At some level, it feels like we’re intentionally trying not to deal with this. I mean, anything I say from this point forward has to be taken with a grain of salt, as it were, because I’m not nearly smart enough to deal with this problem.
What I do know; a few facts.
-There are a great many displaced people who need help. They’re coming from everywhere, but right now, there’s a focus on Syria.
-There are a great many people who have had loved ones killed, in that region, by coalition forces during the past ten years.
Those facts bring with them a terrible wash of issues that I can’t even begin to tackle alone. It seems like every time I begin to try to piece together a part of this thing, several other parts crumble off the sides. I’m so glad to not be in a position of power – this is a super complicated problem of humanitarian issue.
So, you’ve got a league of people who need help. For some reason, we’re totally cool with not helping them. We’re totally cool, for some reason, to not help most people – even as I write this, my mind forces this train of thought into my head that says something like ‘well, Bill, some people don’t deserve help’…
You see? There’s no easy route to approach this thing from.
I have a hard time even considering how terrible some parts of our world can be. Literally apocalyptic, out of a Mad Max scene – we’re removed and insulated from that. I was watching a movie on Netflix last night – Lawless – a good movie by any stretch but I couldn’t help feeling so dramatically fortunate. I’m fortunate – I’ve often said I won the genetic lottery at birth – to have been born a middle-class, white male in Canada in our specific time. Even the problems I run into that are real and meaningful to me are completely trivial in the larger frame of reference that seems so easy to whitewash by the mountains of news, media and bullshit that seems to flood our minds.
Not left or right anymore, I used to try to define these conversations by my ‘political leaning’. I’m trying hard not to do that anymore. I’m just trying to come at this from the HUMAN side of things. I don’t know that, in today’s age, it makes as much sense to base our actions on politics as much as it would to act on the hard fact of us all being in this thing together.
There you go internet, that’s your daily dose of hippy-bullshit. Go back to work.
I quite like looking through a post that will make people think. Also, many thanks for permitting me to comment!