The Dickensian Decade

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way …”

Can we use the stirring words of Charles Dickens to describe the first decade of the twenty-first century, the “Oughty-Noughties” (2000-2009 or the 00s) as it has come to be called?

Answer: A qualified “Yes.”

The decade began with the bursting of the dot-com bubble in March of 2000. Eight months later, George W. Bush claimed the presidency of the United States after the “hanging chad” farce in Florida and a strange and unprecedented 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

On September 11, 2001, homicidal maniacs claiming Islam as guidance hijacked commercial airliners and crashed into what they perceived as American symbols of power, the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Close to 2,300 Americans and an estimated 500 foreign nationals from 91 nations perished in the attacks.

In response, the U.S. went after the Taliban in Afghanistan with almost universal support. The Taliban were swiftly routed but victory proved elusive as a quagmire set in, reminiscent of Vietnam. Eight years later, the war continues as a corrupt Karzai regime hangs on to power.

Support for American policy quickly dried up as President Bush used the pretext of weapons of mass destruction and a manufactured Al-Qaida connection to attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in March of 2003. The invasion, boasting technological “shock and awe,” seemed at first to be as easy as winning a video game but the occupation proved catastrophic. America’s moral authority came undone in waterboard torture pits and in the horror dungeons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

As of now, the Iraq war has alone caused almost 100,000 civilian deaths, euphemistically called “collateral damage.” Sectarian violence is a daily occurrence and the Iraqi government remains weak and dysfunctional. The toll the two wars have taken on the families of American soldiers killed and injured is incalculable.

In technology, the Internet gold rush that collapsed in 2000 regained some of its luster, as social networking became all the rage. MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2007) became household names. Web 2.0, the read/write Web, turned everyone (well, almost everyone) into a blogger and a “pundit.” How far the democratization of ideas and opinions go and what influence it has in speaking truth to power, however, remain to be seen. Apple revolutionized the music industry with its iPod products and leading universities of the world made many of their courses in various disciplines available online. Cloud computing went mainstream and software and hardware breakthroughs blurred the distinction between smartphones and PCs.

Amazon’s success with the Kindle, introduced in November of 2007, raised an intriguing question: Will eBooks replace physical books, and if so, when? “When” is difficult to say but it is clear that, where the technology is available, sale of eBooks is rising dramatically against the sale of ink-on-paper books. As Amazon Chief Jeff Bezos noted, however, the Gutenberg model has had a 500-year run, making the physical book probably the most successful technology ever.

Among many achievements in science, scientists mapped the human genome sequence and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider first sputtered and then came to life as two beams of protons collided head on at a combined energy of seven trillion electron volts, setting the stage for answering fundamental questions about our universe in the new decade.

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected the first African American president of the United States. Americans were drawn to his platform of change and hope. The world breathed a sigh of relief and the nation’s stature in the world went up almost overnight. But a global economic meltdown, brought on by Wall Street charlatans, Ponzy schemers, unscrupulous bankers and hedge-fund hucksters, threatened to undermine his presidency from day one.

Massive stimulus money pumped into the economy seems mostly to have rescued the industry titans and their acolytes, however. Financial future of the average American appears bleak at this point, with job losses and home foreclosures not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The crisis has spread worldwide and it will clearly be a while before the Great Recession is actually over.

Still, the election of Barack Obama to the highest office of the land was like light breaking forth after an unending night of darkness. Sadly, the president has committed more troops to Afghanistan, although withdrawal from Iraq is expected to take place during the middle of 2010. The new year will test the young president’s mettle, his ability to deliver on the message of hope and change that carried him to victory.

Perhaps the most significant global issue of the decade was climate change and our response to it. Most of us, with the exception of rabid right-wingers and congenital contrarians, recognize the existential threat that global warming poses to the earth. Yet consensus on how to mitigate this threat has fallen prey to nationalism. For the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases – China, the United States, India, Russia, Japan – national economy trumps the survival of the planet.

Still, the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December of 2009 raised the expectations of common and indigenous people around the world to soaring heights, a reflection, perhaps, of the hope they invested in Barack Obama.

But while it roared in like a lion, the Summit went out like a lamb. There were no lasting binding agreements. A limited deal was reached in which both developed and developing nations agreed to “list national actions and commitments” on cutting carbon emissions. Wealthy nations also offered billions in aid to help countries like Bangladesh and the island nation of Kiribati, threatened with the worst effects of climate change. Significantly, leaders also gave their assent to a 2 degree Celsius cap on global warming.

The real success of the Climate Summit is in the impetus it has given to green technology and clean energy. Entrepreneurs are racing to produce energy-efficient devices and systems, ranging from innovative fuel-cells and green building materials such as ultra-insulated windows and glass to roof-top gardening, clean-coal technology and high-efficiency solar and wind systems.

It is also not without irony, and some measure of justice, that Al Gore, who lost the muddled 2000 presidential election to George Bush, won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to raising global awareness of man-made climate change.

So there you have it, a decade dominated by terror, bad governance, war, unregulated greed and financial terrorism, but also a decade in which sanity replaced insanity toward the end, in which Muslims overwhelmingly rejected Al-Qaida’s message of nihilism and asserted their message of moderation (the Nidal Hasans and the Abdulmutallabs reflected systemic failures), in which awareness of the earth’s fragility entered our consciousness and spurred us to action, and in which we recognized, as never before, that our prosperity and well-being depended on the status and education of women throughout the world.

We may have begun this decade in the winter of despair but perhaps it is not too far fetched to suggest that a spring of hope beckons as we end it.

Happy New Decade!

Sherlock Holmes Gets an Athletic Makeover

I became a fan of Sherlock Holmes in the eighth grade when I read “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.” I was hooked. Youthful passions pass, replaced by other passions that also fade, and then you grow up and suddenly there’s job, marriage, mortgage, kids and schools all over again. But Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation never relaxed its grip on me.

Sherlock Holmes was the epitome of deductive reasoning and bravery. Every few years I re-read all 56 short stories and 4 novellas and marvel at how Conan Doyle kept Holmes so fresh and contemporary, even though the setting was London of the 1880s.

Certainly the author’s skill with words was a factor, as this famous dialogue between a police inspector and Holmes shows in “Silver Blaze“:

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

"That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

But it was the character of the super-sleuth that made the stories so enjoyable: single-minded focus, eccentric, brilliant, always one step ahead of the most cunning of criminals, and in no small measure, endearingly crazy. (Thinking about Holmes always brings another real-life character to mind: the late great physicist Richard Feynman, also a supreme magician of the intellect whose diversions included bongo playing and safecracking.)

Which was why I so looked forward to Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes,” starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as his sidekick, Dr. Watson. I wasn’t disappointed, although the special effects and relentless fight scenes were somewhat jarring.

One reason why Holmes endures is his malleability. He may be confined to 19th-century London, but his fight against evil transcends time. Downey gives Holmes an athletic makeover without diminishing his eccentricity. We know of his fondness for prize-fighting from the stories. Here, we get a slow-motion close-up of how tough and analytic Holmes can be in the ring. His mind is, as always, lightning fast, whether in anticipating his quarry’s next move or in putting people in their proper places. When inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard informs Holmes that in another life he would have made a fine criminal, Holmes responds with, “In another life you would have made a fine police inspector.”

But the transformation of Watson is equally dramatic. No longer a slow-witted, awestruck companion, Watson is impatient with Holmes’ air of superiority and gives as well as he takes. When Holmes tries to pry open the door of a suspect’s home with some fancy tools, Watson just kicks it open. When Holmes goes too far with an experiment on his own body and implores for help, Watson takes his time and, at the last moment, rescues his friend. Their vigorous verbal jousting is a key to the film's appeal.

The story itself has shades of Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons), with secret organizations plotting to take over the world. The villain, Blackwood (Mark Strong), has an uncanny resemblance to the late Jeremy Brett, whose 41 TV-films portraying Holmes over a decade brought the detective closer to the public than ever before.

The two “M”s are present as well: Mycroft Holmes and Professor James Moriarty. Mycroft is only spoken of, and we are left to wonder about this enigmatic sibling. According to Sherlock (The Greek Interpreter), his older brother is even more brilliant than him but his undoing is that he is a sloth. He has stamina only for intellectual calisthenics, none for action. In other words, Mycroft Holmes is the ideal consultant,

Without Moriarty, of course, Holmes cannot achieve greatness. Moriarty is his match, his ultimate nemesis. As the mysterious Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) informs Holmes, “he is as intelligent as you are but infinitely more devious.” Naturally, Holmes begs to differ.

In the end, all the stuff about returning from beyond the grave, the sorcery and the supernatural happenings turn out to be hocus-pocus. Holmes’ explanations are, well, elementary. But he also discovers that the mastermind behind the diabolical plot is none other than Moriarty himself. Unless he takes him on, Holmes has barely scratched the surface.

Clearly, this movie is “To Be Continued.” Look for a sequel. My hope is that director Guy Ritchie will weave a part of Holmes’ life as a bee-keeper in Sussex Downs (1903-04) into his sequel(s), in which the great man once again jumps into the fray and takes on whoever wants to "remake the world." Can you imagine Holmes retiring? I cannot. "Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!"

An Epic for Our Time

Literature is replete with characters who give us insight into the mindset of the Bernie Madoffs of the world. We learn what drives the Wall Street charlatans, the greedy bankers and the hedge-fund hucksters through their fictional counterparts.

A New York Times article by Patricia Cohen (December 2008) pointed out how Mr. Voysey, in Harley Granville-Barker’s 1905 play “The Voysey Inheritance,” was an uncanny literary predecessor of Mr. Madoff. “You must realize that money making is one thing, religion another, and family life a third,” Voysey tells his son Edward when he discovers that his father, a pillar of society, has been operating a pyramid scheme for decades with his clients’ money.

Same is true of the unscrupulous financier Augustus Melmotte in Anthony Trollope’s 1875 novel “The Way We Live Now” and the swindling banker Mr. Merdle in Charles Dickens’s “Little Dorrit.” In America, we have novels from the 1920s that revealed the deepening divide between the haves and the have-nots - Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy," F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby” - that reached its climax in the Great Depression that followed.

But one novel that seems to have escaped the attention of critics is Halldor Laxness’s “Independent People.” The Icelandic author won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955 for his epic. It is a book at once exhilarating, heartbreaking, comic and poetic, in short, a book that makes us understand what great literature is, even if we cannot articulate it.

As you savor the adventures of the book’s protagonist, Bjartur of Summerhouses, admiring his fierce independence while repulsed by his insensitivity, what is also profoundly moving is Laxness’s description of the slow disintegration of the simple life when money managers of various shades infiltrate it. It is almost too painful to read, particularly when wrenching stories of lives wrecked by corrupt financiers continue to appear daily in the media.

“Those who were in debt were given opportunities of incurring greater debts, while upon those who owed nothing … the banks smiled with an incredibly seductive sweetness … In some houses were to be seen not one but as many as four china dogs … womenfolk were walking about wearing all sorts of tombac rings, and many persons had acquired overcoats and wellington boots, articles of apparel that had been previously contraband to working people."

Notice the words “seductive sweetness.” Has anyone come up with a pithier description of the subprime mortgage?

The catalyst for the destructive lifestyle change in Laxness’s novel is a man by the name of Ingolfur Arnarson. He is determined to transform every backwater village in Iceland into thriving centers of commerce. He promises the “penniless crofters” roads, shopping centers, big houses and, of course, easy debt. With his silver tongue and aura of wealth, people are mesmerized. Here is how Bjartur’s son Gvendur, who fantasizes about marrying Arnarson’s daughter, sees him: “His splendor beggared invention … his face with its compelling eyes shone like a sun over the decrepit peasants assembled before him, and as he began to speak, in a voice sonorous and unforced, his small, snowy-cuffed hands moved in a gesture so smooth and graceful that one did not need listen to his words, it was enough simply to watch his hands …”

Has anyone read a more telling description of hedge-fund honchos or executives of companies like Goldman Sachs?

In the end, the bottom falls out and the farmers, including Bjartur of Summerhouses, lose their house, their sheep and their land. The interest on their mortgages had become impossibly high. In the final poignant scene of the novel, Bjartur is reunited with his estranged daughter and they head off toward a ruined farmhouse that he had rebuilt. “No lamentations – never harbor your grief, never mourn what you have lost. He did not even turn around and give his old valley a parting glance when they reached the top of the ridge.”

Thus he salvages his freedom – at least a part of it - from the wreckage around him.

It is ironic that Iceland was the first nation to declare bankruptcy in October of 2008, victim of the global financial crisis. One wonders what Laxness, who died in 1998, would have made of it. A consequential writer, he could envision the nature of progress coming to his country, borne on the wings of “seductive sweetness.” Still, I think he would have been devastated to see his beloved Iceland, so rich in lore and tradition and inhabited by free spirits like Bjartur of Summerhouses, become the first country to fall financially in the new century.

Here at home, our government is churning out statistics to convince us that the worst of the Great Recession is behind us and that the recovery has already begun. Facts on the ground do not match the rosy forecasts and predictions. Thousands of jobs are being shed every month; currently there are more than six job seekers for every opening. Financial killings by a few literally led to the deaths of many.

American Muslims, particularly our young professionals, have a critical role to play in moving our country forward. To the extent that great literature, like Halldor Laxness’s “Independent People,” opens eyes, I see two parts to this.

First, we must give entrepreneurship a serious try. America is the land of entrepreneurs. It is the land not only of second acts, but of third, fourth and fifth. If we can create our own companies, difficult and risky as it is, and employ at least one American, we will have made significant contributions to the economy.

Second, it is time for us to start thinking on a larger scale. As we continue to feed the hungry and the homeless and provide medical help to the uninsured in places where we live, we also need to organize our philanthropic, apolitical work at a national level. We need to create an American-Muslim Peace Corps whose one and only mission would be to serve our fellow Americans, from inner-city ghettos to dying towns and from the Ozarks to Appalachia.

Students Make New Year's Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are based as much on hope as resolve, which is why they are such fun. They make us smile, even when the smile is tempered by longing and a sense of time passing. That the resolutions are instantly shareable with friends in the age of social networking only enhance their pleasure.

What New Year’s resolutions animate college students?

For Natalie, it begins with a reflection on what she did and did not achieve in her last year’s resolutions. There were a few things she had no control over and few that she did and still they went wrong. She is determined not to repeat her mistakes. About one thing she is certain: in 2010, she plans to laugh, giggle and relax more with her friends.

Jennifer’s main resolution is to transfer to a university after passing the subject that has haunted her for several years: Math. She has tried tutors and spent countless hours trying to master its complexity but nothing seemed to work. For a while she was convinced she had a math blockage in her brain! But she knows there is no such thing. She has redoubled her efforts and is confident she will complete her math requirements and transfer to San Jose State University (SJSU) in 2010.

Glen’s resolutions consist of getting out of debt (don’t we all!), not to get declined from a state university because of budget cuts, and to continue to learn new things, not just for earning more but for the pleasure and joy of learning.

Gissel would like to choose a major in 2010, go to the gym and be a better person in every way. She would also like to move out of her parents’ house, get a job and become financially independent.

Karim has been carrying a story in his head for two years. He has only one resolution for 2010: “I will complete my novel, at least the first version of it. I have the structure, the plot, the characters. I will write at least one page a day.” He doesn’t care if his book is published or if it will sell. “I just have to write it.” He will find the time without the distractions of emails, Facebook or Twitter.

Ismael had a turbulent 2009 but in the end everything came through for him. On the verge of selling his beloved Ford Mustang to support himself, he got a job and so didn’t have to part with his car. In the New Year, he will not make any ridiculous goals that he cannot attain but complete small tasks one at a time. He will give thanks more often and appreciate everything he has. No matter how difficult the situation is, he reminds everyone never to give up hope.

Hannah is a dancer. Others may find her resolution silly but she is very serious about it. “I am a dancer and I vow this year not to take the lead but to follow my partner.”

Athena is set on losing some weight in 2010. She feels she is on the “chunky side” and losing 20 pounds would be “awesome.” She plans on joining a gym and using it three times a week. What will help is her PE class in 2010 that meets two nights a week. She is confident she will lose weight because of the support of her boyfriend. Her other goal is to transfer to SJSU in the Fall of 2010. Budget cuts and other restrictions may make admission difficult. Her alternative is California State University at Hayward but that’s too far to drive, so she is really hoping that she will be admitted to SJSU.

Liz is determined to graduate in 2010, for herself and to make her parents proud. But she also intends to enjoy life more. Life is not just studying and being serious. She has rarely partied or gone to a club but that will change in 2010. “I just want to enjoy every moment in life and be happy.”

Chris’s New Year’s resolution is to let things work out the way they will. “I put too much time and effort in trying to make things happen the way I feel they should, when in reality, all that effort is pretty much wasted.” By allowing things to work themselves out in their own time, Chris feels it will be a lot less work on his part and he will probably get better results. He over-exerted himself in 2009, working at various jobs while taking several classes. “It was a mistake not to make school a priority,” he says. Money is important but in 2010 he will focus more on acquiring knowledge and skills than on earning money. “Too much of life passes unnoticed because of too many interests. At least in my life I need to stop it before I lose myself.”

Procrastination has been a big problem for Ruth. She intends to overcome it in the New Year. She will pay her bills and complete her assignments on time. She will keep her appointments and plan her chores and not wait until the last moment to do them. She will also maintain her workout schedule. This year she let her health slip but she will not neglect it in 2010, because “nothing is more important than your health.”

Patrick’s resolutions remind us of life’s fragility and the inexorable march of time. He wants to stay healthy, become a better chess player, learn to play the piano and, most important of all, “develop a better relationship with my dad before it’s too late.”

Karen Armstrong and the Charter for Compassion

Karen Armstrong, authority on comparative religion and spirituality, was recently awarded a TED prize, given annually to the best thinkers and innovators of the world.

In her acceptance speech, Armstrong identified the critical difference between belief and faith. "Religion isn't about believing things. It's about behaving in a way that changes you, that gives you intimations of holiness and sacredness." Studying the world’s religions, she realized that belief, about which we make so much a fuss today, was a recent religious phenomenon that surfaced in the West around the 17th century.

The word ‘belief’ originally meant to love, to prize, to hold dear. It meant, “I commit myself. I engage myself.” From the 17th century onwards, however, the word narrowed its focus to mean merely an intellectual assent to a set of propositions: a credo. It lost its transformational power. Instead, ‘belief’ came merely to mean, ‘I accept certain creedal articles of faith.’ It lost its mooring.

What Armstrong found in her research was that religion was about behaving ethically and morally. Instead of flaunting your faith and engaging in religious chauvinism, do something positive. Behave in a committed way. Then, and only then, you begin to understand the truths of religion. Religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action; you only understand them when you put them into practice.

Compassion is at the core of religious practice. “In every single one of the world’s major faiths, compassion – the ability to feel with the other – is not only the test of any true religiosity, it is also what will bring us into the presence of what Jews, Christians and Muslims call God or the Divine.” Why? “Because in compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there. And once we get rid of ego, then we are ready to see the Divine.”

Armstrong hopes that the Golden Rule will become the central global religious doctrine for our times. The Golden Rule can be stated either positively or negatively, both equally meaningful. “Do to others what you would like others to do to you.” (Treat others as you would like others to treat you.) Or, “Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you. (Do not treat others in a way that you would not want yourself to be treated).

Practicing the Golden Rule is difficult. Unfortunately many religious people prefer to be right, rather than to be compassionate. We also need to move beyond mere toleration and toward appreciation of the other.

Every TED winner is granted a wish. Armstrong wished for the creation and propagation of a Charter for Compassion, to be crafted by a group of inspirational thinkers from Judaism, Christianity and Islam and to be based on the Golden Rule. “We cannot confine our compassion to our own group or countrymen or co-religionists. We must have what one of the Chinese sages called ‘jian ai’: concern for everybody. Love your enemies. Honor the stranger. God created nations and tribes so that we may know one another.”

What Armstrong hopes for is to “a movement among people who want to join up and reclaim their faith which has been hijacked … We need to empower people to remember the compassionate ethos … Jews, Christians and Muslims, who so often are at loggerheads, have to work together to create a document which we hope will be signed by people from all the traditions of the world … I would like to see it in every college, every church, every mosque, every synagogue in the world, so that people can look at their tradition, reclaim it, and make religion a source of peace in the world.”

You can join and affirm the Charter’s principles here.

You can also read a fuller version of this article at bdnews24.

Creating a Life Around Your Passion

Kozhi Sidney Makai was born in Zambia but grew up in Texas. The youngest of nine children, he has made it his life’s mission to help people rise above their potential. A motivational speaker and an author of such books as How Can I Come Up? and Born Beating the Odds, Dr. Makai was the featured speaker recently at a local college. He had wit, style and substance and kept us in stitches with his mimicry of Texan mannerisms.

Success, according to Makai, is not about wealth or leisure but about having options. All of us have options. We just have to have the vision and the confidence to see them. Sometimes life makes decisions for us. The options are still there. We just have to seize the ones that can enrich our lives. Those who settle for limited options and feel defeated by adverse circumstances lead depressing, unfulfilled lives.

Conventional wisdom says that we are judged only by what we finish. Makai disagrees. Our lives are also defined by what we begin. Even if we cannot finish some of the projects, they can positively influence those that we do. One way we can rise above our potential is to question everything, particularly conventional wisdom. It is not that we will get answers to all our questions. The power lies in the act of questioning itself. A writer must ask questions to write well. “Why am I writing this? Why will anyone be interested in this? Why should my characters evolve this way and not that?” Too often we settle for What, When and Who but not Why. Yet critical thinking often springs only from the Why.

Life, as Makai sees it, is more wrestling and less dancing. Everyday we wrestle with choices. That’s the source of growth. Life is lived in the moments. A life fully engaged in the present is rich. Makai, who played professional basketball for five years abroad, often observes parents who show up at their children’s games. They are present physically but absent emotionally or spiritually, constantly chatting on their phones or texting on their BlackBerries. Children can see through that.

When we become complacent and comfortable, we stop growing. That’s why it is so important to be open to new possibilities and beginnings. “I changed my major five times. You may think it is easy to find what you are passionate about. It is not. You may have to change direction a few times before you find your life’s calling, even if you have a general idea of what you want to be.” Many of us want to be successful but are unwilling to pay the price - of responsibility, accountability, hard work, dedication, being true to ourselves. Makai’s advice is that if we are receptive to our own thoughts, passions and dreams, we will know when changing direction is for our good and gladly put in the extra effort to succeed.

One question that reveals how we feel about ourselves is: “How is that working for you?” We become self-conscious when asked such a question. It soon becomes clear, however, that many of us are dissatisfied with our lives. “But here’s the thing,” said Makai. “You don’t have to keep publishing the same story. If your story is messed-up, if it sucks, if it is wrong, you have the option to change it. You are in control. Mediocrity is something you impose on yourself. If you think life has been unfair to you, turn that into an advantage. Learn how to turn the inevitable setbacks of life into opportunities

We succeed when we create our lives around our passions and dreams. “No one is more qualified to be you than you. Be what you want to be, not what others want you to be.” As a thinker, writer or whatever you choose to be,” said Makai, “you carry a signature that is uniquely your. It’s like your fingerprint. There’s nothing else like it in the universe. Be a first-rate version of yourself than a second-rate version of someone else."