Sunday, May 08, 2022

International Democracy vs American Democracy

 Google defines democracy as a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

When we look at national democracy, we are looking at the population of that nation making decisions through its elected representatives as such the American democracy is a democracy that has been shaped into being by the people of America for the years that it has been in existence. 

At the level of international democracy, we are looking at the world population as a whole, but also looking at individual national democracies in their various regions shaped by the people of different cultures values and ideologies.

There seem to be very few principles of democracy that can be encouraged at the international level of democracy without conflicting with the cultural values of different nations.

At the onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, I had to find out more about both sides of the conflict and discovered among other things that Russia is a democracy and the Western countries, the USA, the UK and the EU do not acknowledge that but still consider it as a dictatorship. The Russian Constitution in  Article 1 says 

"The Russian Federation - Russia is a democratic federative law-governed state with a republican form of government." 

I realised the absence of the acknowledgement on the part of the western countries of democracy in Russia might be due to the differences in the way democracy in Russia has been implemented and the way it has been implemented in the Western Countries. Surely, what the people of Russia value is not the same as what the Western countries value. 

Another thing that came to light today is the restrictions the Taliban government is implementing in Afghanistan. Taliban is a world that means "student" according to Wikipedia, and it is said that the Taliban government does not allow women and girls to be in schools and yet there is a claim that the same Taliban government requires women to only visit female doctors. Does the Taliban government contradict itself? Surely, a student values education more than anyone else. Surely if there is an expectation of having female doctors, then there are means that women would attain such education. 

The USA has been to Afghanistan to try and establish democracy by force and yet the Taliban got back into government also by force meaning that they have not valued whatever the USA government was establishing. I could only think that perhaps the USA was advancing its own cultural values to a people that holds a completely different view of things according to their own culture. 

From these observations, I am thinking that we should consider separating principles of international democracy from the American view of democracy. Democracy is considered to be a type of government that recognizes the differences in views of its people and encourages co-existence and tolerance among the people of differing views. While this might exist within the USA, the USA fails to tolerate differing views of other democracies in the world. It fails to co-exist with other people in the world whose views are different from its own. 

The world has cultures and views different according to each region and when considering international democracy, we may need to consider also tolerance of these different cultures other than imposing views of the dominant democracies for that in itself is being undemocratic.


Friday, February 11, 2022

A Public Letter to The President


His Excellency Dr Lazarus Chakwera,

I have observed that your government has a great concern about the trade deficit due to the imports being more than exports. 

The concern exists to either push for depreciation of the Kwacha or floatation of the currency which is quoted in many textbooks as a solution to the trade deficits but they result in our goods and services being greatly undervalued. Selling things at a cheaper price does not always result in increased value gain. I will give an example of the current value of my services in Malawi as a PHP Developer compared to that of a PHP Developer in the USA. We virtually go through the same training yet my services are currently valued at an average of US$8,400/year while in the USA, a person receives US$84,000/year.  I find this unfair. If you are opting for depreciation how much cheaper would you want my services to go? $8,400/year does not meet my expenses to finish the month. I have to get an extra from borrowing or from a relative. Furthermore, cheaper does end up looking incompetent. Please stop depreciating the Kwacha. Start appreciating the Kwacha so that our goods and services may trade at a fair international price.

I cannot always complain without suggesting a solution. I observed that Europeans decided to implement a trade policy that is always resulting in a trade surplus. I feel we could do the same as I have outlined in the following short article:

I hope that this will be helpful to Malawi.

Sincerely,

Kondwani Hara.


Monday, February 07, 2022

Improving Our Balance Of Trade

Learning from the historical context of Balance of Trade in Europe:
Many countries in early modern Europe adopted a policy of mercantilism, which theorized that a trade surplus was beneficial to a country. Mercantilist ideas also influenced how European nations regulated trade policies with their colonies, promoting the idea that natural resources and cash crops should be exported to Europe, with processed goods being exported back to the colonies in return.
An early statement concerning the balance of trade appeared in Discourse of the Common Wealth of this Realm of England, 1549: "We must always take heed that we buy no more from strangers than we sell them, for so should we impoverish ourselves and enrich them." Similarly, a systematic and coherent explanation of the balance of trade was made public through Thomas Mun's 1630 "England's treasure by foreign trade, or, The balance of our foreign trade is the rule of our treasure".

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_trade#Historical_example

I resolved that we can create similar trade policies to improve our Balance of Trade and adopt them as follows:

EXPORT POLICY:
NEVER EXPORT NATURAL RESOURCES AND CASH CROPS, WHICH ARE OUR RAW MATERIALS, TO FOREIGN NATIONS BUT EXPORT ONLY FINISHED PRODUCTS WHICH WE HAVE MANUFACTURED OURSELVES.
 
IMPORT POLICY:
NEVER IMPORT FINISHED PRODUCTS FROM FOREIGN NATIONS BUT IMPORT ONLY RAW MATERIALS WHICH WE CAN USE TO MANUFACTURE FINISHED PRODUCTS OURSELVES.

This is because finished products have a higher value than raw materials the direction of trade of these, determine the balance of trade whether it will be a deficit or surplus.

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Suitability of Jobs as Computer Scientist in the World of Management Information Systems

A team of 3 can make a complete product according to [https://mis.eller.arizona.edu/what-is-mis#difference]. Business, Science and Engineering. I am the computer science part of the process.

The Systems Development Life Cycle runs in Phases. Job security becomes a problem. You no longer have your job once the phase requiring you is complete.

The things that influence creation of a new system are limited as such you may not have a job as long as the information system is working. It might take one job in five years. You get the job when the system requires an upgrade.

I write a complete system within a period of one month to six months. Systems Support is part of the Systems Development process that gets to have a long lasting job. I don't know how to integrate myself into the systems support phase though someone suggested that I take up a job as a data officer. However such a job, I can end up creating one whole new system within one hour: its data model, interface and the server-side and a system is complete.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Limitedness of Liabilities and Jurisdictions of Laws Applicable to Government and Governance.

The boundaries of the country called Malawi, has had jurisdictions of several lawful governments: Nyasaland, Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and Malawi. I thought I should recognize the limitedness of laws according to the jurisdiction and time of their applicability over the region whose boundaries form the Nation of Malawi.

The current jurisdictional Constitution of the Laws of Malawi is of 1994 according to the wikipedia article on Malawi(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malawi).

This means, the Constitutional of the Laws of Malawi, has not had any amendment since 1994 though it is possible that several Acts of Parliament have been Amended in the orderly way from 1994 to the present day. Recognising that this is probably the first amendment of the Constitution of Malawi since the day of Independence(6th July 1964), there might be two jurisdictional constitutions between 6th July 1964 and the present day(22nd August 2017). The first Constitution of the Laws of Malawi, has been applicable between the 6th July 1964 and 18th May 1994, and the second constitution has been applicable from 18th May 1994 - 22nd August 2017.

Before the establishment of the Country of Malawi in 1964, there has been a British Protectorate Of Central Africa established in May 1893 to 1st August 1907 when the Nyasaland protectorate was established separating it from the region covered by the British Protectorate which are in Accordance to the exploratory expeditions of Dr. David Livingstone.

It may be questioned why the boundaries of these regions are different but I think the difference emanates from the type of influence and the time of active influence over the regions due to the presence of Europeans during their journeys of exploration. I am sure has ended up evolving the culture of the regions in quite a different way to necessitate the establishment of the boundaries.

I may have to list down the Governments looking over the issues of the region covering Malawi as follows:
From observation, the governance of the British Central Africa Protectorate and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is applicable to the wider international region of the land which includes Malawi and long with present day Zambia and Zimbabwe, while the governance of Nyasaland Protectorate and Malawi is acting at national region of Malawi and seperate from the Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Laws of The British Protectorate are partially applicable to assets established within (1893 to 1907) by its government. The Laws of the Nyasaland Protectorate may be partially applicable to assets established within 1907 to 1964 by its government, the Laws of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland may be partially applicable to assets established within 1953 to 1963 by its governance, the Laws of Malawi which are active from 1964 to date, may be completely applicable applicable to assets established after 1964 and perhaps partially applicable to the assets established before 1964 by previous governments.

Issues of Nyasaland seem to transition over the national level but issues of the British Central African protectorate and Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland  seem to transition over the international region whose present day jurisdiction falls under SADC.The International jurisdictions seem to apply through diplomatic jurisdictions and international laws principles.

I should think such recognition of limitedness of jurisdiction of laws applicable to government and governance should reduce conflicts developing due to different expectations from the international community over the regions the governing entities have been active and their time of activity and the national community bound by the laws of the presently active government and governance of the Land of Malawi.