by Rebecca Barrett
“Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.” – Psalm %34:14
“If someone did you a favor — something big, something you couldn’t do on your own — and instead of paying it back, you paid it forward to three people…”“That’s me. That’s three people. And I’m going to help them.” Trevor McKinney in the 2000 film Pay it Forward wants to change the world, three people at a time, in response to a challenge from his social studies teacher. He outlines his “Pay it forward” idea with lines and stick people on the chalkboard in front of his class. “Pay it forward” is a policy of caring that encourages good deeds and helps facilitate domestic harmony. One simply helps three people, and the next day those three people help three more; those people each in turn help three more people the day after that, until after two weeks 4,782,969 people have been helped. Replace the word “people” with the word “nations” in the previous statement, and it becomes the formula for worldwide peace.
The policy would be quite simple. One country could do three favors for three other countries, without expecting any form of compensation. Ideally, the deeds should be done anonymously, so that the doer receives no credit for them. After the deeds are done, the country disappears from the scene, leaving instructions for each of the three receivers to pay the favors forward to three other countries. With 191 nations in the world, it will only take five days for every nation to have received a favor. Nations will then begin receiving multiple favors to be paid forward, until the numbers of favors eventually become so large that they are confusing. Then, each day, nations will be dealing out favors and helping each other, rather than fighting.
These good deeds could be small or large, depending upon the nation’s ability to give. As Trevor said in Pay it Forward, “It doesn’t even have to be a big thing. It might just seem like a big thing. Depending on who you do it for.” Different countries have different gifts to share, and different countries have different problems to solve. Countries could share their resources and chief products to help a country in need, their knowledge and medicine to aid sick or ailing countries, or their manpower to help with a neighboring country’s natural disaster. For example, if Uganda’s people were starving, the United States could feed each person a healthy meal one day. Uganda, in turn, could send some of its exceptional flora to cheer people with incurable diseases in India. It could ship tea to people with colds in South Africa. It could send a small team to help clean up after a volcano in Italy. The next day, India could share its leather products with people who cannot afford shoes in Russia, its rice with starving people in Afghanistan, and its sugar and spices with Chileans who could never before afford to taste them. South Africa, meanwhile, could provide milk one day for German youth to prevent osteoporosis, a small gift of iron and steel to help fix a bridge in Mexico after an earthquake, and clothing for some homeless people in Libya. Italy would likewise help three nations, and the day after that the nine nations would each help three more nations, and so forth. The whole process must be in secret, however, so that no nation can begrudge another for giving lesser or greater favors.
Pay it Forward policy would be different from any policy a country has ever implemented before. Peace is much more than just an armistice or a ceasefire. While wars destroy landscapes and create pain and suffering for a country’s people, Pay it Forward would help build up countries and encourage humanity and tranquility. Diplomacy is often focused on what individual nations can gain, because diplomats have to answer to their people. One nation, if not every nation, may leave a diplomatic conference feeling embittered about something it did not get out of the conference. Pay it Forward, on the other hand, would be completely unselfish. While it is true that some wealthy countries have prioritized giving aid to less fortunate countries, they often expect something in return — either repayment of loans, favors, or “friendship” during wartimes. In other words, these wealthy nations expect a payback. With Pay it Forward, nations would not expect anything in return, although eventually the favor may traverse the seven seas and come back to the original nation. Also, instead of one or two wealthy nations working for peace (and getting all the credit for it), everybody would be working together for peace. In many ways, the policy may seem idealistic. Since wars and diplomacy have not been effective in maintaining peace, however, kindness and generosity are at least worth a try.
Pay it Forward policy could prevent war and discourage the building of weapons of mass destruction. Countries would not need to build up defenses against each other to prevent attacks, because everybody would be working together to solve each other’s problems and care for each other’s people. Weapons of mass destruction are only a manifestation of the roots of all wars: the enemies of love, which are greed, envy, and hatred. Pay it forward would discourage the presence of society’s real enemies, so weapons of mass destruction would be unnecessary. Sometimes, almost half of a country’s budget is geared toward military spending. Nations could do a lot of good if they used this money for helping other countries rather than fighting them. Small favors, additionally, could alleviate the problems that make countries bitter, and would thus reduce the instigations for war. Perhaps the citizens of nations would catch on to the government’s example and begin caring for each other as well. Then, people and nations would all be taking care of each other, and would not have to worry so much about taking care of themselves.
In retrospect, a way to prevent war is to encourage peace and cooperation through kindness and good deeds done in secret. Pay it Forward policy is uncomplicated and takes only one country to initiate it before it pervades the globe; each country gives according to how much it can afford. Because fighting and talk historically have been ineffective in keeping peace, we may as well all try loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. This could help avert war and get rid of the need for and money for destructive weapons. It starts like this: “That’s our country. Those are three countries. And we’re going to help them.”
Last modified: Sunday, August 22, 2004 at 07:30 AM