Empathy

I've been reading a book that has helped me understand more about how the rest of the world has been living. It's called, "I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation.", by Michela Wrong. (2005) I came accross this book because I had been reading about South America, Cuba, Che Guevarra, Fidel Castro and revolutionary history. Of course, once I got onto revolutionary history, the choices of current and recent struggles and countries to read up on unfolded - in South America, Africa, and Asia. In all these instances, the momentum for revolution was provided by the destabalization created by imperial and colonial powers (USA, Europe). In the case of Eritrea/Ethiopia, which is the country of interest in the book I am reading, the Italians, British, USA and the UN have had their hand in the region within the last 100 years, to devastating effect. That was the first thing that impacted me. The second thing about the book that impacted me was gaining an understanding of what drives a nation of people to desperate and ongoing acts of revolution and guerilla warfare. Thirdly, I realized that if we want world peace, we need to understand that countries that seemingly 'can't get over past wrongs' are probably expecting those past wrongs to be repeated against them by the very people who are entering their country to 'help' them. After all, those nations that are calling for peace, are the same ones who have repeatedly committed the abuses that have devasted their country.

Another thing that I got from the book is really totally unrelated to the topic of empathy. But it may relate to our curriculum - intensity perhaps. The following paraphrase is taken from a chapter where the author is discussing the details and the life of the revolutionary soldiers who lived and fought in the mountains of Eritrea for 30 years (1970' onward).

The weapons that count:

- a sense of destiny
- a momentary forgetfullness of individual needs
- the belief that a cause is worth dying for.

Claire Finnamore