EDITORIAL: We're All In This Together
By Rossland Telegraph
If there’s a lesson to be learned from the current global crisis or crises, it’s that we all stand or fall together. That’s been the case, probably, since 8:15 AM on August 6, 1945 when America dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, but the idea is just beginning to sink in now, more than sixty years later. Global warming, economic catastrophe, atrocities in Gaza: there’s no escaping it. In fact, it often feels overwhelming.
It shouldn’t. There’s a lot we Rosslanders can do locally to directly impact the larger world. On the environmental front, we can consume less and recycle more. This will impact children in Tibet as much as it will our own. We can also educate ourselves in order to become better global citizens.
This weekend the RSS Amnesty International Club is sponsoring the Rossland showing of the Amnesty International Film Festival at the Miner’s Hall. The three films on show (check the Telegraph’s events listings) are designed to educate people in privileged (or shall we say ‘damn lucky’?) countries about global issues.
By educating ourselves about these issues, we’ll be doing our bit to increase our own understanding. We’ll also, slowly, change our country’s understanding of and attitude toward these issues. And this will affect action.
The films on offer this year deal with subjects ranging from the impending global water crisis, to the use of rape as a tool of war in the Congo, to an exploration of a possible new path for humanitarian aid. By watching these films we change ourselves.
When we change ourselves, we change, in some way, our friends and loved ones. And, eventually, the world itself changes.
We ARE one people and we’ll all learn this soon enough—the easy way or the hard. It’s our choice. Check out an article on the festival in this week’s issue:
A Good Reason to Go Out In Cold Weather: Amnesty Film Fest This Weekend
