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 Albert Einstein famously said, “God does not play dice with the universe.” Einstein's concept of God was not the finger wagging “Do this/Don’t do that” scold from on high, but a God of the entire universe in its mathematical and physical complete perfection and order. This God has absolutely nothing to do with human morality, but a universe as a whole that “works” in harmony and beauty. Ultimately, Einstein thought that if we could just find out all the “information that has gone into its creation,” then everything could be understood. The universe “makes sense”. It is not just random, “crazy”, happenstance. Charles Darwin, the sadly misunderstood British botanist, said that EVERYTHING LIVING in the world has been a progression of mutation and adaptation. The “universe” dictates to a species what it needs to survive, and the species biologically needs to respond in order to do so. Also, completely morality free in its emphasis on DNA (a concept Darwin didn’t know at the time, but what he’s really talking about). I spent the last weekend at the beach in Sihanoukville, a small town on the Gulf of Thailand. Having got my $10 beach cabana complete with deck, fan and mosquito net, I set out to chill on the beach with my usual accoutrements: Grilled Snapper, baked potato, salad, a beer and soda water. While hanging on the beach, the usual cast of characters appeared. Gave money to the double amputee crawling in the sand (there are an amazing number of landmine victims all over Cambodia), got a splendid one hour foot massage for $6 and turned down offers for marijuana and girls. As I was finishing my meal, a five-year-old boy came up to me and pointed at the remnants of my plate. I didn’t have much but I offered it to him. The boy proceeded to scarf down the remaining potato and salad and wolfed down the fish head (I know, I know, you Filipinos! A delicacy! But I’m not there yet!). After he drank the rest of my soda water, the boy then moved on. Watching him disappear into the night, I wondered what would anyone in America think if their small child was out scrounging for food like that anywhere he could? Where is his family? What condition are they in? I’ve seen enough poverty in my travels to last a lifetime, but even that is just a microscopic drop in the bucket of the scope of the desperation throughout the world. Why? How come this kid is born to scrape for food daily for his survival and other children won’t play with the toys they got a few months ago for Christmas because they’re bored. A few years ago I was on the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. The Galapagos, of course, were made famous by aforementioned Charles Darwin. What makes a trip there so stimulating and different is that because the islands have been preserved and the human element has been removed, the creatures there don’t look at humans as predators and you can get as close as you like to any of the birds, seals or those waaaaaaaaaaaay cool marine iguanas. They don’t care.    The naturalist my small group was with came upon a nest of Albatross chicks. We were able to look at three little birds waiting for their Mom or Dad to arrive with food. We didn’t wait long. An albatross landed within moments with a beak full of yummy regurgitated food. The albatross opened wide and the three chicks began immediately to dive in their hungrily. Two chicks were engorging themselves while the smaller third kept trying to get some food. The other two chicks kept pecking at their “brother” and prevented him from eating. Soon, there was no more food left. Two chicks were quite well fed. The third got nothing. That one would die. Some woman in the group wanted to help that third chick but that is completely forbidden here. No interference with nature. The woman began to cry as we all stared at the helpless third chick knowing it will soon cruelly starve to death. It was a tough, nasty wakeup call that this is what life in nature is: The 17th Century British philosopher Thomas Hobbes said that all life was “nasty, brutísh and short.” He took a very dim view of human nature and molded his philosophy accordingly not giving humans much credit for compassion and virtue. (For those of you who read Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD, the prevailing theme is that humans will ultimately do whatever they can to survive, no matter how horrible.) In the early 20th Century, you might have learned in your history classes about a concept called “Social Darwinism” that preached that the world also operated this way and that everything in human society was also “the survival of the fittest”. It was certainly a convenient philosophy that allowed the status quo to continue meaning that those at the top of the human food chain were determined by nature to be there and those at the bottom were just suffering because of the “natural order of nature.” Human evolution dictates winners and losers. Among the many wonderful organizations I’ve come in contact with during my stay here in Cambodia, there is none more amazing than the Urban Poor Women’s Development program. This is a grass roots group of only seven Khmer individuals led by one dynamic woman named Sina. Their mission is to organize women, men and youth from the slum and squatter communities alerting them to issues of human rights, domestic abuse, health and AIDS awareness, housing rights and access to opportunities to better their lives through education. Right now, they are trying to secure a grant from the European Union that I’m assisting on. It is a small collective with huge goals and they’ve already done incredible good work with so little resources. The problems they face are daunting…I would like to take you all to the dump here so you can watch human existence at its most primordial. Here, when the trucks come to deposit the garbage, men, women and children fight for spots to sort through the dreck for anything useable or salvageable for re-sale…mostly bottles and cans. It’s almost like a scene from Dante’s Inferno. You would think you were witnessing the end of the world. Sina and her colleagues work in a dingy office near the dump. They each take turns spending the night here to protect the place from robbery and vandalism. They work from early morning until supper on the many projects they are operating. Without their assistance, many people’s lives would be much more miserable. There is a belief that if you can raise the education level of women throughout the world, you can make a huge dent in global poverty. As of now, many women have to stay at home to take care of kids or work all day and have no time to better their lives. They remain in this position of destitution forever and it dooms their children as well.  The UPWD seeks to provide funds to get the women’s children some rice so they don’t have to work all day in the dump and can instead take English classes and learn a higher-level trade. Using a comprehensive rights-based approach and community organizing methods, their proposed actions will encourage poor women to use their voices to make political interventions at the family, local, and national level. Watch how the dominoes fall: Women’s lack of voice, power and respect in their families and communities is the result of a vicious circle of cultural bias that prevents education, income generation, and knowledge of self-care practices for women, which in turn reinforces the position of women as uneducated, weak, dependent, and susceptible to violence. Lack of formal education leads to disproportionately high rates of illiteracy for poor women which in turn leads to reduced capacity to earn income or to access government and other available resources for personal, health, shelter or food needs. The inability to earn adequate income and to buy adequate food leads to untreated health problems for women and their families which in turn discourages school participation for children as well as any other activity not directly related to subsistence. Social and political inactivity and disempowerment leads to indifference by local and state government officials, including denial of services in cases of criminal assault, rape, and domestic violence. By changing these women’s options, the hope is to change the options of their children…hopefully they’ll be slightly better off than their parents, and in turn, their children will be better off than them. Look at what’s happening at Carson High. Our hope is that by going to college, graduating and getting careers that you find engaging and rewarding, you will be able to live in a manner that many of your parents weren’t able to because of lack of opportunities. If you ever choose to have kids, they will be in an entirely different situation as well because of the knowledge you’ve gleaned.   When staring at the dump, the question of fairness stares back at you. Why? Why them? Why that kid? In Philosophy class, we try to broach that question that has vexed many for centuries. In the Dostoyevsky novel THE BROTHERS’ KARAMAZOV, the passionate intellectual Ivan Karamazov demands from his religious brother Alyosha, “Why do children suffer? What is the purpose? If God exists, I can understand why he might allow adults to suffer—maybe it makes them better people ultimately, but what good does the deliberate cruelty towards children do who know nothing of these higher matters? Why should they know only pain and suffering when it can't teach them anything? The world just seems monsterous and vicious in its ability to inflict misery on the weakest, most helpless amongst us.”  Alyosha, unfortunately, can’t speak for God. For those who believe in a “moral” and “just” God, the question is troubling. Any one of us thinking and rationale people would gladly trade places with our little children who suffer. It’s pretty convenient to think “God has a plan” if we are the beneficiaries of “good luck”. We say God “blesses” our lives and for whatever reason “dooms” others. That gets us off the hook. Is everything then just a matter of “luck” of where and when we are born and to what circumstances? Is the whole universe simply a roll of the dice? Random lucky winners and random unlucky losers? It’s almost easier and less upsetting to conceive of an Einsteinian God who has no say in human affairs and is indifferent to everything except the mathematical and physical workings of the universe. Organizations like UPWD sweat and toil and sacrifice to make the world better. They pick up the slack of passive governments, other human beings (and God?). Or maybe they are acting as God's representatives on earth. Again, a question for Philosophy Class. I can DEFINITELY SAY that I am always so proud when any of you become political and actively work to make things better through whatever method--The Peace Coalition, The Human Rights Club, The Black Student Union…and today, there are plenty of Carson students now out in the world seeking social justice. Richelle Penalba, a recent Berkeley graduate, is interning for an organization called Teach For America which places young, energetic and creative teachers in underserved rural and urban schools that are desperate to raise the level for kids everywhere and give them a fighting chance. The inequalities of education in this country are glaring and lots and lots of hearts and brains are going to have to go into the schools to make the changes necessary for success. I had the wonderful good fortune of hooking up with Leila Evangelista in Swaziland, South Africa a few years ago when she was doing her UCLA junior-year-abroad working on Health and AIDS policy there. Right now, she is still working here in LA in the education department of Relief International for almost no money but tremendous satisfaction. She is pursuing a life focused on international development for struggling countries. After graduating from Santa Cruz, Stephanie David came to Hawaii to work with poor school children, learning their indigenous culture and making them proud of who they are. In the school she teaches at now, the children get a cultural curriculum, meaning, instead of five senses, Hawaiians have six. She writes, "The last being 'na`au'...literally our inside, guts, feelings, intuition. Little thing but huge difference on how they carry themselves and understand the world...to have six senses." Janet Ajao just received a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to go to Nigeria to work in Health Policy there for six months. Bright, energetic and determined to do meaningful work in the country of her origin. And the most killer smile on this planet. Recent USC Masters graduate Vai (Queenie) is down in the college center assisting Ms. Koletty, committing her life to ensure other kids get the chance she got. Let her lecture you on "life"! Crystal Lopez at San Francisco State actively works with Hispanic organizations to end their disenfranchisement in terms of education, vocation and opportunity in America. Passionate in her convictions, Crystal seeks a more just system for all minorities and has committed her life to fighting (revolutionizing?) the system. And since we're on this subject, I would be remiss not to bring up the name of Audrey Castellanos, a true pioneer at Carson High who did so much to raise the political and social consciousness of the campus. As the founder of the Peace Coalition, Audrey honed her skills in Dr. S-C's debate club and found her voice by protesting the Iraqi invasion, military recruitment on campus and later at UC-Santa Cruz continued her community action by supporting a local bus strike, environmental action and involving herself in the Bay Area pro-choice movement. The two year aniversary of her tragic death only makes the loss harder knowing how much good work she would have done in that span. She is still missed terribly, but she touched the lives of hundreds of people. Any of us would be lucky to have such a legacy.  These are just a few of our alumni actively doing things to change the world. Please let me know names of others! Also, if any of you plan to do work that contributes to a better planet I’m always interested because there are SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS to contribute. Probably most importantly, follow the Hippocratic Oath of doctors as you go through life: “Do No Harm.” The next day on the beach, a group of kids approached me. They were selling trinkets and asked if I wanted to buy something. A few of them were able to make intricate bracelets with someone’s name beaded on it. Okay…well I thought I’d name a few of my friends with small daughters who would like one. I gave the girls’ names to the kids, dividing up the work so I could give each some money. The kids started quickly on their task braiding the bracelets. A boy then came up to me. “What about me?” I thought of another friend’s daughter’s name. Off he went to work. And then, a whole other group of kids spotted the swarm around me. They came dashing over, descending on me, their hands waving their bracelet making material. “What about me?” “You bought from her, what about me?” “Please, let me have one.” “You give them business, how about buying a bracelet from me?” I look into all the eyes of these anxious kids. Now there are too many of them. One tugs on my arm and asks the greatest cosmic and frailest human question possible: “What about me?” And you’re forced to say the only thing that makes sense, “Sorry, you're too late. Bad luck.”      Post a comment in response: |
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