Switzerland Part II Episode IV

I think, as this is a European country, and I'm essentially here to work, I haven't had much in the way of 'cultural observation'. Sincerely, as Geneva is such a multinational town, it is hard to even say that it is particularly "Swiss" in any way.
This past week, I've mainly been at the UN HQ, as the 65th World Health Assembly has been taking place. It's quite an impressive thing, if you think about it: the world's Ministers of Health coming together to make momentous policy decisions for the health of all peoples. I'm quite convicted that the ideal intents of the UN are good, seeking the good and the goodwill of all of humanity to work together to help all people live lives of dignity.
In practice, however, is a different beast entirely. Political interests and intrigue, blocking policies because of special (corporate or national) interests, the clear power differential between the rich nations and the poorer nations (and how they throw their weight around! It's shameful how arrogant we are in treating lower income nations!!); all of it, though I recognized that it happens, to watch it happen in real time before my eyes and to hear it through my ears is appalling.
And meanwhile, people continue to die needlessly, and to lack access to clean water and medicines that will keep them and their children well, and to live in fear and horror that their governments are targeting them.... all the while, with their governments smiling here and saying nice things about the things that they are accomplishing, and thanking other governments for their efforts in helping them, even when they aren't, or even when that "help" has multiple layers of strings attached...
Some of the individual people here that I've met have been lovely and want what is best for all people, irrespective of geography, class or minority status. But the countries they represent (including my own!!!) still carry on, oppressing their own people, and when they have the leverage, other countries' people as well...

FFT

To designate a hell is not, of course, to tell us anything about how to extract people from that hell, how to moderate hell's flames. Still, it seems a good in itself to acknowledge, to have enlarged, one's sense of how much suffering caused by human wickedness there is in the world we share with others. SOmeone who is perennially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood. No one after a certain age has the right to this kind of innocence, of superficiality, to this degree of ignorance, or amnesia.
- Susan Sontag

I would also add: This does not, either, give us the right to turn away and ignore that depravity, to say that it is not ours, it does not affect our little cocoons. No one after a certain age has the right to that kind of apathy, that kind of deliberate turning aside on the road to Jericho, or that kind of selfishness.

Switzerland Part II Episode III

Mainly, I've been thinking more about the right to health, particularly in the context of all that the World Health Organization aims and aspires to do and be, but also because of this course for school that I'm thinking about at the same time. One of the really great things about having a course luxuriously and languidly stretching out before you, and having oodles of spare time because you're not at your usual pace of living, means that you get to ruminate quite a lot on a topic, rather than just hurrying to finish the bare requirements.
At any rate, so I've been thinking about the interconnectedness between human rights, health and shalom. I think rights, particularly as they are understood by Westerners, and particularly those who are more conservative politically, become anathema. I think the perception might be that it is too strident, that it is too selfish or greedy, or some such thing. Women can't ask for rights, don't they have it good enough? My goodness, the homosexual community wants to be treated the same; why are they so bothered about how society is currently treating them? That kind of thing.
However, I suspect that most of the resistance usually comes from within those who hold power. I feel it myself, sometimes too, when I feel like I would have to sacrifice or give something up of myself in order to increase equity for others, that I may feel don't "deserve" it, or didn't work as hard as I did, or some such other nonsense. I don't like ceding power either. I think also, we may not reflect hard enough on just how much power we hold, because of our privilege and coincidence (I guess some people would say 'providence', but sometimes I have a hard time with that - does God not love and provide for everyone? The implication that God is looking particularly out for me and others "like" me suggests a small whiff of prosperity gospel, I think).
Ruminating just on how much power and privilege I hold, and yet also despairing at how hard it is to disperse it, to share it, to bring about shalom, is a hard place to be.
What does this have to do with Switzerland? Well, I think, some of this was also triggered by a brilliant talk on history. History has contributed fundamentally to how this world is functioning today and how the decisions we think we are making that make sense, are not; they are simply decisions that fall in line with other deliberate, selfish choices in the past. Selfish choices that the Western world chose to follow fifty, sixty years ago....