Angry! You bet I am.

I am angry.  Angry about a lot of things.  Angry about things that I feel powerless to change.   Angry that other people don’t feel as passionate about things that they should be angry about and are instead more concerned about which so called celebrity is dancing or eating  grubs on tv.

I could put my anger down to being menopausal but I know it’s not that. I’ve been angry for a long time quite simply because I care.

I cared about whales back in the 70’s when I joined Greenpeace and I cared about the Amazon Rainforest when I joined Friends of the Earth.

I care about so many things – there is so much injustice and cruelty in this world that I can’t help but care. Sadly it would seem that not enough people care otherwise these things wouldn’t be happening, right?

Sometimes the anger boils over into frustration. What can I do to change things? How can I make it stop? Why don’t other people care as much as I do?

Children and women seem to bear the brunt of all the bad stuff happening in the world whether it be in Syria, Aleppo,  Yemen, the refugee camps in Calais or austerity Britain.. The most vunerable people are the ones who suffer the most because they are the ones least able to escape or change things. That makes me angry.

We live in a society that demonises people who are different – whether that be a different religion, different sexuality, different colour skin. That makes me angry.

We turn the other cheek and ignore all the bad things that are happening in the world because it doesn’t affect us as individuals. That makes me angry.

It is coming up to Christmas – a season supposedly of goodwill to all. Yet we’ve just had Black Friday where people have been literally killing each other in order to buy stuff that they don’t need just because it was on sale. In the next 4 weeks people will be spending money that they don’t have on stuff they don’t need – and come 25^th December they will be over-indulging on the food and drink and that makes me especially angry when there are people living in places without access to clean water and children in many parts of the world are going hungry.

The over consumption of goods and food is very often the driving force behind a lot of what is wrong in the world these days. We live in a materialistic society where the bigger the tv, or car or the newest mobile phone or ipad you have the better person you are; at least that’s what the advertisers make you believe. In reality, if you fall for it all, it just shows how shallow you are and how little you care about anyone else or the world around you.

If you don’t care about what is happening in the world then you are part of the problem.  That makes me very angry.

I will continue to be angry because by being angry I can hopefully be part of the solution. I will continue to care and I will continue to highlight all that is bad and wrong in this world.