The world community

[Dr. Shenita Etwaroo]

The world community is in a staggering situation, with civil wars killing innocent people, serious droughts affecting the availability of potable water, and systematic oppression kicking down the same peoples, generation after generation. In all of this conflict, in all of this strife, there are few voices who rise above the cacophony of dissenters with reason and righteousness, speaking for the voiceless and beaten down people who are lost in the storm of the inequity of our times.

Where this inequity is created stands within the systems in place, but it is within our reach to bring these injustices to an end. We, an informed, intelligent, advanced network of global citizens owe it to our own species, to every species, to end the exploitation and suffering once and for all.

There is nothing radical in this notion that no one creature on this blessed planet deserves to be abused. A civilized human would no more beat a dog than his fellow man. The power is within our hands to end world hunger. Why do children still go hungry at night? Where is the justice, where is the mercy, as we relish in the high availability of food and clean water?

It is not to say that this is something we do not deserve. This is to say that all humans deserve adequate nutrition and water supplies. All humans deserve access to preventative health care as well as diagnostic health care. All humans have a right to practice whichever religion suits our hearts and souls.

Are borders for our own protection, or simply a denial of human rights? Where does the proverbial line begin and end? Today, children are sent alone, terrified, deported back to the lands of war and violence that they fled for their lives from. Love for our fellow human beings is lacking obviously, when we look at their tear-stained faces and send them away for being born in a different place.

Love is the only reason our species has survived. Familial and romantic love are personal, but we are all due to love and compassion for our fellow beings. It’s time to reject the notion that goodwill on Earth and kindness toward our fellows is idealistic drivel. I repeat, love is the only reason we are alive. Love is what gives us hope in the darkest hours, and in this fading of light we currently perceive, it is difficult to tell if the dawn is breaking, or if there is only perpetual dusk, fading into the blackest midnight.