"The Sadness of Geography"

“Do you understand the sadness of geography?”

I have to admit that when I first read this quote by Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan-born Canadian writer, my immediate response was ‘What sadness?’ Geography is all about climate, geology, topography, the names of lakes, rivers, mountains and seas, isn’t it? It is about things, about memory work. It is not about emotions! At least no geography course I ever took was. But then I started to think…..

What are those things that divide us? What are the causes of people being unhappy, persecuted, denied their basic human rights and freedoms, being ostracized in society? Those causes are the things that make people different; things like the colour of their skin, their customs and religion, how they dress, the language they speak. These things for the most part are decided not by who they really are, but by the geography of where they are born. And they persist ‘unto the fourth and fifth generations’ no matter where they might move to. These things are responsible for much sadness.

Then there are the politics of the region. My thoughts turn to Zimbabwe, which is only one of many places around the globe where repressive governments have caused untold hardship on their people while lining their own pockets. There is a lot of sadness there. Sadness caused by conflict, by poverty, by the absence of basic human needs. This leads in to next area, that of economics. In countries where all the money is used to shore up the government in power, to pay for a war machine, there is little if any left over from that spending to waste on things like health care, or education.

Yes, there is a real sadness in geography!

We need to remember there are blessings as well for those of us who are fortunate enough to live in the Third World. We need to stay awake guarding those things we hold dear, those things that shore up not only our personal way of life, but even more importantly our ability to share these with those others who lack them, both in our own country and abroad.

“You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” - Exodus 23:9

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