Small Gestures Maybe, But Gestures of Hope

There are many reasons why we should not boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer.
They will bring huge employment and therefore benefit to tens of thousands of Chinese people.
They will provide an opportunity for athletes from Third World countries to appear on a world stage and, maybe, break free from poverty.
They will provide the whole world with an opportunity to see all that is best about sport.
And so on.
In fact, I would say, that if I sat here for long enough, I could probably come up with a hundred reasons not to boycott the games.

Indeed, if I was simply to make an argument for boycotting the Games on the basis of China's behaviour in Tibet, despite the worldwide protests during the farcical Torch Run, there aren't really that many people who care. A pity. But true, nonetheless.
Some people may be appalled that China is doing its best to arm the despot Mugabe in Zimbabwe despite his brutality, his dishonesty, his corruption and the patently fraudulent nature of the elections there. At least, unlike China, there were elections there.
Others might feel a touch of nausea when they think of how many people are executed in China each year, often after no more than show trials and often with doctors on standby to harvest their body parts.
There are still more people who recoil at the idea of the way China treats its own citizens, those who raise even the quietest voice against the unelected regime, those who are summarily thrown out of their homes to facilitate some development or other, a practice Bertie Ahern appeared to admire, those who practice the Catholic, or indeed, any other faith, those who dare to be different in any way.
There are those angry at the way China shows utter disregard for the environment in its rush to be as greedy as, well, as greedy as us.
All of those thing sicken me.
But I am sickened most by China's support for the Government of Sudan, the government which has facilitated and carried out genocide in Darfur, a government which will, most certainly, not consider the nationality of the UN troops operating in Chad, if they find that operation inconvenient to them. That, of course, includes the Irish troops
There are many sick countries on this earth of ours, many countries rules by despots, dictators, brutal armies and, in some instances, men who are simply mad.
We must, of course, help the people of those countries as best we can.
Legitimising brutal regimes is not the way to go about it.
Shaking hands with the devil is not the right thing to do.
Personally, I will have no interest in the Olympic Games.
I am still, I fear, a child of the Sixties to this extent.
I hope.
I know in my heart that small gestures, even millions of them, are as naught against the power of the powerful.
But I'm for making them anyway.

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I Wonder

DID you ever wonder about the way we treat our politicians?
Did you ever wonder why we pay them so much?
Did you ever wonder why we allow our taxes to be used to pay for big cars and chauffeurs to drive them?
Did you ever wonder why politicians are, generally speaking, applauded when they walk into a room?
Did you ever wonder why we pay for their pr consultants, their style consultants and the consultants they consult to decide what consultants they need to consult next?
I wonder. I wonder all the time.
And I wonder why there are so many charitable organisations in rich countries.
Look at Ireland for example.
It is a wealthy country.
That’s what they tell us.

We’re the richest country in the world, some say.
Others put us third or fifth or eighth.
Few suggest we are outside the top ten.
I wonder why, then, that our telephone book contains pages and pages and pages of number for charitable organisations.
I wonder why it's something that doesn't seem to bother politicians.
I wonder why they think it's important they're seen at the opening of new buildings and roads and equally important that they're not seen near the homeless or the addicted or those in dire need of official help.
I wonder why so many people, so many of the disadvantaged, have to rely on charity to get by.
I wonder why politicians, who in Ireland gave themselves 22 pay rises in ten years, do nothing to help those who need help most.
I wonder why the St Vincent de Paul society has to run breakfast clubs for kids so that they get a decent breakfast every day.
I wonder why it has to provide resource centres in so many
Neighbourhoods.
I wonder why it has to provide education grants to those who cannot afford education, even at primary level.
I wonder why it has to provide holidays for poor children.
I wonder why it has to provide shelter for the homeless.
I wonder why those who look after children with Down Syndrome and Autism, have to beg the public for money to provide a service the government should provide.
I wonder why Americans allow George Bush to stay in the White House he having spent $800 billion killing Iraqis and the young men of America based on a lie.
I wonder why people buy products knowing they have been made by slave labour, sometimes even child labour.
I wonder why some people who are worth hundreds of millions want to be worth hundreds of millions more.
I wonder why African leaders applauded the despot Robert Mugabe a couple of weeks ago.
I wonder why, in the heel of the hunt, nobody is actually doing anything about Darfur.
I wonder why Muslim clerics don’t simply say that murder is wrong, that suicide bombing is wrong and that those who do such things offend Allah.
I wonder why doctors who swear to protect life, thing that killing fetuses, viable fetuses, is a good thing.
I wonder how the parents of whatever little boy it was who killed Rhys Jones in Liverpool, think they’re doing the right thing by not going to the police.
I wonder how governments, just about everywhere, can lecture about drug abuse, can pour millions into the frontline fight against heroin and cocaine and ecstasy and fail, utterly, to provide medical support for those addicts who want to stop.
I wonder why people hurt children.
I wonder why I never seen policemen on the streets anymore.
I wonder what politicians think when, as they sit in the back of their chauffeur driven cars, they see homeless people slipping under their cardboard sheets for the night.
I wonder why some wealthy people are generous and some are plain greedy.
I wonder why people throw litter on the street.
I wonder why gazillions of euro/pounds/dollars aren’t diverted from making things that kill people into discovering ways of keeping them alive.
I wonder.
I wonder.
I wonder.
But most of all, I wonder why, when you think of all the solvable problems there are in the world and in our countries, we treat our politicians the way we do, why we pay them so much, pay for their cars and applaud them when they walk into rooms.

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