THE EDITOR: I sincerely believe that we are at a transitional point in history and I for one am glad to be witnessing it. I've lived to see:
• Nelson Mandela being set free in 1990, during South African apartheid, after being unjustly imprisoned for 27 years.
• The fall of the Berlin Wall.
• The ushering in of the CD and how it cannibalised the cassette tape before itself was relegated in favour of an ultraportable, higher-density storage.
• An economic depression.
• The destruction of the World Trade Centre's Twin Towers in New York.
• The invasion and occupation of Iraq in response to intel on weapons of mass destruction, which have not been found to this day, 20 years after.
• The unveiling of the iPhone and its revolutionising of the mobile phone industry and seeing all the incredible self-accelerating technologies it spawned.
• Tesla leading innovation in electric cars with its sexy designs and ludicrous performance.
• The Fugees reuniting for Dave Chappelle's birthday before disbanding again.
• The inauguration of US president Barrack Obama.
• A pandemic.
• Man going on ridiculously expensive trips to space for 11 minutes and then returning.
• An ambitious Rwanda building its first gold refinery to process the precious stone in Africa, so the raw materials don't have to leave the continent.
• The assassination of Muammar Gaddafi.
• The death of icons: Michael Jackson, Prince, Aretha Franklin, Lord Kitchener and LeRoy Clarke.
As a proud child of the 80s, I've seen these things.
What a time to be alive!
It is estimated that the US Government spent more than US$2.3 trillion in the last two decades financing a war against Iraq and Afghanistan. With interest it will inflate to about US$6.5 trillion over the next 30 years. To what avail?
Now the Taliban have snatched Afghanistan from US occupation with just a fraction of the number of US troops. The new rulers sit on insane deposits of copper, ferrite, gold, ruby, sapphire, quartz, sulfur, bauxite, lithium, natural gas and oil. And that's just to name a few. To compound their value based on the minerals of their land, China and Russia have already stated that they will 'work with' the Taliban.
The Middle Eastern country, under righteous leadership, is poised to potentially and single-handedly invigorate and bolster the world's energy ambitions while concurrently altering the course of the climate discussion and the implications of global warming going forward.
Unequivocally, we are at a pivotal point in history. What a time to be alive!
KOFI BLADES
via e-mail
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