RANT
by Dick Glynne-Jones
In the Sunday Times recently there was a heart-rending article by Christina Lamb about a poor family in Kabul, who had a mud hut for home, inadequate clothing in freezing temperatures, no food and no money. The father had decided the only way the family could survive was to sell a very young daughter, presumably into slavery or prostitution or both.
This was only one example: millions of people are facing starvation in Afghanistan, and in other countries too – a full page ad by MSF a day or two later appealing for the rest of us to contribute to their admirable work all over the world suggested that poverty is a global problem. TV charity ads often remind us of children dying because the only water they can find to drink is filthy. They often show us disturbing pictures of little children born with hare lips and cleft palates, others with painful glaucoma and other disabilities – all problems that are easily cured in our wealthy west but in the other world if not treated will last a crippled, painful lifetime.
Meanwhile we carry on blissfully ignoring the uncomfortable fact that there is a hideous imbalance between the rich and the poor all over the world. While those children shiver, while those hare lips go on blighting the lives of their victims, we occupy ourselves with food and drink, sport and home comforts, and petty arguments about the legality of parties at Number 10. We seem to have lost all sense of proportion; as Yeats put it: Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
What can we do about it? Millionaire philanthropists like Bill Gates set a good example, but it isn’t enough. Precocious children like Greta Thunberg talk irresistible sense – but her target is climate change; we need her to address her rhetoric to world poverty. Would we stop mocking her and listen?
The governments of many of the wealthier countries give substantial amounts of money to the poorer ones. It seems to be little more than a gesture, a drop in the ocean – and recently the UK reduced even that. Besides we are not always sure the money is properly directed.
I wonder if some clever person could work out roughly how much money would be needed to bring a basic standard of living and well-being to everyone in the world. A hell of a job, no doubt, some would say impossible. Certainly it would need more than one person.
Perhaps some philanthropic group could take it on: the Salvation Army springs to mind. Some will mock the very idea. But there’s not much point in wailing about a global problem without at least measuring the size of it. Once we know the amount needed we can try to work out a fair way of collecting it. Maybe the sums needed would be so colossal that even the wealthy countries would be bankrupted and the whole scheme would collapse. But to take two obvious examples, a casual glance at the vast sums of money floating about in professional football, and the number of smart cars on the roads of our fair country, suggests that many of us, perhaps most, would not suffer much from a proportional levy.
RA Glynne-Jones, Little Lodge, Shortbridge Road, Piltdown. TN22 3XJ.
Tel: 01825 723726. Mobile: 07974 014203.Email: dglynnejones@btinternet.com