The Good Samaritan Scandal

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Summary

I can no longer claim ignorance. I can no longer say: ‘I didn’t know’.

Every day I drink coffee, work on a laptop and dress in clothes that I know someone, somewhere has endured inhumane conditions to make. I soak the dishes in chemicals that pollute the environment. I fill the car with petrol, a disappearing and non-renewable resource. I enjoy food that I know is not within the reach of millions of people. My children play with toys that I know other kids have laboured long hours, in slave-like circumstances, to produce. And I know that there is more to life than what I own, but I still find myself inside cyberspace or in front of the TV, salivating over whatever is newer or whoever is nicer.

It is increasingly difficult to deny that I’m part of a death-dealing global system. I am complicit in the power structures and injustices that cause suffering, poverty and even death. As Thomas M. Beaudoin (2001), says evocatively, everyone, everywhere is ‘living after purity’.