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Ausländische Aktivitäten |
22. Mai 2012 |
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The fight for human dignity
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I Dream...
one day soon,
we all win the fight
for Human Dignity
In the final analysis, isn't life about a battle for resources? We all seek the security of food, water, shelter and fuel, and all the comforts of good living that come with them. Whether we win this battle or not often has less to do with who we are than when and where we were born. Happen to be born in a more developed country, blessed with plentiful resources, and your chances of achieving human dignity are good. But happen to be born in a less developed country, which most of the world is, and you will be lucky to survive infancy. You will become skilled at dodging the ravages of hunger, disease, illiteracy and poverty, .... forced to live in a world of despair, with little hope of escape. As you struggle in this hopeless state of suffering to improve yourself, suddenly, there is another beside you, competing for the same bowl of grain. The over-farmed fields, the over-fished fisheries and the depleted aquifers do not sustain the increased take, and the yields become less. The fight intensifies, and the suffering and dying increase. Infants die. Mothers die. The struggle is unimaginable, and death becomes, in a sad irony, a gentle release.
But it is not the destiny of humanity to walk voluntarily into fire. We may chose. We may make choices that lead us to success in the struggle to survive. In these acts of choice, we must search for a better balance between our numbers and our resources. The success of our choices will be most easily measured along political and geographic boundaries. Where, for example, there is agricultural production in a country sufficient for 5 million people, the formula for human security is easy to calculate. At 5 million people, we are secure. Add 5 million people, and everyone eats half as much. Or, somehow double food production, and we have surplus for reserve or trade. But for those in the already over populated, less developed countries, the predicament is driven by a fanatical desire to survive, to find the next meal, or a clean source of drinking water, or a thicket of firewood. Millions competing for the same things. Anything to survive. Even if it means trading tomorrow's security for today's meal, we do it. So the apparent simplicity of the formula for survival seems lost in reality.
As resource development is maximized (which has already happened in most parts of the world), the final variable in the formula for survival is numbers of people. There is a right number, that allows everyone an opportunity to achieve a life with dignity. It is not an absolute number. It is not a number that can be legislated or mandated. It is a number that occurs naturally, as more and more people understand that families that are able to provide for themselves are more apt to lead productive, happy lives. This understanding is reached through apparent paths: education, gender equality, sustainable use of resources, access to family planning services, and recognition of the basic human right for families to determine the number and spacing of their children.
Our dream is . . . , one day soon, Rotary International will direct its powerful humanitarian attention toward this root cause of most human suffering: the need for a better balance between numbers of people and our resources. Only organizations like Rotary International can create the necessary shift of thought on how the world perceives this predicament, and what the possible solutions might be. We know this path will require determined focus and unwavering leadership. It will demand an even deeper humanitarian compassion than we have had before. In the end, achieving this better balance will be essential to building a better world for those who follow, . .
a world in which we all win the fight for human dignity.
This is our dream for Rotary International.
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