I first heard about Restless Beings whilst attending a photography exhibition by Ruhul Abdin, one of the founders of Paraa, another charitable organisation doing great work.
The Bromley-by-Bow Centre was unknown to me and I walked right past it down a deserted residential street. It was dark and I had no idea where I was going. Heading back towards where I had come from I met some people who were also lost and also attending the event. We made it.
For the past decade, the public has heard vociferous rhetoric from the White House and the Israeli government about Iran and their nuclear capabilities. In November 2002, the then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said "the day after" the Iraq war ends, full attention should be given to Iran. The Iraq invasion officially ended this month, so we must now ask: what now?
Human Writes in November 2010 was pretty awesome, the hype was all over the net, in the offices and class rooms on Monday morning and definitely did the Projects and the Human Rights cause justice!
Looking back, can it be as good this year? YES !!!!!!!! And with you there, it will be even better!!!
Had a tour around Shatlia and Bourj Al Barajneh refugee camps today located in Beirut. The contrast between the old and the new, the poor and the rich- is so stark. Example- you have the Radisson hotel on one street with slum like blocks of apartments a few meters down the road.
The Camps today had been what I was waiting for. Enough of the commercialized, shallow Beirut vibe from multinationals on every street corner, regular high street shops, beauty parlors every five seconds and not particularly friendly Lebanese people- leaving much to be desired. Very different to my expectations of what I hoped Beirut to be like... but the hidden jewels beyond the tall glass windows, shiny shop signs and general superficial glam of this place- rests in the places standard 'tourists' are told to ignore... or rather the places, the international community chooses to forget.
What is this rhetoric of peace they speak of whilst the people of their land die dreaming of knowing the truth?
Their honey sweet rhetoric and their promises of peace leaves dreams of hope broken, exposing a truth which is real. A truth rendering the people of hardship, the people of struggle, the people of loss; subject to the hands of their mercy. A mercy which is hollow, knows no fear and feels none.
We trust in those who betray, we loathe those who stand back and we wish we could believe in those who say they will. Time passes, the skies change, yet our hunger remains.
The starving, poverty stricken, oppressed, marginalised, violated and silenced communities of our world continue to usher in their new years in a way alien to true celebratory style as we know it. In contrast to our countdowns into a new realm of beginning, they count their seconds down in wonder of their next meal; in the fear of death over life. The only fireworks they know are not the coloured sparkle that glitter across our skies, but of fatal fiery blasts of bombs which destroy their homes and kill their loved ones. They know not of our happiness and laughter, with only echoes of memories of broken smiles etched onto the faces of their now forever lost children. These are the sufferings of our world. Our people. Bangladesh. Democratic Republic of Congo. Iraq. Palestine. Burma. China. Darfur. Haiti. Afghanistan. Ethiopia. Argentina. This mental splurge of countires goes nowhere in demonstrating the magnitude of the suffering being inflicted upon communities in the world; past, present and future.
Imagine a world with no volunteers. From a world to a local community scale. A world with no medical volunteers, no one to help rescue those affected by the many natural disasters we have witnessed, no one to help those most vulnerable in our society, no one to help fix the raggedy fence of the local park, no one to give a voice to the voiceless, no one to stand for those who cannot...?
Is...
As shining beacons of equality, freedom and justice, the champions and maintainers of human rights, Bush and Blair launched their latest 'humanitarian' intervention in March 2003, seeking to liberate and free the subjugated and oppressed victims of Saddam Hussein's tyrannical, brutal and totalitarian regime.
I'm hungry. I really am. I woke up this morning, had my, now usual, mug of strong black coffee and settled down to learn about the wonders of Constitutional Law (insert unhappy emoticon here). As I turn the laptop on, it seems my feed into the world is suddenly alive. Amongst the many news clips about the X Factor and Strictly drama, I see an article that the United Nations food agency is 'celebrating' World Food Day, with meetings held in Rome. It was this organisation, founded in 1945, that was one of the world's first, to devote itself to the abolition of hunger.
I typed 'Pakistan floods' into Google for the latest news on what has been described as one of the worst natural disasters in decades to help me write this blog. Yet it surprised me not that the 'latest' news items dated back to early August. It is now October. UN Reports in August asserted that a massive 20 million people had been affected, where this number is now, two months later remains an uncertain speculation floating subconsciously in our minds. The plight of the Pakistani flood victims has been wiped from our TV screens, newspapers, radio broadcasts and worse still; our minds. How ironic given it has been asserted that the number of people suffering as a result of the floods tops the numbers of the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Combined. But how many people can be expected to know that amidst the prevailing media silence towards the forgotten cries of Pakistan?