Earlier this year I corrected an essay by a gifted young writer. It was about a young African child, whose father had gone to fight, his mother had gone looking for his father, and his two year old brother, who he was looking after, was slowly dying of diarrhea and starvation, since the food had run out a few days before.
He goes to find food aid, finds his father, and they return to the hut to the cold body of his little brother. It was really well written, and gut wrenching.
Sentimental, maybe, but brought home to me again, that the parents of skeletal African children feel as deeply and as strongly as we do about their children, though I suspect we many of us protect ourselves by subconsciously believing that the people in the photos we see couldn't possibly feel the same about their children, themselves as we do, it's different somehow, they manage better somehow. I don't know if it's the dehumanisation of their situations, or just a self defense response, something that allows us to believe that it couldn't be the same as it would be for us. That it couldn't be us. Tina posted a picture on her blog, for world hunger response day, that I've been hiding from ever since - a child crawling towards an off screen food aid centre, collapsed, no strength to go any further, and behind it, a vulture is standing, waiting. She says the photographer killed himself some months later - the protective blanket stripped away?
I was looking at my 17 month old son, this morning, as he ran around in jeans, half dressed, stopping to grin at himself in the mirror, a happy mini David Beckham. He's in what I think they call rude health, solid and well fleshed, his skin is buttery and smooth, his cheeks are chubby, his hair shines, his eyes are bright. It's hard to stop nuzzling his neck, blowing raspberries on his tummy, squeezing him tight and feeling his fat and muscle, so comfortingly strong. It is such a blessing to know that I have fed this baby to this point of health and development, that I've had the milk, and the food to give him.
'You either care about poverty or you don't.' Tina said. And of course I do. Of course I care. But. But I don't have it in me to go to Africa, much as the pictures make me want to hold these children, give them all the milk I have until I've used up my shameful excess fat, and I could assuage that feeling I get when I see their protruding bones and stomachs, their hollowed cheeks and eyes, their tears. I don't have the money to make any significant alteration to the world. I'm no Bob Geldof.
I don't believe that the answer to that sort of poverty and imbalance of wealth lies in individual donation anyway. That just can't be right. We need a different system. Or any system. I don't actually believe that it should be mine and your responsibility.
The other day I got an email forward, from a rather Christian source, that contained a series of 'you think you've got it bad, look at this photo' pictures. I can't remotely argue with any of the sentiments. They have a preachy, smug, holier than thou tone that grates with me and stops me posting it, but despite that, it's not wrong. A man up to his neck in flood water, carrying a baby in a basin on his head. A tiny bent old woman shouldering a bundle of sticks three times the size of her. A one legged man pushing a bicycle with a child on the front. Starving children, and you think you have it bad? True, unarguably true. We do not have it bad.
So this is the picture, I hesitate to put it up, as I resent having this sort of thing thrust in my face. I'm not lecturing here, at all, just responding, feeling guilty. The story that kid wrote made me cry, this picture is the illustration of it, the horror of a child starving to death, of having no-one to save them, of being responsible for their tiny, dying sibling. I cold stare at it in horror for an hour, at every rib, at the older child's eyes. Appalling and real. Despite my best intentions, I have not yet done the charity gift thing this year, so I think I'll commit to a child sponsorship instead, and then maybe I'll be feeding someone, helping someone feed themselves.
6 comments:
Very well-put, Jo.
As someone who's spent a fair bit of time in Africa and seen the kind of things you're talking about first-hand I can tell you that sometimes the only way to deal with it is to put it firmly out of mind, at least temporarily. Because to do otherwise means living in constant shame at our own fortunate circumstances, and that is not a healthy thing.
It's there all the time and when I'm doing something about, it I'm doing something about. And when I'm not, I'm not.
So what Is a good thing to be doing about it? On a small scale sense,that is?
I think your idea of sponsoring a child is a good one. first and foremost, I suppose, it's a good idea to know a bit about the charity you're donating through. I think Goal are great, I met John O'Shea once and he's a decent, no-bullshit sort of man. What works best though is if you have any personal connections to anyone working out there and can give them cash directly, making sure that it all goes directly to the cause, rather than on admin and CEOs.
Perhaps, when the little one is older, you could try some short-term volunteering. It's not nearly as scary as you think.
I know a guy who's a financial controller for a charity and he was saying that although the company motto is to say that 50c of every euro will go directly to whoever needs it, he says in reality that's not quite right.
Also their staff get very good wages and they have spent a fortune on failed IT projects and so on.
the fairest thing i think, would be to actually pay them fair money for their products, those fair trade things appeal to me in the same way as the big Issue magazine does.
Those images are so raw. I know what you mean about pushing the subject in people's faces, but I really think it needs to be done. If at least one person in 10 is affected, the advert is a success.
Helen Fielding of Bridget Jones' fame wrote a very excellent book called 'Cause Celeb' based on her adventures in Africa trying to raise awareness of a poverty stricken area and the bullshit that goes with aid agencies.
She writes with the weakness and helplessness we all feel. 10/10.
This is a tough one. I would think investigating the agency, and their accounts would be in order. Sponsoring a child sounds like a good way to go with this.
There just seems to be so much corruption, or money going not to where it's suppposed to.
I would also go with programmes that help the people to help themselves such as sponsoring micro-financing( eg. KIVA), education, and improved farming, etc.
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