Why Do Guys Where Singlets

like mushrooms in autumn

Writer: Mario de los Santos

are there, the ride began in Independence, but are spreading out across the center like mushrooms in autumn. Are there with their colored jackets, blue, green, white, their faces of good people, and certainly are, stalking the sleeping conscience of the travelers.

During the fat years had never seen such organizations in the distribution of foreign aid from the English government, they are called non- (NGOs), send their recruiters on the street. If anything, a significant date, put a post where you gave many papers, we proposed to affiliate to your magazine and I offered a sponsorship of an Indian child or the purchase of fair trade cocoa controlled by an international body for approval. Did not walk the streets with the money boxes, such as women's fur coat that collected for the missions.

These NGOs did things differently. And it was precisely because the NGO had nothing. They were well-governmental and governmental organizations, which had an extensive staff of contract workers who were paid with funds received from aid State and European cooperation.

These NGOs did things differently

But now comes the crisis. Banks make a mental mess with subprime mortgages with pension funds in tropical islands, with investments from friends, insurers can not cope and the states have to drop the fly to keep the free market stall. So it is not hard for that international cooperation, and the gentlemen who work in these government organizations, blessed by the new catechism of solidarity, are suddenly living up to its name, unless required governmental 30% say less government as budget cuts. And with the partners they have, are enough to keep coordinators, expatriate managers, local and general secretaries, administrative, organizational ... well, normal in any business. So throw out his cohort of volunteers (who also is because NGOs are the only structures of self in which people live well and people paid a salary working for the face and content) to the streets to seek new partners . So, send those charged to non-paid work in order to continue collecting.

Or so I thought, anyway. Because the reality is cruel yet.

The other day I stopped a guy with a blue vest UNHCR (the UN agency for refugees), and I tell you what evil must walk around if the UN goes from the brush. When the boy finished explaining a world of color and fantasy, I wonder where the UN is funded and if the budget for military intervention as, say an example, in Somalia, or Afghanistan, or in Libya if relevant, is the same as refugees have the same conflict. He looks at me and returns with the same explanation as before, and I say that if I become a member of something, I wonder how long it takes the Korean who now makes general secretary of the case and the thousands of white guys, European or Yankees, who charge of history, and how much takes the bold African or Palestinian, or the Sahara, or the Colombian walk sleeping in the street. In the end, the boy looks at me, long hair, clothing, cheerful, hippy, it seems come from the refugee camps of Sabra and subtly tells me if I want, nothing happens, he's a Mandaa , who works for a company and giving both by subscription, if not mean to be a partner that well, but walking, that does not bundle, that time is gold.

much takes the bold African and the Colombian
goes sleeping Street

That's when I die. Turns out they are not volunteers, who are workers, there is a company that charges to get the NGO partners, or whatever it is, pay to get NGO partners.

went home with some sadness, with something broken inside, like a piece of her had been dropped. I imagined tenders: become a member, we send a quarterly magazine and a piece of clothing worn by a refugee, and at the next corner another jacket, this time red, doctors interplanetary send you home a piece of gauze used in the cure of a Haitian with the collaboration of a world famous singer and committed, and the following corner a green vest offers the magazine, the piece of used clothing, gauze, now promotes a Jolivud actress, a bit of an Ethiopian famine and over you get a discount of 30% in the first six months of subscription.

I thought that solidarity was a vital commitment that stemmed from an identification with an injustice or a tragedy, or simply the situation of another human being. But mostly it was that a lifelong commitment, that to be called solidarity was necessary to commit the bread on your table, the time is short, freedom and even life. No one could be united and go unpunished. However, should no longer be so. Things progress: you can now be supportive drinking Coke, you can be supportive buying yogurt, buying sweets, buying bracelets, solidarity is a percentage of the final price, solidarity is bought and paste it as a badge on his lapel. Something must go wrong when we need to be supportive intermediaries.

strange belong to a generation, a generation for democracy means to buy what you want, a generation that believes a cultural agitator is a guy who writes a newspaper column, a generation for whom solidarity is a good marketing.

extracted from the OCA LOCA