Perspective

[Mikeus Caesar]

So, last night me and my friend are out drinking. Then, this old black guy, obviously just looking to chat with someone sits down at our table, so we shake hands and stuff and start talking. He was a pretty cool guy, and the topic eventually swung around to the subject of where we were from. He said he was from Somalia, and he asked if i knew where it was. I said yeah, i'd seen quite a bit of it on the news and stuff. He then says with a big grin on his face "it's horrible, man". He repeated this for about 5 or 6 times until he just broke down in front of me. I put my arms around him trying to comfort him, but you just can't. There's no way of comforting a person when you can't even begin to imagine the horrors they've seen, experienced. He then wiped his eyes, shook my hand and left.

You read all about the stuff that goes on in other countries, especially Africa, such as the disaster that is Darfur, and in relation to this, Somalia, but nothing can really ever prepare you for meeting someone who has experienced it all. It really brought tears to my eyes to see this poor guy.

And so i ask you Orgahs, have you ever met anyone like this who has given you quite a new perspective on things?

[CountArach]

Hungarian Jewish relatives who left Hungary during the rise of NAZIsm (Fortunately before any of the killing started). It did really strike me just how prevalent Anti-Semitism was in those days.

[Adrian II]

Zane Ibrahim from Cape Town. Great guy in S.A. public radio, created entire radio channels with his bare hands, first against the Apartheid regime, then against the ANC.

He and I were talking in Amsterdam on a rainy day on a terrace on Rembrandt Square, and he started imitating the behaviour expected from black waiters by whites in the old days of Apartheid. Man, that was a real eye-opener as to how deep racism gets under your skin. He told me how, when he was a young guy and worked as a waiter, the whites taught him how to 'be black'.

"I bring only five drinks at a time, Sir, or else I forget."

Zing! Pow! Insight!

Since that day Adrian II understands what racism is. Racism is not the result of a misunderstanding between people from different origins. Oh no. It's deliberate and intentional. It actively creates differences where there weren't any before.

[SwordsMaster]

Dude, I've lived the last month in Lagos, Nigeria. Someone should organise drives around the slums for perspective. Or a conversation with the average policeman. Or 3 hours in lagotian traffic on a bus. I'll see if I can dig up some pictures.

[Adrian II]

Dude, I've lived the last month in Lagos, Nigeria. Someone should organise drives around the slums for perspective. Or a conversation with the average policeman. Or 3 hours in lagotian traffic on a bus. I'll see if I can dig up some pictures.

A month? I barely survived two weeks there. Please do post 'em if you can find 'em. Cars and vans with automatic guns sticking out the windows.. In the morning local police would collect last night's harvest of bodies and throw them on carts. Beer, prostitutes and Fela Kuti sounds everywhere. One hard-nosed, dangerous city.

P.S. What exactly was the new perspective it gave you?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Yeah, I met this guy from the Vosges the other day. It was horrible, he had had a miserable life there and he fled to civilisation a few years ago and

Yes, I've met plenty fo people from war-torn, destitute or dictatorial places. It's a rough and violent world out there. My most important insight that I've gained is that, simply, it's a rough and violent world out there. Like, for real. And that democracy and social stability and moderation and economic sense are not boring luxuries that are nowhere near as kool as extremist parties or internet fascism or the latest leftist fad or whining about the deplorable state of western society in general.

[Odin]

Whats real sad is when someone you have met, say in a warzone has changed your perspective but due to duty you really cant commit to the change.

Years later you cant talk about it either because you've not only rethought out the perspective but your own warped sense of reality has hindered reasonable thought processes that include empathy for other peoples lot in life that was no fault of their own. Yet if all the cards were to be laid on the table you might actually weep for them.

Even sadder still you attempt to relate to something someone posts on a message board and you know that a candid reply would be met with either disbelief or a silence that would render yourself numb from gathering the courage to pull the expirence out of the depths of your psychosis.

So, yes I've met people from war torn places or extreme poverty that have changed my perspective, but it never interfered with the eloborate world that I created in my mind to help me deal with said meetings.

Yet as I read your story Mikeus Caesar I wonder if you would induldge me a moment. In the aftermath of the meeting, perspective change and subsequent thought process did you come back to your personal place in the world and changing it? Or did your considerations simply fall under the guise of remorse for the poor fellows story?

Personal curiousity, an indepth repsonse isnt required nor is there any pending judgements should you chose not to reply either.

Also, why is it I always seem to see these posts after a cocktail or two? Why cant we just go back to the good old fashion bickering and bile over politics?

[Mikeus Caesar]

Yet as I read your story Mikeus Caesar I wonder if you would induldge me a moment. In the aftermath of the meeting, perspective change and subsequent thought process did you come back to your personal place in the world and changing it? Or did your considerations simply fall under the guise of remorse for the poor fellows story?

In all honesty, it came back to my personal place in the world. But i don't really know any further how to answer that question in words, all i know is that it has given me alot to think about.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Never was a more truthful phrase spoken.

[rotorgun]

Back in the 1980's I went on a little trip with the US Army to a place called Egypt. We flew into an Egyptian Airforce facility named Cairo West. There, in the course of events, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with some of the average enlisted soldiers from one of their "crack" Airborne Brigades. As is wont for soldiers to do, we compared our salaries. At the time I was a Sergeant E-5 making something in the area of $1800.00 to $2000.00 dollars a month with benifits as well. I asked an Egyptian Sergeant what his salary was, and it was around $15.00 to $20.00 a month, with Private soldiers making around $5.00 a month! Needless to say I was shocked. I then asked them how many uniforms they were issued. They said two. I asked them if they could get them replaced if needed, and they said no, that the uniforms had to last for their entire enlistment of 3 years! I was again surprised, because we recieved at least four uniforms and was given a several hundreds of dollars clothing allowance annually to maintain and or replace needed items.

This was nothing compared to when I went to the city of Cairo. Looking at all the poverty in a city with so much wealth was astonishing. In Eygypt, 95% of the population are dirt poor. Of the remainder, perhaps 3% are middle class. This leaves the 2% left at the top of the heap with something like 90% of the wealth. This was an eye opener. I vowed that I would never complain about my military pay again, and I haven't for the most part ever done so since. I also was humbled that I had an opportunity to live in a place such as the United States, and am generally quick to tell people who I hear complaining about something minor to appreciate what they have. I wish that every person in our country would be able to experince something similar, so that they would truly understand what the third world is up against. I am much less materialistic in my life as well, and find that I can do without much if I need to. I just remember what I have seen in places like this, and it makes it easier.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Alright, I'd better tell about some of my experiences.

I was in Costa Rica last year, for around two weeks in March. San Jose on the first night was like nothing I'd ever seen before - there were some very grand buildings, like the National Theatre, and the Gran Hotel, whereas the Precolumbian gold museum was simply astonishing. I mean, we have that sort of thing in Germany, on reflection, but it was still refreshing and beautiful.

On the second night I was there, I went into the streets - the "shopping area." There were the usual stores, selling fashion items, football shirts, and so on. There was even a Wendy's. I went a little farther down the street. This was where I saw what Costa Rica was really like.

Here, there were t-shirts being sold in stores, more of the usual - only the stores weren't like the stores up the street. They still catered to tourists, but more backpackers and students I suppose. However, here on the street you see people selling lottery tickets, a blind/disabled couple busking, and gallo pinto and beef patties being sold from little vendor windows, all in a tight indoor space, a market really. It was poor. You could tell. Not outrageously poor, mind you, but poorer than the average European or American community. But there was something different here. There was a smile here, or a joke there, and even though I couldn't speak Spanish I understood, somehow, what was going on here.

These people were happy. They didn't seem bothered by poverty, or the work, or anything. It was one of the most moving things I'd ever seen. It was a sort of general behaviour. There are no other words to describe it, besides perhaps the two words that Ticos use.

I fell in love with that country and those two words.

Pura Vida

[Incongruous]

Man you guys have been to some great places.

I can't say that a certain visit has changed my perspective because I was probably very young when it happened (holidays down here are expensive affairs). But I have had the pleasure to meet some very interesting people in NZ. The most important was probably an old Hungarian man who had known my Grandmother while she was in Hungary. I knew nothing about her past as she had never spoken about it, for good reason. Hearing about the years leading up to '56 and what she went through was harrowing. Especially when he told me how my Great Grandfather had been killed by communists, rather funny since he was the leader of the workers unions.

I suppose it allowed me to see how, when pushed to the limit, people can do horrible things. Perhaps this was simply an attempt to find an excuse for what happened in Hungary.

[Fragony]

Did voluntering as a ' buddy', give a refugee a good day thingie and show them the ropes on how to do it here, heard some pretty sick things. One of them had such refined manners and wore a suit he must have been a made man where he's from, didn't ask where.