Doing your bit for the real world

Community matters

Not History this time

Yesterday we had breakfast at church. Not just any church, but the Taranaki Cathedral.

The Cathedral people are serving breakfast on Tuesday mornings. We normally have Spencer on Tuesday mornings, so the three of us dropped in at the Cathedral and had breakfast there. They are doing it to raise money, to help Medecins sans Frontieres, one of the voluntary organisations sending medical aid to the West African countries affected by Ebola.

Margaret had pancakes with maple syrup, Spencer and I had porridge. Spencer had orange juice, Margaret and I had coffee.

I felt a bit hypocritical, sitting there in comfort, with well-fed people all around me, all enjoying rich food while we glowed in the self-satisfaction of "doing something" about the Ebola tragedy.

Still, in the present state of the world, we can do nothing else that may help. Thank goodness someone is at least making an effort to raise some funds to send to help!

BUT, and I have some buts, this is only a drop in the bucket. As we all know there are many other helping projects that need to be planned, put into operation and supported.

I am a passionate believer in democracy, and I am increasingly worried about the numbers of important jobs around our community and around our world that are being left to the voluntary organisations and their whimsical efforts.

The kind of democracy I believe in means that some jobs, the essential ones, like seeing that children do not die of diseases like Ebola, are the responsibility of us all, not just the soft-hearted or the conscience-stricken affluent like us. 

That means that to say we really live in a democratic nation or world, everyone must contribute through a government system that ensures that everyone pays a fair share of tax. If not, our elections may be democratic but our society does not live in a democratic way.

If people can opt out of helping the dying and the ill, if people can neglect their starving and homeless neighbours, if people can renege on "it takes a whole village to raise a child", their democracy is a sham. Bob Geldof made a similar point in his TV interview yesterday.

If you want to see how this plays out on a world scale, plug yourself in to the UN Development Programme that Helen Clark runs, at http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home.html

Yesterday I wrote about Hurworth Cottage and the need for volunteers there. I have set up a Facebook Group to start people thinking about the possibility they might like to help. If this is you, then how about joining the group, and we will contact you next year with more details.