Mushroom cloud in peacetime?

Like clockwork, not even dust had settled after the Earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale hit Myanmar; numerous announcements have emerged over the new social media outlets of well-meaning organisations offering services to collect donations for its victims. 

We have had all these so many times before. The earliest of these must surely be the Great Tsunami of Boxing Day 2004, which measured 9.1. The world saw a plethora of bodies going hyperdrive, bending backwards, trying to extract money from the well-meaning but unassumingly naive public. The collection, it seemed, was quite overwhelming. Ten years down the line, a documentary was made about the towns hit by the tsunami. It revealed that only one pledged housing project saw living daylight amongst all the broken promises; that too by the personal effort by an individual, the world-famous singer Ricky Martin.

The same thing happened in Haiti following its devastating 2010 hurricane. The Clinton Foundation jumped in to help its victims and help the island nation get back on its feet. Ten years after the storm, an assessment revealed no sustained improvement to its infrastructure. The only viable projects that seem to have been successfully developed were those that benefited the Foundation and the local cronies.

The latest donation drive to hit the nation is to help the victims of the recent Putra Heights gas pipe explosion. Even though footage coming out of the disaster area is scary, so far, no deaths have been reported; only property damage and bodily injuries have been reported. 

A third-person account provides scant information about the event. Firstly, very few Malaysians knew that we had a methane gas pipe gridline running under or near our houses. We had thought this only happened in Western countries. The line was apparently for industrial purposes. 

As in the case of MH370, the head does not know what the tail is doing. At least, that is the impression I get listening to the official press release of the committee appointed to investigate the disaster. The appointees of the sc-called panel expert to investigate the mishap remain opaque. Their representative does not exude brilliance or confidence that every rock will be turned to reveal the truth. I wonder if the services of academics were called for to get to the root of the explosion. Maybe everyone in power wants the whole fiasco to remain an unsolvable enigma so that none of their shenanigans in cutting corners does not come into the open.   The pressmen at the press meet were no better. Forget investigative journalism; they did not even ask the right questions. Instead of hurling difficult questions at the officious, they squawk random and meaningless questions that a primary student would squeal just to please his teacher.

One netizen pointed out that a leading political party started a donation drive to help the victims. Unfortunately, he also noticed that the given account was that of the political party, not a dedicated account set up for relief.

There are many examples of charity foundation abuse. A charity in the UK started during COVID-19 by the relatives of a 90-something war veteran who wanted to record his progress in recovering from a hip fracture. People were smitten by this nonagenarian, and they donated to his Captain Tom Foundation in droves. Soon, its assets became enormous, so enormous that unnecessary maintenance started showing up in its accounts. The veteran also wrote an autobiography, the proceeds of which went into charity but were taken out for personal use. Long story short, the old man died, The Captain Tom Foundation was investigated, and his daughter Hannah and her husband, who initially helped to establish the charity, were found to have benefitted from its mismanagement and blurring of private and charitable interests. The foundation is now defunct.

A mushroom cloud in peacetime

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To the naysayers

More than enough people are quick to sneer at India after Vikram's successful soft landing at the Southern Pole of the Moon. On one end, people were quick to say that the whole exercise was a hoax. It is an illusion. Then, others blurted that a country that cannot provide toilets to its citizens and whose population mostly live below the poverty line should not be sending rockets to the Moon (and playing with nuclear bombs). One even threatened to stop monetary 'aid' to India, conveniently forgetting any discussion on repatriation monies after years of looting from India. 

Firstly, everyone knows there is no way for everybody to prosper in sync before society moves up one notch higher. Things happen in tandem. There will be people who will have to do catching up, and there will be those who will lose out in the race for prosperity anyway. The only people who believe that the world needs equity are communists. Again and again, it has been proven that human greed surpasses any attempt at equity and even equality. Four-legged creatures elected to replace their two-legged oppressors will eventually begin standing erect on their hind legs. 

To be fair, India has improved by leaps and bounds since Independence. It has even overtaken its former colonial master as the 5th biggest economy by GDP after being left as the 13th poorest country on the planet when the British left their land. With regards to foreign aid, many quarters deny the usual foreign aid that first-world countries offer to a despotic basket-case government. Monies that trickle into India are investments from which investors hope to draw returns. Some are charity contributions by well-wishers with personal intent, e.g. evangelism and political donations.

With the 'Clean India' campaign in full steam, open defecation is a thing of the past. With many states having 100% access to toilets, open defecation is a thing of the past. 

Paradoxically, the country with the biggest economy must face the same problem. With its chiselled pavements and famous postcode 90120 that it sells to the world, even Los Angeles also has to deal with homelessness, drug addiction and cleaning up the sidewalks littered with human excrement. 

Karma often plays its game most cruelly. The colonisers who robbed their colonies blind now have to be content seeing their descendants being fed by the descendants of their subjects. The innumerable hungry, homeless and impoverished British regularly frequent Sikh soup kitchens for a square meal. 

Our experience from the 1960s space explorations has shown us there are many trickle-down benefits. Besides the numerous improvements in medicine and engineering, it also improves the life of the man on the street. Teflon was discovered. The knowledge to produce heat-resistant garments with adequate cooling technology becomes a game-changer in the day-to-day duties of firemen. Luggage bags with roller wheels have their origin in the space programme. At a time when the younger generation shows scant interest in STEM subjects, these types of ventures will surely rekindle their dwindling keenness. The Industrial Revolution and the subsequent leaps in civilisation did not happen because of economists and linguists but by scientists. Remember the economic opportunities that these ventures that offshoot from space travels. Money spent is not wasted but merely changes hands. Charity and social work can still go on. 

The West cannot handle the paradigm shift in the world order. For more than two centuries, people of the Judeo-Christian traditions held the chalice of power. This century is when the power transfer happens from the West to the East.

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