"Enough"

How do you explain extreme suffering? How can one even comprehend the horrors of structural violence; violence embedded in societal racism, sexism, politics, and poverty? And even if you find a way to grasp a fraction of the problem at hand, what can be done?

I'm working my way through Paul Farmer's book Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor for class. I had read portions of it before - Farmer is one of my heros - but it's like watching a movie again; you catch more of the content the second time through. It took me a while to get through some of the chapters today. I struggled through my tears as I read chilling tales of torture and pain used to establish powerful regimes of terror. Victims' names silently scream at me as I read case after case, story after story. I read about military governments established by the U.S. in foreign countries that murder hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens while the U.S. dubs it "democracy". I am ashamed and angered at the role our government has played in global suffering. Suffering is too nice of a word.

I'm restlessly infuriated at the apathy of the global north. At the continual persecution of the innocent and hopeless. At the extensiveness of global tyranny. At the lack of intervention or outcry. At the silence of those in power. At the awful lack of answers. I completely understand the overwhelming complexity of inter-state politics and delicate dance of sovereignty, but I hate the lack of answers. The devastating lack of solutions. No-one knows what to do, and meanwhile, thousands suffer as we sit and think about it all.

Life is so beautiful, but humanity can be so depraved.

I'm not trying to undermine international intervention programs or activists fighting for human rights. I know there are those who bravely and continually fight for the voiceless I describe. I'm not being critical of them personally, but in light of the hundreds of thousands who live under "extreme suffering" every day, it's still not enough. But I don't know what's enough. I don't know if there will ever be "enough". Does anyone?