Tag: positive

Finding Hope

Image by ErikaWittlieb from Pixabay

In wars of the past, standard rules about harming civilians in acts of war have existed, as well as neutral zones where forces weren’t allowed to attack, including hospitals. There is something incredibly dehumanised about bombing hospitals but, horrifyingly, this has become a standard in the Syrian conflict that has been ongoing for 8 gruelling years.

This grisly reality reached a new low in 2016 when six medical facilities, including a children’s hospital were reportedly destroyed by Russian and Syrian government planes.

However, out of this despicable act, an organisation called “CanDo” went to work, crowdfunding and then building a new children’s hospital in 3 months – very aptly named the “Hope Hospital”.

This was the 7th hospital built by the organisation lead by Dr Rola Hallam, a British-trained Syrian anaesthetist, who returned to the hospital, situated outside of Northern Aleppo, in May this year for the first time since its building was completed in April 2017.

Travelling to the hospital from the UK is not an easy feat. In December 2016 “The People’s Convoy” began the journey, passing through several armed checkpoints on the way and crossing the border from Turkey – a country who has been, since 2011, one of the main supporters of the armed “rebel” fighters in Syria – in order to transport the required medical equipment and supplies to Jarabulus, the city on the border of Syria and Turkey that plays host to the Hope Hospital,

There have been some claims that the charity CanDo is taking a direct political stance by providing this support in a territory of the country that is still host to Turkish and Syrian government rebels, and thus potentially helping children of those committed to the radical Islamist ideology which is supported by the UK and US governments, as opposed to refusing to take sides as humanitarians. However, surely it is incredibly difficult to build a hospital somewhere where it won’t benefit either side of a conflict advantageously?

This criticism aside, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. The Syrian government have recently regained full control of all areas surrounding the capital, Damascus, which were previously occupied by rebel and terrorist groups. This has enabled civilians to begin to return to the capital and rebuild their former lives.

Whichever political viewpoint you subscribe to, from a humanitarian stance, this is definitely positive.

Is now the best time to be alive?

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Chinese Proverb

According to a 2016 poll by the surveying website YouGov, only 4% of Brits and 6% of Americans believe that the world is actually getting better, and it is easy to see why this may be with incessant news stories about wars, genocide, acts of global terrorism and our favourite; brexit.

However, now is, statistically, the best time to be alive. The economic globalisation lecturer and author Johan Norberg writes in his book “Progress” that humans are actually more safe, wealthier, healthier, more free, less hungry, and more literate than ever before, contrary to popular belief. The reason that so many believe this is not the case can be attributed to the increasing focus of the media on famine, natural disaster and murder, and our ever increasing ability to share this news via social media and 24-hour news channels.

“Now we can see what is happening live, we don’t know how things will end. ” he adds. “That triggers our fight or flight instincts — it gives us the sense that everything is falling apart in the world right now.”

Norberg goes on to explain how this sense of impending doom is in fact misplaced.

The number of people going hungry in the 18th century was so high that 20% of people from England and France were unable to work due to malnourishment. However, this lack of food is rapidly falling; in 1992, 19% of the world’s population was undernourished, but this fell to 11% in 2016.

The amount of people with access to clean water is over 90% of the world’s population.

Whilst in 1900 the worldwide life expectancy was just 31, this has been exponentially increasing, reaching 71 in 2016. Despite all the news articles about increases in knife crime in London and acts of terrorism occurring throughout the world, the likelihood of a violent death is now lower than it has ever been, and childhood mortality has plummeted. The murder rate in Europe has dropped from a peak of more than 40 per 100,000 people in the 14th century, to one per 100,000 today.

There have been striking successes in the fight against global poverty: in 1981 nearly half of people living in the developing world lived below the poverty line; in 2012 this figure had dropped to 12.7%.

Literacy has also skyrocketed, which many attribute to the growing use of social media and the importance of reading and writing in everyday life: the amount of people who are able to read and write was 21% in 1900 to 86% in 2015.

And we’re getting smarter! The companies that set IQ tests have to adjust their scores periodically, such that the the average person in the population will have a score of 100. However, the average person now would have had an IQ of 118 if they took a test in 1950, and 130 if they’d taken one in 1910, putting them in the top 2% of the population. And an average person from 1950 taking the test today would have a score which would put them “at the border of mental retardation”, according to academic Steven Pinker.

Many speak of our growing population with a sense of anxiety about the lack of resources and housing available to future generations – but the population isn’t growing at such a rate as we think it is, with women having, on average, 2.5 children, whereas this number was 4.5 in 1960; and this isn’t just in the first world either, these numbers are worldwide.

We live in the freest, most equal world yet. “We do complain about bigotry when it’s out there but that’s because we are most sensitive to it,” Norberg said. “One of the reasons we are so sensitive to it now is because it is no longer generally acceptable.”

The rights of ethnic minorities, women, homosexuals, and transgender people were almost unheard of in even the freest western democracies 100 years ago, Norberg argues. For example, in 1900, only New Zealand gave women the right to vote. Of course, there is still a long way to go for true equality, but the rate at which minorities have made progress so far cannot be overlooked, and it’s very likely that positive change will continue at the increasing rate that it has so far.

In “The Moral Arc”, published by Michael Shermer in 2015, it transpires that more than 180 countries now give women the vote in democratic elections.

And the world is looking even brighter for future generations. The rate of child labour dropped from 245 million in 2000 to 168 million in 2012, and has continued to decrease since.

So the world isn’t nearly as dark as it seems. Whilst bad things are happening in the world, they are happening at an ever decreasing rate, and it is important, says Norberg, that we understand that the world is actually changing for the better in order to continue on this golden-age path we are on rather than to think that the world is collapsing around us and to act accordingly.

As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus has often been quoted, “The only constant is change.” I hope that we can continue to change for the better.

References:
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2016/01/05/chinese-people-are-most-optimistic-world
https://www.businessinsider.com/10-reasons-2016-is-the-best-time-to-be-alive-2016-8?r=US&IR=T#only-around-10-of-15-17-year-olds-work-20
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160928-why-the-present-day-could-be-the-best-time-to-be-alive
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/why-this-is-the-best-ever-time-to-be-a-human