JULY 15 — The 7th day of Ramadan, I went to the bazaar to buy some food for our “berbuka puasa.” I was very excited as I am going to celebrate Eid Mubarak this year in Malaysia. Suddenly, as I walked past a few stalls, my eyes were focused on an old woman. There was a small cup filled with coins in her left hand, while she carried her baby with her right arm.
I took her picture illegally without asking her permission but the significance is that she suddenly reminded me of an ethical issue on poverty. Some questions were spinning around in my head about the global poverty and “our” responsibility to reduce it.
Let me begin with an analysis in 2014. The World Bank has reported that Malaysia wants to progress to reduce the poverty rate by one per cent. As a nation, it could be an improvement to curb the poverty problem yet, I found it a very contesting idea that political and social institutions will always be the major player to be blamed for poverty.
Why? It is because policy making from the government will affect the population to restrict access of food resources. Consequently, communities received an unequal economic distribution and suffer from famine created by major disease like Kwashiorkor and starvation. Just look at the example of the Sub –Saharan African region, where most of its people were the poorest region in the world.
We have always been advised to help the poor in order to eradicate poverty, however, let us examine the question on why we need to help the poor. Do we “ought” to help people in scarcity of food?
Nevertheless, I find it was very interesting when I heard of some scholars such as Singer argued that the global poor deserve to be treated with less empathy.
According to Peter Singer, professor on Global Poverty and Inequality research, the more we help the poor, they will breed and thus, poverty will not decreasing. In addition, “Neo-Malthusian Theory” argues that population will always grow faster than economic productivity.
In fact, there has been moral and ethical questions on the Ethical Poverty Line set by the World Bank raised on the consumption on the developed world and whether this consumption creates greater poverty around the world. Should we avoid giving aid to the poor countries that will not curb their populations? Therefore, they were only creating a greater famine.
So, what do you think about it?
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.
