Sunday, February 19, 2006

ONE NIGHT OF HUMANITY!



As I am writting this article it is a very cold night in the GTA.Thoughts and prayers goes to men and women on the streets because they don't or can't afford a place to call their homes.We call them homelessness yet do very little about them.Most of them can not even afford a meal,cold or warm one.Their survival totally depends on miracles.Humanity means nothing to them,does it? Should it?The picture on the right is of a man whose human right of housing is denied.I took this picture at the verandars of Toronto City Hall one week ago.

One night of humanity is the best way I can relate to many announcements and alerts I hear all over radios and television that if you see anyone hanging in the streets with clues of being homeless or with nowhere to go please call the following numbers.......What a shame,what a sin!Does someone enjoy to see these men and women in the streets? Why then wait for cold weather to hit then pretend to be human? Where are we everyday and night when countless people are suffering from poverty yet we hardly admit and even want to openly talk about it?

Stephen Lewis calls the issues of HIV/AIDS in Africa as failure of humanity.I believe he will also agree with me that our pretence of being humans in just those cold days and nights like today is a humanity failure that no one will be able to draw a defence if asked.Canada is one of the G8 countries,most industrialized nations on earth,powerful nations in the world.Doesn't this click some exagerrated usual western world theories?

Canada could have and must have solutions for homelessness.Permanent and continous humanity can be achieved in this country.Its a shame that there are so many people in the streets.Can any of our politicians try to spend just one night on the street,even in summer day?Its time someone get senses of what it means or should mean to be called G8 country.What it should mean to be developed country.I think Canada and other western countries should stop thinking of poverty as a foreign problem.Poverty lives and grows in Canada.You don't need to travel miles away to see how poverty lives and grows.Just look at the mirror.

4 comments:

Amelopsis said...

Good post Jeff. We in the G8 must certainly see our nations as providing a leadership role, and we proclaim as much.
Our citizens should surely be able to find meaningful work that pays a living wage. This would be part of a larger solution including education reform.

michael the tubthumper said...

this is a very small thing but it might help a bit. if there isn't anything similar then why not look at setting up a canadian big issue

Jeff Msangi said...

Michael,
Thanks for the tip.I will look at UK charter and see the possibilities of establishing similar thing in Canada.Thanks a lot.You will be our first-hand consultant,I hope you will have time for us!

Anonymous said...

Yeah!! I remember the big issue. When I was an exchange student in the U.K. buying a copy of the big issue was on our (me and my exchange student friends) list of things to do. I bought a copy of the magazine once ...