And:
The prime minister says that there's nothing worse in internationalism than to make promises that are not kept: that's the real immorality, he argues. With respect, he's wrong. The real immorality is for one of the most wealthy and privileged countries in the world to fail to respond adequately to the life and death struggle of hundreds of millions of impoverished people.
As a reader, the sense of Lewis as a man of just outrage is overwhelming. His frustration always seems sincere; it percolates up, every sentence like lava from a sleeping volcano, hot with the threat of explosion. Again and again, he expresses his astonishment at what he has seen in Africa. He talks about a trip with Graça Machel, where she was the first to talk to two teenaged girls about their periods, and about villages where there are whole generations gone, and about visiting an income-generating project in Nambia:
I...was greeted by the sight of four young men making miniature papier mâché coffins for infants: tiny, light, plain. As they affixed silver aluminum foil handles to the coffins, they looked at me and said, with an admixture of pride and pain, "We can't keep up with the demand."
Yet, there is a tug-of-war within Lewis that asserts itself in the book, a battle between his anger and his recognition that he cannot be effective if he doesn't play the game. International diplomacy is not a simple. It is not direct. It is not enough to have moral rightness on your side, not if you don't want to be shut out of the process altogether. I felt strong tugs of empathy as Lewis discussed his frustration with the system and with himself:
When I visited Swaziland, I met at length with the king in private, and attempted to persuade him, with a combination of subtlety and argument, that the world was increasingly impatient, his people were decimated, and his behaviour was unacceptable. Then we held a press conference together and I held my tongue.I have felt guilty about that to this day. Whom did it serve but the bloated ego of the monarch? So I've rationalized my actions: I've persuaded myself that it's not for me to do, that it should be done by UN officials with far greater authority. I'm merely a part-time envoy.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
tremendous, powerful, articulate, passionate review Bonnie - thanks so much!
2 - gypsyman
Bonnie,
I think you have managed to capture the essence of what makes Mr. Lewis such an inspiration. The fact that unlike the rest of us he lets his anger and frustration fuel not sap his energy.
I was sickened by our so called national news magazine in Canada, you know the one, for their hatchet job on Mr. Lewis (along with David Suzuki and Bono) How people can be in such denial that the world is heading down the toilet is beyond me.
Stephen has gone from being the moral conscience of Ontario as leader of the N.D.P. in the seventies to be the moral conscience of the world.
You've give one of the more accurate pictures I've read of him and his passion yet... well done.
(p.s I know what you mean about repeating yourself, I was reviewing my blogs today and realised I had basicly written the same piece twice about Stephen Lewis, two months apart. One was on the foundation, and one was just mentioning him as one of the true heroes in the world. Sometimes though if you keep pounding away people may start to listen...at least that's my hope..
gypsyman
3 - Jochen Jesinghaus
According to the MDG Dashboard, Swaziland is overall a good performer, for African standards: Pretty high scores for Goal 1 (hunger), 2 (education), and 5 (maternal health). However, they fail completely in fighting HIV/AIDS. In contrast, neighbour Botswana has similar problems with the disease but has started vigorous efforts to handle the problem. Swaziland's gender equality performance is average, while child and infant mortality are indeed worse than the African standard. It might be worth asking why the country has such a specific problem with HIV/AIDS - and to recall that neighbour South Africa denied for a long time the existence of the problem.
Re ODA & Canada: 0.27% of GNI is indeed not particularly impressive. But then, ODA is only part of the story. Most African countries are oil importers. Right now, some of them have to use all of their modest export revenue to pay the oil bill. Nothing left for education, hospitals, technology, ... and guess why the oil price is so high nowadays? If North America had always applied European level fuel taxes, the World oil price would still be 20 US$/barrel. ODA is peanuts compared to the impact of "cheap oil is good for the economy" policies.
4 - bd
nice book