Generation kill

Now, clearly there’s a difference between enjoyment and indifference. Indifference means you don’t care one way or another, while enjoyment implies that you take pleasure in what you’re doing. I like to think there aren’t many people who take pleasure in killing. But then comes the question: at what point does indifference become a sin? After all, just because you don’t care about something doesn’t necessarily make it right.
So here we are. Indifference. It seems inevitable that one way or another we all become indifferent. Indifferent to the suffering going on around the world or, closer to home, indifferent to others – how they behave and even their very existence. We are after all known as the apathetic generation, not knowing or caring about the wider world, uninterested in what’s happening beyond the small sphere in which our lives unfold.
I like to think I’m not like this. I was brought up with an awareness of other cultures, other countries. And I cared, was always interested, still am. And yet these days I hardly ever bother to watch the news. My mother’s favourite saying whenever she sits down to watch the news is: ‘Let’s see how the world is doing today’, to which my response is always, ‘Well, there’s probably a war somewhere,  some politician stirring up trouble, a natural disaster, maybe an economic crisis or two.’
It’s not that I don’t care, just that the news always seems the same, and after a certain point I become indifferent, tune it out and eventually become immune to hearing about the latest calamity in a faraway land. Why does this happen? Is it media over-saturation, the fact that nowadays – with 24-hour news channels, the free newspapers thrown at us and internet – it’s impossible to avoid the news? So inevitably we just begin to ignore what is irrelevant to us as individuals. Maybe human nature simply won’t allow us to feel and care too much about all we hear. So we clamp down and shut out those events not directly concerning us. But is there an argument to be made that because we still care – even if we can’t do much to help – then we aren’t indifferent? Or does it become worse than indifference, turning into wilful ignorance of what’s happening in the world?
This leads to the question of personal responsibility. In the Netherlands for instance you have many opportunities to buy cheap, second-hand bikes, which is fine, unless the bike turns out to be stolen, in which case if the police find out, you are guilty of possessing stolen goods, fined and get a criminal record. According to the police, a defence claiming ignorance, of saying ‘I didn’t know it was stolen’, is not a valid excuse. It’s up to you to make sure before you buy the bike that it isn’t stolen. It’s your responsibility. So if that’s true in this one situation, shouldn’t the same logic apply to other aspects of life?
If you buy clothes, shoes, furniture, made by companies that abuse their workers or source materials from environmentally-damaging places, how much are you responsible for the workers’ sufferings and the depletion of the rainforests? How much do you choose to care about the world around you?

Lucia Wamiti, from Kenya, is a BSc student studying aerospace engineering

“Ik doe nu iets wat voor de langere termijn hopelijk iets oplevert. Voor Ariston’80, maar ook voor de andere verenigingen. Ik vind dat er iets grondig moet veranderen en dat de discussie hierover moet oplaaien”, verklaarde de ex-preses.

Voor een twintigtal toehoorders las hij woensdagavond 11 februari – op persoonlijke titel, benadrukte hij – in een afgehuurde ruimte een verklaring voor over zijn abrupte aftreden.

Het was één lange aanklacht tegen het functioneren van het management op het sportcentrum. “Alle moeite om een inbreng te hebben lijkt voor niets geweest.”

Zo zou zijn club weinig in de melk te brokkelen hebben gehad, toen drie natuurgrasvelden werden vervangen door twee kunstgrasvelden. Met de resultaten van een enquête onder de leden over wensen rondom de nieuwe velden werd ondanks afspraken niets gedaan, aldus de ex-preses.

Hetzelfde lot trof de suggesties op het gebied van de horeca in het Sportcafé. Andere pijnpunten: contacten met trainers, kleedkamerindelingen, communicatie over trainingstijden en communicatie in het algemeen.