Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The seventh annual Inter-Hotel Cricket tournament won the hearts of all, not just in the successful team efforts of all 26 teams that participated, but for the efforts of ‘playing for cause’ to support those in need.
While The Ritz-Carlton, Bahrain held its winning title defeating the Regency Intercontinental in the final match, the big winner came in from money raised to support the 2018 beneficiary, Alia for Early Intervention.
This year’s tournament once again raised around $10,000. Teams from different hotels were part of the excitement, and we would like to congratulate them all and look forward to an even bigger event next year.
Awais Rafik, event organiser.
I was delighted to read in the media that the Northern Governorate was taking steps this year to encourage people to minimise waste during Ramadan ... but dismayed to read that the Southern Governorate’s response to the same issue is to increase clean-ups from twice-a-day to a four-shift 24-hour rota.
I know which policy makes more sense. What do you think?
Sarah Clarke, Bahrain.
Spring of Culture 2018 has come to an end! We’d like to thank all the artists and our sponsors who helped to make the season such a success. Above all, we’d like to thank our audiences for joining us!
The Spring of Culture outdoor theatre at Bahrain Bay was home to one unforgettable performance after another, including Majid Jordan, Rita Ora, above, Abdallah Al Rowaished & Nabil Shuail, Likwid and Friends, James Arthur, and Ragheb Alama.
We hope GulfWeekly readers enjoyed the festival, and we look forward to welcoming them again next year.
Spring of Culture team.
Thank you for highlighting The Manama Singers performance at the Dilmun Club in last week’s issue. We have already received requests from people interested in singing with us!
To join in rehearsals staged every Tuesday evening between 7pm-9pm please email me.
Jo Mings, musical director.
Today many believe that advanced business and banking is a European or even American invention, while the Middle East is a place of eternal conflict. In fact, the first enterprises and banks evolved in Iraq and Syria, 4,000 years ago. For most of human history, the bazaars of Aleppo, Baghdad and Hormuz have been prosperous centres of global commerce.
Iranians, Arabs, Turks, Jews, Kurds, Armenians and the myriad of people who inhabit the Middle East have widely different cultures. Yet they are all dealers and hagglers, with market exchange almost encoded into their cultural DNA.
One can make a comparison with the story of trigonometry. Millions of students throughout the world are today taught that trigonometry is a Greek invention. The truth, historians have recently found, is that Babylonians invented trigonometry many generations before the Greeks. Similarly, businesses, banks and the free market model all evolved in Mesopotamia a thousand years before they spread to Europe.
The ancient market model in the Middle East was quite advanced. Astronomical diaries written by Babylonian researchers kept track of how market prices fluctuated from one month to another. Even free market economic policies are rooted in the Middle East. Cyrus the Great, the ancient Persian king famous for establishing human rights 2,500 years ago, is also the first known statesman to believe in free market policy.
There have always been two different forms of Western approaches to the Middle East. One is to trade openly, such as Venetians did during the Renaissance. By combining the Middle Eastern market model with their own ideas, the Venetians, in fact, gave rise to the modern capitalist model which today has spread to most of the world.
The other approach is that of the British Empire. The British, who invaded and colonised much of the planet, actively shut out places such as Persia, China, and India from the global marketplace. Colonialism, oil-dependency, wars and Marxist ideology worked in combination to create economic stagnation in the Middle East.
Today the US is continuing the British approach of gunboat diplomacy and sanctions. Sweden and other smaller Western nations, however, have a long tradition of free exchange with Middle Eastern countries. In this regard, the US can learn much from Sweden. It is ultimately not possible to ‘fix’ the Middle East with military intervention. Encouraging free market exchange is the only peaceful way forward.
Dr Nima Sanandaji, by email.
Editor’s note: Dr Nima is releasing her book The Birthplace of Capitalism: The Middle East, with the aim of ‘rewriting the story of capitalism’, with a book tour starting in Stockholm and ending in Belgrade.
