If you are working for a morally sound cause but ethically wrong, does that make you wrong?
Everything has laid bare the competing interests between various parties, including and especially, countries. Everyone wants a spotlight, they said. Exorbitant self-interests trumped empathy and solidarity, but we still shake hands.
Up to that point, I thought working for the pristine, untarnished (is it?) global health organization, the Mecca of all public health practitioner, is the final destination (pun intended).
Then, alleged sexual assault surfaced, then racism and bullying. Then "abortion as healthcare" which stand against my core principle.
I did ask: does working for them equal supporting their abortion stance? I certainly did not feel so, but some might find the banner under which I stand must mean I silently nod to the cause. I drew my line: I am willing to work with them, as long as it is not in the maternal and child sector.
I don't want to go through such extrapolation that if you work for the government who are corrupt, under which banner you stand, even if you don't steal, then you must be silently approve the hole in the system?
We can agree and disagree to some extent, make rooms for compromise, and protect our principles.
If not, who can stand against such logic? Everyone should revert to go back to cave and isolate themselves from any existing system.
I drew my line, and there's no undenying that everyone also drew their line. I draw mine, you draw yours. Let's protect them, together, inch by inch.
Where do I compromise, where do I not? That's where my battle is. Where do you compromise your moral in the framework of ethical communal living?
What would you choose, a person who is fully aware, carefully treads a difficult and contested area, and regularly checking where he stands, or someone who doesn't care?
People tend to mock the prior. Some people choose the latter, only to mock them too. Don't be surprised to see the latter swarming the marketplace of ideas.
It troubles me that there's this surrounding, acceptable notion, that working for anything other than local, homegrown organizations considered as negative, traitor, or facilitating "foreign interests" from external parties.
Well hey, everyone has interest, including those who claimed to be the purest of all. People in religious organizations corrupt, elders in church sexually assaulted children, had affairs, etc.
We can't escape the depravity.
I realize I'm speaking from a relatively short stint experience, but I found that any cooperation seldom neutral.
Somehow, someway, if "national interest" is on the table, it becomes ethically sound, even if it is morally wrong.
An organization signed a only-god-knows-what MoU with Ministry of Defense last year. Still no outcry for its legitimacy.
PAHO got the upper hand in establishing regional mRNA hubs. Africa was chosen as the mRNA tech transfer hub.
There is power at play.
Just because loving your country is a positive character to possess, does not mean blind nationalism is in a similar league. Familiarize yourself with enough contradictions and open your eyes — while you still can see.
Sure we want foreign aid, but we should label them as malicious. Please invest in Indonesia, but you must beg to us to let you invest here. Help us deliver result, but you shouldn't interfere with our strategy.
Nothing is, if not, seldom, neutral. I made my choice. I commit myself not to a particular organization but to my principles: health for all people.
I remember reading, our heart only has three options toward the end of our lives: either it becomes hard, broken, or tender.
I want it to be tender. I work hard everyday to guard myself and stay in that lane.