2/13/2012

Death of Millions vs Death of One?

Every day a lot of people die in the world, but not often these are people that we know about. Sometimes they die of horrible diseases, other times merely of old age - but what do their deaths really mean for this world?
A lot of people criticise the current community for mourning over the death of individuals when daily millions of people die of easily resolved issues in the developing world. The most recent example of this is Whitney Houston.

Each time after one of these momentous deaths of a public figure there are memes everywhere commenting on how 1 person dies and million cry but when millions die no one cries.  Something which I think to a certain extent is quite disrespectful.

Now before you get into an angry fit of rage because of my comment, this is how I mean it:
The reason why people are more upset when a famous person dies is because they have been involved in that persons life, often for a long time, or have been massively touched by it. When the millions of people die in the developing world humanity isn't as touched by it because it is far away and they have no real personal bond with those who have passed away.

(No I'm not saying that I agree with that. Bear with me for a moment longer please!)

Moreover, we are constantly being bombarded by images of starving children on tv, in magazines, newspapers etc. What this has done, rather than make us more aware, is it has apparently made us more desensitised. People ignore the adverts or even get annoyed when they come on, they think 'whatever' when they see the images.
There are also people who have the belief of 'why would I care about those people when our own countries have so many living below the poverty line?!'

Additionally, a lot of celebrities have brough a lot of awareness to the world regarding various important issues such as sexuality, poverty, education, drugs etc.
And ultimately a celebrity is still a human being - one with a family, friends - who will be missed after their passing. To say they don't matter is what I find disrespectful.

What seems to be happening in today's western society is a conflict of interests. There are people in our own modern, developed, seemingly wealthy countries that do not have the ability to get themselves above the poverty line. There are those that are homeless, those that have no money for food and those who have terrible diseases that they'll never recover from because the cures have not been found.
And then there are the people who live thousands of miles away - millions without enough food, no homes, no money and dying of diseases that we have long eradicated in our societies.

So which side is more important?

2/07/2012

Are Peace and True Democracy ever likely goals?

Within the whole western world we strive to have true democracy and peace all over the world. We believe that our system is a truthful one and that we have already reached true democracy... But have we really?

Is the Western world truly one of peace? We are constantly up in another part of the world trying to sort out either their issues or to use the countries that we are in for our own goals. I say 'we' in the loose meaning of the word as it is the Western World collectively that does this, not just one country.

Moreover, the Western world is one that prides itself on its democracy but is it truly democracy when the system used in some countries is one solely of a majority? And when countries do use systems such as proportional representation people are always keen to step in when someone that leans to far to the left or right gets a decent amount of votes.
 - don't get me wrong, I'm not an extremist and would not want another Hitler in power anywhere - but this is merely a point I am trying to make. More of a philosophical point than something completely concrete.



The reason that I am bringing these issues to the forefront now is due to the new peace talks that are happening in Palestine at the moment. Israel is complaining because they do not wish to cooperate with Hamas as Hamas is seen as a terrorist organisation. Which I frankly find extaordinarly ironic.
Have they looked at past presidents? And even the current one was a part of the IDF.
For instance look at Menachem Begin - Head of the Irgun who prided the Irgun and the Stern Gang (or Lehi) on their 'Splendid Act of Conquest' (see Spectacle.org) after killing hundreds of people in Deir Yassin.

Regardless of this I do hope that the new government (with Abbas as the interim prime minister until the elections) will be able to bring some peace into the region or at the very least help to start rebuild the devastated West Bank and Gaza areas.