Shake hands with the devil
I'm bored. It's Saturday. I had a Navs Leadership Meeting...then came back and rested a bit. I proceeded to try to read my Econs Text, but to no avail! So, I went jogging out in the nice 8c weather and thought I'll come back with more enthusiasm for econ! Alas, no...arg, this chapter on Costs is soooooo long-winded...it's almost 45 pages or so...and so many graphs and dry! Ugh! And I really have to read it to start on my Econ assignment which is due next Thursday. I have three assignments due next week, and I've only completed one. The other two; econ and accounting, needs going through the text and notes to figure out the answers...so, hopefully I will and am able to do that soon!
So, since I'm bored...and really am taking such a long painful time to read one page of econ, I decided to write a little.
So, yep...I saw Shake Hands with the Devil when I was in Calgary. It was very interesting. Just a little blurp on it, it's a documentary from Romeo Dallaire's perspective on the genocide in Rwanda in 93. He is a Canadian who was commanding the UN peacekeeping troop in 93. However, although UN gave him the authority and status, he was merely just a figure head without power, financial means in Rwanda. When Dallaire observed that there was an intense ethnic hatred between the Hutus and Tutsis, he immediately reported it to UN, to ask for more financial and man power. However, not only did not respond...but they did not care. Subsequently, the situation progressed to a point where the tutsis were killing innocent hutus, and there was nothing the new "government" in Rwanda could do, and the Belgian troops just immediately pulled out their expatriats and left. Only Dallaire's small UN troop did not pull out, since he was convinced that he had to do something; these are innocent lives being killed. He begged the world and UN to help, but there was only silence. Indeed, the world was silent then, I wonder if it will still be silent if a situation of such were to happen again.
So anyway, I had an online conversation with a friend about this topic the other day. And he gave a very rational answer: the UN have limited resources and therefore Rwanda was just a hopeless case where these resources would be wasted on. Very rational indeed. Of course, economics would say that there are scarce resources, and we need to rationally choose the best way to use these resources. And, I am a rational person, really! But, if we were just to look at the facts and numbers and distant ourselves from the situation, how human are we? Or are we turning into heartless robots who only cares about mechanical figures? What then is humanitarian? What does it mean to become humans? Do we care about our species at all? Or is it really "just too bad for them" since they are in that hole of stagnant economy, with nothing to offer the world? That I think, is being very selfish and cold-hearted.
Social Justice is a big word. It is an important word too. Every living human on this planet deserve to have the basic materials in life; food, water, shelter and clothing. And as we proceed to become more advanced and educated in thinking, social justice should come naturally too. That itself is a thinking due to civilization. If we progress scientifically and technologically while leaving out the heart matter of caring for the people, then we are becoming more backwards in thinking.
Again, it is hard to put both the mechanical scarce resources numbers and the heart matter in the same container. However, it is impossible to separate the both. Both are equally important. And for me, as how my friend claimed that I'm being purely "emotional" would put the heart matter above the numbers. Yes and No. I would put the people above all, but the scarcity matter still counts. It doesn't go away. But as humankind, I'm sure we are able to really help if we want to. The question is, do we want to?
So, since I'm bored...and really am taking such a long painful time to read one page of econ, I decided to write a little.
So, yep...I saw Shake Hands with the Devil when I was in Calgary. It was very interesting. Just a little blurp on it, it's a documentary from Romeo Dallaire's perspective on the genocide in Rwanda in 93. He is a Canadian who was commanding the UN peacekeeping troop in 93. However, although UN gave him the authority and status, he was merely just a figure head without power, financial means in Rwanda. When Dallaire observed that there was an intense ethnic hatred between the Hutus and Tutsis, he immediately reported it to UN, to ask for more financial and man power. However, not only did not respond...but they did not care. Subsequently, the situation progressed to a point where the tutsis were killing innocent hutus, and there was nothing the new "government" in Rwanda could do, and the Belgian troops just immediately pulled out their expatriats and left. Only Dallaire's small UN troop did not pull out, since he was convinced that he had to do something; these are innocent lives being killed. He begged the world and UN to help, but there was only silence. Indeed, the world was silent then, I wonder if it will still be silent if a situation of such were to happen again.
So anyway, I had an online conversation with a friend about this topic the other day. And he gave a very rational answer: the UN have limited resources and therefore Rwanda was just a hopeless case where these resources would be wasted on. Very rational indeed. Of course, economics would say that there are scarce resources, and we need to rationally choose the best way to use these resources. And, I am a rational person, really! But, if we were just to look at the facts and numbers and distant ourselves from the situation, how human are we? Or are we turning into heartless robots who only cares about mechanical figures? What then is humanitarian? What does it mean to become humans? Do we care about our species at all? Or is it really "just too bad for them" since they are in that hole of stagnant economy, with nothing to offer the world? That I think, is being very selfish and cold-hearted.
Social Justice is a big word. It is an important word too. Every living human on this planet deserve to have the basic materials in life; food, water, shelter and clothing. And as we proceed to become more advanced and educated in thinking, social justice should come naturally too. That itself is a thinking due to civilization. If we progress scientifically and technologically while leaving out the heart matter of caring for the people, then we are becoming more backwards in thinking.
Again, it is hard to put both the mechanical scarce resources numbers and the heart matter in the same container. However, it is impossible to separate the both. Both are equally important. And for me, as how my friend claimed that I'm being purely "emotional" would put the heart matter above the numbers. Yes and No. I would put the people above all, but the scarcity matter still counts. It doesn't go away. But as humankind, I'm sure we are able to really help if we want to. The question is, do we want to?
posted by Grace at 3/05/2005 08:01:00 PM
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