Karlos,
I think we all need to keep focused on doing what we can and not arguing for a change.
But what can we do? Where do we go from here? There is a very good
Leader article in the New Statesman this week with some suggestions which are worth look at:
It would be wrong to belittle the generosity of many westerners - often those who, by the standards of their own societies, are hard up - and wrong, too, to deny that it may be more uplifting to give voluntarily than to be forced to contribute through taxation. Yet the hard truth is that, if we really wish to help developing countries, we have to do more than deny ourselves a few glasses of wine. We have to pay more for the goods we buy from those countries; allow them more favourable terms of trade; forgive them many billions of pounds in debt; permit them to manufacture and sell cheaper medicines; require multinationals to repatriate more of their profits; welcome economic migrants more warmly; pledge a fixed proportion of our national income in aid for years to come. All these are within the power of governments, rather than individuals, and all would have uncomfortable implications for western consumers, western jobs, western businesses, western financial institutions and western economies in general. Do Gordon Brown and Tony Blair really have the courage to propose and see through such a programme? And would people vote for them if they did?
Sorry for the big quote. I had trouble trimming that down and gave in.
If anything positive is to come from this terrible event it might be to prove that we who have been very fortunate to be born in rich countries (or be accepted residence in them) do care about our brothers and sisters in poor parts of the world and do want to reduce or even end their suffering, even if it means causing ourselves some inconvenience.
As I've already gone overboard, here's the final part of the article on the questions about how God could allow such a thing as the tsunami to happen:
These are the wrong questions, and atheists have no business wasting their time on them. It is far more pertinent to ask how human beings, particularly the more powerful and wealthy among us, can remain indifferent to a daily toll of poverty, disease and hunger that it is well within their means to end. The condition of Africa and much of Asia questions our humanity, not the divinity of a hypothetical God.
Amen to that.
-zudo
