PrintMarch 20, 2011
We Are All Adrift on a Ship of Fools
In the recent flurry of news reports from the Middle East, this item slipped by, largely unnoticed. Four thousand Tunisians arrived illegally by boat in Italy in just four days after the triumph of the pro-democracy movement in their native country. Apparently, they decided to forsake newly acquired freedom and democracy in Tunisia. Rather, they chose the long odds of the dangerous journey and the indignity of an illegal (pardon me, undocumented) existence in Italy. Italian officials described the situation as a "Biblical exodus" and asked for European help to deal with it. One could only feel sorry for these poor people, who just try to escape unemployment, poverty, the misery of overcrowded cities and the lack of opportunities in the Arab world. Let me digress for a paragraph. When I was born, the population of our planet was 2 billion people. Now it stands at 7 billion. This explosive growth is the...(Read Full Article)
