Category Archives: Clash of Cultures

Who is The Little House of Horrors?

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This week I saw an amazing live stage production of the cult classic rock & roll musical THE LITTLE HOUSE OF HORRORS. It is about a weird hybrid plant from China that almost dies until they find it flourishes on human blood. On this diet it grows into a huge monster of a plant that eats people live. Cuttings of the plant are sold around the world and the resulting monster plants end up consuming whole societies – and the world.

Years ago I saw Frank OZ’s movie version with my young daughter, and, with our advanced sense of the ridiculous, we loved it. But we loved it on a superficial level as a showbizzie rock musical, with great music, and a monster that really rocked – and some delicious horror trimmings. Now older, sadder and hopefully wiser – while my daughter and I still sat there with huge silly grins on our faces at the Doo Wop shrillness of the Harpies Chorus (The Supremes they are not), and rocked to the monster’s Rock & Roll – I realized that it is allegorical.

Just under the surface it is about how FAME (remember that musical and its tag “I’m gonna live forever”), and celebrity, sucks the blood out of people, consumes them, and destroys families and cultures. And going deeper again, it is an allegory for America, cynically using Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll to debauch youth worldwide in order to push their free-market laissez faire capitalism agenda under the false banners of freedom and democracy in order to rule the world.

And if you think that my paranoia is showing, then read EVERY MAN IN THIS VILLAGE IS A LIAR, by Megan Stack. She is a well-educated American journalist who at 23 was sent to cover the wars in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq, and she reached the conclusion that at best American Foreign Policy is delusional, and at worst it is a cynical ploy to try and dominate the world. And she believes that the War on Terror is fake, and has failed.

One chapter in her book has particular resonance. Superficially she enjoyed Israel; and modern, bright and safe Tel Aviv in particular. But she could not shake off the knowledge that all the youngsters prancing in the discos had had weapons training, had done compulsory military service – and she had seen them as teenage soldiers taunting and humiliating elderly Palestians at check points, refusing to give them priority for urgent medical treatment. And pregnant women frequently gave birth in taxis waiting in endless gridlocks to get to hospital, and not allowed on fast roads reserved for West Bank settlers. And she knew that sweating in the restaurant kitchens were illegal Eritrean refugees, and that most of the strikingly pretty single girls dancing in the discos were East European whores. Now matter how hard she tried she could not ignore the dark underbelly of Israel.

And nor could she ignore the fact that it was American taxpayers money that funded the mighty Israeli military machine that enables them to keep the Palestinians in subjugation. She makes the point “You can recover from what people do to you: you cannot recover from what you do to others.”

It resonates for me because she is like Mick, the protaganist in my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. He too is a young journalist sent to the Middle East in the early 60s, and he is shocked by the Feudal barbarity of the region, and by the corruption and cynical exploitation of those feudal societies by slick Western governments desperate for cheap oil.

Just like Megan, Mick cannot pass through and enjoy the airconditioned and gleaming marble citidels of modern shopping malls and international airport terminals that oil wealth brought – with their shops full of the finest duty free luxury goods the world can offer, staffed by lovely young maidens with dazzling smiles – without noticing the tired old Amahs mopping the urinals, and the coolies sweating in 100 degree heat and 100 per cent humidity of the baggage halls.

And beyond that, modern cities that have the latest motorways and satellite communications, and no sewerage systems. And refugee camps where the sewers run open in the road and kids play there. Kids without hope, and without a future.

I am not, not ever have been a journalist, but I did keep journals throughout my 40 years in and out of The Arabain/Persian Gulf, and Mick is a construct, an alter ego designed to tell the stories of events that I witnessed, or were reported to me by reliable sources, expatriates like me, washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001.

Preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition with free delivery worldwide from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

or direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

The Four Horsemen

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In the skeptical Western World, Biblical prophecies are treated with scorn – the territory of born again creationists, and overwrought screenwriters short of new ideas.

No such skepticism or irony exists in The Middle East. The People of The Book (Jews, Christians and Muslims) believe that The Scriptures are true – and there will be a day of reckoning. There will be an Apocalypse.

And this idea is gaining traction in The West because of the horrific events coming out from The Middle East.

At the moment I seem to be spending my time promoting other peoples’ work – but I have ulterior motives.

Last week I promoted Dan Smith’s STATE OF THE MIDDLE EAST ATLAS. But that was because it forms an excellent background to my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind”. He provides the facts and figures. I provide the stories of the shattering effects of the conflict between Oil, God and Gold (where Oil is the Arabs, God is the USA, and Gold is the Jews) on the lives of ordinary people trying to survive in extra-ordinary times.

Now I have found a documentary film THE FOUR HORSEMEN, that is an excellent background to new book I am writing, GULF II “The Beginning of Sorrows”. My book is based on the biblical reference:

“Ye will hear of wars – and rumours of wars: see that ye not be troubled for all these things must come to pass – but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, pestilences and earthquakes in divers places.

             All these are the Beginning of Sorrows”

THE FOUR HORSEMEN film (available free on YOU TUBE) posits that the first Horseman of the Apocalypse has already appeared. He is on a White Horse carrying a bow and is generally seen as the Conquerer – and the thesis of this film is that he represents the modern banks who have taken over the world, and are beyond the control of governments (Too Big to Fail?). And this is in line with my own narrative for GULF II.

Money has now replaced oil as the most valuable commodity traded in the World. And to quote The Bible again:

“The love of money is the root of all evil.”

In a very human way my new book explores the effects of 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq have had on the lives of normal people, and ends with the GFC of 2008.

If you want insights into the Middle East and its harsh and barbaric societies, after WWII, from the perspective of weird and wonderful expatriate oilfield trash, characters washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition with free delivery worldwide from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

or direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

Shame on you Barack Obama

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The “I am a Jew” speech by Barack Obama, supposedly the most powerful man on Earth, was shameless pandering to the powerful and very effective Jewish lobby. By bending his knee to them he was ensuring the flow of millions of dollars into the Democratic war chest to try and ensure that Hilary Clinton would be the next President, and that she would also give unconditional support to Israel.

Protection racketeering is alive and well and living in The White House.

As I have mentioned before in this blog the Jewish population of CORO survived 25 years under the protection of the Venezuelan state and federal governments by paying a “Special Tax”. But in the end they were driven out by the local population rioting because of the domination of the Jews in the town’s commercial life.

Right now Israel carries out its brutal and repressive tactics against the Palestinians under the protection of the USA. What happens when US influence diminishes – or is distracted by the growing threats of China and Russia (not forgetting Al Qu’eda and ISIS, and Afghanistan etc.)?

My opposition to Israel was based on anecdotal evidence gained during my 40 years in The Arabian/Persian Gulf. I did not realize how complete the Israeli subjugation of the Palestinians is.

But recently I found a wonderful book, THE STATE OF THE MIDDLE EAST, “An Atlas of Conflict & Resolution” that uses hard fact and maps to show how the whole region has evolved since the decline of The Ottoman Empire. It identifies the three most important factors as OIL, ISRAEL, and AMERICAN INTERVENTION. And if you look at the section and maps on Israel you can see that they have no intention of allowing a Palestinian State.

They already occupy 78% of the land that was once Palestine, and control more than half of the West Bank, supposedly the site of the State of Palestine. And Israel’s policy of building illegal settlements on the West Bank, walled off from the West Bank, and linked to Israel by roads open only to Israelis, can be seen quite clearly as the thin end of a wedge to occupy the whole of the West Bank.

Shame on you Barack Obama for bending your knee to the power of the Jewish Lobby. And shame on you for accepting their bribes. The Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves.

If you want more insights into the Middle East, and its harsh and barbaric societies, from the perspective of weird and wonderful oilfield trash, expatriate characters who washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition with free delivery worldwide from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

or direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

Travel with Trevor????

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     Having moved permanently to Australia two years ago I am becoming more and more remote from the outside world. News coverage here is parochial. If it didn’t happen in Australia, New South Wales or Sydney, then it’s not really worth more than a 30 second clip, while a dog lost in a Sydney suburb gets 5 minutes.

To be fair the Paris attacks did get comprehensive coverage – but from the perspective of Australian tourists caught in the terror (the most coverage for an Australian tourist shot in the bum), and the newpaper headlines now read “What does this mean for Australia?”.

Australia has insulated itself from the outside world with a heavily protected high wage economy where liesure is King. Rush hour starts at 2 pm on a Friday. And in my socio-economic bracket of retirees, caravans and boats and weekends away are a must. We have made a good friend Trevor, who has helped us enormously to settle into our new home.

Typically Aussie, originally from a farming background, he is able to turn his hand to anything, and source all sorts of tools from his extensive Man Shed. And he is keen to take us on a long camping trip into the bush and The Outback to remote and delightful places like Barrington Tops, and forget the outside world which holds no interest for him.

And why not?

Without wishing to trivialize a very serious problem for many brave soldiers I think I am suffering from a form of Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whatever news I get from the Middle East (buried back at Page 28 of “serious” newspapers) only concerns the barbaric acts of ISIS, the atavistic struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians, or the chaos that exists in Iraq and Syria.

This area was the Cradle of our Civilization. Egypt and The Fertile Crescent, The Ur of Chaldea, Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and The Euphrates that gave us mathematics and astronomy, and enriched our lives with the 3 great montheistic religions of Judaeism, Christianity and Islam. And I lived and worked in that region for 40 years and met, made friends and enjoyed the company of many Iranian and Arab people. Intelligent, educated, cultured and interesting people that they are, always concerned for the health and happiness of you and your family. Now all I hear is death and disaster and no hope of an end to barbaric blood letting.

So why not now, “Fade far away, dissolve and quite forget the weariness, the fever and the fret.”

Why not travel with Trevor to The Outback and 40,000 years of Dreaming?

Because I owe it to Darius Gharamanpour, Frank Zarinal, Davood Nasiri, Said Al-Jurbi, Mohammed Al-Ghamdi, Mohammed Al-Shuwaikhat, Khalid Al-Onazi, and many many others too numerous to mention who gave me a good and interesting career, enriched my life and saved my soul – first when I fled from violent and drug-addicted New York on the edge of a nervous breakdown – and again when I was made redundant by the American fad of “downsizing” just when I needed to pay for my daughters’ college education.

If you want insights into the Middle East, and its harsh and apparently barbaric societies, from the perspective of weird and wonderful oilfield trash, expatriate characters who washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition with free delivery worldwide from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

or direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

Paris & Pandora’s Box

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The tragic events that have just unfolded in Paris, and the rise and rise of ISIS, the perpetrators of the atrocities, are a consequence of The West’s foreign policy blundering in the Middle East driven by the desire to control and exploit the vast oil wealth of the region. And the invasion of Iraq, and toppling of Saddam Hussein, opened Pandora’s box in that volatile arena.

In Greek mythology when Pandora opened her box all the EVILS of the World flew out, leaving HOPE inside. How prophetic were the ancient Greeks!

Very briefly in the Arab Spring, HOPE did come out of the box – but was driven back by naïve US State Department tragics trumpeting the benefits of Freedom, and the free market (a.k.a. Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll), and even more naïve adultlescents (a la Charlie Hebdo and The Danes) who think that life is a twitter of LOLZ where you can mock people’s deeply felt beliefs and customs without any thought of the consequences.

When will we learn that you cannot impose a liberal, free thinking, sceptical and decadent Western society on deeply religious, tribal societies that are essentially feudal in their make-up? I have lived and worked in the Middle East for over 40 years, and I can assure you that the majority of Muslims are decent, deeply religious people who want to live a good and quiet life within their family. But the extremists in their midst have learned their lessons well. Terrorism pays dividends.

The main cause of The West’s conflict with Islam in The Middle East is their unconditional support for the State of Israel – a state founded on the back of Zionist terrorism (IRGUN and the STERN Gang, the bombing of the King David Hotel etc.). There is no hope of peace in the Middle East until the question of Israel is resolved to the satisfaction of The Arab nation. Even if ISIS is defeated another,and more extreme, movement will rise from the ashes, just as ISIS rose from Al-Qua’eda’s demise.

Pandora’s box is wide open and we will never force the lid back on.

If you want insights into the Middle East, and its harsh and apparently barbaric societies, and its corruption, from the perspective of weird and wonderful oilfield trash, expatriate characters who washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

(They offer free delivery worldwide)

or direct from my publisher

www.feedaread.com

Death to Drug Dealers

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Living in Australia as I do I have been caught up in the wave of sympathy for the Bali Bombers sitting on Death Row as desperate measures are taken to prevent their execution by firing squad BUT – and there is always a but I guess – not anymore.

My grandaughter who is only just 5 years old came home from school using the F word. So now the evil tentacles of the “Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll crowd” otherwise known as the foul mouthed Showbusiness reprobates (or the friends of Jimmie Saville) are reaching into the school playground and my grandaughter, and other children, are being robbed of their childhood innocence.

I flew into a rage at this, and the thought that in the not too distant future of them being offered drugs in the school playground and having their innocent young lives permanently blighted as is happening in America.

So now I believe that those who spread this poison through society should face the death penalty. And I believe that those weak souls who fall victim to drugs should be treated with firmness too – as they are in Saudi Arabia.

There is a drug problem there as there is in The West. About sixty percent of the 50 or so beheadings that take place every year are for drug smuggling. But the victims of the drug trade, the addicts it has created, are quietly removed from society and put through an enforced rehab program, and only released when the authorities are satisfied they are cured.

Once again the Saudis demonstrate that social stability is more important than a weak kneed concern for an individual’s civil rights.

If you want insights into the Middle East and its harsh and apparently barbaric societies, based on my 40 years experience there from the perspective of the weird and wonderful oilfield trash, expatriate characters who washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

RULE BRITANNIA

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Britannia Rules the Waves:

I have just returned from an extended holiday in Tasmania. Not a place I really wanted to visit – but I am glad I went because it is a well preserved microcosm of British Empire building.

Raised as I was to despise the jingoism, racial predjudice and blind patriotism of the colonialists, the more I travel the World, the more I have come to admire the energy, the vision the bravery of those Empire builders. Just 22 million people from a small mist shrouded island whose maritime skills and initiatives dominated the World, and left in many cases an admirable legacy.

Port Arthur, Tasmania was founded as a penal colony in 1833 and was closed in 1877. In that short 44 years using convict labour it was a timber cutting facility, a coal mine, a flour mill, a foundry and a pententiary for some 2,000 convicts. But even in those far off days while the regime was brutal it was not as primitive as you might imagine.

The penitentiary was a solid 3 story structure of sandstone with shared cells. There was a separate psychological prison for hardened criminals beyond redemption in solitary confinement, and a separate Boys’ prison on an island to keep young offenders away from adult criminals. And later there was a rest home for elderly prisoners that could not be rehabilitated and returned to society that was possibly the model for Britain’s welfare state. How enlightened is all that?

The rehabiltation program was a well established 4 step procedure. A period of hard labour, a period as a trustee, a period as a parollee – and finally release into society with sometimes a gift of free land. So how enlightened was that.

There was a model village with a Governer’s mansion, a house for the Surgeon General, and a lovely sandstone Anglican church – and housing for the military and civilian personnel who ran the settlement. There were frequent dinner parties and social functions (horse racing and whale boat racing) to create a home from home and keep people from “going bush” – an important discipline in the British Empire.

Port Arthur is set in a lovely sheltered bay on what is essentially a heavily wooded island surrounded by rough seas only connected to the Tasmanian mainland by a very narrow strip of land (Eagles Neck). It was easy to defend and almost impossible to escape from because in those days most people could not swim and to enter the bush meant disoreintation, snakes and spiders and eventual death.

I am gobsmacked by how these enterprising people found these wonderful and lovely sites for their developments. The Dutch came first (hence the name Van Diemans land), and French botanists and zoologists later, and both moved on – but it was the British who settled and developed it. Just one small development in a World with a plethra of developments.

Think India, the jewel in The Crown, with the British heritage of a common language, a judical and educational system, and the largest parliamentary democracy in the World . Think Malaysia and Singapore and even Burma, now slowly returning to democracy. And think the USA, also founded by the British (look at the names of the founding fathers and the first Presidents).

So how is it that the American imperialists, and the British before them, have not been able to establish a stable legacy in the Middle East?

If you want insights into The West’s relationship with the Middle East and its complexity from the perspective of the weird and wonderful oilfield trash, expatriate characters who washed up there in the oil patch from 1960 to 2001, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

Using the ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.

It’s all abbout OIL!

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While writing my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” I had many “meaningful discussions” with my editor Ed Plaisance (we are much too good friends to argue) because I insisted that politics in The Arabian/Persian Gulf – and the Mid-East generally – is all about Oil.

I insisted that the tag-line for the book reads:

“It’s all about oil. If there was no oil the only expatriates in The Gulf would be a few archaelogists and biblical scholars . . . OIL is the new Great Game, a game made serious by millions of petrodollars – and blood.”

Given the complexity of the politics, tribal loyalties and religious biogotry of that region I must confess even I began to think that my analysis was simplistic. But I have been saved by reading that Bradley Manning (he of the massive Wikileaks fiasco) came to exactly the same conclusion. He says that mid-East politics is all about oil – and he was better placed and has a lot more information than me.

It is a fact that when American troops arrived in Baghdad to depose Saddam they imediately, as a priority, threw a tight cordon around the Ministry of Petroleum while leaving the Ministry of Antiquities and their museums and priceless artifacts from the dawn of our civilization completely unprotected. The antiquities were of course heavily looted.

Whatever happened to those out-of-date 2D seismic tapes from the MinPet that loosely defined Iraq’s proven and potential oil reserves?

It is now known that Iraq has enormous potential reserves – maybe rivaling Saudi Arabia – if they can overcome the tribal and religious divides. Unfortunately for the central government most of the oil potential lies in the Shia South and the Kurdish North.

And ironically, for all the trillions of dollars and young soldiers’ lives that America threw into replacing Saddam with a neo-democratic government they have little involvment in the development of the Iraq oil industry. Contracts have been awarded to a wide ranging number of oil companies from Russia, China, Korea, Malaysia etc.

International Oil is the new Great Game. A game made serious by trillions of petrodollars = and the unending flow of blood. Think ISIS.

If you want insights into The West’s relationship with the Middle East and its complexity from the weird and wonderfull perspective of the expatriates who wash up there, preview my book THE GULF “Reaping the Whirlwind” at:

www.amazon.com/author/mikerichards

and download it if you have a Kindle.

Or if you prefer a real book you can order the paperback edition from:

www.thebookdepository.co.uk

The ISBN number is 978-1908147097

They offer free delivery worldwide.