-----Wiadomość orginalna----- Od: Martin Ripa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Grupy dyskusyjne: alt.anarchism,alt.philosophy.objectivism,rec.arts.sf.written,soc.culture.rus sian,soc.history.what-if,talk.politics.libertarian Data: 21 kwietnia 2001 15:10 Temat: The Atlantic Monthly: Ayn Rand Comes to Somalia >On Wed, 18 Apr 2001 06:11:41 -0400, in soc.history.what-if >in article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Robert J. >Kolker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>For those with a masochistic streak >>do read the latest version of Atlantic >>Monthly. The article on the decline >>of Russia into a morass of corruption >>and misery should provide a measure >>of vicarious pain. >> >>After seeing what is happening in Russia >>under "Putin, the Terrible" I am almost >>ready to become a red, white and blue >>Patriot. > >You are a Russian patriot now ? ;-)) > >> >>And to those who think the slogan, >>Taxation is Theft, is simply libertarian >>agit-prop, pray do read this article. >> >>Bob Kolker >> >> > >And even better article from the same issue - this is the >land of the free and the brave, the country of your dreams ! > > > > >http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/05/maass.htm > >>Ayn Rand Comes to Somalia > >>The Atlantic Monthly | May 2001 > > >>In the absence of government bureaucracy and foreign aid, business is >>starting to boom >> >>by Peter Maass >> >>..... >> >>The headquarters of Telecom Somalia is filled with the sights and sounds >>of Mogadishu-style success. Customers pour through the entrance, >>funneling past machine-gun positions that flank the front doors. After a >>pat-down by security guards, who take temporary possession of any guns >>and knives, they enter the lobby and line up at the appropriate counters >>to pay their bills or order new service. Clocks on a wall display the >>time in New York, Paris, London, Sydney, and Karachireminders of an >>outside world that has pretty much left Somalia for dead. Computer >>keyboards clatter as workers punch in information. Customers chat and >>argue with one another in a gregarious manner that makes the lobby feel >>like a town squareall the more so if a goat that's being herded down >>the street happens to stray inside. >>Telecom Somalia is the largest company in Mogadishu. It has 700 >>employees, and it offers some of the best and cheapest phone service in >>Africa. It also provides a clue to the possible resuscitation of the >>world's most famous failed state. In 1995, when the international >>community decided to wash its hands of Somalia and the last United >>Nations peacekeepers left the country, Mogadishu was a Hobbesian horror >>show. It remains a miserable and unstable place, a city where taxi >>drivers ruin their own vehicles, denting the body work and smashing the >>windows, so that thieves will not bother to steal them. But it is less >>dismal than it used to be, and better times may be on the way, owing to >>a new generation of businessmen who are determined to bring the lawless >>capital back to life. >>Prime among the city's entrepreneurial leaders is Abdulaziz Sheikh, the >>chief executive of Telecom Somalia. When I visited him last summer, in a >>small office on the fourth floor of the company's headquarters, he was >>being blasted by a hurricane-force air-conditioner that nearly drowned >>out the constantly ringing phones on his desk. "You need to be here >>twenty-four hours a day," he said, explaining that he lives as well as >>works on the premises. Sheikh had the running-on-fumes look of a >>campaign chairman in a never-ending race, but at least he appeared to be >>winning. Anyone can walk into the lobby of his building, plunk down a >>$100 deposit, and leave with a late-model Nokia that works throughout >>the city, in valleys as well as on hilltops, at all hours. Caller ID, >>call waiting, conference calling, and call forwarding are available. >>There are two other cellular-phone firms in town, and the three recently >>entered into a joint venture and created the first local >>Internet-service provider. Not all battles here are resolved by murder. >>Mogadishu also has new radio and television stations (one night I >>watched the Somali equivalent of Larry King Live, in which the moderator >>and his guest, one of the city's leading Islamic clerics, fielded >>questions from callers), along with computer schools and an airport that >>serves several airlines (although these fly the sorts of airplanes that >>Americans see only in museums). The city's Bekara market offers >>everything from toilet paper, Maalox, and Colgate toothpaste to Viagra, >>sarongs, blank passports (stolen from the Foreign Ministry a decade >>ago), and assault rifles. The international delivery company DHL has an >>office in Mogadishu, where its methods can be unorthodox: if a client >>has an urgent package that cannot wait for a scheduled flight out of the >>country, the company will dispatch it on one of the many planes that >>arrive illegally from Kenya every day bearing khat, a narcotic leaf that >>is chewed like tobacco but has the effect of cocaine. >>Mogadishu has the closest thing to an Ayn Rand-style economy that the >>world has ever seenno bureaucracy or regulation at all. The city has >>had no government since 1991, when the much despised President Mohammed >>Siad Barre was overthrown; his regime was replaced not by another one >>but by civil war. The northern regions of Somaliland and Puntland have >>stabilized under autonomous governments, but southern Somalia, with >>Mogadishu at its core, has remained a Mad Max zone carved up by warlords >>for whom fighting seems as necessary as oxygen. The prospect of >>stability is a curious miracle, not simply because the kind of business >>development that is happening tends to require the presence of a >>government, but because the very absence of a government may have helped >>to nurture an African odditya lean and efficient business sector that >>does not feed at a public trough controlled by corrupt officials. >>Similarly, the lack of large-scale (and often corrupting) foreign aid >>might have benefits as well as drawbacks. Somali investors are making >>things happen, not waiting for them to happen. For example, on the >>outskirts of town, on a plot of land the size of several football fields >>and surrounded by twenty-foot-high walls, workers recently completed a >>$2 million bottling plant. Everyone refers to it as "the Pepsi factory," >>even though Pepsi is not involved. The project's investors say the plant >>will become a Pepsi factory: they figure that if they begin producing >>soft drinks, Pepsi or some other international company will want to get >>in on the market. >>Many of the larger companies in Mogadishu, including the bottling plant, >>have issued shares, although there is of course no stock exchange or >>financial authority of any sort in the city. Everything is based on >>trust, and so far it has worked, owing to Somalia's tightly woven clan >>networks: everyone knows everyone else, so it's less likely that an >>unknown con man will pull off a scam. In view of Somalia's history, this >>ad hoc stock market is not as implausible as it may sound. Until a >>century ago, when Italy and Britain divided what is present-day Somalia >>into colonial fiefdoms, Somalis got along quite well without a state, >>relying on systems that still exist: informal codes of honor and a means >>of resolving disputes, even violent ones, through mediation by clan >>elders. >>Of course, the lack of a government poses problems, especially with >>respect to the warlords. Sheikh and his fellow businessmen have kept >>them at bay by paying them protection money and by forming their own >>militias. Those manning the machine guns outside Telecom Somalia are >>employees of the company, and when the firm's linemen go out to lay new >>cables (they used to string overhead lines, but those got shot up by >>stray gunfire), they, too, are protected by company gunmen. >>All of this is costly, so the business leaders have taken steps to bring >>about a new governmentone that will keep its hands out of their pockets >>and focus on providing security and public services. The process began >>two years ago, when Sheikh and other entrepreneurs got fed up with the >>blight of checkpoints, at which everyone was required to pay small >>tributes to armed teenagers affiliated with various warlords. The >>businessmen decided collectively to fund a militia to get rid of the >>checkpoints, resulting in an armed force that is overseen by the city's >>Islamic clerics. Having succeeded in its main mission, the militia now >>serves as an informal sort of police force, patrolling the streets in an >>effort to stop petty crime. >>With the checkpoints gone and the warlords weakened by the loss of a key >>source of income, the business elite is bankrolling a transitional >>government that was appointed at a peace conference last August. The >>government does not yet control much more than the heavily guarded >>buildings that are its temporary headquarters, but it has begun >>deploying its own policemen in some parts of the city. The business-men >>are pooling their company security forces to bolster the government and >>are trying to lure the warlords' gunmen to its side with cash >>incentives. In February one of the leading warlords, Mohamed Qanyareh, >>agreed to support the government in exchange for ministerial posts for >>himself and his allies. >>If the business community succeeds in returning Mogadishu to something >>resembling normalcy, it will have shown that a failed state, or at least >>its capital city, can get back on its feet without much help from the >>outside world. This would constitute not an argument against outside >>intervention but, rather, a lesson that intervention doesn't have to be >>of the UN-led, billion-dollar variety. >>Before leaving the city I met with Hussein Abdullahi, a well-educated >>businessman who fled Mogadishu in 1991 and wound up in Toronto, driving >>a taxi. Three years ago, during a return visit, he was struck by the >>fact that his Somali friends were living better at home than he was in >>Canada, at the bottom of the immigrant ladder. He decided to move back >>and now manages a thriving pasta factory, a bread factory, and a medical >>clinic. >>Sipping an ice-cold Coke in his office, Abdullahi offered to share a >>secret that, he promised, could make me rich. A chubby man with a >>beatific smile, he leaned forward conspiratorially. "Everything is >>possible in Mogadishu now, everything," he said. "If you have the money >>and the knowledge, you can do whatever you want. It is virgin here." >>Perhaps so, but only in the way of scorched earth. > > > --
