Hope remains

Yesterday we finally got our computer back. Since that moment I’ve been working extremely hard on the Development paper as I’m meeting my group mates on Monday and my part has to be finished by then.

I would like to wish you all a happy new year. I hope you will all live your dreams this year, will stay healthy and be able to be yourself and live in peace. If you are able to fulfil any of these wishes you should consider yourself lucky, because like we have seen the last week nothing is for granted.

Some people say whenever tragedies like the Tsunami’s or other tragedies happen that they aren’t affected by them anymore. They say it’s because there are so many tragedies all over the world they’ve become immune. But I don’t believe that. You can’t tell me you don’t feel anything when you see a father crying over the dead body of his son. You can’t tell me you don’t feel anything when you see local and foreign people desperately searching for their loved ones, while in the back of your head you know they will probably never find them again. Don’t tell me you don’t care. I absolutely despise that sort of ignorance.

If the moment ever comes when I no longer feel anything when these tragedies happen I will no longer consider myself human. Being human - to me - means being compassionate with other people. And to me, it doesn’t make any difference whether those people are Dutch, American, African, Asian, black, white, yellow, Islamic, Buddhist or Christian. I hate it when people seem to differentiate between groups. I often feel people think the death of a Western person is worse than the death of a non-Western person. I don’t understand people can think like that. I’ve watched and read the terrible stories from Asia (and other places in the world) and I’ve been near tears several times, whether it were natives or foreigners. I truly feel for them all. We’re all humans after all, no matter where we live, how we live, what we believe or how we look. And we shouldn’t forget that, especially in times like these. When I see now that aid is coming from all over the world to Asia I do feel there’s still hope for the human race. No matter how divided we think we are, in the end we do care for each other. As long as we stick together and help each other hope remains for a better world.