NOVEMBER 2005

65th Letter of an Autonomous Thinker

I like Thomas S. Kuhn when he writes in “The structure of scientific Revolutions”: “Led by a new paradigm scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. Even more important, during revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before”.

The present political paradigm in the world (under the leadership of the USA) is the market, economic growth and economy in general. It seems that people do not exist. 

Something fundamental different has to happen. The present world leaders are even not capable to give all children a decent life.

The report “Growing up in Asia” is written by the Child Aid Organisation PLAN see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4174012.stm.
“Nearly 600 million Asian children under the age of 18 lack access to either food, safe drinking water, health or shelter. Of those, 350 million are described as "absolutely poor", meaning they do not have access to two or more of a child's essential necessities”. Financial help is apparently not helping fast enough.

How ever can top-leaders take the decision that the number of people that live on less than one dollar a day should only be halved in 25 years?
What about the other half? Why can’t  poverty be eradicated in 25 years? The UN Millennium Development Goals are a shame for humanity because they do not provide for all humans a decent life. In 2015 more than a billion people will still live in utmost poverty – and many millions of children will have died because they can’t get the necessary food that is elsewhere abundantly present.

 “Growing up in Asia” also states that in the so-called dictatorial China13 million of the 380 million children are deprived. In the so-called democratic India, 60% of all children were classed as "absolutely poor", with almost half of all children under five malnourished. The political system does not seem to be of any importance.

By the way, China's Premier Wen Jiabao has called to slow economic growth and help the rural poor because the growing differences between the rich minority and the poor masses threaten the stability in Chinese society. It is a small change in paradigm. We wait and see.

Only when leading people change their paradigm, change their way in which they see the world, the inhuman situation that millions of kids continue to be deprived of a decent life can be solved.

Even sympathetic organisations as PLAN state that “this scale of child poverty will have a serious impact on Asia's future prospects, unless it is addressed now”.
I don’t understand. The first point is not that Asia’s future prospects will be bleak but that the future of poor people is terrible. People are the most important thing, systems should never be first.

Good-willing people as the members of PLAN only try to soften the most awful sides of our society while at the same time they support the political paradigm that causes the continuing presence of misery. People shall have to adopt a new paradigm that sets living people over the dead economy.

We need leaders with a mind that fundamentally differs from the mind of present leaders. Leading people will only change their paradigm on which they base their decisions when they cannot anymore continue their life in the isolated eliteworld where things are quite different from the life in the massworld. Only then they will put the interests of masspeople in first place, now they first look at the situation in their own small, safe and privileged eliteworld.

A new political paradigm could be the goal to give now all children access to food, safe drinking water, health and shelter.

To impose this new paradigm I propose to invade the eliteworld so that elitepeople cannot live anymore their privileged life. Then masspeople will get so much confidence that they can reach a new world in which all people will have equal status (and children are never again deprived of basic needs). Both kinds of people will change their outlook of life, in the words of Kuhn they will change their paradigm. Only then new things can happen.

Yours truly, Joost van Steenis
http://members.chello.nl/jsteenis
New ways to increase masspower

the tear fund
jane's story, from the internet

I worked in Africa with TEAR Fund, and have also visited India. I came face to face with poverty. In India the railway children really shocked me, living in such awful slums.
www.request.org.uk

My first reactions to poverty were mixed and hard to pinpoint:

• Horror that human beings could live in such a state.
• Hope that in some way they were different and knew no better, so did not mind.
• Helplessness, that I could do nothing to change the situation.
• Felt like an outsider looking in, but not really comprehending all I saw.
• Guilt that by comparison I am so rich.
  I wonder how you would react living with people who only had one good set of clothes that they wear with pride to church on Sundays? The rest of the week they wear a t-shirt with more holes than cloth and walk barefoot - not as a fashion statement - that's just all they have
  
  
  
  People have no running water to their mud brick houses, and may have to walk a mile or so with a bucket to fetch river water - often it's the young girls who do this at 6 a.m. In my house in the U.K.I have 6 taps, several of you may have more in your house. In the hospital where I worked in Nigeria, we had one tap for the whole hospital; a lorry bringing river water filled this tank. By the time I left we had three taps from a mains water supply for the hospital, but the water was turned off many hours a day.

  I certainly felt quite guilty being part of the 'haves', living amongst the 'have-nots'. The statistics say one third of the world's population use up two thirds of the world's resources. The fact is you and I are part of that privileged third. It certainly is not fair, why do we have so much and they have so little? Do I have any responsibility towards others less well off? - What does Jesus say in The Bible, Luke chapter 10 verses 25 - 37?

  What is poverty? It's not just a shortage of money. Poverty is a web of inter-related circumstances that leaves the person feeling trapped and helpless, unable to break out. Poverty is about people whose day-to-day struggle to survive leaves them with no energy, people who are voiceless in society, and who lack power to make choices and so change their circumstances.

  I often felt frustrated that I was not able to do more to help. I would love to rush in with a magic wand and make their life easier. But would them having a Father Christmas figure really help them and their self-respect and dignity as children made in the image of God? TEAR Fund's motto is "Christian action WITH the world's poor", and that's what I had come to do - to work with Nigerians to empower and enable them to help themselves and their community.In the wet season I had a system that collected rainwater off the roof of my house into a tank. If I was sparing with this I could get through a large part of the dry season without having to collect water from the river. A good system, but what would I do if someone knocked on the door to ask for a drink of water? Easy. The Bible says give it to them. But what about 20 students each coming for a bucket of water - what would you do?

  I survived the isolation and poor living conditions by going every 6 weeks for a two hour drive to the capital. I would visit the swimming pool at the Sheraton Hotel, where there were wonderful hot water showers, and beautiful relaxing surroundings. But I lived with people who may never have been to the capital - was it wrong for me to go?

  Poverty is about lack of choice. Having come home I found the scope of choices that faced me each day overwhelming. I remember going to Boots to buy a toothbrush and coming away without one. Did I want nylon or bristles? Hard, medium or soft? What shape did I want? What colour?
  
  I learnt that what people valued was to have time to listen and care for each other. I may be rich materially but what about the time I have for other people? I learnt how much people valued time spent with them to bring their concerns and needs to God in prayer, a God who did literally give them their daily bread. In the Bible Jesus reached out and touched the man with Leprosy (Luke chapter 5 verse 13). He got involved. Africans are so thankful for the little they have, saying grace before meals to thank God for his care. But in England, where we have so much, do we ever stop in the rush of each day to thank God for all he has given us?

  How can I help give a voice to the voiceless? How can I help give people the tools and skills to be able to change their situation? How can I enable local Christians to reach out in Jesus' name and tell the poor they are not forgotten, they are loved and precious to God?

  Can I encourage you to contact a charity organisation and get involved by prayer, by giving, by advocacy, by going?
  
  "There will always be some among you who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share your resources freely with the poor."
  The Bible, Deuteronomy,Chapt.15 Verse 11.

•