7 billion. That's the new buzz number. That's how many people the United Nations Population Fund tells us are now on the planet Earth. 7 billion! That's a lot! And they're predicting a 2 billion+ growth by 2019.
Suddenly, and almost simultaneously, we're hearing messages of lack and scarcity. There aren't enough resources on Earth to replenish 7 billion people. We have to think differently. There's more of us now. And we all share responsibility for our survival, which is largely dependent on the longevity of this planet.
It's funny how fear can be injected into every milestone of our race. How will we survive - all 7 billion (and counting) of us? In some ways, it's almost like saying Mother Earth gave birth to too many children ... and now, she can barely manage to lactate them.
I acknowledge the efforts the UNFPA has made to celebrate the 7 billion milestone. I love the fact that their efforts to record the stories of people from all over the world helps to create greater awareness of the diversity which abounds. It's a splendid idea! I give it two thumbs up.
But this message of scarcity bothers me. I've read so many reports which indicate that scarcity exists only in certain regions of the world. In 2006, the Guardian told us that an apparently very healthy 1% of our people are consuming and controlling a whopping 40% of the world's wealth. So, really, this message of benevolence to 7 billion belies a whiff of hypocrisy.
We spend so much time in labs trying to create super-foods and super-medicines to feed and cure the impoverished when our own bins are filled to the brims with stinking, rotting foods - the excess we could not consume and had to discard.
Waste. While we waste what we have, others' lives waste away.
Since I was a little girl, my question has always been, if there's even nearly enough to go around, how come so many still go without?
There's 7 billion mouths to be fed.
What will we give to make sure none ends up dead?
What comforts are we willing to sacrifice?
To ensure that another stays alive?
Sober up, world. Think about it.
For more on how you can participate in the drive for 7 billion, or to learn more, see 7billionactions.org.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
The New Era of False Sensitisation
The New Era of False
Sensitisation
You Think You Know But You Don’t
I was a student presenter at the 2009 Caribbean Culture and Media International Conference, held at the University of the West Indies, Mona, in collaboration with Clark Atlanta University. I spoke, along with another student from UWI, and two from Clark Atlanta, about the ‘Convergence of Politics, Media and Culture’. I remember, during the course of our presentations, that Dr. Alice Stephens - a woman I grew to have great respect for over the duration of the conference - asked us if we, as the younger generation, felt sensitised to what was taking place in other countries around the world because of networking sites (or applications) like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogger.
One UWI student said, “Yes.” He then proceeded to explain how he was able to receive and share information about the atrocities taking place in other countries via Twitter and Facebook, and how he could “click on links” to help save lives and send money to impoverished nations. Or something like that. He ended by saying that, yes, we were definitely more sensitised to what was taking place.
I disagreed. Not only are we not sensitised about what goes on in these other countries (forgive the double negative), we’ve fallen into a delirium of believing that we are, and that what we are doing online is somehow saving and changing lives. We believe that by putting a poster in the sidebar of our blog drawing attention to a crucial human development issue is somehow enough proof of our unflailing commitment to humanity and of how aware and ‘sensitised’ we are to global issues. But what I have found is that most times, it’s not. It’s not nearly enough. And too often, it’s a no-brainer decision that leaves us with no REAL sense of the reality others have to live with.
I think it’s a certain level of arrogance that makes us believe that we’re bestowing goodwill on the ‘lesser’, underdeveloped and undemocratic states because of our ‘superior’ access to these social media. And the worst part is, so many of today’s youth think they’re doing these countries a favour by tweeting and posting about their misfortunes, all the while maintaining this attitude of benevolent arrogance that belies hypocrisy and a certain contempt for the very states and people we claim to be helping.
We must remember the attitude of the coloniser to the colonised. The history and heritage of a people was disregarded as coloniser tried, through hegemonic cultural genocide, to ‘civilise’ another state and impose a ‘superior’ culture on them. We must be careful not to repeat history using 21st-century tools.
The fault of the colonisers is also our fault: we approach this ‘need for help’ with overzealous myopia. There is a chasm where there ought to be critical and serious thought. Like no other social network I know, Twitter has popularised the concept of following - sans frontieres, often sans mente. And the youth are often blindly following in their forefathers’ footsteps. They just mindlessly take whatever information is shoved their way from mainstream media and reproduce it without a thought - it sounds like a good cause - it’s a BRAINLESS decision.
And that brainlessness does not ever have a place in any serious sensitisation programme. People who are sensitised to an issue must, at least, THINK about it, must they not?
What Twitter often helps to create is a bubble of deception - a self-reinforcing one, no less! I can readily use the group of popular Jamaican tweeters whom I have often criticised for this self-involved, myopic syndrome on many previous occasions. The Internet is still a relatively new concept to some parts of the island. There are many people who don’t know how to manipulate a computer, much less log on to the Internet and harness its awesome networking power. But this group does not feature prominently on Twitter. They’re not there at all. And their absence is not felt.
We can so easily be led to believe that everybody else is hooked up and YouTubing/tweeting because this is a prevalent feature in our circle (or BUBBLE) of influence. This is what has happened to the Twitter-happy bubble bunch. They are compulsive, obsessive tweeters who think that anybody who’s not tweeting must be living under a rock. But no, there are many people who are not familiar with these technologies right here ON the rock. What we have is a concentration of a few urbanly located youth who forget (or, often, don’t care) that the rest of their country is sans technologia. They consider themselves to classy, Western, modern … tweeting about the ‘issues’, up-to-date with the REAL world, but totally oblivious to what is taking place right here in their own country under their very noses! They think they know, but they really don’t! And those pretenders are ANYTHING but sensitised. What they are is self-involved, proud, arrogant, shallow, brash and dismissive of anything or anyone that does not conform to their twitterised way of life.
And that’s what false sensitisation does. It gets you comfortably passive, makes you make a lot of useless noise because you think you know, because you’re deceived into believing you ARE the essence of online sensitisation. Social media has its place. But it must be used hand-in-hand with other, more tested and proven methods of information. A tweet cannot take the place of proper, solid research. A sidebar to click cannot replace tangible, decisive action.
Media has its place in development. But education is still essential to train, teach and truly sensitise people about how best to use the technology, about its limitations, advantages, disadvantages. Sensitisation goes beyond a click on an electronic device. It calls for real interest, real thought, and more importantly, REAL ACTION.
You Think You Know But You Don’t
I was a student presenter at the 2009 Caribbean Culture and Media International Conference, held at the University of the West Indies, Mona, in collaboration with Clark Atlanta University. I spoke, along with another student from UWI, and two from Clark Atlanta, about the ‘Convergence of Politics, Media and Culture’. I remember, during the course of our presentations, that Dr. Alice Stephens - a woman I grew to have great respect for over the duration of the conference - asked us if we, as the younger generation, felt sensitised to what was taking place in other countries around the world because of networking sites (or applications) like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Blogger.
One UWI student said, “Yes.” He then proceeded to explain how he was able to receive and share information about the atrocities taking place in other countries via Twitter and Facebook, and how he could “click on links” to help save lives and send money to impoverished nations. Or something like that. He ended by saying that, yes, we were definitely more sensitised to what was taking place.
I disagreed. Not only are we not sensitised about what goes on in these other countries (forgive the double negative), we’ve fallen into a delirium of believing that we are, and that what we are doing online is somehow saving and changing lives. We believe that by putting a poster in the sidebar of our blog drawing attention to a crucial human development issue is somehow enough proof of our unflailing commitment to humanity and of how aware and ‘sensitised’ we are to global issues. But what I have found is that most times, it’s not. It’s not nearly enough. And too often, it’s a no-brainer decision that leaves us with no REAL sense of the reality others have to live with.
I think it’s a certain level of arrogance that makes us believe that we’re bestowing goodwill on the ‘lesser’, underdeveloped and undemocratic states because of our ‘superior’ access to these social media. And the worst part is, so many of today’s youth think they’re doing these countries a favour by tweeting and posting about their misfortunes, all the while maintaining this attitude of benevolent arrogance that belies hypocrisy and a certain contempt for the very states and people we claim to be helping.
We must remember the attitude of the coloniser to the colonised. The history and heritage of a people was disregarded as coloniser tried, through hegemonic cultural genocide, to ‘civilise’ another state and impose a ‘superior’ culture on them. We must be careful not to repeat history using 21st-century tools.
The fault of the colonisers is also our fault: we approach this ‘need for help’ with overzealous myopia. There is a chasm where there ought to be critical and serious thought. Like no other social network I know, Twitter has popularised the concept of following - sans frontieres, often sans mente. And the youth are often blindly following in their forefathers’ footsteps. They just mindlessly take whatever information is shoved their way from mainstream media and reproduce it without a thought - it sounds like a good cause - it’s a BRAINLESS decision.
And that brainlessness does not ever have a place in any serious sensitisation programme. People who are sensitised to an issue must, at least, THINK about it, must they not?
What Twitter often helps to create is a bubble of deception - a self-reinforcing one, no less! I can readily use the group of popular Jamaican tweeters whom I have often criticised for this self-involved, myopic syndrome on many previous occasions. The Internet is still a relatively new concept to some parts of the island. There are many people who don’t know how to manipulate a computer, much less log on to the Internet and harness its awesome networking power. But this group does not feature prominently on Twitter. They’re not there at all. And their absence is not felt.
We can so easily be led to believe that everybody else is hooked up and YouTubing/tweeting because this is a prevalent feature in our circle (or BUBBLE) of influence. This is what has happened to the Twitter-happy bubble bunch. They are compulsive, obsessive tweeters who think that anybody who’s not tweeting must be living under a rock. But no, there are many people who are not familiar with these technologies right here ON the rock. What we have is a concentration of a few urbanly located youth who forget (or, often, don’t care) that the rest of their country is sans technologia. They consider themselves to classy, Western, modern … tweeting about the ‘issues’, up-to-date with the REAL world, but totally oblivious to what is taking place right here in their own country under their very noses! They think they know, but they really don’t! And those pretenders are ANYTHING but sensitised. What they are is self-involved, proud, arrogant, shallow, brash and dismissive of anything or anyone that does not conform to their twitterised way of life.
And that’s what false sensitisation does. It gets you comfortably passive, makes you make a lot of useless noise because you think you know, because you’re deceived into believing you ARE the essence of online sensitisation. Social media has its place. But it must be used hand-in-hand with other, more tested and proven methods of information. A tweet cannot take the place of proper, solid research. A sidebar to click cannot replace tangible, decisive action.
Media has its place in development. But education is still essential to train, teach and truly sensitise people about how best to use the technology, about its limitations, advantages, disadvantages. Sensitisation goes beyond a click on an electronic device. It calls for real interest, real thought, and more importantly, REAL ACTION.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Some Encouragement ...
It takes effort to stop and put your thoughts in order to share them with others. And sometimes, it's easier to be lazy and not even bother to try. But the easy thing is not always the BEST thing. And the easy thing often carries no lasting, gratifying reward. And when you get into the habit of easy, you never stretch yourself, you never grow, you remain comfortable, and eventually become retarded.
Because life is so designed that each individual must encounter a series of events that lead to growth and maturity. When you decide to stop pushing yourself beyond the last boundary, when you decide to stay where you are and remain in your comfort zone only for the rest of your life, that's the point at which you decide to become a living dead.
So rise, then, and take up the challenge to be more today than you were yesterday, and more tomorrow than you are today. Rise, and decide to push for the better you until you're certain there's absolutely nothing left.
These are my few words. Pray for me as I pray for myself. And push ...
Because life is so designed that each individual must encounter a series of events that lead to growth and maturity. When you decide to stop pushing yourself beyond the last boundary, when you decide to stay where you are and remain in your comfort zone only for the rest of your life, that's the point at which you decide to become a living dead.
So rise, then, and take up the challenge to be more today than you were yesterday, and more tomorrow than you are today. Rise, and decide to push for the better you until you're certain there's absolutely nothing left.
These are my few words. Pray for me as I pray for myself. And push ...
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Remembering Steve Jobs
"Here's to the crazy one, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Steve Jobs
Here's to a creative genius. Steve Jobs. February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Living on Luck: Making Emergency Preparedness a Lived Reality
Countries
that have been (so far) fortunate enough to escape the catastrophe that
has befallen Haiti and Japan must feel lucky. But with luck should come
awareness of the strategies/measures that must be put in place to
ensure that, should the elements of nature decide to pour their solid,
liquid or gaseous wrath in our direction, they will be in a position to still escape catastrophe through
forethought and proper planning and preparation.
Preparedness must replace the luck mentality. And I see no place where a strong belief in luck or an unwavering testament to people’s faith in God’s providence is more evident than in Jamaica - the nation with the most churches per square mile.
Every year, around hurricane season, the piousness and religious zeal of Jamaican people increases thousandfold, as they cross fingers, toes, hands and feet, blot their house doors with the cross and pray for the providence of God to help them through another rough, potentially devastating season. The problem with that approach is - many of them survive the season relatively unscathed, and as a result, their belief in their luck's never-ending supply gets bolstered, even as the folly of their unpreparedness and refusal to prepare remains veiled to them.
At the end of it, they throw up their hands, utter a “Tenky Jesus” and carry on until the next hurricane season, and the next season of their mixture of fear, faith and luck.
I have no problem with God or religion. And I certainly have no grouse with Jamaicans being a people of faith. But let’s make this biblical: Faith without works - sensible, WISE works - is dead. Their failure to see that ‘luck’, ‘providence’, or whatever they call it, can run out, whereas good sense, proper planning and detailed preparation will always prevail, is what disturbs me.
We could easily move from the ‘maybe I’ll make it this year’ feeling of uncertainty to the confident statement of, ‘yes, I am prepared’. Damages could be minimised and it would cost this country less if we would stop living on luck, and starting living out emergency disaster preparedness, until it is ingrained in our culture, like it was in Japan’s.
And we should take instruction from the fact that despite their superior levels of preparation, Japan still endured more than they were able to bear. What about us - who are not prepared at all??
Preparedness must replace the luck mentality. And I see no place where a strong belief in luck or an unwavering testament to people’s faith in God’s providence is more evident than in Jamaica - the nation with the most churches per square mile.
Every year, around hurricane season, the piousness and religious zeal of Jamaican people increases thousandfold, as they cross fingers, toes, hands and feet, blot their house doors with the cross and pray for the providence of God to help them through another rough, potentially devastating season. The problem with that approach is - many of them survive the season relatively unscathed, and as a result, their belief in their luck's never-ending supply gets bolstered, even as the folly of their unpreparedness and refusal to prepare remains veiled to them.
At the end of it, they throw up their hands, utter a “Tenky Jesus” and carry on until the next hurricane season, and the next season of their mixture of fear, faith and luck.
I have no problem with God or religion. And I certainly have no grouse with Jamaicans being a people of faith. But let’s make this biblical: Faith without works - sensible, WISE works - is dead. Their failure to see that ‘luck’, ‘providence’, or whatever they call it, can run out, whereas good sense, proper planning and detailed preparation will always prevail, is what disturbs me.
We could easily move from the ‘maybe I’ll make it this year’ feeling of uncertainty to the confident statement of, ‘yes, I am prepared’. Damages could be minimised and it would cost this country less if we would stop living on luck, and starting living out emergency disaster preparedness, until it is ingrained in our culture, like it was in Japan’s.
And we should take instruction from the fact that despite their superior levels of preparation, Japan still endured more than they were able to bear. What about us - who are not prepared at all??
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Rainy Days And A Commuting Crisis Part 2
Or: A lesson in self-discovery
There I was. Caught in a classic catch 22. Take out the phone and make the call, risk being harmed or worse, killed, for a stupid BB (yes, right then, the damned thing seemed stupid and bothersome). Or not make the call and risk being stuck under that old shed with these strangers till midnight. I needed to go home. Badly. Cold, hungry and tired were beginning to make inroads on my will.
I took a careful look at the men around me. One was in shabby clothes, obviously a street runner (one of those men who spend all of their productive and consequently unproductive years on the side of the road harassing beautiful ladies, getting high, loading buses and dodging the police ... an absolutely judgmental description, but, I promise you, also absolutely true). One was a really big and tall dude in a khaki uniform - I shuddered. He was a schooler but he looked like maybe he had repeat several grades several times. Scary. Another looked like he worked on a construction site, in a lumber yard, or some such place. Short, thick, muscular, hulkish. He was sighing and hissing his teeth a lot and I thought he could rip the phone from me with one brisk motion. The last man wasn't so bad. He was tall but thin - almost to a fault. I looked at him and felt a small measure of pity and solace. He looked so sad and malnourished. If push came to shove, I could probably take him out.
The woman sounded like a security guard. She was short and fat. Maybe she would come to my rescue if I needed it. It never crossed my mind that she could have been antagonistic toward me - funny how and when our biases are revealed.
I looked around me at this circle of strange faces, and thought to myself that before the great and terrible heavenly outpouring, they were all just regular people on their way somewhere. They were stuck under this shed, just like I was, and it was very possible that, at this moment, they were all more preoccupied with their own worries and troubles than they were with me and my BB. Maybe they hadn't even noticed me!
I stepped closer to a damp corner, and turned to face the wall. I slid my BB out of my handbag, and took another quick glance at the faces around me. Maybe they weren't criminals after all. I rang a friend and was halfway through relating my sorry dilemma when a bright flash of lightning struck - literally before my face!! I screamed at the same time that a huge peal of thunder clapped, and everybody looked in my direction - at me and my BB.
I looked back at them and felt like a mouse trapped in the limelight, one hand clutching my handbag to my side and the other halfway through a wave (don't ask me how or why) with the phone held up in the air, visible for all to see ...
Funny how sometimes the things we try hardest to hide are the things that find their own way into the limelight. Funny how much we can learn about ourselves in our darkest hours.
There I was. Caught in a classic catch 22. Take out the phone and make the call, risk being harmed or worse, killed, for a stupid BB (yes, right then, the damned thing seemed stupid and bothersome). Or not make the call and risk being stuck under that old shed with these strangers till midnight. I needed to go home. Badly. Cold, hungry and tired were beginning to make inroads on my will.
I took a careful look at the men around me. One was in shabby clothes, obviously a street runner (one of those men who spend all of their productive and consequently unproductive years on the side of the road harassing beautiful ladies, getting high, loading buses and dodging the police ... an absolutely judgmental description, but, I promise you, also absolutely true). One was a really big and tall dude in a khaki uniform - I shuddered. He was a schooler but he looked like maybe he had repeat several grades several times. Scary. Another looked like he worked on a construction site, in a lumber yard, or some such place. Short, thick, muscular, hulkish. He was sighing and hissing his teeth a lot and I thought he could rip the phone from me with one brisk motion. The last man wasn't so bad. He was tall but thin - almost to a fault. I looked at him and felt a small measure of pity and solace. He looked so sad and malnourished. If push came to shove, I could probably take him out.
The woman sounded like a security guard. She was short and fat. Maybe she would come to my rescue if I needed it. It never crossed my mind that she could have been antagonistic toward me - funny how and when our biases are revealed.
I looked around me at this circle of strange faces, and thought to myself that before the great and terrible heavenly outpouring, they were all just regular people on their way somewhere. They were stuck under this shed, just like I was, and it was very possible that, at this moment, they were all more preoccupied with their own worries and troubles than they were with me and my BB. Maybe they hadn't even noticed me!
I stepped closer to a damp corner, and turned to face the wall. I slid my BB out of my handbag, and took another quick glance at the faces around me. Maybe they weren't criminals after all. I rang a friend and was halfway through relating my sorry dilemma when a bright flash of lightning struck - literally before my face!! I screamed at the same time that a huge peal of thunder clapped, and everybody looked in my direction - at me and my BB.
I looked back at them and felt like a mouse trapped in the limelight, one hand clutching my handbag to my side and the other halfway through a wave (don't ask me how or why) with the phone held up in the air, visible for all to see ...
Funny how sometimes the things we try hardest to hide are the things that find their own way into the limelight. Funny how much we can learn about ourselves in our darkest hours.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Rainy Days and A Commuting Crisis
So yesterday in Kingston, Jamaica, it rained cats and dogs! I mean, I had to wonder if heaven did laundry, the water was coming so heavy. And the lightning and thunder? As a friend would say, looked like God was fierce ... and fearsome!So the work bus trip left me, and I ended up stuck under the shed of an abandoned building on a somewhat secluded road. In dangerous downtown Kingston. Funny how I suddenly remembered that I was downtown, and that the place can be pretty dangerous for young, unarmed, female pedestrians ... Funny how I suddenly felt the penetrating gazes of the four other men who were stuck under the shed with me ... Funny how I started to earnestly beseech the (already wroth) Almighty to please let the one woman who was under that godforsaken place with us not get the taximan she was so desperately trying to call so I'd have some sort of female company till the rain eased up and I could escape the peril of four strange, suddenly menacing-looking men (yes, I know, what a horrible thing to pray). And funniest of all was the interesting dilemma I found myself in as it regarded my only means of commmunication with the *supposedly* dry and safe rest-of-world: my cell phone.
Now, up until recently, I had a Nokia 3310 - an ugly, ancient thing that caused me many days and nights of continuous ridicule from my friends and coworkers. The phone was so old that when it fell, it separated into five different pieces: the back frame, the battery, the front frame, the keypad and the sim card would all fly into different directions, and I would have to gather these relics to put my *hardy* phone back together again (say what you will about my old Nokia, that phone was hardy - I had that particular model from sixth form in high school and it lasted into the 21st century, so there!).
But alas, I had to retire that phone. It was becoming a bit of an embarrassment for a young, working professional. And quite the setback. So I retired it, and stepped up to the fast-paced, hi-tech BlackBerry world which, up until last night, I was very happy to enter.
But yesterday. In this dangerous place. Rain pouring. Five pairs of strange eyes on me. And my only means of communication? A posh, hot, steal-worthy BlackBerry phone. I suddenly realised the unsavoury side of having material possessions that criminals find attractive. It was quite the dilemma and, right then, I longed deeply for my ancient Nokia phone ...
Funny the things we see, hear, feel and miss in our moments of crisis! From now on, I'll remember to be grateful for small, old and outdated mercies!
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