[Buddha-l] Jung and Dignaga (Vicente Gonzalez)

[Mitchell Ginsberg]

hello Vicente and Dan and all, 

You make the point, Vicente, 
"The point is when today we are suffering the same morality of 100
years ago. Grandsons powers are making the same things of their
grandfathers powers. There are 4 billion people death in Congo to sell
mobile phones. Can we imagine the same number of victims in Europe,
USA or Japan?. It will mean a third world war. But when they are
africans, they are infra-humans in terms of legality and international
morality, and nobody cares. A same morality but today applied in
refined ways to protect the power of 2.000 individuals and their
business.  Our progress means playing with clumsy space-ships and
talking about our ridicule knowledge of the Reality however enough
powerful to destroy this human kind. In this point there is no
apparent reason to explain why we are still here. Probably our
destruction is delayed because gods are protecting the ignorants of
this world. Although nobody is innocent when he is born, sure there
are degrees."

Having worked with people from the Congo who were tortured and had other traumas (family members shot and killed in front of them, being hunted down and shot, or arrested and beaten and on and on), I can agree that it seems the fact that this is happening in Africa to blacks seems to have less importance than if it were the Royal House of Windsor, say, that was undergoing this violence. That is clear. 

There were issues going back (ah the old European colonial system, or was that Roman?, of giving the minority group power over the majority group, with the backing of the colonial power. And other inter-group mistrust and violence. But the problems between the Tutsis and the Hutus (and those who were the results of marriages between individuals from these two) preceded the use of cell phones. The mistrust and violence and mass killings preceded any secondary economic gain to be had. 

Maybe it is more complex, features interplaying on a number of dimensions, all dovetailing together, much to the detriment of those who end up suffering most from such violence..... 

So, from a Buddhist point of view, how can there be compassion for all of the suffering that this involves, from those we associate ourselves with one way or another to those we have less understanding or emotional connection with???? 

Mitchell 
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