Miggel H., Grade 11, Falher
From a hill in the countryside, I contemplate the verdant periphery of the clearing, and its dark stands of trees. I contemplate the torrents, streams and valleys. The animals that punctuate and make this painting come to life with their contented look and their rumbling but peaceful dignity. Together, they enliven the mosaic. After finishing their grazing, they gather at the riverbank to drink. One is nursing her voracious offspring, small though she is, and another is on the lookout for prey. From this hill, I was contemplating this fleeting and undulating painting with serenity until things became more dangerous near the river. Large and colossal bears were frenetically and vigorously confronting one another in front of a frightened female. Watching them, disconcerted by the suddenness of such a skirmish, I understood what it was that made me curious. These animals were like men, men of irascible pride from a country that sows war to shatter prosperous rivals. And I saw a pack of wolves not far away from the commotion that was disturbing the peacefulness of the scene; a pack, a community, with its alpha, its government, its dictator. What I was watching now was a society like that of Man rather than this harmonious, limpid painting that had been so dazzling. As I looked around, I saw an animal give over the carcass that lay on the shimmering grass to another, scrawny and emaciated. I could not tell whether it was empathy or altruism.
This animal was behaving like a man, and I was not only astounded but suddenly had vertigo. Did it have scruples, morality? What then would make us the supreme beings? We kill others, we take precedence over others by diminishing them, we are belligerent and barbarous beings, we are ruining the environment, and we are xenophobic and sexist. We are shameless. It is this morality, this intellect that sometimes makes our society so disgusting, odious and unseemly. Man gave birth to this society by stubbornly wanting to distinguish himself from the beasts and this led to the speciation of Man.
Our governments, our religions, our dictatorships, our capitalism sometimes interfere with our freedoms, our equity, our equality and our individuality. These are all concepts that Man developed on the basis of his conception of society. Impudent and Eurocentric, European colonialists forced the First Nations to become European. They condemned them to mimic their society through residential schools and by engorging their lands with their proud blood. These nations, which had lived in harmony and had not become corrupted by an agenda of domination, despotism and imperialism that always drives our society, gave way. Our flowering intellect made us egoistic and greedy. Hitler and Stalin were both highly intelligent men. Are not communism and Darwinism the system of the beasts? We intellectualized it and it failed miserably. Charles Darwin developed the concept of "natural selection", in which the mutation of an individual of a specific species gives it "selective advantages", that can allow it to do better than those that remained unmutated. But is Man's intelligence a "selective advantage" when it resulted in Hiroshima, the Holocaust, 9/11, Apartheid and the destruction of the environment?
In our society, where opulence gives you all rights and where poverty dooms you to ignorance, we must rise against it. We must not capitulate to these dictatorships, these military juntas, these rude religions. In a context of globalization, which causes the balkanization of people, we need to be altruistic towards everyone. We need to shed our individualism, our offhand manner. It is true that the human rights being infringed in Tibet are not felt here in Canada, where my rights are enshrined in a constitution. The genocide in Rwanda had no impact on the lives of Canadians, just as the subjugation of women in Afghanistan does not affect us. We have so much equity, equality, self-determination and freedom that our indifference towards those who do not have what we have is outrageous. Children forced into slavery for the ubiquitous multinationals. "Child soldiers" killed. Men and women imprisoned because of their disagreement with the government, for example with the Taliban where freedom of expression is considered reprehensible. Millions of people live in shanty towns without safe water to drink. And is not hygiene a right? Food? And yet we proclaim that we are a higher species when almost half of the world's population lives on less than US$2 per day, when 1.2 billion live in unbelievable poverty, when every day, 50,000 people die because of poverty, and when every three seconds a child dies because of this poverty, when 800,000 million men, women and children go to sleep hungry and 880 million people have no access to basic health care. These people are destitute; the Western countries and their materialistic inhabitants feel no responsibility. We can give them money, which while modest for us, will enable them to obtain water, food, clothing, school supplies, and medication for naked men and women. We can give this money so that they can have doctors and teachers. Organizations like Amnesty International are dedicated to human rights. It could educate people about contraception and thus prevent the spread of AIDS. We could boycott the multinationals that pour money into countries that show no respect for their inhabitants, which would perhaps encourage them to take the prosperity of the people into consideration. We can demonstrate and stir up the community and the UN which could impose economic sanctions. We could buy into humanitarianism. We can preserve the environment and thus spare those countries hosting the large multinationals that are poisoning their environments and their groundwater. Those who are systematically clearing forests and who believe that they are shielded from view. We can eliminate this indolence and this egotism that characterizes us all. The era of nationalism is over and today, internationalism reigns.
Who am I to neglect those who are scorned? Who are you to enjoy your rights without consideration for those who do not have them? Who are we? People are kept out of society. They are overwhelmed by wars of domination and supremacy. Assailed by the austerity of a slipshod environment, by oppressive poverty and worrisome inequities. When all of these things are present in a society, the inevitable outcome is insurrections, genocides and an endless ordeal, unless we do something. We give money for idiotic things when we could simply be giving money for one, two or three human lives. I contemplate these animals, once again from my hillside, and I see civilization. As in the animal kingdom, it is the weak that live in the shadows. But ought not the speciation of Man in this lucid and intelligent beast be able to devise a societal kingdom worthy of the name?
References for statistics (PDF Version)
This essay was originally submitted in French and translated into English.
Daniel J., Grade 8, Ridgeway
The Earth. Our home. A glimmering oasis of water, land and clouds, abundant in natural resources and life, it is a marvellous accomplishment of nature. A jewel of the universe that has no equal - which we know of. It is the cradle of all life, including us. We cannot live without it, and so we are prepared to do anything to access its riches. Anything.
Since the earliest times, man has strived for power and control. And his control was exerted over the Earth, its resources, its land. In ancient times, survival was a battle unto itself, and so people fought other people over control of resources, like food, water, tools, weapons, raw materials, anything that could be used to allow one to survive. And so it seemed that humanity as a whole had to fight itself to survive. Of course, this constant war over necessities meant that not everyone had what they needed, because there was someone else taking things from others to ensure his own survival. This was the root cause of conflict. And many people forget that. Conflict does not happen because of political, religious or cultural differences. Political, religious, and cultural groups rose because of the need to exert control over people. The more people you control, the more things your group has. These "things" could be necessities, like food, or commodities and finished goods, like tools, weapons, furniture, etc. People want power. It is an age old instinct that we originally had in order to strive to accumulate necessities and belongings to ensure our own survival. When some began to collect more than others, the others put those people in charge of them, in hopes that the more powerful one would teach them his secrets and lead them all in the right path to greatness. That is how government started. The same can be said for religion. Humans are naturally curious, but only very recently have had the means to solve some of the greatest mysteries, like what lies beyond the Earth, how the universe was created, and why the sun set. In early times, great thinkers sat and thought about these questions, and, through reasoning, deduced the best solution they could come up with. They then told the population what they believed. If the idea seemed sensible enough to the general public, they would accept it, and base their beliefs on it. The thinker would be put in a position of power, and asked to answer other questions. These answers were compiled into texts, used as the guidelines for society, and to answer any of those ‘tough' questions.
So you see, conflict between groups is not based on differences of opinion, but on control. The differences may be used as an excuse for conflict, however, and indeed, many have become so attached to their beliefs that they believe every word and do not recognize the true motive. Nevertheless, because conflict is, at its heart, about control over resources, the roots of conflict are not political, but environmental.
And what of ‘environmental conflict' today? As I said, resources are the root cause of conflict, so this continues even today. But the face of war has changed. New weapons and strategies make war a very deadly thing indeed, and the most preferable option is to avoid it. But there are those that simply seek to control resources, and they have no problem steamrolling over everyone else to do so.
Our species numbers around 6.5 billion. Our unending need for resources to feed us, clothe us, protect us and please us has drained the planet. The fish are vanishing from the sea. The forests are being decimated. And oil is running low. The nations of the world will now fight to the death over what is left. Our entire industry, all our infrastructure, and most of our transportation rely on oil. But it takes millions of years for oil to form, and we've guzzled up most of it in the last century. The United States especially is in jeopardy, and has even gone to the point where they attacked a country - twice - to get at its oil. Some may not agree with me, and of course the CIA would hate me for this, but I firmly believe that the cause for both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq was oil. In the Gulf War, for example, the stakes were high. Iraq already controlled a large part of the world's oil supply. Added to the oil they got from Kuwait, they controlled a huge percentage. Kuwait had long been a US ally, and supplied them with oil. But with the hostile Iraqis in control of that country, the US was starved. So they claimed that it was illegal for Iraq to invade Kuwait, gained the support of the UN, and then kicked the Iraqis out. Oil was the reason for that conflict. The situation in 2003 was much the same. The US said (correctly) that Saddam Hussein was a despotic dictator and that they would free Iraq from him. That's fine, except that the Iraqis would have much preferred a rescue by someone other than a western, predominantly Christian country. In other words another Arab state. But that would never happen, because most Arab states are ruled by despotic dictators who don't like to take down one of their own, and those that aren't don't care. Again, the real reason they were there was to get Iraq's oil, which the Iraqis burned in spite, so the US really got nothing out of it. Is there a way to solve this problem? Not unless everyone adopts a policy of, "I have my stuff, you have yours, let's keep it like that," which won't happen because no single country has enough resources to stay 100% self-sufficient.
However, this also brings up another interesting problem. Remember when I said that because the more powerful take things from others to keep themselves alive, and that meant some would not have what they need to survive? Well, believe it or not, that is still relevant today. Now, this doesn't happen much in western, democratic countries. But in Africa, Central and South East Asia, this is a very real problem. Let's take Africa as an example.
Despite being the place where mankind originated, Africa did not have the fortune of having the intellectual and technological breakthroughs present in Europe and Asia. It remained tribal and primitive, with many small wars and conflicts erupting to gain possessions. When the Europeans arrived, they found their ways so primitive that they did not treat them as equals, and sold them as slaves, which did little to improve relations between the two groups. The Europeans then colonized Africa, hoping to "civilize" its people. Unfortunately, the Africans did not take kindly to being enslaved, and overthrew their European masters. Africa went back to being the way it was. The differences? AIDS, and automatic weapons.
Today, Africa is still the poorest continent. Many of its people have AIDS or some other medical condition, are starving, have no clean water and are constantly threatened, extorted and killed by their governments. These people are not having their basic human rights met. Why? Because all the money and resources are being funnelled toward the totalitarian regimes that run the show. Just like in the old days, the powerful are ensuring their own survival. But at what cost? The UN has clearly pointed out that many African countries are guilty of human rights violations, but nothing is done. Why? Because the rulers are hostile towards any who threaten their survival as leaders. And they would attack anyone who receives foreign aid and instead use that aid for themselves. To stop them from doing so would be an act of war, a big no-no in UN policies. Even when conflict is allowed, it usually doesn't turn out so well (Mogadishu, 1993). Fighting the regimes only causes a blood bath. The situation is much the same in Central Asia and South East Asia.
Fixing this problem? It is almost impossible. I know, I know, the purpose of this essay is to find ways to preserve human rights for everyone in the world but the truth is, how? Sure, you can do it in western countries, we've done it for a long time. But how can you impose such things in Africa and parts of Asia, where there is strong opposition and any strategy anyone has ever tried to fix things has failed? I may sound defeatist, but I believe that there is no solution. People are too selfish to give up a bit of their own vast wealth to help others. If we don't destroy each other completely with nuclear weapons, then we'll all starve to death for lack of food. Come on. Can you honestly come up with a solution that is reasonable and that we could actually impose? I think not.
Emily R., Grade 8, Mississauga
Many armed conflicts result from the desire to possess the natural resources of others. A few examples would include oil, gas, wood, water and diamonds. Southern Nigeria and the African Great Lakes region (which includes the Dominican Republic of the Congo and Uganda) are areas that have been particularly hard hit.
All of these conflicts lead to the question of whether natural resources are more of an asset or a curse for Africa and the rest of the world. Perhaps a bit of both. They provide the people with the money needed for their welfare and contribute to national prosperity. On the other hand, the conflicts they engender cause poverty and hardship.
To ensure that natural resources are only beneficial, we need to put an end to conflicts. And to put an end to conflicts, proper management of environmental resources is needed, which implies working together. There lies the problem. Environmental disputes often occur in developing countries, and these countries have neither the means nor the skills required to do that.
As Canadian citizens, we are in a position to remedy the two problems. Through fundraising, whether door-to-door or by making a gift, we can contribute. The funds collected can be used to finance sustainable projects that will in turn contribute to a region's independence. Money can also serve to build schools, thus ensuring that future generations will be given instruction and information. To give access to drinking water to those in need. To send people to help those who have a difficult life because of conflicts, and who can provide authority to ensure that people are not downtrodden. The money would also make it possible to transfer our knowledge and technology to teach people how to manage their environmental resources.
Money is one solution, but it does not always achieve its end. It is sometimes intercepted and used to buy weapons, the end result of which is the very opposite of that desired. In addition to money, we can also contribute indirectly to respect for fundamental human rights. For example, by using the minimum amount of gasoline, which – if enough people do so – can reduce the demand for oil. This could require both groups involved in a conflict to work together, or to lower the value of the oil fields they are fighting over. After all, they are fighting over oil because they want to sell it to us.
The passage of time is not helping either. Climate change and population growth are making environmental resources all the more valuable, because they are in increasingly short supply. Without help, disputes for the control of resources will only be eliminated too late; other lives will already have been crushed by violence. Conflicts are raging, and the time has definitely come for us to show compassion for those who suffer from them.
This essay was originally submitted in French and translated into English.