Time Bomb of Foreign Employment

By: Bikal Dhungel

The UN estimated that at the end of 2013, there were 232 million international migrants worldwide. This number is increasing. Most of these people emigrate for employment purposes. The total amount migrants transfer to their family, called remittance flow has reached 414 billion dollars ( World Bank ). This figure is almost four times the total Official Development Aid ( ODA ) of 135 billion dollars ( OCED ) in the same year. The Middle East attracts a handsome number of migrants as countries like Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar etc having more migrants than the native population. Thank to the discovery of oil, these countries were turned from deserts to a powerhouse of world economy supplying oil needed to run the economies of other countries. They are highly dependent on migrant workers.

South Asian countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan etc have large number of youth forces working in the middle east. Nepal records the peak of over 3.2 million people living in foreign countries for employment purposes. Remittance Flow hence, is one of the major source of income and comprise of 22% of GDP. Out of the total workforce of 15 million people, 3.2 million or roughly one fifth , generating the amount of GDP that is also one fifth implies that per person, the foreign migrants are sending the equal amount of money that they would earn at home if they had a job. But job is not available at home. In this case, foreign employment is an opportunity to gain hard currencies but we should also keep in mind that creating jobs at home would bring back the migrant workers immediately in contrast to the argument of some policy makers who argued that due to higher earning in foreign countries, outward migration would continue whatsoever. It will certainly be this way, if the total earnings will be increased and if the labour standards will improve. However, it is true that remittance flow has made things possible that would not be in its absence. For example the children of migrant workers can attend the school or enjoy better nutrition for the time until one family member sends money home.

Despite all good things about remittance flow it would be economically correct to say that it is a time bomb ticking towards the end. We should consider the economic vulnerability of countries where most migrant workers are stationed. These are oil exporting countries and oil is limited. So, they should find other ways to sustain their economies in the future. In addition to that, many European countries for example are switching to Green Energy. Still, this is the issue of the future too far away. Current issue is the end of construction boom. Looking back to history, after World War II, all the countries that were involved or destroyed had a high growth in the decades following due to reconstruction and then booming years. Germany started to grow in the fifties, boomed in the sixties and slowly sustained at a low growth until the German economy did not need foreign workers and chancellor Willy Brandt called for “Anwerbestop”/No Recruitment in foreign countries. Japan had a similar story. After a large destruction in World War II including two atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, already after 30 years it became worlds second largest economy only behind the US. South Korea and few other East-Asian countries share similar stories but then stopped growing and sustained at some point. The same trend is visible in China today. After Mao's death when Deng Xiaoping embraced a free market economy, China started to grow. It had a double digit growth for around three decades. China overtook the UK, then France, then Germany and Japan and stand today as second largest economy of the world. China has more than twice the economy of Japan and more than half of the US economy. Napoleon Bonaparte once said “ Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world “. She indeed shaked but now the cooling down phase has arrived. China of course wants to be the Super Power, the number one economy of the world, the richest country. There are also forecasters who say that China will indeed overtake the US around 2035. However, we should keep in mind that the US is still the most scientific country of the world with fantastic educational institutes and research centers. Having a look at top 100 universities in the world, 45 are from the US and only 2 from China (Times higher education, 2014). The US Army spends more money than the next top 12 countries combined. The US Army controls whole waterways of the world so it can sink every ship it wants and watch them whenever it likes. The US Army is deployed in more than 150 countries around the world, which we do not hear in the news that often. In Germany alone over 40,000 US soldiers are stationed mainly in Rammstein, Wiesbaden, Kaiserslautern and 18 other cities Similarly, there are US Army bases in Japan, South Korea, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey etc, which are strategically important places and they can launch war any time anywhere. Why I mentioned this is to say that China will not be a world power, at least not in next 100 years. Moreover, the US is one country, with a stable democracy and exemplary degree of freedom. It has one language and people from the whole world, highly qualified ones choose the US instead of China. China has huge disparity between rural and urban region. It doesn’t even have one language. There are 55 minority groups, some of them prone to conflicts like in Xinjiang or Tibet. China has ongoing border problems with all of its big neighbours including India, Pakistan and Vietnam. It still has a totalitarian government that massively restricts the freedom of people. The ruling party is still called “The Communist Party of China “ which doesnt allow freedom of speech, a vital factor for change, innovation and development. So, China's growth might not last longer.

With the same hypothesis, we can also forecast that rich countries of the middle east will shrink in the coming years or decade. When Qatar finishes building all its stadium for World Cup 2022, the labours used should return to their countries. Similarly, after all the needed infra-structures are built in UAE or Saudi Arabia, labours should return home. In the worst scenario, when another Economic Crisis hit in these countries, same labour forces are the ones to get hit first. But even without assuming the worst case, after all the construction works are done, a large part of migrants will return, without any benefits because they are temporary workers. The ones who will face consequences are their families who are so dependent on them. Once you are used to spending a certain amount of money, it is very difficult if there is suddenly no money coming. So, the family would stop consuming required nutrients, children will be out of school and there is a risk of being pushed to extreme poverty in a short time. If the Remittance will not be spent IN NEPAL now, we will face this problem. Current situation is, they are not spent. Nepalese import a large portion of foods from abroad mainly India and China. Since they are getting money transferred from abroad, they have increased their calories intake through more foods. But these foods were not produced in Nepal. When Nepalese for example demand more food, the entrepreneur in India invests more, produce more and sell more to Nepalese. So, the remittance flow is ending up in India and China because we buy their products. If the money is spent in Nepal, it would create jobs and even in the times of crisis, the situation will not be as bad as in the absence of investment. This is simple: just have a look at the list of items we import from India, then have a look if we can produce these goods locally (mostly yes ) and if so, get an expertise and invest. Nepal for example imports hundreds of tons of chicken every day, it imports vegetables like tomato, beans, green leaves but also other materials like pencils, pens, text books, cloths, etc. These few items can also be produced at home. But for this, the government should bring expertise, teach people how to do this, where to do this, then there will be a huge change. At least in agricultural sector, we are starting to see this change, which is positive. Buying goods locally would be cost efficient as we save a huge cost in transportation and import tax. This is also environmentally friendly. By this way, we can generate millions of jobs.

But in this essay, it is about Remittance. So, my point is, what will happen when all of a sudden, migrants come home ? In today's situation, people are sending money, they have money and they buy more foods. Still, the food production is somehow limited. That is why, it caused the rise in prices. The prices are now so high that the average goods price in comparison to 15 years before has quadrupled. This is also because of the policy of printing money by the previous government which simply raises the price and bring inflation but nothing more than that. So, when people suddenly have no income, they have no money to buy daily foods but the prices will remain the same. All of a sudden, they are unable to buy foods and there will be a high food shortage. Sure, when people cannot afford to buy foods, the prices will also go down but this is a slow process. Prices almost never go down all of a sudden rather do slowly. But people need foods and goods in a daily basis, so they might have a big problem. Moreover, in most of the places in the world, when similar scenario arises, the sellers tend to hide the foods, in order to stop the falling price. If few of them do this, it is not bad but if a large number of sellers or a big suppliers do this, it will have a huge effect. This is also the case with food speculation that caused thousands of death in Africa and South Asia in the recent years. So, the end of boom years will slow down the economy of the middle east, but in countries like Nepal, it might be the matter of life and death. The transition period when people cannot afford to buy and when price start to go down, this will be very critical. Unless the government intervene in the market, we will have a big crisis of hunger which will cause many deaths. Consequently, it will also keep people poor undermining their capacity to afford in the future. This is the period when the time bomb will explode.

So, to stop this bomb from exploding, it is necessary to create a business environment of investment. First step is again government. Through training programs for the youth, the government can initiate the project and also invite the private sector to provide supervision, with profit, which in-turn will motivate others to start the business. There are many people who have ideas and courage but no financial security to take a loan. The government can be the financial guarantee for such people. Slowly it will lead to the investment of money earned in foreign countries in Nepal itself and even in the day when 3 million migrant workers come back home, it will be business as usual and perhaps, nobody should die. Hence, start producing foods in Nepal, start businesses, do not consume all the remittances you receive rather save some for the rainy days, prioritize local products whenever it is possible. This will be the take 'off of ' of growth that brought some successful stories of Economic Development in some countries mentioned above.  

Why Economists should not be blamed

By: Bikal Dhungel

Since the financial crisis of 2007/2008, everybody have turned to be a kind of Economist. For the several years following, even until today, the news are filled with things related to finance, economics, crisis, recessions, depressions etc. A large majority also believe that Economists are responsible for the crisis. In a public lecture in the London School of Economics, Queen Elizabeth II asked the panel “ Why didnt you know the crisis coming ? “. This looks like a simple question but yet a tough one. Why didnt the economists see the crisis coming actually ? What do they study in the university and does it make sense to study economics if the crisis come and hit the society and economists look and see and are helpless about it ?

But wait, are all doctors healthy ? Do all designers live in perfectly designed homes ? Are all marriage counsellors happily married ? The answer is no and this complex thing called a government is not only filled with economists. Actually Economists only contain a tiny fraction of the government. Most politicians also turn to be a lawyer with no training in economics. They also tend to focus less on efficiency as the economists do, which can also be good in some sense but when things go wrong, the blame should not be faced by Economists alone. I will give few example about important times in history when economists knew what is going to happen but still the mainstream politics rejected it and only realised this when it was too late.

Ludwig von Mises, in his book called 'Socialism' which he wrote in 1922, predicted the fall of Soviet Communism. (Source: Mises Institute ) Mises's prediction of the fall was based on the lack of information that a country cannot have from its market. This means, the central planning would not know what to produce and how much to produce. The most efficient way of doing this is to let the market do itself though the invisible hand of Adam Smith. The problem of this calculation and central planning would lead to the fall of socialism/communism. Infact, this happened in many parts of the world in the coming days. China, having embraced the communist system has now completely rejected the idea and took free market policy which resulted in double digit growth for more than 3 decades which brought over 600 million people out of poverty. China is the most successful story of economic development in human history and this was made possible by free market system and not by planned economy within communism.

But listening to Ludwig von Mises was far from reality.

During the same time, another pioneer of Economics or to be more exact, Keynesianism was the British economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynes told that a limited government intervention in the economy would help to solve the crisis or in other words, a limited government intervention is necessary. Most social-market economies of the European Union like Germany or Scandinavian Countries today run mostly on Keynesian policies.

After World War I ended in 1918, in the Treaty of Versaillies, the allied powers, Britain, France etc imposed reparation charges on Germany which had to pay for their damage. Keynes published a book called “ The Economic consequences of the Peace “ presenting the account of payments Germany should pay. He wrote that Germany was told to pay more than it caused damage or it was not fair. This would radicalise Germany in the future and can even invite another world war. Critics blamed Keynes for being a supporter of Germany. The wall street crash of 1929 indeed radicalised Germany and gave birth to Adolf Hitler who had plans to create a 1000 year lasting German Empire and regain the territories it lost after World War II. Hitler was democratically elected the Chancellor of Germany in 1933 and the war began in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. It is still unknown what would have happened without such a high war repairing payments imposed on Germany but this has surely radicalised the German people.

Third example is more recent, the crisis of 2007/2008. Friedrich Hayek from the Austrian School of Economics wrote in the sixties that deregulation is dangerous. If we deregulate the financial sector providing easy credits to the people, the rate of borrowing will increase and borrowing might take place without a collateral. This can also lead to borrowing for the sake of speculation. Hayek pointed out that the borrowing bubble will increase and finally burst causing the financial crisis that will eventually lead to economical crisis. What happened before 2007 was the same. Since the decade before, the financial industry was deregulated and borrowing was easier. At the same time, few significant banks acted unethically meaning borrowing to people without security who then failed to pay back their debts. The crisis was mainly brought by the housing market of the US. Banks like Northern Rock, Goldman Sachs etc default and the crisis hit in the large scale. What happened after that was the politicians campaigning for regulation of financial industry which they achieved in some degree and today another crisis due to the same reason is unlikely. The crisis was again foreseen by an economist almost 50 years ago.

Moreover, the financial industry is responsible for the crisis who acted unethically. So, blaming the economists for the mess is not logical. A close cooperation between the policy makers and economists would lead to a stable society.  

The Limits of Pacifism

By: Bikal Dhungel

Non-violence is a powerful weapon. It knelled down an empire where the sun never set. However, where is the limit of non-violence ? Where is the limit of pacifism ? Had the British continually opened fire on the non-violent protesters in India, would they continue to believe in Gandhi ? How long would Nelson Mandela accept the massacre of his people from violent armed forces ?


Unfortunately, our history is mixed. Non-violence in the case of South Africa, India and the Civil Rights movement in America under Martin Luther King Junior had success but on the other hand, not confronting the oppressors violently with weapon has caused millions of lives. The Rwandan Genocide, when the Hutu Militants massacred a million people of Tutsi ethnic group within three months, the world looked away. They refused to take action. The international community could send the army to Rwanda to stop the Hutus from killing. Even the United Nations pulled out from Rwanda. Later, the US president Bill Clinton apologized publicly for not sending the US Army to Rwanda. He could have saved one million people. Similarly, the question goes further, shall we tolerate terrorist groups and tackle them non-violently ? Would non-violence works against Al Quida or Taliban or Boko Haram or any other extremist groups ?

Recently, radical Islamists called ISIS calling for an Islamic State forced more than 200,000 Kurds to flee northern Iraq and killed more than 1000 people as of 10^th August. The international community is tired of sending troops abroad which is connected with huge costs and causality but feel their responsibility to act. This is why countries like France and UK decided to send weapons for the kurdish forces to fight back the islamists. Most pacifist Germany also decided to take part in the operation. Not doing anything against the radicals would result in massive loss of human lives and infra-structures. So, being attached on pacifism is not always a right thing to do. Saving human lives in any cost should be the priority. If weapons can be used to save lives, we should do it.



Imagine what would have happened if the NATO had not bombed Kosovo, imagine what would Hitler do if the allied forces had not reacted in time. So, if weapons could be used to kill people, it can also be used to save people and install peace. We should only make sure that weapons do not end at wrong hands but in general , sticking to Pacifism can be dangerous in some situation and we should know the limits of this.

Depression: Disease of the future

By: Bikal Dhungel 

Death of Robin Williams ( a Hollywood star ) shows that Depression has nothing to do with money. It can affect the rich as well as other classes. The World Health Organisation states that worldwide 350 million or more people of all ages are suffering with depression which can lead to suicide if no action is taken. 

The matter of concern is if the treatment is available. In the least developed countries, there are barely any psychologists or psychotherapists actively involving in treating depression. In rich Europe, for example in Germany, the patient should wait 3 months in average to meet a psycho therapist. This is a long time for somebody suffering with this disease. The WHO points that there are several influencing factors of depression namely social, psychological and biological.

The social factor is what one can make change in.

Our society is moving towards more individualism. Individualism in one way has helped the western society to thrive as people had more time to think and discover creative ideas which later helped the society as a whole. On the other side, it is not without faults. People became more focused on themselves, their jobs or whatever they do but in an individualistic manner. One had to wait until Christmas and Easter to meet their families. One had to take an appointment to meet friends. This created loneliness. On the other hand, the society moved towards performance oriented one, materialistic one and one that values 'being', 'achieving', 'doing' etc more than anything else.

The result was emotional distress. People started to compare themselves with others and persued to do more than their peers by working overtime, by disregarding their health and relationships.

To enjoy the little time they have, people prefer to use things where they dont need other people like playing video games, other games in the internet, doing things alone, watching TV or spent time in internet. To feel being loved, one should go to the places like Disco today.

We humans are naturally social beings, we have lived in societies throughout the history and our pattern of life today is unnatural, it is a new process that we just know since recently. Lack of proper human connections, our thoughts cannot be expressed as we wish to be, our feelings are not being shared, they are being pressed in our minds and our mind is not peaceful. This resulted in anxiety, stress and eventually depression. Stress and depression are mostly found in western, individualistic society. More and more people are suffering with burn-out syndrome and the authorities are helpless about how to tackle this issue as this cause an enormous economic burden on the society. Billions of working hours are lost on absenteeism yearly due to stress related reasons.

Other factors like inequality, joblessness, financial burdens, health problems are adding oil to this problem. At least some countries have started to understand this problem and enacted rules and regulations to tackle the issue. For example in Sweden, 6 hours of daily work was tried. If this experiment works, people have more time for their family, friends and time to spend on the things they love or their hobbies. This might make them happy and lower the risk of stress or depression.

The number of people signing themselves for Yoga or other form of meditation is also increasing. It took a long time for the scientific community to accept that mindfulness is indeed a science rather than a religious belief. Even some universities started to teach mindfulness. However, this only is not enough. People should be encouraged to do more physical activities, eat healthy foods, invest on their health, invest time on things that make them happy, practice love and compassion etc. This will reduce the number of people suffering with depression.

A public health approach is needed to realise this. For example a safe cycling highway might be necessary if we want to encourage people to cycle rather than drive cars. If the road is dangerous, this might not be logical. The Danish capital of Copenhagen has established itself as the most bicycle friendly city in the world and more people cycle to work than anywhere else. Health insurance companies are studying if paying people to join the Fitness Club would reduce their cost of sickness. The result is yet to come.

For a society without stress and depression, we need to change few things and namely: using technology to make our life simpler but not overusing it and making us so addicted to it for example the electronic devices like iphones. We should spend required time for our physical and mental health. Practising compassion and taking care of fellow humans would make us more happy than others. Being charitable is equally good for us like for the ones we help. Close connection to the nature is always good. Spending some time daily for things we love which might be reading a book, playing a game or talking or listening to people we like etc would enrich our life. These are all things that we can do in personal level. When people are healthy, the society is healthy and when the society is healthy, the country is healthy. A healthy country means less number of people who feel alone and depressed in this world of 7 billion, a healthy country is where there are others who stands with you when you need them. Then only, the purpose of life could be fulfilled.  

Learn to question what you learn

By: Bikal Dhungel

"status quo" is the biggest threat the children of today face. A good education system teaches you not to learn by heart rather to think, to think critically and to learn to question what you learn. If status quo wins, we will have a world with similar thinking which might or might not be good. However, the world needs creativity, it needs thinkers who think with different perspective. It might be in the field of politics, or in economics or even in science. 

In the schools in country where I was born, we were taught how reach we are in water resources, possibly second after Brazil that makes everybody wonder since we have hours long load shedding everyday, a massive shortfall in water supply in big cities and thousands of water related diseases every year. 

The survey done by Food and Agricultural Organisation ( FAO ) shows in a table, which countries are rich in water resources and how much water they have. 

The country were told which was supposed to be the 2nd richest actually lies on 41st position ( FAO ) but still, even high ranking officials, politicians use this as an argument when necessary. A result of telling what others have told and not thinking and researching. 

Another matter was about Tourism. We were told that we are one of the best tourist destinations in the world. No doubt that people like it, especially Himalayan trekking or mountainering. However, when we compare the international tourist arrivals, Nepal comes after 120 countries. Keep in mind that in "some 200" countries or territories in the world, there are more than 80 small islands. this says that, in fact, we are one of the destination that attracts lowest number of tourists. Even in peaceful times, lets take the year 1999, there were over 90 countries in the world that attracted more tourists than we did ( World Bank data of Tourism , 1999) 

Due to the political turmoil, especially brought by the Maoists, the number of arrivals has gone down since then. But this is not the theme of this article. Theme is, just dont listen. Think and Ask and Research

The Mountains of Bern

By: Bikal Dhungel 

The first day I saw you

The day I fell in love with

Never before Id understood

That love in first sight indeed happens

The feelings Id never had before

The cheerfulness my heart felt that day

Because of your beauty and calmness

That healed all my wounds from the past

Right away I thought I belong to you

And decided with whom to spend life with

My connection with you was already indivisible

Because you were so beautiful and so charming

I could sit down forever and watch you

And smell the air you sent towards me

Pinching cold and fresh, yet lovely air

Surrounded by it, all by your touch

The green grasses at your bottom

And those white clouds on the top

The sunlight that hit you

And the air that covered you

I never found no reason to love you

To sit infront and smell you and smile

To see you as long as I can

And to appreciate you for what you are

   … … … …

These mountains of Bern

These friends of mine

These giant stones made of love

These holy objects of nature

They were all made for me

Because I see the beauty in them

I will always love it and cherish in my heart

As long as I can behold

Mountains of Bern … …

Its been some time since I left you

you have no idea how much you are missing

just remember always, if my heart is still beating

it is beating for you, my heart is beating for you

Born to Play

By: Bikal Dhungel 

Humans are born to play. Since the recorded history, they have played in some form or other. In ancient Greece, sport used to be a religious ceremony. This is a reason why the Olympia is located just next to the temple of Zeus. In all cultures and empires, games were played. Some thrived and took modern forms, some simply disappeared. Some were only played by higher class, some were played by everybody. This culture still exists today. Golf for example is called a sport of the rich because of its expensive equipments and a large sized land called Golf course. Fidel Castro, a communist leader of Cuba let all golf courses bulldozed because he thought it is a sport of rich capitalists and doesn’t suit in a communist country, even though there are records that he played Golf with Che Guevara. 

Already before the age of Globalization, the merchants and even colonizers brought their sports to newly conquered countries. For example it was the British who brought football to Brazil and most of South America. British also brought Cricket to India and West Indies. How the indians started to play  Cricket learning from British was fantastically displayed in a bollywood film called “ Lagaan “ that was nominated for Academy Award. 

Today its even hard to say how many games are played in an Olympic game. Many are added frequently. Additionally, there are Winter Olympics, Youth Games, Paralympics, Championships in individual sports, regional games etc. Sport has been turned to giant global business and sportsmen and women are earning highest salaries among all sectors. Christiano Ronaldo was transferred for 90 Million Euros from Manchester United to Real Madrid in 2009. Michael Jordan earned more money from advertising NIKE than all the NIKE factory workers in Malaysia combined. Womens however still earn much less than their male counterparts. Once upon a time Brazilian women footballers earned 35 $/day and didn’t even have good shoes while men earned millions. History books also tell that the military dictators banned them from playing football. Once they won the World Cup, wage bargaining took place and today, the wages are not that bad in comparison to the past. Even in American Basketball, women earn around 60,000 dollars per year today while Lebron James earns 20 Million a year. Unfortunately, female athlets are also judged by their looks than how they perform. How good their breasts look like or how they look in bikini determines their success to a large extent. 

Sports is also largely politicised. It started from 1936 Berlin Olympics when Hitler used the Olympics to spread his Nazi propaganda and to prove the superiority of Aryan race. He strongly hold his view until his arrogance was destroyed by a black athlete from the US called Jesse Owens who won 4 Gold Medals and hailed a hero in Berlin. Named after him, there is a street called ‘Jesse Owens Alle’ next to Olympic Stadium in Berlin and few schools are named ‘Jesse Owens Schule’. Along with political propaganda, Nationalism is linked with sports as well. In 1970 FIFA world cup qualifying game between El Salvador and Honduras, violence erupted and later Salvadorian Army launched attack against Honduras. This was later called ‘a Football War’. However, there were other reasons behind the war as well. In the height of Yugoslavian war, when Red Star Belgrade went to play in Zagreb, Croatia they chanted “Death to Croatia, long live the Serbs”. Due to war between Argentina and the UK, matches between these two countries are more political. The football match played in June 22, 1986 in the quarter final of World Cup, Diego Maradona scored the legendary ‘Hand of God’ goal and Argentina won the game with 2-1. In 2002 world cup, England won against Argentina with a penalty kick scored by David Beckham and the English called the victory ‘Foot of God’. 

There are other issues in Football like Hooliganism, Racism etc. Samuel Eto left the game while playing after being called Monkey. Especially, players with dark skins are often facing racial abuses. Also fans are frequently attacked. During 2006 World Cup in Germany, there were parts of former East Germany where few games were held, declared as ‘No Go’ for fans with dark skin colour. Luckily no incident happened. The German people gave their best part to show that they are in fact a multi-cultural, tolerant and friendly country that houses the second largest number of immigrants in the world after the United States. Recently a Greek athlete had to withdraw from participating in London Olympics after making racist remarks. This was against the spirit of Olympics. 

But racism is declining in Football. The FIFA and Olympic Committee are dedicated to end such acts and not to tolerate any offense. People are banned from entering stadiums if they do so. Multi-Culturalism in sports is wanted today. Lots of multi-cultural teams have been successful. The French football team of 1998 World Cup that largely consisted of children of immigrants won the World Cup for the first time for France. It changed the way people looked towards immigrants. Both Zinedin Zidane and Lilian Thuram campaigned and are still campaigning today for more tolerance and minority rights. Not to forget, we didn’t simply come to this stage today. Minorities had to fight a long way to participate in nationals teams. No black guy was allowed to play in US national baseball league for a long time. Jackie Robinson was the first black player to play major baseball game. Even Jews were not allowed on Golf Clubs till late sixties in America. The story of Mohammed Ali originally named Casius Clay gives us the good picture how segregation still existed in sport. Racism might stay for a long time to come but it would be good if sports remain free of anger, envy, hatred, crime etc. 

Sport has a capacity to bring cultures, religions and countries together. Countries competing with each other in a friendly way also boost the relationship between them and it can even help their economy grow, for example by tourism. Lots of Europeans travel to other countries to watch Champions League hence boosting the tourism sector. Sport is also linked with other sectors like Health. Lots of sporty people in a country means lots of healthy people. It would reduce their costs of Health Care and disease. Then hospitals will be less crowded, there will be fewer burdens on national health care services and the society profits as a whole. We are born to play and we should play. The government can also help in starting this incentive. 

In 1950s, Mao Zedong showed the Chinese people how to play Table Tennis. This reached  every corners of China. He declared that table tennis is going to be Chinese national sports. It spread so rapidly that everybody started to play this game. This is why China is so successful in Table Tennis today. There are some interesting reasons behind why some countries are successful in some sports. Like the Kenyans and Ethiopians or East Africans in general win most of the Marathon races. Some people claim that, because they had to go to school far away, or go to get water, they are used to running long distances, which makes them naturally fit for these kinds of sports. Similarly there are other interesting facts about Brazilian success in football. Same thing is valid for US Basketball team, which always consists of renowned superstars. The United States Basketball team ‘Dream Team’ has won the gold medal in almost all the Olympic Games. In 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the ‘Dream Team’ consisted with star players like Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Scottie Pippen, Larry Bird etc. Before playing with Angola, the Angolan team went to take autographs from the US players. The US won the game very easily. 

Finally, many sportsmen and women have ended doing something good for the society, by being brand ambassadors or helping directly to a charity etc. Tiger Woods, despite damaging his public image by sex scandals, is donating handsome amounts in charities like in Earl D Woods Scholorship Funds or in Tiger Wood Learning Center. Lance Armstrong pledged 5 million dollars for cancer research. David Beckham, Lionel Messi, Serena Williams etc are UNICEF Brand Ambassadors. Michael Schumacher, 7 times Formula One champion from Hürth (Cologne) Germany donated 10 Million dollars for the Tsunami victims in Asia. Either the earnings from sports are too much or justifiable is another issue but many athlets are doing good for societal causes.  

Athlets also end up sometimes being a politician or entering other sectors like Modelling or Film Industry. David Beckham is a live example. Teenagers who couldn’t see his magic in football recognize him as a model than as a footballer. Michael Jordan was told to run for Democratic Party candidate in the US but he rejected by saying ‘Republicans buy tennis shoes too’. He was loyal to his sponsor NIKE and taking a side in politics might cause the people from other party not buying NIKE products or his ‘fly jordan’ shoes. But Lebron James was very active in campaigning for the election of Barack Obama. 

Sport has a power to enrich our society. It brings talented people on the world stage that gives us entertainment. Unfortunately, there are billions of people who cannot unpack their talents due to their circumstances like poverty. Poverty prohibits people to discover their talents. One live example is India. India, despite its large population which stands at 1.15 billion today or 1150 millions, wins less than 1 Olympic Medal per game while Denmark, with only 4.5 million people has won 179 medals or roughly 7 medals per game. This issue is not only valid for sports. Due to poverty, our world is not capable of fully utilizing the potential talents people have. May be there is an idea to cure HIV AIDS in somebody’s mind. May be somebody has an idea to make a car that runs fully with saltwater. May be there is somebody who has a power to unite people in a unique way and create international peace and friendship. Unless all the people in the world are not given chances to discover their talents, not only in sports, in all fields, we will be wasting these talents. 

Coming back to our topic, sport is essential. As I already mentioned above, sports should be free of hate. We should also genuinely debate about the limits of sports that put human lives in danger and practice the cruelty towards animals. Extreme sports that threaten human lives to a higher extent should be banned. Sports that display cruelty towards animals like Spanish Bull Fighting also does not belong to a civilized society. Other sports like hunting or killing innocent creatures should be banned as well. 

Finally, the advantage of playing, and being healthy is immeasurable. Sports keep us healthy and at the same time entertain us which is again good for our health. We humans are born to play, so let’s play.