All lives are not equal

Time and again that point comes home to me. Today it was a story about 100 workers who fainted at a Cambodian factory that manufactured garments for H&M. The suspected cause? An insect repellent that was sprayed to protect the clothes from cockroaches.

The factory had been shut for two days prior to this incident when over 200 workers had fallen sick while at work. For some reason, they had been allowed to reopen, only to inflict injuries upon another set of workers. Also known as human beings, a fact that gets swept under the carpet too often.

H&M is not considered a high-end retailer in any of the developed countries it sells its clothes in. It's the go-to place for people who want to look well-dressed without spending too much. Yet to protect it's clothes from harm, there are human lives that are put at stake.

The company is headquartered in one of the Nordic countries, a part of the world where each life is worth more than it's weight in gold. Where you get an allowance from the state just for existing. Whether you contribute anything economically to the state or not, you are rewarded for just being a citizen of that part of the world. However, a part of the world that zealously protects its borders from those that may try to crawl in.

Interesting, these attitudes. As my sister says, the French while touting Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, made it clear that that was applicable only to humans, not the beings that lived in their colonies across the world.

Yet another thing that riles me. But then along comes a cardiologist from the University of Texas who figures out how to recycle pacemakers. He works with funeral homes in the U.S. to donate pacemakers from the bodies of the deceased, which he then sterilizes and prepares for a fresh implant. He works with a hospital in Mumbai to donate these pacemakers to heart patients that would not have been able to afford this expensive medical device. At a 98% success rate, and only a 2% chance of infection, this project has run over 7 years. And has successfully saved human lives. Lives that are too poor to count as human for many others.

So, whenever I see the inherent inequality in this world of ours, I just have to remind myself. That there are people in this same world that have a human heart.