What’s Your Excuse for Not Changing the World?

Lazy Wednesday afternoon in Rostock. Families are strolling around the old part of town. You could hardly guess that in less than two days, the city will be loaded with a special class of tourists. On the market place, a bright yellow and blue container called the “Action Box” is trying to attract passersby with music. It stays empty for a while. Perhaps people aren’t that interested in raising their “voices against poverty”, as the container seems to suggest.

All of a sudden, a bunch of hip kids hop into the container. Rhyming and rapping for the video camera, they send their message to the leaders of the world: “Hey guys, act on your promises!”. The youngsters just happened to be in town to visit a friend and knew nothing about the United Nations Millennium Campaign, but were happy to do something meaningful by taking up the Aktions-Box challenge. This container has been traveling for the last few months around Germany, stopping in eight different cities to underline the eight goals of the UN Millennium Campaign.

These goals aim to eliminate poverty and offer decent living conditions to everyone on Earth. Sounds surreal, but it’s actually proven we have all the necessary resources and technology to reach these goals. The United Nations want to achieve them by 2015.

Bernd, Jean-Pierre, Tim and Carl, 15 &16-year-olds from Rostock who also raised their voice against poverty, already knew about the UN Millennium Campaign’s goals. The boys will proudly demonstrate against the upcoming G8 as well. “Without any violence”, specifies Bernd. “I wonder if the world leaders will actually fulfill the United Nations goals”, adds Carl.

He's not the only one to be skeptical. Last week, the General Secretary of the Global Pan African Movement and Deputy Director of the UN Millennium Campaign for Africa, Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, spent a week in Germany promoting the campaign and participating in different pre-G8 activities. In a newsletter, he mentions how his colleagues thought this trip was just a plain waste of time and energy. “You’re the defender of lost causes, the kind of guy who believes you can make stones hear!”, were the kind of comments he’d receive.

African countries have a good reason to be cynical, Abdul-Raheem explains in the newsletter. Absurdly enough, in 2005-2006, Nigeria paid back more to Britain than the global total of British aid. Many promises were made to change things for Africa during the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005. Promises aren’t worth much if they aren’t acted upon.

For this year’s G8 summit, Eveline Herfkens, Executive Coordinator for the UN Millennium Campaign stresses this idea as well:

"We don’t need new initiatives. All we need is for leaders to deliver what they already promised … at Gleneagles in 2005. A promise is a promise, and a promise to the world’s poor should not be taken lightly: their very future depends upon it."

Go ahead. Self-inquiry might lead to interesting results, as you too ask your government: what’s your excuse for not changing the world?

The UN Millennium Campaign container will be in Rostock until Saturday, June 2nd.