and considering the book was published in 2007, Taleb was clearly ahead of his times. He favours a larger number of smaller banks rather than a small set of very big banks. In such a scenario, banks can be allowed to go bust, without tax payer funded bail-outs, and new ones take their place. This would allow the banking industry per se to be more resilient and reduce the risk of a major crisis unfolding when one bank fails.

Once the current crisis has passed, the government should consider breaking up the current nationalised behemoths such RBS and Lloyds Banking Group. A more diversified banking industry is probably to everyone’s benefit. As well as that, there must be more effective regulation. Recently, an anonymous whistleblower has accused the Financial Services Authority (FSA) of being complacent in its dealings with building societies, which is quite a major indictment of the financial services regulator.

A “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages by 2030

We are currently in the middle of a credit crunch – a crisis caused by our own risk taking trait in the economic sphere – and the effects of it are proving to be quite painful. But have you considered the possibility that we could be heading towards a different type of credit crunch, one affecting our environment, sometime in the future? This is what the UK government’s chief scientist, Prof John Beddington, warned recently at the Sustainable Development UK conference. He said the growing world population will cause a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages by 2030.

The world population has tripled over the past 70 years and it is expected to reach 8.3 billion by 2030, by which time demand for food and energy will have risen by 50% and fresh water by 30%. Climate change will exacerbate matters in an unpredictable way. Prof Beddington thinks the UK will be relatively fortunate not to experience its own shortages but “we can expect prices of food and energy to rise.” In other parts of the world, particularly the developing world, the amount of fresh water available per head of the population is expected to drop significantly.

These are certainly grim predictions but not unreasonable considering current trends. Remember the spurt in food prices last year? In many countries, population growth has surpassed food production in recent years. Just because prices have eased a bit recently it does not mean that they are going to stay that way. If the world population continues to grow and we do not have the equivalent of another Green Revolution, there could be serious food shortages in the future and higher food prices are inevitable.

In the developed countries, where population growth is either negative or very small, there are no shortages of food. These countries have on average substantially higher rainfall than poorer countries; they have surpluses of food and could expand food production if they wish. This is not the case in developing countries, where populations are still growing quite fast; they do not produce enough food to feed their people and they cannot afford to import sufficient food to close the gap. Food production capabilities are deteriorating for a number of reasons:

• Limited arable land. Not all land is good or receives sufficient rainfall. Increases in food production would have to come from existing arable land.
• Shrinking size of family farms. In many developing countries, the size of small family farms have been cut in half over the past four decades, as plots are divided into smaller and smaller pieces for each new generation of heirs.
• Land degradation. Overworked and exposed soils are eroded by wind and water. Faulty irrigation and drainage can make land useless through waterlogging and salinization. Misuse of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides also contribute to soil degradation.
• Water shortages and degradation. When water becomes short, farmers find it difficult to maintain crop production.
• Irrigation problems. Less than half of all water meant for irrigation purposes actually reaches the crops. The rest soaks into unlined canals, leaks out of pipes or evaporates on its way to the fields.
• Waste. A lot of food is wasted simply by rat or insect infestation, spoilage and losses that occur during transportation.
  

Demand for meat in developing countries is growing much faster than for cereals – close to 3% per year compared to 1.8% for cereals. For instance, in China, rising incomes and changing diets have resulted in greater demand for poultry and pigs. This means that demand for cereals to feed livestock, and in turn water, will increase significantly in developing countries, putting pressure on grain producers. It takes 4-5kg of feed to produce 1kg of meat.

Slower population growth in developing countries would allow more time to achieve sustainable food production. Results have shown that higher female literacy and better access to health care services can lower fertility rates. Therefore, the widespread provision of basic education and health care should be a priority for governments in developing countries. There is still a lot of indifference to education in many places, so it is important that initiatives encourage people to view it in a more positive way.

As populations have grown, so too have carbon dioxide emissions. More people mean more houses, cars, planes, and power stations. Developed countries still have much higher per capita emissions than developing countries, but the gap is slowly narrowing. China has recently overtaken the US as the world’s biggest producer of carbon dioxide. More needs to be done to move to a low-carbon economy, otherwise the effects of climate change we are already seeing today are going to increase.

If we do not act now, I believe the combined effects of population growth and climate change are going to lead to serious problems in the future. As human beings we have a tendency to be very complacent when things appear to be going smoothly. It’s only in a time of crisis we actually realise our folly of ignoring past warnings, but scientists have been warning us for years about the effects our behaviour is having on the environment. Without more concerted international action a “perfect storm” of food, energy and water shortages could be far more painful and far-reaching than the current economic crisis. These problems, unlike the current credit crunch, won’t be temporary; they will last much, much longer.