Warning: this is not about business today….
This evening I watched “Hotel Rwanda” and I was deeply touched and terribly ashamed – by myself. Where was I in 1994, what did I do? I was 20 years old and the images passed by… terrible, yes, but I didn’t go to the street…
2 years ago I started getting interested in Rwanda. I read General Romeo Dallaire’s book “Shake Hands with the Devil“, which explained the conflict in Rwanda from the UN field perspective. Dallaire was the commanding UN officer. He did all he could – he tried everything. It was terrible. He couldn’t stop the atrocities. And with that I don’t just mean what happened in Rwanda itself (more than 800′000 people killed in about 100 days – wiki / Human Rights Watch), but what happened in the UN security council – in Washington, Paris, London, Moscow and Beijing… We, the Western countries, failed because we had a genocide in our hands. I, as a person, failed because I didn’t try to influence my and other Western governements with the little means that I have… Terrible things only happen because we don’t inhibit them!
No, this is not about business design today… because business design only matters in a world where we can live free of fear. And sometimes it seems so strange to me that we can seriously talk of a “global village” or a “flat world” while Darfur and other places are covered by dark clouds… And to those that think it doesn’t matter: think twice and then make your point on my blog!
It seems to be the theme this month to take a step back and reconsider where we’re going. Bono is the latest TED speaker on the podcast talking about the persistant Africa Aids emergency.
I just saw the film Total Denial http://www.totaldenialfilm.com/about.php
which is about the US corporation UNOCAL funding the Burma military so that they could get a pipeline built, and the atrocities which follow.
There must come a time when we let our profit take a hit in favour of humanity. I keep looking for signs of the gift economy, and ways to make it work. Let’s hope we can give some hope soon.
The people of the world don’t need charity, they need justice.
I agree particularly with the sentence that we don’t need charity, but justice…
My take on this is: if rich OECD countries would really care about development, they’d create a level playing field for countries from the South inside the WTO framework.
If rich countries really cared about peace & justice they’d stop delivering weapons to certain regions of the world and they’d take a harder stance on some governments…
However, since I’m a citizen of a rich country (Switzerland is still among the very richest) it is also my responsibility to help create the conditions for development and justice by pressuring my own government and influencing my own social network!