Mahatma Ghandi
In a moral and ethical society, it has always been considered that the 'greater among them shall always take care of the needs of the least among them'. In other philosophies this is reflected in
similar manner by the suggestion that those who have climbed higher up the mountain should
always be willing to reach back and lend a hand to the one struggling up behind.
Spiritual mentors echo the concept with the commandment ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. In a caring Society, it has been said that 'no one has to scrape for honey at the bottom of the comb: every actor understands his scene and nobody ever needs to be mean’.
In Canada, though, we have money-grubbing politicians
‘pimping dreams of riches for everybody’.
Their dreams are of Power, Resources, Assets and Expansion.
so-called ‘Third World countries’ the problems continue to persist and increase, rather than decrease. World poverty has failed to be addressed adequately or effectively, yet vast numbers of comfortable Canadians go about their business without giving such issues a second thought. They believe that
our governments here in the west are taking care of the third world problems. Yet Famine in Africa
still persists and is now further complicated by the Aids epidemic.
And still our governments attempt to deceive the common man with initiatives hidden behind the idealism of Globalization. This is just another justification for continuous attempts to dominate those less able to defend themselves and to plunder the resources of ‘third world countries’. Americans ‘have been strutting around for centuries without ever saying thank you or please’.
[Ani Defranco]
In his book World Poverty: the No-Nonsense guide, author Jeremy Seabrook addresses the issue quite eloquently.He states that ‘The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not,
as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon
the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied... but written off as trash’.
The rich get richer and the poor get weaker. This is in essence what the term ‘Legislated Poverty’ means – and it is becoming as equally recognizable in our own communities and provinces as it in in places like Africa and South America. How long have we been fighting against famine in Ethiopia ?
And do you think that their plight has really changed in any significant way ?
One of the unspoken beliefs behind the concept of Legislated Poverty in the ‘developed’ world is that, in order to promote economic growth and expansion, there must be a certain percent of the population who are considered expendable.
all British Columbians want. Again there is only a small percentage being taken into consideration as the ALL.
And what is increasingly fuelling poverty is in wealthy nations such as ours is largesse, ignorance and prejudice . These are the demons we are most in need of fighting. And we have to begin with individuals, neighborhoods, communities before we can hope to get enough people paying attention. It is up to the Public to influence the governing bodies
to start doing 'the right things'.
Ultimately the only solution to the social problems of hunger and impoverishment in our own countries is for individuals to start taking some responsibility for lending a hand. We each much start within our own communities, in an effort to really address the problems effectively. I think this was exemplified by the movie Pay it Forward. It doesn't have to be much, but every little bit helps. Think of how much
it would help if every person who is capable of adequately and comfortabley feeding their own children on a daily basis, could offer up just $5 every month to help feed the hungry in our own neighborhoods. What would that be like ?
hUMAN RIGHTS AND SOCIAL POLICIES