I was just surfing the net tonight while at work waiting for some stuff. I was sort of sad to see so much criticism of the Make Poverty History effort. I guess even criticism is an indication that people noticed the effort – which was one of the main goals anyway. So perhaps the criticism is an indication of success of sorts.
Someone, somewhere, in my surfing quoted another person who said the efforts towards eliminating the debt of third world countries will only be successful if the leaders of those countries take note and change their behaviour. True enough. But the person then went on to say that it is the western world that maybe should be considering changing our ways. We need to change our lifestyles of excessive and increased consumption of the worlds resources. We want more and more and we do not want to pay much for it. We have become oppressors ourselves. We overlook exploitation if it makes our lives more comfortable; if it produces stuff we “need”.
We need to be reminded of the needs of the poor and oppressed in the world. If the folks at Make Poverty History and Live8 made us stop and think for even a few minutes, we owe them thanks. Lets not fall into our old complacency too quickly. Lets stop criticizing the efforts of this group. If they don’t please you, find another group fighting poverty that makes sense to you. But please do something.
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