In English?

I have to correct some of my positive reflections on the local president. His style is very progressive, but sometimes this has disastrous effects on a small scale. The accident I wrote about in my last posting in which a little child was killed, was actually caused by the presidential colonne. And just before we saw the accident, we saw this colonne racing through town as usual.

In the meantime I exchange ideas about worldwide issues through the internet, which is a very useful tool that has developed from the same source as many of global problems we discuss on it have. Finding a solution for those issues is sheer impossible, but discussing them has not harmed me yet. In the end everyone has their own responsibility, but together this should add up to complete responsibility for all actions performed by human beings. In the actual situation many things are not taking into account however.

When you buy Colombian bananas in Belgium this means you have to pay for the transport, but you also should account for its pollution. Also you are responsible for the income of some people in Colombia, and maybe in a way you are agreeing with the political situation of Colombia, because of the way these incomes are distributed. I know it is not simple to keep track of all the products you buy, either privately or professionally. Because often professionally used products are often seen as a responsibility of the boss, or only checked for economical value. The value of these products however is probably significantly higher than it is for privately bought products. The interlinkage to other sectors and other political, social or ecological influences is bigger as well. So help me out. Who is taking this responsibility?

I don’t think it helps for me to have energy saving light bulbs in my house, while I am building a power plant to be run on heavy fuel. At the same time this power plant is likely to be a lot cleaner than the pollution of the local trucks, busses and cars in Antananarivo relative to their energetic values.

I don’t think I will give an answer to any question here. But I just want to point out some of the, maybe philosofical, problems that I come across living here.

Buying local wooden products supports local economy, makes that someone can make a living. It saves out transport, but it potentially damages the unique environment of Madagaskar. So there is no perfect solution. But deciding to not even think about it because of that is a potentially bigger problem.