The drama of it all is not lost on me. The excitement, the rush of blood to the head, the endorphines. I get it. Sports are a big deal. For countless reasons. Some meritorious; others not so much.

Regardless of the pros and cons of local, national and international sporting events, how can any one of us feel comfortable living in a world where a company is willing to shell out 132 million dollars for a soccer player while entire pockets of the population in nearby regions die of malaria because they don’t have access to the 10 dollars needed to purchase a bed net.

Clearly our financial woes are not solely material. Our financial problems are deeply rooted in the decaying morality of a materialistic credo that gorges on frivolity, o.d.’s on self-centered pleasure pursuits and panics at the thought of having to prolong gratification for any considerable amount of time.

Does this mean we should send our money off right now to XY&Z agency so that it can buy mosquito nets for those who need them? Is that the solution? It might help, but it’s like plugging one leak in a dam so filled with holes it’s about 10 seconds away from bursting. I’m not discouraging charity. I’m just saying it’s not enough. A solely material solution to one ramification of a moral crisis is not going to rebuild the dam. Besides, with countless episodes of corrupt leaders whose sticky fingers dripping in greed just can’t seem to find their way out of the money jar, it’s not entirely implausible that your capital will help a self-indulgent hypocrite finance his or her latest vacation home.

The problems are complex. The symptoms are overwhelming. And as a first step we need to rightly diagnose the disease. If we keep insisting that impoverished nations, for instance, need nothing more than money thrown at them, or that populations dying of venerial diseases simply need more condoms, the overwhelming symptoms will not only never disappear, they will continue to amass until there really is no hope.

So then is the solution merely spiritual? Should we all organize 24-hour prayer campaigns and write pretty songs and lengthy blog posts to praise peace and talk about how we’re all one and the children are our future? Is that going to feed the starving children? Is that going to cure the diseased?

For an entire nation to be lifted out of poverty, you can’t just erase debt and then hope the nation doesn’t amass it again.  I don’t think there are easy answers or simple solutions to any of this. You can’t wave a wand and expect fundamental problems to just vanish.  But you can’t avoid problems simply because you don’t have the solutions. These age-old problems need new approaches. The people of the world need to be empowered.  The most oppressed from among us need to have a voice. Not just a venue in which to speak. But they need to actually be given tools to learn how to use their voices.

Part II will focus on what actually constitutes oppression, as well as some of the fledgling movements aimed at empowering all human beings.

The Baha’i Writings identify the causes and prescribe the steps we must take towards attaining a remedy. It is no overnight solution – in fact, nothing short of an almighty shift in conscience and behaviour will get us there – but get there we will.

We draw attention to three pieces. The first is a quote from Abdu’l-Baha in Foundations of World Unity, likening the world to a single human family in which the qualities of empathy and kindness are of utmost importance.

Abdu’l-Baha says:

Although the body politic is one family yet because of lack of harmonious relations some members are comfortable and some in direst misery, some members are satisfied and some are hungry, some members are clothed in most costly garments and some families are in need of food and shelter. Why? Because this family lacks the necessary reciprocity and symmetry. This household is not well arranged. This household is not living under a perfect law. All the laws which are legislated do not ensure happiness. They do not provide comfort. Therefore a law must be given to this family by means of which all the members of this family will enjoy equal well-being and happiness.

Is it possible for one member of a family to be subjected to the utmost misery and to abject poverty and for the rest of the family to be comfortable? It is impossible unless those members of the family be senseless, atrophied, inhospitable, unkind. Then they would say, “Though these members do belong to our family — let them alone. Let us look after ourselves. Let them die. So long as I am comfortable, I am honored, I am happy — this my brother — let him die. If he be in misery let him remain in misery, so long as I am comfortable. If he is hungry let him remain so; I am satisfied. If he is without clothes, so long as I am clothed, let him remain as he is. If he is shelterless, homeless, so long as I have a home, let him remain in the wilderness.”

Such utter indifference in the human family is due to lack of control, to lack of a working law, to lack of kindness in its midst. If kindness had been shown to the members of this family surely all the members thereof would have enjoyed comfort and happiness.

And now here are two snippets from our archives on the subject of poverty, with links through to the full articles. The first analyzes the multitude of factors related to poverty. There are more here than one would at first imagine…

The Baha’i International Community has not only launched a new web site, but has also recently released a statement entitled “Eradicating Poverty: Moving Forward as One”. The statement was developed following consultations with UN agencies, NGOs and Baha’i communities in various countries.

Before continuing, here’s a little game to test just how much we think we know about factors relating to poverty. Keep the answers in your head or note them down on a piece of paper — you may be referring back to them later. The rules are easy. Simply think of how each of the factors below relates to the eradication of poverty:

• Governance
• Justice and Human Rights
• Individual Responsibility
• Gender
• Economic activity
• Extremes of wealth
• Sustainable development
• Agriculture
• Employment
• Knowledge
• Religion

I bet some of those factors are not what traditionally would have come to mind (we usually only think in terms of $$$, right?). As noted in the statement, “The mechanisms of poverty eradication have long been defined in primarily material terms. Indeed, the central pillar of the international community’s poverty alleviation efforts has been the transfer of financial resources.” Read on…

Next, take a look at this article, which considers the implications of the world food crisis on the fight against poverty. In so doing, the call is made for a frank reassessment of the validity of prevailing economic theories:

There is something clearly wrong in the economic system of the world today and it is the most vulnerable who are having to pay the price. Since the start of 2006, the average world price for rice has risen by 217 percent, wheat by 136 percent, maize by 125 percent and soybeans by 107 percent…

In our Economics 101 lectures we were taught about Adam Smith’s “invisible hand“, about comparative advantage and the importance of free trade. By the time we made it to post-graduate courses, our lecturers could no longer hide the fact that Messers Smith, Keynes and Friedman did not have it all worked out, and that in fact “free market forces” did not have the power to fix everything…

Addressing the problem of the extremes between wealth and poverty, the Universal House of Justice said this, in their 1985 message to the world The Promise of World Peace:

“The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the brink of war. Few societies have dealt effectively with this situation. The solution calls for the combined application of spiritual, moral and practical approaches. A fresh look at the problem is required, entailing consultation with experts from a wide spectrum of disciplines, devoid of economic and ideological polemics, and involving the people directly affected in the decisions that must urgently be made… The advantage of the part in a world society is best served by promoting the advantage of the whole.” Read on…

The organizers of Blog Action Day have done a marvellous job in opening up a dialogue on this issue. We sincerely hope that this initiative can provide the necessary impetus for the “consultation with experts from a wide spectrum of disciplines” called for by the Universal House of Justice in the passage above.

In an interesting article (Hoarding Nations Drive Food Costs Ever Higher, 30 June 2008), the New York Times explains that since 1980 “even as trade in services and in manufactured goods has tripled, adjusting for inflation, trade in food has barely increased. Instead, for decades, food has been a convoluted tangle of restrictive rules, in the form of tariffs, quotas and subsidies….[T]he world is increasingly dependent on a handful of countries…that are still exporting large quantities of food…. [P]oor countries have frequently cut farm assistance programs and lowered tariffs to balance budgets and avoid charging high prices to urban consumers. But they have found that their farmers cannot compete with imports from rich countries — imports that are heavily subsidized”.

In our Economics 101 lectures we were taught about Adam Smith’s ”invisible hand“, about comparative advantage and the importance of free trade.  By the time we made it to post-graduate courses, our lecturers could no longer hide the fact that Messers Smith, Keynes and Friedman did not have it all worked out, and that in fact “free market forces” did not have the power to fix everything.

In a statement entitled Valuing Spirituality in Development (18 February 1998), the Baha’i International Community posits an entirely different view of economics:

Central to the task of reconceptualizing the organization of human affairs is arriving at a proper understanding of the role of economics. The failure to place economics into the broader context of humanity’s social and spiritual existence has led to a corrosive materialism in the world’s more economically advantaged regions, and persistent conditions of deprivation among the masses of the world’s peoples. Economics should serve people’s needs; societies should not be expected to reformulate themselves to fit economic models. The ultimate function of economic systems should be to equip the peoples and institutions of the world with the means to achieve the real purpose of development: that is, the cultivation of the limitless potentialities latent in human consciousness.

There is a very useful tool that economists use to measure the inequality of wealth distribution. The Gini Coefficient is a ratio between 0 and 1, with 0 being perfect equality.  The map below illustrates the 2007/2008 Gini Coefficient for the world, as based on a recently released Human Development Report by the UNDP.  The darker the colour, the more unequal is the distribution of wealth in that country.

Addressing the problem of the extremes between wealth and poverty, the Universal House of Justice said this, in their 1985 message to the world The Promise of World Peace:

The inordinate disparity between rich and poor, a source of acute suffering, keeps the world in a state of instability, virtually on the brink of war. Few societies have dealt effectively with this situation. The solution calls for the combined application of spiritual, moral and practical approaches. A fresh look at the problem is required, entailing consultation with experts from a wide spectrum of disciplines, devoid of economic and ideological polemics, and involving the people directly affected in the decisions that must urgently be made. It is an issue that is bound up not only with the necessity for eliminating extremes of wealth and poverty but also with those spiritual verities the understanding of which can produce a new universal attitude. Fostering such an attitude is itself a major part of the solution.

Unbridled nationalism, as distinguished from a sane and legitimate patriotism, must give way to a wider loyalty, to the love of humanity as a whole. Bahá’u’lláh’s statement is: “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” The concept of world citizenship is a direct result of the contraction of the world into a single neighbourhood through scientific advances and of the indisputable interdependence of nations. Love of all the world’s peoples does not exclude love of one’s country. The advantage of the part in a world society is best served by promoting the advantage of the whole.

It is important for all of us, especially those from more developed countries, to remember our responsibilities to the rest of the world and to not take our material comforts for granted, as if they are somehow our “God-given rights”.  The resources of the world are the God-given patrimony of every member of the human race.

God is not partial and is no respecter of persons. He has made provision for all. The harvest comes forth for everyone. The rain showers upon everybody and the heat of the sun is destined to warm everyone. The verdure of the earth is for everyone. Therefore there should be for all humanity the utmost happiness, the utmost comfort, the utmost well-being.

But if conditions are such that some are happy and comfortable and some in misery; some are accumulating exorbitant wealth and others are in dire want — under such a system it is impossible for man to be happy and impossible for him to win the good pleasure of God. God is kind to all. The good pleasure of God consists in the welfare of all the individual members of mankind.

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Foundations of World Unity)

The number of displaced people is estimated to be between 25,000 and 30,000. That’s how many people have fled from their homes in fear of attacks, and are now living in makeshift shelters at police stations and community halls, trying to stay warm in the biting cold of winter. It is a tragic situation, one which I don’t see being solved very soon.

I was going to focus my blog on the perpetrators of these acts of inhumanity and violence. But I realized that they get enough press time as it. I think the following quotation from Abdu’l-Baha will be sufficient:

In this wonderful age, according to the divine texts, ye must befriend all nations and communities. Ye must not look upon violence, force, evil intentions, persecutions or hostility, nay rather, ye must raise your eyes to the horizon of glory and see that each one of these creatures is a sign of the Lord of Signs and has stepped upon the arena of existence through divine favor and supreme energy. Thus they are known and not unknown, are friends and not strangers. We must deal with all according to the above criterion.

I want to rather talk about the good people in South Africa: and most South Africans are good, generous and caring. I work for the Red Cross, an organization whose life blood is its volunteer base. South African Red Cross volunteers have been at the sites since the first violent attacks, in often dangerous and difficult conditions, providing food, blankets and other items to those affected.

Everywhere around me, I see people looking to see how they can help. My friend Lebo felt he needed to do something, so he collected R2,000 in donations and went shopping for items he could take to the shelters. Lena, another friend, is involved in her Church’s donation drive: she went to buy the stuff they had asked for, and added fluffy blankets and chocolates for the children, even though she knew it wasn’t very practical, but because she so wanted to brighten a child’s day. Fern Lee, a friend of my brother’s from Cape Town, had about two hour’s sleep on the weekend because she was at shelters helping distribute food and clothes. These are the people I want to celebrate in this blog, because they, and the thousands like them around the country, have taught me that each one of us has the power to make a difference, and the responsibility to assist those in need. Baha’u'llah exhorts His Followers to have special care for those less fortunate:

If ye meet the abased or the down-trodden, turn not away disdainfully from them, for the King of Glory ever watcheth over them and surroundeth them with such tenderness as none can fathom except them that have suffered their wishes and desires to be merged in the Will of your Lord, the Gracious, the All-Wise. O ye rich ones of the earth! Flee not from the face of the poor that lieth in the dust, nay rather befriend him and suffer him to recount the tale of the woes with which God’s inscrutable Decree hath caused him to be afflicted. By the righteousness of God! Whilst ye consort with him, the Concourse on high will be looking upon you, will be interceding for you, will be extolling your names and glorifying your action.

A recent article published in the New York Times tells the story of Luang Prabang, a Laotian town whose idyll has been shattered in the past decade. Since its selection as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1995, camera-toting tourists have flocked to town, with its daily procession of Buddhist monks and its centuries-old architecture. With the tourist boom, pizza parlors, bars, and even day spas have sprouted alongside the quaint narrow streets and traditional structures. Jobs and wealth have emerged as a result: those same monks, donned in their bright orange robes, abandon their monastic lives to cash in on the tourism industry.

Despite the economic upturn, many ask: is it worth it?

Laurent A. Rampon, the director of Luang Prabang’s cultural preservation office, sees it this way:

The paradox is that Unesco gives out the Heritage Site label partly to reduce poverty, but reducing poverty is reducing heritage. If you want to preserve heritage, you must keep poverty.

Though the development-versus-culture debate has been seen as a twenty-first century phenomenon, I’ll let you in on a little-known fact: it’s actually raged for centuries.

Back in nineteenth-century Persia, modernization was the issue of the moment. Many Persians yearned for the kinds of prosperity and advancement that Europe and neighbouring Russia enjoyed, not only because of their pride, but for their own self-preservation. With the humiliating defeat of the Persian army at the hands of the Russian forces during the Russo-Persian wars, it became clear that Persia needed to modernize in order to survive.

Yet, for all those pro-modernizers that passionately appealed to the Persian people and rulers to advance the cause of modernization, there were those who clung to fears of Westernization. Would Persia lose its culture at the hands of modernization? The clergy likewise feared a loss of power and influence, with the development of judicial and educational institutions that threatened their sway over the populace.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá addressed this question in 1875 in His scintillating treatise, The Secret of Divine Civilization. In it, He outlines the necessity of modernization and its requisite components: democratic governance, a just rule of law, scientific and technological advancements, human rights, universal education, and economic development.

But He similarly rejects the notion of modernization as synonymous with Westernization. It is possible, He asserts, to glean those aspects of modern society that will contribute to the advancement of a nation’s people without losing those unique aspects of one’s culture. He states:

Those who maintain that these modern concepts apply only to other countries and are irrelevant in Iran, that they do not satisfy her requirements or suit her way of life, disregard the fact that other nations were once as we are now…. Would the extension of education, the development of useful arts and sciences, the promotion of industry and technology, be harmful things? For such endeavor lifts the individual within the mass and raises him out of the depths of ignorance to the highest reaches of knowledge and human excellence. Would the setting up of just legislation, in accord with the Divine laws which guarantee the happiness of society and protect the rights of all mankind and are an impregnable proof against assault — would such laws, insuring the integrity of the members of society and their equality before the law, inhibit their prosperity and success?

(Abdu’l-Bahá, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 13-14)

So when Rampon claimed, in the article, that cultural heritage can only be preserved by maintaining poverty, it first made me angry, but then it made me think. Those opponents of globalization loathe so-called development because of its perceived destruction of culture, while its advocates maintain that it’s the price to be paid for increased global wealth, at any expense.

But what of a middle ground? In part two, I’ll explore the idea of a middle ground, and the Baha’i model of modernity.

Before continuing, here’s a little game to test just how much we think we know about factors relating to poverty. Keep the answers in your head or note them down on a piece of paper — you may be referring back to them later. The rules are easy. Simply think of how each of the factors below relates to the eradication of poverty:

• Governance
• Justice and Human Rights
• Individual Responsibility
• Gender
• Economic activity
• Extremes of wealth
• Sustainable development
• Agriculture
• Employment
• Knowledge
• Religion

I bet some of those factors are not what traditionally would have come to mind (we usually only think in terms of $$$, right?). As noted in the statement, “The mechanisms of poverty eradication have long been defined in primarily material terms. Indeed, the central pillar of the international community’s poverty alleviation efforts has been the transfer of financial resources.”

The usual attitude by donor governments has been to throw money at the problem — approximately $2.3 trillion in the last 50 years — and hope that it will go away. However, the statement confirms what experience now shows. Foreign aid, “far from ushering in greater self-sufficiency, has often had a detrimental effect on recipient communities: increased dependency on foreign assistance, subservience to externally dictated priorities, misappropriation of funds and decreased pressure for governance reform.” Clearly, a more holistic approach to poverty alleviation is required, and fundamental changes need to be made from the level of the individual all the way to the highest levels of society.

Now read the entire statement to discover how poverty relates to the factors listed above, and compare it to the ideas you had before. Hopefully, reading this statement will open doors to new ways of thinking about one of the world’s most pressing challenges.

54. O YE RICH ONES ON EARTH!
The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease.

(Baha’u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words)