Nov 1st 2012 | Independent Skies Magazine | 1

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2 | Independent Skies Magazine | Nov 1st 2012

03 08-09

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How to believe...

How to believe...

Do you need it, or do you want it?

“… I will tell them that I can bring change.”

By Youssef Elrhailani

By Iskra Duchkovska

by Lara Schech

The Syrian revolution is nothing but a Qatari-Turkish gas pipeline

5TH ARTICLE???

By Bassem El Remesh

Nov 1st 2012 | Independent Skies Magazine | 3

continued next page...

How to believe...

By Youssef Elrhailani

The concept of religion is one among the most complicated philosophical de-bates in the history of philosophy. It contains many different relative meanings which make its comprehension more difficult than any other linguistic terms. From totem-ism and animism to magic and witchcraft, toward polytheism and monotheism and finally atheism. But neither chronological ordering nor rational linking is followed in

this general use of the term. Thus proving the complexity of convictions and diversity, which are the invisible structures behind our human nature. Yet, we find ourselves

confronted with a serious matter because we might get lost in the name of diversity. If all the ways lead to Rome, we must ask ourselves if all the ways lead to that I-do-

not-know-what which defends every religion in the God’s name or nothingness’ name and also if that I-do-not-know-what is worth to be the truth sought. Classical debates

concerning agnostics and believers, immanence and transcendence, or even those prolonged to a rational God revealed by Voltaire or Providence once pointed out by Pascal are just a concept limited to satisfy a spiritual need which can have some logi-cal basis, notwithstanding it is incapable to be proved against diversity. The quest will not justify the ends and judging the cults’ metaphysics is going to be a waste of time because we have no data on which we can base our arguments in order to perceive

a divine logic if, besides, it exists. If it is imperative not to ignore the abstract side, the answer of the existential question is enough without going into “how” things are

done...because it is not a pragmatic criterion which enables us to pass true judgement concerning disciplines. We admitted that everyone of us finds himself in a certain dis-

cipline and according to it; he builds certainties and firm convictions by which his ethi-cal framework is drawn, not systematically observed but all the same recognized as a moral base to which he resorts in the feeling of lost. However, we all stop our analyses there where we should conclude. It’s by re-doubting our convictions and making them under rational criticizes and by confronting them to those of others. The fact of know-ing, supposedly, some abstract proves which make the atheist not to believe in God,

or those which make Pascal followers believe in their God without proves, it will not be useful but destabilizing instead of making that feeling of inner peace. I was told that

inner peace is what must be taken on account actually, and I do respond by a conces-sion which, unfortunately, vexes me: Happiness is indeed the aim of every religion, but diversity and reality proved us that it is too relative to every person so that we cannot take it on account at the time of our analyses. Therefore, we must hold a contraposi-

tive reasoning which starts from physical reality to a metaphysical belief.

4 | Independent Skies Magazine | Nov 1st 2012

It’s a quite nice morning in Skopje, and even though it’s October it feels like May. Temperatures might reach 29 Celsius degrees today and yes, global warming I’m point-ing at you! Not a lot happened this past week except a new shopping mall opened near me. Now, my neighborhood is one of the quiet ones in Skopje. Or used to be, I should say. Ever since the doors of the mall got the “opened” signs on, thousands flooded the mall. Cars, buses full of people trying to see the new mall and spend their hard-earned money. Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand we like to buy new things and try new products, but do we really need all those goods?After properly educating myself on the subject, I am responsibly going to say no. We definitely don’t. We don’t need to buy a new cell phone after having our previous one for only a year (yup. iPhone lovers, it’s you I’m talking about). So, what is this „so-cial movement“, what triggers it and what is the after-effect?Consumerism is considered as some kind of social movement, social order or belief that encourages buying goods just for the sake of buying them. We are bombarded with advertisements encouraging us to go out, purchase and feel the “good life”. Most of these advertisements showcase happy fulfilled people with the products, creating the illusion that you are going to feel like that as well after purchasing. (A certain beverage brand that I won’t name has a commercial

Do you need it, or do you want it? by Iskra Duchkovska

Nov 1st 2012 | Independent Skies Magazine | 5

promoting “happiness in a bottle”) However, the increase of things we own is not making humans happier or healthier, accord-ing to studies. People are going in debt and working longer hours to pay for the high-consumption lifestyle, which of course results with depression, anger and feelings of worth-lessness. (Dave Ramsey – “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like.”)In the United States, there are more cars on the road than licensed drivers. People pay loads of cash for satellite TV with 600 channels when they are only going to watch 5-10 channels. Buying new gadgets which aren’t really new, just a bit modified.We are consumers, and we consume as it’s our job. Around 2 billion people belong to the consumer class, the group that desires better technology, bigger cars, houses, that main-tains a diet with highly-processed food. “As we enter a new century, this unprecedented consumer appetite is undermining the natural systems we all depend on, and making it even harder for the world’s poor to meet their basic needs.” -says Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute.That leads us to the after-effect consequenc-es of consumerism and the “buy and throw

away” mentality are of course pollution, wast-ing natural resources and the toll on ecosys-tems. Most of the environmental issues today can be linked to consumerism. More need equals more production which equals more pollution. So how do we escape it? It’s not simple. We can’t just stop buying. We can start with using the things we have until they are still usable, and not until they are „in“. I used my mobile phone for 4 years and only got a new one be-cause it broke. Also, pay less attention to com-mercials. Marketing crews are paid to make you feel like you need the product. They are paid to turn you into a consumer. There is no liquid happiness in a bottle. And no, you don’t need both the red and blue purse. Consider spending money on traveling and excursions over buying more stuff. Think hand-made! Nothing beats a nicely hand-made gift for Christmas. You don’t have to spend money to show your loved ones you love them. Changes like these help your budget and also help the environment. Consumerism is a disease of the 21 century and we are not immune. Maybe we could stop buying and throwing away, and reusing? Are the things on the shelves really better that those you already have?

Until next time,

6 | Independent Skies Magazine | Nov 1st 2012

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words..... well, read the next 1000 words and you will know that there is no picture in the world that can describe what is said here”

- Almustafa M. Khalid (Founder)

“… I will tell them that I can bring change.”

by Lara Schech

Gaelle, 16, is from Port-Au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. She is one of the very first two students from Haiti that are able to attend a United World College. Since September she now lives and studies to-gether with young people from all around the world at the Li Po Chun United World College of Hong Kong. I have talked to Gaelle about her dreams and goals - and how they were influenced by the earth-quake in 2010. This is her story.

In the beginning it was very hard for me to come here to Hong Kong. As far as I remember, around thirty people from Haiti applied for the United World Colleges. We had to sit an examination on chemistry, biology and other subjects, and we were interviewed as part of the admission pro-cess.

Two people got scholarships in the end; a boy, who is now in the Lester B. Pear-son UWC in Canada, and me. In the first weeks, I had problems in LPC. I missed my family, I wanted to go back and I struggled with the English language. Now I am fine. I have realized that I am here for a rea-son, for something important that is worth

more than anything else. You must know, in my country, in Haiti, it is hard to real-ize your own dreams. As it happened to some of my family members; sometimes people finish school but they still can’t go to university. You have to fight with a du-rable mind and an even stronger will, and still it is not certain if you will succeed in the end. This year, with this scholarship, everything has changed for me.

I’m here in LPC, in Hong Kong, and I am very proud of what I have achieved. With that I don’t mean simply being at a United World College. I am proud because I have the opportunity to do something today, tomorrow, that so many people back at home would like to do, but can’t. I will have the chance to go to the UK, or the US, to study at university. Hundreds at home are trying to get only a single visa to the US. They want to travel there and then secretly hide, so that they don’t have to come back to Haiti. But it is very difficult to be granted a visa to the US.

You must know, Haiti is very poor. Educa-tion is a big issue. I think, around 40% of all children don’t go to school. Seven-year-olds eat, sleep and live in the streets. They have no family, no home. Especially after the earthquake, things have worsened. I witnessed it happening, back in January 2010. I sat in my house, studying biology for school. Suddenly I heard something. At first, I thought it was a car in front of my house. But soon I became afraid; wonder-ing, what car could make such noise. The floor started to tremble. My room was on the second floor, and the basement un-derneath simply crashed. I fell. I thought my life was over. But I did not get hurt. I survived. It was like a miracle. Yet, when I crawled out, everything around me had broken into chaos. I saw so many people bleeding, everybody was crying. It was a disaster. You feel like life is over, there is nothing to do anymore. You are not dead, but you don’t feel alive either. I was walk-

Nov 1st 2012 | Independent Skies Magazine | 7

ing up and down the streets, stepping on dead people, tripping over their bodies. So many had died, so many were injured. I know someone who lived in a house to-gether with nine others. He was the only one who survived. There are so many sto-ries like this. I lost my best friend. We were in the same school. It was on a Tuesday, the earthquake, and she had been mad at me because I had said something wrong in class. In the afternoon, right before the earthquake, I called her. I apologized, and she said it was okay, we would talk the next day. At 4:53 her house collapsed and she died, together with one of her brothers.

My family was lucky. My mother broke only her arm. My aunt was close to death but she made it. The day after the earthquake we went to Mirebalais, where some of our family lived. We did not have a car, but our relatives drove all the way to Port-Au-Prince. They couldn’t call us, they did not know if we were still alive, but they came neverthe-less to look for us. We stayed not far from where our house had been, so we found each other and they took us away. So many dead, so many injured … My sister was at school, when the school building fell apart. She was alright. But so many others were not. Everything in Port-Au-Prince stopped. In the night, nobody slept. Everybody was scared. We didn’t know what would happen next. Everything was destroyed. For three hours after the earthquake, we could not see anything. The dust was stuck in the air, thick and heavy. All we could do was wait till it had settled. Then I looked at the de-struction, I could not believe it. Chaos was everywhere, people crying, screaming. Men had lost their wives, women their husbands, parents their children and children their par-ents. It was the worst thing that happened in my life, the worst day of my life.

Today, there is still so much left of this di-saster. But I won’t cry, after all it is two years ago. I just go ahead. It will never be like it was before the earthquake. Haiti, my country, might never rise again. You must

know, only two years after the earthquake, we are still in the same state as back then: people without houses sleep in the street and in tents, with no place to stay. It is hard for my country, very hard indeed. But I have to follow my own path. God has a plan for me, so I have to go on.

My biggest dream is becoming a doctor. For me, being a doctor is like being a savior. You don’t give life, but you try to save lives. Be-fore the earthquake I wanted to become an engineer, like my older brother. But after the earthquake I said “No, I want to be a doc-tor”. So many people died, because there were and are still not enough hospitals. For me, being a doctor is something wonderful, something powerful. You have the opportu-nity to change something. When I’m a doc-tor I’ll go back, back to Haiti, my country. My first action will be to build a hospital, no, five hospitals in Port-Au-Prince. I will go to the other cities as well, and build hospitals. Of course, it will be hard: I can’t work in all the hospitals at the same time! But there will be other doctors, because so many children in Haiti share this dream of mine, especial-ly after the earthquake. We will have many doctors. We need them.

When I go back, I also want to open an or-phanage. That is my second dream, right after becoming a doctor. There are so many children without a home, without a family. I want to help them. Being here in LPC is the biggest gift that God could have given me in this moment, after the earthquake. And it’s not only because of the academic oppor-tunities. I am so excited to learn all about other countries! I am very proud to be here. My parents are very proud as well. I think for them it’s one of their biggest achieve-ments, to see their youngest daughter here in Hong Kong, at a United World College. I’ll go back to Haiti in winter and summer, for the holidays, to see my family. I will tell them about LPC. I will tell them about everything I experienced here. I will tell them that I found a second family. And I will tell them that I can bring change.

8 | Independent Skies Magazine | Nov 1st 2012

In the recent days so many articles have been written that talked about a theory that the Syrian revolution is nothing but a Turkish-Qatari plan to make a new project that will change the politi-cal balance in the Middle East: Qatari-Turkish-EU gas pipeline.

THE SYRIAN REVOLUTION IS NOTHING BUT A

QATARI-TURKISH GAS PIPELINE PLAN

By Bassem El Remesh

Nov 1st 2012 | Independent Skies Magazine | 9The theory seems reasonable, as in the Qatari-Turkish co-op-eration has been increasing the past few years and common goals are evolving. This evolu-tion in relations has increased dramatically since the begin-ning of the Arab spring, where Turkey took advantage to pro-mote the moderate Islamic par-ties and Qatar started exploiting businesses and natural resourc-es.Plans went good in Egypt, Tuni-sia and Libya. The latter was the biggest fish of all, where Turkey and Qatar (members of NATO) got involved in and financed a well written plan that has ended the 40 years old Gaddafi regime. This was followed by new oil contracts and agreements, and a conference when Mr. Abdul Jaleel (head of the former NTC) announced that NATO will re-main in Libya under the Qatari leadership.

The time for Syria has come, but the Syrian issue woke up a big brother that has been watching in silence, The Russian Federa-tion. But why did Russia ignore Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi and some other allies who we essen-tial to its political power in the

Area?This brings us to the argu-ment that there is something in Syria more im-portant than the regime Rus-sia and China are fighting for. And it seems that the plan in Syria is way be-yond a regime or ideology, and that the Qatari-Turkish twin plans have messed with a world power-something that they should not have done.

It appears that the theory has came to be true, Qatar-the num-ber one natural gas producer- wants to produce more and supply Europe. Europe, wants to be supplied with cheaper gas. Turkey also wants cheaper gas and wants to benefit from its strategic location and have an influence over the European countries in order to be able to join the EU. Therefore, a gas pipleline that passes from Qa-tar-through the red sea shore- to Isreal passing though Beirut, reaching Syria and then Turkey, which will in turn supply Europe

with continuous gas production coming from Qatar.I know it looks confusing, the point is, a gas pipeline has to pass from Qatar through Syria to reach Europe. This has angered the Russians, the main gas sup-plies to Europe. And this is actu-ally what the plan is all about, reduce the dependence on the Russian gas following the crisis of the Russian-Ukraine boycott that had awakened Europe on the danger that Russian can im-pose on them.Now, the Russian federation is using the VETO power to un-dermine any plan that does not secure its exclusive right to produce gas to Europe and will keep serving the Syrian regime until an agreement is reached.However, this is still a theory, and the reality is that there are thousand of Syrians being killed everyday by the ruthless regime that is still thriving to power. This theory is not an argument against the Syrian revolution, rather an unfolding of the truth and an eye opening for the Syr-ians in order to make better de-cisions for their future after they over throw Assad’s Regime by their own will without any for-eign intervention.

THE SYRIAN REVOLUTION IS NOTHING BUT A

QATARI-TURKISH GAS PIPELINE PLAN

10 | Independent Skies Magazine | Nov 1st 2012

If you are a regular reader of ISM you would have noticed we like publishing 5 articles per issue, but why not this time????

Well, I would like to use the space of the last article in this issue to thank Quentin Yiu our de-signer for all the work he has done for ISM.

In mid-April this year I talked to Quentin about the idea of Independent Skies, he was a very busy art student at the time….. “Give me 3 days” He said. And 3 days later he told me that ISM’s idea is good and he will be happy to help out.

Since then we have worked together very hard to bring ISM to what it is now, building it from scratch.

Quentin is studying architecture; you probably know how intense that is…. And thought that he will not be able to contribute as much to ISM as he did in the past.

This is the last issue he will be producing for ISM; he has been a great team member….. Some-one that I am glad I worked with for the past 7 months.

Quentin, I would like to thank you on behalf of the team for your great efforts and outstand-ing commitment towards ISM, and I would also like to tell you that your place will always be reserved if you think you can volunteer again.

On behalf of the ISM team,Please accept our warmest regards and good luck my friend,Almustafa M. KhalidFounder and Editor in Chief Independent Skies Magazine

5TH ARTICLE???

Nov 1st 2012 | Independent Skies Magazine | 11

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