Reform from within

The supposed inviolability of sovereign nations is a principle that is hard to swallow in the face of the misery and atrocities that so many millions must endure as a consequence.

Why is there such persistent grinding poverty and oppression in the World?  How can we stand idly by and do nothing?  What can we do?

The answer to why poverty and oppression persist in the World is simply that there are powerful individuals and vested interest groups who benefit from its persistence.  There is no tangible impediment to the global eradication of physical poverty and the systematic abuse of human rights within a generation. 

The same applies to wanton environmental despoliation – a few powerful individuals are benefiting significantly, and many accomplices and pawns are benefiting to lesser degrees.

Forget companies, governments, and other smoke-screens.  The buck always stops with an individual at the top of a hierarchy, and the rungs in that hierarchy are also flesh-and-blood individuals.   

Efforts from without to lift the majority of the world's population out of its physical and civil misery will always founder on the despotic privilege, the ossified stratification^[1], the engrained corruption, and the belligerent tribalism^[2] of the societies and communities which hold that majority captive. 

Conquest by imperialistic "developed" powers that consider themselves comparatively enlightened has historically been shown not to be a sustainable option. The notion that more development funding or debt relief from developed nations is required is simplistic.  Overseas development aid is diverted into private pockets or has no lasting impact.  Emergency disaster and famine relief do not address causes. Lasting and meaningful political and social reform must come from moral and cultural change within, and is a prerequisite to equitable economic development. 

The individuals who benefit from poverty, civil rights abuse, corruption, and environmental despoliation must be identified, understood, and influenced directly^[3], starting at the top of each hierarchy. 

Those fortunate enough to be outside can help but through those acting morally from within. 

Those outside can also do much for the individual trapped in relative oppression who wants to exit and who may ask for help to escape the gravitational field of their circumstances.  Exercising their right to communicate^[4] will expose them to alternatives identifying exit routes and sources of assistance.  Their right to migrate^[5] from the society or community that keeps them subjugated might then be exercised, provided they have somewhere to migrate or move to.

Let us also not forget that beyond the borders of the most obviously deprived there are powerful, inert^[6], and sometimes cynical international commercial and political interests that benefit from maintaining the status quo.  Again, behind the corporate and bureaucratic veils there are flesh and blood individuals.  Know them and act upon them with kindness^[7] and understanding, and without violence^[8].