some of my thoughts and notes

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera English is the first English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East, precisely in Doha, Qatar.

I had already seen a few videos of Al Jazeera on YouTube, among them one about Tesla's ideas and the race to cure cancer.

On my flight to Doha I watched another one about Britain's Modern Slave Trade.

It was shocking to see how people even today, in Great Britain, live under conditions no different than ancient slaves, doing anything just to not have their biggest fears come true.

A day later I ended up thinking that in the same way that the east European women working as sex slaves, Vietnamese men locked in apartments working as cannabis farmers and Romanian men working in a car wash are stuck at different points on a gradient of forced labor, if you extend this gradient towards more freedom, almost every human on this planet is stuck at some point of this gradient.

The African guy standing in the toilet of the airport watching over cleanliness didn't look as if he chose this job freely.

The African guy in the hotel, posing at the door as security also didn't seem very happy.

In fact, the vast majority of people I talked with while trying to choose my career path didn't sound very happy.

I don't know what else to think about this, but I appreciate Al Jazeera's effort to build a bridge between the Arabian and the Western world, even if it's done by offering perspectives on slightly extreme topics chosen.