No 36, May 2008

The Food Crisis: Hunger for bread, hunger for roses

Eugen Brand, Director General of the International Movement ATD Fourth World

How many of us thought that the horrors of widespread hunger were a thing of the past?  In Ireland, the potato famines are a distant memory for a wealthy, modern country.  And yet on other continents, decade after decade famines have continued to strike, sometimes with faint echoes in the international press and corresponding aid campaigns. Other times they are surrounded by complete silence, no one bearing witness to the acts of solidarity amid the suffering.   

Is what is happening today different? After centuries of forcing small agricultural societies to become part of international import/export cycles, now food crops have become fair game for speculators looking to make a profit, or are used to fuel the dependence on transportation of societies where local sustainability is long gone. The cost of food staples has risen sharply on every continent and has led to what are being called hunger riots in some of the countries with the very weakest economies.   

In fact, the rioters are not those who are famished themselves, but people who live in poverty and see in this food crisis how very close they are to the abyss of extreme poverty and hunger. They have been rioting in fear of hunger. Those whose families are already pushed to the limits of survival from day to day rarely manage to join in marches. Occasionally they may manage to join in a demonstration for a day, but this means losing any chance of finding an odd job that day, any chance of earning enough to feed their children, and also risking reprisals and fines. Parents who see their children waste away of malnutrition are more often mired in shame, guilt and silence, never daring to accuse the world of indifference to human rights.  

While the international dimensions of today's food crisis must be addressed urgently, we must also remember that hunger and extreme poverty have never disappeared. When a two-year-old boy on an island near Africa was too malnourished to fight off tuberculosis last year, there were no riots to protest his death. When a five-year-old girl died of malnutrition at the same garbage dump that had been her family's only home and source of work, there were no marches with shouts of "never again"! 

Instead, what these families too often hear from community leaders are speeches instructing them to change their situation, or to accept it: "You had better not try coming back to live in this slum anymore, we're serious about cleaning up the area." "If only you would follow the instructions for our program, your children wouldn't be living this way." "How can you think you can raise your own children? A person like you should really take them to the orphanage." "You may think you don't have much, but believe me, things could be a lot worse." One mother responded by asking, "How much longer will other people try to explain our own lives to us? They have no idea of the efforts we make to help one another not to die."  

Today, with food security finally at the top of the international agenda, to whom will we turn for solutions? Leaders and policy makers have vital roles to play in lowering the cost of living for everyone. But economic experts confess that they did not see this crisis coming because the indicators they track are not those that best reflect the daily lives of the most vulnerable people.

If we really want to put an end to hunger, we have to go much further. In every community, some people are much worse off than others and will never be reached by traditional aid structures or development programmes, however equitable their design is intended to be. Only those struggling to survive day to day know exactly what obstacles they face. Only they can bear witness to the many unseen acts of solidarity between people living in poverty and those even worse off. For development to become truly sustainable, it must be anchored in these daily efforts, rather than overwhelming and displacing them.  

Fr. Joseph Wresinski (founder of ATD* Fourth World) once said: "The poor are the creators, the very source of all humanity's ideals, because it is through injustice that humanity learned justice; through hate, love; through tyranny, the equality of all." And yet, it is not easy to build a genuine dialogue with those living in the worst situations of poverty. They have too often been ignored, disdained and judged to trust the outside world.  Creating the necessary context of human dignity and mutual respect requires a long-term commitment on their side. Even when that context has been nurtured, the world lacks places for talking with people in poverty, and not talking at them, places for rethinking the way our world's resources can be shared, and for crafting policies that address poverty with a comprehensive rights-based approach. Just as the current food crisis is linked to issues as disparate as a concern for the environment and the US real estate market, the hunger that has always existed is inseparable from issues of education, decent work, decent housing, and the tendency of extreme poverty to separate parents and children.  

Even when today's food riots fade from the headlines, who will make a commitment to building this dialogue with the women, men and teenagers who suffered from hunger long before today's crisis began?  

Until long-term sustainable solutions are found in every part of the world, of course, humanitarian interventions will continue to remain necessary. We must ensure that these interventions address not only the physical need of hunger, but the broader needs of every human people for beauty and the opportunity to shape the future.  

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!  

These words from James Oppenheim's 1910 poem have long inspired movements for better conditions for labourers. In what ways can today's humanitarian convoys bring roses as well as bread? Why not accompany food aid with shipments of books or with investments in schools, libraries and community cultural centres? There are finite commodities that diminish as they are shared more widely, but learning increases exponentially as it is shared. Every child who is able to learn in school today increases humanity's possibilities for advancement so that future generations need never be starved for bread, nor for roses. 

* "All Together for Dignity"

Eugen Brand is the Director General of the International Movement ATD Fourth World (www.atd-fourthworld.org), which has teams in Haiti, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mexico and many other countries. ATD Fourth World also created the "Permanent Forum on Extreme Poverty in the World," a network of small organizations and individuals from more than 100 countries who are committed to fighting against poverty in a spirit of freedom and reciprocity.