Saturday, September 17, 2011

Quote

"It's slightly disappointing, but I never heard the workers sing on our site (where they were building our house in Haiti). Perhaps we live too close to the city, where modernity has trumped tradition: they listened to battery-powered, static-drenched radios instead. I'm grateful first for their friendship and for their profound influence over my choices. Though they don't sing aloud about my stinginess or generosity, they still have a sort of lyrical power over me as my neighbors. This wasn't the case when I gave my money to the cashier at Wal-Mart or the local drugstore and then walked out with a product that was put together by who-knows-who in who-knows-where in what-kind-of-conditions on the other side of the globe. Globalization has important efficacy advantages but also helps us evade the discomfort of knowing the people we do commerce with (to our advantage). And it's not that personal connection necessarily precludes exploitation, but at least when it's personal the exploiter has more chance of understanding and changing--or at minimum might feel how much the exploiting costs his or her own soul."

- Annan, Kent. Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle: Living Fully, Loving Dangerously. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009. p170-171