Column by Josh Butler

Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index Previous Columns | Send mail to The Voice It's a small world after all They say if a fly flaps its wings in China, somebody in Europe gets a cold. The global economy works in the same way. Let me illustrate. Several years ago I heard a Harvard professor from Sudan speaks about the Dinka people in Sudan. They had recently suffered massacres at the hands of the Sudanese military. We often see such snapshots on the news, but that is all they are. He continued to talk, however, about the international factors and context in which the massacres had occurred. Western investment had been seeking land rights for oil and mineral exploration in the Dinka region, and the Sudanese government, eager for the benefits such resources could provide, handed over Dinka land. According to Dr. Owens Wiwa, an Ogoni man from Nigeria, a similar thing happened to his people. Thousands of Ogoni men were massacred to facilitate the investment of Shell Oil and other companies in Nigeria. He said, "We have been on our lands for thousands of years. God put us there and said we should be there. Outsiders came and began to cut down our forests, poison our water, poison our land and poison our air. They used rape, detention and murder to suppress us when we complained. "We did not sit down; we got up, everybody, led especially by the women. We said no to Shell, We will not die for your profits." The Dinka likewise resisted and thousands paid for it with their lives. But their story came closer to home when I heard of the major international investors behind the scenario. While working for Citipost, I delivered mail every day to the two major investors atop one of Boston's major skyscrapers. The world quickly came together. From a rural field in Sudan, to my daily walk around town, to the heights of the Boston skyline, it's a small world after all. I know nations have been warring against nations since the dawn of time, but when injustice occurs in the world today, it occurs in an international structure that I'm a part of. Any time I hear about a massacre in some far off part of the world, I wonder what fly above my head has flapped its wings. Back to Table of Contents | Back to Main Index Previous Columns | Top Of Page Send mail to The Voice| Journalism department website © 2003 The Voice. No part of this publication may be reproduced in written or electronic form without prior written consent from the journalism adviser of Multnomah Bible College. All rights reserved.