Photo of the Day

This isn't a particularly great picture, but for some sad reason I don't have a lot of pictures of this guy. This guy is a great guy. He was my best friend on MBI, and he continues to be one of my bestest buddies even though we are on opposite coasts. I was scared to go on MBI until I found out he was going, too. He is pretty cute, huh?

Anyway, the reason I have a picture of him is for more than just praise, although I could do that for a long time. The reason is that he relates to my entry today. My entry dealt with the idea of helping people and what I can do. Now my friend here, who is named Zach by the way, had an interesting perspective on this topic. Zach at one point in time tried to change the situation in Darfur, Sudan by getting a petition signed by thousands of students Canada-wide. He proudly sent this petition to the foreign minister to initiate change in government policy. In case you don't know Canadian government policy, nothing has changed. They are as unconcerned with that region of the world as any other rich predominantly white nation. This was a crushing blow to Zach's idea of what he could do to make a change in the world.

This summer, Zach began to challenge people's conception of making change by proposing his own idea of how to truly make a difference. As an individual, what can you do to save a family's life in Darfur? Talking to politicians often is fruitless, and when it isn't, it is still so slow in its avenues that no difference will be made in the necessary time. You could enter politics yourself, but thats well in the future before you are going to be able to change anything of concern. You could send money, but that won't necessarily save a life. So Zach proposed this: Get yourself a gun, AK-47 or the like, fly to Darfur, wait outside an African village, and when that van full of Janjaweed come out, you kill them. In the time that you have made by attacking the would-be killers, at least one family will have had enough time to run away to a refugee camp or the likes. Even if you die, you probably have saved their lives. This is the best and possibly only thing an individual can do to truly affect lives in Darfur today..according to Zach, NOT me.

Zach would argue very honestly about this, and its hard to counter this arguement. My main counter was that I am truly against killing no matter what. Its not OK to go out and kill those Janjaweed, even though they are potential killers themselves. Thats just my humanistic values, though. Its not a good arguement for Zach.

An actual arguement is that as a collective or a movement, you can be part of something larger that can really help. One person can't do a lot, but a solid group can. You can all work together in Sudan to make a difference in many ways other than just killing. And even if you were killing, you'd be way more efficient as a group.

Woah, that was a morbid comment.

Anyway, thats why my idea of being leader of my movement is gaining more and more import in my head. As the leader of a collective I can really make a difference somewhere if I set the movement's sight in that direction.

Here is another story involving Zach:

At camp one year (Zach and I are camp friends originally) Zach was trying to grasp the concept of irony. He would propose all sorts of situations and I would say whether they were ironic or not (i.e. a diabetic dying from being hit by a truck carrying insulin). Anyway, at camp we have fun activities where everyone dresses up and acts out funny situations. This particular night was Pirate Night and everyone was dressed like pirates. I drew on a mustache and had a sword/stick, Zach wore a bandana, sash and eyepatch. Zach and I sat and told stories to kids about swashbuckling and booty. One story Zach was telling involved him stealing booty from me, and as he told the story he grabbed my hand and pulled it towards him (you know, for visual aid to the story). Unfortunately, I was holding my sword/stick in that hand and he pulled it directly into his eye quite hard. He was hurt pretty bad and as he lay in tears in the infirmary, I sat with him. He was still in his bandana, sash, torn pants, and now he had a real eyepatch over his eye. He turned to me and weakly asked, "Gil, is this ironic?" I gently pat his head and nodded, "Yes, Zach. This is definitely ironic."