Too many cameras and not enough food...

[BeautifulBurnout]

...This is what we see

Driven to tears

[Deckard]

What strikes me about images like these, showing humans not only in a physical condition so extreme and appalling, but also in an environment so harsh and alien to us - is how that may play a part in us choosing to ignore them. They're not close to home, they're in Africa, and hey, we all know that's just what happens in Africa, and hell, they don't even look like us....

What you say about too many cameras might at first seem odd (ie. surely we need more exposure of this?) but on reflection, I wonder if there's some truth in it - that we've become so accustomed to just accepting that this is what Africa looks like, that it leads to a certain fatigue, a detachment from it all?

[dubman]

Originally Posted by Deckard

What you say about too many cameras might at first seem odd (ie. surely we need more exposure of this?) but on reflection, I wonder if there's some truth in it - that we've become so accustomed to just accepting that this is what Africa looks like, that it leads to a certain fatigue, a detachment from it all?

yes.
exposure is a double edged sword, and i really think celebs and the like should be more careful about it.
this is a murky road im heading down and i'm not saying "lets all give up now" but instead relating to the idea of exposure and effect, so bear with me.
but what else are we supposed to think when you have huge organized events and benefits plugged by the likes of 'superstars' and famous people, only to have it do fuck all in the long term? what we see as a result of different cause celebres are small communities briefly staved from recurring misery just long enough to make a photo shoot out of it, its benefits seem surface-depth at best, and meanwhile 95% of africa gets ignored because they cant possibly cover a significant chunk let alone everyone. this happens again and again. every group, organization, and bono hve a story about helping africa, yet the grand picture hasnt changed.

so we watch the exposés and read the details with a morbid fascination of its extremities, but if people who are almost incontinently wealthy and resourceful cant do anything without looking like self-satisfied prats, then what the hell are we expected to do? keep shopping at the gap and their (red) line so we can steamroll that crawling guilt at the backburner?
the impression left on most of us is that this is obviously a much larger problem that doesnt simply need an accumulation of chump change to fix. it's an infrastructural problem that we would have to, in a surreal turn of events, drop what we're doing and immerse ourselves in the thick of it in the remote possibility that the foundations of how a country is run could be altered so that whats given could be used to produce more.

and since none of us are expected to do that, it no longer feels as if it's our responsibility. and after that happens, the matter is quite quickly dropped. it gets revived by the occasional photographer to pull at the strings and remind us that yes, it's still happening, but at this point the cameras are like anthropologists: they come in for the material, get what they need, but the hope that they'd publish anything to help who they're making their name off of is distant at best, so what we have is mostly self-serving accomplishments that leave those inflicted in the same situation as before, only whoever deigned to go there gets a prize for it.

on the other hand, if you ignore it it's basically sticking your head in the sand and trying to get away with being a self-centric prick (aka: republicans... ooooh )

in conclusion: the world is too big.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by dubman

in conclusion: the world is too big.

No. It's almost too small.

Turn your back on something horrible, and it'll eventually bite you on the ass.

[BeautifulBurnout]

Originally Posted by jOHN rODRIGUEZ

No. It's almost too small.

Turn your back on something horrible, and it'll eventually bite you on the ass.

I'm inclined to agree with this, actually. Years of suffering begets people with a grudge against those whom they think are "responsible" for that suffering. And more often than not they look to the developed West, the countries that colonised them, leeched their natural resources for their own profits and installed their own infrastructures for their own benefit, and to hell with the indigenous populace.

And yes, it does eventually come and bite us on the bum. Would Iran be so much of a "threat" to us (perceived or real) if we hadn't interfered in their country for decades to control their natural resources to our own ends? We can expect more of the same from African nations as we continue to remove people from land they have farmed for centuries because Del Monte or some other big transnational has done a dodgy deal with their greedy government to lease land that was never the government's property in the first place, so they can take control of the fruit grown there. But hey, at least the locals are allowed to work for Del Monte and earn money to buy the fruit they used to pick for free....

Simplistic I know, but it's a start down the road of explaining what I mean.

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by BeautifulBurnout

I'm inclined to agree with this, actually. Years of suffering begets people with a grudge against those whom they think are "responsible" for that suffering. And more often than not they look to the developed West, the countries that colonised them, leeched their natural resources for their own profits and installed their own infrastructures for their own benefit, and to hell with the indigenous populace.

And yes, it does eventually come and bite us on the bum. Would Iran be so much of a "threat" to us (perceived or real) if we hadn't interfered in their country for decades to control their natural resources to our own ends? We can expect more of the same from African nations as we continue to remove people from land they have farmed for centuries because Del Monte or some other big transnational has done a dodgy deal with their greedy government to lease land that was never the government's property in the first place, so they can take control of the fruit grown there. But hey, at least the locals are allowed to work for Del Monte and earn money to buy the fruit they used to pick for free....

Simplistic I know, but it's a start down the road of explaining what I mean.

Yeah, or wack-attack-wacky "Christians"(many just say that because it sounds good, really, I'm not bull-shitting) who have a belief along the lines of:

The day I have to share the same rights which I take for granted with a homosexual, is the beginning of end of days. This is our mission statement. By any means necessary(no reference to Malcolm X, they raped him too) we will rape the constitution as well as life, liberty, and the pussuite(yes, if you've been paying attention, there's some "code" language for your ass) of happiness to make sure we are right.

[dubman]

well the point was that the more you look at it the more you accept that its there and it's too remote to do anything about it since no one's put a dent in it. it's too far away, socially/culturally speaking.
turning your back on it doesnt bite you in the ass, it just turns you stupid. actively contributing to it and then pretending nothing happened will do the trick tho

[jOHN rODRIGUEZ]

Originally Posted by dubman

turning your back on it doesnt bite you in the ass, it just turns you stupid. actively contributing to it and then pretending nothing happened will do the trick tho

Irony.

Always has been one of my most bestest of friends.