A Letter to the Cosmopolitan

Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians

Paul's letter to the Thessalonians celebrates a flourishing church. Despite persecution and suffering, the community of Jesus followers have stood strong in their commitment to Jesus. Paul encourages them further, pointing toward the return of King Jesus, who will set everything right.

Cosmopolitan or Global Citizen was coined by one of my favourite philosophers, Diogenes of Sinopes who famously rejected societal norms and conventions, stating "I am a citizen of the world" when asked about his origin. Have faith, that we the world's citizens shall overcome all odds if we stand in the light of truth, just and the right way.

Senator Palpatine / Darth Sidious / The Emperor

There is more life to fiction. The Star Wars's Palpatine who was a senator from the planet Naboo plotted to become Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic based on influences from Caesar, Napoleon, Bonaparte and Nixon. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palpatine)

Truths can only be perverted through the continuous spreading of false news.

Hence, when I received my first Bible, the very first thing that my God-Father, Chris Baptist taught was in the first few pages - nihil obstat and imprimatur

In the context of the Roman Catholic Church, "nihil obstat" (meaning "nothing hinders") and "imprimatur" (meaning "let it be printed") are official declarations indicating a book or pamphlet is free from doctrinal or moral error and can be published.

Nihil Obstat:

• It is a written opinion issued by a censor (a person appointed to review religious or moral content) stating that nothing obstructs the publication of a book in terms of faith or morals.

• It is a necessary step before an imprimatur can be granted.

• The censor's name is usually included with the nihil obstat

Imprimatur:

• It is an authorization given by a local ordinary (typically a bishop) to publish a work.

• It signifies that the work does not contradict Church teaching.

• It is a negative guarantee, meaning it doesn't imply endorsement of the content or guarantee doctrinal integrity.

• The bishop's name and date of approval are usually included with the imprimatur.

Why is this important to me (and perhaps to you)? For a management consultant and a buff historian like me, I want to get to the bottom of things, the root cause, the source code and/or primary sources.

With AIs and social media - that act revolutionise gossip and hearsay, it is very hard to distinguish whether something is factual or has been deliberately manipulated to suit the agent's purpose. Photos and IDs had long been doctored, hence in Sun Tzu, we have one chapter just on spying and spreading false lies in order to gain victory. Use your common sense and verify.

During my interview with the United Nations unit, my final question to me was, do I have common sense?

In those days, we do not have the wide use of the Internet. We did not have laws that protect Whistle-blowers (in fact, it is still very weak). This then give rise to people who become embolden to do as they wish until they are caught.

It is pointless to have long run-ins with keyboard warriors because they will never admit their mistakes. The only solace you can have is that you have pieces of evidence on your side. Thus, your job as a cosmopolitan is to find other avenues to spread the real truth.

Remember, eventually truth will find its own way out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uNB8ecQbOU

The biggest postal scandal in the UK, known as the Post Office Horizon scandal, involved the wrongful prosecution and conviction of hundreds of sub-postmasters for theft, fraud, and false accounting based on faulty data from the Horizon accounting system, leading to a widespread miscarriage of justice.  The British Post Office scandal, also called the Horizon IT scandal, involved the Post Office pursuing thousands of innocent subpostmasters for apparent financial shortfalls caused by faults in Horizon, an accounting software system developed by Fujitsu. Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 subpostmasters were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting based on faulty Horizon data, with about 700 of these prosecutions carried out by the Post Office. Other subpostmasters were prosecuted but not convicted, forced to cover shortfalls—caused by Horizon—with their own money, or had their contracts terminated. The court cases, criminal convictions, imprisonments, loss of livelihoods and homes, debts, and bankruptcies led to stress, illness, family breakdowns and at least four suicides. In 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the scandal as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

God speed.