Poverty, is a real problem right now. Approximately 1.2 billion people are living on less than $1 a day. Survival is a distant reality for them right now. Despite all this, our society is rahter ignorant about this due to our comfortable lives. While we might be asking, “where shall we go eat today?” those in the dire state of poverty will be asking “will i eat today?”. Such is the contrast of our comfortable lives and their dire state.
Why are we so ignorant about it? As mentioned earlier, our lives are rather comfortable. Yet, we are complaining that we never do have enough. Is this because of our higher expectaitions which is the result of a higher standard of living? Probably so. In Singapore, we have our own difficulties to contend to. We have our careers that we need to stablise, we have our families which we have to provide for and then we have our debts which we need to clear. Debts that we have accumulated in our pursuit of wealth.
Such is the thinking of a capitalist society. We have too much freedom in wanting to create more for ourselves that we rarely actually think about those who need it more than us. As Adam Smith has theorized, our society is practicing laissez-faire. We, as individuals, have cared too much about ourselves that we eventually forget to give back to the community.
In my argument here, the community is meant as the global community. This concept has been strongly derived by the fact that our country is known as a global city. This is the result of globalization which can be traced to its roots to Feb 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles founded modern Singapore and turned it from a “fishing village” and into a modern trade hub. This concept is very much alive in the present times with modernization that globalization has brought. High-rise buildings, well-built infrastructure, good housing etc.
Essentially, Singaporeans do have lead a luxuriously comfortable lives. The pursuit of the ever elusive 5cs(Car, Condominium, Country Club membership, Credit card and Cash) by each and every Singaporean has brought about this realization: what about those who dont even have enough to eat?
www.bbc.co.uk/.../gallery_angola.shtml?select=16
According to Don Reeves in Poverty in a Global Economy, poverty is “the involunatary lack of sufficient resources to provide or exchange for basic necessities”. What could be the possible causes of this horrible phenomenan. In the modern times, it is probably war. The picture on the right shows three Angolan children standing outside their homes. They do not have enough to eat and certainly safe place to live in due to the ongoing civil war; a war that was started by the westerners and continued by the locals to fight for control over the country and essentially its very valueble resources: namely, diamonds.
Would this have happened if it wasnt for colonizations or globalizations? It probably wouldnt have. While some countries did benefit from it, many others did not. The only reason that Singapore did not suffer the same fate as many of the African countries did was because it does not have any valuble resources to be exploited to begin with. Yet, we choose to be ignorant about it and go about with our daily lives without even giving a second thought to it. Above, is the hyperlink to the video from the famous band, Good Charlotte with their song We Believe. It might probably answer a few questions as to the how and what about poverty. It’s lyrics, might probably inspire the rest of us Singaporeans to do something about it.
