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Apathy
February 20, 2001
Hard day at the office. Get home, turn on the TV and hear about the
earthquake in India. 600 confirmed dead. Then 1000. Later 19,000 or more.
Bloody body with sheets over what used to be the head, rushing by on a
stretcher carried by exhausted-looking skeletal screaming people. Chaos.
Camera pans on some hysterical kid sitting terrified and bleeding in the
middle of some exploded road. Chaos.
Pad to the kitchen in my new slippers and put on dinner. Stir fry tonight;
trying those new imported mushrooms; a splurge but I'm worth it. My
beloved Whiskey prances schmoozy infinity symbols between my feet, gazing
up with feline eyes of mystery, purring for a can of food - the good kind.
The expensive kind.
Well, just for tonight. Rip open the aluminum seal and carefully spoon the
can into his little porcelain bowl. But those screams still echo, those
images transcend.
Where in the comfort of a warm kitchen do you put a reality like that? How
can any sane mind digest those statistics? 19,000 dead (snap of the
fingers!) like that. Maybe file it in the same folder with statistics like
24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related illnesses. Two
acres of tropical rainforest disappear every second. The assets of the top
three billionaires are more than the combined GNP of all 48 least
developed countries and their 600 million people. And on and on... Those
awful statistics trotted out every now and then to cast an awkward shadow
over an otherwise comfy status quo.
TV now blasts happy images of the annual "globalization" think tank at
Davos, the World Economic Forum. Four wealthy white men face a huge
auditorium of the world's elite business community and to deafening
applause target "the digital divide" as the most serious social problem in
the world today. Environmental degradation? Starvation? Poverty? War?
Political prosecution? Those can wait! What we need right now is more
computers. An increase in consumer spending. More devotion to the elite
business agenda being created behind closed doors in plush Davos meeting
rooms and none to the protestors in the streets. Loud applause.
But in my little kitchen it just doesn't add up. Does globalization really
mean the ability to shop with greater convenience across even larger time
zones, or perhaps something different. Is generosity and love the decision
to break out the pricey cat food, or maybe something more. If my new
slippers are leather and made in China, should I feel guilty? After a long
hard day at work, I just want to come home and unwind. Why should I worry
about something far away that I can't change anyway?
Stir fry's almost done and wine is poured. Mushrooms look tantalizing
bathed in that new fancy Italian olive oil. Lift the silver spoon. Why am
I not hungry.
Heather Wokusch is a freelance writer. She can be contacted at
womanrant@hotmail.com
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