Hannah Arendt

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the first things I wanted to say here. I thought about explaining the title, I thought about being upfront about my biases, I thought about discussing my inspiration to write a blog. But none of that captured the way I see this blog. Although I will write about some of those things.

This blog isn't about me or my ideas really at all. It is about challenging myself to not be too busy to accept things that make me angry, or frustrated o disheartened. I'm not talking about things like when my tea I ordered black has milk, but things that affect the world - climate change, politics, discrimination, disrespect and judgment.

A couple of things have led me to this decision, the most profound of which I will share here. A professor was giving a brief presentation about Rwanda. This was not the first time I had heard about the absolute destruction - both of people's lives, families and towns - that occurred, but it is the first time I heard about the global context in which the conflict occurred. Although he didn't go into details, the gist was that we were so busy paying attention to other things - some of which were completely worthy - multi-racial elections in South Africa, professional baseball players' strike, the Tanya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan incident, OJ Simpson - that warnings of the genocide went unheeded. This was of course compounded by other factors such as a general lack of media attention in the area; however, the world was too busy to read what little was being said. And then, we were too busy to react fast enough with enough to stop the killing. And 800,000 Tutsis paid with their lives. It didn't stop there; in many ways, the conflict still rages today.

Darfur and Rwanda have been compared endlessly. Yet we are still too busy. And the killing continues. Darfur is just one case where the world - whoever that is - is accepting the unacceptable. The killing going on in Darfur needs to be stop, and that is just one example of continued inaction in situations that are obviously wrong. HIV/AIDS is killing people globally. Poverty in Canada is a reality, as is hunger. On climate change, we are making painstakingly slow progress. Malaria - a preventable disease - still kills people when $10 can "Spread the Net". Ethnocentricity, discrimination, racism, homophobia, sexism, intolerance, disrespect, exclusion. There are still landmines, sweatshops, populations without access to safe drinking water. This includes numerous Aboriginal communities here in Canada.

Pick one cause, any cause. Don't be too busy for it. Read about it, talk about it, think about it, take small steps - or big steps - in your life to stop it. Don't underestimate what your thoughts, actions and words can do. Call a politician - municipal, regional, provincial, federal, global - tell them what you think. Add a recycling bin to your workplace. Be conscious of your language. Write a letter. Tell the media. Don't be too busy. That is what this blog is about.

Hannah Arendt, a Holocaust refugee turned political philosopher said "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil." For the most part, those people were just simply too busy to learn about the issue and without knowing any better, became bystanders, or in some cases even participants - all because they didn't fully understand what was going on.

Don't be too busy.