Travel between two points has shortened tremendously. A journey to London which used to take months by boat, takes hours by jet; a journey between villages which took days by sleigh has been reduced to hours by automobile. A message previously transmitted by post which took weeks to arrive at destination, takes seconds by fax or e-mail. We can watch our athletes competing for medals in Beijing while we relax in our sitting rooms in Gaborone, or watch soccer teams play for the world trophy thousands of miles in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We can chat with friends in Timbuktu on skype when we feel like. Life is good we enjoy the presence of people and things we love because technology invented by other humans makes things and people we treasure accessible all the time. I am, because you and other humans are!
Politically, we have a myriad of international organisations to deliberate on matters of mutual concern. Regionally, we have SADC; continentally we have the AU, internationally we have the UN headquartered in New York. The UN deliberates on development and peace issues. Almost all countries in the world, big and small, rich and poor, distinct on faith matters, meet to exchange opinion on the maintenance of world peace. Humankind is interdependent and interrelated. We are our brothers/sisters’ keepers. Whenever an epidemic breaks-out in one part of the world, the rest of the international community is alerted to prevent the epidemic spreading and wreaking havoc everywhere. Alerts on bird flu, ebola keep us all on tenterhooks. In 1918 the influenza epidemic wreaked havoc in every corner of the world. Were it today the damage would have been limited to the location of its origin. Of course it’s not just the advance in health science, technology in communication plays a role in the non-vulnerability of our species to incidental afflictions. So the unwritten human law is that I shall be safe, happy and alive as long as you, my neighbour, my co-worker, my fellow citizen, are alive, safe and in touch!
