When we all make our own contributions to improving the world, can we fight the course of history and climatic patterns?

I was wondering about this a few weeks ago while eating lunch with a friend in Sonoma. My friend, a civil engineer working on infrastructure projects in Lesotho, and I discussed what kind of an impact we can truly have as development or humanitarian workers.

Plagues, epidemics, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, fires, typhoons and other natural disasters have been part of human history. Always. When we contribute to AIDS research and fighting malaria are we just cutting off one disease before another one strikes? Does mother nature bring in these massive maladies to reduce our population because she knows that we can’t have more than a certain amount of people occupying the land? Now with climate change, food shortages and massive economic instability worldwide, could a global food crisis just be another natural way of curbing the amount of people vying for precious natural resources?

I don’t like to think these things as I believe that we do have the power to change our destinies and the political direction of our country. However, I do sometimes question how successful we can be in face of the natural tides of history.

Having worked in post-war Bosnia designing economic development programs, I am no stranger to the ravages of war and genocide. That genocide
occurred in a country with a mostly literate and educated population. If they can massacre their neighbors, then how can we prevent people in less educated areas from doing the same? Is human nature that violent that we can not control ourselves even if we know better?

I wonder.

-Susanna Zaraysky blogs for New America Media about the issues of global identity, global citizens, multilingualism, and the life of a child of immigrants. Her website is: www.susansword.com and her email is info@susansword.com.