Saturday, May 05, 2007

First World exploitation of Africa's resources

perch fillets are stripped and shipped to europe while the africans can only afford to buy the carcasses. overfishing has caused fish stocks to drop drastically imperiling the livelihoods of more than 100,000 fishermen and depriving local people of food. national geographic 4/07.

this infuriates me. as if they don't have enough to eat already, satisfying our own needs is depriving them even more. you read daily about people in africa dying of starvation where most don't even have fish bones to eat.

this is just another example of we who have wanting more, having more and to hell with everyone else.

we would throw this carcass in the garbage after we had taken the fillets off. hungry people would leave nothing of this carcass. we waste more food in a year than people in africa have to eat in a year. we gorge ourselves, then when we become obese we pay to lose the weight. we are a self-indulgent society, spending money pleasing ourselves buying the latest fashions, bigger houses, bigger toys, more toys, drugs, booze. we spend more on our pleasure in a year than people have to spend on food.

will we never learn? if only we could change places, the have's with the have-not's. if only we could walk in their shoes, live in their homes, eat what they eat, live the way they live. would we learn? wait, they don't have shoes and are dying because they don't have enough to eat.

matt 25:42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. 45" He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

i know so many people that profess to be christians and wonder how they can make that claim when their lives don't resemble anything that Jesus talks about. money, greed, self-centred, self-indulgent.

i wish we could change places.

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