Who are we responsible for?
It’s probably telling that most students’ thoughts immediately leap to the world stage when asked for whom we are responsible. Interventionism, democracy promotion, and global policing is the foreign policy we were brought up with, the one we read in newspapers, watched on television, and discussed in classrooms. But it also reflects the condition of college students. We’ve been dependent, and now we’re independent, but we’ve never had dependents of our own. Ask your parents who they’re responsible for and they’d probably have a more specific answer: you.
Which doesn’t at all discredit looking at the question from a global or national perspective. Maybe we can even extend the metaphor. If someone tomorrow were to tell you that your parents were terrible and that they would soon be replaced, how would you react? Could this new person possibly understand your needs, your wants, your desires? Would their parenting style clash with what you knew before? And what if your parents were really abusive and terrible? Would that make new parents always the best option?
These are questions that are confronted by our society every day at an individual level, with foster parents, adoption and group homes, all of which come with their attendant qualities and difficulties. But there’s also a sense of global stewardship, and in this sense we’ve always been the foster parents, but never the foster children. Maybe if we want to understand what it means to be truly responsible for someone else, and what that responsibility really entails, we should start trying to see things from the other side.
When first thinking about this question I thought of what our responsibility is to other nations in the world. However upon further thought, I think that we should really be looking at what our responsibility is to our society and community. There are so many problems here at home that sometimes I wonder why people seem so much more eager to help elsewhere. In high school people would pay to go on community service trips to places like Cambodia and Africa. I think this is slightly a ridiculous concept to be paying thousands of dollars to help different places around the world when that money could be put to really great use here in our own community.
We live in a country that is currently struggling with the devastation of war and a chaotic economy. In such conditions, it is easy to become overwhelmed and wrapped up in the local deteriorating problems of our community. However, I feel that it is important to keep our priorities in order and remember what is important in life - our connections to each other, as people. I DO believe we have a global responsibility because of this.
Although there is a point that we should try to fix things in our own country before we try to fix things around the world—there is a huge gap between “poverty” in America, and poverty globally.
Extreme poverty is defined by people who live on less that $1 a day. Can you imagine that kind of deprivation?
All it would take to bring the nations of the world living in extreme poverty above the poverty line—to provide them with clean water, food, shelter, and other amenities that we take for granted—is .7% of high-income world’s GDP. That’s approximately a mere 7 cents to every $10.
So, how much does that 7 cents mean to you?
For me, I think it IS our responsibility to help those that don’t have the means to help themselves. And I’d be willing to spend my 7 cents.
There is a macro level in which we can discuss global politics and then there is the more micro-level: ie. helping the homeless or if you’re a vegetarian or PETA activist this can have to do with animals or even just passing down your family history. Each person, each nation—it varies, but at the end of the day everyone is responsible for someone outside of their direct self. I took a class on the Sudan last quarter and we were discussing China one day. China has given aid to the Sudan with no strings attached—not asking about human rights violations—in exchange for oil. However, at the same time we must take into account the billion people living in abject poverty in China. The people the country must try to support. So perhaps you can say China’s actions in the Sudan are unfair or even irresponsible, but in doing so I think one must also look at the responsibility one has to for its own people. I am not arguing for the case of China, but I am encouraging people to look beyond the facts and consider all angles when trying to figure out who are in fact responsible for.
