It's a wonderful world...

I just watched Lord of War which I picked up yesterday in town. I watched it on the plane coming here after Christmas and liked it, although it is incredibly bleak. For those of you who haven’t seen it, my mother’s favourite actor, Nicolas Cage, plays an arms dealer. Much of it takes place in or involves West Africa. One his clients is based on Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia who was recently arrested and is facing war crimes charges, something that has been all over the news here. Taylor essentially orchestrated a civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone, arming rebels there in exchange for diamonds. He is one of the worst African warlord-turned-politicians of all time and I sincerely hope his trial doesn’t turn into a farce like that of the late Slobodan Milosevic, which served to turn him into a martyr to many Serbs.

The film takes a very bleak view of humanity. Towards the end, after watching a massacre in a refugee camp perpetrated with his weapons, Cage’s character remarks that “they say that ‘evil prevails if good men do nothing.’ They should say ‘evil prevails.’” It seems that in so many movies these days, and in general discourse, cynicism abounds, especially in Hollywood portrayals of Africa (Lord of War and The Constant Gardener being the two that immediately spring to mind). I feel like cynicism has been elevated to some sophisticated, intellectual position—people use cynicism to sound wise and all-knowing about the world.

I want to present a different viewpoint. Humanity is fundamentally good, despite what Hollywood and popular culture and many current events may tell us. Yes, there are conflicts, where atrocities of the worst kind are committed by man. But overall, the good inside most of us is stronger than the evil. Things are improving. The number of deadly conflicts (wars leading to 1,000 or more combat deaths) is 80% lower than it was in 1992. The annual number of victims of genocide and mass killings fell by 80% from 1989 to 2001, even taking Bosnia and Rwanda into account. Increased emphasis on human rights and rule of law by Western powers has led to significant improvements in peace and security, particularly in Africa. Just look at Liberia: Charles Taylor is in jail and Africa’s first elected female president has taken on the enormous task of rebuilding that nation.

Day-to-day life is also improving for millions of people around the world. Tonight on the news I saw a report that talked about an increased number of children enrolled in primary school. In Ghana, enrolment increased by a massive 17% last year, due to a huge grant from the government that has made primary school free for everyone.

It is so easy to look at the world and only focus on the negative. This has led to an increase in the pseudo-intellectual exercise of cynicism (maybe it’s always been like this and I’ve just started noticing). This is wrong and it also serves as an excuse for inaction.

Sorry to be so deep, but this all-pervasive cynicism frustrates me. I’m going to end by returning to Nicolas Cage: “they say that evil prevails if good men do nothing. They should say evil prevails.” Nice try, Nick, but you’re wrong. Around the world, the efforts of good men (and women) are bearing fruit. This world is a much better place than it was 15 years ago because there are more good people in the world than there are bad ones.