It's Blog Action day and this year bloggers around the world are you uniting in one common cause: making noise against poverty. Does it help throwing more cluster into cyberspace? I doubt it. The poor will still be poor at the end of today and the rich will be richer. Do we splash logos, banners and pictures of emaciated children across the screens because we sincerely believe it will help or because it makes going to sleep easier? What's special about today is that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are concerned for whatever reason giving a few minutes or hours in their day to something that does not have any direct impact on their lives. But the best thing about this is that there are people out there who are united in this and not being paid to be concerned. No cushy job in an air-conditioned office with an SUV parked outside while they sit in a workshop and come up with some solution to world poverty (with no conscience about the fact that they are part of the problem - yes that includes me minus the SUV).So let us have a minute of silence for these people - not the poor ones - the rich ones...
And let us have two minutes of silence for that other lot of people that call themselves Ministers, Members of Parliament, Prime Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Diplomats and of course Presidents. Now this lot ( at least in Kenya) are a really special breed. They have mastered the art of not just making a living from poverty but getting the very poor people they represent to pay them to get even richer. Geniuses. I salute you.
So now that we have had a few minutes of silence for Patriots Paid to Protect the Planet, I would like to make a noise about the other kinds of heroes. The silent kind who don't do any of this for a living or for the feel good factor. They have been around for too long to get a kick out of any of this.
And I needn't look very far. Today I want to make a noise about two people:
Mr and Mrs Pabari.
My mother and father.
3 comments:
Thanks for this.
Relevant for Kenyans but also for people around the globe.
Great post Dipesh. Very poignant and indeed relevant for all across this globe.
The villains in government have missed the point of existence and decided to be malignant growths on the soul of the planet. What an accomplishment for them!
It's so nice to see your parents photo after all we've heard about their great works.
Colleen
Dipesh this is a copy of my comment in response to yours left on my blog
Dipesh@ excellent point and speaks to my depression and i dont use that word lightly. this is damn depressing because if all those millions of people who ether wrote poverty posts or read them would actually do something to force our leaders to invest in caring not killing then they would truly make a difference. as it is i had a lot of reasons not to get involved in this exercise but in the felt what i had to say was important and worthy of being published.
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