Lighting a Candle in our Dark World



	Lighting a Candle in our Dark World Brandon Sun “Small World” Column, Monday, November 6 / 23 Zack Gross I was at a family event to celebrate Thanksgiving last month, just a few days after the Hamas attack in Israel. People were exchanging greetings of “Happy Thanksgiving” and I was thinking “What is there to be happy about?” Whether you are on one side of this conflict or on the other, sitting on the fence or stuck on both sides, the Middle East situation is another indication that longstanding divisions in our world have not been sorted out and that the cycle of violence in history will just continue “forever”. Of course, alongside that particular massive conflict, we also have the Ukraine and numerous other “smaller” ones around the world – some of them international and others civil – that we hear less about because the news reporters don’t get there to cover them. And then there are the non-conflict issues that face us – a pandemic that won’t entirely go away, the climate change crisis that has literally fueled wildfires, storms and floods, and the growing intolerance and authoritarianism that arises when our human family is under great stress. Happy, huh? A few years ago, I chaired a panel discussion with speakers from several international aid agencies. At the time, this session was recorded by a videographer and used in education and training programs for people studying international development. One of my questions to the panel was “Are we making progress in improving the human condition or does our aid and development work just cope with the crisis situations that arise?” The answer wasn’t simple. If you look at statistics or if you have long experience in Third World countries, you can see that progress is being made. As an example, I traveled in East Africa a few years ago after being away from that region for a decade. I went to eat at a rooftop restaurant at a modern hotel where the clientele in the past had been largely white expatriates and foreign tourists. This time, there were lots of local black people, evidence that there was a growing, national middle class. I also saw that Western products and modern department stores were more prominent. If that is one measure of progress, then I had found it. A two-edged sword in economic development is that new industries mean new jobs, roads, hotels and population growth for smaller centres, but it also can mean poor housing, pollution, crime and HIV. The challenge is to make new wealth benefit everyone. This is not new. There is still grinding poverty. Outside the big cities and in the urban ghettos, people still struggle to find gainful employment, available health care, safe neighbourhoods and good roads. When my wife, a retired nurse, was taken to a clinic in a more remote locality, she asked what they needed. Everything, she was told. Their cupboard was bare. The panel I referred to earlier said that more and more of their funding and efforts were going into coping with major global disruptions and less into that steady progress in human development that they were hoping to see. In today’s world, money for armaments takes the place of money for agriculture, education, health care, clean water, green technology, and so much more that is needed. Thanksgiving is now past, but the holiday season is coming. What is our responsibility as citizens toward our fellow humans who may be stuck in a conflict situation, who may be in danger because of their racial, gender or class identity, who may have lost their possessions in a fire or flood, or may be in an insecure state due to job loss or high inflation? First of all, I would imagine that you have to care. So, that means learning more about some issue, some part of the world, or some organization where you can make a difference. Then, you have to share, which might mean volunteering your time, making a donation, or adding your personal energy in some other positive way. You can also look at your own lifestyle. Does it contribute to a fairer, more sustainable world? Does what we eat, what we wear, how much we travel, what we own and how we live make a positive difference? What kind of a legacy will we leave when we are gone? Whether you choose to contribute globally or locally (or both), make the holiday season a giving time. Development organizations, environmental groups, food banks, and cultural institutions all depend on your support to do their work of making our planet a better place. In what seems like a dark world these days, your contribution lights a candle of hope for a better day. Zack Gross is Board Chair of The Marquis Project, a Brandon-based international development organization, and co-author of the new book The Fair Trade Handbook: Building a Better World, Together. * * * * * Return to Articles page