It Can't Come Quickly Enough

It's late, and my eyes are burning. This biro, here in my hand, feels weak and slow as it scratches painfully across the paper. In front of me, Bono is clicking his fingers. The noise rattles sharply in the blank space around me, and sets my teeth on edge. Someone has just died. I would like to say that the pause seems like an eternity. I will it to be. But it is horrifically short. Painfully fast. His fingers snap again and somewhere infinitely far away yet unsettlingly close another faceless life becomes a lifeless face. That is why I cannot go to sleep. I've already written something small about Red Nose Day. But when I sit down and actually watch what's going on Out There; when you see just how ridiculous the whol affair really is... I could write forever and it would not be enough. Sixty quid? Yes. Yes that's enough for two hundred and forty children to have antibiotic injestions. Yes, it might give a family an education for a week and a future. Yes, the grand total may come to a million times that amount (sic). But you know what? With Bono snapping his fingers in time with death I realise that we're too bloody late. In the time it took me to raise my money, thirty thousand children died. How can you rationalise that? Perhaps you will think of your history teaching? You know all about the mistakes of the past. bgut the mistakes of the future are happening right now. Our children will not only learn that generations prior to us fashioned this hellhole out of their intense greed. They will also be taught of how out generation did nothing to stop it. Do you want to become a blot on the historical landscape? Do you want to become a dark mark on the history of this planet? I try to apply ethics, some might use psychology. But try taking out ethical doctrines to the AIDS-stricken woman who lies in her hovel all week and sees no-one by the nurse that tries to ease her pain. Utilitarianism? Kant? The Id? The grandeur of Western Society loses its sheen in the harsh light of tomorrow's Africa. I pause. I pause and I think of what to write next. But all hear is the clicking of fingers. The more I stall, the longer I pause, the bigger part I play in the mistakes of today. The clicking is always there - exam rooms, boudoirs, on Christmas Day, in pubs, on the bus, whilst we sleep. Out there, maybe a few hundred metres, are homeless people, abused wives, AIDS-infected mothers, HIV-Positive babies. It is frustrating to think that they are within arm's reach. But there are more frustrating things out there than that. Because out there - in our country and others - are the men and women who would put it right. No dressing up. No red noses. No hard-earned money. No effort at all, really. July, we are told. Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully. Onlt the latter really bears much truth, no doubt. The G8 summit will offer the chance of debt cancellation, aid and more trading freedom. But only a chance. A chance too good to be missed, certainly. But as I have already said, good does not factor into this. Because by July another 2.7 million children will have died than if they'd snapped their fingers today. They are dying right not. They have been dying for too long. Mere words will never express my feeling for this situation, nor my anger at my own inability to sacrifice enough for it. Everything seems to feeble and useless. But we must all try. When the desire to fight leaves us - that is when all is lost. Comic Relief is not the whole of the matter. It is the morphine, the temporary anaestheic, the glorious demonstration of how stupid this problem is. But the problem is deep. Horrendously deep. And perhaps even the G8's biggest actions would be nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But the least they can do is try. We can all try. I can hear the clicking now. Can't you? 2005 - Make Poverty History