I've just finished reading "Little Bee".
The thing that struck me most, is the way normal people like you and me are inextricably linked to normal people like you and me in third world countries. It brings a great sense of guilt for the you and me in the Western part of civilization. And no matter how idealistic we are, we seem unable to change things, because we are confronted with a complex system of power and simply a lot of evil in the world and in the hearts of men. The house I live in is bought with money made at Shell (my father-in-law works there), a company responsible for so much injustice in the world. I feel bad about that. Everything we do sustains the existing situation of injustice: the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the money we put on our banks. But what can I do? Should I give up my house? If I were to listen to my conscience, I would. And on top of that eat only locally, biologically produced food, buy clothes from shops I know are not engaged in child labour practices, put my money on a bank that doesn't invest in bad things. Would I feel better? Would I be a better person? First of all, I would be bankrupt, because living like that is expensive purely in terms of money and my income is too low. Is that enough reason not to do it? I could try to find a job that pays better, work more and live for a healthier mankind and planet. But then I would be unhappy. Is that worth the sacrifice? Is that all I care about, to be happy? How can I even begin to be happy when there are people starving to death, the exact same people that made the fabric for my couch, so to speak? I think part of the unhappiness is then due to the fact that I wouldn't directly see the consequences of my "good" actions. The evil we face is very impersonal, but so is the good. If I could tune in with a little camera on my laptop on the child who is released forever from the clothing workshop because I stop buying my clothes at H&M, maybe then I would be more likely to give it up, because I would feel happy that I helped in releasing the child. (I think though, If I kept on filming, I would see the child fall into the hands of other wolves). But it doesn't work that way. My actions do not have such direct consequences. Bad things and bad people will always exist, no matter what I do. And besides, this is a very selfish way of viewing things. Just because I don't see the results, I don't act, even though I know it is better? Come to think of it, I don't think I even know what is better. Because everything happens far away and it would cost a daytime job for me to figure out the history of all the products I buy, not even to mention the lies and misinformation you would come across from companies who sell them.
I had a discussion with a friend not long ago, where I stated that I hate the fact so many people believe we live to be happy. "All the choices we make and things we do are only to make us happy", he said, "even if we help others, because the gratification we get from helping others is something that leads us to be happy." I feel a certain emptiness in this statement, although I recognize that largely it is true, also for the way I live. I guess I should be glad then that God created us to be happy by helping others, otherwise things would go a little bit out of hand.
But I don't believe we should strive to be happy, because the action is then only directed by your own sense of gratification and thereby in fact selfish. I think we should strive to serve a purpose that is greater than ourselves. To serve, yes. "To serve" has a kind of degrading feeling for a lot of people, because you place yourself below something or someone else. I think we've lost our ability to serve in the Western world, because we are told daily that we should stand out and be confident and not let anyone walk over us. I recently heard a teacher say that all he ever hears in class these days is young kids saying they want respect. It's something they think they're entitled to, like a birthright, like a part of their bodies, an invisible arm or leg that also came out when they were born from their mothers. They are not aware that respect is something you earn. A president is a good president because he serves his country. He puts the needs of his countrymen above his own personal needs. Do you know a lot of presidents like that? No, you don't. Because it's very hard. It's sacrificing. We don't like to sacrifice and serve. We prefer to be comfortable and happy.
As do I. Some are willing to kill for it. They kill just to protect their comfortable happiness. I wouldn't go so far, but I'm not exactly on the serving side either. Actually, I'm mostly closing myself in inside my own happy safe state. I am aware that I buy the wrong products, that I walk past the poor man outside the supermarket without giving him my money. I stopped watching the news and reading the papers for a long time, because all the bad things happening in the world were piling up inside my body and I couldn't contain them anymore because they had no outlet. I am guilty, as are Sarah and Andrew in Little Bee, as we are all. Can you handle that? Can I handle that?
When you read a book like Little Bee the truth hits you hard in the face, no matter how hard you were trying to hide. For me personally, things are starting to get a little bit different now though. When I was a child, I was very idealistic. I knew that when I grew up, I would dedicate my life trying to make the world a better place. When I got older, I learned that my actions were insignificant, I learned about nihilism and systems of power that make you powerless. So I started to draw back.
But now, I think I'm waking up again. As I said in my last post, I have to stop dreaming big and start dreaming smaller. I don't want to look away anymore. I want to be engaged. I want to look evil in the eye and say: you don't scare me anymore. And looking evil in the eye also means seeing the people who are engaged in fighting it. This means reading the right books, the right magazines (like Ode or Vrij Nederland), watching the right programmes (like Buitenhof) and being inspired by activism, cheering these people on and being part of their community. Because mainstream media is only fixated on the grotesqueness of evil and not on the nuance. You have to look for the right examples instead of letting yourself be numbed down by the bad stuff and by the guilt. And, the most difficult part for me: let your actions follow your words. Try to serve the greater good in the little ways you can. Do it together with others, don't think you can do it alone. The object then, is not to be happy. It is to lead a deep and profound life, facing the painful consequences of trying to fight evil, the humiliation of people who make fun of your idealistic ideas, the people who stay evil no matter what you tell them, the feeling that what you are doing is useless. A true hero is not doing the things he does because it is making him happy. He is doing it because he believes in something, something greater than himself, and he is willing to suffer for it.
