Today is…
…the Day of the African Child, to mark the anniversary of an uprising of schoolchildren in Soweto, South Africa, that was brutally put down by the apartheid government.
As we argue about the future of New Zealand, we’d all do well to remember that our domestic policy battles pale into insignificance when cast against the global battles humanity faces. Hamish McKenzie has made this point well over at Fighting Talk, writing of a bumper sticker that reads, “Vote Labour and Welcome New Zealand to the Third World”. He writes:
Bumper stickers with slogans that put “New Zealand” and “Third World” in the same sentence are f***ing retarded.
Let us consider the Third World for a moment. (What a novel idea.)
The Third World suffers from extreme poverty, water shortages, endemic disease, crippling debt, an AIDS epidemic, famine, genocide, corrupt governments, and getting bombed, over and over and over again.
New Zealanders suffer from not getting as much of a tax cut as they would have liked.
Incidentally, Don Brash has made the third-world allegation here and here. But my main point isn’t partisan. It’s that we should count our blessings and, as we do, think seriously about spending much more on overseas development assistance, in order to help those less fortunate than ourselves to pull themselves out of poverty. The UN estimates that five million African children will die of starvation by 2015 if the world community doesn’t lift its game on foreign aid. Today would be a good day to start.
June 16th, 2005 at 11:12 am
Not everyone is ifeels the need to wear their hearts on their sleves like you frog. Many poeple quietly do things for the benefit of ohers with out having to make it part of a political campiagn which you have done with your comments about Brash. What are you really intrerested in, your social image of being “caring” and making cheap political points, or about actually doing something about such problems?
June 16th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
um, sock..in the interest of getting the job done isn’t a political campaign and having political parties fighting for an idea/ideal perhaps the most efficient way..?
and of course this does not take anything away from all those who work qietly away..just getting the job done..
isn’t this a case of as well as instead of either/or..
and if brash makes fatuous comparisons he deserves a verbal slap, eh?
and btw how the fuck can you not wear your heart on your sleeve in the face of such gross realities..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
June 16th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
Wearing your heart on your sleve means being more interested in being seen to care than on achieving stated goals. Many people do real things to help who are not part of some election campaign.
June 16th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
sock..i think you’re a bit rigid with your definition of heart on sleeve…surely it means being visibly/viscarally affected..so i’d just repeat my last line from above..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
June 17th, 2005 at 12:09 pm
Showing people what you stand for so you can get elected into paraliment and do something legislative about it is doing something real.
Also, I’d like to point out that an in-your-face billboard is campaigning, writing an opinion peice in a blog is not - mainly because you choose to come here and read it, it dosen’t come to you.
June 17th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
paul b…your point being..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)