The bonus system

The horrendous bonuses that in spite of the financial crisis are paid to top executives in big business, especially in the financial sector, have created a popular outcry in many countries. So also in Sweden. And no wonder, who can justify such payments when ordinary employees are fired – especially when those top executives in many cases belong to those who by their greed have created the crisis.

On the other hand, what you really can wonder about is how those people could believe that people in general wouldn’t care about such bonuses? Have they no idea of the situation for ordinary people? Didn’t they think…? Whatever the reason, could you ever have trust in such people?

However, the bonus system shouldn’t be crtiticized only now, during a financial crisis. The system itself implies that top executives are a special kind of breed who need to be bribed in order to do their very best. All other employees are expected to do their very best while getting a regular salary – but not top executives! Could you ever have trust in such people?

Quite often, at least in Sweden, extremely high salaries and bonuses to managers are defended by the argument that they otherwise would move to other countries with more favourable ”living conditions” for top executives. Well, let them leave. I prefer serious managers who are guided by ethical values to selfish and shortsighted executives, guided by greed.

I also wonder how those who own shares in companies with such a system seriously can trust their managers and feel comfortable with them?

Does anyone believe that those people have such talents and skills that they are worth salaries and bonuses that are hundreds of times higher than the salaries their lowest employees get? After all, who created the financial crisis of today…?

Some years ago I was chairman in a board of directors. One year that company had a very good result and we decided to pay an extra monthly salary to all employees – also to the CEO. That is a kind of bonuses I like, it acknowledges that all employees are part of a success.

By the way, recently the minister of trade and industry, Maud Olofsson, one of the least intellectual members of the Swedish government, defended the bonus system and placed the kind of bonuses that top executives get on an equality with the incentive pay that garbage collectors get…
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Here is another of those newsletters I wrote during my stay in the West Bank last winter (see the first letter, March 21st):

Imagine that you are living in a small idyllic village…

Imagine that you are living in a small idyllic village in the countryside. The village is situated on the sloop of a hill and below the village you can see a small valley, surrounded by a ring of other similar hills. At one place there is an opening between the hills and that’s where the only road leads to the village.

You can walk down in the valley and work on the fields in the valley and you can walk or drive on the narrow road from the village. But if you walk to high up on the sloops of the hills or more than a few meters beyond the upper buildnings in the village, then you will face big problems. You might be assaulted and beaten; if you are unlucky it can be even worse…

If you are among those in the village who ownes sheep, you’d better make sure they don’t walk to high up on the hills. Then you might loose them, either they will be killed or stolen. If you have children, make sure they know exately where to walk and where not to walk.

On the top of the hills surrounding the village are a few so called settlements, with foreigners who have taken the land without buying or renting it. They don’t speak your language and they don’t come from your country but from the neighbouring country which since more than forty years is occupying your country. But those foreign settlers believe they have more right to your land than you have.

Because they are occupiers they have made sure that they, with the help of the occupying army, are well armed. They are also claiming a large security area around their houses, where no outsiders – and certainly not you – may set any foot upon. A large part of the traditional pastureland that belongs to the village has in that way been taken away from you and the other villagers.
Because the settlers think they have the right to all your country, also your tiny village, they use to take provoking walks to the village – almost always in groups. And always at least one in each group is heavily armed with a machine gun of that kind which are used by modern armies. Sometimes they walk over the fields, sometimes they let their dogs bath in the village well or pee in the well. At such moments the villagers are passive in order not to provoke the settlers to use violence.

But the police and the courts, what are they doing? Yes, they in a way have indicated that the settlements are illegal and that those settlers have no right to live there. However, they have not done anything to evict them; and they have not prevented the settlers from building roads up to their houses or getting electricity. Moreover, they have allowed the settlers to arm themselves with weapons from the army.

If you would like to go to the closest small town, three or four kilometers away, thereit’s OK. However, if you want to go to the nearest city, 15 kilometers away or so, then you face some annoying obstacles. First of all, you can’t take the closest road, because that passes by some of the settlements and the settlers don’t allowe any car to pass if it does not have a license plate of their own country. To walk or bike is definitely not to recommend.

There is another longer road, but before you arrive to the city you have to pass a military checkpoint, where soldiers of the occupying army are controlling who may pass. If you are driving a car it is difficult to get a permission to pass; if you are walking it is easier and that is what most people prefer to do. Then you take a bus or a taxi to the checkpoint, pass the checkpoint be foot, and then continue with another bus or taxi on the other side.

That means that a travel to the city, which during normal circumstances would take at the most half an hour, ends up taking maybe an hour – if you are allowed to pass.

A little further away there is a bigger city, which contains one of the holiest places in your religion. It would take approximately an hour and a half to go there – if it were not for a number of other military checkpoints aong the road and if you ewere allowed to drive on the modern fast roads which have been built by the occupiers. However, the checkpoints have to be passed and the new roads are not for you. Therefore it will take at least two and a half hour to reach that big city; if you are travelling during rush hour it can take much longer time to pass the checkpoints.

However, before you even can start thinking about going you have to have a permission to enter that city – and such a permission you will hardly ever get. It is so hard to get a permission that if you happen to belong to the lucky few ones, then your neighbours might suspect you of collaborating with the occupying country – and that it certainly not something you want them to believe…

Well, you are of course not living under such circumstances – but the one hundred villagers in Yanoun on the occupied West Bank are. They can’t walk freely around the village and have all the time to be prepared to meet a group of settlers. It’s simple to go to Araba, the closest small town, but to go to Nablus is an annoying challenge. To go to Jerusalem is almost impossible.

All Palestinians in the West Bank are victims of the same obstacles – checkpoints, separate roads, permissions etc. However, those who live next to one of the many settlements are extra restricted.

(I worked for the Christian Council of Sweden as an Ecumenical Accompanier, serving on the World Council of Churches’ Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The views contained in this report are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the Christian Council of Sweden or the World Council of Churches. If you would like to publish or disseminate it further, please first contact the EAPPI communications officer and managing editor (eappi-co@jrol.com) for permission. For mor information see: www.eappi.org/en/home.html)