Word: rationality
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...yacht churned east, the amateur pirates chattered to their captives about the horrors of the prison island. Their jailers, they said, stole most of the ration allowance of 14? a day. Gold teeth were forcibly yanked from their mouths. They were housed in shacks, clothed in rags and forbidden to eat the produce they grew. For punishment they were beaten with rattan whips and hoisted by the armpits to hang in the sun all day without water...
...were idle. Imports were off by 80%. The price of rice had doubled. Already the government is dipping into its "iron reserve" of rice stores, nominally designated for use only in the event of war or national emergency. Djakarta printing presses were at work turning out 400,000 rice ration cards and government employees began receiving part of their pay in low-priced, government-supplied rice...
...Pork rationing, long in force in other cities, was extended to Peking itself. Farmers were unrationed, but they were getting less than half the pork they had eaten in the past; the state bought their pigs at fixed low prices through the purchasing monopoly, sold them back through the state sales monopoly at a price few peasants could afford. In the cities there was often not enough to fill even the ration. In Shanghai people got up at 3 a.m. to get at the head of the queues in the pork market...
...society with its own peculiar codes and mores. A brisk business in forged food-ration cards grew up. UNRWA officials at one time estimated that there were 150,000 more ration cards than there were refugees. Refugee dead were seldom reported to UNRWA authorities; they were buried secretly at night so that their ration cards might be kept and sold. Successful entrepreneurs (i.e., those who amassed sufficient ration cards or who prospered in small businesses like basketry, carpentry, weaving or gambling) began to style themselves "sheiks," demanded that UNRWA officials consult them on community affairs...
...Waiting List. Though they were carefully conditioned by Arab propaganda to believe that they were suffering wretchedly at the hands of "Imperialists and Zionists" the refugees gradually found themselves better off materially than they had been at home. They have a higher daily caloric ration (1,500-1.600) than some of the fellahin in Nasser's Egypt, better health and sanitation services than they had ever known in Palestine. UNRWA provides extra rations for pregnant and nursing women, midday meals and vitamin pills for children. UNRWA's education facilities are making the refugees an intellectual elite among Arabs...