THE FAILURE OF THE WEST

The trilogy of disasters in Japan: earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power demonstrates the total failure of technology. The fury of nature, caused by moving tectonic plates annihilated every single defense that the most prepared nation in the world had established. Japan is facing black-outs and eats radiated food. The worst imaginable did not only happen, it could very well happen again, especially if many dismiss the failure of nuclear power and declare their pursuit of disaster in an unknown future.

Japanese society, stoic and heroic is rediscovering the human capacity to respond to the basic needs with what we have. Deprived of drinking water, heating, cellphones, internet, cars, roads and even their homes the Japanese show the world how even the worst can bring us to discover the best in the simplest. A roof, a candle light, a blanket, reflections on the past, reconciling pain with hope that the future will be better - together, trusting each other even those we did not know before.

On the other side of the world, the Bahrain Government enlisted the Saudi forces to quench an uprising of the majority of the population with casualties unaccounted for. Ivory Coast, a nation that elected an opposition leader to the presidency, faces a defiant outgoing president, unwilling to give up his post. He even ordered to shoot at unarmed women demonstrating on the street killing several. The West stays put with threats limited to words, and Bahrain does not even face a boycott of any sort. The word is that the American President is out to mend relations with the Saudi King.

At the same time, the West deploys its war planes in Libya without even knowing who the opposition really represents and what it stands for. The West shows its fury over a leader who all policy makers have embraced in recent years, and who was next to South Africa the only one to voluntarily dismantle his nuclear weapons plan. While the West turns a blind eye to Bahrain and Ivory Coast, it picks fights that clearly serve self-interest and not the wishes of the majority of the local population. If the pretext is the protection of the local people, why is there no protection in Bahrain or Ivory Coast - and so many nations where torture and oppression is the standard.

How will our children judge the double moral our politicians display? I hope our children will remember how Japanese society overcomes the worst predicament it faces since the second world war, and urges our policy makers to behave with dignity on high moral grounds on every occasion, not only the ones that serve their ego, power bases or constituencies.

Gunter Pauli