Nelson Mandela Fights Again As The Sun Sets

Nelson Mandela ,clearly ,is an example of one who has lived a meaningful life. As one of the world's most revered statesmen, he stands as a role model for all and in particular for those who have achieved the position of Head of State. On becoming South Africa’s first black President and a Nobel laureate, he did not attempt to hang on to power at all costs even though with his credentials he could well have succeeded. Instead he dedicated his life to the service of his people and to all oppressed peoples of the world. Mr Mandela stepped down as President in 1999 and became an icon in South Africa , travelling the globe encouraging peace efforts in many regions of the world ,campaigning against HIV/Aids and securing his country's right to host the 2010 football World Cup.

His extra ordinary life story transcends the African continent and appeals to the entire world. He is truly a great son of our times.  Madiba, as he is fondly called by his people, led the struggle against the apartheid regime of South Africa and won. Today he is currently engaged in another struggle. A struggle against natural illnesses associated with old age. He is 93 years old and I am afraid this is a struggle he cannot win. Nature has not endowed any man with any instrument to live indefinitely. He is clearly in the last segment of his enviable life and we must all brace ourselves to that. South Africa must prepare for a post Mandela era and build a just and egaliterian society so that the sacrifices made by this great man will not have been in vain.

Mandela himself is not afraid of death for in 1964 while conducting his own defence in the Rivonia court room, he said: "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."
And that should be the case for every one. We have to accept reality and avoid the fear of death. Man is a mortal being with a fixed lifespan. No matter how many years one lives, the end will surely come and someone who dies today will have just as long a period of non-existence as the one who died many years ago for death is eternal. This long period of non-existence as a human being on earth is the premise of discourse amongst all religions.
It is incumbent on us all, according to Plato, to live virtuous lives so that when the end comes we will have no regrets.

Vladimir Putin's alleged Palace

Looks like the rest of the world is finally catching up with Africa on corruption. We are used to the spectacle of such edifices as in this article in France24 website belonging to many Heads of African States.

Photo anonymously posted on Ruleaks. 

 

With its stunning seaside views, private casino, helipad, giant four-poster beds and marble halls, the newest palace built in the Black Sea resort town of Praskoveevka looks like something straight out of a James Bond movie. But according to a Russian businessman, it is being built for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin with dubious funds.

 

The man behind these accusations is Sergei Kolesnikov, a Russian businessman who has worked with Vladimir Putin. On December 21, Kolesnikov published an open letter to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on the Internet, exposing his version of the story behind the palace.

 

Kolesnikov says he was made familiar with the palace’s construction while he was overseeing several public works projects for healthcare infrastructure and construction company Petromed. According to Kolesnikov, Petromed was approached in 2000 by Nicolay Shamalov, a personal friend of Vladimir Putin's, who offered to supply the funding for several major public healthcare contracts in the Saint Petersburg area on behalf of the president. The tens of millions of dollars in funding, which Shamalov said were “donated by generous oligarchs”, reportedly came with one condition: that Petromed transfer 35% of the contract funds into foreign accounts.

 

Kolesnikov says Shamalov told company heads that the money in the foreign accounts would return to Russia “to be invested in the Russian economy under Putin’s direct supervision”. Instead, Kolesnikov claims, the money financed the construction of the prime minister’s opulent seaside palace.

 

Initially, Kolesnikov says, the palace was presented as a “wellness complex”, but over the years it appeared that Putin himself regularly visited the site to supervise its construction and furnishing. In 2009, Kolesnikov was informed that construction materials were illegally brought in and paid for in cash. Kolesnikov says that when he told Shamalov that he disagreed with these pratices, he was immediately sidelined from the project. You can find the businessman’s detailed account in his open letter.

 

Following these revelations, Russian Web users dug out an article by a Novaya Gazeta journalist who reported on the villas of Praskoveevka in 2009. He couldn’t approach the palace reportedly being built for Putin because it was surrounded by security guards, but he managed to swim up to the beach behind it and speak to one of the workers on the site, who confirmed that Vladimir Putin was regularly on the premises.

 

Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, issued a statement saying that the prime minister "is not and has never been connected to this building in any way”.

 

According to the NGO  Transparency International, Russia ranks 154th out of 178 countries on its list classifying countries by their levels of corruption. President Medvedev has announced his intention to crack down on corruption, but recently admitted that the efforts have yielded few results.

Contributors

Sergey V. Kolesnikov

Moral Philosophy: Can Reason Alone Distinguish Between Moral Good and Bad.

Moral questions are about what is right or wrong, virtuous or vicious, and about enquiries, concerning the general foundation of Morals; whether they be derived from reason, or from sentiment; whether we attain the knowledge of them by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer internal sense; whether, like all sound judgement of truth and falsehood, they should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether they be founded entirely on the particular fabric and constitution of the human being. The primary question to consider is, whether it is possible, from reason alone, to distinguish between moral good and evil, or whether there are some other general principles of morality to enable us to make that distinction.  

Virtues are dispositions  that  are concerned with choices that we make and which makes us good. Reasoning is responsibly conducted thinking, in which the one attempts to reach a well-supported answer to a well-defined question.

Early Philosophers like Aristotle contended that virtue is of two kinds. Intellectual and ethical. Intellectual owes its origins and growth to teachings from secular and non-secular sources and needs experience and time. This highlights the importance of institutional authority and social roles in the structure of moral reasoning. Religious teachings and values play the greatest role in this respect.  Ethical virtue comes from habit and do not arise in us by nature, hence not by reason. It is by doing just and honest things that we become just and honest ,by doing brave things that we become brave.  The habits we form from childhood and throughout the duration of our lives are of paramount  importance in this respect. They postulated  that the rules of Morality are therefore not conclusions of reason.

For David Hume, a renowned  contemporary British Philosopher, morality is founded on human nature  i.e. natural feelings and sentiments found within us and not reason. “But in order to pave the way for such a sentiment, and give a proper discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained.” , he wrote.  So it is requisite to employ much reasoning, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may frequently be corrected by argument and reflection.  He concluded that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral determinations and conclusions but morality was not directly derived from reason.

Nature has made universal in human beings an internal sense with which to decide whether characters and actions are amiable or odious, praise-worthy or blameable, honourable or infamous. This inner sense renders morality an active principle and makes virtue our happiness,  vice our misery.  Morality is supposed to influence our passions volitions and actions, and  go beyond our judgments of the understanding.  Experience shows us that men are often governed by their duties, and are deterred from some actions by the opinion of injustice, and compelled to other actions by that of obligation.

Let me conclude by saying  that vice and virtue are not discoverable merely by reason but by means of some impression or sentiment which they occasion within us. It is by this inner sense that we are able to mark the difference between them.  

Nonetheless, contemporary discussions about the content of moral theory will go on and on and will be centered around the following pertinent questions:

1. Is it essential to moral reasoning for the considerations it takes up to be crystallized into, or ranged under, principles?
2. How do we sort out which moral considerations are most relevant?
3. In what ways do motivational elements shape moral reasoning?
4. What is the best way to model the kinds of conflicts among considerations that arise in moral reasoning?
5. Does moral reasoning include learning from experience and changing one's mind?
6. How can we reason, morally, with one another? 
7. How do relevant considerations get taken up in moral reasoning?

Try thinking about these questions and lets have your comments.

The Challenge President Kennedy gave Americans.

The late President J F Kennedy made a powerful speech on his inauguration 50 years ago as the 35th President of USA. That speech remains to date a challenge to the people of America.  It can also be used as a yardstick for the measurement of the achievements of successive Presidents up to and including Barack Obama

"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God."  he said.     Lest we forget, America is a God fearing nation and was designed so by its founders.It is a great nation today because of that. Amending its constitution to remove references to God is a mistake, for the vision of removing poverty and protecting the human life can only be achieved through continued dedication to God.

He placed a noble task in the hands of  Americans when he said  : ".......unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world."  Today the President of China is on a state visit to USA. Perhaps this is another opportunity for US to engage China constructively on the issue of human rights. I believe this is what JFK would have wanted.

On the international political stage, his vision of the role of UN can be deduced from his words when he said "To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support -- to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective, to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak, and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run." A historical review of the performance of USA within the umbrella of the UN to date has been less than impressive. This why the peoples of the troubled regions of the world rejoiced when Barack Obama was elected under the banner of change.

The poor peoples of the world are holding the Americans to the promise he made to them in the speech. He said  : "To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich."

I salute this fallen Heroe and great Son of America and hope his people will carry on the torch which he lit.