It’s been seven years since we moved from the Philippines to New Zealand. Growing up in a middle class family from a third world country, it’s hard not to associate the urban environment with images of slums, beggars and chaos. It is a common sight to see street kids begging for money and food in order to survive. The sight leaves me feeling very uncomfortable, like something must have gone wrong. This general sentiment of frustration reminds me of a line from Tony Judt's book “Ill Fares the Land”:
"We know something is wrong. Many things we don't like…”
Knowing so little of why such a terrible fate exists or how it has come about, it's easy to ignore the realities. We are tempted to think that there is nothing an average person can do, and thus no alternative. For a while, if not most of my life, my attitude and thinking is that of accepting the reality -the poor and the rich coexist and is inevitable. Until one Friday afternoon in my lecture, the idea of ‘theMBA’ has been introduced to me. TheMBA stands for “there must be another way”, and it is the Zulu word for ‘hope’ (Gordon Brown). This has challenged my perspective in relation to poverty. Always, there must be another way to address poverty –to plant seeds of hope for a better society that will lead to a sustainable future; where the gap between the rich and poor are narrowed, not just in the developing nations but also in developed countries like New Zealand.
How? That’s the difficult question, which I would like to explore, understand and learn more about over the coming weeks and months in relation to my Planning course.
I like your topic! I feel this all boils down to capitalism, but pure new-liberal economics (i think) i meant to make all equal- as having rich people creates jobs for the poor people i.e. gardening etc, giving them opportunitites to become rich. However if you know something it is that we're not all born on the same platform so this really can only exist in theory. Greed drives this gap between rich and poor. A paradigm shoft necessary for change?
ReplyDeleteHi Georgia!
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting. I agree with your statement that greed is really the root of this widening gap between the rich and poor. And indeed, a paradigm shift is necessary for change. How to influence people's attitudes and behaviour as a planner is what I would like to explore in this blog... whether it is possible.
I'd like to think it is... and as (soon to be) planners part of our role is to find ways and solutions to such issues. By that I mean starting with tiny steps like changing our mind set first, not just us planners but everyone.
I guess it is similar with Climate change issue. The more we know about the finite planet we live in, the more our behaviour changes, and the more we want to do something, even in our own small way... i.e. (choosing to use plastic cups or paper cups; choosing fair trade coffee over a non-fair trade one, etc..)