In a country that provides no subsidized child care and no mandatory family leave, no assurance of flexibility in the workplace for parents, no universal preschool and minimal safety nets for vulnerable families, making it a crime to offer children independence in effect makes it a crime to be poor.

The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first.

Bahrainis are better off than many other Arabs. We have a welfare state everybody gets a salary whether they have a job or not. Electricity and food are subsidized school and healthcare are free. And we don't differentiate between Bahrainis and foreigners. We are very proud of that.

In addition to this they already have a fuel cell car on the road in Japan. It is subsidized from within the corporation because they are still at a high cost.