I stumbled upon Samantha Power's TED talk today, which mostly focused on the life, deeds, and unfortunately, death of Sergio Vieira de Mello, a fascinating Brazilian with 34 years in the UN.
He was, in the words of Power "part James Bond and part Bobby Kennedy." Who, as she quoted Gore Vidal, actually not Gore Vidal but that's the name that comes to mind, said "you could never tell if he was a realist masquerading as an idealist or an idealist masquerading as a realist,"
This is a guy who for the majority of his adult life thrust himself into warzones where he was not welcome and found himself at the negotiating table with some of the most ruthless dictators of the 20th century, doing his best to stop global genocide. The very brief amount I know about his story is absolutely fascinating and I can't wait to get my hands on Samantha Power's book Chasing the Flame all about Vieira de Mello's life. He is definitely a new hero of mine whose courage and works speak for themselves. Definitely something to strive for in 2009 and beyond.
Side note on Samantha Power (which definitely sounds like the name of a superhero) - very reassuring that she is such a staunch critic of genocide and has the ear of Barack. I think it is an absolute moral imperative of the force that the US has built up to stop wanton genocide in all forms.
Power talks a great deal about how the bottom up movement of college students and young adults have made a huge difference in terms of divestiture and political agenda although makes the caveat that there is still much to be done (ie. media coverage of endangered species in Sudan with no mention of people being murdered). Let's hope that 2009 will see an improvement in this regard.
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