The Price of Standing Up For The Truth

This post is dedicated to the poet Nguyen Chi Thien.

My heart, that endless story, is something

That only a child will understand, love and like

He will not fully grasp its profundity or richness

But will instinctively share its marvelous quality.

My heart? It’s the pen, inkstand and paper tube

Of a gentleman-scholar unlucky at the exams

Left in a corner to gather dust and dream….

The above poem is an excerpt from a poem titled My Heart by Nguyen Chi Thien’s from his book where you can read more of his poems Flowers From Hell.

Who is Nguyen Chi Thien? Born in 1939 Thien was one of the greatest contemporary Vietnamese poets, who died exactly a year ago on October 2^nd 2012 at the age of 73. Thien had spent 27 years (equal to that of Nelson Mandela’s) of his life in prison and good amount of these years in a solitary confinement. Why? Because he refused to accept the North Vietnamese Communist leader Ho Chi Minh as a hero and Communism as paradise. As Margalit Fox wrote on the New York Times, “It was not the isolation that was hardest to endure, though it lasted nearly three decades. Nor was it the cold of his cell, where he was often chained naked, nor summer’s blistering heat, nor the rusty shackles that infected his legs, nor the relentless hunger. It was, Nguyen Chi Thien said afterward, the utter lack of access to the written word: no books, no newspapers and, more devastating still for a poet, not so much as a pencil or a scrap of paper.”

Let’s look into the history of poetry to put Mr. Thien's life in context. Poetry is widely accepted to have started during the early agricultural societies, spoken or chanted as a spell to promote good harvests as well as means to express the people's struggles and triumphs. The earliest known Western poetry comes from the legendary Homer who is attributed in writing the two epic masterpieces The Iliad and The Odyssey. Of course the Greeks also used poetry to communicate other thematic messages. Names of many revered writers from 500 BC and beyond are still recited and ring a bell when we hear and read their names such as Sophocles and Euripides. Epics such as France's La Chanson de Roland’s Beowulf from the Medieval period are still read (this was actually one of the books that was a required reading in my high school English class = I disliked it a lot) and Shakespeare’s works from the Renaissance Period of course lives on.

Perhaps the continuous use of poetry was nowhere ubiquitous as is in Vietnam. As reported on BBC, until the turn of the 20th century almost 95 percent of Vietnamese literature is believed to be in the form of poetry, even history books are sometimes written entirely in poetry. And in Vietnam, Thien is the most well-known and respected contemporary poets. The man is truly fascinating with a stubborn will for dignity and the truth. Thien, first got in trouble with the communist North Vietnamese government in the 1960s. He decided to substitute for his ailing high school history teacher and he realized the textbook stated Japan’s defeat in World War II was to the Soviet Union. Thien told the class that no, that was in fact not accurate, Japan surrendered to the US following the US dropping two atomic bombs in hiroshima and nagasaki. The 21 years old Thien was soon arrested and spent the better part of the next 27 years in different prisons and hard labor detention camps.

Thien, was not allowed and did not had the access to continue writing while in prison, but that did not stop him from writing, editing, storing and deleting his poems in his head. When he gets the opportunity he recited his poems to his close friends and mates he wrote some 700 poems this way. At one point, as the Economist reported, Thien took the risk to smuggled 400 of his poems to the British Embassy in Hanoi and begged them to have it published in the West. Though, the Brits rejected his request for asylum and the North Vietnamese government sent him to prison for 6 years for his attempt; his collection of poems was published as Flowers From Hell. The book has been translated to many languages and it won the International Poetry Award in Rotterdam in 1985.

Thien was freed in 1991 and went to the US in 1995, settled in Orange County CA aka in ‘little Vietnam’ where he published two more short stories and converted to Catholicism. Thien was also finally reunited with his brother (who fought on the South Vietnamese side) and had not seen each other since 1954.

The price some pay to stand up for the truth and one’s convictions is something that directly or indirectly affects us all.  As Dr. Martin Luther King eloquently wrote it once from a jail cell “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are all indebted to courageous people like Nguyen Chi Thien.

Cheers,

Daniel 

What Africa Can Learn from East Asia’s Developmental Success by Joseph E. Stiglitz Ph.D

The nobel laureate writes, poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is almost the rule not the exception. From 1990 - 2010 the # of people living in poverty (≤ $1.25/day) rose from 300 million to ~425 million and those living <$2/day grew from 390 million to ~600million. However, the proportion of those living in poverty declined from 57% to 49%. From 2007 – 2011 with Ethiopia leading the pack, 5 out of 10 fastest growing countries in the world were in East Africa. Yet, the number of Africans who reached middle class status (making ≥$20K) is no more than India’s middle class.

When zooming in on some of the data in the article, it shows African countries are not optimizing on their resources, the table below shows some difference of how Africans and Asians manage their farmland.  

Region	% of arable & permanent cropland irrigated	Fertilizer use/hectare
Africa	4%	13 Kg
East Asia	29%	190 Kg
South Asia	39%	90 Kg

Prof. Stiglitz advises that, as the wages rise in China, manufacturing will be outsourced and African countries will have the chance to attract this labor-intensive sector. Capitalizing on this opportunity requires balanced policy from African leaders; and to do that effectively, reflecting on the policies followed by the East Asian countries rather than the neo-liberal aka Washington consensus of policy recommendations will be of much beneficial.

Cheers,

Daniel

Briefs on Ethiopian Green Economy, Inflation & Occupational Safety

Before jumping onto the briefs let me reflect on the Ethiopian Business Review magazine itself. This is my third consecutive EBR print magazine that I have read, and before reflecting on few very important and timely articles in it, and before I branch of to explore the Amharic magazines and news papers, let me say that I like this magazine. I think it is one of the informative English magazines around here that attempts to really stay on topic (business subject in this case) and tries to give its readers something to chew on, just as its slogan goes “depth to your thought”. However, when I finish reading it, I always feel I just started and it is finished. It feels, you just had a taste of things on the surface level, but that is it. So I started to think why do I get that feeling and sought to compare its contents to some other magazines lingering around the living room.

The answer, perhaps, it has to do because I am used to American magazines and no doubt the US magazines have much more content, depth and quantity. The Ethiopian magazines seem to be relatively on the same level with each other, about the same amount of pages and allocate about equal proportion of pages for ads. I don’t want to be seen as if I am trying to compare an infant with a globally acclaimed one, but to give a basic reference point, the Economist on average has about 100 pages and averages about 100 articles, while EBR for example has about 55 pages and has only 14 articles. I think adding more articles and being a bit more concise on many of the articles would be great (at least for my taste).

With that being said, here are few briefs for your curious mind. Very soon my reflection of an article by Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz Ph.D Ph.D.’s advice to African countries and another article about how long before the Ethiopian financial market is liberalize will follow.

Briefing the Brief

Ethiopian Green Economy. As Africa’s first carbon finance project Ethiopia’s own Humbo Community Based Forest Management project in Wolayta Sodo of the SNNPR got $34,000 from the World Bank in 2012. The Bank also committed to provide a total of $726,000 in the next 10 years. The already under construction Ethiopian National Railway Network will be the second project; aiming to be an all carbon free with a goal of securing $1 billion of the $5.9 billion (~17%) budgeted expense from carbon finance trading.

Ethiopia inflation, from 2006 - 2013 the average inflation was 21.07%; since then, it has shown a consistent gradual decline. It reached its lowest of only 6.1% in May 2013; slightly rising again to 8% for this past August 2013. Economists say the main source of the inflation is due to the unconstrained investment in the public sector (also estimated to be responsible for the country’s 2/3 of economic growth). According to the World Bank, public investment in Ethiopia is ranked 3^rd highest in the world as per percent of GDP. Yet, its private investment is ranked 6^th lowest in the world. Many of Ethiopians think the value of their currency the Ethiopian Birr is too low, as one blatantly complained, “the Birr is worthless”. I have been wondering if there is any economic research done to learn whether such perception in the public’s mind has its own psychological effect of encouraging people to spend rather than save. Because, people seem to spend and give little attention to the months ahead of them.

EBR’s Addisu Deresse writes, in Ethiopia there is high rate of occupational injuries, because the lack of adequate workplace safety training and the lack of enforcement for existing laws. The law on paper and the reality on the ground don’t match. For instance, according to the Ethiopian Labor Proclamation, if an employee is injured on the job and is not able to work, the employer must compensate the employee for 1year, at the rate of 100% of the employee’s wage for the first 3 months, 75% for the next 3 months and at least 50% of the employees wage for the remaining 6 months. Unfortunately, the awareness level is so low that not many employees are able to realize these and other similar employee benefits and rights. It seems there is a steep hill for all stakeholders to climb.

Cheers,

Daniel

Ethiopian Economy’s Bottleneck

Daniel’s Reflection on ‘Logistics Deficit: A critical Challenge for the country’s competitiveness’ By Berihun Mekonnen

This is part II to my previous post titled Ethiopian Business Review (Part I). Taking 8 pages of the  Ethiopian
Business Review’s (EBR) magazine, Senior Editor Berihun Mekonnen, dives in to explore logistics challenges in Ethiopia. Including an interview with Akakas Logistics PLC’s Director of Transit, Shipping and Transport Kassahun Abberu (PhD). Out of the many, here are few of the points.

• According to the World Bank, in the organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) aka high income developed countries it takes 10 days to import and export, 31 and 37 days in Sub-Sahara countries to import and export respectively. In Ethiopia it takes 42 days to export and 44 days to import (about twice as long as it takes in Kenya, Vietnam and China)
• Ethiopia uses the port of Djibouti for nearly 90% of its import export; accounting for more than 120,000 containers a year
• After the 8 days of grace period, the fee per container per day at the Djibouti port is USD 11
• The average cost of logistics and transportation on the total price of imported goods is 40% (in other words if an individual pays 100 Birr for something that was imported, the 40 Birr levied on the price of the item was due to the logistics and transportation cost that the importer added on)
• A business man says a container which should be released with in a week from the port usually stays for a month or more, costing his company more than Ethiopian Birr (ETB) 50,000
• An addition of 2,000 – 2,500 trucks are needed to ease up the Ethio – Djibouti corridor
• Ministry of trade announced for the FY 2012/2013 export decreased from previous years
• Importing a container to Ethiopia compared to Tanzania and Kenya costs USD 1,095 and USD 310 more respectively (it is USD 2,000 when compared to south east Asian countries such as Vietnam)
• The World Bank’s 2007-2012 Logistics Performance Index (LPI) shows Ethiopia ranked 141 out of 150 countries. Dropping 37 places from its previous 104 ranking in the 2003 – 2007 ranking period
• The privates sector urges the government to privatize the sector but the government argues modernization of the sector needs huge investment, which the government is working on, and the government believes the private sector does not have the capacity to cover the needs, hence why it cannot be liberalized.  

The take away point: Ethiopia is landlocked country and logistics are bound to be a huge challenge. However if we Ethiopians give ourselves a tap on the shoulder and only choose to use where the country was yesterday as a reference and compare that with where the country is today, other countries will continue to have the competitive edge on this sector. Ethiopia has to use other exemplary countries’ as a model and either adapts their ways or find alternate solutions to be on their level. Business as usual and resting our full hope and faith that it will be better soon is not really a solution. We have to judge our competitiveness on the facts on the ground today. Import export delivery taking 10 or more days than the average of the Sub-Sahara African countries is really disheartening. Let us not be in self-denial and be content on the hopes of tomorrow. Because, if today we are rest-assured on where we will be tomorrow, there is no guarantee we won't wake up to find ourselves following way far behind yet again. As we plan to modernize the challenges one step at a time, we must keep in mind so are others. Response to address some of the basic and simpler issues should be prioritized. We got to do better.

In this day and age where globalization is not a choice but a matter of survival, where regional and continental economic integration is a race to stay competitive; partnerships with neighboring countries is a necessity. There need not be a love relationship, but at the very least a working relationship based on a mutual interest. Ethiopia & Eritrea seriously need to go back to a working relationship. Both countries would benefit tremendously from the Eritrea's under-utilized ports. Any grudge and stance of bravado needs to die off. We are both better of looking at the big picture and envisioning for the long term. Don’t think others aren’t quietly laughing at us; to the outside world, it matters less who is the aggressor and who is the victim of of the agression. They are always happily prepared to sell us their expensive goods and services; and even bullets and ammunitions if our ignorance leads us there. Our leaders must remember the limitations of our resources and must not lose focus of their priorities.  The driving force to having leaders, who perform their duties and responsibilities based on the public’s interest however, depends on the existence of an engaged and vigilant public.

Read the full article here.  

Daniel’s Reflection on ‘Business Cards: No insignificant Matter’ by Abebe Mulu

In a 2 page article Abebe explains the importance of business cards and how it is the pinnacle of first impression. An article by PSOW states that, the use of business cards dates back to the 15^th century referred as ‘Visiting cards’ by Chinese elites. Introduced to Europe in the 17^th century, and become to be known as “Calling cards” two centuries later. Entrepreneurs and business card experts say Business cards come in all different sizes and colors. While Business cards promote your company, they should not be used, as means of advertisement and you should always treat the card as you would of the cardholder.

Read the full article here.

Cheers,

Daniel 

Daniel’s Reflection on Ethiopian Business Review (Part I)

Reader's Reflection on Ethiopian Business Review (EBR) is Daniel's reflection on some of the articles published on the monthly magazine (this in particular is on the Aug 2013 Edition No6 which is not yet posted on EBR's website). In this post I am sharing the summary of few of the articles from the magazine.

Reflection on the article, 'Discovering Oil in Ethiopia: A Curse or A blessing? The Macroeconomics of a commodity Boom' by Alemayehu Geda (PhD)

There are reports of a possible oil discovery in Ethiopia, if it does so happens, it will require a careful macroeconomic management in the short run to minimize the adverse effect it will have. One of the possible challenges is going to be, the traditional export sectors could get neglected, a term known as the “Dutch Disease” the domestic currency the Birr’s value will increase in relation to the foreign currency which encourages the consumption of foreign goods and when the domestic currency’s value increases it also leads to decrease in export. The second challenge of a resource boom could lead to mishandling of the resources (corruption) tag of war amongst political elites and distrust and a sense of marginalization between groups; as well as decline in the culture of savings both the public and the private sector.

The take away point: Oil resource discovery in Ethiopia would be tremendous, in that, it would help the country achieve its pursuit to become a middle-income country in the near future and decrease the number of Ethiopians living under poverty, which stands at ~29% of the population. Dr. Alemayehu provides some insights as to how responsible actors could prepare to reduce the inevitable by sighting best practices and policies followed by other countries. I also hope and suggest leaders and decision makers especially those in the specific sector read a book by Pro. Paul Collier called 'Bottom Billion', and pay close attention to the chapter in the book that talks about the natural resources trap. 

Daniel’s Reflection (DR) on The Rise of The Middle Class in Addis Ababa.

Lets look in to at least two of the possible indicators of a growing middle class in a society, vehicle

ownership and housing. Cars are extremely expensive in Addis. A used car that could be bought for USD 3,000 or less in the USA, with out a doubt is marketed and sold for more than USD 10,000 in Addis Ababa. Data shows that in the past 5 years the number of customers has increased dramatically and when comparing 2008 to 2012, the number of imported cars increased by three fold (an increase more than 162%).  The number of car assembled with in the country has also followed the same positive slope. All of this with out having credit services; yet, it seems there are way way too many cars on the streets of Addis. People say, owning a car is no longer a luxury thing, but rather has become essential for work and to get things done around town.

The trend of housing and urban life style is no different. As Addisu Deresse writes, people are no longer looking only for decent living places and backyards. They are looking for spaces that fit their personality, reflect their status and ambitions. There is a growing market for interior designers to satisfy the taste of the growing middle class. With growing economy comes the specialization of skills and more work hours in order to optimize on one’s competitive advantage and that leads to people outsourcing some aspects of their tasks to others; including families hiring maids or people just simply eating out and eating in less. As a result, restaurants and services are seeing constant increase in their customers and noticeable change in their customer’s demographics. To get a sense of in depth insight on the rise of the middle class in Addis Ababa, read ‘On Sale: The Growing Car Market and the Emerging Middle Class by Berihun Mekonnen and ‘The Metropolitan Way of Life: The Changing Life Style of the Urbintes’ by Addisu Deresse. 

The take away point: Although there are no shortage of restaurants and services in Addis, I believe that the market for high-end restaurants and services, is still untapped. If you stumble on to one of such status, it is usually full to capacity. As pointed out in the article, people are choosing for the high-end goods and services over prices, which I think is an indicator of the growing economy and standard of living.

Check back again, soon I will post few more summaries of articles that I found are good read. I will also try to post the links to the original articles onces they become available.

Cheers,
Daniel