Online Reflection 3

I am Malala

I have chosen the English version of the book I Am Malala because I have been looking forward to read it ever since it was released in 2013. Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Price in 2013 because of her intense willingness and courage to standing up especially for female education, but education overall, in a society controlled by the Taliban.

The book gives you an inside view of how the every day life was and is in the Middle East, specifically in the northern Pakistan. It is a very describing story and, in my opinion, doesn’t hide the ugly truth. Malala gives a good description of how the Taliban got the power in her country Pakistan, why it escalated and how the western view of Islam and Muslims came to change. I think that it’s a very important story that the world should get to know, since there are too many people judging Islam and Muslims of the horrible actions made of the Taliban or other violent extremists in Muslim dominated countries. In the book she describes that the citizens were first mislead by a Taliban that urged he knew the correct way of living according to Islam and in that way become a better Muslim, which is important for the religious Muslims. After some softer statements like clothing and looks the more brutal statements came when the followers increased; prohibition of entertainment, women getting education, women leaving the home etc.. If the citizens didn’t follow this “correct” way of Islam, they would get punished. That’s why, in a brief summary, the Taliban got so much influence, because of the threats and “jihad” which affected they who didn’t want to follow the Taliban’s stupid ideas of the “correct” Islam. Just like Hitler got the German citizens to help him implement the holocaust. The fear of a human being might be the extinction of the homo sapiens, perhaps not thanks to the hermits but anyhow the educated part of the homo sapiens.

The proportion of violent Islamic extremists in Sweden in 2010 were 0,00002% of the population (not an totally safe source, but fair enough). The proportion of Muslims in Sweden is said to be around 5% (by a fresher investigation). That results in the fact that, quickly calculated, 99,99958% of the Muslims in Sweden gets the false stamp of xenophobic people, who believes that all Muslims are a threat to our lovely and kind country Sweden and Europe. Isn’t that insane? The media is making up an image that all Muslims are bad, why can’t they show us the beautiful and nice things of Muslims and the surroundings in the Middle East? I believe the percentage of xenophobic people would decrease is there were more bright images and some “get-to-know” interviews with people of the Middle East, like Malala. 

After reading this book I must say I’ve got a brighter view of the culture in the Middle East. One of my best friends is from Kurdistan, and he often tells me about the good food, gardens and other nice things from his country that is hard to believe since I’ve only seen the desert and ugly bombed cities from the Middle East on TV. Malala describes a very nice surrounding of her hometown too, so if there won’t be a nuclear war in the future I would happily go on vacation to one or some of the countries over there, when it gets a little safer.

Online Reflection 2

Why work doesn't happen at work

I found Jason Fried’s TED talk very interesting and can also relate to the subject. The idea that the working human doesn’t get the chance to work at their work because of their bosses and colleagues are interrupting all the time is totally true! I’ve heard the phrases “We have to make a meeting about this.” or “We should bring that up in the meeting.” too many times. There’s no way the employees can do their work with several meetings every week, especially when 10-15 minutes of the meetings consists of serving coffee and talking about irrelevant stuff. But I don’t believe in not having meetings at all, we have them for a reason. The great Percy Barnevik once said on a lecture “I hate meetings since they’re taking time and money. If it’s necessary to have a meeting, the solution is to have a standing meeting. Nobody likes to stand for a long time, therefore the meeting will be more productive.”. By having standing meetings with just the relevant staff the productivity would have been so much better in all companies.
  

The fact of bosses interrupting the employees with their work, well, I believe it’s a bad habit from leaders. They are just afraid of not accomplish the goals of the company, and with former lazy employees the trust could have been damaged. I do think that the higher you get in the company, the less need of bosses monitoring the employees. Sadly many employees on the “floor” needs the controlling of bosses since their ambitions often aren’t too high to get them to care of the company’s future, which is the leader’s big mission to change.

   I am a little cloven in the idea of forbidding social media at work or not. I think it’s a distraction, but my own experiences says that you should be grown up enough to resist Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. at work. I would feel ashamed if I surfed on the Internet at work, in my beliefs it’s like stealing money from the company. But of course breaks should be allowed and that you have the right to do what you want on them. Jason referred the surfing on the internet with taking a break for a smoke, but I don’t think the smoking is the same distraction as the Internet, since smoking isn’t as entertaining and you don’t get stuck in it for a longer time (on a break). What I mean isn’t that I prefer smokers to Internet nerds; smokers might be the biggest thieves since they combine smoking and social media! It’s easier to get lost in it since smokers leave the working spot, but non-smokers stays and get stressed etc. when they are surrounded by active employees.

  

I like how more leaders establishes a freer working day; starts between 7 and 9 am and ends between 15 and 17 pm or a totally free choice of place to work at. I saw a very fascinating documentary about a company in South America whose leader let his employees decide when and where to work, as long as they accomplished their weekly goals. It actually went very well and the employees were happy of the trustiness and their own responsibilities. In my opinion, the responsibilities and trustiness are the keys to a good working employee.

Online Reflection 1

Life under capital control

The situation in Greece is of course tragic, but also very interesting.
The interesting part is in the people of Greece, how they think and their proudness, even though the fact that they have had several economic crises under the 20th century. One can think ”Do they never learn?”. I myself think that it is very hard to put myself in their logical thinking in politics and rules. Isn’t it quite easy to do the calculation of when the inhabitants should retire without the economy getting hurt? There are several other countries in Europe that they could snap some ideas from, but in media it just seems like they don’t. The mistakes from the elder politicians are now hitting the new generation of Greece.

A country that has nothing can nothing much do. Or can it? Of course it can. Greece has the ultimate starting point. There is no way it can get worse, there is just one way, and that is to the better. Now is the time for the new generation to maybe suggest some risky ways of ruling the country. The tricky thing is to get out of the bad spiral, of course. It is indeed very hard to do anything without money. You can’t force the older generation to work longer if there are no jobs. And without jobs there are no incomes. And without incomes, there are no taxes to collect. And without taxes to maintain the country, there are no ways to come up with new jobs to the workforce and so on. What the politicians need to do is to figure out a plan. A plan that gets the business going again. When they have done that, then it is time to look after investors who are willing to see Greece as a modern country again, and who are okay with the thought of seeing the money in 70 years again or so.

So what’s up with the life under capital controls? Yes, it sucks, but instead of whining about it, start doing something about it! Easy for little me to say..