“Yet, according to the last FAO report, current agricultural output could feed
12 billion people, about twice the population of the planet, providing each
person with 2,700 calories a day. But this is not done. For that reason, when a
child dies of hunger anywhere in the world, it is because he or she has been
murdered.”
25,000 starving kids can’t be wrong
By Hamid Golpira
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=198746
Today, 25,000 children will die of hunger or poverty-related illnesses on this
benighted planet.
25,000 starving kids can’t be wrong. You and I can be wrong, but 25,000
starving kids can’t be wrong.
In a statement issued just before the opening of the G8 summit, which was held
in L’Aquila, Italy from July 8 to 10, the London-based charity organization
Save the Children said that over 75,000 children would die unnecessarily during
the three-day meeting of eight major industrialized countries.
That means 25,000 children died unnecessarily every day of the summit -- and
continue to die at that rate every day.
Save the Children said that “the G8 leaders are failing to do enough to save
the lives of the 9.2 million children who die every year from easily
preventable diseases.”
It seems the G8 leaders are more concerned about how the global economic crisis
is affecting the global ruling class.
Save the Children said that if the G8 countries and other rich nations do not
double the amount of money they donate annually for maternal, newborn, and
child healthcare to at least $7 billion by 2012, they will have no chance of
achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing child
mortality by two thirds by 2015, and at the current rate of progress, the
target will not be reached until 2045.
“It is outrageous that 9.2 million children are still dying every year,” Adrian
Lovett, Save the Children’s director of campaigns, said in the statement.
Indeed, it is more than outrageous. It is a crime against humanity. It is
genocide.
In reality, a silent genocide campaign is being carried out against the
children of the Global South.
Yet all the officials and citizens of the countries that signed the Genocide
Convention are also silent. Nobody is being brought to the International
Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity and genocide. All the
people who endlessly say “Never again” are doing nothing. Maybe they should
change their slogan to “Again and again and again” because that’s what’s really
happening on this planet.
“Hunger is not a natural phenomenon, as some believe. Neither is it a disease,
or an unwanted consequence of weather conditions. It is a human invention which
is as lethal and fearsome as the chemical weapons Bush and his allies had said
they were looking for in Iraq. As every other instrument of mass destruction,
it is applied in a rational and selective fashion over certain areas of the
planet and it aims to exterminate the surplus races and sectors of the world’s
population,” wrote Miguel A. Seman in an article entitled “The hunger
factories” which was originally published in Spanish on the web site
www.pelotadetrapo.org.ar and republished in English by the Tehran Times on
November 24, 2008.
In an article entitled “Hearing the grass grow” which was originally published
in Spanish on the web site www.pelotadetrapo.org.ar and republished in English
by the Tehran Times on December 24, 2006, Oscar Taffetani wrote:
“Yet, according to the last FAO report, current agricultural output could feed
12 billion people, about twice the population of the planet, providing each
person with 2,700 calories a day. But this is not done. For that reason, when a
child dies of hunger anywhere in the world, it is because he or she has been
murdered.”
And Mr. Taffetani is right. When a child dies of hunger anywhere in the world,
it is because he or she has been murdered.
And the killers of those children are the members of the global ruling class,
whose only “sacred” value appears to be the maximization of profit at all
costs, with no thought about the consequences for the starving masses of this
planet.
And the accomplices of the killers are all the global haves who are indifferent
or oblivious to the plight of the starving global have-nots because they are
entranced in the spell of mindless consumerism and meaningless mass
entertainment cast by the evil magicians of globalization.
Maybe somebody should produce a reality TV show entitled “Watch the World’s
Children Starve to Death”.
And some people would actually enjoy the show. A large segment of the global
ruling class would probably enjoy such a TV show.
This is a very sad state of affairs.
So what should be done to remedy the situation?
First of all, every individual must work to elevate his or her consciousness
and encourage others to do the same. There must be a global paradigm shift in
thinking. Stop thinking so much about your minor personal problems. Understand
that your problems are nothing compared to the fact that 25,000 children are
dying unnecessarily every day.
Work together with like-minded people to create a better world.
Visualize the global paradigm shift in thinking.
Acknowledge that there must be a just dispensation for all the people of Earth.
Fight against wrong thinking.
For example, some heartless people say that they are not responsible to help
the deprived children of the world because their suffering is a result of the
actions of their parents. These senseless people say that their parents had too
many children when they knew they couldn’t afford to take care of them, or
their parents started the wars that caused their suffering, or their parents
are responsible for the economic problems that made life difficult for them.
But this is a specious argument. Why should children have to pay for their
parents mistakes?
Most religions -- and even most secular humanist schools of thought -- say that
the punishment for the sins of the parents should not be visited upon the
children.
Globalization and the neoliberal economic model have caused all this suffering,
and the nightmare will never end until the world takes another path.
So we must fight against globalization and the neoliberal economic model till
the bitter end.
We can -- and we must -- formulate a better economic model, an economic model
in which people come first and not capital and profits, an economic model based
on fair trade not free trade, an economic model which has social justice as its
foundation.
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by
the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948, states:
“(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and
well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and
medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the
event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack
of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood
are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or
out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”
We should do everything we can to ensure that Article 25 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights is put into practice.
If we have no compassion for our fellow human beings, we have lost our
humanity. So let us not lose our humanity. And let’s work hard to help those
who have lost their humanity regain their humanity.
And let’s make serious efforts to end starvation and deprivation on this planet
and to create a more just world.
25,000 starving kids can’t be wrong. You and I can be wrong, but 25,000
starving kids can’t be wrong.
With Regards
Abi
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
- Voltaire"
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