Sick to the stomach after seeing this.
...I almost clicked on the first related story...but then I realised that I didn't need to. Minority sees majority rule...Minority group ask for help...no one does...Majority attack minority, resulting in deaths...people flee for their lives, realising no one is coming...then someone/ some group, after it's all done, and people are dead....somebody gets prosecuted.
We've seen it happen with Hitler, Mugabe...we've seen it, most recently, in the Bangkok riots. The process is currently happening in Niger, Zimbabwe, Chad, Sudan, Somalia...Iraq, Afghanistan. The list goes on.
And we watch it all from our tv screens like none of it belongs to any of us.
Some of it 'our people', some of it not...sure, we're not fighting with Chad or Zimbabwe...but does this make it any less relevant to our attention? Are we still not responsible for many of the problems that Africa is now facing? And, beyond that, do we not have a common, decent responsiblity to our fellow human beings to stop injustice, whether it be in Europe, Africa, Asia or the Middle East (or indeed, anywhere else)?
We watch the world burn in front of our eyes. At least charities try to do something about it. But the BBC? I guess they just try to help us see the pattern.
For most people, I am sure, the pattern is not unusual, and they are indeed aware of this seemingly endless cycle we face. But now, in the new age, where the information is immediate and readily available at our fingertips every second of the day, where we can watch Nigerian children wasting away in front of our very eyes, are we not faced with a dilemma? It's all very saying 'Well I did not know'. That would have worked 50 years ago. But now, you have the choice to know, and people choose to be blind.
Why? Because it's easier? Because it's simpler? Because it means they don't have to fight with themselves for that spare £10 in their pocket? Because people feel, deep down, that £10 isn't going to make much of a difference?
All valid and meaningful points. But it doesn't change anything. People still die, for completely immoral and unjustified reasons...reasons, which, given sufficient investment and skill, can be fixed. I am not saying that they are by any means perfect, but it's done it pretty well in Britain, the USA, Australia, New Zealand... people don't get macheted in the street, they don't starve to death, they don't get shot for protesting and exercising the right to freedom of speech.
There are degrees of freedom, and poverty; but the Western world is largely distanced from the extremes we see in other countries today.
It clearly can be done. We can and have fixed it. We clearly are doing it, right now, as you sit here reading this, you are given the right to access all of this information, and I am given the right to give you my view. As the health system and security of laws and order give us the comfort to buy laptops and sit in our own homes without fear. And it's always been here, for us, the younger generations; I have known nothing else, although I know it was not always like this, and may not continue to be so. I fear that many assume that because this is what they've always known, this is what always was and always shall be. You only need to look a few hundred miles in another direction to see how different things can be.
What is the role of our money in all of this? Is charity really the way forward?
Well, quite frankly, it's not ideal, no. None of the 'successful' models (i.e. Western societies) are built on charity, although there is always an element of it in the development...but that is not to say that all successful models have yet been discovered. And it's clear that Western societies only got to where they are today by shitting on minority groups, be that inside the country or elsewhere...which obviously isn't going to be an option, when you're the country at the bottom of a well trodden pile.
It is, by no means, ideal. But it's the only ideal we've got at the minute. And sure, £10 may make no difference at all. Fine. Go raise £100. Go raise £10,000! Sign petitions, write about it, shout about it, protest, flag the stories, make some noise, live it. It's the only way that we will survive. Because hell knows the fat cats will be working 24/7 for a pretty paycheck, the absolution for their sins, and to keep people from caring about the truth. And we have to work even harder than 24/7. We have to bend time and space and do the unimagined, the supposedly impossible, to work in a way that cuts through everything we perceive to be true, to make it actually work, somehow.
It can be done. I know I can't do it by myself. But I can ask you to sit on my side of the fence rather than in the middle. And you can choose to do more than that. But that's up to you.
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