Poverty

If those people who starve to death or die of preventable or treatable diseases every day were our friends, would we let them suffer and die? Of course not. Your friend is suffering, you help. Where are these people's friends then? Why are we not reaching out and making contact and being their friends? Can't we communicate globally with the click of a mouse now? Can't we socially network with them? Well, not really: they have no computers or Iphones now, as well as having no food. Does that make their problem twice as bad? It may. If we do all our communicating online, then how can they participate? Could we solve the problem of world poverty by setting up a Wifi network and handing out free Iphones instead of handing out food then? Could we run tours where people pay to be shown the reality of poverty and human suffering in the hope that once rendered visible it would no longer be tolerated?

Sadly, people have tried that using photography and television and it didn't work. People got used to seeing poverty. Now it's just another annoyance and we want it to go away. Well? Make it go away. Not just away from us, back to it's forgotten corners of the earth, but away properly so that it's victims can live in peace and have something to eat and a chance to study.