Heal the World

9. Day Sixteen

Hey, I feel great. Almost no pain at all. Two whole days already. Probably because I stopped taking the Colestyramin. Or because I took it. Is it a good sign or a bad sign that there’s no pain? Was I having Herxheimer reactions (sign of bacterial die-off) and now I’m not? Well, who cares, really? Its just great to feel great.

I stopped taking Colestyramin because I’m switching to Quantalan because it’s sugar free. That’s the same stuff they gave me almost exactly nine years ago when I was in hospital with the high liver counts. Deja vu. Or rather deja bu. Its like coming full circle, which is somehow comforting, don’t ask me why.

So I bet when you saw the title of this blog post you thought “oh oh, she’s gonna go on about Michael Jackson again”. Well it did cross my mind, being such a big fan and all, but you’ve probably had enough of hearing about him lately. I will admit that we are going for a second time to see “This is It” on Sunday, and taking two of Jaime’s friends with us because their parents wouldn’t be seen dead going to it, but the kids want to go, of course.

Now “Heal the World” is one of my least favourite songs. I’m not a great fan of these lets-get-together-a-bunch-of-big-stars-to-sing-a-song-for-the-world sort of songs. The cynic in me balks at the sentimentality of it. One wonders how much the Bob Geldofs of this world actually change, deep down, at the end of the day. Ending poverty is a noble cause that anyone can put their name to, but we have to ask ourselves how we got rich in the first place. Because we are rich. I can guarantee that anyone reading this blog is rich compared to those who live in sub-Saharan Africa or in a favela in Brazil. Ooh I can hear the screams of: she’s equating poverty with lack of computer literacy. But all I am saying is: my problems are not the problems of a poor person, so why would they bother reading this blog? I wouldn’t.

Jaime asked me yesterday what the CEO of VW earns. He wanted to compare it to what his father earns in order to know if we are rich. Of course, if you use that scale then we are big losers in terms of hard cash. But then, I wouldn’t know what to do with all that money, really I wouldn’t. I’d probably give it away.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day writing a draft work plan for 2010. Big year coming up for nuclear disarmament. Well it could be, if things go as planned. And that’s the idea, you see. By getting rid of the worst of all the weapons you begin to change the mindset. If we could get Germany to publicly say that they don’t need a nuclear umbrella to feel safe, then people can start to redefine security. Security is built on trust and friendship, not weapons. And think of the resources that would free up that could be used on real human security: safe drinking water, a roof over everyone’s head, better protection against disease, education for all.

I read about the British soldiers who were shot up by the Afghan police trainee in the paper. At the same time, German politicians were praising the new defence minister for at last calling it a “war” instead of an “overseas contingency operation” or some such euphemism. For many Afghans, we are just the next lot of invaders. The new pathogens in a long history of chronic conflict. The only difference is that we say that we want to get out, only we don’t know how. No exit strategy. And meanwhile we are destroying the psyche through trauma of the young men fighting in that war, like Iraq, like Vietnam, the Falklands. They come home and beat their wives, or worse.

I shouldn’t have read that newspaper today. Everything in it bothered me (except the one article that quoted my organisation on the question of post-traumatic stress disorder). Yesterday, I make big plans of how to advance nuclear disarmament as a therapy for the world’s ills. Today, I read about the world’s ills – Afghanistan, CIA kidnappings, unfulfilment of climate change promises, reversal of the nuclear phase-out – and I think: those plans aren’t big enough. Little drop on hot stone, as they say here.

So what am I saying? I have to heal the world to heal myself? I have to heal myself to heal the world? The latter sounds more realistic, albeit more selfish. But if I get any sicker then I can’t do anything at all and that would be useless. On the other hand, maybe I can’t do anything that will be significant enough to help heal the world. Still, I can make myself feel better by doing something. And every now and again, I get quoted in a newspaper too and it feels good.