LA 29/3/11

We are living in a world that is growing increasingly smaller because we are getting more and more connected. Countries are increasingly dependent on each other, and events that happen in a certain country will set into motion a chain reaction that has far-reaching consequences. Therefore, we should care about what happens in places far away from where we live.

Firstly, due to globalisation, many countries are dependent on others in some way or another. In the present, countries depend on each other for things such as produce, raw materials, labour, and even less important goods such as toys and appliances. If something major, whether good or bad, happens in a country, the other nations that depend on it for goods will be affected economically. For example, if a major disaster were to hit all of China, a manufacturing capital of the world, prices of goods ranging from computers and cars to keychains and Barbie-dolls would skyrocket because the supply of those goods would be drastically cut even though the demand for them remains the same. Let me state a real life example: During the war in the Middle East, which the whole world is dependent on for oil, oil prices rose significantly and the price of petrol, something we can call an essential, increased in most countries. From this, we can see that events occuring in even far away places can affect our economy.

Secondly, because of the rapid development of technologies for communication, such as social networking sites, ideas can spread like wildfire from one end of the globe to another. The internet and its technologies, such as email and instant messaging, nearly totally eliminate the distance between people living in this world. Using the internet, a person in, say, China, can send a message to someone living in the US in a matter of seconds. This will allow ideas or philosophies that are developed in one country, to be sent to another very quickly. For example, the recent uprising in the Middle East was actually organised on Facebook, a popular social networking site, and this site was able to let the many thousands of people come together in a protest. This idea also spread to many other countries, such as Bahrain and Libya, where people are staging civilian protests too. Even as far as China, there was a small round of protests that were organised to commemorate the "Jasmine Revolution".

Last but not least, I feel that it is important to care about things that happen in far away places because no matter how far these events occur from where we live simply because we are all part of the human race. When disasters occur, we should help those who are affected because they are humans like us too. Those events could have occured to us, and it is our responsibility as people to help them recover from the impact that these events had on their lives.

In conclusion, I feel that we should care about events in far away places because they can affect our lives and economies, the way we think, and simply because we are humans too.