Our society

Time and again I find myself pausing at a new batch of books, on some titles. I pick up the book, read the title and the introduction (at the back) and leaf through the book.

This week I paused for a moment to consider 2 themes that I (and probably many of us) fortunately do not belong to.

Poverty

You see them sometimes in the street scene, the beggars. But you are so busy with yourself and you are in such a hurry that you actually do not notice it. After all, we live in rich Belgium and/or the Netherlands and we do not lack anything.

But at the end of 2019, beginning of 2020, we, the better off, also found ourselves in a situation where isolation suddenly dictated the law. If you are so cut off from social contacts, you can't visit, you can't hug, go for a pint, a meal, ... then I can understand that when you are alone, you feel like the beggar who tries to get through the day alone.

And when we talk about poverty and pariahs we always think it's far away from us, but you'd be surprised how close you are to poverty.

Life at the bottom Pariahs of the city

Crime

Today I read that it has been 30 years since Nathalie Geijsbregts disappeared at the age of 10 while waiting for the bus. In the meantime, terrible crimes have been committed in our society that we hardly think about.

Until this week I got hold of 2 books that made me think: " how is it possible that man is capable of such a thing". We see crimes, murders, acts of violence with a dozen in films and series on television, Netflix , the cinema etc.. that we actually find it "normal" . Because, " it only happens on television, in the film" until we are reminded of it every now and then via a newspaper article, the news or a book.

The Dutroux Commission, the report The atrocities of the serial killer

Fortunately, it is not all doom and gloom, but it is good to sometimes stop and think that we are better off than many of our society's residents. And books remind us of this.

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