Most European countries have warnings on the packaging of tobacco products. And Canada recently announced that it was going to start putting a health warning on every individual cigarette. I sometimes think that the For A New World website should have a warning: ‘This website can be seriously addictive’.
My pondering is based on experience. Only the other day I was looking for some information about a certain person. I discovered that they had spoken at a meeting at an Initiatives of Change conference at Caux, Switzerland so I turned to FANW to listen to some of the tape of the meeting. Before I knew it, I was totally absorbed in listening to a speaker who was describing a 95 per cent eclipse of the sun which was due to happen that day - and someone else who announced that lunch would be delayed so that everyone could enjoy the experience. I suddenly realised that I had been totally deflected from my original mission!
At one point, I confessed my addictive tendencies to one of the pioneers of this website.
‘Good, that is what we hope will happen,’ he said unsympathetically.
Some who know IofC will enjoy reliving experiences from their earlier days - perhaps by re-watching a film that made a deep impression on them. Others will want to get to know more about a person or an event that they have heard about. Or they may want to find out what a long-departed person was saying in the early years of Initiatives of Change and its forerunners.
There is already a huge treasure trove of information in many forms - content from books and magazines, photographs, films, songs and individual articles. But, as you browse, you are also aware of many gaps. When you search for information about some of the people featured in those varied products, you not infrequently find the request: 'We do not have any biographical information for this person yet. If you can help us by supplying some, we will be delighted. Please use the Feedback form at the bottom right of this page to contact us. Thank you.’
Just to give one example…. When I was in Nigeria in 1980, I briefly met a man called Zudonu, who had been general secretary of the largest port-workers union in Nigeria (see page four of this edition of New World News). I was told that he had risked his job, and quite possibly his life, to make a stand against the corruption which was rife in his port in his home city of Port Harcourt. A few years ago, when I was preparing a talk about my months in that vibrant country, I wanted to find out more but drew an almost complete blank (although I did find someone who had known him in her younger days).
I hope that many people will share their knowledge of such unsung heroes before these stories are lost irretrievably.
English