The Messenger - April 2009 - Love Thy Neighbour
By John O'Shea - 01 April 2009
The Pope's Intentions: This month the Pope asks us to respond to hunger and want throughout the world. John O’Shea, founder and CEO of GOAL, looks at how the economic downturn will effect the lives of the poorest of the poor.
While most people’s minds are currently preoccupied with how the global economic downturn will affect us here at home, we must not forget the devastating effect it will have on the lives of the poorest of the poor in the developing World.
The economic downturn will be felt by everyone as belts are tightened and people worry about their well-being. However, for the billion people who survive on less that a dollar a day across the Developing World, the difference is between life and death. Rising food prices means that the world’s most vulnerable people will simply be too poor to live.
There is a likelihood that governments will be forced to look inwards, cutting the money they give to institutions working to alleviate poverty, such as the UN, EU, the World Bank etc.
Whatever the weaknesses of these organisations, of which there are many, they act as the conduits through which organisations such as GOAL or the Irish Missionaries receive the bulk of their funding. The result is that the groups that are on the ground, at the coalface of the fight against poverty, will have much less money available to them.
The statistics in regard to hunger are horrendous. It is estimated that 210 million people across Africa are chronically malnourished, mainly mothers and their children. But what’s really shocking is that since 1977, when GOAL first began operating, this figure has barely changed.
Whenever I walk through the slums of Calcutta I am struck by how much it reminds me of my first visit there in 1978. Children still roam the streets with distended bellies hanging out of their ragged cloths, the tell-tale sign of malnutrition. The effects of Kwashiorkor and other diseases associated with the fact that people simply do not have enough to eat are commonplace.
The people of the Developing World are caught in a vice-like grip between the indifference of Western governments and the corrupt and brutal nature of their own governments. It is this lack of love that is the root cause of the relentless suffering of the poor.
The international community should be ashamed of their inability to find a way to spread the load evenly amongst all those who need it. Lets us never forget the food mountains that were allowed develop so that the market prices could be manipulated. This happened while millions starved. That’s the regard the international community has for those at the bottom of the heap. It is shameful that economics is allowed to take precedence over people’s right to life.
Perhaps the biggest lie is that there is not enough food to feed all of the people of the world. There is of course ample food in the larders of the powerful nations, as well as for those who rule the developing world – the vast majority of whom care only for their own self-aggrandisement that for the plight of their people. It is telling that in my years of visiting the Developing World I have yet to encounter a hungry soldier.
The most pressing current emergency is unfolding in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe has taken the land from those who knew how to use it and given it to those who are inept. Thus one of Africa’s bread baskets has become the continents basket case.
The greedy politicians of the developing countries coupled with the sheer indifference of the West has sentenced millions to a life of grinding poverty. If we really cared about the poorest of the poor then silos would be propositioned in every famine-prone country which would be available to the people in times of crisis. But this is a costly endeavour making it basically unthinkable to the unfeeling bureaucrats holding the purse strings.
After I had returned from the awful Ethiopian famine in 1984 I had tremendous difficulty convincing those back at home of the seriousness of the situation. Having witnessed scenes of heartbreaking sadness, I had resolved to speak to anyone I could about that country's plight. One of the first invitations in my door was one asking me to speak to a class of young children in a school in Skerries.
A day or two later I found myself in front of a group of six and seven year olds, explaining as simply as I could how millions of people were starving to death in Ethiopia because their crops had failed, and how the world was doing very little to help.
Suddenly, a little lad piped up from the middle of the class. "My da," he said, "is a fisherman, and I can ask him to go in it to Ethiopia and bring some children back here so we can feed them. There's loads of boats in Skerries, and if everyone with a boat did the same thing, we could save everyone," he suggested.
Having witnessed the scale of the suffering in Ethiopia just a week earlier, and the seeming indifference of the international community to it, I was bowled over by the boy's suggestion.
It wasn't boats that were needed, what was lacking was the ability to think like this generous boy – a boy who could not understand how our world remains so crushingly unequal.
Maybe we can all learn a lot about justice from the very young. Children simply don't understand the uncaring nature of adults.
Perhaps the leaders of Western nations should look into their our own hearts and search once more for that pure sense of right and wrong that we all once had.
John O’Shea is CEO of GOAL, an international humanitarian organisation operating in 10 countries across the developing world.