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| World Hunger |
| I was discussing world hunger with some friends recently and I suggested that food aid to other countries should be free and without strings attached. I pointed out that attaching strings, like changes in government, changes in child labor laws and changes in the way they view human rights only causes resentment, particularly when the changes are not made and we refuse to send food. My point was that the only way to convince others that our way is better is to let them experience it for themselves. With food readliy available there is more time and energy to innovate and to bring about improvements in their own way and in their own time -- the way we did. We forget that when our country was developing our children worked right along with the adults. There was no free ride to age eighteen or twenty-one with education, food, clothing and shelter guaranteed. We cannot impose our present standards on people who do not have the resources to make it possible. We forget that at one time women were oppressed in this country too. In some cases the "age of consent" was actually seven years of age and there was no such thing as rape in the sense that we know today. Any woman known to have intercourse with any man not her husband, whether she was married or not, was automatically wrong no matter what the circumstances. Also, it was permitted to beat your wife if she didn't please you. We judge others by our present standards as though we have always been this way and the brutal truth is, we were just as bad when we were beginning. In the course of the conversation someone brought up the fact that we have hungry people here too and that we shouldn't send aid to other countries until they are taken care of. I disagree, for the following reasons: Our poor are sheltered by a society with abundant resources. In all but the most isolated communities there are shelters, food banks, food stamps, help with utilities, welfare, soup kitchens and low cost housing. In those few isolated places there is hunting, fishing, gardening and, above all, cooperation. In the countries where people are starving by the hundreds of thousands, there are none of these things. They can't turn to the government for help because there is nothing to help them with. We would not fare well if we were dumped in the middle of the desert and left to fend for ourselves. The search for food and water would take all our time and energy and would leave nothing for building homes -- if there was anything to build the homes with. Human life would become cheap with limited resources. We would believe that the fewer "other" people survived, more we would have. Human rights would not exist. It would be work and eat or die and if you die I have a better chance of living. We have electricity, transportation, food, water, medicine and information. Millions of people have none of those things. Education here is free and required, and in many places the only education available is survival -- and sometimes religious or spiritual indoctrination. We cannot expect people to embrace our demands under those circumstances. We must first raise their standard of living if we ever expect them to see our point of view. |