There is a myth that in a country like the UK it is unimaginable that people can go hungry and without a meal. Even more worrying is the perception that there are no poor people in this country.Very recently, a friend related to me how he overheard a conversation in a corner shop where a woman - who would be considered poor by the economic standards of this country - was telling her neighbour how she was terrified about her future. She was especially worried whether she would be able to feed her three children in the coming weeks as her partner had just lost his job and that they were up to their necks in debt. She was also complaining about how the cost of living had suddenly increased.
That incident has stayed with me. From my comfortable perspective, I was not paying too much attention to prices and I decided to do so after hearing about that conversation. I was indeed struck by the way our food costs have soared over the last few months. I used to put this fact down to our growing teenage sons who seem to be always hungry with their increasing appetites. Paying heed to the prices made me reason that the increase is probably related to the rising oil prices.
In the meantime, while the pundits theorises, who feels it most? It is the poor, whererver they are, who continue to feel the squeeze from our madhouse economics which will most likely take humankind over the final precipe. Poor people can gaze at supermarket shelves and bazaars filled with Columbus' like trinkets and canned food - they can see these but will never ever be able to touch, feel and taste. I have no heart for rich countries that are feeling the dent because they are locked into importing such trinket or foods. My indignation is directed at the causes that make and keep people poor within and between nations - which will also include my own complicity in all this and whether I am willing to live a counter life.
Indeed, the poor are still with us - as Jesus is purported to have said according to one of the gospel writers. And their condition, instead of improving is getting worse. Free Trade, the new abode of the Western God (now being taken over by the East) is daily praised as the source of plenty and prosperity and in whom lies salvation. As Eduardo Galeano puts it: "Free trade is sold as something new, as if born from a cabbage or the ear of a goat, despite its long history reaching back to the origins of the unjust system that reigns today."
And, do not give me all that spiritualising bull-nonsense about "Blessed are the poor", as human flesh continue to be born in the indigestion of hunger, wallowing in it to ultimately die of hunger. Poor people too want to enjoy full life right here on earth. It is time for theologians to take off from their shelves and re-read all those dusty volumes of liberation theologies (A Theology of Liberation, God of the Oppressed, Minjung Theology and the rows of the many such other books). God's preferential option for the poor should now move from being an option to becoming God's preference and hard talk
For the poor are still with us. In fact, they have always been with us - but the lure and grip of inhabiting spaces in the "master's house" may have intoxicated us and clouded our vision. It is time to get sober, to protest and certainly get angry to act. After all, in economic terms: it is cheaper to eliminate poverty than to maintain it!
copyright jagessar
That incident has stayed with me. From my comfortable perspective, I was not paying too much attention to prices and I decided to do so after hearing about that conversation. I was indeed struck by the way our food costs have soared over the last few months. I used to put this fact down to our growing teenage sons who seem to be always hungry with their increasing appetites. Paying heed to the prices made me reason that the increase is probably related to the rising oil prices.
The economic experts [The Economist Dec 8, 2007 (pp.83-84)], on the other hand, are suggesting that there may be more than the rise in oil price that is the cause for "cheap food" becoming a thing in the past. One theory is that because of the take off of incomes in Asia more people there can afford meat and other foods. In other words - more people are able to eat and have the means to do so. This in itself may not be the reason for the increase in food prices. The related bit is that the demand for more meat cannot be matched as the grains (that are in abundance) to feed animals are used, especially by the USA, to produce ethanol to provide an alternative and cleaner source of energy for the gas guzzlers in that country. Interestingly, one old school of economic theory is being challenged here: abundance in this case (of grains) does not not mean the lowering of prices - in fact it shoots up!
In the meantime, while the pundits theorises, who feels it most? It is the poor, whererver they are, who continue to feel the squeeze from our madhouse economics which will most likely take humankind over the final precipe. Poor people can gaze at supermarket shelves and bazaars filled with Columbus' like trinkets and canned food - they can see these but will never ever be able to touch, feel and taste. I have no heart for rich countries that are feeling the dent because they are locked into importing such trinket or foods. My indignation is directed at the causes that make and keep people poor within and between nations - which will also include my own complicity in all this and whether I am willing to live a counter life.
Indeed, the poor are still with us - as Jesus is purported to have said according to one of the gospel writers. And their condition, instead of improving is getting worse. Free Trade, the new abode of the Western God (now being taken over by the East) is daily praised as the source of plenty and prosperity and in whom lies salvation. As Eduardo Galeano puts it: "Free trade is sold as something new, as if born from a cabbage or the ear of a goat, despite its long history reaching back to the origins of the unjust system that reigns today."
And, do not give me all that spiritualising bull-nonsense about "Blessed are the poor", as human flesh continue to be born in the indigestion of hunger, wallowing in it to ultimately die of hunger. Poor people too want to enjoy full life right here on earth. It is time for theologians to take off from their shelves and re-read all those dusty volumes of liberation theologies (A Theology of Liberation, God of the Oppressed, Minjung Theology and the rows of the many such other books). God's preferential option for the poor should now move from being an option to becoming God's preference and hard talk
For the poor are still with us. In fact, they have always been with us - but the lure and grip of inhabiting spaces in the "master's house" may have intoxicated us and clouded our vision. It is time to get sober, to protest and certainly get angry to act. After all, in economic terms: it is cheaper to eliminate poverty than to maintain it!
copyright jagessar
