The inability of us privileged (and
powerful) members of the human race to imagine what it’s like to live
in poverty is probably the biggest obstacle in the way of our ability
to be in solidarity with the poor. Our inability to be in solidarity
with the poor is probably the main reason why it is almost impossible
for us to be truly radical thus making way for radical political
parties to flourish in our countries and in our governments. It is also
probably the reason we are failing to confront the most important
issues facing our planet.
I believe there is a certain fear of poverty among most privileged
people (who in global terms can be described as those who don’t have to
worry about their basic needs of shelter, food, water, clothing and
employment being satisfied). Culturally in the North ‘poor’ has become
the other, just like black, or female. Our media toys with the idea of
these sectors of society but is rarely able, or willing, to portray
them in a way that would allow us to understand the complexity of the
issues involved.
And so ‘poor’ remains the unknown because we are not exposed to the
reality of it, and because we are never made to feel it. Of course many
people in the North are aware that, actually ‘poor’ (just like female
and non-white) is the majority and significant numbers of us involved
in social, environmental and global justice organizations would like to
think we are in solidarity with the poor. But can we really be in
solidarity with people we don’t know, whose lives we don’t understand
and whose circumstances are so foreign to our own?
When I was a child I took part in a 24-hour fast organized by an
international development agency “in solidarity” with the starving
black children I saw on my TV. I was raising both awareness and money.
The pride I felt of my philanthropic act was almost enough to block out
my pangs of hunger. I felt extremely superior to all my other
classmates who had probably never done anything for those African kids
on the news. And as my reward I treated myself to a full fry up the
next morning - fried bread, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, baked beans,
grated cheese and a glass of full fat milk.
But what did I actually learn from doing this? My idea of ‘poor’ was
reaffirmed: victim, far away, hungry and, essentially, other. My idea
of solidarity was to spend 24 hours without food and then several weeks
feeling I’d done my bit to make the world OK again.
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I have been living in a rural community, El Limón, in the
Estelí region of Nicaragua since 2003. My first year was spent
with a local family of four in their home. In 2004 I moved into a small
house made of wood with my partner Leopoldo, a Nicaraguan farmer who
has lived in Limón with his extended family since 1986. There is
no electricity or running water in Limón. There is no transport
system and the roads are practically impassable by car, on horseback or
on foot during a lot of the six month rainy season. Most residents fall
into the categories of unemployed or underemployed. Food and cash are
scarce. Many children are unable to attend school and few adults were
able to complete primary school when they were children. Almost
everyone seems to be ill most of the time though few can afford
adequate healthcare.
For me life in Limón is a constant learning curve. Since moving
there my ideas of ‘poor’ and of what solidarity means both to me and
those I aim to be in solidarity with have changed and continue to
change dramatically. Now I understand that poverty has many faces. As a
child I learnt that poverty is hunger. But the reality of constant and
long term hunger and its consequences were not things I had ever really
thought about. As well as hunger I now understand that poverty is long
hours of low (or un-) paid work every day with little or no
appreciation of your efforts, it is ill health, low self-esteem,
constant stress and the lack of adequate conditions to protect yourself
from heat, or cold, or pain. It is losing everything you own to a
hurricane and not wasting your time informing the authorities because
you know they won’t do anything about it. In many ways poverty creates
a sense of loss of control over one’s life.
But by looking at poor peoples’ lives in this way we are still looking
at them as victims. We are still focussing on their strife and not the
fact that to live in poverty every day turns you into a very
resourceful person able to deal with the challenges of extreme
instability affecting almost all aspects of your life. Since moving to
Limón my idea of the poor as victims has been turned on its
head. My life before 2003 had been spent relying on efficient (or at
least relatively effective) public and private services of health,
education, water, electricity, police, transport, mail and
telecommunications among others. Whenever I had a problem I looked up
the number of a company or organization that could sort it out and paid
them the established fee. In Limón I have had to learn how to
sort out my problems on my own and to take responsibility for all my
actions.
One example of this is the fact that there is no garbage collection in
the community, which means that every single bit of paper, plastic,
glass or metal that the residents introduce into their homes is going
to stay there littering up the place until they do something about it
(recycle it, reuse it or burn it - and if they choose to burn it they
have to breathe in the fumes themselves).
Now I understand that living in poverty, particularly (though not
exclusively) in a rural context, forces people into a constant state of
reflection about the impact they are having on their local environment
and how to reduce damaging trends. With no clean water coming out of
your tap, it is unlikely you are going to continue using the nearest
river as a sewer or a dumping ground for garbage.
As well as creating an infinitely more complex set of circumstances
than I had ever encountered, poverty is a phenomenon in a constant
process of evolution. One of the most unexpected things I have learnt
since living in Nicaragua is that thirty years ago very few people went
hungry. “Only the lazy had no food on their table,” is a phrase I often
hear from the over thirties reminiscing about life during Nicaragua’s
recent past. Of course there have always been occasional droughts and
devastating outbreaks of pests which destroy huge amounts of crops. But
even when crops failed peasant families got by on wild fruits and
vegetables. In today’s world the kind of extreme poverty I’ve described
is more often than not linked to environmental destruction.
Today the obstacles facing Nicaragua’s poor are not the same as thirty
years ago under the Somoza dictatorship. Before the triumph of the
popular Sandinista revolution in 1979 peasants had no political rights,
but the majority had plentiful food and water and lived in an
environment which did not necessarily reek havoc on their physical
health. Since 1990 and the subsequent election of three US backed neo
liberal governments the rate of destruction of the ecosystem (as a
result of mass deforestation and generalized contamination of water
through unsustainable agricultural and industrial practices among other
factors) has been shocking .
According to the locals around 90% of trees in the Estelí region
have been cut down over the last forty years and about the same
percentage of natural water sources (springs, rivers and water holes)
have dried up, while the few that remain are contaminated and pose a
threat to human health when consumed. This rapid environmental
destruction twinned with a huge reduction in public spending (as a
result of IMF conditioning on loans) has brought unprecedented crisis
to the Nicaraguan countryside. Whereas before it was possible to
survive on wild fruits and vegetables when crops failed, today you are
hard pushed to find something edible on the dehydrated branches of the
few remaining trees in the desert land Estelí becomes during the
dry season. Whereas before fresh water was plentiful and there was no
need for wells or water systems in the countryside, today the lack of
them means residents are forced to drink contaminated water or, in some
cases simply go without. (Interestingly when I took part in the 24 hour
fast I was told that the activity did not pose a health risk to
children. I wonder how many people would sign up to a dehydration day
or a competition to see who could drink the most contaminated water.)
During my time in Limón I have learnt how to get water from a
river that has dried up. I have learnt how to orientate my way along a
kilometer of two feet deep mud without getting my shoes dirty. I know
how to cure a range of physical ills using the weeds in my garden. I
have learnt that local geographical knowledge is far more important
than money in a desperate situation. I have learnt the benefits and
virtues of understanding and taking control of my impact on the
environment. And I have found myself asking whether this is solidarity
with the poor or training for my future. Because, whether we consider
ourselves citizens of the first or third world is becoming increasingly
irrelevant. The planet we share and its unique ecosystem are showing
unmistakable signs of exhaustion.
I clearly remember one journalist’s comment (“we are all residents of
New Orleans”) in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last October. True,
but even more frightening is the idea that we are all residents of
Nicaragua, Bolivia, China, India or Zimbabwe where the process of
environmental degradation is so advanced in some areas that every day
is like the aftermath of a catastrophic hurricane or other natural
disaster (little access to food, no access to clean water, constant
outbreaks of disease related to lack of sanitation, etc.).
As increasingly large areas of the planet become uninhabitable, poverty
(in the environmental sense of the word) is getting closer to home. It
is time to stop believing the hunger, thirst, illness and dispossession
of the poor in Kenya, Honduras, Afghanistan, Thailand and Mozambique
aren’t ours to share.
I have come to the conclusion that my attempt to be in solidarity with
those currently facing the horrendous effects of an unsustainable
global system is an expression of my desire to preserve my own life. At
present it is an option for the privileged to share the hardship of the
majority. But if we continue to ignore the need for drastic change our
options will be closed off. We will no longer be able to think of
poverty as the other.
Hannah Given-Wilson is a musician, activist and writer who lives in a
small rural community in Nicaragua.