- Written by: Kamran Mofid
- Hits: 472
First posted on 7 October 2023. Updated on 14 July 2024
A Timeless Case Study on the Consequences of Demagogues too blinded by a Demonic Ideology: A Case Study of Water Privatisation in England and Wales
Water Privatisation is a Scandal, Prem Sikka, Emeritus Professor, University of Essex (Water companies have loaded themselves with debt while pumping sewage into waterways, hiking bills and paying out billions to shareholders – a scam against the public that will only end by taking our water back from the profiteers.)
‘The British economy has been subject to a giant experiment: privatisation on a scale more extensive than in almost any other oecd country. Perhaps most strikingly, following the lead of Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, in 1989 the Conservative government privatised the water industry in England and Wales. This outlier status remains to this day: the majority of water infrastructure in other countries is held and managed by the public. To see the disastrous effects of this experiment, one need only look at England’s crisis-ridden water companies—or brave a swim in an English river flooded with sewage…’-Mathew Lawrence, director of the Common Wealth thinktank and author of Planet on Fire, in The Economist, Jul 10th 2023
Photo via Medium
It is estimated that we can survive twenty-five days without food; six days without sleep, but only four days without water.
What is Water?
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
- Hits: 211
A Journey to Healing: The inspiring story of a man who healed lives and bettered the world
'And so, with great care, he planted his hundred acorns'
He was called Elzéard Bouffier, a shepherd in Provence…
Then, years later, Jean Giono, so brilliantly, puts the shepherd’s story into words in an inspiring book: The Man Who Planted Trees
Plant a Tree: Healing ourselves and bettering our world
Photo:ekostories.com
‘When I reflect that one man, armed only with his own physical and moral resources, was able to cause this land of Canaan to spring from the wasteland, I am convinced that in spite of everything, humanity is admirable. But when I compute the unfailing greatness of spirit and the tenacity of benevolence that it must have taken to achieve this result, I am taken with an immense respect for that old and unlearned peasant who was able to complete a work worthy of God.’- Jean Giono
‘Jean Giono, the only son of a cobbler and a laundress, was one of France’s greatest writers. His prodigious literary output included stories, essays, poetry, plays, film scripts, translations and over thirty novels, many of which have been translated into English. Giono was a pacifist, and was twice imprisoned in France at the outset and conclusion of World War II. He remained tied to Provence and Manosque, the little city where he was born in 1895 and, in 1970, died. Giono was awarded the Prix Bretano, the Prix de Monaco (for the most outstanding collected work by a French writer), the Légion d’Honneur, and he was a member of the Académie Goncourt.’
‘In planting a tree, we plant a friend who will grow into a silent protector.’
- Written by: Kamran Mofid
- Hits: 9923
First posted on 20 March 2013, updated on 16 April 2024
Let the Cyrus Cylinder Shine Light and Hope in the Darkness Again
The Cyrus the Great Cylinder is the first charter of right of nations in the world. It is a baked-clay cyliner in Akkadian language with cuneiform script. This cylinder was excavated in 1879 by the Assyro-British archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam in the foundations of the Esagila (the Marduk temple of Babylon) and is kept today in the British Museum in London.
The Cyrus Cylinder: Ancient Persia’s Gift to the World
There can be no Peace without Justice, Human Dignity, Humility and the life-affirming Reverence for Life.
In Civilization and Ethics, Albert Schweitzer has reminded us that: Ethics is nothing other than Reverence for Life. Reverence for Life affords us our fundamental principle of morality, namely, that good consists in maintaining, assisting and enhancing life, and to destroy, to harm or to hinder life is evil.
by Kamran Mofid, Ph.D. (ECON)
It is with horror and absolute sadness that we are all witnessing the children of Abraham tearing each other apart in the Middle East. This is an untold tragedy with immeasurable tragic consequences for all. Many sages and saints have reminded us that war is not the answer. There will be no winners, only losers. Bombs, missiles, rockets, and drones; destruction of bridges, buildings, roads, houses, schools and hospitals, killing of the innocents on all sides, will not bring peace. If these actions were instruments of peacebuilding and peacemaking, then, by now, we should have created paradise on earth, given the number of wars and the consequent destruction that we have had in the past. Indeed, the twentieth century was the bloodiest in human history, with holocausts, genocides, ethnic cleansings, two world wars, and hundreds of inter and intra-national wars.
Now, if war is not the answer, then what is?
- Celebrating our Golden Wedding Anniversary
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- A moment that changed me: The day I discovered that indeed small is beautiful