Opening my web browser to my yahoo homepage a particular news story caught my eyes and sent my head whirling with confusion as I read the words baby, poison, and death in the same sentence. Currently in China there are over 10,ooo infants sick from melamine containing milk formula. The huge question is how on earth could there be such a disaster that babies could be dying from milk? How could a government make such a huge mistake? What are the citizens of China saying and what are China's next actions? In search of more information I came across this npr clip. The journalists interviewed angry parents waiting anxiously in a crowded hospital all cradling their sickened babies. Parents spoke their emotions against the government, "i hate them i hate them they are killing our children."Appallingly this emotional statement is not far from the truth; the chinese government has been accused of not revealing information on the scandal for over six weeks. One parent now asks "how could we have any confidence in our government and its food companies after what has happened ...where so many unscrupulous traitors put profit before human life."This issue is a perfect example of a society in perilous times. How can citizens trust their government when the government can't even do the job of protecting the lives of innocent babies? How is it that food companies could use such a harmful ingredient in baby formula when less then 5 years ago the same ingredient was used in dog and cat food sickening thousands of household animals in America? and further more how will these Chinese parents recover knowing their child died at the expense of a unjust government? Should the parents accept their child's death as the will of God similar to Anne Bradstreet? Or is there a point where people need to speak up against their government and seek the truth? Will chinese citizens lose total faith in their government and its structure and fail like the Puritans; can the Chinese government only survive as long as it has total control and sensor-ship on all it's citizen like that of the Puritan society?
1 comment:
This is a really interesting topic to explore because it is almost the opposite of some of the other perilous times we have viewed so far. In instances of peril such as 9/11, people looked to the government for support and had more confidence in their leaders. They were more likely to support the governments decisions. In this case of the perilous time of the babies dying in China due to the "poisoned" formula milk, the citizens of China are extremely angry with the government and have lost their faith and support in the leaders of their nation. This demonstrates that people can respond in a variety of ways to a perilous time depending on how it effects them.
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