A Dangerous Malaise

Over the last few weeks I have been heavily involved supporting the IF campaign, I and other like-minded people have travelled to both London and Belfast in order to ask the eight of the most powerful leaders of the world to do something for the weakest and most vulnerable of this world, we want them to take measures to end world hunger.

I do not know what effect we will have had, or what difference we will have made, however I am certain that the effort has been worthwhile, making our voices heard on behalf of the poor is always better than remaining silent.

In general I feel exhilarated by the last few weeks, but not completely.

One thing which has saddened me about the last few weeks has been that there were fewer of us than in previous years. In 2005 when the G8 summit was last held in the UK 225’000 people walked around Edinburgh calling for an end to global poverty. This year that number was reduced to 45’000 in London and only 2’000 in Belfast.

So I am left asking myself why.

Undoubtedly there are some people who don’t care about these issues; there are some free market economists and believers in prosperity spiritualities who think that we should let the hungry starve. There are also a lot of deeply concerned elderly people who can no longer get to these events. 

But what about the rest?

I don’t believe the reason is that most people don’t care about world hunger, part of being fully human is to be concerned for those who suffer.

I think the difference is that many more people have stopped believing that they can make a difference. We have fallen into a kind of national despondency. We no longer believe that we have any power. I’ve listened to various people over the last few weeks who’ve told me that: our politicians don’t listen, our media prefer to decide what we think for us, multi-national corporations aren’t interested in what we think, and our fellow citizens don’t care about anyone other than themselves. So what’s the point, let’s give up.

Perhaps as a nation we are still reeling from 2003 when an overwhelming majority of the country opposed the Iraq war, over a million people marched in London, and yet it happened anyway. So why bother anymore.

Such views are understandable but dangerous. Our national malaise is dangerous because power so easily corrupts, any authority which is not properly held to account can become very dangerous. 

These ideas of powerlessness are exactly the thoughts which those with power would like us to be thinking, those with the power to improve our world would like us to believe that we have no influence, they would like us to keep our mouths shut and accept that poverty is a regrettable but unavoidable reality.

But to believe ourselves powerless would be to commit an act of heresy.

I live in a democracy, I am free. But the benefits of freedom come at a price, I have a responsibility to think about the world beyond my front door and to make my voice heard on behalf of those who have no voice. It is my responsibility to hold politicians and corporations to account for their actions. I do have power.

Right now I am feeling newly empowered.