All Things Not Considered

Terror In Casablanca - Part I

These past two weeks Casablanca has once again witnessed more suicide bombings that inflicted much harm to many civilians as well as some members of the police city department. Although the modus operandi of these murderers doesn't quite mesh with the common characteristics of Al Qaeda's, there just might be a link that ties in all these odious incidents together. It is not the equipment they have been using or the locations they have picked but the common thread is the neighborhoods where they have come from.

Most of these aimless hearts belong to the fundamentalist group called Takfir or Takfir Wal Hijra. According to their philosophy, anybody who doesn't religiously - no pun intended - adhere to their strict interpretation of the teachings of Islam is an apostate and therefore a kafir. Their aim is to purify the political system and restore the spirit of the Islamic community (Umma) to the country.

So the questions we have to tackle are: How did this problem originate? And what can we do about it?

The first question seems a bit easier to answer but further thought and analysis will prove otherwise, rather quickly. There are many reasons why this movement has taken root and has successfully mushroomed in the outskirts of many cosmopolitan centers in the Maghreb in general and Morocco in particular.

Sociological Most of these people are landless peasants who were driven out of their rural environment and out of desperation and need, have settled around old and abandoned quarries in the outskirts of big cities like Casablanca, Tangiers, Meknes, Fes, and Marrakech. These shantytowns have no electricity, no running water, and no semblance of urban character. These people feel they have been shunned and pushed aside by a society that in large despises them and even questions their citizenship.

Psychological This urban and sociological disintegration has marginalized them to the point where they feel no bond to the greater society. As outcasts and societal pariahs, they feel like a black and dirty spot on the Moroccan cultural tapestry. A spot that unmistakably identifies them as a victim and stigmatizes them as an inferior member of the social order.

I am usually asked what I like about America. My usual response is: Alternatives. There's nothing worse than not having alternatives or options. Just imagine you have a job that you hate but you can't go anywhere because nobody will take you. How would you feel? Well take that and multiply it by 10, maybe 100. That's what they feel in those makeshift shelters that have become their permanent lives. That's the reason why militant Islam seems like a good way out. But we will get back to that later.

Economical From a macroeconomic level, there's an undeniable collusion between the Moroccan government and various financial and world trade institutions to render the economy a market based one. This results in harsher economic conditions, public sector gentrification, and a paradigm shift in the citizen-state relationship. Moroccans, who have gotten used to a modicum of state sponsored economic stability, do now see it eroding to the global economic conditions imposed by the foreign investors.

On a microeconomic level, many people in Morocco are in a financial tailspin. The prices keep climbing while salaries stagnate. Unless you are well networked and have some financial gravitas or some serious name recognition, opportunities will be rare to come by, if nonexistent.

For these culturally and sociologically marginalized folks, life is a lot tougher. They usually lack the education and the skills that could help them better their lives and lift them out of their misery. They don't have the means to invest and their networks are more often than not just as financially destitute as they are.

Political The political machine has conveniently forgotten about this people. While the focus is on foreign investment, urbanization, and economic development, the side effects continue to pop up with gentrification, rural exodus, a widening gap between the have and the have-nots, and, case in point, the emergence of newer class of poor.

To a certain extent, the politicos have adopted the "ignore the nuisance and it might disappear strategy." This is very much akin to a person ignoring their rotten toe because they don't want to consider the possibility that it could be cancerous or diabetic and might need amputation. So instead of dealing with the problem, they opt to just forget about it and delegate the task to the immune system to carry the internal struggle and hopefully the complete annihilation of the disease.

In this case, these people know their predicament and they also know that not much is being done to rectify the most nefarious of ailments they face.

Religious Enter the religion. They are many people out there who prey on social and cultural victims of economic segregation to basically indoctrinate them into their ideological system and to serve their own twisted goals.

The late, and great, Kurt Vonnegut used to call them Psychopathic Personalities, or PP's for short. These are predators of the highest caliber. They combine all the aforementioned categories and intertwine them with a religious thread to strengthen and legitimize the cause, its necessity, its timeliness, and of course its relative and absolute importance.

Let's not forget that these soldiers of God are not the most educated and most intellectually skeptical bunch in the lot to start with. Couple that with their hapless existence, feelings of dread, psychological inferiority, and cultural Marginalization and you see how they use a sectarian idea of Islam to turn against the society and the system.

What can we do?

There are some possible solutions to this problem. And we better work hard in making them work because the alternative is not an alternative. I will post some possible solutions in the second part of this article.

Leonhard Euler

Sunday, April 15, is the 300th birthday of Leonhard Euler (pronounced "oiler"), one of the top three mathematicians to have ever lived, the other two being Friedrich Gauss and Isaac Newton.

Euler gave the world a new foundation in calculus, algebra, number theory, graph theory, geometry, and applied math. He defined modern trigonometry and co-invented the calculus of varations. He is universally regarded as the most prolific mathematician in history and the best algorist ever. He was supreme at discrete mathematics, he created the function notation f(x) along with the e for the base of natural logarithm. Amicable numbers had been known for two thousand years before Euler, and in all that time only 3 pairs were discovered. Euler found 59 more. He Co-discovered the Euler-Maclaurin formula that facilitates calculation of integrals, sums, and series. Euler also developed the first method to estimate the orbit of the moon and he settled a dispute involving 50 decimal places of a long convergent series. He accomplished both these mathematical feats while he was totally blind.

With so many theorems and discoveries attached to his name, Euler will always be remembered for this particular equation:

It is called Euler’s identity and recognized as the most beautiful and most remarkable formula in mathematics.

Euler was a deeply religious man who believed in ‘the divine inspiration of scripture" and never shied away from confronting and arguing with the ‘Freethinkers." There’s a famous story that recounts a brief encounter between Euler and the French philosopher Denis Diderot in St Petersburg academy. The object of the meeting was for both learned men to argue the existence of God. The story goes on to say that Euler barged into the room and said: "Sir, , hence God exists - Reply!" 

Diderot not knowing math and embarrassed by the sarcastic laughter around him, apologized and asked to leave Russia. A request that was promptly honored by the Empress Catherine the Great, who was supposedly present during this brief monologue. This story has been repeated so often that it has gained credibility in the process. But in reality it is and it remains an uncorroborated tale. Diderot was a great philosopher but he was also an accomplished mathematician.  It is very unlikely that he would have stood there without an equally witty retort back to Euler.

Maps - GDP & Wealth

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is commonly used as an indicator of the economic health of a country, as well as to gauge a country's standard of living and also its productivity.

This map depicts the pictorial view of the countries of the world based on their Gross Domestic Product and their comparative currency exchange rates. It basically indicates a person’s international purchasing power based on where they live and where they want to spend their money. For some, the money will gain value when they move. But others will see their money devaluate as they take it out of their own countries.

Wealth, or GDP, is highest in Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland. It is lowest in Ethiopia, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Open population map for comparison

The 'Don Imus Controversy' – A Circus of Inconsequence

When Don Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" this week, he seemed to think nothing of it. It was just another one of those lame jokes that has earned him the title of "equal opportunity offender."

I have never developed a liking for the Imus show. Although his political views and analysis are often spot on. His sophomoric humor, his tireless tirades, and his vitriolic remarks sap the validity and strength off the more serious comments.

Although his latest remarks were meant to be humorous, I am not here to defend him or condone his behavior. His remarks are simply thoughtless, unarguably objectionable, and utterly despicable. What I would like to focus on instead is the wave of protest that ensued. A wave that further exemplifies the underlying trend of glaring media sensationalism and blatant hypocrisy.

After the story broke, Imus went on a damage control campaign. He took advantage of every opportunity he was given to express his regrets and earnestly apologize for his faux pas. Almost every show or program he attended, featured Reverend Sharpton or Reverend Jesse Jackson to represent the views or comments of the black community. Neither one of them accepted the apology and both were adamant that Imus needed be fired for what he said.

What I find rather hypocritical is for the media to consider Sharpton and Jackson as the purveyors of wisdom and arbiters of decency. This is the same Jesse Jackson who referred to New York City as "Hymietown" and the same Reverend Sharpton who stood by the side of Tawana Brawley as she lied about her racist story and sold it to the rest of America. Moreover, What have both men done to stop the black rappers from denigrating and demeaning black women with their lyrics and video clips? If Sharpton, Jackson, and other black leaders want to address this issue in a credible manner, they ought to turn their attention to where the problem originates. Don Imus was wrong, but he was thoughtlessly aping black rappers who continue to be glorified for their insidious ‘poetry’ towards women.

Imus is getting his deserved punishment through a fierce public flogging, but like everybody else; he too deserves a second chance. He has repeatedly apologized and has sounded and looked contrite. It’s time to turn the page and move on, there are bigger and more important issues facing this country today.

Universcale

Have you ever wondered how a proton, the most fundamental component of matter, compares in size to a neutron, or to an amino acid? Have you ever wondered how the solar system's size compares to the Orion Nebula's? Universcale is a cool website that uses the ‘meter’ as the measuring stick to compare different objects that range from the infinitesimally small to the stupendously large.  Universcale is a great educational tool that provides a perspective of things that conceptually are hard to imagine on a single scale.

A great learning experience.