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Had an interesting chat with a friend on the weekend... he asked about the Live8 concerts, looked at my Make Poverty History armband and said "You won't, you know." I processed his meaning, then started to explain the goals of the campaign... halving world poverty etc. He went on to explain that if the world was given a clean slate, if everyone had the same wealth and opportunities, then people are still going to rise up and exploit other people who will then end up in poverty. "The Bible says there will always be poverty... etc etc".
I agree - the liklihood of completely erasing all forms of poverty from the world is pretty much nill. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do anything about it. I'm sure my friend would agree, but implicit in his statements was the extra sentence... "so why bother doing anything at all?".
8 guys in Scotland can make decisions that will change the lives of millions and we should try to influence them to make the right decisions.
I believe there is no worse wrong that we can do, than to have the ability to save someone's life, but not to do it. I'm guilty of it...
PS The whole G8 summit has changed with the bombings in London I guess...
3 comments:
definitely, especially since the "you will always have the poor" line was not to justify ignoring poor people...
but that being said, i'm very cynical about live 8, but what else would you expect right? :)
There is plenty to criticise in anything... I prefer the way that Bob Geldof and people like him are doing something to the way lots of his cynics are NOT doing something!
Who knows whether Live8 had any affect on the G8 leaders, but I'm sure it made a LOT of people think about poverty etc in Africa who hadn't really thought a lot about it before. That's got to be good...
For me, this is a huge argument and I'm pretty much on the same wavelength as you, Brad. There IS plenty to criticise in anything.
I tend to suffer agonising frustration when words from the Bible are used as a scapegoat, a way of enabling someone to throw up their hands and say 'well, it says right here, so...'.
I am a cynic. Though my cynic is generally gagged and trampled by my perhaps naive though firmly held belief that there is a lot of good in people and in the world. Why not try to mobilise it for the benefit of those who need to benefit from it? Why not use it to expose issues and problems that have possible solutions to people who would probably never consider what else goes on in the world and in doing so bring about a change in their thinking, in their acting - even if it is fleeting?
I think you are right, Brad - no matter what the effect - it made people think about these issues again and realise that, for all the political talk, things have not changed. People can change things. I believe that (though I wish I were more active in that respect so this is making me feel hugely hypocritical).
Bob Geldof, along with many other fellow human beings, believes that something can be done, and he is willing to put himself on the line to try and get something done. I admire that.
I don't know where I was headed with that rant, but there you are; my two cents for the moment. Bedtime (if I can sleep now).
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