Nothing To Give
It seems hopeless, the state of misery and deprivation for the poor of the world.The United Nations has statistics that inform that there are fewer people in the international community living in extreme poverty than ever before. But these things are relative. What represents poverty in advanced economies of the world bears little resemblance in fact to the extreme levels of poverty faced in countries like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and throughout Africa.
State intervention and support of the poverty-stricken, for one thing, is far less likely in such poor countries. And isn't that passing strange, since the wealthy countries of the world - themselves now straining under economic constraints as a result of the global financial collapse that many are still recovering from, and others may not at all - have traditionally agreed to deliver a proportion of their wealth to succour the indigent in developing countries.
The question has always been, how much of that funding has managed to trickle down to those who desperately need it, particularly since the greater portion of it never seemed to leave the elite levels of those who governed the country and their social cohorts. Which is why it began to make far more sense to have international humanitarian aid groups deliver assistance directly. And, given human nature, that too became an industry of self-entitlement.
Afghanistan, for example, has had billions of aid funding pour into the country. Granted, it is a desperately poor and traditionally embattled country. Yet, as in all such countries, graft and corruption is endemic, and funding meant to assist those whose condition is judged a matter of life and death, simply never gained from the funding. Sickness and malnutrition stalks the slums where people live and die.
And now that winter has set in, even in the large cities of the country, people huddle in pitiful attempts to sustain themselves somehow, miraculously. Begging for scraps of food, looking for firewood to keep themselves warm, hoping their children will not contract the illnesses that are taking other slum dwellers' vulnerable children.
In winter, when night-time temperatures are so cold, people cannot sleep for discomfort.
Where children run about in bare feet in the snow, for there is nothing for them to wear, and scant little for them to eat. Yet these families huddling together in their generations, have many children to feed and love and worry about. A grandmother, living with her family in Kabul, tells a reporter: "We hope that the government will help us someday."
The government is capable of very little. Irrespective of the fact that international agencies have helped the Government of Afghanistan build its social administrative infrastructure. Nothing seems to trickle down to services for the poor. The United Nations Food Program expends its efforts in the countryside, helping to feed thousands of poor families. But there are many thousands more they do not reach.
"At home, in our village, we would all help each other if we were hungry or cold. But here, if I go to my relatives or close friends to ask for a little firewood, they are very quiet, and then they say, 'Brother, I have nothing to give you'".
Labels: Afghanistan, Political Realities, Poverty
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, January 17, 2012
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