One Million Voices
October 29, 2007

A friend just sent me an email asking me to sign the One Million Voices petition
Here was my response

I just signed it.
If adding palestine (as yet another arabstate to a region that already has 23, while the Kurds, the Armenians and various other important ethnic minorities do not) brings peace to the region, then I am all for it.
But I think that the petition mis-characterises the problem. In Munich 1938, Chamberlain and other people of good will wanted peace, and signed a document with hitler that supposedly promised peace, but it still did not stop World War II.
What is required is for people to call evil by its name, and stand against it.
To see someone call evil by its name, see the following link.
I just signed it.
If adding palestine (as yet another arab state to a region that already has 23, while the Kurds, the Armenians and various other important ethnic minorities do not) brings peace to the region, then I am all for it.
But I think that the petition mis-characterises the problem. In Munich 1938, Chamberlain and other people of good will wanted peace, and signed a document with hitler that supposedly promised peace, but it still did not stop World War II.
What is required is for people to call evil by its name, and stand against it.
To see someone call evil by its name, see the following link.
http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/trailer.php
Or check out Wafa Sultan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafa_Sultan
Or Ayaan Hirsi Ali
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayaan_Hirsi_Ali

To which he responded:

Thanks. I can’t help feeling we’re all living in a twilight zone – nationalism is rising everywhere (witness the Scots, the Walloons etc.), yet we’re also beginning to acknowledge that we live on one planet (witness climate change etc.) in one globalised, economic system. If nothing else, given that political change generally lags economic change, this suggests to me that (a) nation-states are becoming less relevant, though there will probably be more of them, and (b) the multilateral institutions need an overhaul. Where this leaves us on Israel/Palestine in the medium-long term, I confess I don’t know.

And to which I responded:

European nationalism is benign to me – the regions are asserting their identity, but they are not threatening to secede from the European Union, or from our global civilisation. Islamism, on the other hand, is thoroughly nefarious, and does not hold to the same standards of civilized conduct. For as long as Arab societies are held hostage by the Islamists, there will not be much doing on the peace front. There is school of thought here in the US that much of Europe has been lost to Islamism, as they begin to hold those societies hostage to threats of violence.
I’m not sure if the UN can be overhauled. I think that it is rotten to the core.

I’m a Zurich based investor. Since 1997, I’ve managed a privately offered investment fund known as the Aquamarine Fund.

I am also the author of a book titled The Education of a Value Investor, which was published in 2014.

As I wrote in my book, we are all a work in progress. This site documents my ongoing quest for “wealth, wisdom and enlightenment”.

I have created a /now page – inspired by Derek Sivers

I’m a Zurich based investor. Since 1997, I’ve managed a privately offered investment fund known as the Aquamarine Fund.

I am also the author of a book titled The Education of a Value Investor, which was published in 2014.

As I wrote in my book, we are all a work in progress. This site documents my ongoing quest for “wealth, wisdom and enlightenment”.

I have created a /now page – inspired by Derek Sivers