A tale of 2 evils

As 2005 starts off and 2004 becomes a memory, injustice and tragedy mar this Earth we live on. First off, the ongoing occupation and oppression of Iraq by GWB and his administration. Then the conflicts in the Middle East, Chechnya, Colombia, Congo and the close of an old and the inflammation of a (relatively) new one in Sudan.

By now you must be sick of hearing about conflicts and unrest around the world especially when there seems to be no end in sight, no happy endings and final solutions to these problems, and the future of the world seems so much darker than necessary. All this is probably true.
The main thing that concerns me is not the absence of awareness of these injustices but the ignorance of knowledge. Awareness and knowledge can be 2 different things and in this scenario they are.

Awareness is the brief knowledge of something eg. an event by hearing about it while Knowledge of something is the understanding of facts and information whether history, details, and perceptions.

This society many think is nice, modern, and righteous, whereas the third world is nasty, backwards, and barbaric. The whole world outside of western Europe, North America and Oriental Asia fits this stereotype.

We don't see the Palestinians suffering for decades under oppressive, apartheid-like conditions (squalid, underdeveloped communities separated by barriers and roadblocks) and their children growing up with bitterness, anger and hatred, or the multi-million dollar high-tech weaponry (mostly US supplied) that the Israeli military is supplied with and uses against the Palestinians in their towns and villages and refugee camps.
But we feel for those poor Israelis terrorised by bombs that go off in their nice cafes, buses and nightclubs.
There is no good and evil sides in this world. There is no black and white. There is good interspersed with evil and evil interspersed with good.

There is hard evil and soft evil.

Hard evil is the one we see, especially that in the rest of the world aka 3rd world. Those countries that exist outside of the regions mentioned above, those that have societies, cultures, values and lifestyles that are not Western-based and that don't fit our western perception of life.
Hard evil is the one that is apparent to us. It is evil that can be instantly detected and observed, and obviously one that arouses large publicity and coverage. The 'suicide-bomber' and his/her attacks is the most striking example of hard evil and on a larger scale, the (fundamentalist) and religious groups, the religion and its clerics, and even the societies that the 'bombers' come from form other well-known examples of hard evil.

The terrible unceasing string of coups, civil-wars, tribal battles and wars in Africa also represent this evil and which we never bother to learn the histories and facts behind these events but automatically summarise as typical African (black) barbarism and inhumanity.

But what about the vicious, massive and tragic killings of black Africans in Congo, Zimbabwe and elsewhere by white colonial masters during the 19th and 20th centuries? What about the manipulation by European rulers of local African subjects into forming artifical ethnic divisions
and so creating and inflaming jealousies, rivalry and hatred between formely peaceful co-existing peoples which was one of the underlying reasons for the genocide in Rwanda 11 years ago between Hutus and Tutsis?
This is where soft evil comes in.

Soft evil is largely unseen and unheard, but is present and lurks beneath the surface. Soft evil is consequently ignored or unknown by many. From the British manipulation of various ethnic groups (India and Africa) to create differences and foster hatred and emnity amongst subjects to the American clandestine support of Afghan mujahideen and their quick withdrawal of aid once the Russians fled, soft evil has often been a quiet but decisive factor in creating great suffering, violence and destruction.
It is the excess materialism and extravagance in our society that makes our lives seem so lovely and also harmless and innocent Except for the fact that many abroad in weaker countries are exploited, both in terms of human and natural resources, to give us our ocmfort.

New apartments, big houses, shopping centres, more new products yet all this is dependent on foreign resources, business and consumers. We're surrounded by so much because people have money to spend from borrowing from banks which get money from investments in stocks and funds which derive most of their profits from overseas operations, sales, expansions.
What this means is that corporations go into foreign (less developed and poorer) countries
and exploit resouces, abuse sovereignity by breaking/ subverting local laws and getting concessions, dominate local markets and propagate expansion and mass marketing.