Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
International Day of Mourning
Wilson's Almanac extends its condolences to all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.
As September 11 has come to symbolise the folly and tragedy of revenge, we join our friends in many lands in a day of international mourning for the myriad wrongs in this beautiful world.
9-11 will, no doubt, be the world's Day of Mourning for a planet and a people that have in many ways lost their way,
so this is a good day to recommit to helping each other find our way back.
Let 9-11 go beyond NYC, beyond even the USA, and become World Mourning Day.
Today, as we grieve the futile deaths of many people on September 11, let us also have a minute's silence for the ills of the world that only people can cure.
And from September 12, as people of goodwill we can begin that work.
Some
26,000 people also died on September 11, 2001 around the world:
from starvation, unclean water, and preventable disease. Shashi
Tharoor, PhD, author, Under-Secretary-General for Communications
and Public Information of the United NationsSource
There is much to mourn today. here are just a few to consider:
Each year, the world spends $900 billion on war.
By contrast, more than a billion people have no access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, so 3 million people die annually.
Providing those services would cost about $20 billion a year, or about 1/18th of the military budget.
The world's eight nuclear weapons states maintain over 17,000 nuclear warheads, with the United States and Russia accounting for 93 percent.
Western nations are hugely involved in research for these and other weapons of mass destruction.
China has nearly 400 nuclear warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain about 200 each. India is believed to have more than 30 and Pakistan more than 40 nuclear weapons.
The water supply of Iraq has been degraded by the allied forces in clear violation of the Geneva Convention.
Fourteen million people in Southern Africa are in imminent danger of starvation.
According to lawyers, Australian, British and other inmates of Camp X-ray have been moved from their 6'X8' cages to concrete cells that are even smaller. They have not had legal representation for 9 months, and are kept in solitary confinement with lights on 24/7. They are allowed three, 15-minute exercise breaks a week.
The US Defense
Secretary declared that they would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be not guilty.
In Australia, hundreds of applicants for refugee status are being held in concentration camp conditions, sometimes for years.
When men, women and children in these detention centres attempt suicide, or sew their lips together in hunger strike activity, the government and media claim they are trying to manipulate Australian citizens, rather than acting out of desperation.
NAFTA has failed to deliver prosperity to small farmers, and was never intended to do so.
Not only did American farms lose nearly $18 billion in annual revenue, but Mexican farmers' income fell 17 percent in 2001. Canadian farmers, who were told to expect a $1.4 billion increase in income, found their bank accounts $600 million emptier. Big business, however, has had a windfall.
Israel receives $1.8 billion in US military aid.
Since 1976, Israel, a rich country, has been the largest annual recipient of US foreign assistance.
250,000 parrots are imported to the US yearly. 25,000 parrots die of suffocation,starvation, or inhumane treatment while being transported.
More than 100 million animals are used in experiments every year.
At least 42 million acres of tropical forest are lost each year, an area the size of Washington State, USA. This equals about 100 acres a minute.
An estimated 50,000 species of plants and animals, mostly plants and invertebrates and mostly in the tropics, are condemned to extinction every year, an average of about 140 a day.
Cultures are becoming extinct, too. Since the turn of last century, 90 tribes of indigenous peoples have been wiped out in Brazil alone. The pace of annihilation is increasing; 26 of those tribes died or were scattered in the past decade.
About 95 million people were added to the world's population in 1992.
Each year, Latin American and Caribbean nations transfer $20 to $30 billion to the industrialized world. Meanwhile, 44 percent of the labor force of this same region is unemployed. At least 70 percent of Central Americans live in poverty.
Thirty-one percent of Central America is land fit for farming, but land distribution is unequal. In 1992, 80 percent of the population lived on 25 percent of the land.
Similar inequities are found in all poor nations, often exacerbated by practices of Western corporations.
Last year, the average North American citizen burned energy equivalent to 40 barrels of oil; the average Mexican, about seven.
In the average Western city, approximately 10% of all solid waste is food. In the USA, this is a total of 46 billion pounds per year. Only one-tenth of this food could end hunger in America.
Mrs Bush, Mrs Blair et al criticised the Taliban but have remained silent on the medieval treatment of Saudi women. Saudi Arabia, considered an ally, has most of the world's oil.
Over the last decade, The Hungry have become:
Younger: 12.9 million (40%) are children
.
Poorer: 12.9 million (40%) live below the poverty line. The gap is widening as the real income of the bottom 4/5ths of population continues to decrease. More than ever before, the rich are getting richer at the expense of the vast majority.
At the moment, the vast majority of the men pushing for war in Washington are what The New Hampshire (USA) Gazette defines as "Chicken Hawks": "public persons -- generally male -- who (1) tend to advocate military solutions to political problems, and who have personally (2) declined to take advantage of significant opportunity to serve in uniform during wartime."
"Formerly admired almost universally as the pre-eminent champion of human rights, our country has become the foremost target of respected international organizations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life.”
Former US President Carter
"...the failed effort to build communism in the twentieth century
consumed the lives of 60,000,000 human beings, making communism
the most costly human failure in all history."
Zbigniew Brzinski 1977 to 1981, National Security Advisor to the President of the United States
Currently, one fifth of the world's population
lives under communist totalitarianism.
Eastern Africa has experienced at least one major drought in each
decade over the past 30 years. There is evidence of increasing
climatic instability in the subregion, and increasing frequency and
intensity of drought, and that Western pollution is one cause.
During 2001 over 3,048 people were executed in 31 countries.
The figure was more than twice the total of 1,457 recorded in 2000.
“All over the world 24,000 people, mostly children, die from poverty
every day. This is the true terrorism, and it is aided and abetted by
politicians from rich, privileged and powerful countries who, in the
cause of profit and feigning respectability, are salesmen of death. Their
victims, and the rest of us, deserve better.”John Pilger
600,000 square miles of forest were cut down in the last decade.
Wednesday,
