I had a very insightful comment from a 20 year old person called Amelia in New Zealand about one of my recent postings on world poverty and it got me thinking again about this issue. Thank you Amelia.I just can’t get the enormity of this out of my head.
On our one planet 20,000 - that is TWENTY THOUSAND people die every day – mainly children – due simply to poverty.
At the same time I hear that the amount of money we spend in Europe on ice cream would be enough to provide an education for every child in the world.
We all have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we are doing practically to help. I may well write about this issue but I must do more. We all must do more.
We all have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we are doing practically to help. I may well write about this issue but I must do more. We all must do more.
Think for a moment about how in our enlightened society of 2007 we believe the slave trade was degrading, inhumane and scandalous until its abolition 200 years ago thanks to the efforts of people like William Wilberforce. I wonder if the children of my great grandchildren may look back on 2007 and say ...
‘In 2007 in such a supposedly advanced civilisation how could they possibly have not only allowed, but openly condoned such scandalous poverty on the same one planet that had such obscene wealth?’
‘In 2007 in such a supposedly advanced civilisation how could they possibly have not only allowed, but openly condoned such scandalous poverty on the same one planet that had such obscene wealth?’
Mahatma Ghandi when asked what he thought of democracy in the western world replied ‘I think it would be a very good idea’
I have great faith in young people who will I hope keep rattling the cage for justice.
2 comments:
Hello Trevor,
thanks for writing about this topic. Those are terrible facts that have to be repeated again and again.
We really left a terrible burden on our children: they'll have to fight against poverty, against pollution and global warming, for sustainable food producing, to preserve environment and endangered species and so on, just to be able to survive.
Shame on us! We messed up because we didn't want to see that things are more complicated than they looked like and that we might not be able to handle all consequences of our deeds. We can hope that our children will be better than ourselves. What we still owe them is our help (although they might say "Please, stop helping us!).
Thanks Grigor - I love your comment that our children may say -"Please, stop helping us!" - that sums it up nicely :-)
Erin - I will take a look at your link and thanks for visting Simplicity Blog.
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