As the year 2013 comes to an end, we do not only face the difficulties we haven’t been able to solve in the past, we must now face the situation where it seems that the so intended saviors themselves need to be saved. More important it is therefore, in times when both the European and the American economies are yet to get out of their debts, that we do not forget who is really struggling. It seems that we forget how both interdependent and interrelated the world is and that every country is a part of the world, so is its effect on the world and its effect on others. I am calling upon 3 principles which we have to focus on from now on, in the year 2014 and as long as it may take: But we shall begin now.
- The world has often told us it would be a wealthier place today than it was years ago. What the world did not tell us often enough, though, is that people are richer at the expense of others. The reason why many people are able to afford a house, afford a car, afford good education and often even live in their abundance is that other people on the other side of the earth are getting the very opposite of it. Yet, too many people and organizations, particularly, the other side are not visible. I am sure most people don’t even realize what they are supporting by buying a product where the price is more than 3 times the cost of production, whose company’s profit margin is tangent to 30%. The amount of cash may be as high as $150 billion and still do they owe the world what they are telling us every day: The greatest product we ever made. The word great does not deserve to be standing in this context. It is not only the organization’s fault that the conditions in certain Eastern world factories are as ferocious as they happened to be, it is moreover their responsibility that those conditions be improved. As they seem not to be sensible enough to do so, a tax should be forced to provide for such care. A tax that is placed upon the big companies so ignorantly admired by the large number of buyers trying to differentiate themselves. If we did not need such a tax because those companies would engage themselves in those issues, then that would deserve to be, as they say, great.
- For that to happen politicians are required that strive to be understood. Politicians that have character. Characters that aren’t unpleasant to listen to. Indeed, all mankind’s job and not just the television reporters’ job is to articulate the inarticulate and try to convey an idea so that they would not let anybody go, unless he understood the very same thing as they did. For the reason for juvenile delinquency is not just an outreach to have a say for change, it is more and more becoming the result of the failure to make someone understand so that the youth would look for something they can stand up for. As soon as they think they are right or as soon as they are given the opportunity to act against one’s principle, they will not let go of that rare feeling of what is known to be the pleasure of control and its violence.
- I also hope for leadership and technology companies in the world not to focus their programs on leadership and technology, but instead on getting rid of poverty and illnesses first. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on trainings for students and wireless hotspots in African regions, they can spend the very same money on vaccinations or training children that are hungry for food but, more importantly, hungry to learn to read and write. The African people are not primarily concerned about the number of computers the richer leaders in their country have, it is too slow a process to wait for them help the poor and close the gap between rich and poor. As Pope Francis once put it: Now is the time where we mustn’t be afraid to make our hands dirty.
