No pain is foreign to me
Not long ago I heard an interview to Ana Belen and
Victor Manuel, famous Spanish singers, in a radio show. They were talking about
several matters, especially related to their musical careers, when the host of
the program asked if they had a responsibility with their environment, with the
society. Ana Belen immediately responded that they certainly did and then she
said a phrase that resonated deeply in me: “No pain is foreign to me.” Since I
started this journey reflecting on inequality and social justice, I
progressively have been more aware of the suffering caused to people by unjust
social structures and I want to be sensitive to them and try to make a
difference with my life.
Poverty is one of the pains of the world and today it
has many faces, hunger, epidemics, refugees, migrants, senseless death. Last
year, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (2008) declared
a raise in the number of undernourished people to 923,000,000[i]
of human beings. This increase was caused by the food crisis which escalated in
just one year 75,000,000 million of people who don’t receive at least the
minimum amount of food to live with dignity. This famine is not only
consequence of poverty; it is also cause as part of a vicious cycle in which
not being able to get enough nutrients puts the human body in a deeper
vulnerability, weakening its natural defense mechanisms increasing the
possibility to be affected by illness; also limiting its intellectual
resources, which at the same time prevents the access to education, better
professional training, and of course access to employment which would result in
a better income. This vicious cycle everyday is more serious.
However, it is amazing how society has created a
series of excuses or “explanations” to avoid this problem. As Donna Langston
(2007) comments in her excellent article “Tired of playing Monopoly?” our
societies are reluctant to recognize this gap between rich and poor people. In
this denial I am including the privileged and powerful of Mexican society as
well, because in that sense we have learned very well the model. It is amazing
that in a country with 44,000,000 of people living under the line of poverty,
we have the third richest man in the world, as I mentioned before in other
paper, which means that almost half of Mexico’s population are not able to
afford adequate health care, child care, food, housing, transportation and
other basic expenses. In my courses it is frequent to find that my students,
most of them in a privileged position, mention the explanations considered by
Langston, that poor people are poor due to “something they did or didn’t do; they were lazy, unlucky, didn’t
try hard enough, etc.” These ideas are supported by the myth of the classless
society, which in my country is perfectly well portrayed in the popular soap
operas, in which the leading character, often a poor person, thanks to his
work, goodness, luck, hidden talents, and so on, finds the way to climb up in
the social ladder. However, this only creates a false hope that helps to
perpetuate the system because they have “examples” of people having success, so
the system works and they should keep trying because someday they could be
there. In the other side of the story, middle class and upper class use their
dominant position and enjoy their privileges, which in most of the cases are
transparent for them, considering poverty as something that is “regrettable but
acceptable, just the outcome of a fair game: <here have
always been poor people, and there always will be>>” (Langston, 2007).
I am sincerely questioning me if I can really feel
that pain as not foreign to me, if I can really be emphatic with those who
everyday goes to bed hungry or sick or away from those who loves them and to
whom they resigned in trying to give them a better life; without knowing if the
next day things would be better, if they will have something to eat, if they
will recover their health someday, if they will see their loved ones again. I
don’t know if I can share with them the awareness of a life that every instant
is abandoning them, of a hope and strength that everyday seems to be less.
Probably it is a pain so big that it is better not to see it, not to hear it,
not even feel it because how can I live in a world when even sleeping or even
eating is a privilege and not a basic need for each human being?
The paradox is that there are pains to which we know
how to react. In facing the financial crisis, just one week is needed for the
USA government to decide the implementation of a rescue plan that will cost
around $700,000,000,000 dollars. In 2005, as a result of the global
demonstrations in a movement to eradicate poverty, promoted by several
organizations including an amazing concert called Live 8, it was achieved that
the G8 countries duplicated the aid to poor countries, which represented
$50,000,000,000 dollars each year. I
understand that without the rescue plan, poor people were the most likely to
suffer the most severe consequences of the economic crisis. However, I cannot
stop questioning why to rescue banks, financial groups and corporations,
governments can spend that amount of money without much hesitation, when in
2002 the FAO in its summit calculated that $24,000,000 dollars each year would
eradicate famine in the world, and nobody took our their checkbooks. What is
worst, that year the military budget in USA was $380,000,000,000 dollars plus
$31,500,000,000 dollars for an anti-terror secretary. I think it is not hard to
visualize bankers having dinner without any worry while almost one sixth of the
human kind is going to bed not only hungry of food but also of hope.
For me one of the important questions is what we can
do to ease that pain, how we can make the dream of making poverty history a
reality. There is not easy answer but I think any action should start with
waking up and being aware of the problem. This would entail stop our denial
from both sides, recognizing our privilege or our oppression, and also to stop
paying with cheap coins such as guilt or anger, which make us feel bad and
think that with our feelings we have already paid our debt, leading us to
passivity which is also another of the risks. (Langston, 2007) After that it is necessary to understand the
mechanisms that are generating and perpetuating this inequality, criticizing
social and economic systems that are permeated in almost all societies but have
not produced the desired just results. In this learning process it is essential
to acknowledge the struggles, skills and strengths of poor or excluded people. Also
it is important to demand free trade and fairer rules to commerce, and also a
real social responsibility in the corporations that produce what we consume. It
is also important to be active denouncing injustice and participating in
collective actions that promote better health, education, and live conditions
for those who are more vulnerable or excluded from the system.
My dream is that my children could really live in a
world where poverty is only part of a museum exhibit because it doesn’t exist
anymore. However, to achieve that it is important that really no pain is
foreign to us. What does that mean? What does that imply? I believe it implies
something that humanity has been proclaiming since French Revolution but hasn’t
been able to really practice: recognizing ourselves as brothers and sisters, making
fraternity not only a political statement but a principle of relationship among
human beings. Mayan culture summarized this in a beautiful phrase: “In Lakesh”,
which means “I am you” or “I am other you”. So, if for us we wouldn’t tolerate
a situation of misery, of a poverty that kills, we should not tolerate that for
anyone. We are not asked in exclusive to transform the world. However, no one
is exempt to do at least what is in his/her hands to make our world a more just
and human place.
References
Langston, D.
(2007). White Tired of Playing Monopoly? In M.L. Anderson & P.H. Collins (Eds.),
Race, Class and Gender: An anthology
(pp. 118-127). Belmont,
CA: Thomas Wadsworth.
Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y
la alimentación. (2008). El hambre
aumenta. Retrieved March 28th, 2009, from FAO Sala de Prensa: http://www.fao.org/newsroom/es/news/2008/1000923/index.html
Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y
la alimentación. (2002). Se estancan los
avances en la reducción del hambre. Retrieved March 28th, 2009, from FAO
Sala de Prensa: http://www.fao.org/spanish/newsroom/news/2002/9620-es.html
Villamil, J. (2002). Los
números del terror. Retrieved March 28th, 2009, from La Jornada: http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2002/12/29/005n2pol.php?origen=index.html
[i] I am intentionally writing the numbers this way
because I think it helps to visualize them better.
#BAD2014, #Inequality #BlogAction14
%2019.33.33.png)
